Feyerabend (Ed.), Science, Mind, Art (Book)

SCIENCE, MIND AND ART
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
TIIOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University

ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SAHOTRA SARKAR, McGill University
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. W ARTOFSKY, Baruch College of
the City University of New York
VOLUME 165
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY
OF SCIENCE
Editorial Committee for the Robert S. Cohen Festschrifts:
KOSTAS GAVROGLU, National Technical University, Athens, Greece

ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
JURGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institut for Wissenschaftsgeschichte,
Berlin
SAHOTRA SARKAR, McGill University
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College, The City University
of New York
Volume I Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community

Essays in the philosophy and history of the natural sciences
and mathematics
Volume II Science, Politics and Social Practice
Essays on Marxism and science, philosophy of culture and
the social sciences
Volume III Science, Mind and Art
Essays on science and the humanistic understanding in art,
epistemology, religion and ethics
SCIENCE, MIND AND ART
Essays on science and the humanistic understanding
in art, epistemology, religion and ethics
In honor of Robert S. Cohen
Edited by
KOSTAS GAVROGLU
National Technical University, Athens
JOHN STACHEL
Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY
Baruch College, The City University of New York
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

DORDRECHf / BOSTON / LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Science, mind, and art: essays on sCience and the humanistic
understanding in art, epistemology, religion, and ethics in honor of
Robert S. Cohen I edited by Kostas Gavroglu, John Stachel, Marx W.
Wartofsk y.
p. cm. -- (Boston studies in the philosophy of sCience; v.
165)
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7923-2990-2 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy of .ind. 2. Science--Phllosophy. 3. Philosophy,
Modern--20th century. I. Cohen, R. S. (Robert Sonne)
II. Gavroglou, Kostas. III. Stachel, John J., 1928-
IV. Wartofsky, Marx W. V. Series.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL PREFACE ix
A. AESTHETICS, ART HISTORY AND

THE WORK OF ART
PAUL FEYERABEND / Art as a Product of Nature as a Work

of Art
WILLIS H. TRUITT / Neo-Pragmatism and the New Aesthetic.
The Second Death of Philosophy 19
ANNA WESSELY / The Reader's Progress: Remarks on Arnold
Hauser's Philosophy of Art History 29
EMIL Y L. HIESTAND / Poems from "Green the Witch-Hazel
Wood" and "Alluvial" 45
B. EPISTEMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND,

METAPHYSICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY
OF SCIENCE
MYRIAM BIENENSTOCK / Hegel's Conception of Teleology 55

HELENA EILSTEIN / The Virus of Fatalism 71
STEVE GERRARD / Wittgenstein Versus Artificial Intelligence? 89
HERBERT HORZ / Schopenhauer und Helmholtz: Bemerkungen
zu einer alten Kontroverse zwischen Philo sophie und Natur-
wissenschaft 99
JOSEPH MARGOLIS / The Meaning of Thomas Kuhn's
"Different Worlds" 123
MICHAEL R. MATTHEWS / Multicultural Science Education:
The Contribution of History and Philosophy of Science 149
JOELLE PROUST / Functionalism and Multirealizability: On
Interaction Between Structure and Function 169
CHARLES W. SMITH / A Closet Realist 187
vii
viii T ABLE OF CONTENTS
C. PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION AND HUMAN VALUES
ADOLF GRUNBAUM / The Poverty of Theistic Morality 203

ERAZIM KOHAK / " . . . Knowing Good and Evil ... " 243
HILLEL LEVINE / Is Judaism Thisworldly? Cosmological
Boundaries, Soteriological Bridges, and Social References
in Judaism 255
WAL TER G. MUELDER / A Gloss on Robert S. Cohen's
Ambiguities of Science 279
DEBRA NAILS / Socrates and Plato: Understanding the World
and Changing it 295
LEROY S. ROUNER / Science, Religion, and the Quest for Truth:
Aristotle and Tillich on the First Principles of Knowledge 315
RUTH L. SMITH / Relational Morality: Which Relations, Which
Morals? 327
JOHN SILBER / On Bob Cohen 345
ALFRED I. TAUBER / On the Transvaluation of Values:
Nietzsche Contra Foucault 349
ELIE WIESEL / Rabbi Yehuda the Prince 369
D. HISTORY, MEMORY AND REALITY
ARNO J. MAYER / Memory and History: On the Poverty of

Remembering and Forgetting the Judeocide 385
THEODORE SHAPIRO / Remembering and Reality 401
ALFRED F. YOUNG / Common Sense and the Rights of Man
in America: The Celebration and Damnation of Thomas Paine 411
INDEX OF NAMES 441

EDITORIAL PREFACE
The essays in this Festschrift are celebrations of the human mind in its
manifold expressions - philosophical, scientific, historical, aesthetic,
political - and in its various modes - analytical, systematic, critical,
imaginative, constructive. They are offered to Robert S. Cohen on the
occasion of his 70th birthday, in acknowledgment of his own extra-
ordinary participation in the life of the mind, and of his unfailing
encouragement and facilitation of the participation of others. It is fitting
that these volumes should appear in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy
of Science, the series which he co-founded so many years ago, and of
which he has been the principal editor for more than three decades. (These
are perhaps the only volumes of that series which he has not edited or
co-edi ted!)
The three volumes that constitute this Festschrift cover the range
of Cohen's interests as a philosopher/scientist/humanist, as they also
represent the spectrum of his professional and personal friendships.
(Regretfully, the editors could not include contributions from more of
them here.) The first volume centers around the philosophy and history
of the natural sciences and mathematics; Volume Two collects essays
related to Marxism and science, philosophy of culture and the social
sciences; and the third volume focuses on science and the humanistic
understanding in art, epistemology, religion and ethics.
The editors and the editorial committee express their thanks to Annie
Kuipers, our editor, conscience and guide at Kluwer Academic Publishers,
who has been guardian angel of the Boston Studies these many years, and
a good friend of Robert's; to her able assistant, Evelien Bakker; to
Carolyn Fawcett for apt translation and editorial assistance; and of course,
to Robin Cohen for all around enthusiasm, timely revelations and steady
support.
KOSTAS GAVROGLU National Technical University, Athens

JOHN STACHEL Boston University
MARX WARTOFSKY Baruch College and the Graduate Center of
The City University of New York
IX
PAUL FEYERABEND
ART AS A PRODUCT OF NATURE

AS A WORK OF ART
1. OUTLINE
It seems that the sciences and the arts are no longer as sharply sepa-
rated as they were only thirty years ago. It is now quite fashionable to
speak of scientific creativity and of the thought that enters into a work
of art. Computer art, fractals, electronic music, film, debates about the
role of metaphor and imagery, the whole enterprise of deconstruction
have further lessened the urge for precise classifications. Yet the
remaining differences are enormous. Scientists may rhapsodize about
the unity of all human efforts; they may redden with excitement when
speaking about the artistic aspects of scientific research: but their
tolerance vanishes when the aspects become real, enter their labora-
tories and wish to be heard. And where is the scientist who would
permit good, solid science money (such as a small percentage of the
hundreds of millions that keep flowing into the Human Genome Project
or of the billions that had originally been promised to the Texas
Supercollider) to be spent on an examination of, say, La Monte Young's
music? Conversely, where is the artist, or the art commission ready to
fund a new and revolutionary science project? Even social scientists
who, after all, are dealing with people and who occasionally support
the efforts of special cultures insist on objectivity and write in a severely
impersonal style.
Administrators eagerly comply. They put scientists and artists into
different buildings and carefully separate their resources. We have a
National Science Foundation and a National Endowment for the
Humanities. The standards of both show not a trace of the alleged unity
of the arts and the sciences. Moreover, a large amount of philosophical
rhetoric is devoted to showing that philosophical (scientific) arguments
are NOT a special kind of fiction. We are not too far from the truth
when asserting that the beautiful arias that are being sung about the unity
of the arts and the sciences are nothing but hot air designed to conceal
and to protect the strong antagonisms that still exist.
Considering these circumstances a "lumper", i.e. a writer who wants
K. Gavroglu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 1-18.

1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 PAUL FEYERABEND
to unite what "splitters" want to separate can do two things. (S)he can
attack the arguments of the splitters one by one and thus weaken the intel-
lectual resistance to unification. The procedure does not look very
promising. Popular beliefs and administrative arrangements are like the
hydra of legend: cut off one ugly head - and two, three, four spring up
in its place. Alternatively a lumper can introduce a hydra of his/her
own. This is the procedure I shall adopt.
More especially I shall argue (first thesis) that, like rooks and flowers,
works of art are products of nature. Having done this I shall argue (second
thesis) that our entire universe, from the mythical Big Bang via the emer-
gence of hydrogen and helium, galaxies, fixed stars, planetary systems,
viruses, bacteria, fleas, dogs down to the Glorious Arrival of Western
Man is an artifact, constructed by generations of scientist-artisans from
a partly yielding, partly resisting material of unknown properties. Both
arguments are rather plausible which shows (third thesis) that intellec-
tual arguments of a general kind are uncertain allies. What we need to
solve problems is experience and special pleading. So far my plan. Now
on to the details!
2. GOETHE'S NATURALISM
The view that art works are products of nature was proposed by Goethe
and elaborated by Anton von Webern in his lectures on modern music.
Commenting on Greek works of art in Italy Goethe writes (my para-
phrase):
The magnificent works of art are at the same time magnificent works of nature produced
by humans in accordance with true and natural laws (1. W. Goethe, Naturwissenschaftliche
Schriften, R. Steiner ed., Vol. V, Domach 1982, 347).
Goethe often returns to this topic, most frequently in his Theory of Colors
and his Proverbs in Prose. For example:
Color is lawful nature working in the organ of the eye (op. cit., Vol. iii, 88).
Human beings insofar as they make use of their healthy senses are the largest and most
precise physical instruments that can exist and it is a great misfortune that modem
physics as it were separated the experiment from the experimenter and now wants to
... demonstrate what can be known about nature and even what she can achieve on the
basis of artificial instruments alone (V, 351).
What is beautiful is a manifestation of hidden laws of nature which without the appear-
ance of beauty would forever remain unknown (V, 494).
ART AS A PRODUCT OF NATURE 3
It is impossible to give an account of what is beautiful in nature and in the arts; to

do this we would
I: have to know the laws according to which nature wants to act and acts, if she
can; and
2: also have to know the laws according to which general nature wants to act, and
acts, if she can, in the special form of human nature (V, 495).
Von Webern repeats and summarises:

Goethe does not recognize any essential difference between products of nature and
artistic products; both are the same. What we ... call a work of art is basically nothing
but a product of general nature ... Humans are only the vessels which receive what
'general nature' wants to express (A. Webem, Der Weg zur Neuen Musik, Vienna 1960,
10f).
For von Webern, accordingly, the history of (Western) music is the

history of the gradual conquest of a naturally given material - the
sequence of overtones. "Our major scale" Schoenberg had written in
his Harmonielehre, Vienna 1922, 19,
the sequence c, d, e, f, g, a, b, c whose elements were at the basis of Greek music
and of the churchmodes can be explained as having been found by imitating nature;
intuition and combination then helped to reconstruct the most important properties of a
tone, namely, the sequence of its overtones which we imagine as being situated simul-
taneously in the vertical in such a way that it now fills the horizontal, no longer
simultaneously, but one overtone sounding after another.
Now if it is indeed true that works of art are products of nature in

the same way in which galaxies, stars, planets and living organisms are
products of nature then why do they look so different? The reason is that,
given special conditions, the laws of nature produce special results.
Physics provides many examples of this situation. Combined with laws
of inertia Newton's law of gravitation can produce falling objects,
ellipses, oscillations, or chaos. In the past the different behavior of stars
and stones led to the assumption that nature was divided into two large
domains, one reaching from the surface of the earth to the moon, the
other from the moon to the fixed stars. Similarly the difference between
natural growth and artistic creation supported a separation between the
sciences and the arts. The leaders of modem science removed the first
dichotomy. They showed how a single set of laws, working under dif-
ferent conditions (on the surface of the earth; in interplanetary space) can
produce qualitatively different results. Goethe and von Webern suggest
that the second dichotomy be treated in the same way. I shall now discuss
some consequences of this suggestion.
4 PAUL FEYERABEND
3. CREATIVITY
The first consequence is that individual creativity is considerably reduced.

If artworks are natural products then, like nature, they will change,
new forms will appear, but without major contributions from isolated and
creative individuals. I know that such an idea is not very popular today
when even sneezing counts as a creative act. But let us look a little
more closely at the matter! Take for example the apparently very creative
transition from the Homeric gods via the godmonster of Xenophanes
to the philosophical idea of Being. For Hegel this is the beginning of
abstract thought. For Nietzsche the transition is the work of "giants"
who communicate across an abyss populated by spiritual midgets
("Gezwerge"). More prosaic writers like Mircea Eliade or W. K. c.
Guthrie speak of a fundamental discovery, made by individuals of
superior intelligence. What did really happen?
Gilbert Murray, the great classical scholar gives us a hint. The Greek
gods started as local powers. They lived in well defined surroundings,
on a mountain, for example, or in the fields. Journeys of discovery, the
search for colonies, warlike enterprises then made the travellers
acquainted with new divinities which in some respect differed from the
familiar gods but resembled them in others. Occasionally they had even
the same name. The travellers emphasized the similarities and disregarded
or overlooked the differences. As a result the gods lost in individuality
and humanity but gained in power for their radius of action was now
vastly increased. The changes occurred slowly and gradually. Many
people were affected, but without consciously contributing to the process.
There were analogous developments in other fields. Buying and selling
started as an exchange of gifts: an object that was not only useful but
had personal memories attached to it was exchanged for another object
of a similarly complex nature. Aesthetics, family history and practical
value were closely connected. Then intermediate objects, a "currency"
entered the process. At first these objects were intrinsically valuable (iron
rods, or silver coins); later on they received value from the mode of
circulation. Again a property of things, their "value" got detached from
personal elements and became more abstract.
Democratization fits right into this pattern. In early times cities were
ruled by powerful families. Politics was a family concern; it was guided
by loyalty, friendship and by personal obligations. Slowly this situa-
tion gave way to general definitions of rights and duties. The change was
not intended. It was the unintended side effect of special arrangements

(Solon; Cleisthenes) designed to solve special political problems. The
solutions coalesced - and democracy was the result. Even language
gradually lost in content: "Words become impoverished in content, they
turn into formulae, become empty and one sided ... "1 The new social
critics, the philosophers did not oppose these trends. They praised them,
acted as if they had started the affair and raised the result, conceptual
poverty, to a principle. They were parasites of changes that had occurred
without any creative interference on their part. 2
A second example makes the situation even clearer. Simon Stevin, a
Dutch scientist of the late 16th and the early 17th centuries wanted to
prove that a chain put around a wedge will be in equilibrium if and
only if the weights of the sections lying over the sides of the wedge
are related to each other as are the lengths of these sides. Assuming
that the chain is closed and that its weight is equally distributed over
all its sections he argued as follows: if the chain moves, then it must
move forever, for every position is equivalent to every other position;
if, on the other hand it is without motion then it will also remain without
motion, i.e. it will be in equilibrium. The first possibility can be excluded
- there are no perpetual motions. In the second case we can remove
the lower part of the chain, because of its symmetry - and the result
become obvious.
How did Stevin know that the chain would remain at rest and that
perpetual motion was impossible? Was he creative? Did he creatively
suggest a bold hypothesis? Ernst Mach who analysed the case denies
this. Stevin, he says, had adapted to his surroundings and moved in his
imagination as the surroundings moved in reality. It would have been
most surprising to see a chain that suddenly starts moving. Why? Because
a plethora of data had turned into an instinct which from then on guided
the thinker. It is the nature of this instinct or, in other words, it is nature
as it manifests itself in a particular person that shows the way, not a
mysterious "creativity." Mach applied the lesson to our knowledge of
numbers. "It is often the case" he wrote in Erkenntnis und Irrtum (Leipzig
1917, 327)
that numbers are called "free creations of the human mind". The admiration for the human
mind which is expressed by these words is quite natural when we look at the finished,
imposing edifice of arithmetic. Our understanding of these creations is however fur-
thered much more when we try to trace their instinctive beginnings and consider the
circumstances which produced the need for such creations. Perhaps we shall then realise
6 PAUL FEYERABEND
that the first structures that belong to this domain were unconscious biological struc-
tures which were wrested from us by material circumstances and that their value could
be recognized only after they had appeared.
4. THE SCATTERED UNITY OF HUMAN EFFORTS
The two examples make it clear that inventions in metaphysics and in

the sciences are not isolated acts of solitary thinkers but are linked to
nature in many ways. There is novelty - but it is a common feature of
natural processes. And psychological studies of problem solving show
indeed that decisive elements of a difficulty frequently "arrange them-
selves" in a way that is independent of personal wishes and efforts.
A second consequence of Goethe's approach is that human activi-
ties though closely related to each other - they obey basic natural laws
- are scattered and diverse: the diversity of human idiosyncracies
modifies the laws in many ways.
A brief look at the sciences and the arts confirms this second conse-
quence.
Music for a long time was regarded as a way to knowledge. For St.
Augustine the perfect chords represented truth in a way inaccessible to
human reason. For Grosseteste music, not physics, revealed the inner-
most structure of things. Later, when the sciences had separated from
the arts and the arts in tum had separated from the crafts some writers
regarded music as a paradigm of artistic excellence. "All art aspires to
the condition of music" wrote Walter Pater. 3 Kant, on the other hand,
regarded music, which, for him, was "more pleasure than culture" as
the lowest art form and separated it from all epistemic claims. 4
Painting, for Plato, was deceptive and unreal. Painting, sculpture, even
architecture were excluded from early university curricula. Painters
belonged to the guild of sign painters, wall painters or apothecaries
(who prepared their colors). After the discovery of perspective and Leon
Battista Alberti's vigorous propaganda for it painters divided into those
"who knew" and others who preferred to follow tradition. Aided by archi-
tects and sculptors the 'theoreticians' soon founded academies. 5 Then
painters rejected what had given them substance, art critics started empha-
sizing the uniqueness of individual works of art and some artists
pretended to live by creativity and/or accident alone. That changed not
only the philosophical evaluation of the arts, but also their content:
there is hardly any connection between Rafael and Jackson Pollock. 6
General distinctions between the arts and the sciences existed since
antiquity, but the reasons differed and so did the distribution of subjects
among the two categories. 7 Thus some 17th century writers asserted
that while ancient science had been overcome by the science of Galileo
and Descartes, the ancient arts, poetry especially, still reigned supreme
and were therefore different in nature from scientific products.
What is true of the arts is true of the sciences. Twentieth Century
philosophy of science for a long time identified science with physics
and physics with relativity and elementary particle physics; space, time
and matter, after all, are the basic ingredients of everything. A uniform
conception of knowledge separated SCIENCE from other enterprises
and gave it substance. A look at scientific practice tells a different story.
For here we have scientists such as S. Luria who tie research to events
permitting "strong inferences" and favor "predictions that will be strongly
supported and sharply rejected by a clearcut experimental step."g
According to Luria decisive experiments in phage research had pre-
cisely this character. Scientists of Luria's bent show a considerable
"lack of enthusiasm in the 'big problems' of the Universe or of
the early Earth, or in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the upper
atmosphere," all subjects "loaded with weak inferences.,,9 In a way they
are continuing the Aristotelian approach which demands close contact
with experience and objects to following plausible ideas to the bitter
end. lO
However, this was precisely the procedure adopted by Einstein, by
students of the stability of the planetary system between Newton and
Poincare, by the early proponents of the kinetic theory and by almost
all cosmologists. Einstein's first cosmological paper was a purely theo-
retical exercise containing not a single astronomical constant. The subject
of cosmology itself for a long time found little respect among physi-
cists. Hubble, the empiricist, was praised - the rest had a hard time:
Journals accepted papers from observers, giving them only the most cursory refereeing
whereas our own papers always had a stiff passage, to a point where one became quite
worn out with explaining points of mathematics, physics, fact and logic to the obtuse minds
who constitute the mysterious anonymous class or referees, doing their work, like owls,
in the darkness of the night. (E. Hoyle in Y. Terzian and E. M. Bilson (eds.), Cosmology
and Astrophysics, Ithaca and New York 1982,21.)
"Is it not really strange" Einstein wrote in one of his letters to Max Born ll
"that human beings are normally deaf to the strongest arguments while
they are always inclined to overestimate measuring accuracies?" - but
8 PAUL FEYERABEND
just such an "overestimating of measuring accuracies" is the rule in

spectroscopy, celestial mechanics, genetics and even in subjects such
as demography, epidemiology, some parts of anthropology - and so on.
And there exist still other views about the relation between theory,
experiment and fact: science does not contain one epistemology, it
contains many.
Moreover, none of these epistemologies is tied to specific subjects.
"Aristotelians" may abound among bird watchers and phage enthusi-
asts; however, they also turn up in cosmology (examples: Heber Curtis
in his "Great Debate" with Shapley; Ambartsumian; Halton Arp
and his collaborators), hydrodynamics (Ludwig Prandtl, for example),
quantum theory (cross section enthusiasts), thermodynamics, mechanics
(engineering mechanics) - you name it.
Now the interesting thing is that many of these different approaches
were successful in the sense that they produce acceptable facts, laws
and theories. 12 But this means that, being constructed in different ways,
different scientific knowledge claims cannot be easily combined and
that the idea of a coherent "body of scientific knowledge" is a chimera. 13
I conclude that terms such as SCIENCE or ART are temporary col-
lecting bags containing a great variety of products, some excellent, others
rotten, all of them characterised by a single label. But collecting bags
and labels do not affect reality; they can be omitted without changing
what they are supposed to organize. What remains are events, stories,
happenings, results which may be classified in many ways but which
are not divided by a lasting and "objective" dichotomy. This confirms
the second consequence of Goethe's approach.
We can go further and assert that both scientists and artists (artisans)
learn by creating artifacts. I shall illustrate the assertion by an example
from architecture.
5. EARLY GOTHIC ARTIFACTS
Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, the 19th century architect, archaeol-

ogist and writer assumed that the mediaeval masters strove for efficient
structures and had ways of controlling the consequences of their actions.
Summing up his research he suggested that architects should acquire prac-
tical experience, learn the "inexorable" and objective laws of statics
and pay only slight attention to artistic forms. 14
This would be sound advice if, (a) the practical experience needed
for the realization of artistic forms could be obtained independently of

studying these forms; if (b) the "inexorable laws of statics" could be
found in the same manner, i.e. independently of any artistic enterprise;
and if (c) practical experience combined with the laws sufficed for
defining the form of any building.
None of these assumptions is correct; (c) is refuted by the great variety
of styles that existed at different periods and in different regions of the
European continent. Adding economic constraints to explain, say, the
transition from solid walls with small windows to the evanescent mate-
riality of Gothic cathedrals overlooks that there were other ways of saving
time, material and work such as smaller churches, open air meeting
places, no churches at all. None of these alternatives was adopted which
shows that non-economic requirements were at work. And indeed - most
art historians now point out that the Gothic innovations arose from a
special view of Divine Nature and of possible approaches to it. 15
According to Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita, an otherwise unknown
Neoplatonist writing about 500AD, ultimate reality (God, Being) is
ineffable. Trying to grasp it directly, we face darkness, silence, noth-
ingness. But Being does not remain self-contained. It expands and,
while expanding, creates hierarchies, first of light, then of lower forms
down to coarse matter. Matter is far removed from the primary cause;
still, it contains traces of it. Abbot Suger of St. Denis, one of the most
energetic proponents of the new style, believed that the traces could be
amplified by precious stones, gold and shining objects and, so he hoped,
by special arrangements of light and matter. This hope was one of the
driving forces behind the development of the Gothic style.
To realise his hope Suger had to overcome the resistance of matter.
Matter was (and still is) only imperfectly known. Experience rests on
earlier work and is changed by responding to new problems. Theories
are either speculative or empirical. In the first case they can be modified
by further thought. In the second case they are as restricted as the expe-
rience that supports them. The theories available at Suger's time were
fragmentary, inferior by far to the experience of architects and masons
and unrelated to Suger's intentions. 16 New experiences were needed to
get ahead.
New experiences are needed even today if we want to judge the results
of Suger's efforts and the efficiency of the Gothic style in general. One
reason is that the theories of elasticity (for example) that arose in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries quite intentionally kept away from
10 PAUL FEYERABEND
practical matter. 17 Another reason is that modem attempts at a theoret-

ical evaluation are "at least half a century too late. Modem physics has
veered away from the study of analytic structural mechanics, leaving
its development in the hands of research engineers". Thus the resis-
tance of matter to (metaphysical, theological, technological, artistic)
transformation is in fact being determined by a procedure that takes
each case separately and judges it on its own merits. We can say that
matter responds positively to some approaches and that it frustrates
others; we cannot say that, taken together, the approaches reveal a stable
and "inexorable" nature of the elements used. That, modem scientists
say, is done by theory. Nature, they assert, is not a patchwork of prac-
tical results, it is what is being described by overarching theoretical
principles. Is a nature so defined immune to human interference? The
second thesis of section one denies that it is.
6. NATURE AS AN ARTIFACT
According to this thesis 19 nature as described by our scientists is an

artifact that is constantly being enlarged and rebuilt by them. In other
words: our entire universe from the mythical Big Bang via the emergence
of hydrogen, helium, galaxies, fixed stars, planetary systems, viruses,
bacteria, fleas, dogs to the Glorious Arrival of Western Man has been
constructed by generations of scientist-artisans from a partly yielding,
partly resisting material of unknown properties.
The thesis seems to be trivially false. The universe is much bigger
than humans and it existed long before they appeared in it. It could not
possibly have been built by some of them.
But it is not unusual for artisans to misjudge the implications of their
activity. Platonists assume that numbers are independent of the human
race. They existed before the first human appeared and they will endure
after the last human has left the earth. Yet many people now believe
that numbers emerged from complex social activities and seem timeless
because they have become part of the hardware of language. Looking
upward on a clear evening, do we not perceive a blue sphere that seems
to cover all we can see? And has this perpetual fact (which was much
more obvious in the Ancient Near East than it is now in our cities) not
been taken as proof of the eternity of the heavens? And yet we are
being told that there is no sphere whatsoever, only a gaping void filled
here and there with small amounts of matter and radiation. Divinities play
a large role in many cultures; they exceed humans in power, existed

before them, may have created them and are often perceived by them.
But a large percentage of the Educated Few now regards gods as pro-
jections, i.e. again as unconscious artifacts. Thus it is quite possible
for artifacts to have features which, when taken as real, seem far more
powerful than their creators.
How did this mistake arise? How did it happen that mundane matters
were blown up to such an extent that they seemed to exceed their creators
in size, power and duration?
Platonism started as a philosophy or, if you like, as a vision or a myth.
Those who believed in it were not easily deflected by objections. One
might say that they were rather dogmatic. However they were dogmatic
in an interesting way. They did not just sit on their myth; they did not
abandon it either, despite the criticisms they received; they put it to
work. Like artisans they made their vision produce tangible results. A
large amount of modern mathematics, Cantor's unusual speculations
included, was created by their efforts. After that the task of the oppo-
nents became much more difficult. They no longer faced a short and,
perhaps, slightly ridiculous story ("I can see horses, dear Plato" said
Antisthenes, "but not THE HORSE") but a complex assembly of chal-
lenging and useful objects. The modern debate between Platonists and
those who regard mathematics as a human invention is as much about
these objects (integers, lines, points, irrational numbers, transcendental
numbers, classes, transfinites and so on) as it is about metaphysics: for
Platonists these objects were found while constructivists assert that they
were constructed, all of them, despite the obvious limitations of human
thought and action.
Empirical research has exactly the same features. As in mathematics
there existed a variety of views, or visions about the nature of knowl-'
edge and the structure of the world. God often played an important
role. For St. Thomas (and Descartes) he was a rationalist of sorts. He
guaranteed the eternal and inexorable truth of universals and scientific
principles (Summa Theol., Question 8, article 4). Duns Scotus and
William Ockham emphasized the will of God. The will of God, they said,
is unfathomable. All we can do is record the results of divine action,
arrange them in a convenient way and hope for the best: an extreme
empiricism was justified by theological arguments. 20 Newton rejected the
god of Descartes and of Spinoza. For him God was a person showing
concern and demanding respect, not an abstract principle. Newton also
12 PAUL FEYERABEND
assumed - and he had empirical reasons for doing so - that God from
time to time checked the planets and reset their motions: He was a
much needed ordering force in the universe. 21 Kepler thought that reacting
to special conditions the telluric soul caused earthquakes, floods and
atmospheric aberrations. Tycho Brahe, his great predecessor still believed
in miracles. Such assumptions seem strange today after science has
trimmed most facts and declared others to be subjective and, therefore,
irrelevant. However, they were perfectly adapted to the empirical knowl-
edge of the time.
Comets appeared, grew to monstrous size and faded away; there
were meteors, haloes, triple suns, new stars and other ominous events.
Strange geological shapes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions proved that
nature did not conform to simple patterns while malformations in plants,
animals, humans, made it difficult even to think of general biological
laws. Naturalists praised the incredible variety of life as a sign of the
richness of God's creative powers while some early psychologists (not
yet classified by that name) found and described a veritable snakepit
of behavioral aberrations (outstanding example: the descriptive sections
of the Malleus Maleficarum). The early Chinese seem to have taken
this situation at face value. They recorded facts, emphasized unusual
appearances, concentrated on description and eschewed far reaching
generalizations. They were true empiricists. So was Aristotle. He divided
the world into sections, each one with its own principles, admitted
deviations from the norm ("natural is what applies universally or in
most cases" - de part. animal. 663b27ff, my emphasis) and used general
notions only to survey the whole. And I already mentioned how Brahe,
Kepler, Newton dealt with the matter. Yet some leading Western theo-
reticians, Descartes, Galileo and Leibnitz among them, disregarded
phenomena and postulated "universal and inexorable laws." In a way
they repeated what Platonists had done with numbers. But while the
Platonists faced only a philosophical opposition, these writers had to
contend with experience as well. Their myth was not only implausible,
it was also empirically absurd. Did they withdraw? No. They stuck to
their myth, introduced new facts and crushed the opposition with their
weight.
Simplifying matters we may say that they changed the existing knowl-
edge in two ways. They emphasized experiment over observation and
they considerably extended the use of mathematical formalisms. In both
cases they replaced natural processes by artifacts.
Take a simple scientific measurement such as weighing with a pre-

cision scale. Note that already the older scales were carefully constructed.
They were enclosed in containers to exclude drafts, temperature was kept
constant, possible effects of magnetism and electricity were eliminated,
there were corrections for buoyancy, impurities of the substance weighed
and for other "disturbing" effects. The result of the operations was a
property, the "mass" of the product which is a measure of the acceler-
ation it would experience in a carefully prepared field of force. Modem
elementary particle experiments have pushed this aspect to an extreme.
Here we have entire cities, watched around the clock like submarines
or sensitive sections of the Pentagon, their intestines protected from unde-
sirable influences while their active parts produce events that cannot
be seen, not even in principle but are recorded and interpreted by complex
and highly sophisticated instruments.
Next consider language. When Newton applied his law of gravita-
tion to the planetary system he used Euclidian geometry. That was already
a step away from the practical geometry of masons and carpenters. Still,
every assumption he made could be visualised and controlled by the
imagination. Trying to remove discrepancies his successors introduced
algebraic methods. The discrepancies remained until Laplace, more than
hundred years after the Principia found a solution. Then it was discov-
ered that Laplace's series diverged after having converged and that there
was no other way of getting quantitative results. Poincare, undeterred,
developed new (topological) methods which have remained in place until
today. For over two hundred years Newton's law of gravitation could
not deal with the stability of the planetary system. Yet nobody divided
the world into parts and declared the law to be successful only in some
of them. The belief in the universal validity of Newtonianism was
retained until new types of measurement and a new mathematics enabled
scientists to solve this most difficult problem.
Examples such as these show very clearly that modem science uses
artifacts, not Nature as She is. Can we infer that the final product, i.e.
nature as described by our scientists, is also an artifact, that non scien-
tific artisans might give us a different nature and that we therefore have
a choice and are not imprisoned, as the Gnostics thought they were, in
a world we have not made?
It seems that we cannot. Granted - experiments interfere with nature
and their results are recorded and processed in rather 'unnatural' ways.
But the interference has its limits. Nature is not something formless
14 PAUL FEYERABEND
that can be turned into any shape; it resists and by its resistance reveals
its properties and laws. Besides, experiments do not just interfere, they
interfere in a special way. They eliminate disturbances, create strong
effects and enable us to watch the underlying machinery undistorted
and enlarged. Having concluded our investigation we can therefore forget
about the experiments and speak about nature as it is independently of
all disturbances. Not only that - reapplying our instruments and using
the knowledge we have gained we can produce new effects and reshape
our surroundings. Modem technology and modem medicine show to what
extent we have mastered the laws that govern the universe.
This popular argument which seems to be an inseparable companion
of scientific research rests on the assumption that scientists proceed in
a uniform way and that their results form a single coherent picture;
whoever does research and whoever performs experiments runs into the
same type of facts and the same set of laws. In section 4 I gave reasons
for rejecting this assumption: science is not one thing, it is many and
its plurality is not coherent, it is full of conflict. Even special subjects
are divided into schools. I added that most of the conflicting approaches
with their widely different methods, myths, models, expectations, dogmas
have results. They find facts that conform to their categories (and are
therefore incommensurable with the facts that emerge from different
approaches) and laws that bring order to assemblies of facts of this
kind. But this means that being approached in different ways Nature gives
different responses and that projecting one response on to it as describing
its true shape is wishful thinking, not science.
Let us discuss the matter in more general terms. The success of a
particular research program, say, molecular biology or of a particular
project, such as the Human Genome Project can be explained in at least
two ways. First way: the procedures (experiments, ideas, models etc.)
which are part of the program and which strongly interfere with Nature
reveal how Nature is independently of the interference. Second way: they
reveal how Nature responds to the interference. Adopting the second way
we say that the world as described by scientists is the result of a complex
exchange between Nature as She Is In and For Herself - and this lady
we shall never know - and inquisitive research teams including, possibly,
the whole subculture that supports them. Which way is preferable and
why would we prefer it?
I already mentioned one reason in favor of the second way: the plu-
rality inherent in science itself. Scientists adopting different myths and
using corresponding procedures get respectable results. They succeed

which means that their courtship of Nature did not remain unanswered.
A second reason is provided by more recent discoveries in anthro-
pology, in the history of astronomy, medicine, mathematics, technology
and especially by the findings of theologians, ecologists, medical people
engaged in developmental aid. These discoveries and findings show
that non-scientific cultures provided acceptable lives for their members
and that the imposition of Western ideas and practices often disturbed
the delicate balance with nature they had achieved. Non-scientific cultures
are (were) not perfect - no way of living is - but they were often better
than what succeeded them. Finally, there is the quantum theory. It is
one of the best confirmed theories we possess and it implies, in a widely
accepted interpretation, that properties once regarded as objective depend
on the way in which the world is being approached. Taking all this into
consideration I conclude that the second thesis makes lots of sense: nature
as described by our scientists is indeed an artifact built in collabora-
tion with a Being sufficiently complex to mock and, perhaps, punish
materialists by responding to them in a crudely materialistic way.
Now at this point it is important not to fall into the trap of rela-
tivism. According to the second way, mentioned above in the present
section, nature as described by scientists is not Nature In And For Herself,
it is the result of an interaction, or an exchange between two rather
unequal partners, tiny men and women on the one side and Majestic
Being on the other. Not all exchanges produce beneficial results. Like
unfit mutations the actors or some exchanges (the members of some
cultures) linger for a while and then disappear (different cultures have
much in common with different mutations living in different ecolog-
ical niches). The point is that there is not only one successful culture,
there are many and that their success is a matter of empirical record,
not of philosophical definitions: an enormous amount of concrete findings
accompanies the slow and painful transition from intrusion to collabo-
ration in the field of development. Relativism, on the other hand believes
that it can deal with cultures on the basis of philosophical fiat: define
a suitable context (form of life) with criteria etc. of its own and anything
that happens in this context can be made to confirm it. As opposed to
this real cultures change when attempting to solve major problems and
not all of them survive attempts at stabilization. The "principles" of
real cultures are therefore ambiguous and there is a good sense in saying
that every culture can in principle be any culture. Applied to science
16 PAUL FEYERABEND
this means that the artwork of science in many respects resembles Kurt
Schwitters' fantastic productions - there are recognizable details, there
are features that seem devoid of sense and there is the general invita-
tion to add to the thing and in this way to change the appearance of
the whole. Scientific nature itself is partly comprehensible, partly non-
sensical; it can be extended, changed, supplemented with new ideas,
habits, pieces of culture thus bringing to light other and perhaps more
gentle aspects of Nature and, with that, of ourselves. Here progressive
artists can play an important role. Rationalists - and that includes many
scientists and philosophers - like to nail things down. They are confused
by change and they cannot tolerate ambiguity. But poets, painters,
musicians cherish ambiguous words, puzzling designs, nonsensical
movements, all instruments which are needed to dissolve the appar-
ently so rigid and objective nature of scientists, to replace it by useful
and changing appearances or artifacts and in this way give us a feeling
for the enormous and largely unfathomable powers that surround us.
7. LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
And with that I am back at the topic from which I started - the relation
between art works and the world. As I presented it this topic leads right
into one of the most pressing problems of today - the side effects of a
ruthlessly 'objectivistic' approach. Objectivism certainly is not the only
problem. There are the rising nationalisms, the greed, the stupidity and
the uncaring attitude of many socalled world leaders, in politics, religion,
philosophy, the sciences, all this accompapied by a general thought-
lessness that seems satisfied and even pleased with the repetition of tepid
generalities. Arguing for two theses which seem to be in conflict I tried
to undermine this thoughtlessness and to show how easy it is to find
evidence now for the one, now for the other point of view: the world
is much more slippery than is assumed by our rationalists (this is the
content of the third thesis). But there is also a positive result, namely,
an insight into the abundance that surrounds us and that is often con-
cealed by the imposition of simpleminded ideologies. Many aspects of
this abundance have been studied, by scientists, development workers,
liberation theologians, they have been given shape by painters, poets,
musicians and even the most downtrodden inhabitants of our globe have
made their contribution, provided one asked them - not in general terms,
but with reference to things right before their nose - and respected their
answers. It is true that allowing abundance to take over would be the

end of life and existence as we know it - abundance and chaos are
different aspects of one and the same world. We need simplifications
(e.g. we need bodies with restricted motions and brains with restricted
modes of perception). But there are many such simplifications, not just
one and they can be changed to remove the elitism which so far has
dominated Western Civilization.
Meilen,
Switzerland
NOTES
1 Kurt von Fritz, Philosophie und Sprachlicher Ausdruck bei Demokrit, Platon und
Aristoteles, Neudruck, Darmstadt, 1966, 11.
2 Philosophers opposed democracy not because it was general and abstract, but because
it was not general enough. After all, people were still allowed to deflect the democratic
process by their own idiosyncratic demands.
3 'The School of Giorgone', The Renaissance, London 1894.
4 Kritik der Urteilskraft, section 53.
5 The theoretical trend is represented, a.o. by Leon Battista Alberti's essay On Painting,
J. R. Spencer (transl.), New Haven 1966; cf. also Joan Gadol, Leon Battista Alberti,
University of Chicago Press 1969. Tradition's bible was Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman's
Handbook, D. V. Thompson Jr. (transl.), Dover Reprint New York and London 1959.
For the rise and the fate of academies cf. N. Pevsner, Academies of Art. Past and Present,
Cambridge University Press 1940.
6 Interestingly enough there may be a phase difference between a style and its philo-
sophical evaluation and the latter may be ignorant of the style to which it applies. Cf.
Carl Dahlhaus, Klassische und Romantische Musikaesthetik, Laaber Verlag 1988, esp.
chapter ii.
7 According to Plato (Rep. books vii and x) music has a practical and a theoretical side
(and in this respect is similar to arithmetic) while painting has neither (and is therefore
useless and without epistemic merit). Plato also points out that astronomy is still lacking
in theory and in this respect inferior to music.
S S. E. Luria, A Slot Machine, A Broken Test Tube, New York 1985, 115.
9 Ibid., 119.
10 Luria reports that Fermi had little sympathy for speculative theories such as the general
theory of relativity. (The same was true of Michelson, Rutherford and even Planck.)
\I The Born-Einstein Letters, New York 1971, 192.
12 Even highly implausible approaches have led to success. An example is Maxwell's
calculation of the viscosity of gases. For Maxwell this was an exercise in theoretical
mechanics, an extension of his work on the rings of Saturn. Neither he nor his contem-
poraries believed the outcome - that viscosity remains constant over a wide range of
density - and there existed contrary evidence. Yet more precise measurements confirmed
18 PAUL FEYERABEND
the prediction and thus, indirectly, the kinetic approach. Cf. W. O. Niven (ed.), The
Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Dover Publications, New York 1965 (first
published 1890), 377 ff. For more recent conflicts between physical commonsense and
mathematical theory ending in a triumph of theory cf. G. Birkhoff, Hydrodynamics, Dover
Publication, New York 1955, sections 20 and 21.
13 Details in my paper 'Has the Scientific View of the World a Special Status Compared
with Other Views?', Proceedings of the Erasmus Symposium of 1992, forthcoming. The
idea that "peripheral" knowledge claims can be reduced to "more fundamental ones"
and, ultimately, to elementary particle physics which underlies the idea of a coherent body
of scientific knowledge is a metaphysical desideratum, not a fact of scientific practice. For
details cf. e.g. Nancy Cartwright, How the Laws of Physics Lie, Oxford 1984.
14 Cf. Robert Mark, Experiments in Gothic Structure, MIT Press 1982, 11.
15 Survey and literature in Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral, New York 1962.
16 Cf. the material and literature in E. Grant (ed.), A Source Book in Mediaeval Science,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. 1974.
17 Cf. the historical introduction in A. C. H. Love, Treatise on the Mathematical Theory
of Elasticity, London 1924.
18 Mark, op. cit., 13.
19 In this section I have made use of fonnulations first published in Common Knowledge,
vol. I, part 3, 1992.
20 G. Gal and S. F. Brown (eds.), Scriptum in Librum Primum Sententiarum (Ordinatio,
Prolegomena, Distinctio 1), Franciscan Institute, SI. Bonaventura University, New York
State 1967,241.
21 Frank Manuel, The Religion of Isaak Newton, Oxford 1974. Cf. also query 31 of
Newton's Opticks.
WILLIS H. TRUITT
NEO-PRAGMATISM AND THE NEW AESTHETIC

The Second Death of Philosophy
The end of the nineteenth century brought with it the end of phi-
losophy, or so some philosophers believed. Philosophy's "death" was
attributable to two causes. First, there was the translation of all philo-
sophical questions into the language of the positive sciences. Second,
there was the translation of Hegel's rational metaphysics into the febrile,
pragmatic, subjectivism of Croce and Gentile.
The second of these developments led to a theory of action or practice
which declared itself post-rational and post-philosophical and was cham-
pioned by fascist post-philosophers such as the above mentioned Giovani
Gentile. In The Theory of Mind as Pure Actl Gentile proclaims that the
world as experienced is fact, that we must face the facts as they are bound
by the iron law of the past. "Man makes himself what he is and is not
made." Man is the freedom and power of his spirit. Facts are produced
by action. Acts are unique and cannot be explained by historical or philo-
sophical contextualization. Freedom is produced by the power and force
of individual actions. 2
Philosophy, according to Gentile, would no longer be a theoretical
discipline for there is no such thing as theoretical Truth. In his writings
practice or action takes the place of theoretical inquiry. The only reality
is the act of will that transforms subjective desire into fact. That is
what Lukacs has described as the Zerstorung der Vernunft.
A feverish repugnance to intellectualism is made evident in Gentile's
post philosophical productive practice which, one may note, includes
his 'Philosophical Basis of Fascism,'3 a paean to Mussolini and the
absolute state. And it was this same contempt for reason that enabled
the acceptance by many German "intellectuals" of H. S. Chamberlain's
racist The Nineteenth Century and Alfred Rosenberg's blood-race
"theory" of history, a rhetorical work that he himself entitled as myth
(albeit a truth), Die My thus der Zwanzigsten lahrhunderts. 4
The Proclamation of philosophy's death proved premature. In a
remarkable recovery philosophy not only continued but even enjoyed a
robust life until very recently. Some now think that a state of exhaus-
tion has set in.
19

20 WILLIS H. TRUITT
The Twilight of the Twentieth Century brings with it a similar phe-

nomenon - the second death of philosophy. Most of philosophy will
survive its second death. But one area of philosophy, the one with which
I am professionally concerned, aesthetics, verges on extinction. This is
because of all philosophical disciplines aesthetics has the thinnest epis-
temological foundation, perhaps none at all. The perilous theoretical
conditions of aesthetics is a result of its recent history to which I will
turn below. First I shall characterize the second death of philosophy
and the procedures that aim to displace it.
There is a new breed of American philosophers most of whom call
themselves pragmatists. The first part of their philosophical strategy
is to discredit the mainstream western philosophical tradition, which
from the Greeks to the present, has been fixated on the search for truth
and objectivity. According to these new pragmatists the traditional
philosopher (intellectual) is one who believes himself to be in touch
with the nature of things, not by way of the opinions of his commu-
nity or consensus of his fellows, but in a more direct way. For example,
in the Enlightenment the Newtonian physical scientist became the
model for this truth-seeking, objectivist, investigator. He is seen as
one who steps outside of his community in quest for a truth that
transcends the common consensus or the accepted criteria of that com-
munity. In this pursuit of objectivity truth becomes correspondence
with reality, with accompanying procedures set down for the justifica-
tion of beliefs which are natural and universal, not merely local. Thus
truth is attained.
It is the claim of these new pragmatists 5 that this long enduring project
- that of the rationalists, naturalists, positivists, materialists, etc. - has
collapsed. What then do they have to offer as an alternative program?
I think an accurate answer would be programmatic lawlessness. And that,
I believe, is how they would have it. But for this reason one has diffi-
culty describing it. Even so, I shall try.
The alternative has been depicted as a reduction of objectivity to
solidarity.6 Solidarity here means a contribution to a community. For
their part the pragmatists eschew any resort to epistemological or meta-
physical foundations. They view truth, following James, as what it is
good for us to believe. There is no relation of correspondence between
beliefs and objects. And what is "rational" for them may not be true
and vice versa.
Opponents of the pragmatists are charged with the crime of epis-
NEO-PRAGMATISM AND THE NEW AESTHETIC 21
temological realism.? The antithesis of epistemological realism which

frames the pragmatic-relativist alternative involves the following asser-
tions.
1. Every belief is as good as any other.
2. "True" is an equivocal term with many meanings.
3. Truth is conventionally determined by the familiar procedures of a
society, a local community or a group - a matter of solidarity.
4. "True" is a term of commendation. And sometimes.
5. Anything goes.
In the late 1980's the pragmatist attitude began to permeate studies in
aesthetics. American aesthetics was particularly vulnerable to this new
way because of its recent history. This history involved the failure of
formalism, the rejection of aesthetic theory, the abortive institutional
theory and finally, what has been called the eclipse of analytic aesthetics.
Thus a theoretical vacuum was created into which the pragmatic-post
modernists moved. Here it should be noted that pragmatism in American
aesthetics is closely tied to, almost indistinguishable from, the movement
called post modernism. A brief comment on the collapse of the previous
approaches mentioned above is in order.
By the mid 1950's formalism, as represented primarily in the writings
of Monroe Beardsley, was dead and the new analytic method had
triumphed. Both formalist and analytic aesthetics saw their tasks as
providing an objective or logical foundation for this discipline. The failure
of formalism resulted from its insistence on excluding all contextual
factors in the interpretation of art while relying exclusively on the analysis
of the formal or structural properties of artworks. But the new analytic
methods, instead of enriching aesthetic studies ran into a dead end when
M. Weitz' argument that artworks had no necessary and sufficient
properties to support theoretical interpretation - that aesthetic theory
was impossible - was embraced by a majority of the members of the
aesthetics establishment. 8 For about fifteen years after this "discovery"
very little serious theoretical work in aesthetics was undertaken. Then
in 1974 G. Dickie advanced his solution to the dead end in his institu-
tional theorl which promised to restore a theoretical basis for the
interpretation of artworks. The institutional theory claimed that any
artifact could become an artwork at such time as something called the
"artworld" bestowed the status of "art" upon it. For a number of reasons
the institutional theory was ultimately rejected. I think the most impor-
tant reason was that Dickie failed to persuade his colleagues that
22 WILLIS H. TRUITT
something called the "artworld" really existed. However let me specify

some further criticisms.
Dickie argued against Weitz that art can be theoretically defined. In
doing so he rejects previous attempts to define art by its characteristics
and qualities or on the basis of aesthetic experience which he considers
a bogus concept. What Dickie seeks is a theory or definition of art that
is not restricted by formal or experiential criteria, a definition that is
capable of encompassing all objects upon which the status of "art object"
has been conferred. And this would include even the most deviant
creations.
In this office Dickie devises a simple taxonomy: necessarily a work
of art is an artifact, sufficiently it is an artifact upon which the status
of "art" has been conferred institutionally. The conferring institution,
he says, is the art world. This is a social institution comprised of artists,
galleries, museums, theaters, critics, audiences, etc. The analogy he
uses to explicate the process of conferral is the conferring of the degree
of PhD on a doctoral candidate.
In this definition, Dickie believed that he has covered all possible
"art object" candidates for the certified status of a "work of art." And
further, in so doing, he believes that he has overcome the short-
comings of subjectivism and formalism while at the same time refuting
Weitz.
But he has failed and interestingly enough an early and compelling
criticism of this theory was advanced not by an American but by B.
Dziemidok.lO Let me summarize Dziemidok's critique. He writes that the
very notion of conferring artistic status to an object (in Dickie's sense
of conferring) is suspect. First of all, the artworld is not truly institu-
tionalized. There are no people with special authorization to certify
artistic status upon an artifact. In Dickie's conception any member of
the so-called artworld could confer the status of "work of art" upon
any object in the most arbitrary manner. This provokes the question of
the role of the artist in the process described by Dickie. Might we just
as well dispense with the artist as a mere producer of a commodity the
merit of which is determined by others. "An artist can be successfully
substituted for by Betsy the chimpanzee at the Baltimore Zoo. The factor
which decides whether her paintings are artistic or not is, Dickie holds,
where they are displayed." If at the museum of natural history, then we
have no art. If displayed at the Chicago Institute of Art, we have art.
In addition, representatives of the artworld could deprive works of art
of their status, and this seems odd, especially since the decertification
could be based on political or religious criteria that are quite unrelated
to aesthetic content. It is not that this is not, or has not, been done,
witness Nazism. It is that we, and Dickie, would repudiate such a
decertification.
Dickie's definition is not capable of drawing a distinction between
works of art and non-artistic objects.
John Hoaglund has recently argued ll that the institutional theory,
suffers from too narrow a conception of institutional environment
" ... focusing on the artist and those who would decide which of his
works to place before the public." He acknowledges that this focus
has succeeded in getting American aesthetics away from its subjectivist
preoccupation with the mental life of the artist, the aesthetic expe-
rience of the audience, and the positivistic formalism of Beardsley
and the new critics. But he knows that the institutional concept must
be expanded to include practices, enterprises, and cultural and tech-
nical forms that appear at first sight to be extra aesthetic. Given the
narrowness of Dickie's conception of the artworld, his thesis implies
a secret agenda on which artistic status is not a public but a private
determination.
It should be mentioned here that in The Art Circle l2 and in an article
titled 'The New Institutional Theory of Art.' 13 Dickie revised his project
of institutionally defining a work of art to that of giving the leanest
possible description of the essential institutional framework of art. This
restatement, although I will not go into it, seems to have failed. Robert
Stecker has argued convincinglyl4 that Dickie has failed to show how
artistic artifacts and other artifacts are to be distinguished and further that
" ... the concept that emerges from Dickie's account resembles Weitz's
open concept," i.e., the anti-theoretical view already discussed and which
the institutional theory was designed to refute.
The most recent capitulation has been called by Joseph Margolis
"the eclipse of analytic aesthetics." The reasons for this eclipse are
many but essentially it can be attributed to a very narrow conception
of the subject matter of aesthetics. In any case, because of the inepti-
tude of the formalist, analytical, and institutional accounts it was proposed
by the pragmatic-post modernists that an objective or cognitive model
for aesthetics had to be abandoned and so began the attack on the nor-
mative objectivity of aesthetic theory.
Pragmatic-post modernism declares that "the aesthetic" and "aesthetic
24 WILLIS H. TRUITT
entities" are antiquated concepts and that the eclipse of analytic aesthetics
spells the end of any hope for a cognitive or objective theory of art.
Analytic aesthetic imploded under the stress of its historical limitations.
It was in fact, despite its claims of objectivity, no more than the method
of preference of " ... mid-to-late twentieth-century mostly male Britons
who received an upper-class education at Oxbridge, or to professional
philosophers living in America"15 (who were their imitators). J. Margolis
has identified the causes of the abandonment of a cognitive or scien-
tific or objectivist model for aesthetic interpretation and the rise of
pragmatic-post modernism thus:
The acknowledgment of the complexities of historicism, the advocacy of ontic indeter-
minancies, of conceptual incommensurabilities, of divergent pluralisms, of relativistic
values, the rejection of closed systems, the insistence on the symbiosis of realism and
idealism, and the constructive nature of selves and world. 16
The new post-scientific/post-modernist method of say, Rorty, rejects

the cognitively privileged, objectivist, transcendental metaphysical stand-
points of Descartes and Kant as well as the materialism of Marx in
favor of a source of reasons and arguments for practices of interpreta-
tion of texts and artworks. This is said to be a kind of pragmatism
that is historicized and naturalistic, but not philosophical or epistemo-
logical. Perhaps, following W. V. Quine, epistemological realism, truth
claims, and the like are viewed as adaptive behavior without an objec-
tive foundation. Accordingly, there can be no scientific basis for
interpretation in general. This leads to a methodology in aesthetics in
which interpretation of the arts becomes productive practice and such
practice does not involve making truth-like claims. It is proposed that
works of art have no fixed and stable reference - they are open to an
infinity of interpretations. There is no commitment in the pragmatic-
post modernist movement to disciplined, responsible, stable, rational,
truth-seeking, philosophical inquiry. Philosophy in general, and aesthetics
in particular, have been transformed into productive practice. Any com-
mitment to "truth" or "realism" is seen to be merely therapeutic. I? And
so for pragmatic-post modernism philosophy and aesthetics now become
rhetoric, poetry, and metaphor.
This new age methodology wishes to reconstitute philosophy so that
it is "interesting" rather than objective and realistic. Rorty says: .
This sort of philosophy does not work piece by piece, analyzing concept after concept,
or testing thesis after thesis. Rather it works holistically and pragmatically. It says things
NEO-PRAGMA TISM AND THE NEW AESTHETIC 25
like "try thinking this way" - or more specifically - "try to ignore the apparently futile
traditional questions by substituting the new and possibly interesting questions." It does
not pretend to have a better candidate for doing the same old things which we did when
we spoke in the old way. Rather, it suggests that we might want to stop doing things
and do something else. But it does not argue for this suggestion on the basis of antecedent
criteria common to the old and new language games. For just insofar as the new language
really is new, there will be no such criteria. 18
But this new philosophy turns out to be not entirely new. The pragma-
tist campaign against the tradition has seen fit to invoke the ghosts
of the two philosophers who were synonymous with discrediting the
tradition, i.e., Heidegger and Nietzsche. These two, it is offered, are
exemplary forerunners.
In the Origins of the Work of Art l9 Heidegger arrives at the conclu-
sion that what characterizes an artwork is that in it a world and an Earth
are revealed, whereas ordinary things do not yield such a disclosure.
According to Heidegger the field of aesthetics has been unable to rise
above the bifurcation of realty into subjects and objects and the use of
the worn out concepts of matter and form. Heidegger argues that we must
study the Being of artworks as "thingly." If we do so we will find that
artworks are unlike other things.
As a case Heidegger studies the picture of a pair of shoes by Van
Gogh from which he elicits a vision of a peasant woman's world and
earth and a premonition of the menace of death along with a sense
of shivering. This is the kind of new interpretation that appeals to
the pragmatic-post modernists because it is a kind of uncovering of
invisible things that stand behind things. Something is revealed that
nobody might have imagined to be there. By the process of uncovering
we are treated to a whole range of interesting metaphoric analogies.
Disclosures such as this are, of course, beyond the scope of analytic
aesthetics, realist aesthetics, indeed beyond the scope of any form of
scientific cognition or disciplined methodology. But they are said to be
more interesting.
Nietzsche is also called upon as a pre-post modernist, because of the
fragmentary character of his writings which are like the letters of a
traveler; dispersive communications from different times and places. 2o
Anticipating contemporary post modernists Nietzsche maintains that
our awareness of self and world are mediated by texts and narratives
(artworks) and that no single narrative or depiction is true. Often his
writings are rhetorical "ravings." His intention is to reveal the interesting
26 WILLIS H. TRUITT
un-obvious and his arguments are designed to oppose and discredit the
traditional literary and aesthetic values of coherence, closure, and organic
unity. Thus Nietzsche rejects the concepts of an integrated life and a
coherent subject along with the idea of a central organizing principle.
As noted earlier, these are among the leading themes of pragmatic-post
modernism.
The insurgency of pragmatic-post modernism into American philos-
ophy and aesthetics has been somewhat successful because analytic
philosophy - the self-described scientific philosophy of Britain and
America - could not produce a theory that explained major cultural
changes.
This is because analytic philosophy never attempted to formulate a
theory of culture. Accordingly, culture is somehow detached from society
and floats free. In this case there was no art-historical context to aid inter-
pretation. Dickie's institutionalism could not restore the context, could
not fill the void, because his institution - the art world - was too thin
and, in fact, ahistorical itself.
Should philosophy recover from its second death it will do so on the
foundation of what J. H. Randall has called "objective relativism.,,21
But philosophy's most delicate branch, aesthetics, seems headed to the
entertainment industry.
Department of Philosophy,
University of South Florida,
Tampa, Florida
NOTES
I G. Gentile, The Theory of Mind as Pure Act, Macmillan, London, 1922, p. 180.
2 Ibid., p. 184.
3 From Readings on Fascism and National Socialism, The Swallow Press, Chicago, 1952.
4 The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930, from National Socialism, a report prepared
by the division of European Affairs, US Department of State, US Government Printing
Office, Washington, DC., 1953.
5 Best known perhaps are T. Kuhn, P. Feyerabend, M. Foucault, and R. Rorty.
6 Richard Rorty, 'Solidarity or Objectivity', in Michael Krausz, Relativism: Interpretation
and Confrontation, University of Notre Dame Press, 1989, p. 37.
7 These include, among others, Hilary Putnam.
8 See M. Weitz, 'The Role of Theory in Aesthetics', Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 15, 1956, pp. 27-35.
9 Art and the Aesthetic, New York, 1974.
10 B. Dzemidok, 'Institutional Definition of a Work of Art', Philosophical Inquiry, 1984.

II 'Some Institutional Theories of Art', Journal of Aesthetic Education, Spring 1986.
12 The Art Circle, Haven Publishers, New York, 1984.
13 Aesthetics, Vienna, 1984, Proceedings of the Eighth International Wittgenstein
Symposium.
14 British Journal of Aesthetics, Spring 1986, pp. 124-132.
15 J. Waugh, 'Analytic Aesthetics and Feminist Aesthetics', Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 48, 1990, p. 317.
16 'The Eclipse and Recovery of Analytic Aesthetics', in R. Shusterman, Analytic
Aesthetics, New York, Basil Blackwell, 1989, p. 185.
17 See, for example, P. Trembath, 'The Rhetoric of Philosophical "Writing". Emphatic
Metaphors in Derrida and Rorty', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47, 1989,
pp. 169-173.
18 R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge University Press, New York,
1989, p. 9.
19 Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, Stuttgart, Reclam, 1960.
20 See G. Shapiro, Nietzchean Narratives, Indiana University Press, 1989.
21 J. H. Randall, Nature and Historical Experience, Columbia University Press, New
York, 1959.
ANNA WESSELY
THE READER'S PROGRESS: REMARKS ON

ARNOLD HAUSER'S PHILOSOPHY OF ART HISTORY
In 1918, at the University of Budapest, two friends, Karl Mannheim

and Arnold Hauser, defended and subsequently published their theses
in Athenaeum, a Hungarian journal of philosophy. I Although one dis-
cussed epistemology and the other aesthetics, their theoretical premises,
modes of argumentation, and suggested solutions were so close that,
had these papers been preserved anonymously, readers of a later gener-
ation would probably have attributed them to the same author.
The two young scholars strive to combine the structural analysis
of the transcendental presuppositions of their object of study with
its phenomenological description. 2 They stress the necessity and in-
commensurability of these approaches and attempt to devise a more
encompassing framework for accommodating both without having to
renounce the universal claims of either. The main problem is to bridge
the gap between two processes which deceptively present themselves
as mirror-images of each other: the constitution of meaning as a property
of system-related objectifications, on the one hand, and the individual-
related grasp or experience of the meaning of objectifications on the
other. 3
While both young philosophers devote several pages to the incom-
municability of experienced meaning, they seem to think in unison or,
rather, to participate in an inspiring and supportive discussion. This, in
fact, they did as founding members of the Sunday Circle which gathered
around Georg Lukacs in the years of the First World War. 4 Here they
had learned to appreciate the animating atmosphere of intellectual inten-
sity without which they found it "impossible to live or work" throughout
their lives. s
However, in 1919 political disagreement weakened their ties with
the Sunday Circle. When they made an attempt to rejoin the group in
exile in Vienna two years later, Mannheim was accepted but Hauser
was firmly rebuffed. 6 And while Mannheim would never tire in his efforts
in Germany and later in England to attract or attach himself to people
29

30 ANNA WESSEL Y
who could provide a similarly supportive intellectual background, a

group which would accept him as their spokesman, Hauser withdrew
into the monological world of the perceptive, but passive, listener and
reader. He became, to put it simply, a member of that sparsely popu-
lated category, which scholars often wishfully refer to as the "educated
public".
This "prodigious reader,,7 was, two decades later, accosted by the
former friend with a seemingly harmless proposal: to compile and preface
an anthology on the sociology of the arts 8 for the International Library
of Sociology and Social Reconstruction. This suggestion, despite its
benign appearance, amounted to a challenge to account for all his years
of passivity. Hauser must have realized that, cut off from professional
communication, his knowledge was insufficient for the development of
a theoretically founded, coherent line of argument. In lack of a dis-
ciplinary framework, he could only rely on the history of Western
civilization as a chronological sequence. To complete the project in these
terms demanded, however, another ten years' reading to fill the gaps
in that sequence and to formulate a general theory of social develop-
ment - a combination of historical materialism with the sociology of
knowledge - to guide the selection and organization of the material.
The result of his persevering efforts to write that preface was a book
of a thousand pages, The Social History of Art.
II
Arnold Hauser was neither a historian, nor a sociologist, nor a committed

Marxist. He carefully avoided the controversial issues in these fields
of scholarship. With neither familiarity with, nor interest in primary
sources, he contented himself with a cautious balancing of the claims
of the authors he had studied. The criteria for his whole-hearted agree-
ment with, provisional acceptance or rejection of any claims are unclear.
Hauser seems to have relied on his common sense to judge the plausi-
bility of the various explanations which historians, critics, philosophers
or artists proposed, while disregarding the significant differences in
their theoretical premises. The criterion for the selection of materials and
interpretations seems to have been a "fit" with the type of dialectical
history he was trying to write, and if they could be worked into a con-
tinuous narrative.
The book, published in 1951, soon became an international best-
THE READER'S PROGRESS 31
seller. (Forty years later, it is still among the staple reading for under-
graduate studies in the humanities.) At the same time it offered itself
as easy prey to critics like Ernst H. Gombrich who pointed to its short-
comings as logical consequences of Hauser's "application of dialectical
materialism to the history of art".9 Presumably for similar reasons, The
Social History of Art received unreserved praise from no lesser author-
ities on Marxism, dialectics, and critical sociology than Adorno and
Horkheimer. They hailed it as a true sociology of art which extended
sociological discussion to the problems of artistic form. They admired
Hauser's "extraordinary energy and subtlety" in describing "the mutual
interactions of the social and the immanently aesthetic in the creation
of artworks". His method was found to be "dialectical in the most precise
meaning of the word: it explicates artistic forms with all their mediations
and in all their differentiation in the social conditions of work as well
as of power relations at the successive stages of history". Finally, "the
proof of the authenticity of Hauser's procedure" was discovered in the
recurrent reservations and qualifications with which he tended to restrict
the scope of his own generalizations. 1o
I would disagree with this overall evaluation of Hauser's achievement.
Nevertheless the last mentioned point aptly summarizes the essence of
his procedure. His next book, The Philosophy of Art History, written
in defense of the methodological principles on which The Social History
of Art had been based, applied this procedure to every topic it touched.
The alternation of aphoristic declarations and bold generalizations with
a cautious discussion of their dubiousness disarmed even the harshest
critics. As Gombrich admitted: "In fact the specific criticism of this
approach [that is, dialectical materialism] which I felt compelled to make
does not apply to the author's subsequent book on the Philosophy of
Art History.,,11
III
The apology of the social history of art has surprisingly little to say about
social history itself. The reader gets the impression that Hauser took
social history to be a historical narrative involving references to social
groups and their political roles. The core of the argument is an idea
derived probably from Georg Simmel's works on the philosophy of
history.12 Simmel pointed out that the aesthetic, the historical, and the
cultural appraisals of artworks started from different premises and asked
32 ANNA WESSELY
different questions. Aesthetic value, historical significance, and cultural

function each represented a relevant object of cognitive interest; but in
order to determine the value, significance, or function of any artwork
it had to be construed differently as the respective object of aesthetic
criticism, art history, or sociology. Hauser claims in a similar manner:
that aesthetic interpretation relates the works of art to the aesthetic
sensibility of the interpreter's age; it is, therefore, mere self-decep-
tion when the interpreter believes to have understood the original
intentions of artists;
- that a historical explanation of artworks must necessarily transcend
the closed world of artworks, bracket their uniqueness, and locate them
in contexts which are created by causal sequences of art historical,
psychological, or sociological nature;
that the apparently internalist explanations offered by an art history
conceived as a history of styles, forms, or visuality on the one hand
and the suggestive interpretations offered by Geistesgeschichte which
rely on an assumed parallelism in the different spheres of intellec-
tual activity of an age, on the other, represent a scholarship parasitic
on indefensible ideologies that serve to gain them privilege over exter-
nalist explanations; and, finally,
- that only an approach which applies the "sociological method" can
find an answer to the key question of art history concerning stylistic
change.
The argument is not presented systematically, its elements rather appear
as recurrent motifs in this very heterogeneous book with its abrupt shifts
in subject matter, level of abstraction, and mode of argumentation. 13
The first three chapters discuss externalist explanations of art, Chapter
IV rehearses the debates around the concept of style in early twentieth-
century German scholarship, while Chapter V reports on the author's
reading on folk art and discloses his views on mass culture. Finally,
the concluding chapter deals with problems of aesthetics, offering among
others Hauser's interesting observations on the role of conventions in
art which function as a langue of which individual artistic invention avails
itself in order to create its own unique parole. I suspect that Hauser
worked earlier manuscripts on the concept of style and on folk art into
the book, adding some passages in order to connect them with the
declared aim of this work: to present the methodological foundations
of his Social History of Art.14
On first reading, Hauser's discussion of the methods of modem art
appreciation 15 fascinates with its erudition and apparent profundity. But

closer scrutiny reveals several embarrassing, even annoying aspects.
The book raises most of the problems the social historian of art encoun-
ters in the course of research, but it answers them in a surprisingly
elusive, vague manner. Hauser's peculiar understanding of dialectic
degrades it into a "middle-of-the-road option" in the face of pairs of alter-
natives that are presented in a crudely simplified and exaggerated form.
The historical and critical references in the book can only be assessed
by those who are already familiar with the history of Western art and
literature and also happen to have read the relevant writings at least of
Freud and Ernst Kris, of Fiedler, Hildebrand and the young Lukacs, of
Riegl, W6lfflin, Dvorak and Antal, and of Simmel, Weber and Mannheim.
Hauser's incessant monologue does not seem to particularly address
anyone except its own potential critics. They are made to realize that
the author has considered every possible angle of his subject, preempting
all objections by incorporating them in his argument. The result is
inevitably both suggestive and confusing, for the author regularly con-
tradicts himself.
Let me cite a few examples. In the first two chapters we learn that
all art is a means to some goal. Art "pursues practical aims either con-
sciously or unconsciously, is either open or veiled propaganda" (p. 7),
the only difference being that veiled propaganda is stylistically more
creative and socially more effective (pp. 22-23 and 29). Chapter IV
praises Max Dvorak for his insight into the historically changing refer-
ence of the concept of art, for having realized that art had undergone a
fundamental transformation in the course of Western history and became,
with the Renaissance, "a new, autonomous region of the spiritual cosmos"
(p. 226). Readers may well begin to regret that Hauser did not remember
this important lesson in the preceding chapters, until they recall that in
Chapter II he has, in fact, said something about the autonomy of art
steadily growing in an "almost uninterrupted" process since the seventh
century B.C. (p. 35). They may wonder why Hauser spared Dvorak his
criticism for having substituted a definite moment of transformation for
this secular process. Or did, perhaps, Dvorak merely predate this trans-
formation by several centuries? Hauser himself tells us in Chapter III that
it took place after the Romantic turn in the arts.
Moreover, can this "autonomy" be taken seriously if the author assures
us on every other page that art is always in the service of external goals
- that it legitimizes the powers that be, has a cognitive function, offers
34 ANNA WESSEL Y
escape and utopic images as well as comfort and compensation for the
deficiencies of existence, that it corrects, criticizes and even redeems
life, and is, in short, a means to appropriate the things of the world.
First we are told that the work of art is "a guide to life", an inter-
pretation of life that wants to "impress, convince, and spur to action"
(p. 27); then, as we proceed we learn that it is also a "defence mecha-
nism, or safety-valve", a means of affirmation and protest and, of course,
a "propaganda weapon" (p. 268). After all this Hauser declares that
"the idea of 'a work of art' that possesses all the essential aesthetic
attributes is the most farfetched abstraction" ever in the study of art
(p. 151). It could only arise in the airless halls of museums and libraries
- Malraux's 'Museum' - where the specialists of aesthetic and art his-
torical conceptualization turn the single works, which have nothing to
do with each other, into comparable examples of a uniform behavior.
This granted, it is somewhat difficult to see how the author can speak
of art as such and artworks in general throughout his book.
Hauser often repeated, in his writings and in interviews, that the
question which fascinated him most was the crucial problem of all art
history: how to explain stylistic change. The Philosophy of Art History
offers some explanations which, unfortunately, mutually destroy each
other. Chapter I asserts that a "revolution occurs when a certain style
is no longer adapted to expressing the spirit of the time" (p. 14). Chapter
II dispenses with Zeitgeist and claims that for a change of style "the emer-
gence of a new public is needed to shake a deeply and firmly rooted
tradition of art and bring about a radical change of taste" (p. 26). This
is a plausible hypothesis. It could use more substantial support than mere
references to the author's Social History ofArt and a claim to the contrary
effect, advanced immediately on its heels, that the determining factors
in art historical explanations, whether of change or continuity in style,
must be the same.
Now, does Hauser suggest that if art historians would just concen-
trate more on the emergence of new audiences, they could predict changes
in style? Or, does he merely mean that in attempting to account for a
change we should discover a new segment of the audience? The proce-
dure would be somewhat circular in both cases. In the first case, an
audience is defined in relation to the art it appreciates; it can be said
to represent a new public either if its members have previously shown
no interest in art or have belonged to various other, traditional taste
cultures. It is a new audience in contrast to a mere broadening of the
public by virtue of the fact that the art its members favor is also new.
In the second case, research focuses on the appearance of new social
groups as consumers on the "market for the arts". These, however, do
not necessarily provoke a revolution in taste; in fact, they are gener-
ally found to manifest their traditional preferences in a new context.
Whatever the case, Hauser's specific analyses do not follow this guide-
line. His book on Mannerism mobilizes several factors to explain the
emergence, diffusion, and survival of the "elegant, exquisite, precious art
of mannerism", but pays hardly any attention to the conceivable rise of
a new audience. It is not so much the composition of the public but rather
the changes in its attitudes, in "the spirit of the time" that figure promi-
nently in Hauser's explanation of the international success of Mannerism.
He merely asserts that it "points to the presence of a public which,
whatever else it appreciated in and expected from art, enjoyed the social
pleasure of initiation into a secret language." He concludes that
Mannerism was "the form in which the new nobility partly risen from
below and the princes heading for absolutism clothed their ideology.,,16
(It is by no means evident why the new nobility and the absolutist princes
should share an ideology. Very often, they did not.) On the other hand,
the description of modern, "massified" art and media culture in The
Philosophy of Art History suggests that, at least in our century, the
emergence of a vast new audience did not create a unified idiom on which
Hauser would willingly bestow the honorific title of an art style.
The history of art, the nature of its historical changes, stand in the
center of Hauser's investigation. On this point again, he presents the
reader with an embarrassing bundle of theoretical claims.
In harmony with his general conception of art as the mental appro-
priation of the world, Hauser affirms that progress in art could only be
understood as an increasing mastery of the world by the ordering and
meaning-producing mind (p. 111). On a less general level, he censures
Wolfflin and Riegl for their historicist relativism that made them reject
the notion of progress and replace it with organicist models which imply
a priority of the historical process over individuals, thereby unwittingly
subscribing to Hegel's Romantic idea of the "cunning of reason". Hauser
himself finds this idea fruitful in that it directs attention to the theo-
retical difficulties contained in the concept of style, but rather vaguely
he deems it "not entirely acceptable" (p. 139). It is a pity that he failed
to specify his objections, since the "cunning of reason" often figures
as an explanatory reference in this book. It is claimed that although
36 ANNA WESSELY
style is the result of attempts to solve personal problems, it represents

a suprapersonal tendency to which the individuals always orient them-
selves. The strategy by which a given style asserts its will is often adopted
unconsciously by its carriers: in its development a given style uses indi-
viduals for its own ends. In concluding this discussion under the title
'Psychoanalysis and Art History', Hauser suggests that the Hegelian
"cunning of reason" finds a close analogue in, and may some day be
better explained "in a scientifically more verifiable way", by the func-
tioning of the unconscious (p. 108). His preference for explanations of
the "invisible hand" type is particularly evident in the introductory
chapter of this book which speaks of the - only retrospectively visible
- "social law" which governed the apparently freely chosen individual
forms of expression (p. 13). Later on, however, the existence of such laws
is expressly negated by an assertion that "there are no historical laws
in any objective sense" but only an inner logic to development, nega-
tively definable by the realm of possibilities it excludes (p. 189).
IV
Having reviewed Hauser's conception of art, work of art, and art history,
I now want to discuss his "sociological" method. Although he declares
sociology to be the "focal discipline in our day" (p. 17), Hauser is not
familiar with either sociological theory construction or empirical research.
He knows the classics of sociological literature but he seems to have read
them with an exclusive interest in the philosophy of history and the
problems of historical and sociological concept formation. (The only
place in the book where one meets sociological categories is Hauser's
list of those aspects of social reality which psychoanalysis fails to involve
in its account of human action.) No wonder that his loose definition of
sociology identifies it with historical explanations which point to society,
mainly economic and political factors, as the determinant of phenomena
like art, religion, scholarship, etc. For him, sociology is the attempt to
expose those preconditions of thought and will which derive from our
social situatedness. He regards a decision for sociology as primarily a
moral one, "in favor of a rational ordering of life and for a struggle
against prejudices" (p. 17).
Hauser's sociological method relies almost exclusively on Mannheim,
the early Lukacs and some quotes from Marx and Engels on Art and
Literature, a volume collated by Lukacs and Lifschitz as a breviary for
Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. The closest parallel to Hauser's conception

of sociology can be found in the early writings of Lenin which declared
that "materialism is the only scientific method in sociology,,17 and "[w]hat
Marx and Engels called the dialectical method - as against the meta-
physical- is nothing else than the scientific method in sociology" .18 Lenin
compared Marx to Darwin, suggesting that just as Darwin
was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the muta-
bility and succession of the species, so Marx [... ] was the first to put sociology on a
scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the
sum-total of given production relations, by establishing the fact that the development of
such formations is a process of natural history.19
More specifically, Lenin claimed that it was the theory of class struggle
that raised sociology to the level of science, yielding its central cate-
gories. 20 Many socialist scholars embraced this idea, both in Western
Europe and in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, using the terms "Marxist"
and "sociological" as synonyms until Stalinist ideologists informed them
that sociology was a bourgeois pseudo-science.
In art criticism, the most heated debates of the nineteen-twenties and
early thirties arose from efforts to reconcile the theses of art's cogni-
tive function and of its ideological character. The acceptance of the
Leninist tenet that art as reflection (Wiederspiegelung) had a positive
social function in promoting knowledge conflicted with the Marxist
assumption that it was part of the ideological superstructure of society.
Ideology was, after all, false consciousness, whether interpreted as a more
or less deliberate distortion in the service of justifying particular social
interests, i.e., as a form of propaganda (what Mannheim termed the
particular concept of ideology) or as socially produced forms of con-
sciousness of which individuals were mere carriers as a function of
their class positions (equivalent to Mannheim's total concept of ideology).
Art could not possibly express false consciousness and fulfill a cogni-
tive function at the same time.
The suggested solutions fell, roughly, in two groups:
(1) Not all ideology is false. The proletariat in modem capitalist
society was, as Lukacs demonstrated in his History and Class Conscious-
ness, capable of true historical and social knowledge because its interests
pointed in the direction of historical progress. Similarly, in all societies
only those social classes which tried to impede social progress produced
and propagated false consciousness. History tells us which classes were
38 ANNA WESSELY
progressive or reactionary in their age and on this basis it is possible

to distinguish valuable art promoting true knowledge from art that is mere
ideology. Since, as Marx said, the ruling ideology of an age was the
ideology of its ruling class, the bulk of the preserved works of past art
and literature reflects false consciousness. The task is to reevaluate our
"historical legacy" in the light of these insights. (This position was
expressed in the young Plekhanov's dramatic outburst at the funeral of
the Russian poet Nekrasov, where he declared that the deceased had
fought for the exploited and oppressed of Russia and was, therefore, a
greater poet in the eyes of the proletariat than Pushkin, who had sung
of the spleen felt by socially useless aristocrats.) The job of the art
critic is simply to determine the class position of the author or artist in
question which will then yield the key to the aesthetic (that is, cogni-
tive) value of his or her works.
(2) Not all art is ideological. Those who felt dissatisfied with the
gloomy consequences of the above argument and were unwilling to
dispense with great past art had to find a way to justify its apprecia-
tion. They rejected the conclusions drawn by the adherents of a revision
of the cultural legacy (whom they branded "vulgar sociologists"), yet
they could not doubt the premises. They felt an exception had to be made
for great art, demonstrating that it was capable of presenting a true vision
of the society of its age, even if its creators were, admittedly, prisoners
of the ideological limitations of their class. Since a true Marxist cannot
embrace the Schillerian idea of the genius as an individual capable
of grasping and conveying higher truths, the principle that warranted
aesthetic and cognitive value had to be depersonalized and objectivized.
The permissibility of this step was "proven" by reference to two canon-
ical texts: Engels' acknowledgement of the cognitive value of the works
of the royalist Balzac and Lenin's praise of Lev Tolstoy, a "landlord
obsessed with Christ" and yet the true mirror of the Russian revolu-
tion. 21 Engels spoke of the "triumph of realism", meaning that the
imperatives of realist art had forced Balzac to transcend his ideological
limitations; Leninist aesthetics, appropriating a term of czarist cultural
policy, referred to Tolstoy'S narodnost' (his "being of the people")
as the reason for the truthfulness of his work, its grasp of the social
totality. Thus, narodnost' and realizm became the two pillars of Marxist-
Leninist art theory, supplemented with a third, partijnost' (urging
harmony with the communist party line) for purposes of contemporary
art criticism.
Struggling with the same problem of how to reconcile the ideo-

logical, that is, partial and perspectivist, nature of knowledge with the
possibility of true social knowledge, Karl Mannheim attempted to define
the privileged social standpoint which made that possible. Rejecting
the solution offered by Lukacs, he pointed to the socially unattached intel-
lectuals of modem society as the potential carriers of a knowledge that
can encompass the totality of the social process.
Hauser's description of perspectivally distorted knowledge faithfully
follows Mannheim even though it pays tribute to Marx. His arguments
for a sociology of art, if not platitudes or puzzling oracles,22 are heavily
indebted to Mannheim,23 although this debt is only partly acknowl-
edged. Hauser's definitions of ideology diverge from the Mannheimian
conception in the direction of Leninist aesthetics. He maintains that intel-
lectual trends always move in the categories of the relations of production
and of the interests, aspirations, and choices connected to them. Individual
decisions can thus play no role in creating the correspondence of base
and superstructure, of social existence and ideological expression.
However, he also believes that one can escape ideological determina-
tion by honest individual effort, by struggling "against one's own sub-
jectivity and partially, one's individual and class interests", and takes
Engels' oft-quoted words to mean that Balzac struggled to pull himself
out of the mire of ideology by his own bootstraps (p. 7).24
As to the connection between the cognitive and the aesthetic values
of an artwork, Hauser cleverly manoeuvres his way around the horns
of the dilemma that vexed Marxist theoreticians. He claims a cognitive
function for art in spite of its ideological character, insisting that "it would
be wrong to deny art all claim of achieving truth, to deny that it can make
a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the world and of man"
(p. 24). At the same time, he maintains that the dichotomy of true and
false does not apply to art. Artworks aspire to aesthetic validity only,
which is "utterly different from validity in science" (p. 37). The "value
of knowledge gained and propagated by art", we are told, "is not at all
impaired by its ideological character" (p. 36). The nature of this knowl-
edge remains a mystery. Hauser might have argued that art promotes a
specific kind of social learning by making its audience simultaneously
observe and experience the various aspects of interpersonal relation-
ships and social situations in the process of art reception. He could also
have interpreted the identification of the audience with the protagonists
of art works as a form of repeated role-taking, that is, of social learning.
40 ANNA WESSELY
Instead, he mocked this identification as romantic escapism and as a

cheap psychological surrogate for real life experiences. Or he might have
understood audience identification as a medium of self-knowledge, but
he reversed that relation by asserting that only self-aware, developed
personalities were capable of truly experiencing art.
The affinity between Hauser's conception of sociology and that of
Lenin and his followers is fascinating but probably accidental. The actual
context of his work is provided by the German theoretical tradition of
the nineteen-twenties with its endeavor to provide a more solid, histor-
ical or sociological, foundation to the Diltheyan analysis of worldviews. 25
If worldviews can be shown to be the expressions or symptoms of specific
social groups or situations, then the "transmission belts" sought by Max
Dvof{lk between the parallel spheres of intellectual activity, or their
"common denominator" which Mannheim tried to find, will prove the
adequacy of our experience of the meaning of artworks. The problem
is thus reduced to that of ascription (Zurechnung): it must be deter-
mined which social groups or situations have found expression in extant
works of art, literature, or philosophy. The work of Frederick Antal can
be read as an infinitely painstaking attempt to accomplish this task in
art history: to provide "social scientific" foundations for Dvorak's
insights. 26 Hauser's Mannerism, published in 1964, is a belated monument
to the same tradition: it is less cramped and anxious, but moves (however
dexterously) within the same old constrictive limits.
The book on Mannerism as a product of the nineteen-sixties illus-
trates that contemporaneity of the non-coeval (Gleichzeitigkeit des
Ungleichzeitigen) that Hauser discussed in The Philosophy ofArt History
along the lines indicated by Wilhelm Pinder and Karl Mannheim. It is
difficult to believe that the author of "the Hauser" (meaning The Social
History of Art) was our contemporary.27 The gap dividing Hauser's intel-
lectual generation from later ones is the lack of a concept of modernity
in his work. This is most evident in the monograph on Mannerism, pre-
cisely because it set itself the task of revealing the origins of modem
art in the crisis of the Renaissance. Our understanding of the transfor-
mation of art as activity and objects in the process of social rationalization
is alien to Hauser. He did read Weber, Benjamin, and Adorno upon whose
works such a conception of modernity relies, but he read them through
glasses borrowed from Simmel, dissolving their specific claims in a
general theory of cultural objectification and alienation. These authors
asserted the growing autonomy and mutual indifference of the various
spheres of human action (Weber's Lebensordnungen) which do not leave

room for the Diltheyan "whole person" with his (her?) all-encompassing
world view and individual taste. They discussed the changes in the social
function of the objects traditionally called works of art, which prompted
Benjamin to see art as finished and replaced either with totalitarian
aestheticized politics or with the aesthetically indifferent self-organi-
zation of the masses in a quasi-artistic medium. They revealed our
incapability to truly enjoy and understand both "high" and "mass" art,
neither of which can serve any more as the medium of self-expression
or self-knowledge in an age with either no selves or no uncontaminated
artistic media.
Arnold Hauser clung, with admirable obstinacy, to his own
Bildungsbiirger cult of art and aesthetic experience, disregarding all
indications of its illusory nature and, indeed, ideological function. This
attitude explains the apologetic tone of his arguments for a sociology
of art, his insistence on the irreducibility of aesthetic quality to socio-
logical or psychological "equivalents", his hymnic praise of artistic
form,28 and his regrets about the poor and inexpressive language of
sociology. He was anxious not to offend aesthetic sensibility with his
"materialist" analysis and failed to notice that art as material collective
action had long ago become organized and administered along purely
artistic principles, precisely in order to eliminate its possible conflicts
with other social interests. He was cognizant of Simmel's analysis of
the logic of fashion, but tried to demarcate its scope of action from art
proper, not daring to face the fact that "mere" fashion had replaced world-
views as the motor of stylistic change.
Eotvos Lorand University,

Budapest
NOTES
* The first version of this paper was presented at the symposium 'Arnold Hauser and
The Social History ofArt - Modernism and Modernity' organized by Jery Zaslove at Simon
Fraser University, Vancouver, September 1992.
1 K. Mannheim, 'Az ismeretelmelet szerkezeti elemzese', Athenaeum 4 (1918), pp.
233-247 and 315-330; A. Hauser, 'Az esztetikai rendszerezes problemaja', Athenaeum
4 (1918), pp. 331-354.
2 Both papers betray in their direction and methods the dominant influence of two
contemporary Hungarian philosophers, Bela Zalai and Gyorgy Lukacs.
42 ANNA WESSELY
3 Detailed discussions of the problem of meaning and understanding can be found in

the early works of Lukacs and Mannheim, cpo G. Lukacs, Heidelberger Philosophie der
Kunst (1912-1914) and Heidelberger Aesthetik (1916-1918), edited by F. Benseler and
Gy. Markus. Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1974-75; K. Mannheim, Wissenssoziologie, edited
by Kurt H. Wolff, Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1964, particularly pp. 66-154. See also A.
Wessely, 'Karl Mannheim's Program for the Sociology of Knowledge', Semiotische
Berichte 14 (1990), No.4, pp. 343-368.
4 Cpo D. Kettler, Marxismus und Kultur: Mannheim und Lukacs in den ungarischen
Revolutionen 1918/19, Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1967; E. Kariidi & E. Vezer (eds.), Georg
Lukacs, Karl Mannheim und der Sonntagskreis, Frankfurt am Main: Sendler, 1985; and
the contributions by E. Karadi and A. Wessely in the catalogue Wechselwirkungen,
Ungarische Avantgarde in der Weimarer Republik, edited by H. Gassner, Marburg:
Jonas, 1986, pp. 526-550.
5 Quoted from an interview that Arnold Hauser gave to M. Gach who published it in
the periodical Nagyvilag, 1971, p. 272.
6 See the excerpt from the diary of Bela Balazs in: Kariidi and Vezer, op. cit., pp.
126-127.
7 This is how Gombrich characterized Hauser in his review of The Social History of
Art (Art Bulletin, March 1953), reprinted in E. H. Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby
Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art, London/New York: Phaidon, 1971,
p.92.
8 On the interest in the sociology of art, prevalent in the Sunday Circle cpo A. Wessely,
'Simmel's Influence on Lukacs's Conception of the Sociology of Art', in: M. Kaern
and R. S. Cohen (eds.), Georg Simmel and Contemporary Sociology, Boston Studies in
the Philosophy and History of Science, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990, pp. 357-373.
9 E. H. Gombrich, op. cit., p. x.
10 Institut fiir Sozialforschung, Soziologische Exkurse. Nach Vortriigen und Diskussionen,
Frankfurt am MainlKoln: Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 1974, pp. 93-98.
II E. H. Gombrich, loco cit.
12 Cpo G. Simmel, Vom Wesen des historischen Verstehens, Berlin, 1918, particularly pp.
22-28.
13 The single chapters were written, as Hauser admits in the Preface, for various occa-
sions: A. Hauser, The Philosophy of Art History, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959,
p. vii.
14 Hauser, op. cit., pp. v-vi.
15 The second German edition of the book appeared under the title Methoden moderner
K unstbetrachtung.
16 A. Hauser, Mannerism. The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern
Act, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, vol. I, p. 61. Comments on pp. 153,
199,205,241, and 274 repeat the same idea without offering more evidence or substan-
tial social historical analysis.
17 V. I. Lenin, 'The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve's
book (The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature)" Collected Works, Moscow:
Foreign Language Publishing House, 1963, vol. 1, p. 418.
18 V. I. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" are and how they fight the Social
Democrats', Collected Works, Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1963, vol.
1, p. 165.
19 V. I. Lenin, ibid., p. 142.

20 V. I. Lenin, ibid., pp. 410-411.
21 V. I. Lenin, 'Leo Tolstoy as mirror of the Russian Revolution', Collected Works,
Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1963, vol. 15, pp. 202-209. The reinter-
pretation of narodnost' as the capability of grasping the totality of the social process
supported itself on Lenin's appreciation of Tolstoy "as the spokesman of the ideas and
sentiments that emerged among the millions of Russian peasants", because "the sum
total of his views, taken as a whole, happens to express the specific features of our
revolution as a peasant revolution" (p. 206).
22 Hauser claims, for example, that "the fact that there are such limits of objectivity
[he means 'the limits of what is thinkable and imaginable from our place in the world']
is the ultimate and decisive justification for a sociology of culture" (p. 8).
23 Cpo particularly Mannheim's essays 'On the Interpretation of Weltanschauung' (1922),
'The Ideological and Sociological Interpretation of Intellectual Phenomena' (1926), and
his book on the tasks of contemporary sociology (Die Gegenwartsaufgaben der Soziologie:
Ihre Lehrgestalt, Tiibingen, 1931).
24 Hauser offers an alternative view of the same matter in the chapter on psycho-
analysis. There (p. 94) he suggests: "What Engels understands by the 'triumph of realism'
may rather induce the artist to follow, instead of the ideological fallacies of his abstract
thought, the unconscious direction of his genius, which represents the facts of life in a
more adequate and, in the sense of historical materialism, more 'concrete' way than his
social theories or political convictions."
25 On this tradition, cpo Lenk, K., "Zur Methodik der Kunstsoziologie", in: P. Biirger,
Seminar: Literatur- und Kunstsoziologie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978, pp. 55-71.
26 F. Antal, Florentine Painting and Its Social Background, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1948, and Raffael zwischen Klassizismus und Manierismus, Giessen: Anabas
Verlag, 1980.
27 This puzzlement was expressed by Martin Warnke in his obituary 'Erfahrungen
eines Jahrhunderts: Arnold Hauser' (F.A.Z., Feb. I, 1978), reprinted in his Kiinstler,
Kunsthistoriker, Museen, LuzemlFrankfurt: Verlag J.C. Bucher, 1979, pp. 71-73.
28 The religious tone of Hauser's descriptions of artworks is pointed out by J.
Scharfschwerdt in his contribution to A. Silbermann (ed.), Klassiker der Kunstsoziologie,
Miinchen: C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1979, pp. 200-222.
EMIL Y HIES T AND
Poems from
Green the Witch-Hazel Wood
(Graywolf Press, 1989, National Poetry Series Award Book)
and from
Alluvial
(forthcoming)
45

1989, 1990, 1994 Emily Hiestand.
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
"Chain of Species"
from Alluvial (forthcoming)
first appeared in Southwest Review
"The Scientific Method"

first appeared in The Carolina Quarterly
"Plato Et Alia"
Green The Witch-Hazel Wood (Graywolf Press, 1989)
first appeared in The Nation
"Scalloping"
first appeared in Southwest Review
"On Nothing"
Green The Witch-Hazel Wood (Gray wolf Press, 1989)
first appeared in The Hudson Review
collected in Best American Poetry, 1990
"At The Pavilion, Newport"

Green The Witch-Hazel Wood (Graywolf Press, 1989)
46
CHAIN OF SPECIES
The top carnivores are the obvious ones,

but in the subtle chain, the ribbed mussel
of the marshes invites admiration:
When marsh grass is swept to sea

to decompose and fill the water
with slurries of phosphorus bits,
the humble mussel begins to work.

Three days pass. Phosphorus particles
are filtered, firmly placed in a marl,
to be by mud-feeders released,
to grasses and planktons, who spoonfeed
the fishes whose droppings are taken
by grasses as delicacies, moving them

to sweep again to the muscular sea:
a cycle familiar to us from Golden Books,
whose pictures neglect to say

that it all takes place in a rigorous tide,
rocking the bi-valves in their shells.
47
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Step Two: Gathering Evidence
Rumbling over tracks and down

a street bombastic with forsythia,
the inductive mind inquires at a door,
a post and lintel dark as charcoal
that a clumsy thumb might smudge.
Can we lightly touch? soft as the lip
of the purpling jamb blends to black?
Say a bicycle with silver wheels

is spinning an esplanade in the sun;
can we calibrate the radiance
as, for a moment, the cleated tires hum
over quarried pavement and there is
balance motivated by a human foot -
one wrinkled from the womb, inked
within hours of its birth, footbone
connected to the fishbone, fishbone . . .
Say the wind is rippling a crenulate

awning that shades a little spa.
Taut on ingenious frames the cloth
shades our store of meat and marzipan
(where there is a time to open, to close,
and time to sweep the floor of scraps).
The two-bit rig engages a faraway weather.
Can we tremble? so well as the canvas
luffs in the wind, its tooled and scalloped
edge moving easily as a flag over a country.
48
PLATO ET ALIA
for my brothers
Your shadow worlds and doubles

flung high as discus throwers can
are entirely beautiful to me:
the punch-out comets and stars
stuck on ceilings where heavens
skim domestically, and the schooled
models of thought like planes

my brothers glued nights at their desks,
the gooseneck lamp bent over them
all concern for their sticky fingers.
A moony lamp pooled on gliders,
fighters and on our father's shirtcards.
They used the frail woods,

balsa subject to being flattened
by wrongful, joyful leaps.
And so many are flown into walls!
Later, sturdy details are found in closets:
wings, struts, a pair of spinning wheels
and when the mind gets off its high horse

and, aching, comes to the ground -
Oh Brother, wish I could say
female is corporeal, the firmer flesh
you desire, less given to siege.
But rather I think
one doubleness is upon

the body of women -
and a pretty one at that.
Who wouldn't choose to be
the more delicious flesh,
untroubled by hiddenness?
49
SCALLOPING
Peconic Bay
Past the potato farms, the loamy land of the island

settles to a bay where in summer swans swim,
and the lazy channel can be culled for scallops:
sound succulents who loll the blackbottom,
muddy brown clots with lapis lazuli eyes on stalks.
At the net's faint prod, the luckiest flee, fleet
as spit seeds, while the shells of the sumptuous slow
clink in duffels on the ferry home.
Like polished memory, they lie.

What a study are the separated shells:
mixed pairs with arcing accretions very like,
but not the mirrors nature gamely promotes.
The trick of opposable thumbs, one crown
of our species, is to hold such together
again, to work a wobbly fingertip hinge,
to espie, at length, within the fluted lips,
a handmade version of the original chamber.
50
ON NOTHING
The problem is the dissection problem.

Let me have at that frog. One lays open
a tiny heart and slimy little lungs
and is sickened by bullfrogs mottled in pond water,
mating forever. Is it too much or too little love
for the world that moves one to despair
in this life about the despair of nothing after life,
which this life briefly - badly - interrupts?
It is true, nothing is unfamiliar to us,

accustomed as we are to linoleum, wool snoods,
hands in pockets feeling the working hip bone.
But nothing is not despair, nor dark, nor pain;
it is none of these, and that is the point.
So if driven by fear of nothing, despair
is a simple mistake, a bit of a joke.
And what a waste of the gaping something to think

that because it is over soon, it is a groaning
effort to haul the sun each morning, to scurry
around a pyramid of footstools, improbable beings
frantic as mimes to prop up marvels that wobble
toward drains or manholes.
And too, it's unclear that eternity

has claim to meaning, or that if we had longer -
forever say - we could do better than we do
at five in a wagon, at eighty brushing the hair
from the forehead of a new youth.
Eternity seems an unlikely place to look
for more. Those twin prongs of before and after
seem merely to hold the middle ground like skewers
on summer corn so we may bring it tidily to our lips.
51
52 EMIL Y L. HIESTAND
In fact, we don't know that there is nothing.

All that we are and all that we aren't - it's not that.
The process of oceans grinding shells to sand
and sucking it back for bottom dwellers - it's not
even that. Zero is our invention,
an idea for which there is no evidence.
The great metaphor of empty space is false,
full of red suns rising in every direction.
A vacuum is light. A leg severed is memory.
A child unborn is regret or relief.
An accident avoided is a picnic by the road
with Dairy Queen burgers in thin tissue wrappings
smelling of salt and blissful grease.
Except that we think of it, and on occasion,

groping for a nameless quarter, will feel the pull
of a thing beyond reckoning. But to think of it,
even to name it nameless means: that is not what we face.
Either our minds are famously unreliable
and we should get on with folding napkins and sheets
steaming from the iron, or our thoughts
are not aliens, rather emitted from nature like shad-roe,
oxides, uranium or burls. If so, these
conceptual visions of nothing, at which we excel,
are pictures of home, to be admired more stringently.
AT THE PAVILION
Newport, Rhode Island
Pavilions abound in this old whaling town.

This one inhabits an ocean park,
a little sward with a marginal wood
aflutter with Pearly Eyes,
the satyr butterfly whose wings
hold four dark purple eyes.
The columns of the pavilion are Doric,
old and upright as men and women
who once braced their limbs to bear
great pallets of wheat at harvest.
There are children at play on the floor
where the old stones must seep
a little through their cotton jeans.
Down by the limestone seawall

a statue holds a looking glass,
one fixed arm flung to the waves
where beyond the bronze man,
day sailors come about
neat and clean as napkins.
Still, we want the unreckless hero
knowing something of stars,
of hardware and conversation
to despook the night at anchor
with halyards rattling.
These columns are smooth carved,

like the boon of an apple,
like the full clear face
we long to give the world,
and yet I am thralled
as across the surfaces, light
53
54 EMIL Y L. HIESTAND
goes lily, dove, charcoal,

and fails to undo the dark.
Can we breathe on the earth,
heroic and mild as the weak
dancing flight of the Pearly Eye?
MYRIAM BIENENSTOCK
HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF TELEOLOGY
Most often, it is in order to answer questions bearing upon the philos-

ophy of action that Hegel's conception of teleology is now examined:
many philosophers interested in the nature of action have come to the
conclusion that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to account
for it in non-teleological, mechanistic terms; and the question thus
arises of determining whether Hegel's conception of teleology can be
of some use in the endeavour to develop a more satisfactory, alterna-
tive explanatory framework for the human and social sciences. Inter-
preters acknowledge, of course, that Hegel's own discussion of the
question took place in a completely different context: his would have
been a much more ambitious project, one which seems to have con-
sisted in no less than uncovering the conceptual structure of the world
in its totality. Yet his conception might be re-formulated for the human
sciences; and all things considered, didn't his own fundamental insight
bear mainly upon the philosophy of action, even if it was put in much
broader terms?1
However interesting this line of interpretation might reveal itself to
be, it does not retain much, it seems to me, of what Hegel himself had
to say: Hegel's own use of teleology had very little to do with the
explanation of human action proper. As a matter of fact, when he comes
to the study of human action, Hegel rather finds it useful and even
necessary to resort to causal, mechanistic explanations: contrary to what
is often argued, indeed, he makes much use of causal explanations in
politics, for example, as well as in history. This state of affairs would
be of very little philosophical interest to us today if it merely concerned
Hegel himself, and the way in which he cbnceived his philosophical
system. But it seems to me that we still have much to learn from this
system, as it was historically developed: the "holistic" approach to which
Hegel resorts in his study of history and politics as well as, for that matter,
in his consideration of nature may well reveal itself quite capable of
accounting for those features of human action mechanistic explanations
seen unable to deal with: for all those features of it which seem irre-
ducibly collective, for example. Needless to say, endorsing a "holistic"
55

56 MYRIAM BIENENSTOCK
approach does not necessarily lead to collectivism, or to totalitarianism:

Hegel's use of teleology can be shown to be quite immune to the mis-
givings Popper and his disciples read into it. 2
The first part of this paper will consist in an attempt to show how
Hegel himself accounted for intentional or purposeful actions. It will then
be argued that Hegel's famous thesis of the "cunning of reason" rests
not upon the assumption of supraindividual entities directing the life
and action of individuals, but precisely upon the use of causal or mech-
anistic explanations. The third and last part of the paper will deal with
Hegel's conception of teleological arguments proper: I will argue that
one way of making sense of their Aristotelian background is to say that
for Hegel, teleological arguments should not be considered as methods
of acquiring knowledge but, rather, as a way of presenting an already
acquired knowledge.
***
It is to the subdivision of the Encyclopaedia which deals with 'Practical
spirit' ( 469-480) and to the much longer section on 'Morality' of
the Elements of the Philosophy of Right ( 105-141) that one must
turn, in order to find Hegel's analysis of purposeful and intentional
behaviour. 3 The section on Teleology of the Science of Logic does not
contain such an analysis. In this latter section, Hegel clarifies the meaning
of the notions of Zweck and Endzweck ("end and "final end") or
Zweckmiissigkeit ("finality"), not of the notions of Vorsatz ("purpose")
and Absicht ("intention") - two terms which nowhere appear in it. 4 This
fact itself should have made commentators wary of reading into this
section a conception of human action. It should also have induced them
to conclude that in this section Hegel most certainly had a completely
different aim in mind.
The section on Morality of the Philosophy of Right, which explic-
itly deals with human action, distinguishes very clearly between the three
German terms Vorsatz, Absicht and Zweck (e.g., PhR, 114). In this
section, Hegel writes that actions led by a "purpose" or Vorsatz (PhR,
115-118) are "finite" actions. Their "finitude", he explains, consists
in the fact "that the action of the will presupposes (Hegel's emphasis)
an external object (Gegenstand) with various attendant circumstances"
(PhR, 115). Put in other words, this means that for Hegel a "purpose"
is a "representation" (Vor-stellung: etymologically, whatever is put or
presented before me): when I act according to a purpose, whatever is
HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF TELEOLOGY 57
in my thought is the "presentation before me" (Vorstellung) of the situ-

ation in which I find myself, or of some of the circumstances which
characterize this situation. Hegel puts much emphasis upon the fact that
this representation is arbitrarily, not essentially related to my will: it is
given to me, or presupposed, in the same sense in which the situation
itself is presupposed (PhR, 117). Thus, to take one example, if I want
to analyze what I am doing when I go and buy myself a brand new car,
I must acknowledge that both the car itself and its representation are given
to me. Neither the one nor the other are necessarily related to my will.
Hegel argues, then, that the ends man sets himself in a purposeful action
take the form of given ends: these are natural impulses, inclinations
whose content, far from being chosen by men, rather imposes itself
upon them (PhR, 123 and Add. See also PhR, 11).
Furthermore, he continues: "to attempt to justify something in terms
of its intention is to isolate an individual aspect completely and to
maintain that it is the subjective essence of the action" (PhR, 119,
Rem.): here, he plays upon the etymological roots of the German term
Absicht ("intention") - which means "looking away" (ab-sehen) - i.e.,
he says, abstracting from a concrete state of affairs, taking apart or
separating from it one of its aspects. From this he infers that an inten-
tional action is one by means of which the agent attempts to realize
"abstract" aims: he abstracts from the natural content of his will, i.e.,
"needs, inclinations, passions, opinions, fancies etc," an allegedly more
general aim: "welfare or happiness", for example, This definition of
intentional action is relevant to the issue of moral responsibility; for,
according to Hegel, if we can be held juridically responsible for pur-
poseful actions in general, we must be considered morally responsible
for intentional actions: "The transition from purpose to intention consists,
then, in the fact that I ought to be aware not only of my individual action,
but also of the universal which is associated with it. When it emerges
in this manner, the universal is what I have willed, i.e., my intention"
(PhR, 118, Add.).
But intentions, universal purposes also are "the ends of finitude
in general" (die Zwecke der Endlichkeit iiberhaupt: PhR, 123): inten-
tional actions are "finite" ones, just like purposeful actions. Intentions,
as well as purposes, are put to work upon a presupposed reality, an
externally given object. An action considered under the aspect of its
purposefulness or intentionality, Hegel insists, is "the end translated
into the external world" (der in die Ausserlichkeit gesetzte Zweck): an
action which is "exposed to external forces", or takes place in a context

of "external necessity": " ... inner necessity comes into existence in
the finite realm as external necessity, as a relationship between individual
things (Dinge) which, as self-sufficient entities, come together in mutual
indifference and in an external manner" (PhR, 118).
Hegel could not say more clearly that actions considered as purposeful
or intentional must be analyzed according to causal, mechanistic cate-
gories. For what characterizes "mechanism" in his philosophy is precisely
the externality or mutual independence of things or parts of things.
"This is what constitutes the character of mechanism", he writes in the
Science of Logic:
that whatever relation obtains between the things combined, this relation is one extraneous
to them that does not concern their nature at all, and even if it is accompanied by a
semblance of unity it remains nothing more than composition, mixture, aggregation and
the like ... (Werke, vol. 6, p. 409 f.; Sc.L., p. 711).
Mechanism, he explains in this book, presupposes atomism. In it, no self-

determination is at work. Rather, because the parts of a mechanism are
taken to be external to each other, only efficient causes can be found
in it (Werke, vol. 6, p. 437; Sc.L., p. 734). Indeed, he insists, one may
well say that in a mechanism objects or their elements exert "violence"
(Gewalt) against each other (Werke, vol. 6, p. 420f.; Sc.L., p. 746): objects
bear upon each other in a merely external way, and the resistance they
evince in opposing each other appears as a resistance to a merely arbi-
trary and ungrounded extraneous pressure.
And yet, Hegel adds, this resistance itself shows that both objects
partake of the same rational actuality. Through it, an inner "power"
(Macht) or universality manifests itself: the "power" of reason (e.g.,
Werke, vol. 6, p. 235 and 277; Sc.L., p. 567 and 603). Hegel contends,
then, that although the outcome of mechanical, causal processes is, on
the face of it, arbitrary, it is actually determined by Reason; and he insists
that it is by means of these processes that Reason realizes itself; it is,
he says, by means of mechanism, by means of "violence," that the "sub-
jective end" realizes itself.s
The meaning of this notion of a "subjective end" (der subjective
Zweck), to which Hegel devotes the first section of his chapter on tele-
ology in the Science of Logic, needs to be clarified here. In this first
section, Hegel begins his discussion with the assertion that the end, the
Zweck, is that of "the subjective concept" (or "notion": der subjektive
Begriff: Werke, vol. 6, p. 445; Sc.L., p. 740): he ascribes "ends" (Zwecke)

to what he calls the "concept", not to purposes or intentions. In Hegel,
let it be unequivocally stated here, the "subjective" is not the inten-
tional or, for that matter, the mental; and the "objective" is not just that
which is external to us, or that which reaches us from the outside, by
means of sense-perception. Hegel repeatedly criticizes this current use of
the antithesis subjectivity-objectivity, pointing to the many different
meanings we ascribe to these terms and the confusion which derives from
their ambiguity (e.g., Enc., 41 and Add,; PhR, 26 and Add.). For
Hegel, the common opposition is itself anchored in a merely formal,
reflective way of philosophizing, one which takes the relation of con-
sciousness to an allegedly external world as central and cannot account
for the true objectivity of reality or, for that matter, of thinking itself. 6
Shouldn't it be acknowledged, he says, that thinking itself can have an
"objectivity"? It will gain it in going beyond appearances, reaching first
universal and necessary determinations and then, but only then, the
"concept". For Hegel, objectivity thus is "that which is in and for itself,"
or "the absolute being of the Concept" (Werke, vol. 6, p. 408; Sc.L.,
p. 709f. ): it is the realization - albeit incomplete - of the concept, i.e.,
of what may be taken to be the conceptual structure of the world.
It is impossible to adequately understand Hegel's philosophy of action,
as developed for example in the Philosophy of Right, without paying
attention to these definitions. Already in the Introduction to this work,
Hegel himself clearly distinguishes between the aspect under which the
will "appears", i.e., "the relation of consciousness" (PhR, 8), and the
"concept" of the will, i.e., freedom, or self-determination (PhR, 7).
The actual subject-matter of his book is nothing else than this "concept"
of freedom, and the way in which it gains "objectivity". But, Hegel adds,
it is dialectics which shows how the "concept" develops or produces itself
out of itself (PhR, 31). Thereupon, he refers the reader to his Science
of Logic: it is in this book, he says, that he elucidates the meaning of
his dialectics. To understand what is freedom for Hegel, and how we
can reach it, we must tum to the Science of Logic and, more particu-
larly, to its chapter on teleology.
***
In the second and third sections of this chapter - the sections entitled
'The Means' (Das Mittel) and 'The Realized End' (Der ausgefiihrte
Zweck) - Hegel contends that mechanism is the very "means," through

which the "concept" gains objectivity. This argument sheds much light
upon the meaning of his dialectics, and also upon the meaning of his
famous thesis about the "cunning of reason", developed in the same
chapter (Werke, vol. 6, p. 452f.: Sc.L., p. 746f.) I would like to present
here a few remarks about this thesis. For it has often been considered
- rightly so, it seems to me - as the most interesting part of Hegel's
conception of teleology. Yet it is frequently misinterpreted.
Most often, commentators turn to the Philosophy of History in order
to clarify its meaning. They say that in this book Hegel resorts to the
"cunning of reason" in order to account for the unintentional historical
effects of men's individual deeds: Hegel would argue in this book that
such effects can be related to a supraindividual, collective or "divine"
purpose, one which would realize itself by means of men's individual
deeds, yet against them. It seems to me, however, that this reconstruc-
tion slurs over the gist of Hegel's argument. For it is worth noticing,
in the first place, that in the Philosophy ofHistory itself Hegel puts much
emphasis upon the causal necessity which links men's intentional actions
to their proximate and remote effects: 7 he writes that purposive or inten-
tional actions take place in a mechanical world and that they are therefore
dependent on causal necessity. My contention is that it is this causal
necessity which he makes to account for the unintended results to which,
only too often, men's deeds lead in history: he argues that it bears itself
evidence to the actuality of Reason.
Hegel also acknowledges that men can acquire knowledge of the
causal laws which order nature, and use this knowledge in order to
further their own ends: men, he says, can make tools, instruments of
work, and use these tools as they want. As a matter of fact, it is worth
noticing that Hegel first resorted to the notion of "cunning" (List) or
"deceit" (Betrug) precisely while attempting to account for man's tool-
making activity: as early as 1803, in Lectures on the Philosophy of
Spirit, he argued that man, taken as an individual, cannot just oppose
himself to nature and the objective world, for it and its laws will
endure,
And the singular individual can only devise for himself a kind of acting in common, in
which nature goes on for itself on its necessary way, and the singular individual lurks
on it, so to speak, Ito see/ where it matches his ends; and at this point he stands by it,
and deceives it, for while it /nature/ seems to move for itself, this however actually happens
for the subject .... 8
In his Jena 1805/06 Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel then

argued that man's ability to make tools can be considered as a kind of
"cunning" or List: through this activity, he wrote, men compel nature
to work for their own purposes. 9 From this one may conclude that the
"cunning of Reason" formula was definitely not devised in order to
account for unintended results of men's actions. It rather purported to
account for their very ability to realize their own individual intentions,
over and against nature: for what one may even call their ingenuity as
individuals, their creativity as tool-making animals.
It is true that, already at Jena, Hegel also insisted that the "means"
men use in their tool-making activity are much more significant than
the individual purposes this activity is supposed to further: "means",
not purposes, bear evidence to Reason (ibid., ibid.). This thesis is
reiterated in his mature work. Thus, in the Science of Logic, for example,
he contends that men's tool-making activity does not and cannot outweigh
"fate". Through their labour, he says, men mayor may not reach their
own individual, "finite" ends. But the "means," the instruments they make
remain: "the tool lasts, while the immediate enjoyments pass away and
are forgotten. In his tools man possesses power over external nature, even
though, with respect to his ends, he is, on the contrary, subject to it
(Werke, vol. 6, p. 453; Sc.L., p. 747). This, however, can certainly not
be taken to mean that for Hegel men turn out to be mere pawns in the
process of history. The thesis Hegel wants to put forward here is very
different and, indeed, quite opposed to the above-mentioned interpreta-
tion: he puts emphasis upon the technical progress men bring about
through their "cunning". He argues that this cunning, i.e., men's ability
to put themselves aside, to know nature as it is and thereby use it as
they like is precisely what enables them, in the long run, to master it.
A similar argument should be made with regard to history and politics:
here again, a knowledge of the causal laws directing social and polit-
ical life might be instrumental to men. This is the reason for which in
his treatment of the social division of labour Hegel vindicates, once again,
the use of causal, mechanical forms of explanation: he praises the modern
science of political economy for its very reliance upon causal, mechan-
ical forms of explanation (e.g., PhR, 189, rem.).l0 It is worth noticing,
indeed, that Hegel's account of the Smithian "invisible hand" allegedly
at work in the social division of labour (PhR, 199) makes no appeal
at all to supraindividual, collective or divine entities: the "invisible hand"
which accounts for the fact that in a liberal economy individuals, although
pursuing only their own particular interest, actually further what is or,
rather, passes for the general good is not that of a collective, supra-
individual entity. Hegel's contention rather is that if we want to
understand the true meaning of man's purposeful or intentional actions,
we must attempt to identify the efficient causes of his behaviour, the laws
which govern it. We must resort to causal, mechanical explanations.
Thus, to follow up the example given above, Hegel would have
claimed that if I want to understand what I am actually doing when I
go and buy myself a brand new car, I must resort to a mechanical form
of analysis: I must try to analyze the laws which govern kinds of behav-
iour similar to mine. I must acknowledge that the fact that I desire a
new car and, perhaps, one of a particular brand, is not merely contingent:
it may well have something to do with the publicity made by, e.g., the
firm General Motors, to which I am particularly receptive. Indeed, my
very desire to buy a car may be causally explained: this is not a "natural"
desire, but one induced in me by public opinion, or by what Hegel
perspicuously acknowledged, as early as 1805/06, for the influence of
"fashion".11 Hegel's "holism", let it be emphasized here, does not rest
upon the ascription of unintended results of individual actions to the
workings of a collective mind, some collective subject which would
regulate the lives of individual men over and beyond their conscious
intentions. It rather rests upon the contention that, in the modern soci-
eties he analyses, there are social entities such as, for example, the
institution of private property, which might be causally more important
than individual agents. Hegel had good reasons to begin his Elements
of the Philosophy of Right with an examination of the institution of
private property: for him, a correct analysis of the social division of
labour which takes place in modern societies ought to begin with an
analysis of this institution rather than with the identification of men's
intention or purposes. Hegel's philosophy of "objective spirit" is objec-
tive precisely inasmuch as it rests upon the contention that social and
political institutions have an "objectivity" of their own, which must be
analyzed independently of the intentions or purposes of individual
actors. Put in other terms, this means that one cannot account for
individual actions without referring them to the social and political
institutional framework in which they take place: individual actions
must be explained in terms of social factors. But this kind of explana-
tion is no more irreconcilable with the ideal of individual freedom than
Hegel's account of man's "cunning" in the analysis of nature: according
to Hegel, it is by standing aside and letting social life move for itself
that man, learning to know its movement, can hope to reach the stage
at which, one day, he will be able to "deceive" it, and make it work
for himself.
The very meaning of Hegel's "dialectics" comes here to the fore.
For Hegel, as is well-known, dialectics is the faculty of mediation: it
draws its meaning from the notion of "means" or Mitte. Hegel defines
this "means" (das Mittel, or die Mitte) as that which mediates between
"subjectivity" and "objectivity." In the chapter on teleology of the Science
of Logic, he writes that the "means" is the "mechanical object", the
mechanically-structured reality, through which the "concept" realizes
itself (Werke, vol. 6, p. 395; Sc.L., p. 744); and, he continues: "that the
end posits itself in a mediate relation with the object and interposes
another object between itself and it, may be regarded as the cunning of
reason" (Werke, vol. 6, p. 452; Sc.L., p. 746).
He also notes in the Encyclopaedia Logic that Reason
is as cunning as it is mighty. Its cunning generally consists in the mediating activity which,
while it lets objects act upon one another according to their own nature, and wear each
other out, executes only its end (Zweek) without itself mingling in the process (Ene., 209,
Add.).
When, in the chapter on teleology of the Science of Logic, Hegel

inserts between "the concept" ("the subjective end") and objectivity
("the realized end") a section on "the means", what he wants to say
thus is that it is only by means of a causal analysis, because and inasmuch
as one presupposes mechanism, that one can hope to ultimately reach
objectivity.
***
His main thesis, in the chapter on teleology of the Science of Logic, is
that teleology is "the truth of mechanism" (e.g., Werke, vol. 6, p. 437f.;
Sc.L., p. 735). What is at stake in this thesis is, in the first place, the
status Kant ascribed to concepts of reason, or Ideas: whether constitu-
tive and determining, or merely regulative.
Already at the beginning of the chapter on teleology, Hegel praises
Kant for having opposed "external" or "relative" purposiveness or finality
(relative oder iiussere Zweckmiissigkeit) to "inner purposiveness" or
finality (innere Zweckmiissigkeit): through this notion, he writes, Kant
"has opened up the Notion of life, the Idea, and by so doing has done
positively for philosophy what the Critique of Reason did but imperfectly,
equivocally, and only negatively, namely raised it above the deter-
minations of reflection and the relative world of metaphysics" (Werke,
vol. 6, p. 440f.; Sc.L., p. 737). To clarify what he wants to say here,
one must return to Kant's discussion of teleology in the Critique of
Judgment. 12 In this book, Kant draws attention to the capacities of a living
or, for that matter, organized being to be, in a way, self-productive:
such a being, he says, seems able to reproduce or recreate itself, i.e.,
to reconstitute its unity, over and beyond the destruction of one of its
parts. This unity thus seems to consist in much more than the mere
sum, association or juxtaposition of different parts. But, Kant adds, if
indeed this is the case, then it is impossible to account for the unity
of a living being by merely causal, mechanical forms of explana-
tion. Another form of explanation seems to be required, one which
would rest upon the recognition that the object itself, far from merely
being an aggregate of essentially different parts, has a unity of its own
(65).
This is the very presupposition upon which teleological explanations
rest. Such explanations consist in arguing that the object under consid-
eration is driven by an "inner end," a Zweck. But, Kant writes:
For a thing to be a natural end (ein Naturzweck: my translation), in the first place it is
requisite that its parts (as regards their presence and their form) are only possible through
their reference to the whole. For the thing itself is an end (Zweck: my translation), and
so is comprehended under a concept or an idea which must determine a priori all that is
to be contained in it ... it is requisite, secondly, that its parts should so combine in the
unity of a whole that they are reciprocally cause and effect of each other's form. Only
in this way can the idea of the whole conversely (reciprocally) determine the form and
combination of all the parts, not indeed as cause - for then it would be an artificial product
- but as the ground of cognition, for him who is judging it, of the systematic unity and
combination of all the manifold contained in the given material. (ibid., ibid.)
Kant argues, then, that the teleological explanation of an object

consists in ascribing to this object a unity of its own, one which would
not be merely introduced in it from the outside, by our human under-
standing, but rather objectively given, or interior to the object.
Teleological explanations, he says, consist in accounting for the whole
of an object - for its form, and also for its very existence - by means
of a "concept." In the Critique of Judgment, indeed, he defines the
"end" (Zweck) as "the object of a concept (my emphasis), in so far as
the concept is regarded as the cause of the object (the real ground of
its possibility)"; and ''finality'' (Zweckmiissigkeit) or forma finalis as "the

causality of a concept in respect of its object" ( 10).
Hegel's account of teleological explanations manifestly draws upon
these definitions: in the chapter on teleology of the Science of Logic,
Hegel writes that "the end is the concept itself in its existence" (der Zweck
list] der Begriff selbst in seiner Existenz: Werke, vol. 6, p. 438; Sc.L.,
p. 736; my translation). Just like Kant, he argues that teleological expla-
nations consist in ascribing a conceptual structure to an object, one which
would account for the totality of this object. Just like Kant, too, he puts
strong emphasis upon the fact that the notion of an "end" (or Zweck)
is intimately related to the idea of a totality: it is supposed to account
for the whole, the totality of the object under consideration. One may
well say, indeed, that for him as for Kant it is precisely because the "end"
or Zweck is supposed to account for the whole of the object that it may
be said to be self-productive: all the particular determinations which
characterize the object are deemed deducible from it.
In the Critique of Judgment, Kant also brings his discussion of tele-
ological judgments to bear upon the examination of nature in general. He
attempts to determine whether or not teleological judgments are appro-
priate or even, for that matter, necessary to the knowledge of any natural
object, not only to that of living or organized beings (e.g., 67). Indeed,
it would be no exaggeration to say, it seems to me, that in this book
he is not so much interested in the peculiar structure of living beings
proper as in the nature and value of teleological explanations in general;
and that it is because and inasmuch as living beings seem to bear evidence
to the limitations of causal, mechanical models of explanation that he
pays attention to them.
I think that Hegel's discussion of teleology or, for that matter, of the
"Idea of Life" in the Science of Logic is prompted by the same interest:
this is a discussion of the relative value of mechanical vs. teleological
forms of explanation. It seems to me, too, that the position Hegel adopts
on this question cannot be adequately understood without Kant. It is
worth noticing that in the Critique ofJudgment Kant himself insists upon
the fact that that there is no incompatibility between teleological and
mechanical explanations. He even goes one step further: according to
him, it is only because our human understanding is a merely discursive
faculty, one which requires the intuition of contingent and empirically
given existing things for its exercise, that we must distinguish between
mechanism and teleology ( 76).
He distinguishes between "concepts" of the understanding and "con-

cepts" of Reason, or Ideas: "Concepts of the understanding, he writes,
must, as such, always be demonstrable ... ; i.e., the object corresponding
to them must always be capable of being given in intuition (pure or
empirical), for thus alone could they become cognitions." But a "concept"
of reason, a rational idea "involves a concept (of the supersensible)
corresponding to which an intuition can never be given" ( 57). Our
human understanding is not intuitive; and it is precisely because it is
not intuitive that it cannot account for the very existence of objects,
i.e., put forward a truly explanatory teleological account of these objects.
But, Kant adds:
We can, however, think an understanding which being, not like ours, discursive, but
intuitive, proceeds from the synthetical-universal (the intuition of a whole as such) to
the particular, i.e., from the whole to the parts. The contingency of the combination of
the parts, in order that a definite form of the whole shall be possible, is not implied by
such an understanding and its representation of the whole ( 77).
For such an understanding, "the principle of the universal mechanism

of matter" with "the teleological principle in the technique of nature"
would coalesce in a single higher principle: "the supersensible" (das
Ubersinnliche: 78).
When, in the Science of Logic, Hegel writes that teleology is "the truth
of mechanism," he draws upon this analysis. He endorses Kant's notion
of an "intuitive understanding"; and he argues that it is this faculty,
i.e., Reason, which enables us to gain knowledge of the world as a whole,
in its totality.13
Kant explicitly denies this latter contention. To be sure, he says, the
concept of a natural end may give us a guiding thread for the study of
nature. Indeed, he adds, such a concept may even be necessary for this
study: in the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, he suggests that
teleological judgments are conducive to and even necessary for the
knowledge of nature in general; and he links these judgments to the
idea of a totality of nature: for us to gain knowledge of nature in general,
he says, we must assume "a principle of purposiveness (or finality: my
translation) for our cognitive faculty," one which would account for
"the unity of experience (as a system of empirical laws)." For, he
explains: "without this presupposition we should have no order of nature
in accordance with empirical laws, and consequently no guiding thread
for an experience ordered by these in all their variety, or for an inves-
tigation of them." ( V) But he makes it very clear that the concept of
a "natural end" is not a principle for the determinant but only for the
reflective judgment; that it is regulative and not constitutive ( 67). He
contends that "we cannot form the smallest positive determinate concept"
of the supersensible ( 78); and that therefore teleology cannot provide
us with any truly scientific knowledge.
Hegel is convinced that one should ascribe a constitutive and deter-
mining role to teleological judgments (Werke, vol. 6, p. 437ff; Se.L.,
p. 734f.). But his disagreement with Kant on the status of teleological
judgments should not prevent us from recognizing his debt to this philoso-
pher: his is, just like Kant's, an attempt to account for organized beings,
and also for the world as a whole, by means of concepts. Just like Kant's,
his is a question about the conceptual structure of really existing objects
or, for that matter, of the world as a whole. This is not a question about
its intentionality.
***
Can one make sense, then, of this Hegelian question about the concep-
tual structure of reality? Let us note here that it is not proper to Hegel:
it goes at least as far back as Aristotle. Just like Aristotle, Hegel tries
to understand in what sense "intelligence" - or, rather, the nous, in the
Aristotelian sense of the term - governs the world. My concluding
remarks will deal with the meaning of Hegel's Aristotelianism in his
account of teleology.
What betrays Hegel's indebtedness to Aristotle in this matter is the
syllogistic form he gives to his argument (e.g., Ene., 206-207). To
account for the meaning of this idiosyncratic presentation, it would be
necessary to go back to Aristotle's logic and, more particularly, to
Aristotle's analysis of the nature and scientific role of a syllogistic demon-
stration in the Posterior Analyties. For it is, I think, this analysis, much
more than Aristotle's account of living beings, which illuminates the
meaning of Hegel's own account of teleology.
I cannot possibly attempt here to clarify all that is involved in
Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle's logic. But I would like to spell out
one of its most significant bearings: in his Posterior Analyties, Book
B, Aristotle attempts to determine "how one proves what a thing is,
and what is the fashion of the reduction, and what definition is and of
what ... [also] whether one can know the same thing in the same
respect by definition and demonstration, or whether that is impossible": 14
he wonders about the nature and explanatory role of definitions.
This is the very question which underlies Hegel's chapter on teleology:

in this chapter, Hegel deals with the nature and explanatory role of
definitions. Hegel's teleological judgments are definitory attempts: they
are attempts to identify things or kinds of things by situating them in
what one may call the conceptual economy of the world. But if indeed
this is the case, then Aristotle's question arises, once again, with full
strength: is it possible to argue, and in what sense, that definitions are
explanatory?
I would like to make just one suggestion here: it is by resorting to
one classical Aristotelian distinction - the distinction between what is
"prior to us," and what is "prior by nature" - between the acquisition
of knowledge and its presentation, once acquired, that commentators
often attempt to account for the explanatory power Aristotle ascribes
to his syllogisms: Aristotle's syllogisms, they say, would be ways of
presenting an already acquired knowledge, not methods one might use
in order to acquire this knowledge. IS Isn't it plausible that Hegel endorsed
a similar position? According to him, too, knowledge has to be acquired
through the hard work of empirical research and analysis. In his work,
let it be noticed here, Hegel emphasizes, over and over again, that there
are no shortcuts to knowledge; everyone, he says, should think on his
own and undertake the long and arduous path followed by science
throughout world-history.
But he may well have believed, just like Aristotle, that knowledge can
be presented, once acquired, in a "teleological," i.e., deductive form.
To be sure, such a presentation may well be deemed ultimately circular:
Hegel himself gives it the form of an encyclopaedia, a system. Would
it be right to argue, though, that his system is not at all explanatory?
University of Grenoble,
France
NOTES
I I am referring here mainly to the renewal of interest in Hegel aroused by Charles

Taylor's book Hegel (Cambridge University Press, 1975). See also, more particularly,
his "Hegel's philosophy of mind" in Human agency and language, Philosophical papers
I (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985), pp. 77-96.) It should be kept in mind
that Taylor's first work was devoted to The Explanation of Behaviour (Routledge and
Kegan, London, 1964).
2 On the use of causal explanations in history and the discussion with Popper see in
particular R. S. Cohen, 'Causation in history', in Physics, Logic, and history, Plenum Press,
1970, pp. 231-251.
3 The following editions and translations of Hegel's works have been used: Werke in
zwanzig Banden, Theorie Werkausgabe, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 1969 (abbre-
viated as Werke); Science of Logic (Sc.L.), trans. A. V. Miller. Allen and Unwin, London,
1969; The Encyclopaedia Logic, Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences
(with the Zusatze), trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting. and H. S. Harris. Hackett,
Indianapolis, 1991; A. Wood (ed.), Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. by H. B.
Nisbet. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991 (PhR). I shall follow the usual
practice of citing only the paragraph numbers of the Encyclopaedia and the Principles
of the Philosophy of Right.
4 Whereas the new English translation (by H. B. Nisbet) of the Philosophy of Right
does make a distinction between Vorsatz and Zweck, rendering them respectively as
"purpose" and "end", the English editions of the Science of Logic translate Zweck
as "purpose", thus overlooking the distinctive meaning Hegel gives to this term in
the Philosophy of Right and obscuring the meaning of his concept of Zweck. It would
perhaps be advisable to systematically avoid the terms "purpose" and "purposiveness"
in translating Hegel's Zweck and Zweckmiissigkeit, and render them as "end" and
"finality".
5 In the Science of Logic, interestingly enough, Hegel also adds that men's actions arouse
"fate" (Schicksal); and he explains that the notion of "fate" itself "falls into mechanism,
insofar as it is said to be blind, i.e., as its objective universality is not recognized by the
subject in its specific peculiarity" (Werke, vol. 6, p. 420f.; Sc.L., p. 720f.): one may
well say, then, that according to him "fate" is one human way of experiencing the effects
of causal necessity - and can be overcome by reason, or science. On the distinction between
"power" (Macht) and "violence" (Gewalt) see my "Macht and Geist in Hegel's Jena
Writings" In: Hegel-Studien 18, 1983, pp.139-172).
6 On Hegel's criticism of the modem "reflective philosophy of subjectivity", which takes
the "relation of consciousness" as central, cf. my article on 'The Logic of Political Life:
Hegel's Conception of Political Philosophy', in M. Dascal and O. Gruengard (eds.),
Knowledge and Politics. Case Studies in the Relationship Between Epistemology and
Political Philosophy, Westview Press, Boulder/Colorado, 1989, p. 1S4 ff.; and, in French,
Politique du jeune Hegel, PUF, Paris, 1992.
7 J. Hoffmeister (ed.), Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, F. Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1955,
p.83 ff. 'Introduction', Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans. by H. B. Nisbet
with an introduction by Duncan Forbes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975,
p. 71 ff.
S These fragments are quoted and analyzed by M. Baum and K. Meist in 'Durch
Philosophie Ieben lemen. Hegels Konzeption der Philosophie nach den neu aufgefundenen
Jenaer Manuskripten', Hegel-Studien 12,1977, p. 60s. They will be published in G. W.
F. Hegel, Fragmente aus Vorlesungsmanuskripten (1803), Gesammelte Werke, vol. 5:
Schriften und Entwiirfe 1799-1808, ed. by M. Baum and R. Meist, with the collabora-
tion of T. Ebert. Meiner, Hamburg, p. 367.
9 Jenaer Systementwiirfe Ill, in Gesammelte Werke, Band 8, ed. by R. P. Horstmann in
collaboration with J.H. Trede. Meiner, Hamburg, 1976, p. 206 f.

10 See also, on this point, N. Waszek, The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel's account
of 'civil society', DordrechtiBostoniLondon, 1988, partie. p. 53f.
II E.g., Jenaer Systementwiirfe 1II, p. 243 f. See also PhR, 189 and Add.
12 Kritik der Urteilskraft, Felix Meiner Verlag, Leipzig, 1922; Critique of Judgment,
trans. by 1. H. Bernard, New York, 1951.
13 See also, on this point, his criticism of Kant in 'GIauben und Wissen' (Werke,
vol. 2, pp. 324-328).
14 Posterior Analytics, 90a, 36-90b, 5. Tr. with Notes by 1. Barnes, Oxford 1975,
p.53.
15 On this point see, e.g., the Introduction of 1. Barnes to his edition, quoted above, of
the Posterior Analytics, esp. pp. x-xi.
HELENA EILSTEIN
THE VIRUS OF FATALISM
Fatalism is widespread in our culture. It is present in some religious

creeds, as in Calvinism with its idea of predestination or in Islam with
its idea of kismet. I am not interested here in fatalism in that domain.
What is of interest for me is that the metaphysical hypothesis of fatalism
is not seldom represented among our philosophizing scientists and
philosophers.
"Fatalism," however, is a scary word in our culture. That makes a
number of fatalists unable to see and admit that their world-outlook is
fatalistic. Few have the intellectual courage of Richard Taylorl who
openly admits that fatalism may be true. A number of thinkers disso-
ciate themselves from fatalism by misrepresenting the gist of it. They
are as Monsieur Jourdain would be if he insisted on a definition of
"prose" as a thieves' slang and then protested that he never speaks
prose while having his parish priest for dinner. Or you may compare
the closet fatalists to the girl from a popular Danish song who went
with a boy to the woods but never realized that what they were doing
there was an old folk custom from the Jutland province.
A widespread misconception of fatalism presents it as a creed
according to which irrespective of the antecedent circumstances nothing
that does occur could have not occurred and nothing that has not
occurred could possibly occur, Phrases equivalent to "irrespective of
antecedent circumstances" are found in numerous descriptions of
fatalism. They are often used in order to draw a distinction between
the appalling prejudice of fatalism and the respectable metaphysical
hypothesis of determinism, albeit one not quite plausible in the light of
contemporary science. Sometimes the derogatory descriptions of fatalism
focus specifically on the topic of human voluntary actions. Fatalism is
then characterized as the belief that, in every situation, regardless of what
we do, the outcome will be unaffected by our efforts.
In the view of such characteristics, fatalism should be a doctrine
opposed to determinism, opposed to any idea of a universal principle
71

72 HELENA EILSTEIN
of causality, be it a deterministic or, say, a probabilistic one, opposed,

as it appears, to any idea of a universe where some nomic links prevail
between non-simultaneous events. In particular, fatalism, in that view,
should be a doctrine according to which not only no human voluntary
action is efficient - that is, essentially contributive to the precipitation
of the state of affairs desired by the agent - but no human action also
is effective, that is, essentially contributive to the precipitation of a state
of affairs significant for the agent (and perhaps, for the whole terres-
trial biosphere), though perhaps not foreseen, not desired, and sometimes
calamitous for the agent.
Though popular, these characteristics are completely arbitrary since
no support can be obtained for them from the tradition of fatalism, as
incorporated in numerous fatalistic myths and tales, in religious creeds
and avowedly fatalistic philosophical doctrines. In particular, the content
of myths and tales should not be neglected in explication of the idea
of fatalism. Let us thus dwell on them for a while. There is a basic pattern
of fatalistic myths and tales. As a rule, they report no more than one
"miraculous" event, viz, that of prediction of the critical event in the
life of the hero. (Admittedly, the miraculous element may be more richly
represented, as we know from the myth of Oedipus, but these addi-
tions, however essential for a given tale, are not essential for the basic
pattern in question.) By the way, with respect to some tales, the prediction
appears miraculous (rendering the tale unrealistic) only in our eyes. If
the prediction is issued by a "specialist," like an astrologer or a palm
reader, then in the views of the original narrator and his audience the pre-
diction is no more miraculous than a prediction of the nearest solar eclipse
by our astronomers.
Back to the pattern, however. After the prediction having been issued,
as a rule there does not appear in the tale anything that would violate
the common sense ideas about causal connections between the earlier and
the subsequent stages of the history of the universe. We are told about
unusual, but not anomie courses of processes.
In many fatalistic tales the predicted critical event, is "fatal" with
respect to the hero. The latter, upon being acquainted with the predic-
tion, often commits two errors. First, he interprets the infallible prediction
as merely a warning and tries to do his best in order to prevent the pre-
cipitation of the calamitous state of affairs. Secondly, he misunderstands
the content of the prediction, for indeed it is a cryptic and ambiguous
message. Rational and resolute, but profoundly misinformed, he gets
THE VIRUS OF FATALISM 73
himself involved in a course of action which essentially contributes to

the precipitation of the fatal outcome. (That, of course, is the scheme
of the Oedipus myth.) In other tales, the hero does nothing that would
be relevant for the precipitation of the fatal outcome. He often does
not believe the prediction which due to its misinterpretation appears to
him quite laughable. The fatal state of affairs is then precipitated by some
unusual coincidence of circumstances.
There are also tales in which the critical event is extraordinarily
lucky for the hero. And it sometimes comes about by no effort of the
hero, again as an effect of unusual coincidence of circumstances. But
sometimes the lucky event is a common effect of unusual circumstances
and clever actions of the hero. (That is the scheme of the story of the
emperor Claudius, with the portent of an eagle alighting on the head
of a crippled and allegedly feebleminded boy. The cleverness of the
hero keeps him alive up to the time when unexpected circumstances
put the imperial mantle on his shoulders.)
In no fatalist tale is there, actually, any hint that the critical event
would come about even if the antecedent situation and actions of the hero
were different than they were. The tacit presupposition is rather that these
antecedents were as "fated" as the critical outcome itself. They could
not be different than they were.
Based on what seems to me to be the only reasonable interpretation
of the implicit "lesson" of the fatalistic tales, as well as on the explicit
assertions of fatalistic thinkers in religion and philosophy, the following
rough formulation of the metaphysical hypothesis of fatalism may be
given:
Fatalism is a doctrine according to which, for everything that occurs,
there never was an instant of time at which its non-occurrence in the
future was possible.
Fatalism thus is a metaphysical doctrine whose gist consists in the
denial of Aristotelian possibilism.
By Aristotelian possibilism I understand the doctrine which insists
on the existence of genuinely, ontologically, absolutely open possibili-
ties in every successive future in the history of the universe. Aristotelian
possibilism conceives every successive future in the history of the
universe as the only (at the time in question) temporal locus of genuinely
open possibilities. In a version of that doctrine every successive future
is populated by nothing but open possibilities; according to another
version a future contains both open possibilities and actual events, some
74 HELENA EILSTEIN
of which, perhaps, always were actual - predetermined to occur at the

very time of their occurrence.
Fatalism implies the denial of that specific version of transientism
which is represented by Aristotelian possibilism. By transientism I under-
stand a doctrine according to which an objective and absolute difference
obtains "at" any instant of time between what is past, what is present,
and what is future. According to transientism, pastness, presentness
(nowness) and futureness are consecutive characteristics of events,
however, in contradistinction to the time-independent characteristics of
temporally preceding, of being simultaneous and of succeeding, they
are by no means relative.
When an event is present, it is present; when it is past, it is past;
when it is future, it is future; but no event ever is past and present and
future (allegedly in the context of its different relations to different
instants of time).
The term "transientism" is associated with the idea that the way of
existing of the universe consists in its incessant transition from one
now (which immediately ceases to be a now) to the next one.
Within the world-outlook of Aristotelian possibilism that "transition"
is conceived as a gradual "emergence" of the actual, "fixed" universe
from the "sea" of genuinely open possibilities, and an attendant gradual
"culling" of possibilities - that is, the extinction of those that would
be logically or nomologically incompatible in actu with those that did
actualize. The latter by no means were determined by anything - or in
any other way predetermined - to actualize, since the concept of an
open possibility which was predetermined to actualize amounts to a
contradictio in adiecto.
It does not follow from what has been said above that fatalism is
incompatible with transientism as such. Transientism is not an idiosyn-
cratic trait of Aristotelian possibilism. For most of the history of
philosophy transientism was the overwhelmingly prevailing view on
the nature of time. Its "evident" truth was taken for granted also by oppo-
nents of Aristotelian possibilism, including those who openly declared
themselves in favor of fatalism.
II
Since antiquity there have been repeated attempts to prove the truth of
fatalism by a priori arguments. All of them have been proven falla-
cious. It could not be otherwise. Fatalism is a metaphysical hypothesis,

and thus it is impossible either to prove or to disprove it a priori.
According to the present author, the plausibility of a metaphysical hypoth-
esis can only be judged against the background of current theories in
empirical science.
Let us therefore see how fatalism fares in that domain. It has been a
widespread belief that the fate of fatalism should be determined by the
fate of what is usually called determinism - that is, by the fate of prospec-
tive determinism. For simplicity, the name of determinism will be
assigned henceforth to prospective determinism.
The following, rather crude, formulation of determinism will be suf-
ficient for our considerations. Determinism is a metaphysical hypothesis
according to which, under the supposition that the spacetime has been
"correctly" stratified into instants, every event has its nomic sufficient
condition (of its occurrence at the very time of its occurrence) at every
instant which precedes its occurrence.
Seen in the light of this presentation, determinism is a fatalistic
doctrine, just as Aristotelian possibilists have often claimed.
If every event has its nomic sufficient condition at each preceding
instant of time, then every event has been predetermined through its entire
past. Whatever occurs, could not possibly not have occurred. (If "it"
"could", then, evidently, it would be in some fancied "possible universe",
but not in "this", actual, real universe; that is, it could not really fail to
occur.)
It does not, however, follow from the above that fatalism and deter-
minism are the same. "Indeterministic fatalism" is not a contradictio
in adiecto.
Indeed, fatalism maintains that for everything that ever happens,
there never was an instant when its occurrence was a mere possibility.
Since the term "possibility" (in the meaning which is presupposed here)
is not a relative term, neither is "predetermined" a relative one (while
"antecedently nomically sufficiently conditioned", obviously is: an event
which is nomically sufficiently conditioned by some complex of
antecedent events, is, at the same time, accidental with respect to every
antecedent event or complex of events which does not amount to its
sufficient condition). Fatalism as such does not speak of any particular
relations between events whose occurrence belongs to different instants
of time. Fatalism as such does not deny or affirm any particular kind
of nomic dependence between non-simultaneous events.
76 HELENA EILSTEIN
The above point is very important, because one sees from it what is
the logical relation between indeterminism and Aristotelian possibilism.
Aristotelian possibilism is an indeterministic doctrine. Indeterminism,
however, does not presuppose Aristotelian possibilism. In order to
formulate the thesis if indeterminism, one does not employ any other
language than that of determinism; one does not need to attach any objec-
tive meaning to such concepts as those of open possibilities, their
actualizations and extinctions.
From which it also follows that any support indeterminism may obtain
from empirical science does not automatically translate into a support
for Aristotelian possibilism.
It is good news for fatalism that it is not logically dependent on
determinism, because according to the prevailing view determinism is
discorroborated in the light of Quantum Theory. There indeed is a version
of fatalism, one not associated with determinism, which enjoys a con-
siderable popularity among philosophizing physicists and philosophers
of science. It is the doctrine of eternism (whose representatives more
often than not shun the term ''fatalism'').
Etemism amounts to the denial not just of Aristotelian possibilism
but of all conceivable versions of transientism. According to etemism,
the nature of the universe does not admit of an ever shifting objective
stratification of time into the past and the future, which would be divided
by the ever current now. There is no real becoming - no jumping of
events from nonexistence, through their instantaneous existence, into
the new status of nonexistence; and there is no actualization and extinc-
tion of "originally open" possibilities.
"The objective world simply is, it does not happen" (Herman Weyl).
"For us convinced physicists the distinction between past, present and
future is only an illusion, however persistent" (Albert Einstein). These
are the famous formulations of etemism by its particularly outstanding
representatives.
In the views of etemists, temporal occasionals are expressions which
are indispensable for the description of the way humans (and presumably
some other animals) perceive their surroundings, and of the way people
spontaneously tend to think about time. This notwithstanding, there is
no use for a transientistic language in a scientific description of the objec-
tive world itself.
Etemism implies neither determinism nor indeterminism. It is obvious,
however, that it is a fatalistic doctrine.
It is worth noting that determinism does not imply eternism. In the

classical epoch physicists and science-oriented philosophers typically
believed both in determinism and in the "flow of time." Their transien-
tism was naive, insofar as they never asked themselves what is the
difference between that which happened, and what is just happening
and what is bound to happen at an appropriate future time; and they never
asked themselves how can one corroborate the objectivity of these
supposed differences.
Contemporary physics seems to provide a formidable support for
eternism.
The most widespread argument in favor of this approach to the nature
of time is based on the incompatibility of the Theory of Relativity, in
its standard interpretation, with transientism. If there is no unique
physically privileged stratification of the universe's spacetime into
spacelike hypersurfaces, then there is no "ladder" of instants for the
Now to run on, there is no objective stratification of the spacetime into
the layer of the past and the layer of the future, as divided by an ever
shifting spacelike boundary. All attempts to fault this argument are them-
selves doomed to failure 2 unless one adopts some highly speculative
and empirically untestable conceptions, like Henry Stapp's distinction
between "process time" and "Einstein time",3 or insists that there must
be, after all, a privileged stratification of the spacetime into instants.
Now, in contemporary physics, attempts have been repeatedly made
to substitute Relativity by a theory which would capture all the achieved
reliable empirical evidence for Relativity but which also would rein-
troduce a privileged stratification - and which, moreover, would be
able to sustain a "crucial experiment" in its rivalry with Relativity. One
cannot rule out a priori that such attempts may eventually lead to a
success.
Besides, the very idea that Relativity does not admit a privileged
stratification is questionable. According to some physicists there is a
cosmologically privileged stratification of our real spacetime. Others
see that question as moot.
Unfortunately for the transientists, however, all such ideas cannot bring
them anything of real value. The stratifications discussed by physi-
cists have nothing to do with anything that would need the specific
transientistic language for its description. The supposition of existence of
a physically privileged stratification of spacetime into instants by no
means implies the objectivity of the current Now.
78 HELENA EILSTEIN
Those who tend to confuse indeterminism with Aristotelian possibilism

are bound to be astonished with the fact that some support for eternism
comes from Quantum Theory. And yet, in the philosophical disputes con-
cerning the interpretation of Quantum Theory, particularly in disputes
about the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen problem, ideas emerge which are
easier to be accepted against the background of eternism than against that
of transientism. Such are the ideas about these or other kinds of depen-
dence of "the past" on "the future." Some physicists feel that it is more
reasonable to defy the injunction against backward causation than to
sacrifice locality, the principle of the light cone. 4 Also, some physicists
resort to the concept of superdeterminism which is entirely compatible
with eternism: the outcomes of all experiments, no less than the choices
of performing these or other experiments are just predetermined according
to that doctrine. 5
In J. A. Wheeler's writings about the fundamental problems of
Quantum Theory one finds ideas of dependencies which also seem to
presuppose that the "future" is no less actual than the "past." Such are
his considerations about gedanken experiments with "the delayed choice,"
where the experimenter's setting his apparatus "now" determines the
behavior of a photon which started "billions of years in the past"; and
about the universe where the Big Bang and the contemporary observer
belong to one "self-excited circuit."
These considerations led Wheeler to suggest that "the very idea of
"before" and "after" is in some sense transcended."6
For me, the most impressive argument for eternism derives from
the Big Bang theory, namely from the version with an absolutely first
instant of time. To be sure, my approach here is based on the rejection
of the idea of creation. This idea is by no means endorsed by the Big
Bang theory alone. Creation requires a purposefully acting creator. It
requires a needy god who had to satisfy his needs by creating the
universe. No purpose, no desire without a need. But what might be the
purpose of creating the universe of which Steven Weinberg so aptly
said that the more it seems comprehensible, the more it also seems
pointless?7
If the concept of the first instant becomes dissociated from the concept
of creation, then, I think. eternism becomes more palatable for our
intuitions than transientism. The idea of a universe which exists eternally
as a four-dimensional manifold albeit perhaps being finite in at least
one direction of at least one of its dimensions seems less unintuitive
than the idea of a universe which for no reason once "jumped into
existence" and started "to happen."
As a matter of fact, I believe that eternism is scientifically irrefutable.
Eternism is compatible with the idea of the continuity of all processes in
a continuous spacetime as well as with the idea that all processes are
causal strings of discrete events. It is compatible with the idea of
spacetime being continuous in all its dimensions, be they four or more; as
well as with the idea of spacetime being discontinuous in at least some of
its dimensions, e.g. in the temporal dimension. It is compatible with the
idea of spacetime being infinite with respect to all its dimensions as well
as with the idea of spacetime being finite in at least some of its dimen-
sions: e.g. with the idea of time having a beginning but not an end or of
time having both a beginning and an end. It is compatible with deter-
minism and with indeterminism. With all the versions of causalism
discussed. With the idea of the cosmic character of the arrow of time and
with the idea of the local character of the arrows of time.
It seems to me that some physical models of the universe may make
eternism no more plausible than transientism, but that there cannot be
models which make it less plausible than transientism.
This, of course, by no means proves the truth of eternism. My sup-
position only amounts to the thesis that in case eternism is false, science
would still be unable to discorroborate it. It is thus unscientific to
decidedly commit oneself against eternism. Which amounts to the claim
that it is unreasonable to decidedly commit oneself against fatalism.
III
In the light of the above findings it should be worthwhile to make some

remarks concerning the content of the thesis of fatalism. In this section
I will make some points about what fatalism is not.
Fatalism does not imply radical previdism, that is, the thesis of a
complete, absolutely precise and absolutely infallible predictability of all
events for such epistemic subjects as humans - that is, for epistemic
subjects which are physical systems (or, if one prefers to put it that
way, which are subvened by physical systems).
Fatalism does not imply that naive epistemological hypothesis even in
its deterministic version, let alone in the indeterministic one. Determinism
does not imply the supposition that any epistemic subject would ever
80 HELENA EILSTEIN
acquire a perfectly complete and precise knowledge of the nomic order

of the universe, to base his nomological predictions on it. Leaving that
point aside, let us note that deterministic theories of physics, as well
as those which do not undermine determinism, have supplied us with
many reasons for admitting that science is not gradually (but without
meeting unsurmountable obstacles) approaching the miraculous predic-
tive power of the Laplacian Demon.
Thus, e. g., deterministic chaos is nowadays one of the vigorously
pursued topics dealt with in the domain of application of classical physics.
While absolutely exact registration of the microstate of a macroscopic
body is impossible, classical physics discloses that for some macroscopic
systems (ones widespread in nature) any error in the description of the
"initial state," however small, "immediately" (from the macroscopic point
of view) leads to colossal errors in prediction.
Relativity tells us that it is impossible to account in advance,
with an absolute certainty, for all the factors which might affect an
elementary event. Mathematics and computer science teach us about
unsurmountable (in principle!) limits to the predictor's powers to per-
form computations that would be needed, in the light of classical,
deterministic theories, in order to make predictions with an arbitrary
exactness and certainty. Not always is it possible to attack the mathe-
matical problems which are relevant here by means of ever greater
approximations.
To be sure, our natural environment, the behavior of other people
and our own behavior must be ever more predictable to us, in a wide
range of phenomena, with a sufficient exactness, with a "practical cer-
tainty," if we are to survive and prosper and not, say, get destroyed by
some tremendously effective, but inefficient, foolish, human actions. That
kind of predictability, however, does not require determinism. It also does
not require any kind of fatalism at all, it is not ruled out in a universe
that would represent a model for Aristotelian possibilism. What is
required, is some specific kind of probabilistic laws. If at a given level
of organization of the universe many phenomena are submitted to such
probabilistic laws which assign very steep probabilistic distributions to
some incompletely and roughly described "initial conditions," then pre-
dictions of at least some aspects of many macroscopical phenomena -
predictions with a "fair" exactness and "practical certainty" - become
possible for sufficiently intelligent subjects.
There is, however, enough impredictability also on the macroscopic
level of the organization of the universe to prevent us from dropping dead

of boredom. Fatalism does not carry with itself the threat that human
lives will be deprived of the occasions where one would be surprised
by the reality in either amusing or challenging, and thus exciting, ways,
as well as of the occasions when one would surprise oneself with an
innocuous wish ("fancy") one did not know one was going to experi-
ence on the occasion in question.
Fatalism does not imply radical antimodalism, that is the claim that
we can eliminate all modal expressions from the language of our cog-
nitive discourse (except, perhaps those which belong to the most standard
logic) without damaging that language as a means of conveying objec-
tive information, particularly about the nomic order of the universe. A
number of contemporary philosophers insist on the indispensability of
these or other modal expressions in the language of our cognitive
discourse, for reasons which have nothing to do with Aristotelian
possibilism. They e.g. maintain that even if determinism were true, all
modal expressions cannot be dispensed with in an adequate explication
of what is a law of nature. A universal conditional (in empirical terms)
which is submitted as a deterministic nomological hypothesis must
assert not just that such and such things unexceptionally take place in
such and such circumstances; it must assert that the things in question
necessarily take place in the concerned circumstances. Otherwise a
well-corroborated hypothesis of the said semantic and syntactic struc-
ture would not be able to "support" the appropriate subjunctive and
counterfactual conditionals, which play a tremendously important role
both in science and in our practice-oriented discourse. They maintain
that without a recourse to modal expressions we would not be able to
characterize the real difference, rooted in the nature of the nomic order,
between a law of nature and a "mere" universal generalization - a gener-
alization for which a counterexample would be absent through the entire
history of the universe due to a "mere" unexplainable "cosmic accident."
In the present paper I have to leave aside the question of whether
the Humean doctrine of radical antimodalism indeed is indefensible. In
any case, fatalism does not imply it. Therefore it does not necessarily
oppose all talk about "possible universes." (Notably that talk often is
supposed to be a merely substitutive one, that is, a convenient way of
talking about some modal aspects of the way the real - the actual -
universe is).
82 HELENA ElL STEIN
IV
The following point is worth being discussed in a separate section.

Fatalism does not imply the denial of libertism.
I assign the latter name (not to be confused with "libertarianism")
to the following thesis: There is a reasonable meaning of the terms
''free will" and ''free action" such that, with respect to that meaning,
at least some people, in at least some situations (particularly, in some
of their internal states) enjoy a range of freedom of will and act
freely.
In order to be "reasonable", the meaning in question should not be
flawed with self-contradictoriness, should conform to at least some
important common sense semantical intuitions concerning the terms in
question, and should be associated with a concept of moral responsibility
which also would comply with these criteria.
Fatalism does not imply the denial of the thesis that such a meaning
can be constructed.
The disputes about free will often focus on the controversy between
two libertist philosophies, deterministic compatibilism, to be called com-
patibilism for short, and libertarianism. That, however, is a wrong focus.
Both these approaches to the free will problem are objectionable
from the metaphysical point of view.
Libertarianism is grafted on Aristotelian possibilism. There is nothing
absurd in Aristotelian possibilism. It may be true. It only is scientifi-
cally uncorroboratable, since the evidences for indeterminism cannot
be transferred on its account. Libertarianism, however, is absurd, as has
been repeatedly pointed out in the literature. 8
According to libertarianism, in order to enjoy freedom of will, the
agent must be endowed with the power of actualizing open possibili-
ties (those of his decisions) and extinguishing others.
However, the concept of deliberately making an open possibility actual
is self-contradictory. If there are open possibilities in every current future,
then they do not admit antecedent nomic sufficient conditions for their
actualization and therefore it is impossible to complete, consciously or
not, voluntarily or not, the complex of antecedent nomic sufficient con-
ditions for the actualization of a given particular, individual, open
possibility.
According to compatibilism, one's action is a manifestation of the
agent's act of free will if it is nomically sufficiently conditioned by
such a complex of circumstances in which some steady traits of character

of the agent in question, his axiology and current moods of his psyche
(e.g., his current desires or fears) play an essential role. An agent acts
freely as long as he acts consciously, as long as the state of his mind
is not modified by factors such as drugs or by hypnosis; and as long
as he does what he wants to do, instead of being driven by external forces.
According to some compatibilists, internal states of irresistible affects
- "compulsions" - also deprive the agent's voluntary actions of the
character of free actions.
The metaphysical basis of compatibilism certainly is not absurd. It
is, however, considered scientifically discorroborated nowadays. This
should inspire the compatibilist with the idea of basing the concepts of
character, freedom of will and moral responsibility on the concept of
probability distributions. There is no place here, however, to elaborate
on this remark.
Besides appealing to objectionable metaphysical hypotheses, both
libertarianism and compatibilism do not take some important common
sense intuitions concerning freedom of will into account.
According to these intuitions, it is not the questions of necessity contra
accidentality, and not the questions of predictability or unpredictability
of the human volitions which should occupy a focal position in the
dispute about freedom of will.
Some very important common sense intuitions concerning free will
are captured in the approach to which I assign the name ofaxiologism.
Only a very sketchy presentation of the main idea ofaxiologism can
be given here.
In the center of interest of the axiologist there remains a human being
in a cognitively normal state of mind, who also possesses, at a given
period of his life, a definite axiology, partly verbalized, partly at the level
of nonverbalized intuitions. (A subject who is not actually poss~ssed
of a fairly stable axiology is what Harry Frankfurt calls a "wanton.,,9
The volitions of a wanton cannot be unfree, and thus the concept of
freedom does not apply to him in any interesting sense.) According to
the main idea ofaxiologism, a volition of a person satisfying these
requirements is an act of free will just if at any time within the interval
in question, whenever the person reflects on that volition (as a current,
or past, or hypothetical one), except, possibly, during the times when
the person is under the influence of such factors as, say, drugs or hypnosis
- i.e., factors which "dissociate a person from his actual axiology" -
84 HELENA ElL STEIN
and except, possibly, the times when the axiology is rendered ineffec-
tive under the impact of "irresistible affects", the person in question does
not disapprove of his having that volition (and acting on it), consid-
ering the fact that the relevant factual and nomological beliefs at the time
of his having that volition were just the way they were.
Fatalism is entirely compatible with axiologism. With respect to that
concept of freedom, the fatalist would maintain that some people at some
epochs of their life are destined, fated to enjoy a considerable range of
free will, whereas others are destined, fated to experience a consider-
able amount of unfree volitions and act under internal compulsion. In
order to be free, a person should have a rather conflictless axiology,
i.e., should not attach equal weight to values whose conflicting char-
acter is relevant in situations which are encountered by that person. In
order to be free, a person must have a sufficiently "strong character": one
is unfree if it happens that affects overpower his self, making the subject
"irresistibly want to do" and to do things he disapproves of and for which
he feels remorse. (A "strong character" may mean a very great improb-
ability of that type of behavior.)
In accordance with his general stance, the fatalist by no means claims
that people are fated towards freedom (or towards unfreedom, respec-
tively) "regardless of antecedent circumstances". It is evidently one's
genetical make-up and/or one's upbringing and life experiences which
produce a free or unfree personality. The fatalist only maintains that
all these factors also are elements of the existing, actual reality; they
never belonged to a fancied domain of open possibilities.
Thus, according to the fatalist, freedom of will is a "gift" like beauty
or talents of mind or body. One gets a "gift" or one does not get it. In
the final account, it is not his choice or his product. In the final account,
a human individual is not a causa sui, and the fatalist in his approach
to human nature takes this with utmost seriousness.
v
In the light of my preceding considerations, it is clear why ''fatalim'' is
a scary word. It is because fatalism is scary. The fatalist belief tends
to poison one's heart with pessimism and it represents a threat to some
usual and vitally important operations of the human intellect.
Fatalism forces one to admit that nobody is the ultimate source of
his own character, nobody is the ultimate "author" of any of his volitions,
nor even of those innocuous momentary fancies which contribute so much

to the zest of our lives. Reflecting on that, one is very likely to experi-
ence the highly disturbing feeling of being a kind of living, feeling,
willing automaton rather than what he would like to call a person. It is
even more disturbing to reflect on the idea that while one is ultimately
fated to be what he is, one has to suffer reprisals from other people,
from nature, from oneself for all his multiple imperfections. Fatalism
appears bound to instill a metaphysical despair, Weltschmerz in us.
Objective reality is essentially "unjust" in the view of this doctrine.
Fatalism appears to be bound to have an adverse impact on our
spontaneous, personal moral responses to the deeds of other people (and
to our own deeds, too), as it makes one reflect that both the hero and
the villain have been fated to be what they are. But according to the
commonsense view these spontaneous responses play an indispensable
role in reinforcing tendencies in people toward socially constructive
behavior and in impressing them with the wrongness of their wrong deeds
or in inhibiting their deplorable tendencies for fear of being unpopular,
censored, avoided. Moreover, the "moral feelings" and their acceptable
(according to one's axiology) overt manifestations are beneficial for those
who experience and express them. It is a happy feeling to find someone
to be praiseworthy. There often is an elation in feeling and expressing
admiration. And there is a catharsis in letting oneself feel anger and
resentment without suppressing them into subconsciousness, and in giving
them an overt expression, within the limits set by one's moral axiology.
Fatalism appears to be a fatal inhibitor of an individual's ability to
make deliberate decisions. As R. Taylor pointed out in his paper,
'Deliberation and Foreknowledge':\O
one cannot deliberate about his own future act in case he believes the act in question is
already inevitable.... If one does not know what he is going to do but knows that
conditions already exist sufficient for his doing whatever he is going to do, then he
cannot deliberate about what to do, even though he may not know what these condi-
tions are.
The same effect, evidently should ensue when one is an adherent of

the indeterministic version of fatalism. Thus, as a conclusion, a fatalist
only should be as inactive as a mushroom in the woods or act sponta-
neously, under an irresistible urge to do so.
Now, however, our social experience by no means attests to all these
fatal effects of fatalism. Calvinists with their belief in predestination,
86 HELENA EILSTEIN
Moslems with their belief in kismet, the determinists, the eternists in

our academe as a rule seem not to suffer any of these afflictions. There
must be a powerful antidote in the psyche of an average fatalist against
all the threats of the fatalist virus. The question is, what that antidote may
be.
An inspiration for the solution of that problem may be drawn from the
paper of P. F. Strawson, 'Freedom and Resentment'.11 In that paper,
Strawson explains why he does not believe that the acceptance of deter-
minism (with its "he-couldn't-act-otherwise" judgments) would stifle the
tendency of a typical person towards those moral responses to the deeds
of other people which have been mentioned above here.
Let me roughly sketch the required solution to our problem. The
working of a normal, sane, non-obsessive human mind is situational in
its nature. What we are thinking of at a given time, which ones of our
beliefs about the objective reality we keep at a given time in the focus
of our awareness, how critical we are about our spontaneous judge-
ments and about the operations of our mind, all that depends on our
objective situation at a given time as well as on our desires and fears
and our convictions and intuitions concerning matters of prudence and
axiology (as e.g. on our sense of duty as attached to the social role we
are supposed to play in a given situation).
Fatalism is a metaphysical doctrine which is recognized by some
thinkers - and should be recognized by all of them - to be scientifi-
cally irrefutable and thus irrefutable; and which, perhaps, should be
considered plausible in view of contemporary scientific theories.
On the other hand, when one is in one's modus of the "practical man,"
one just does not hold the fatalist belief in the focus of his awareness
even if he happens to be a fatalist.
When a fatalist orders a scoop of Rocky Road ice cream, he as a
rule does not think about his allegedly being fated, even before his
birth, to desire a scoop of Rocky Road ice cream at exactly the time
he desires it; and as a rule he does not become overwhelmed by a meta-
physical despair at the counter of a Baskin-Robbins shop.
When a fatalist expresses his appreciation for one's beauty, bravery,
intellectual gifts or talents of one's body and when he withholds such
approbation from other people, who in his views do not "deserve" them,
he as a rule is not hampered in that by the reflection that, in the final
account, no person is a self-creator and that therefore in some sufficiently
sophisticated sense no praise or blame is just.
I doubt the existence of many fatalists who, at a time when they

were angry or indignant at somebody's deed, never did utter the corre-
sponding "categorical could-have-willed-otherwise statement" and mean
it the way the libertarian does. Libertarianism is absurd, but on some
occasions we all become libertarians.
If a fatalist is a sane and not an obsessive person, then in a situation
which calls for a deliberation over a decision to be taken by him he would
not become fixated upon Taylor's problem of deliberation and fore-
knowledge but would start deliberating while leaving his fatalism
aside.
Before the time devoted to deliberation or at ease after that time the
fatalist may reflect that since he was fated to make the corresponding
decision and the decision could not be reached without a deliberation,
he obviously was fated to spend the corresponding time on delib-
eration, without being disturbed by the philosophical worry about
deliberation and fate.
To conclude, there is a great deal of resilience in the "practical man"
with respect to such philosophical doctrines - be they true or false,
plausible or implausible in the view of data available for scientists and
philosophers - which would disturb the "practical man." That is good
news, indeed, for the philosopher in us, because he does not need to
trouble himself with fear that while pursuing his specific, cognitive, goals
he may inflict harm on the "practical man." Without such fears, one
may philosophize the more freely on all occasions which are appro-
priate for that kind of intellectual activity, e.g., when one is involved
in a philosophical dispute or is washing dishes. Without that fear we
as philosophers or philosophizing scientists feel ourselves free to reject
all alleged obligatory "regulative principles of common sense" or "truths
grounded in immediate experience" or whatever may restrict the intel-
lectual freedom of "sovereign reason" in us.
NOTES
I See e.g. his Metaphysics, Prentice Hall, 1974, the chapter on fatalism and his paper
'Fatalism' in: R. M. Gale (ed.), The Philosophy of Time (a collection of essays). Humanities
Press, 1978.
2 For typical examples of transientistic arguments concerning Relativity, see e.g. the
papers of Ph. Frank and M. Capek in: M. Capek (ed.), The Concepts of Space and Time,
Boston Studies, vol. xii, Reidel 1976. For criticism, see e.g. Hilary Putnam, 'Time and
Physical Geometry', in his Philosophical Papers, vol. I, Cambridge University Press, 1975,
88 HELENA EILSTEIN
or: C. W. Rietdijk, 'Special Relativity and Detenninism', Phil. of Science, December 1976.
(Rietdijk confuses fatalism - whose name he never uses but actually defends in his paper
- with detenninism which he supposedly but not actually defends. With these verbal
misunderstandings overcome, the paper is very good.)
3 See the paper 'Einstein Time and Process Time', as well as the discussion of that
paper in: D. R. Griffin (ed.), Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time, SUNY
Press, 1986.
4 See O. Costa de Beauregard, Time, the Physical Magnitude, Reidel, 1987.
5 See the contribution of John Bell to: P. C. W. Davies and J. R. Brown (eds.), The Ghost
in the Atom, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 47.
6 Compare J. A. Wheeler, 'Bohr, Einstein and the Strange Lesson of the Quantum', in:
R. Q. Elvee, Mind in Nature, Harper and Row, 1982. The quoted sentence is on p. 23.
7 Quoted in: P. Davies, God and the New Physics, Simon and Schuster, 1983, p. 44.
8 See for example: C. D. Broad, 'Detenninism, Indetenninism and Libertarianism', in:
B. Berofsky (ed.), Free Will and Determinism, Harper and Row, 1966 and J. M. E.
McTaggart, 'A Defense of Detenninism', in: Ph. Davis (ed.), Introduction to Moral
Philosophy, Ch. E. Merril Publishing Co., 1973. (These authors examine libertarianism
in the context of the controversy between detenninism and indetenninism and not, as it
should be done, in the context of controversy between fatalism and Aristotelian possi-
bilism. This notwithstanding, they point very clearly to what makes libertarianism absurd.)
9 See his 'Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person', J. Phil., vol. LXVIII,
No. I, 1971.
JO In: P. E. Davis, Introduction to Moral Philosophy. The quotations in my text below
are from pp. 337 and 341.
II P. F. Strawson, 'Freedom and Resentment', in his "Freedom and Resentment" and
Other Essays, Methuen, 1974.
STEVE GERRARD
WITTGENSTEIN VERSUS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?
Those of us who grew up on Frege were raised to believe that "psy-

chologism" was worse than any four-letter word. * If we smelled the
slightest intrusion of psychology into logic, if we heard even the rumor
that someone had conflated the laws of logic with empirical psychological
laws, we reacted as Akhilleus did to the death of Patroklos. As well
we should - we were raised correctly. Logic is not psychology.
What Professor Shanker reminds us is that in the history of the fields
the distinction cut both ways: not only should it be wrong to read
psychological laws into logical ones, but is should be equally wrong
to read logical calculi into psychological processes. Psychology is not
logic.
Part I of his paper traces the historical roots of that half, which he calls
"cognitive psychologism", of the psychologistic fallacy. Professor
Shanker tells an historical story where Hilbert (and even Frege (even
Frege!)) framed some of their problems in this cognitive psychologistic
mold, and where Turing continued the tradition. He strongly implies
that some (or is it all?) current cognitive scientists and artificial intelli-
gence (AI) researchers have inherited from Turing that half of
psychologism's original sin (Here the reader should fill in her own pun
- original Sinn, original syntax, whatever.)
Professor Shanker says:
For although there are few today who would subscribe to the classical psychologistic thesis
that the laws of logic are based on the operations of the mind, there are a growing
number who are interested in the converse - cognitive - version of psychologism, which
maintains that we can study how the mind works by examining- the operations of (the
logical descendent of) the logical calculus (viz. programs).
Part II of Shanker's paper interprets some of Wittgenstein's writings

on the philosophy of mathematics as a reaction to and an attack against
Hilbert's alleged cognitive psychologism. Again, Professor Shanker
strongly implies that Wittgenstein's attack on Hilbert would, mutatis
mutandis, successfully carry over, via Turing, to an attack on the foun-
dations of current cognitive science and AI research.
89

90 STEVE GERRARD
Shanker, of course, is not alone in seeking to use Wittgenstein to attack

and refute cognitive science and AI research. 1 One nice aspect of
Professor's Shanker's work is the lack of rancor present - something
unusual in this debate.
We can examine this alleged confrontation between Wittgenstein and
cognitive science from each direction. I'll leave the AI and cognitive
science to others (our colleagues from MIT are more than up to the task),
while I focus on Wittgenstein. My intention is to deny that there is, in
fact, an incompatibility between what Wittgenstein argues and much
current AI research. Far from opposing each other, they complement each
other, in the spirit of a division of labor. Or so I will claim.
Central to all of this is what Wittgenstein has to say about inferring
and calculating. Professor Shanker rightly refers to the difficulty and
obscurity of much of what Wittgenstein has to say on that subject in
the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, which after all,
Wittgenstein did not prepare for publication. Perhaps it would shed some
light if, following a hint from Professor Shanker, we temporarily tum
to notions like naming, meaning, and understanding which Wittgenstein
discusses in the much more polished Philosophical Investigations.
We should not be surprised to find that at least one purpose of
both discussions parallels each other. Remarks on the Foundations of
Mathematics, Part I, Section 6 concerns inferring, and as Professor
Shanker quoted, Wittgenstein writes: "There is nothing occult about
this process; it is a derivation of one sentence from another according
to a rule [... ]".2 This first phrase is paralleled in the famous language
on holiday remark of Philosophical Investigations, #38: "This is con-
nected with the conception of naming as, so to speck an occult process.
Naming appears as a queer connection of a word with an object".3
Certainly one thing Wittgenstein is trying to do in the Investigations
is to exorcise the occult from what philosophers (such as the early
Russell) say about meaning and naming. For example, in that great
science fiction classic Principle of Mathematics, Russell writes:
Verbs are distinguished by a special kind of connection, exceedingly hard to define,
with truth and falsehood, in virtue of which they distinguish an asserted proposition
from an unasserted one [... ].4
We see Wittgenstein's exorcism at work in Investigations, #10. He has

just expanded the primitive language-game of the builders (Investigations,
#2) to include numerals, "there" and "this", and color samples. Then
WITTGENSTEIN VERSUS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 91
Wittgenstein asks, "[n]ow what do the words of this language signify?"

He then answers, "- What is supposed to shew what they signify, if
not the kind of use they have? And we have already described that."
In other words, as Ryle thought it showed a mistake to ask where was
the university after being shown the colleges, libraries and playing fields,
Wittgenstein thinks it is a mistake to ask where is the meaning or what
is the signification after we have been told about the roles of the words
in the appropriate language-games. Investigations, #37 expands on this
point:
What is the relation between name and thing named? - Well, what is it? Look at language-
game (2) [the builders] or at another one: there you can see the sort of thing this relation
consists in. This relation may also consist, among many other things, in the fact that hearing
the name calls before our mind the picture of what is named; and it also consists among
other things, in the name's being written on the thing named or being pronounced when
the thing is pointed at.
Wittgenstein has taken the seemingly occult act of naming and reduced
it to various relationships, each one complicated enough to call for
standard scientific mystery (e.g. how is it that humans are able to pro-
nounce words?), but none requiring philosophical mysticism, a "special
kind of connection".
Notice how at least superficially similar this is to Turing's method.
(Whether the similarity remains after a closer look will be examined
shortly.) Professor Shanker's talk began with some quotations from
Turing's 1950 article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".5 Turing
began with the question "Can machines think?", but quickly turned, as
Professor Shanker pointed out, to smaller but more specific questions
such as "Can computers solve chess problems?" Turning from chess
problems to meta-chess problems and Turing machines, Turing tried to
reduce such complex endeavors to simple atomic tasks where general
questions about reasoning and the temptation to posit a vaporous medium
of thought have no place. Whether computers could solve chess problems
then became a scientific and technological question which soon provided
an affirmative answer.
At least so far, and at least superficially, there is no incompatibility
here between Turing and Wittgenstein. They are both (partly) trying to
de-mystify certain of our concepts, such as naming and thinking.
But to say they are compatible is not to say they are not different.
Wittgenstein was (partly)6 trying to describe and analyze the roles our
concepts play, whereas Turing was trying to replace old concepts with
92 STEVE GERRARD
new ones, to replace the supposedly fuzzy "thinking" with the sup-
posedly sharper "computing", and to then replace that with the still
supposedly sharper "solving chess problems", "solving arithmetical
problems", etc. Now if Turing thought (and I think it's dubious that he
thought this) that a long disjunction of solving x-problems is all there
is to our notion of thinking and could replace it, then I assert he was
wrong. But it doesn't follow that he was wrong to replace "thinking" with
"solving chess problems" for certain purposes, such as trying to see what
complex tasks can be modelled by - not identified with - algorithms. Can
machines think? might be a fun question, but Can machines solve chess
problems?; Can machines warn against nuclear attacks? have their
charm and purpose as well.
Again, I want to leave it to others to argue the goals of AI research,
while I examine some of Wittgenstein's purposes in discussing calcu-
lating and inferring, continuing with two quotations which serve as a
bridge between the Investigations discussions of naming and meaning
and the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics discussions of
calculating and inferring. Professor Shanker quoted the beginning of
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Part I, sec. 17, calling it
"a particularly dense argument". This is the end of Wittgenstein's remark:
[... J it is necessary to look and see how we can carry out inferences in the practice of
language; what kind of procedure in the language-game inferring is.
For example: a regulation says "All who are taller than five foot six are to join the
... section". A clerk reads out the men's names and heights. Another allots them to
such-and-such sections. - "N. N. five foot nine." "So N. N. to the ... section."7
"That is inference," says Wittgenstein.

Notice how similar Wittgenstein's "look and see" procedure here,
concerning inference, is to his procedure concerning naming, in the
previously quoted Investigations, #37.
In the Investigations, Part II, p. 218. Wittgenstein explicitly compares
meaning and calculating:
Meaning is not a process which accompanies a word. For no process could have the
consequences of meaning.
(Similarly, I think, it could be said: a calculation is not an experiment, for no exper-
iment could have the peculiar consequences of a multiplication.)
Moving from the comparison of meaning and calculating to calculating

itself, one of Wittgenstein's points here is that the difference between
a calculation, proof, or inference and an experiment lies in the sur-

rounding circumstances and situation, not in something internal.
Wittgenstein argues extensively that the roles an experiment and proof
play are entirely different. 8 Once more, this theme also appears in the
Investigations, shorn of its mathematical clothing. When you are pointing
to that object are you pointing to a chess king or to a piece of wood?
(See Investigations, #35.) In the surrounding sections of the Investigations
one ofWittgenstein's themes is that the answer will depend not on mental,
physiological, or occult entities, but on the specific circumstances of
that pointing. (Did you ask me which piece in chess cannot be captured?
I am pointing to the chess king. Are we freezing and running out of things
to burn? The piece of wood.)
Here is an analogy. Exactly the same physical movements, in con-
junction with exactly the same internal experiences and mechanisms,
could, depending on the situation, be either described as hitting a home
run or not hitting a home run, but merely hitting a ball over a fence.
A home run can only be hit during a baseball game, not during batting
practice.
There is nothing surprising about this. No one would expect a baseball
term to have meaning apart from the institution of baseball. No one
should be surprised that an action which is a tort in Massachusetts might
not be one in Mississippi. Making a similar (but not identical) point,
Anscombe has called phenomena like hitting a ball over a fence "brute
facts", and contrasts them with phenomena like hitting a home run. 9
She does not give a name to the latter classification, but "institutional
facts" seems natural.
Wittgenstein, going far beyond baseball and torts (or even torts in
baseball), argues throughout his later works that certain phenomena, such
as someone meaning, understanding, calculating, or inferring, which
are commonly thought of as being brute facts of a particular species,
namely psychological experiences, are neither brute nor psychological
nor experiences: they are institutional facts.
(I wish to insert a parenthetical note here. In 'Computing Machinery
and Intelligence ,10 Turing writes,
[i]f the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how
they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and
the answer to the question, 'Can machines think?' is to be sought in a statistical survey
such as a Gallup poll.
94 STEVE GERRARD
Turing continues, "[b]ut this is absurd," and of course he is right. The

conjunction of (1) that we commonly think of, say, understanding, as a
psychological process, and as we have just seen, (2) that Wittgenstein
denies that that is the correct way of looking at understanding, shows
that Wittgenstein is not an ordinary language philosopher in the sense
of believing that "we say 'x'" typically warrants the inference to x.
Wittgenstein often begins his analyses by looking at ordinary language,
but he does not end there. II)
Continuing after that parenthetical note, considering meaning, under-
standing, etc. as institutional facts results in a certain spreading out of
our analyses. In order to decide whether something is an instance of
calculating or, for that matter, being in love, in order to characterize those
notions, Wittgenstein calls for us to look and see not through a micro-
scope but through a panoramic lens. Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding, writes:
By what invention can we throw light upon these [ambiguous and obscure] ideas, and
render them altogether precise and determinate to our intellectual view? Produce the
impressions or original sentiments, from which the ideas are copied. [... ] And by this
means, we may, perhaps, attain a new microscope or species of optics [... ].12
Algorithms might be considered the modem inheritors and versions of

Hume's microscope.
Wittgenstein illustrates his spreading out technique and his opposi-
tion to microscopes in the Investigations, #584 by comparing the so called
mental state of hoping with a coronation:
Now suppose I sit in my room and hope that N. N. will come and bring me some money,
and suppose one minute of this state could be isolated, cut out of its context; would
what happened in it then not be hope? - Think, for example, of the words which you
perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in
different surroundings the institution of money doesn't exist either.
A coronation is the picture of pomp and dignity. Cut one minute of this proceeding
out of its surroundings: the crown is being placed on the head of the king in his coronation
robes. - But in different surroundings gold is the cheapest of metals, its gleam is thought
. vulgar. There the fabric of the robe is cheap to produce. A crown is a parody of a
respectable hat. And so on.
So much for microscopes.

Here there seems to be not only a real difference between Wittgenstein
and Turing, but a real confrontation as well. Where Wittgenstein spreads
out inferring and calculating, Turing narrows them to include only certain
kinds of generalized recursive atomic tasks.
But is this a real confrontation or only a division of labor? I want

to examine this question by turning to a specific issue alluded to by
Professor Shanker. Wittgenstein's Lectures on Philosophical Psychology
1946-47 reports, as Professor Shanker quoted, that Wittgenstein said:
"What do the calculating boys do? Yet we say they calculate?,,13 This
relates to Investigations, #236, where Wittgenstein writes: "[c]alculating
prodigies who get the right answer but cannot say how. Are we to say
that they do not calculate?,,14 In both cases I believe that Wittgenstein
is talking about idiot savants, the kind related by Oliver Sacks in his book
The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.
Sacks describes a set of joyous twins, who do the expected calendar
manipulations:
The twins say, "Give us a date - any time in the last or next forty thousand years." You
give them a date, and, almost instantly, they tell you what day of the week it would be.
"Another date!" they cry, and the performance is repeated. They will also tell you the
date of Easter during the same period of 80,000 years. IS
I called the twins joyous on the basis of Sacks' following report:

they were seated in a comer together, with a mysterious, secret smile on their faces, a
smile I had never seen before, enjoying the strange pleasure and peace they now seemed
to have. I crept up quietly, so as not to disturb them. They seemed to be locked in a
singular, purely numerical, converse. John would say a number - a six-figure number.
Michael would catch the number, nod, smile and seem to savour it. Then he, in turn
would say another six-figure number, and it was John who received, and appreciated it
richly. They looked, at first, like two connoisseurs wine-tasting, sharing rare tastes, rare
appreciations. 16
With the help of a book, Sacks discovered that all the six-figure numbers
the twins had exchanged were primes! Later, Sacks got the twins to
communicate with 10-figure (and perhaps even higher) primes.
There are (at least) two mysteries about what the idiot savants do:
(1) is what they do "inferring" or "calculating"?; and (2) how do they
do what they do? Wittgenstein has nothing to say about the second
question, but a considerable amount of what he says bears on the first.
I hypothesize that the situation with Turing is the reverse.
Turning to the first question, is what the idiot savants do "calculating"
or "inferring"?, we naturally say "yes", and Wittgenstein is agreeing.
This might seem a counter-example to Wittgenstein's spreading out tech-
nique, as here we have only input and output; the savants are incapable
of justifying or explaining their answers or relating what they do to
other language-games. It appears we answer that they do calculate based
96 STEVE GERRARD
only on the belief that some sort of internal mechanism is working; and
thus calculating would be, contra what we said before, not an institu-
tional fact, but an internal psychological or neurological experience and
process.
But Wittgenstein's line of response, I believe, would be this. First,
we only say the savants are calculating because they get the right answers,
and we know what the right answers are through our public, spread out
institution of calculating. If the twins' answers were wrong, or if, when
asked what day Easter will fall in 4973 they answered "banana", no
one would say they calculated. Imagine a tribe where people only
"calculated" in their heads, where no one could ever explain or justify
her answer, where no observer could tell what a right answer was. In
that case we would not have sufficient reason to call what the tribe is
doing "calculating". Our attribution of calculating to the savants is
parasitic on our normal practice of calculating, and that practice,
Wittgenstein has argued, is of the nature of an institutional fact. Many
of Wittgenstein's remarks serve to call to our attention just what sort
of institutions calculating and inferring are, and our parasitic attribu-
tion of calculating to the savants is no counter-example to either his
claims or his methodology.
But that leaves the second mystery, how do they do what they do?
completely untouched. Here I think AI research might have a great deal
to contribute, and whether it succeeds or not is a scientific question to
be judged on scientific grounds, not on Wittgensteinean grammatical
ones. The question of whether the savant's answer is correct is, of course,
a normative question. But the question of how he arrives at that answer
is a causal one. And, as Wittgenstein says in Part II of the Investigations:
"[oJur problem is not a causal but a conceptual one."17
A computer program modelling the savant's process would be one idiot
savant (the computer) modelling another idiot savant (the human). In
order to account for both the human's speed and physical limitations,
it is dubious whether traditional algorithms would work. Sacks points
out, based on some work by Israel Rosenfield, that "modular algorithms
[... ] may explain the twins' calendrical abilities",18 and even why they
communicate in primes. A successful computer model could provide a
useful, and perhaps even testable, hypothesis for explaining the human
idiot savant's technique. But again, what the model would be, and the
criteria of its success, are scientific problems: scientific problems for
which I see no Wittgensteinean objections.
In summary, if Wittgenstein is calling for an analysis of the institu-

tions of calculating and inferring, and if AI researchers are seeking a
causal explanation for how individual humans participate in those insti-
tutions' then we have not confrontation, but division of labor.19
Department of Philosophy,
Williams College,
Williamstown, Massachusetts
NOTES
* This article is a revision of a comment I gave to S. G. Shanker's talk 'Wittgenstein

on the Laws of Thought/Thinking'. The talk and the comment were presented on 3 October
1989 at the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science. These colloquia stand as
one of Robert Cohen's great contributions to philosophical life. There is a long and
respected tradition of philosophical midwives, and because of Bob many great ideas
were born at these colloquia. Thanks to Bob's character, serious philosophy was done
there for decades in an atmosphere of energy, tolerance, and fun.
1 G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker make their case in Language, Sense and Nonsense:
A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories ofLanguage, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.
2 Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, rev. edition, ed. G. H. von Wright, R.
Rhees, G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Cambridge: The MIT Press,
1978; emphasis added.
3 Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, trans. G. E. M.
Anscombe, New York: Macmillan Company, 1953; first emphasis added.
4 Bertrand Russell, Principles of Mathematics, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., n.d.,
Sec. 46, p. 43.
5 Mind, vol. LIX, no. 236 (1950).
6 The qualifier is important: Wittgenstein (almost always) was doing more than one thing
at once.
7 Emphasis added.
8 Some important passages are: Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Part III,
secs. 67-71; Part IV, sec. 31; Part VI, sec. 15, and C. Diamond (ed.), Wittgenstein's
Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge 1939, Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1976, p. 97.
9 G. E. M. Anscombe, 'On Brute Facts', Analysis 184, March 1958.
10 Turing, p. 433.
11 Substitute "belief" for language and this sentence would be true for much of Aristotle
(especially in the Nicomachean Ethics) as well. The similarity in technique is often striking;
see, for example Wittgenstein's discussion in Philosophical Investigations, Part II,
p. 227: "[w]hat one acquires here is not a technique; one learns correct judgments. There
are also rules, but they do not form a system, and only experienced people can apply
them right." That comment could have been lifted straight out of the Nicomachean
Ethics.
98 STEVE GERRARD
12 Section VII, Part I, emphasis added. Whether Hume is always faithful to his instru-
ment is another question. Much of his discussion in the Second Enguiry (as opposed to
the First), for example, seems rather Wittgensteinean (or is it Aristotelian?). Consider also
this marvelous sentence from the Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part II, Section
V: "a promise is not intelligible naturally, nor antecedent to human conventions; and
[... J a man, unacquainted with society, could never enter into any engagements with
another, even tho' they could perceive each other's thoughts by intuition."
13 Edited by P. T. Geach, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988, p. 150.
See also p. 272.
14 Wittgenstein adds in parentheses "(A family of cases.)" Other remarks in the
Philosophical Investigations which concern what Wittgenstein often calls "calculating
in the head" are ##364, 366, 369, and 385. Investigations, #236 reappears in Remarks
on the Foundations of Mathematics, Part VII, section 57, p. 420. There it is followed
by a warning that I perhaps have not taken to heart: "[tJhese things are finer spun than
crude hands have any inkling of".
15 Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, New York: Harper and
Row, 1987, p. 197.
16 Sacks, pp. 201-202.
17 P. 203; emphasis added.
18 Sacks, p. 210.
19 In retrospect, I regret placing so much weight on a sharp conceptual/empirical
distinction. It is part of the later Wittgenstein's project to argue that such distinctions
are radically contextual and cannot be assumed in advance. (Note added in proof,
March 1995.)
HERBERT HORZ)
SCHOPENHAUER UND HELMHOLTZ

- Bemerkungen zu einer alten Kontroverse zwischen
Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft -
1. PROBLEME UND IHRE BEDINGUNGEN
Die Kontroverse zwischen Schopenhauer und Helmholtz umfaBt drei

Problemfelder:
I. Die pessimistische, menschenverachtende und Verfolgungen vermu-
tende Haltung von Schopenhauer fUhrte zu personlichen Angriffen
gegen Helmholtz. Dieser forderte dazu auf, die neuen Erkenntnisse
der Naturwissenschaft in die Philo sophie aufzunehmen, urn deren
Stagnation zu fiberwinden, Schopenhauer beharrte auf der Autonomie
der Philo sophie und warf den Naturforschem vor, deren Einsichten
zu negieren.
2. Als Bestiitigung dafUr diente Schopenhauer die Auffassung von
Helmholtz zu seinen Arbeiten fiber das Sehen und die Farben.
Die fUr die Philo sophie wichtige heuristische Funktion, durch
ihr Weiterfragen und ihre Problemsicht Ansiitze zur Losung von
Problemen zu geben, wurde von Schopenhauer aus einem Streit urn
die mogliche Prioritiit von Einsichten in die Erkenntnistheorie zu
einem Vorwurf des Plagiats durch Helmholtz verschiirft.
3. Schopenhauer betrachtete sich als SchOler Goethes und verteidigte
dessen Positionen, wiihrend Helmholtz sich in der Tradition von
Newton befand, der von Goethe scharf angegriffen wurde. Das fUhrte
zum Streit urn Goethes Farbenlehre, der m.E. tiefer ausgelotet werden
muB, als es mit der allgemeinen Einschiitzung moglich ist, Newton
habe mit den Lichtwellen die objektiven Grundlagen der Farben
untersucht, wiihrend Goethe die sUbjektiven Farbempfindungen
betrachtete.
Diese Linie der Argumentation wird seit lahrzehnten verfolgt. Sie gibt
Newton und Goethe auf den von ihnen vertretenen Gebieten, der Physik
mit der Zerlegung der Farben sowie der Psychologie der Empfindungen
und Wahrnehmungen mit dem Erlebnis der Ganzheit, recht. So wird
betont: "So sehr wir heute Goethes subjektivistischen Standpunkt WeiB
und Schwarz als einfache Hauptempfindungen zu betrachten anerkennen
99

100 HERBERT HORZ
mussen, so wenig durfen wir den Fehler seines Schlusses yom Subjek-
tiven auf das Objektive, von der Beschaffenheit des Empfindungseffektes
auf die Natur des Lichtreizes verkennen ... ,,2 Das Argument reicht
nicht aus, das prinzipielle Problem Goethes, das in der Verbindung von
Analyse und Synthese, von Detailwissen und Systemerkenntnis besteht,
zu lasen.
Die Kontroverse hat Bedingungen. Dazu geharen der Lebensweg
beider, der zur Formung ihres Charakters beitrug, ihre differenten
Auffassungen zur Rolle der Philo sophie und die dadurch bedingte ent-
gegengesetzte Haltung zu Goethes Farbenlehre und zu dessen Kritik an
Newton. Arthur Schopenhauer, am 22. Februar 1788 in Danzig geboren,
stammte aus einer Kaufmannsfamilie. Er studierte ab 1809 in Gattingen
erst Medizin und dann Philo sophie und promovierte 1813 in Jena mit der
Arbeit 'Uber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes yom zureichenden Grund'.
Als Privatgelehrter arbeitete er in Weimar, wo seine Mutter seit 1806
nach dem Tod seines Vaters lebte, und in Dresden. 1819 publizierte er
sein Hauptwerk 'Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'. Nach seiner 1820
erfolgten Habilitation in Berlin wirkte er dort als Privatdozent. Da er von
sich und seiner Leistung uberzeugt war, hielt er seine Vorlesung zur
gleichen Zeit wie Hegel und wunderte sich, daB wenige Studenten kamen
und sie spater ganz ausblieben. 1831 brach er die erfolglose Lehre in
Berlin ab und zog nach Frankfurt am Main. Nach 1848/49 erreichte
er mit seiner melancholischen und trostlosen Philosophie, die durch
tiefen Pessimismus gepragt ist, die schon lange erhoffte Anerkennung
seiner Arbeiten. Nun wurde er zum Modephilosophen. Er starb am 21.
September 1860.
Schopenhauer verachtete die Menschen
Die Mutter, die einstmals beriihmte Schriftstellerin Johanna Schopenhauer, klagt ein-
dringlich tiber den "MiBmut" des Sohnes; sein ewiges "Lamentieren tiber die dumme Welt
und das menschliche Elend" geht ihr auf die Nerven. Argwohnisch lauert er darauf, was
die Mitwelt ihm wohl Boses antun konne. In seinem Schlafzimmer halt er immer eine
Waffe bereit, und er versteckt seine Besitztiimer in den verborgensten Winkeln der
Wohnung. Nie HiBt er sich von einem Barbier rasieren, aus Angst, dieser konnte ihm
mit dem Schermesser die Kehle durchschneiden. 3
Die MiBerfolge in der Lehre fiihrte er auf den HaB der Kollegen zuruck.
Er beschimpfte sie, lieS sich allerdings dabei juristisch beraten. Man muB
diese Charakterzuge von Schopenhauer berucksichtigen, wenn man ver-
stehen will, warum er sich von Helmholtz nicht beachtet, ubergangen und
gar plagiiert fiihlte und deshalb scharf gegen ihn polemisierte. So
SCHOPENHAUER UND HELMHOLTZ 101
empfand er dessen Schrift uber Goethe als "abgeschmackt". Er war

uberzeugt, "daB gegen Goethe ein schreiendes Unrecht von Seiten der
Physiker veriibt, gegen den Nichtzunftigen eine Art Verschworung
angezettelt worden sei, - ahnlich den von den 'Philosophieprofessoren'
gegen ihn selbst eingefadelten Intrigen.,,4
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Helmholtz war ein anerkannter und erfolg-
reicher Forscher und Lehrer. Am 31. August 1821 in Potsdam als Sohn
des Gymnasialprofessors August Ferdinand Julius Helmholtz, der mit
Immanuel Hermann Fichte, dem Sohn von Johann Gottlieb Fichte, ein
Leben lang befreundet war, geboren, erhielt er im Eltemhaus vielfache
geistige Anregungen. Seine Mutter, Caroline Penne, die in mannlicher
Linie von William Penne abstammte, der Pennsylvania den Namen gab,
bezeichnete ihren Sohn, wie sie spater gestand, von der Geburt an als
"Wunderkind".5 Er hatte sich schon in jungen Jahren, vor allem durch
die Erfindung des Augenspiegels 1850, einen anerkannten Platz in der
wissenschaftlichen Welt erworben. Gerade diese Leistung, die fur die
Augenarzte revolutionierende Bedeutung hatte, brachte ihm viele
Ehrungen. Das Interesse auch von Praktikem fOr seine theoretischen
Arbeiten zur Optik, Akustik und vielen anderen Bereichen wuchs.
Helmholtz ist durch seine Leistungen auf den Gebieten der Medizin,
Physiologie, Mechanik, Geowissenschaften, Physik und Erkenntnistheorie
einer der bedeutendsten deutschen Gelehrten des 19. Jahrhunderts mit
breitem Interesse an vielen Gebieten. Er promovierte 1842 zum Doktor
der Medizin und wirkte in Berlin, Konigsberg, Bonn, Heidelberg als
Physiologe. 1871 kam er auf den Lehrstuhl von Magnus fOr Physik
nach Berlin. Nach der 1888 erfolgten Griindung der Physikalisch-
Technischen Reichsanstalt wurde er zum ersten Prasidenten dieser
Einrichtung berufen. Sein Blick fur das theoretisch Wesentliche in den
empirisch gepriiften unterschiedlichen Erscheinungen, sein philosophi-
sches Interesse an der Losung grundsatzlicher Probleme und seine
Fahigkeit, neue prinzipielle Fragen zu stellen und sie selbst experimentell
und theoretisch zu beantworten, hatte ihn auch unter seinen alteren
Kollegen bald zur entscheidenden Autoritat in der Wissenschaft werden
lassen.
Helmholtz verteidigte seine Positionen mit Argumenten, die auf
eigenen Untersuchungen basierten. Er war zuruckhaltend in Ausein-
andersetzungen und ausgewogen im Urteil. Das bestatigten Freunde und
Kollegen. Der Physiologe Carl Ludwig betrachtete Helmholtz als ruhig
und freundlich. In einem Brief an ihn, in dem es urn den Streit zwischen
102 HERBERT HORZ
Helmholtz und du Bois-Reymond ging, bemerkte Ludwig: " ... nament-

lich erwarte ich von Dir als dem Ruhigeren und dem Besonneren jede
Zuvorkommenheit gegen ihn.,,6
Der Physiker Ludwig Boltzmann, der sich charakterlich von Helmholtz
unterschied,7 vertraute bei schwierigen Problemen auf dessen Urteil.
Boltzmann hatte vorgeschlagen, sich wegen eines Nationalgeschenkes
fur die Hinterbliebenen von Hertz an den Reichstag zu wenden.
Helmholtz riet abo Boltzmann meinte in seinem Brief vom 20. 1. 1894
dazu: "Wenn Sie also trotzdem von dem Versuche der Ausfiihrung meiner
Idee unbedingt abraten, so liegt fur mich darin der Beweis, daB sie
selbe fiir unausfuhrbar halten, und da Sie dergleichen sicher richtig
beurteilen, daB sie auch unausfuhrbar ist."s Seinem am 21. 1. 1905 gehal-
tenen Vortrag vor der Philosophischen Gesellschaft in Wien uber seine
Kritik an Schopenhauer wollte Boltzmann, wie er berichtete, im Sinne
Schopenhauers den Titel geben: "Beweis, daB Schopenhauer ein geist-
loser, unwissender, Unsinn schmierender, die Kopfe durch hohlen
Wortkram von Grund aus und auf immer degenerierender Philosophaster
sei.,,9
Helmholtz war in seiner Kritik generell zuruckhaltender. Selbst in
kleinen Dingen verhielt er sich hoflich. So bat ihn Ludwig, sein Lehrbuch
durchzusehen und schrieb dazu:
Wenn Dir in dem Lehrbuch irgend ein Fehler oder wie Du es artig nennen wirst ein
Verse hen aufstoBt, so notiere es hin und mache mir Mittheilung. Dir wird meine
Unbeholfenheit rechts und links nicht entgangen sein und unzweifelhaft wirst Du zahl-
reiche Verbesserungen wiinschen, wenn Du in dem Buche liesest. Theile mir alles mit,
und ich weiB ja, daB Du nicht fiirchtest, daB Du darum urn die Prioritiit kommst. Ich wiirde
eine solche Hilfe als einen der groBten Freunschaftsdienste ansehen. 10
Die extrem entgegengesetzten Charaktere von Schopenhauer und

Helmholtz fiihrten zu heftigen AuBerungen von Schopenhauer gegen
Helmholtz. Dieser war davon weniger beriihrt, da seine Reputation nie
in Frage stand.
Der Streit hat interessante aktuelle Aspekte. Dazu gehort das unter-
schiedliche Herangehen des Philosophen einerseits und des Physiologen
und Physikers andererseits an die Aufgaben der Philo sophie und an die
Losung von erkenntnistheoretischen Problemen. Es ist die Frage zu beant-
worten, ob Philosophie Priori tat beanspruchen kann, wenn sie ihre
Gedanken allgemein formuliert, aber keine experimentelle Grundlage
dafiir hat. Man kann Ja dazu sagen, muB sich jedoch huten, daraus, wie
Schopenhauer, einen Vorwurf des Plagiats zu konstruieren. Der Streit urn
die Farbenlehre enthlilt inhaltliche, methodische und methodologische

Probleme bei der Aneignung der Wirklichkeit durch die Menschen.
2. PHILOSOPHIE CONTRA NATURWISSENSCHAFT?
Philosophie kann allgemein als WelterkHirung, Ideengenerator und

Lebenshilfe verstanden werden. Sie gibt allgemeine Antworten auf die
Fragen nach dem Ursprung, der Existenzweise und Entwicklung der
Welt, nach der Quelle des Wissens, nach der Stellung des Menschen in
der Welt, nach dem Sinn des Lebens und nach dem Charakter der
gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung, die sie durch Aufarbeitung der tradi-
tionellen Positionen bekommt und die sie mit der Synthese der speziellen
Erkenntnisse anderer Wissenschaften prazisiert. Damit bietet sie
ein Weltbild. ll Mit ihren methodischen, erkenntnistheoretischen und
methodologischen Einsichten kann sie neue Ideen generieren, wenn
sie das erreichte Wissen nicht nur verallgemeinert, sondern weiter
fragt und Hypothesen iiber den moglichen zukiinftigen Beitrag der
Spezialwissenschaften zur Philosophie aufstellt. Welterklarung und
Ideengenerator sind, verbunden mit den Einsichten in das We sen
der Menschen und mit den humanen Kriterien zukiinftiger sozialer
Entwicklung, Ideale sittlichen Handelns. Philo sophie als Lebenshilfe
ist Erklarung des Bestehenden aus dem Vergangenen, Analyse der Werte
und Orientierung des zukiinftigen Verhaltens.
Philosophie hat sich in ihrer Jahrtausende wahrenden Geschichte
immer mehr von einem Reservoir fUr neue Wissenschaften durch die
Emanzipation der System-, Natur-, Technik-; Sozial- und Geistes-
wissenschaften von der Philosophie zu einer universe lIen Form der
rationalen Aneignung der Wirklichkeit entwickelt, die vor allem eine
heuristische Funktion in der wissenschaftlichen Forschung erfUllen
kann. 12 Diese interessiert den forschenden Wissenschaftler, wenn er Hilfe
von der Philosophie erwartet. Es geht ihm nicht urn Sonntagsreden
und sittliche Traktate, sondern urn neue Fragen an die Forschung. Die
Positionen zur Philo sophie sind dann extrem entgegengesetzt, wenn
einerseits mit Schopenhauer ein Denker existiert, der meint, apriorisch
und transzendental neue Erkenntnisse erschlieBen zu konnen und
andererseits Helmholtz voll auf die experimentelle Methode und die
mathematischen Deduktionen fixiert ist.
Schopenhauer hatte seine Abhandlung 'Uber das Sehn und die Farben'
1816 publiziert. 1854 erschien dann die zweite vermehrte und verbesserte
104 HERBERT HORZ
Auflage. In ihr verwies er auf die Habilitationsschrift von Helmholtz

'Uber die Theorie der zusammengesetzten Farben' von 1852 13 und auf
den Vortrag 'Uber das Sehn der Menschen' .14 Dieser Vortrag wurde
an 27. 2. 1855 in Konigsberg gehalten und kann deshalb durchaus in
der Auflage noch Beriicksichtigung finden, obwohl das Vorwort mit
November 1854 datiert ist. In ihm klagt Schopenhauer iiber das Schicksal
seines Manuskripts seit dem Erscheinen: "Seitdem haben weder Physio-
logen noch Physiker es der Beriicksichtigung wiirdig gefunden, sondem
sind, davon ungestort, bei ihrem Text geblieben.,,15 Das bezog Schopen-
hauer auf Helmholtz. Julius Frauenstadt, der Schiiler Schopenhauers, hatte
eine Rezension des Vortrags von Helmholtz iiber das Sehen geschrieben.
Schopenhauer hatte dazu in seinem Brief yom 15. Juli 1855 an
Frauenstadt
gefunden, dass Sie von mir wohl hatten in einem etwas hohern Tone reden konnen, statt
mich einigermaBen mit dem Helmholtz zu parallelisiren. Sagen "er und ich standen auf
demselben Boden", ist wie sagen, der Montblanc und ein Maulwurfshaufen neben ihm
standen auf demselben Boden. Vor einem Jahr hat er einen abgeschmackten Aufsatz
iiber Goethe's Farbenlehre verfaBt. Sie hatten ihn dafiir, dass er iiber das Sehn schreibt,
ohne mich zu kennen, oder kennen zu wollen, herunterhunzen sollen, und nach Noten.
- ... Toleranz ist keine Apostel-Tugend und sollte es nicht sein.'6
Frauenstadt merkte zu dem Zitat aus seiner Rezension an, daB er dies nur
auf die Theorie des Sehens bezogen habe. Schopenhauer griff jedoch
Helmholtz, ohne des sen Arbeiten zu kennen, generell an. Der Brief seines
Anhangers Becker hatte Schopenhauer mit Zitaten informiert. Diesem
schrieb er: "Aus ihren Ausziigen geht aber deutlich und sieher hervor,
daB er mich ausgeschrieben hat.,,17
Helmholtz griff Schopenhauers Bemerkungen in seiner Rede yom
2. August 1877 'Das Denken in der Medizin' kritisch auf, urn zum
Verhaltnis von Metaphysik und Wissenschaft Stellung zu nehmen: "Einen
'Montblanc neben einem Maulwurfshaufen' nennt sich Schopenhauer,
wenn er sich mit einem Naturforscher vergleicht. Die Schiiler bewundem
das groBe Wort und suchen den Meister nachzuahmen.,,18 Helmholtz
charakterisierte die Erfolge des experimentellen Herangehens und argu-
mentierte, daB die Gesetze der Tatsachen durch Beobachtungen
festzustellen und ihre deduktiven Folgerungen zu iiberpriifen seien. Die
dabei geiibte Kritik an unbergriindeten Spekulationen zielte auch auf
Schopenhauer:
Aber glauben Sie nicht, meine Herren, daB der Kampf zu Ende sei: So lange es Leute
von hinreichend gesteigertem Eigendiinkel geben wird, die sich einbilden, durch Blitze
der Genialitat leisten zu konnen, was das Menschengeschlecht sonst nur durch miihsame
Arbeit zu erreichen hoffen darf, wird es auch Hypothesen geben, welche, als Dogmen vor-
getragen, alle Ratsel auf einmal zu losen versprechen. Und solange es noch Leute gibt,
die kritiklos leicht an das glauben, wovon sie wiinschen, daB es wahr sein m5chte, so lange
werden jene Hypothesen auch noch Glauben finden. Beide Klassen von Menschen werden
wohl nicht aussterben, und der letzteren wird immer die Majoritiit angehOren. 19
In der Auseinandersetzung mit Zollner, der sich Schopenhauer

verpflichtet fiihlte, macht Helmholtz generell geltend: "Wir sind, denke
ich, in Deutschland noch nicht dahin gekommen und werden hoffentlich
nie dahin kommen, dass Hypothesen, wenn sie auch von einem noch
so hochverdienten Manne aufgestellt worden sind, nicht kritisiert werden
diirften.,,20 Die Haltung von Helmholtz, auf Empirie zu bauen, die
Deduktion zur Priifung von Folgerungen zu nutzen und keine AutoriHiten
anzuerkennen, war friih bei ihm ausgepragt. Gerade sie machte Schopen-
hauer so wiitend. Er fiihlte sich als Genie und meinte verkannt zu werden.
Die Kluft ist tiefer, als es der Streit urn die Anerkennung der Arbeiten
des anderen ahnen laBt. Das generelle Verhaltnis von Philo sophie und
Naturwissenschaft wird thematisiert. Statt die Erganzung beider zu
betonen, griff Schopenhauer diejenigen an, die sich philosophisch auBem.
"Die Unschuld, mit welcher dieses Leute, von ihrem Skalpell und Tiegel
kommend, sich an die philosophischen Probleme machen, ist wirklich
zum Erstaunen: sie schreibt sich jedoch daher, daB jeder ausschlieBlich
sein Brotstudium treibt, nachher aber von allem mitreden will. ,,21 Er
wandte sich gegen die Haltung von Naturwissenschaftlem, die nach einer
gesicherten experimentellen Grundlage fiir ihre Schliisse suchen.
Philo sophie kann in den Augen eines experimentell arbeitenden
Naturwissenschaftlers schnell zum LiickenbiiBer fiir fehlende Empirie
werden. Philosophen dagegen bilden sich etwas auf die allgemeinen
Aussagen ein, die verschieden interpretierbar sind und verfallen schnell
in den Ruf: Heiliger Sankt Florian, verschon mein Haus, ziind andere
an. Sie meinen, die Naturforscher sollten sich von der Philo sophie nicht
nur inspirieren, sondem vor allem aufklaren lassen, sich selbst jedoch
zu philosophischen Fragen ausschweigen. Das ist, wenn gegenseitige
Befruchtung gesucht wird, nicht moglich. Beide sind wie Induktion und
Deduktion eng miteinander verbunden. Die Philosophie befaBt sich mit
den Begriffen und ihrer Geschichte, die von Naturwissenschaftlem
verwendet werden. Sie zieht allgemeine Folgerungen aus speziellen
Aussagen. In Momenten wisschaftlicher Entwicklung, in denen prin-
zipielle Fragen auftauchen, sind Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft nicht
106 HERBERT HORZ
zu trennen. Die richtige Interpretation eines mathematischen Formalismus

oder die Einordnung nicht erklarter Experimente sind dann philo so-
phische Fragen oder naturwissenschaftliche Fragen mit philosophischen
Aspekten, wenn Grundprobleme der Existenzweise und Entwicklung
des Gesche-hens beriihrt werden.
Helmholtz wandte sich gegen unbegriindete Spekulationen als
Ausdruck der Metaphysik. Er behielt die Achtung vor groBen philosophi-
schen Leistungen. Die Philo sophie sollte als eine wichtige Aufgabe die
Fahigkeit der Menschen zur Erkenntnis untersuchen.
Indem ich den Namen der Metaphysik hier auf diejenige vermeintliche Wissenschaft
beschriinke, deren Zweck es ist, durch reines Denken Aufschliisse iiber die letzten
Principien des Zusammenhanges der Welt zu gewinnen, mOchte ich mich nur dagegen ver-
wahren, dass das, was ich gegen die Metaphysik sage, auf die Philosophie iiberhaupt
bezogen werde ... Was die Philosophie uns bisher lehren kann oder bei fortgesetztem
Studium der einschlagenden Thatsachen uns einst wird lehren konnen, ist zwar von
hochstem Interesse fiir den wissenschaftlichen Denker, der das Instrument, mit dem er
arbeitet, niimlich das menschliche Erkenntnisvermogen, nach seiner Leistungsfiihigkeit
genau kennen lemen muS. 22
3. PRIOR IT AT DOER PLAGIAT?
Helmholtz sab sich durch Friedrich Zollner Angriffen ausgesetzt, er habe

die Prioritiit von Schopenhauer bei seinem SchluB von den Empfindungen
auf die Objekte miBachtet. 23 In der Arbeit von 1813 'Uber die vierfache
Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grund' hatte Schopenhauer
von Verstandesschliissen im Unterschied von den Vernunftschliissen
gesprochen. Helmholtz nannte sie unbewuBte Schliisse. 24 Zollner meinte,
sein Vergleich der Zitate werde "geniigen, urn die vollkommene Ueber-
einstimmung sowohl der Ansichten als auch der Argument beider
Denker in ihren Deductionen der Aprioritat des Causalitatsgesetzes iiber
jeden Zweifel zu erheben. ,,25 Zollner war fUr Helmholtz einer der
Vertreter der Metaphysik. Zum Buch 'Uber die Natur der Kometen'
bemerkte er:
Oem von ihm in Aussicht genommenen letzten Ziele nach liiuft es auf Schopenhauer'sche
Metaphysik hinaus. Die Gestime sol1en sich einander lieben und hassen, Lust und Unlust
empfinden und sich so zu bewegen streben, wie es diesen Empfindungen entspricht. Ja
in verschwommener Nachahmung des Gesetzes der kleinsten Wirkung wird der
Schopenhauer'sche Pessimismus, welcher diese Welt zwar fiir die beste unter den
moglichen Welten, aber fiir schlechter als gar keine erkliirt, zu einem angeblich al1ge-
me in giiltigen Principe von der kleinsten Summe der Unlust formulirt und dieses als
oberstes Gesetz der Welt, der lebenden wie der leblosen proclamiert. 26
1m Brief vom 27. September 1856 schrieb der Vater an Helmholtz

uber den Plagiatsvorwurf, den FrauensUidt gegen diesen erhob. Die
Positionen zum Verhiiltnis des sinnlichen Eindrucks zur Vorstellung
sind nach der Meinung des Vaters "theils aus Kant, theils aus Fichte's
Vorlesungen Uber das Verhiiltniss der Logik zur Philosophie, von der
ich mich erinnere, dass sie Schopenhauer zugleich mit mir gehort hat.'027
1m Brief vom 31. Dezember 1856 bemerkte Helmholtz, daB der Erfolg
von Schopenhauer darin gegriindet sei, daB er auf den alten gesunden
Standpunkt von Kant zuriikgekehrt ist. Er unterrichtete seinen Vater
in einer Nebenbemerkung von dem Vorwurf des Plagiats und meinte:
"Dabei handelt es sich nur urn Siitze, die im Wesentlichen schon Kant
hatte . . ."28 1m Brief vom 8. Februar 1857 befaBte sich der Vater
von Helmholtz mit Positionen von Kant und Fichte. Er kritisierte
Schopenhauer: "Aufsehen will er endlich in seinem hohen Alter machen
... , und da er bei den Philosophen so schlechte Aufnahme findet, will
er es wenigstens bei dem Zeitungspublicum und den fUr Sonderlinge
so geneigten EngHindem erregen. Dass Du des Plagiats von seinem Junger
beschuldigt wirst, dariiber habe ich Dir selbst weitHiufig geschrieben.,,29
Helmholtz antwortete seinem Vater am 4. Miirz 1857:
Schopenhauer gebe ich Dir ganz Preis; was ieh selbst bisher von ihm gelesen habe, hat
mir griindlich missfallen. Du hattest iibrigens in Deinem letzten Briefe niehts iiber mein
angebliches Plagiat an ihn erwiihnt, sondern in einem friiheren Briefe aus dem September,
und da ich in mehreren Briefen an Andere und von Anderen die Sache selbst erwiihnt
und erwiihnt gefunden hatte, so war ich nicht sieher, ob sie zwischen uns beiden zur
Sprache gekommen seL JO
Es ist anzunehmen, daB sich Helmholtz noch spiiter mit Schopen-

hauer beschiiftigte. Griifin Schleinitz, die zu ihrer Hochzeit mit Graf
Wolkenstein 1886 ein Aquarell geschenkt bekam, wird von Helmholtz
in dem Dankbrief an die Malerin L. Begas-Parmentier als "scheidende
Freundin" bezeichnet. 31 Sie war, wie Anna von Helmholtz bemerkte,
zu einem "vergnu~lichen Schopenhauer'schen Pessimismus" uberge-
gangen. 32 Auf der Uberfahrt von den USA nach Deutschland im Oktober
1893 las er Kuno Fischers Schopenhauer.33 Dabei durfte jedoch allein das
kulturelle Interesse eine Rolle gespielt haben.
In der urnfangreichen Korrespondenz von Ludwig und Briicke an
Helmholtz geht es oft urn Meinungsstreit und Prioritiiten. Solche
Auseinandersetzungen, wie die zwischen Hyrtl und Briicke, Hering und
Helmholtz, spielen eine Rolle. Ludwig konnte sich auf Schopenhauer
beziehen, wenn er an Helmholtz schrieb:
108 HERBERT HORZ
Dein ruhiges Gemiith hat sich in mancherlei Trauriges gefunden, was Dir Deine man-
gelhafte Umgebung bereitet; ich erkenne darin einen groBen sittlichen Sieg, den ich
schwerlich errungen haben wiirde. Mochtest Du Deine Seelenruhe behaupten, nur den
gewonnenen Standpunkt zu behaupten, da er Dir unzweifelhaft bei der Zahigkeit der
Gegner oft genug noch wird streitig gemacht werden. 34
Besonders die Vorwurfe von Zollner gegen Helmholtz bewegten Ludwig

sehr.
Zollner berief sich in seiner Kritik an Thomson und Tait, die das
Gesetz der elektrischen Fernwirkung von Wilhelm Weber als eine
Hypothese tadelten, die sich zu weit von der Beobachtung entfernt
habe und u.a. das Argument anfiihren, das auch Helmholtz nutzte, die
Hypothese widersprache dem Gesetz von der Erhaltung der Kraft, auf
C. Neumann. Helmholtz nahm in seiner Vorrede zum zweiten Teil des
ersten Bandes der Ubersetzung von Thomson und Tait 'Treatise on
Natural Philosophy' Bezug auf die Berufung auf Neumann und auf
die Angriffe von Zollner. Er fiihrte das Problem wieder auf die
unterschiedlichen Konzeptionen der Arbeit zuruck. Wahrend er die
Rolle der Empirie und der Induktion verteidigte, geht Zollner allein
deduktiv an die Wirklichkeit heran. Helmholtz bemerkte: "Wir alle haben
bisher das inductive Verfahren gebraucht, urn neue Gesetze, beziehlich
Hypothesen, zu finden, das deductive, urn deren Consequenzen zum
Zwecke der Verificirung zu entwickeln."35 Zu den Auseinandersetzungen
mit Neumann und Zollner schrieb Ludwig an Helmholtz:
Ubrigens stehe ich auch fiir Neumann, da ich so oft mit ihm iiber Dich gesprochen. Hat
er sich ruppig gemacht, so wird ihm die Striegel gut thun.
Schlimmer sieht es mit Zollner aus. Was gabe ich darum, wenn ich so recht von
Grund meiner Seele aus auf ihn bose sein konnte. Leider kenne ich ihn zu genau.
Unzweifelhaft war er vorigen Sommer und Winter wo er das Ungliicksbuch schrieb im
hochsten furor, und wie oft habe ich ihn flehentlich gebeten von Tyndall abzulassen,
denn dass er auch noch andere erwahne hat er mir nie gesagt. Zollner ist nun eigentlich
mensch en scheu und macht in der Regel den Eindruck tiefer Gemiithlichkeit. Freilich
ist er in Schopenhauer verliebt und fiir W. Weber sehr eingenommen. Alles dieses ist
selbstverstandlich nur ein schwacher Entschuldigungsgrund fiir sein Unternehmen gegen
Dich, und ich habe ihm auch wiederholt meine Meinung gesagt, die er geduldig hin-
genommen. Ob mit Beherzigung oder Lassigkeit, das kann ich freilich nicht sagen. -
Aber argere Dich nur nicht, das miissen Deine Freunde fiir Dich thun, und endlich
wenn Zollner in seinen 3 Punkten gegen Dich recht hatte, wenn Du Schopenhauer und
Zollner gar nicht und falsch gelesen und den Englandern die ungerechtfertigte Injurie
hattest hingehen lassen, wie stolz mag es Dich machen, dass ein so sorgsamer Fehlersucher
nur so wenig finden kann. Allerdings darin liegt das Aergerliche dass ein Mann dem
man riickhaltlos vertraut plotzlich zur verletzenden Waffe greift. 36
Einen Monat spiiter schrieb Ludwig:

Nachdem ich Zollner jahrelang nahegestanden, und seinen reichen Geist und zahlreiche
Ausserungen einer edlen Sittlichkeit an ihm lieben und verstehen gelernt hatte, war
es mir unmoglich, ohne mich fiir untreu zu haIten, seine Polemik gegen einzelne
Personlichkeiten als eine Folge unedler Motive anzusehn. Nach seiner zweiten Publikation
bin ich allerdings anderer Meinung geworden, und ich m6chte mit Dir wiinschen, dass
die Stimmung seiner Seele aus welcher dieselbe hervorgegangen von Zollner selbst alsbald
als eine verkehrte anerkannt wiirde, denn ich kann in der indirecten Veroffentlichung
der Briefe von du Bois, in der Aufnahme des Briefes von Feddersen (der wie privat Zollner
lange vor der Veroffentlichung eingestanden gar nichts mit der Polemik seines Buches
zu thun hat) und endlich in der Heranziehung Kolbes auf einen anonymen Gewiihrsmann
hin kein Handeln finden, das dem hohen sittlichen Standpunkt entspriiche den er meiner
Meinung nach bisher eingenommen. Da ich friiher im Stande zu sein glaubte Zollner gegen
aile Angriffe vertheidigen zu konnen und dieses miindlich und schriftlich gegen Berliner
Freunde ausgesprochen, so halte ich es nun auch fiir meine Pflicht von der Stimmung
und dem Urtheile Nachricht zu geben zu welchen mich die sogennante Abwehr Zollners
gebracht hat, gleichgiltig welchen Werth jeder andere auf diese Beistimmung legen
mag. 37
Die Freunde standen zu Helmholtz. Schopenhauer war ihnen nicht

so wichtig, wie der Fachkollege Zollner. Seine Anlehnung an die
Spekulationen Schopenhauers wurde kritisch vermerkt, die Kritik an
Helmholtz als unsachlich erkannt. Schopenhauer hatte, eben so wie
Helmholtz, mehrmals Problems mit der Prioritiit. Ihre Haltung war unter-
schiedlich. Schopenhauer war aggressiv, vermutete Verfolgungen und
schimpfte auf die Plagiatoren. Zu Goethe merkte er an, jener habe
ein Gleichnis von ihm benutzt. 38 Anton Rosas aus Wien warf er vor,
nicht nur die Gedanken, sondern auch die Worte aus der Farbenlehre
ubernommen zu haben. 39 1m Zusammenhang mit Helmholtz, der
ihn abschreibe und Kant zuschreibe, was ihm gehore, sprach er von
"Geistesarmuth, Neidhaftigkeit und Gewissenlosigkeit".40
Helmholtz wehrte sich in Fragen der Prioritiit, wenn er angegriffen
wurde, mit Argumenten, wie seine Auseinandersetzung mit Zollner zeigte
oder er fUhrte Vorwurfe auf den inhaltlichen Kern zuruck, wie bei
Schopenhauer. In kleineren FaIlen gab es keine Reaktion von ihm. Brucke
machte ihn aufmerksam:
Deinen Versuch iiber die Accomodation habe ich, wie ich Dir vielleicht schon geschrieben
im vorigen Friihling mit Dr. Jaeger wiederholt. Ich habe neulich einige Dissertationen
von Donders Schiilern erhaIten, in deren einer die Prioritiit dieses Versuches fiir Dr. Kramer
in Holland in Anspruch genommen wird, der einen iihnlichen aber wie mir scheint weniger
sicheren in einer Preisschrift iiber Accomodation, die ich auch besitze, aber noch nicht
ganz gelesen habe beschreibt. 41
110 HERBERT HORZ
Solche Vorkommnisse gehorten und gehoren zum Alltag eines

Wissenschaftlers. Problematischer ist es in den Fallen, in denen prin-
zipielle Fragen angesprochen sind. Ludwig berichtete iiber den Versuch,
Helmholtz in Frankreich nur das Prinzip des Augenspiegels zuzu-
sprechen: "Hast Du das Schicksal Deines Augenspiegels in Frankreich
schon erfahren? Dort spricht man von Deinem Prinzip und maSt sich
dagegen die AusfOhrung der Idee an? Lebert der dieses EreigniS in
Paris erlebt hat, theilt mir dieses mit u. verspricht mir die einschHigliche
Litteratur zu liefem, deren Inhalt ich Dir, sofem sie Dir unbekannt sein
sollte, ausziehen werde.,,42 Die Angelegenheit erledigte sich von seIber.
Ludwig schrieb: "Der Diebstahl den Follin an Dir in der Societe de
Chirurgie begehen wollte (von dem ich Dir geschrieben) ist in Frankreich
selbst aufgedeckt; es ist also nicht der Miihe werth gegen diesen Lips
Tullian 43 einen Steckbrief auszusenden.,,44
Wenn schon vom Prinzip des Augenspiegels die Rede ist, dann batte
Briicke mit seiner Theorie des Augenleuchtens und seinem Versuch,
den Augenspiegel zu konstruieren, die Prioritat zugestanden. 45 Er
bemerkte zu Helmholtz:
Ueber Deinen Augenspiegel habe ich mich sehr gefreut zumal derselbe mir der Idee
nach nicht neu war. Ich habe namlich vor iiber 5 lahren auch einmal einen solchen ganz
roh aus einem Hohlglase und einem schiefstehenden Stiicke Spiegelglas zusammenge-
baut und ihn an du Bois Augen probiert ich muB mich aber recht ungeschickt angestellt
haben, denn die Geschichte wollte damals nicht gehen. Der junge Grafe, ein sehr tiichtiger
Augenarzt der sich im Augenblick hier befindet war gleichfalls hocherfreut iiber Deine
Erfindung. 46
Unter Freunden, die jeder fOr sich hervorragende Leistungen vollbrachten,

gab es keinen Neid auf den anderen.
1m Streit urn die Prioritat von Robert Mayer bei der Entdeckung der
Erhaltung der Kraft hatte sich Helmholtz den Argumenten gegeniiber ein-
sichtig gezeigt und die Leistungen des anderen anerkannt. Er betonte:
Der allen, namentlich in metaphysischen Streitigkeiten seit lahrtausenden bewahrten Regel
entsprechend, wonach die Erbitterung bei wissenschaftlichen Streitigkeiten urn so grosser
ist, je schlechter die Griinde sind, wurden diese Angriffe nicht in hoflichen Formen aus-
gefiihrt. Diejenigen Naturforscher, welche sich gleichzeitig oder unmittelbar nach Mayer
mit dem gleichen Gegenstande beschaftigt und dabei die inductiven Methoden aller
Erfahrungswissenschaft befolgt hatten, wurden herabgesetzt, wei! sie sich bemiihten,
Experimente anzustellen iiber Fragen, die durch das Schauen des Genius, den sie nicht
verstanden, schon vorher entschieden waren. Ich selbst bin als einer der schlimmsten
Uebelthater dargestellt worden und verdanke dies, wie ich voraussetze, dem Umstande,
dass ich durch meine Untersuchungen iiber Sinneswahmehmungen mehr als andere meiner
SCHOPENHAUER UND HELMHOLTZ III
Fachgenossen mit erkenntnistheoretischen Fragen in Beriihrung gekommen bin. Ich habe

mich bestrebt, Alles was ich noch von Nebeln eines falschen scholastischen Rationalismus
vorfand, zu zerstreuen. Dass ich mich dadurch bei den stillen und offenen Anhangem meta-
physischer Spekulation nicht beliebt gemacht habe, wusste ich langst vor diesen
Streitigkeiten iiber Robert Mayer, und hatte auch langst schon eingesehen, dass es nicht
anders sein kanne: 7
Die Erfahrungen, auf die Helmholtz anspielte, sammelte er im

Streit mit und urn Schopenhauer, dem er ebenfalls das Spekulative der
Ansichten zum Vorwurf machte. Helmholtz meinte, daB die MaBlosig-
keiten der Angriffe seiner Gegner den gebildeten Teil der Leser orientiert
habe, jedoch seien die wissenschaftlichen Motive des Streits bis dahin
ungeniigend beleuchtet worden. Er sah sie im Gegensatz zwischen
Speculation und Empirie, zwischen der Wertschatzung des deduktiven
und des induktiven Wissens. Helmholtz zeigte, daB die Idee von der
Erhaltung der Kraft schon langer existierte und sie immer besser experi-
mentell untermauert wurde. "In meinen Augen war die Arbeit, die ich
damals unternahm, eine rein kritische und ordnende, deren Haupt-
zweck nur sein konnte, eine alte, auf inductivem Wege gewachsene
Ueberzeugung an dem neu gewonnenen Material zu priifen und zu
vervollstandigen.,,48 In Mayers Arbeit von 1842 seien nur Thesen
aufgestellt und keine Beweise angegeben, aber die Prioritat ware damit
gesichert.
Helmholtz versuchte zu erklaren, warum in einer Zeit, da die aufge-
klarten Naturforscher sich gegen die spekulativen Uberschwenglichkeiten
der Hegelschen Philo sophie wehrten, die Arbeit von Mayer kaum ernst
genommen werden konnte. Sein Liebaugeln mit der Metaphysik komme
wohl, so Helmholtz, aus den Unzulanglichkeiten seines empirischen
Materials.
Einem findigen und nachdenklichen Kopfe, wie er unzweifelhaft war, gelingt es gele-
gentlich auch aus diirftigem und liickenhaftem Material richtige Verallgemeinerungen
zu bilden. Wenn er dann aber die Beweise dafiir zu Papier zu bring en sucht und das
Ungeniigende derselben fiihlt, so kommt er leicht dazu, sich mit unbestimmt allgemeinen
Betrachtungen von zweifelhaftem Werthe helfen zu wollen.49
Priori tat bedeutet, theoretische Aussagen zuerst ausgesprochen,

Gesetze zuerst formuliert, methodische Anordnungen zuerst angegeben,
Beobachtungen zuerst beschrieben und Experimente zuerst durchge-
fiihrt zu haben. Was heiBt das aber bei solchen grundlegenden Einsichten,
die als Weltratsel und philosophische Positionen mehrmals vorformuliert
112 HERBERT HORZ
vorliegen? Offensichtlich geht es urn den Allgerneinheitsgrad der

Aussage. Der Philosophie wiire oft die Prioritiit zuzusprechen, weil
sie, manchrnal ohne empirische Grundlage, rein deduktiv, prinzipielle
Positionen liber die Existenzweise der Welt forrnuliert. So konnten bei
den griechischen Philosophen fast aIle gegenwiirtigen Erkenntnisse
liber Elementaritiit, Evolution, Polaritiit, Selbstorganisation allgernein
formuliert gefunden werden. Die Spezifizierung des Allgerneinen und
die ernpirische Fundierung erst bringt Neues zur allgerneinen Idee
hinzu. Deshalb sollte Philosophie irnrner auch Ideengenerator sein,
urn Naturforschung durch Fragen und Positionen anzuregen, neue
Beziehungen, Regularitiiten und Gesetze zu entdecken.
Plagiat ist die Ubemahrne von Erkenntnissen ohne Angabe dessen,
dem die Prioritiit zukomrnt. Wiihrend der Streit urn die Prioritiit schwer
zu entscheiden ist, kann man Plagiate nachweisen. Conrat sprach
berechtigt vom "angeblichen Plagiat" von Helmholtz an Schopenhauer
und begriindete das in seinen Darlegungen zu den "unbewuBten
Schllissen".5o Helmholtz hatte seIber den Terminus zuriickgezogen:
Ich habe spilter jenen Namen der unbewuBten Schliisse vermieden, urn der Verwechslung
mit der, wie mir scheint, gilnzlich unklaren und ungerechtfertigten Vorstellung zu ent-
gehen, die Schopenhauer und seine Nachfolger mit diesem Namen bezeichnen, aber
offenbar haben wir es hier mit einem elementaren Prozesse zu tun, der allem eigentlich
sogenannten Denken zugrunde liegt, wenn dabei auch noch die kritische Sichtung und
Vervollstilndigung der einzelnen Schritte fehlt, wie sie in der wissenschaftlichen Bildung
der Begriffe und Schliisse eintritt. 51
Gerade das griff spiiter I. P. Pawlow auf: "Was der geniale Helmholtz mit
dem beriihmten Terminus 'unbewuBter SchluB bezeichnet hat, entspricht
offensichtlich dem Mechanismus des bedingten Reflexes.,,52 Damit wurde
die Kliirung des Verhaltens von Lebewesen wieder einen Schritt vor-
angebracht, aber die Determination des Erkennens und Handelns bei
wei tern nicht vollstiindig gekliirt. Schopenhauers Anhiinger konnten gegen
alle spiiteren Gelehrten, die die von Helmholtz gestellte Aufgabe weiter
verfolgen und neue Schritte bei ihrer Losung gehen, Plagiatsvorwlirfe
erheben.
4. DER STREIT UM GOETHES FARBENLEHRE
Ende 1790 hatte Goethe begonnen, sich mit den Farben zu beschiiftigen.
Bis 1794 waren zwei Teile der Beitriige zur Optik erschienen. Die
Probleme beschiiftigten ihn weiter. 53 1810 publizierte er sein Werk 'Zur
Farbenlehre', in dem er im didaktischen Teil seine Erkenntnisse darlegte,

im polemischen Teil sich mit Newton auseinandersetzte und im his-
torischen Teil eine Geschichte der Farbenlehre gab. Sie ist "der bis
heute einzige groBangelegte und - in wesentlichen Stiicken - gelun-
gene Versuch einer Geistesgeschichte der Naturbetrachtung und der auf
dieser beruhenden Naturwissenschaft.,,54 Goethe vertrat die Position,
daB sich durch Erfahrungen und Versuche eigentlich nichts beweisen
lasse, denn Folgerungen ziehe jeder selbst und diese seien von Vorurteilen
beeinfluBt, die ein Urteil vor der Untersuchung darstellen, eine Bejahung
oder Verneinung dessen, was unsre Nature anspreche oder ihr wider-
spreche. Deshalb sei es schwer zu beweisen, daB Newton unrecht habe,
"denn jeder atomistisch Gesinnte, jeder am Hergebrachten Festhaltende,
jeder vor einem groBen alten Namen mit heiliger Scheu Zuriicktretende,
jeder Bequeme wird viel lieber die erste Proposition Newtons wieder-
holen, darauf schworen, versichern, daB alles erwiesen und be wiesen
sei und unsere Bemuhungen verwunschen. ,,55 Goethe brachte das zum
Ausdruck, was spater im Zusammenhang mit der Quantentheorie als
Einsicht formuliert wurde, daB neue Theorien sich erst dann durchsetzen,
wenn die Vertreter der alten ausgestorben seien. Die Farbenlehre war
jedoch kein Ersatz fur die Theorie von Newton, sondern umfaBte als
Erfahrungsbereich die Ganzheit der Wahrnehmungen. Deshalb muBte der
Streit zu einer Polarisierung der Positionen fiihren, wie die Auseinander-
setzung zwischen Schopenhauer und Helmholtz zeigte. Eine Synthese der
Positionen scheint erst gegenwartig moglich.
In seinem Brief an den Berliner Altphilologen Friedrich August Wolf
vom 28. September 1811 empfahl Goethe Schopenhauer, der seine
Studien mit Ernst betreibe und meinte zu den eigenen Arbeiten:
Es freut mich, daB meine 'Farbenlehre' als Zankapfel die gute Wirkung tut. Meine
Gegner schmatzen daran herum, wie Karpfen an einem graBen Apfel, den man ihnen in
den Teich wirft. Diese Herren mogen sich gebarden, wie sie wollen, so bringen sie
wenigstens dieses Buch nicht aus der Geschichte der Physik heraus. Mehr verlange ich
nicht; es mag iibrigens, jetzt oder kiinftig wirken, was es kann. S6
Das hat Goethe erreicht. Der Gegensatz von Newton und Goethe wird
dann thematisiert, wenn es urn Teil und Totalitat, urn Wissenschaft und
Kunst, urn Mensch und Wissenschaft geht.
Zwischen Schopenhauer und Helmholtz ging es urn die Verteidigung
der eigenen Positionen zur wissenschaftlichen Methode und zur Rolle der
Philosophie. Schopenhauer hatte Goethe seinen Aufsatz 'Uber das Sehn
114 HERBERT HORZ
und die Farben' geschickt, den er fUr diejenigen schrieb, die mit Goethes
Farben1ehre vertraut seien, in der sich "die vollkommenste Darstellung"
der physio1ogischen Farbenphiinomene finde. 57 Goethe bemerkte am 23.
Oktober 1815, daB er den Aufsatz noch einma1 ge1esen habe, mit Vielem
einverstanden sei, sich dem Gegenstand jedoch entfremdet habe und
deshalb nicht auf Widersprtiche eingehen konne. Er wolle ihn an Dr.
Seebeck weiter lei ten, der sich wie Schopenhauer zur Farbenlehre
verhalte, "er laBt sie bestehen als Grund und Anleitung, a1s Fachwerk
und Andeutung and sie hat nie etwas wei teres sein sollen."58 Thomas
Johann Seebeck (1770-1831) war Physiker und Chemiker und hatte sich,
wie Hegel, fUr Goethes Farbenlehre ausgesprochen. Uber ihn meinte
Schopenhauer in seinem Brief aus dem J ahr 1840 an den Ubersetzer
der Farbenlehre von Goethe Sir Ch. Eastlake:
I questioned him on his opinion on the controversy between Goethe and Newton: he
was extremely cautious, made me promise that I should not print and publish any thing
of what he might say and at last being hard press'd by me, he confessed, that in deed
Goethe was perfectly right and Newton wrong; but that he had no business to tell the world
SO.59
Am 28. Januar 1816 meinte Goethe in seinem Brief an Schopenhauer,

daB er gem mit ihm tiber die Farbenlehre diskutiert hatte. Er habe sich
damit beschaftigt, urn Grund1agen fUr eine Unterhaltung zu gewinnen,
aber dabei erkannt, "wie die Menschen zwar tiber die Gegenstande und
ihre Erscheinung vollkommen einig sein konne, daB sie aber tiber
Ansicht, Ableitung, Erklarung niemals tibereinkommen werden, selbst
diejenigen nicht, welche in Prinzipien einig sind, denn die Anwendung
entzweit sie sogleich wieder. ,,60 Goethe zeigte Schopenhauer seine
Experimente zur Farbenlehre, der dazu berichtete: Goethe "war so ganz
Realist, dass es ihm durchaus nicht zu Sinne wollte, dass die Objekte
als solche nur da seien, insofem sie von dem erkennenden Subjekt
vorgestellt werden."61 Goethe erhielt von Schopenhauer 1818 ein
Exemplar des Buches "Die Welt a1s Wille und Vorstellung" und 1ieB
ihm im Marz 1819 seinen Beifall durch seine Schwester ausdrucken.
Vor allem gefielen Goethe die Stelle tiber den erworbenen Charakter
und die Ansicht, daB Kunst nicht nur Nachahmung der Natur sei.
Schopenhauer nutzte das Ansehen Goethes, urn se1bst beachtet zu
werden. Berichtet wird, er habe Goethe als Egoisten gesehen: "Es ist eine
grosse Thorheit, urn nach Aussen zu gewinnen, nach Innen zu verlieren,
d.h. fUr Glanz, Rang, Prunk, Titel und Ehre, seine Ruhe, Musse und
Unabhangigkeit ganz oder grossen Theils hinzugeben. Dies hat aber

Goethe gethan. Mich hat mein Genius mit Entschiedenheit nach der
anderen Richtung gezogen.,,62 Da wir wissen, wie gem Schopenhauer
Anerkennung genoB, durfte der Neid auf Goethes Position diese Haltung
mit bestimmt haben. Er verteidigte mit dessen Farbenlehre vor allem sich
seIber, denn einerseits war Goethe so groB, daB Lob fur diesen auch
auf den Verteidiger absprang und andererseits bildete Goethe das Vehikel,
urn sich selbst mit seiner Philosophie, die vor 1848 kaum beachtet wurde,
ins Gesprach zu bringen.
Helmholtz hatte Positionen zu Goethe in dem Vortrge formuliert, den
er am 18. Januar 1853 in der Deutschen Gesellschaft zu Konigsberg
zum Thema 'Uber Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten' hielt. Briicke
bemerkte dazu in einem Brief: "Seit Du vollends mit solcher Kunst als
popularer Schriftsteller uber aufgetreten bist, scheint es, daB man von
Dir sagen muB wie weiland Cornelius Nepos yom Junker Alcibiades:
'In hoc viditur natura etc.' ,,63 Briicke stand, wie Helmholtz, kritisch
zur Farbenlehre Goethes. Wahrend Helmholtz ihre Grundlagen in der
kunsterischen Aneignung der Wirklichkeit sah, sprach Briicke, der sich
selbst intensiv mit den sUbjektiven Farben befaBte, von Goethes 'Farben-
lehre peinlichen Andenkens. ,64 Nach Helmholtz blieb Goethe in seiner
Farbenlehre der Ansicht treu, daB die Natur ihre Geheimnisse von selbst
darlegen musse. Den Schritt in das Reich der Begriffe, wage er nicht.
Seine Farbenlehre miissen wir als den Versuch betrachten. die ummittelbare Wahrheit
des sinnlichen Eindrucks gegen die Angriffe der Wissenschaft zu retten. Daher der Eifer,
mit dem er sie auszubilden und zu verteidigen strebt, die leidenschaftliche Gereiztheit,
mit der er die Gegner angreift, die iiberwiegende Wichtigkeit, welche er ihr vor allen
seinen anderen Werken zuschreibt, und die Unmoglichkeit der Uberzeugung und
Versohnung. 65
Helmholtz sah den tieferen Sinn der Polemik Goethes gegen Newton
in der Entgegensetzung von Wissenschaft und Kunst. Wo Goethe
den wissenschaftlichen Kriterien der Rationalitat folge, babe er wis-
senschaftliche Einsichten, aber wo er seine Kunst verteidige, wie in der
Farbenlehre, irre er wissenschaftlich. Nach Helmholtz zerstort der von
den Physikem aufgedeckte Mechansimus den schOnen Schein, der das
Ideale zur Anschauung bringt. Deshalb habe Goethe gegen die Physik
auftreten mussen, weil er nur dort behaglich verweilen kanne, wo er
die Wirklichkeit poetisch gestempelt habe, wiihrend der Mechanismus
das poetische Behagen store.
Helmholtz anerkannte die Leistungen von Goethe. Er bemerkte in
116 HERBERT HORZ
seinem Vortrag am 11. Juni 1892 vor der Goethe-Gesellschaft zum Thema
'Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen', von
dem Einstein spater sagte, er werde von Jedem mit Entziicken gelesen: 66
"Von den subjektiven Ernpfindungen des Auges hat Goethe ziemlich
viel gewuBt, einige selbst entdeckt, die Lehre von den spezifischen
Energien der Sinne hat er hochstens in unvollkommener Entwiekelung
durch Schopenhauer kennengelemt. ,,67 Der Dichter hat nach Helmholtz
hOchste Leistungen dort vollbracht, wo Anschauungsbilder kiinstlerisch
verarbeitet wurden, aber er scheiterte, wo nur die bewuBte induktive
Methode helfen konnte. Die Spezifik von Kunst und Wissenschaft ist
darnit gerettet, das Problem, den Zusammenhang von begrifflicher
Zergliederung und Totalitat der Anschaulichkeit zu erkennen, wurde
darnit nieht gelost.
Die Diskussionen urn die Anschaulichkeit der Quantenmechanik
zeigten spater, daB die, der Anschaulichkeit als sinnlicher Einsieht in
wesentliche Strukturen, zugrundeliegenden Begriffe sich andem.68 Leider
wurde in diesen Debatten der Bezug zu dem fundamentalen Streit urn die
Farbenlehre nicht hergestellt, obwohl er einsichtig ist. Die Grundidee
Goethes von der sinnlichen ErfaBbarkeit der Urphanomene, von der
Polaritat und Totalitat des Geschehens, von der Einheit von Subjekt
und Objekt wurde noch in ihrer Bedeutung fOr die kritische Analyse
der Wissenschaft erkannt. Noch dominierte das Sein gegeniiber dern
Werden. Die Sinnlichkeit unterlag begrifflieher Abstraktheit. Kunst und
Wissenschaft koexistierten.
Lepenies bernerkt: "Das Zeitalter von Technik und Wissenschaft
konnte nicht scharfer verdamrnt werden als dadurch, daB man ihm 'totale
Goethelosigkeit' vorwarf.,,69 Er verweist jedoch auf die Wamung Goethes,
Vemunft und Wissenschaft nieht zu verachten, weil man dann Mephisto
verfalle. Kunst und Wissenschaft als asthetische und rationale Aneigung
der Wirklichkeit erganzen sich im Menschen, der Effektivitat rational
bestimmt und sein Wohlbefinden in und mit der Umwelt asthetisch
kultiviert.
Goethes Farbenlehre regte dazu an, die wissenschaftliche Methodik
kritisch zu analysieren. Der Physiker Walter Heitler hatte vor Jahren
die wachsende Entfemung der Wissenschaft vom Menschen durch das
kausal-analytische Denken charakterisiert:
Diese nicht-menschliche, ja sogar antimenschliche Haltung der Wissenschaft war ohne
Zweifel der tiefere Grund fiir Goethes heftige Polemik gegen Newton und fiir seine tiefe
Abneigung gegen das Vorgehen der Physiker seiner Zeit. Fiir Goethe steht der Mensch
im Zentrum der Naturbetrachtung. Seine Farbenlehre ist den Menschen unmittelbar nah,
sie handelt von unseren Wahmehmungen, und aus eben diesem Grund wurde sie
geschaffen. 70
Die Forderung nach Einbeziehung des Menschen in die Wissenschaft

wendet sich gegen die Zergliederung ganzheitlicher Objekte, gegen die
alleinige Orientierung auf die Untersuchung von Seinsstrukturen unter
MiBachtung der Sinnfragen. Das ruhrt zur Frage nach dem Verhaltnis von
Mathematisierung und Humanisierung der Wissenschaften, zur Rolle
der Philosophie als WelterkUirung. 71
Mit den Forschungen zur Selbstorganisation ist eine neue Stufe des
Streits urn Goethes Farbenlehre entstanden. Andreas Speiser hatte
Goethes Methode als Studium eines Phiinomens in empirisch faBbaren
Erscheinungen gefaBt, deren Ordnung mit einem Gesetz erfolgt, von dem
man zum Urphanomen aufsteige, "das man in seiner Herrlichkeit stehen
lassen soll."72 Erich Jantsch spitzte die metaphysischen Alternativen
zu, zwischen denen wir uns entscheiden miissen: Anerkennung einer
Ordnungsidee mit Goethe, die den Sinn des Ganzen ausmacht, oder
Sinnleere durch die Reduktion auf Modelle. 73 Goethes Uberlegungen
zur Gestalt, die seiner generellen Suche nach dem sinnlich aufweis-
baren Urphiinomen entsprechen, sei es das WeiBe oder der Organismus,
ist nach Eigen und Winkler der Hinweis auf den hoheren Grad der
Stabilitat in konservativen Strukturen. 74
1m Streit zwischen Newton und Goethe hat jeder dort recht, wo er sich
auf die Erklarung der von ihm untersuchten Phiinomene bezieht. Newton
hat die objektive Struktur der Farben aus den Wellenlangen erklart.
Goethe hat sich mit den subjektiven Farbempfindungen befaBt. Die
Auseinandersetzung umfaBt jedoch auch die philosophische Position
Goethes, Sinnfragen bei der Analyse der Seinsstrukturen nicht zu
vergessen, den Menschen aus der Wissenschaft nicht herauszunivellieren
und die Ganzheit nicht allein als Summe ihrer Teile zu betrachten. Dieser
Gedanke hat rur systemtheoretische Uberlegungen und Forschungen zur
Selbstorganisation Bedeutung, wei! Systeme ihre eigenen Strukturen
haben, die die Elemente des Systems in ihrem Verhalten regeln und so
ein Ordnungsprinzip bestimmen. 75
5. FAZIT
Die Analyse der Problemfelder in der Kontroverse zwischen Schopen-

hauer und Helmholtz macht deutlich, daB sich die Entgegensetzung von
118 HERBERT HORZ
Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft unter konkrethistorischen Bedingun-

gen als personliche Auseinanderstzung zeigen kann. Beide Gelehrte
stellen einen Typus dar, der immer wieder auftritt. In Schopenhauer haben
wir den "genialen" Philosophen, der die Weltratsel durch deduktive
Betrachtungen losen will. Seine Vorganger nahm er nur insofern ernst,
als sie ihn in seinen Ansichten zu bestatigen schienen. Von den anderen
erwartete er Hochachtung und Hinweise auf seine Leistungen. Natur-
forschern sprach er die Berechtigung ab, sich zu philosophischen
Problemen zu auBern. Der Naturforscher Helmholtz, der geniale
Leistungen auf den verschiedensten Gebieten erbrachte, forderte die
experimentelle Kleinarbeit, die mathematische Durchdringung der
Beziehungen, die induktive Aufarbeitung der Empirie und die deduk-
tive Erarbeitung von Folgerungen aus der Theorie, die wieder empirisch
uberpriift werden. Helmholtz negierte die Philo sophie nicht, achtete
ihre Traditionen und nutzte ihre Einsichten. Er wirkte selbst als Philosoph,
wenn es urn Erkenntnistheorie und allgemeine Fragen der Welterklarung
ging.
Schopenhauer miBachtete, wie manche Philosophen, die Relevanz
neuer Naturerkenntnisse fUr die Philosophie, die zwar in ihren allge-
meinen Aussagen weder beweis- noch widerlegbar ist, sich jedoch
mit prazisierten Aussagen, in die das Wissen einer Zeit eingehen, der
Priifung mit wissenschaftlichen Methoden stellt. 1m Bemuhen, allein
die Autonomie der Philosophie zu betonen, verfallt man meist der frucht-
losen Spekulation und negiert die heuristische Rolle der Philo sophie
fUr die Naturforschung.
Streitigkeiten urn Prioritaten und im Extremfall urn Plagiate zeigen,
wie im historischen ErkenntnisprozeB Weltratsel erkannt, schrittweise
gelost und neu formuliert werden. Nicht der eine geniale Gedanke
bestimmt den Fortschritt der Erkenntnis, sondern seine Vorlaufer, die
ihn entstehen lieBen, seine Interpreten, die ihn prazisieren, seine
Verfechter, die ihn empirisch und theoretisch untermauern und seine
Kritiker, die Schwachstellen der Argumentation und Lucken aufzeigen.
So sind historische Kontroversen immer auch ein Lehrstuck fUr den
aktuellen Wissenschaftsbetrieb und das Verhalten von Menschen in
ihm. Immer gab und gibt es Intrigen, Monopole in der Meinungsbildung,
hehre und niedere Charaktere, schopferische Denker und nachbetende
Apostel.
Der Streit urn Goethes Farbenlehre macht deutlich, daB mit dem
Verhiiltnis von Kunst und Wissenschaft nicht alle Probleme angesprochen
sind. Gegenwfutig entstehen mit den Forschungen zur Selbstorganisation

und mit dem Systemdenken neuartige theoretische Dimensionen dieses
Streits und mit der geforderten Humanisierung der Wissenschaften zeigen
sich theoretische und praktische Defizite.
Helmholtz hatte, in seinem Bestreben, die empirisch-induktive
Methode gegen philosophische Spekulationen durchzusetzen, die Sub-
jektiviHit und das spezifisch Menschliche aus seinen Arbeiten teil-
weise verdriingt. Schopenhauer machte es in einer Art gel tend, die der
Wissenschaft damals nieht helfen konnte, aber uns zum Nachdenken iiber
das wissenschaftliche Verstandnis der Menschen in ihrer IntegriHit
zwingt.
Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Berlin
NOTES
I Robert S. Cohen, dem dieser Beitrag zu seinem 70. Geburtstag gewidmet ist, hat
selbst Arbeiten von Helmholtz ediert. Die Briefe von Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Briicke
(1819-1892) und Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1816-1895) an Helmholtz aus dem
Berliner Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften geben Hinweise auf die Positionen
der Freunde von Helmholtz zum Streit mit Schopenhauer. Leider war es, trotz inten-
siver Suche in Archiven, nicht moglich, die Originalbriefe von Helmholtz an Briicke
und Ludwig aufzufinden. obwohl sie Koenigsberger offensichtlich vorlagen.
2 Armin Tschermag-Seysenegg: 'Goethes Farbenlehre in ihrer Bedeutung fiir die
physiologische Optik der Gegenwart', in: Forschungen und Fortschritte 8 (1932) Goethe-
Heft, S. 13.
3 Wilhelm Weischedel: 'Schopenhauer und der bose Blick', in: Die philosophischen
Hintertreppe, Miinchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. 1975, S. 221.
4 Friedrich Conrat: Hermann von Helmholtz' Psychologische Anschauungen, Halle a.d.S.:
Max Niemeyer 1904, S. 236.
5 Leo Koenigsberger: Hermann von Helmholtz, Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und
Sohn, 1902, S. 9.
6 Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. NachlafJ Helmholtz. Brief von
Ludwig an Helmholtz vom 26. 4. 1854. Die Publikation der Briefe von Miiller, Ludwig,
Briicke und Fechner an Helmholtz, die im Berliner Akademiearchiv vorhanden sind, ist
unter dem Titel Herbert Horz, Physiologie und Kultur in der 2. Halfte des 19. lahrhunderts.
Briefe an Hermann von Helmholtz, Marburg: Basilisken-Presse 1994 erfolgt. Diese
Briefe werden weiterhin nur mit Namen und Datum genannt.
7 Herbert Horz: 'Helmholtz und Boltzmann', in: Ludwig Boltzmann Gesamtausgabe, Band
8, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 1981, S. 199.
8 Herbert Horz/Andreas LaaB: Ludwing Boltzmanns Wege nach Berlin, Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1989, S. 96.
120 HERBERT HORZ
9 Ludwig Boltzmann: Populiire Schriften. Eingeleitet und ausgewiihlt von Engelbert

Broda, Braunschweig: Vieweg und Sohn, 1979, S. 240.
10 Brief von Ludwig an Helmholtz vom 26. 5. 1853.
11 Herbert Horz: Marxistische Philosophie und Naturwissenschaften, Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1974, S. 92ff.
12 Herbert Horz: Wissenschaft als ProzefJ, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1988, S. 15ff.
13 Arthur Schopenhauer: Siimtliche Werke, Hrsg. Wolfgang Frhr. von Lohneysen, Band
III, Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1979, S. 247.
14 Ebenda, S. 284.
15 Ebenda, S. 193.
16 Arthur Schopenhauer: Von ihm. Uber ihn. Ein Wort der Verteidigung von Ernst Otto
Lindner und Memorabilien, Briefe und Nachlasstiicke von Julius Frauenstiidt, Berlin:
A. W. Hayn, 1863, S. 653f.
17 Friedrich Conrat: Hermann von Helmholtz' Psychologische Anschauungen, S. 238.
18 Hermann von Helmholtz: 'Das Denken in der Medizin', in: Hermann von Helmholtz;
Philosophische Vortriige und Aufsiitze. Eingeleitet und mit erkliirenden Anmerkungen
herausgegeben von Herbert Harz und Siegfried Wollgast, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971,
S.238.
19 Ebenda, S. 236.
20 Hermann von Helmholtz: Vortriige und Reden. Zweiter Band, Braunschweig: Friedrich
Vieweg und Sohn, 1896, S. 415.
21 Arthur Schopenhauer, Siimtliche Werke, Band III, Hrsg. Wolfgang Frhr. von
Lohneysen, S. 195.
22 Leo Koenigsberger: Hermann von Helmholtz. Dritter Band, Braunschweig: Friedrich
Vieweg und Sohn, 1903, S. 118f.
23 Johann Carl Friedrich Zollner: Uber die Natur der Cometen, Leipzig, 1871: In
Commission bei L. Staackmann. Spiiter nimmt Zollner mehrmals Stellung zur Kritik
von Helmholtz. Dabei fiihlt er sich miBverstanden. Vgl. die Beilage zur zweiten Auflage:
Zur Abwehr. S. 357ff.
24
Friedrich Conrat: Hermann von Helmholtz' Psychologische Anschauungen.
25
Ebenda, S. 145.
26
Hermann von Helmholtz: Vortriige und Reden. Zweiter Band, S. 414.
27
Leo Koenigsberger: Hermann von Helmholtz. Band I, S. 278.
28
Ebenda, S. 285.
29
Ebenda, S. 291.
30 Ebenda, S. 293.
31 Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek-Handschriftensammlung, Autogr. 304142-1.
32 Anna von Helmholtz: Ein Lebensbild in Briefen. Hrsg. Ellen von Siemens-Helmholtz,
Berlin 1929: Verlag fiir Kulturpolitik. Band I, 1929, S. 289.
33 Ebenda, Band II, S. 75.
34 Brief von Ludwig an Helmholtz vom 14.10.1856.
35 Hermann von Helmholtz: Vortriige und Reden, Zweiter Band, S. 414.
36 Brief von Ludwig an Helmholtz yom 23.6.1872.
37 Brief von Ludwig an Helmholtz Yom 14. 7. 1872.
I, S. 387f.
39 Ebenda, Band III, S. 334f.

40 Arthur Schopenhauer: Von ihm. Ober ihn. Ein Wort der Verteidigung von Ernst Otto
Lindner und Memorabilien, Briete und Nachlasstiicke von Julius Frauenstiidt, S. 673.
41 Brief von Briicke an Helmholtz vom 23. 10. 1853.
43 Lips Tullian war ein beriichigter Raubmorder. 1675 geboren, war er bis 1702
Wachtmeister in kaiserlichen Diensten. Nach einem Duell floh er nach Prag und geriet
in eine Diebesbande. Mehrmals verhaftet, floh er immer wieder aus dem Gewahrsam
und wurde 1711 zu lebenslanger Festungshaft verurteilt. 1714 zettelte er eine
Geflingnisrevolte an und wurde 1715 in Dresden hingerichtet.
45 Klaus Klauss: 'Ein neuentdecktes friihes Dokument zur Geschichte der Erfindung
des Augenspiegels durch Hermann v. Helmholtz', in: NTM. Leipzig 18 (1981) I, S. 58-61.
46 Brief von Briicke an Helmholtz vom 24.6. 1851.
47 Hermann von Helmholtz: Vortriige und Reden. Erster Band, Braunschweig: Friedrich
Vieweg und Sohn, 1896, S. 4Olf. Es handelt sich urn den 1883 zum Vortrag 'Ueber die
Wechselwirkung der Naturkriifte' hinzugefiigten Abschnitt 'Robert Mayer's Prioritiit'.
48 Ebenda, S. 406f.
49 Ebenda, S. 409.
50 Friedrich Conrat: Hermann von Helmholtz' Psychologische Anschauungen, S. 235.
51 Hermann von Helmholtz: 'Die Tatsachen in der Wahmehmung', in: Hermann von
Helmholtz: Philosophische Vortriige und Aufsiitze, S. 267.
52 1. P. Pawlow: 'Naturwissenschaft und Gehim', in: Siimtliche Werke, Band III, Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1953, S. 83.
53 Goethe: Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Erste Abteilung: Texte, Band 3, Beitriige
zur Optik und Anfiinge der Farbenlehre. 1790-1808, Herausgegeben von Rupprecht
Matthaei. Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1951.
54 Goethe: Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Zweite Abteilung: Ergiinzungen und
Erliiuterungen. Band 6, Zur Farbenlehre. Historischer Teil, Bearbeitet von Dorothea Kuhn
und Karl Lothar Wolf, Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1959. Einleitung. S. IX.
55 Goethe: Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Erste Abteilung: Texte. Band 5, Zur
Farbenlehre. Polemischer Teil, Bearbeitet von Rupprecht Matthaei, Weimar: Hermann
Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1958, S. 12.
56 Goethes Briefe in drei Biinden. Zweiter Band, Ausgewiihlt und erliiutert von Helmut
Holtzhauer, Berlin und Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1970, S. 217.
III, S. 197.
58 Goethe Briefe in drei Biinden, Zweiter Band, S. 377f.
59 Arthur Schopenhauer: Von ihm. Ober ihn. Ein Wort der Verteidigung von Ernst Otto
Lindner und Memorabilien, Briefe und Nachlasstiicke von Julius Frauenstiidt, S. 69.
60 Goethes Briefe in drei Biinden, Zweiter Band, S. 388.
61 Arthur Schopenhauer: Von ihm, Ober ihn. Ein Wort der Verteidigung von Ernst Otto
Lindner und Memorabilien, Briefe und Nachlasstiicke von Julius Frauenstiidt, S. 222.
62 Ebenda, S. 237.
63 Brief von Briicke an Helmholtz vom 23. 10. 1853.
64 Brief von Briicke an Helmholtz vom 22.12.1851.
122 HERBERT HORZ
65 Hermann von Helmholtz: 'Uber Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten', in:

Hermann von Helmholtz: Philosophische Vortriige und AuJsiitze, S. 40.
66 Ebenda, S. 432.
67 Ebenda, S. 360.
68 Herbert Horz: 'Zur Anschaulichkeit in der Quantentheorie', in: Herbert Horz und Rolf
Lother (Hrsg): Natur und Erkenntnis, Berlin: Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1964, S. 58-98.
69 Wolfgang Lepenies: Die drei Kulturen, MiinchenlWien: Carl Hanser, 1985, S. 264.
70 Walter Heitler: Der Mensch und die naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis, Braunschweig:
Vieweg und Sohn, 1966, S. 27.
71 Herbert Horz und Siegfried Paul (Hrsg.): Mathematisierung der Wissenschaften, Berlin:
Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Zentralinstitut fiir Philosophie, 1989.
72 Andreas Speiser: 'Goethes Farbenlehre', in: Gesnerus 6 (1949) Fasc. 3/4, S. 65.
73 Erich Jantsch: Die Selbstorganisation des Universums, MiinchenlWien: Carl Hanser,
1979, S. 4l3.
74 Manfred EigeniRuthild Winkler: Das Spiel, Miinchen: R. Piper & Co., 1975, S. 119f.
75 Herbert Horz: Selbstorganisation sozialer Systeme. Ein Verhaltensmodell zum
Freiheitsgewinn, Miinster: Lit, 1994.
JOSEPH MARGOLIS
THE MEANING OF THOMAS KUHN'S

"DIFFERENT WORLDS"
In the recent literature in the philosophy of science, there is one citation

notable for its frequency and the puzzlement it engenders. It was as
puzzling to its author as to those who mention it, usually with strong
convictions for or against its apparent thesis. The remark in question
is Thomas Kuhn's regarding the change in the science of chemistry
produced in the interval from Priestley to Lavoisier:
Lavoisier [Kuln says] saw oxygen where Priestley had seen dephlogisticated air and where
others had seen nothing at all. In learning to see oxygen, however, Lavoisier also had
to change his view of many other more familiar substances. He had, for example, to see
a compound ore where Priestley and his contemporaries had seen an elementary earth, and
there were other changes besides. At the very least, as a result of discovering oxygen,
Lavoisier saw nature differently. And in the absence of some recourse to that hypo-
thetical fixed nature that he "saw differently," the principle of economy will urge us to
say that after discovering oxygen he worked in a different world. I
Kuhn goes on to offer a parallel case regarding Galileo's and Aristotle's

having seen, respectively, a pendulum and a "swinging body." But he
worries about his own locution ("worked in a different world"), and he
says, immediately following the Priestley/Lavoisier case, "I shall inquire
in a moment about the possibility of avoiding this strange locution."
He compounds the conceptual difficulty by remarking, after reflecting
on Buridan's and Oresme's approximation of Galileo's view of the
pendulum, that: "Until that scholastic paradigm was invented, there
were no pendulums, but only swinging stones, for the scientist to
see. Pendulums were brought into existence by something very like a
paradigm-induced gestalt switch.,,2 (Kuhn eventually becomes uneasy
about the "gestalt" image, since paradigms involve scientific commu-
nities and the "gestalt" idiom concerns individual perception. 3) He then
repeats his original warning: "Is there any legitimate sense in which
we can say that they pursued their research in different worlds?"
I believe Kuhn was remarkably prescient, but in a way he did not
rightly understand. I suggest that the passage indelibly focuses an essen-
tial puzzle of late twentieth-century philosophy. His opponents did not
understand what he had hit on, but they sensed the danger of it and
123

124 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
resisted: resisted so effectively that Kuhn himself relented and fell back
to a blander version of what he had discerned. The deeper intuition is
still felt today and still resisted; and the irony is that Kuhn himself
formulated the now-standard way of disallowing the threatening novelty
of the more than epistemological shift the "different worlds" idiom
signifies. It is for instance part of the motivation of Philip Kitcher's
new book, Nothing Like the Sun: Science without Legend, Objectivity
without /llusion,4 which briefly explores Kuhn's image but largely
discards its deepest puzzle.
The issue is essential to current disputes in the philosophy of science,
as Kuhn makes clear. But it also converges with the import of more
general changes in philosophy at large; and this connection, I believe,
has not been sufficiently appreciated in the context of the dominant
themes of current American philosophy. I begin with Kuhn, therefore,
with the need to be quite clear about Kuhn's own use of the "different
worlds" idiom. My intention is to bring the local issue in the philos-
ophy of science into accord with certain larger worries that have been
glimpsed in epistemic and ontic matters affecting our understanding of
truth, knowledge, objectivity, and reality. In the process, I try to reclaim
what I take to be the deeper sense of Kuhn's original remarks. You will
have to be the judge of the fruitfulness of the connection.
In the passage cited, Kuhn speaks as if the issue at stake was whether
the "different worlds" idiom can be justified at all; whereas what I
suggest is that Kuhn had rather innocently sidled into the twin uncer-
tainties of the invariance of the order of nature and the neutrality of
the language of science - without being at all clear about how profoundly
he had chanced upon these worries. (It is, for instance, not frontally
pursued by Kitcher, who leads us away from Kuhn's discovery.)
It is certainly clear that the passage cited bears on Kuhn's notorious

notion of a paradigm. I have no wish to explore what Kuhn "finally"
means by a paradigm. The expose of his alleged carelessness has pro-
duced an entire industry, largely under the provocation of Karl Popper's
objections. 5 And Kuhn himself, at the very moment he issued the second
edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, responded rather dis-
appointingly to Popper's bait by retreating from the strong thesis cited,
THOMAS KUHN'S "DIFFERENT WORLDS" 125
to a historiographic and sociological reflection on the practices of scien-

tists - hence, to a use of "paradigm" that could not possibly satisfy the
advocates of a strong methodology (including the Popperians but not only
them).6 Kuhn does not broach the "different worlds" idiom there. He tends
to reduce to a mere figure of speech the idea that a change of paradigm
is "a gestalt switch," a phrase that identifies a perspectival difference
between himself and Popper (literally, something like a duck-rabbit shift)
that, doubtless, affects the methodology of science. 7
He also corrects - instructively - Popper's treatment of "the psy-
chology of knowledge," but not in a way that returns us to the original
forceful phrasing. He says:
When he rejects "the psychology of knowledge," Sir Karl's explicit concern is only to
deny the methodological relevance of an individual's source of inspiration or of an indi-
vidual's sense of certainty. With that much I cannot disagree. It is, however, a long step
from the rejection of the psychological idiosyncrasies of an individual to the rejection
of the common elements induced by nurture and training in the psychological make-up
of the licensed membership of a scientific group. One need not be dismissed with the
other. 8
I count this a retreat of a very large sort, though right enough as it stands.
It has been regularly construed as a contribution to the sociology of
science, which is little more than a disparaging compliment.
Similarly, when in the body of the same paper, Kuhn says, "we [that
is, Popper and he] are ... sceptical of efforts to produce any neutral
observation language,"9 it is clear that he does not believe that the impos-
sibility of a neutral language - or the admission of incommensurability
- entails the "different worlds" notion, unless as a faron de parler or
metaphoric extravagance to catch the cognitive and methodological
puzzles such admissions generate.
The same is true of his 'Reflections on My Critics' in the Lakatos
and Musgrave volume. Indeed, there, he doubts that there are any very
strong differences between himself and his critics on "method": they
differ (he says) more on "substance," by which he apparently means
that they disagree on the historical evidence for, and the coherence of,
the difference between normal and revolutionary science and the genuine
phenomenon of incommensurability.lO The incommensurability issue
suggests a deeper question to which Kuhn does not effectively return -
that may well oblige us to reconsider the "different worlds" idiom -
but none of his critics picks up on that. It may be, therefore, that they
126 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
have rightly understood what Kuhn himself intended by the "different

worlds" expression.
A more recent volume of reviews of Kuhn's book, which includes a
considerable number of papers written in the seventies, fares no better.
On the contrary, the editor, Gary Gutting, offers the following in a
footnote clarifying the general drift of his collection:
No doubt Kuhn himself is (as he has acknowledged) to some extent responsible for
being misunderstood. For example, he compares scientists' changes of paradigm to reli-
gious conversions, says that those working with different paradigms "live in different
worlds," cites with approval Planck's dictum that new views triumph only by the deaths
of their opponents, etc. Interpreted in their context, none of these passages in fact support
the irrationalism that has been attributed to him. II
In effect, this points to the concern among philosophers of science

regarding the methodological considerations in virtue of which adopting
a change of paradigm might be deemed rational or irrational, where the
pertinent reasons cannot be merely internal to the paradigm to be replaced
or to the replacing paradigm. It also betrays the ease with which the
offending expression ("live in different worlds") may be discounted -
in sociological terms. There is a telltale blandness in the admission of
the idiom: it is not taken to have the deep import I attribute to it.
II
Now, Kuhn does reconsider the matter in the Postscript (1970) to The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He is primarily concerned there to
resolve the apparent contradictions of Section X of the original text, in
which the following two formulations appear:
Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography,
the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world
itself changes with them,12
which is the opening line of Section X ("Revolutions as Changes of World

View"); and
though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works
in a different world .... What occurs during a scientific revolution is not fully reducible
to a reinterpretation of individual and stable data. 13
Kuhn clearly believes there is a point which ought not to be lost by

merely resisting the apparent contradiction. He sees his own risk as
signifying that "the traditional paradigm is somehow askew": that is,

the "Cartesian" epistemological paradigm (as he labels it) that informs
Newtonian dynamics. His intention is to resist the suggestion (the
Cartesian proposal) that "what changes with a paradigm is only the
scientist's interpretation of observations that themselves are fixed once
and for all by the nature of the environment and of the perceptual appa-
ratus. On this view", he continues, "Priestley and Lavoisier both saw
oxygen, but they interpreted their observations differently; Aristotle and
Galileo both saw pendulums, but they differed in their interpretations
of what they both had seen.,,14 Kuhn means to resist this reading.
Still, it is not clear how far Kuhn means to go; for he says that "the
world" does not change with a change of paradigm, but "the scientist
afterward works in a different world." This reassurance on Kuhn's part
may explain the bland reception of his startling remark, but it is hardly
clear what he actually means. For instance, if Kuhn were a post-Kantian
(say, of Hilary Putnam's sort), then a change of paradigm would signify
a change of world, a change in "the world." The blandness would then
be subverted, as indeed it has been for Putnam - who has found himself
obliged to confess his own inability (ironically, against his earlier reading
of Kuhn) to hold "the world" unchanged, all the while he admits changes
in interpretive perspective that produce (in effect) "the different worlds"
in which scientists and philosophers live. 15 I am certain about one con-
straint, however: I don't think there is any evidence that Kuhn favored
a strong disjunction between a "phenomenal" reading of "different
worlds" and a "noumenal" reading of the "one world" that remains
unchanged. I don't deny that he was puzzled by the need (his need) for
a clear distinction - which he was never able to supply, and which he
was frank enough to admit he could not provide. 16 He has acknowl-
edged that he is a Kantian of sorts - but one not at all attracted to Kantian
noumena. 17
In Section X, Kuhn was only able to arrive at a stalemate. "But is
sensory experience fixed and neutral?" he asks. "Are theories simply
man-made interpretations of given data? ... Yes! In the absence of a
developed alternative, I find it impossible to relinquish entirely that view-
point. Yet it no longer functions effectively, and the attempts to make
it do so through the introduction of a neutral language of observations
now seem to me hopeless.,,18 In the Postscript, Kuhn "solves" the puzzle
by distinguishing between (sensory) "stimuli" and "sensations" (or
"perceptions"). Here is the decisive passage:
128 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
Notice now that two groups, the members of which have systematically different sensa-
tions on receipt of the same stimuli, do in some sense live in different worlds. We posit
the existence of stimuli to explain our perceptions of the world, and we posit their
immutability to avoid both individual and social solipsism. About neither posit have I
the slightest reservation. But our world is populated in the first instance not by stimuli
but by the objects of our sensations, and these need not be the same, individual to indi-
vidual or group to groUp.19
There can be no doubt that Kuhn's formulation is intended as a

comment on Quine's puzzling stopgap expression, "stimulus meaning,"
and the theory that puts it to use, which had already cast a long shadow
over the reception of his own book, from 1962 to 1970. 20 He is clearly
trying to avoid the deeper threat of his own discovery.
The critical point is this: Kuhn denies that stimuli play a direct per-
ceptual (or sensory) role; whereas, for Quine, they function (in however
ad hoc a way) as the most workable sensory grounding we can rely
on. 21 That is, there is an obvious verbal difference between Kuhn and
Quine, although (I am convinced) Kuhn means to bring his own account
into favorable accord with Quine's more influential vision, if only his
"correction" of Quine were allowed. In fact, in the Postscript, he comes
very close to saying so, as when he explains inter-societal communica-
tion and translation: in Word and Object, he says, "Quine seems to assume
that two men receiving the same stimulus must have the same sensa-
tion and therefore has little to say about the extent to which a translator
must be able to describe the world to which the language being trans-
lated applies.'m So Kuhn misreads Quine's text here; but, in doing that,
he manages to catch Quine's ulterior intention. Curiously, the mistake
is more important than what he gets right - and for reasons that favor
neither Quine nor Kuhn. But accuracy demands that we acknowledge that
"stimulus" and "stimulation" are, for Quine, sensory distinctions, not
unobserved theoretical factors causally linked to sensory experience. Very
few seem to have paused long enough to have reflected on how puzzling
it is that Quine's rather empiricist lingo characterizes sensations in terms
of discerning causes and effects.
If I am right in this, then, in effect, Kuhn has glimpsed the sense
in which his own thesis (the "different worlds" notion) has larger
implications for analytic philosophy not narrowly occupied with the
paradigm-shift issue. But, I say, Kuhn relented, fell back too compliantly,
and even interpreted his own position in a way that was not actually
too far from Quine's, though he saw the sense in which Quine adheres
to the "Cartesian" model he himself sought to subvert. "People do not

see stimuli," Kuhn says;
our knowledge of them is highly theoretical and abstract. Instead they have sensations,
and we are under no compulsion to suppose that the sensations of our two viewers are
the same . . . . Among the few things that we know about [neural processing] with
assurance are: that very different stimuli can produce the same sensations; that the same
stimulus can produce very different sensations; and, finally, that the route from stimulus
to sensation is in part conditioned by education .... If we were not tempted to identify
stimuli one-to-one with sensations, we might recognize that they [our two viewers] actually
[see different things].23
It should be clear from this that Kuhn means to recover "the [one]
world" by way of his theorizing about the variable sensory experience
of scientists placed differently in history and with respect to the alter-
native paradigms that form the "different worlds" in which they practice.
But he does not come to grips with the obvious fact that the theorizing
that would save "the world" is itself an artifact of contingent paradigms.
That is the post-Kantian gambit, the one Putnam has not been able to
tame, the one the "idealizing" Kuhn is plainly drawn to. I suggest there
is no escape and that Kuhn's analytic critic has not grasped the fact
that there is no escape. Put another way: Quine's defeat of the analytic/
synthetic dogma should have led Quine to admit that "analytical
hypotheses" function ubiquitously. Had Quine admitted that, he would
clearly have had to put at risk his own extensionalism and physicalism.
But, of course, Quine is an empiricist with respect to initial "holophrastic"
sentences. 24 He is not an empiricist anywhere else. Hence, Quine cannot
help Kuhn, though Kuhn is puzzled by the fact.
III
I believe Kuhn is right about the difference between "stimuli" and "sen-
sations"; but, more than that, Kuhn does not see the ramifications of
his own insight. Or, to the extent that he does, he does not pursue them
in a robust way. There can be no doubt that the view he ascribes to Quine
(which he opposes) is the essential key to the now-influential thesis
known as "supervenience," which Donald Davidson introduced as early
as 1970, the year of the second edition of Kuhn's Scientific Revolutions
book. Davidson borrows the term from G. E. Moore but puts it to a
more pointed use. In 'The Material Mind' (1973), for instance, Davidson
130 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
formulates the supervenience theory thus: "it is impossible for two events
(objects, states) to agree in all their physical characteristics (or in Moore's
case, their descriptive characteristics) and to differ in their psycho-
logical characteristics (evaluative).,,25 Davidson's formulation is clearly
modal- provocatively so. But he offers no evidence for his thesis, neither
empirical nor a priori. If the thesis held, it would at once disallow
Kuhn's attraction to incommensurabilism; but, apart from that, it would
disallow the idea of intervening paradigms, conceptual schemes, the inter-
nalization of a society's way of thinking (small or large) that generates
the incommensurability issue. 26 So there is a connection between
Davidson's supervenience thesis and his well-known paper, 'The Very
Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' - which explicitly attacks Kuhn's "dif-
ferent worlds" idiom in accord with the central thesis of that paper;27
also, there is a connection between that and Quine's insistence on "one
world" and the preference for the extensionalist and physicalist idiom
Davidson rightly takes himself to share with Quine. The quarrel has
suddenly become very diffuse and complicated: there is a lot that will
need to be sorted out if we are to recover the "lost" issue. But I think
it is worth the effort. What I insist on for the moment is the indis-
soluble connection between the "different worlds" question and the
tenability of the incommensurability issue. Davidson does not address
the connection directly, though he rather clearly obviates the need to
acknowledge it.
Davidson has the best grip on the point of the quarrel that looms,
except for his own solution (if I may put the matter baldly). He offers
the following contrast between P. F. Strawson's version of the "dif-
ferent worlds" idiom (which is really a tactful substitute, for the moment,
for Quine's reading) and Kuhn's apparent version (from which Kuhn
retreats, as I have suggested):
Since there is at most one world, these pluralities [imagined "kinds of worlds very dif-
ferent from the world as we know it"] are metaphorical and merely imagined. The
metaphors are, however, not at all the same. Strawson invites us to imagine possible
non-actual worlds, worlds that might be described, using our present language, by redis-
tributing truth values over sentences in various systematic ways. The clarity of the contrasts
between worlds in this case depends on supposing our scheme of concepts, our descrip-
tive resources, to remain fixed. Kuhn, on the other hand, wants us to think of different
observers of the same world who come to it with incommensurable systems of concepts.
Strawson's many imagined worlds are seen or heard or described from the same point
of view; Kuhn's one world is seen from different points of view. It is the second metaphor
we want to work on. 28
THOMAS KUHN'S "DIFFERENT WORLDS" l31
Davidson's resolution depends on attributing to Kuhn's "second meta-

phor" (falsely, I think) "a dualism of total scheme (or language) and
uninterpreted concept. ,,29
What Davidson grasps, however, is the strategic importance of the
presumption of a neutral language answering (somehow) to the one
world we share. 30 He believes Kuhn presumes that the "one world" idiom
(Quine's, say) and translatability entail "something neutral and common
that lies outside all [conceptual] schemes." which Kuhn actually rejects;3l
whereas Quine shows us how to avoid the presumption while not aban-
doning either the "one world" or translatability. My own reading of this
is, rather, that:
(i) against Davidson, Quine is committed to a minimal neutral (holo-
phrastic) language (and Davidson with him);
(ii) translatability, in Quine's sense, is (against Davidson) entirely com-
patible with Kuhn's notion of incommensurability; hence,
(iii) Kuhn's "many worlds" idiom is not incompatible with there being
"one world," and QUine's "one world" idiom is not incompatible
with Kuhn's "many worlds" idiom.
Kuhn, I suggest, does not realize how far he has allowed himself to
be coopted by the "Cartesian" epistemological model he perceived in
Quine and meant to adjust (in order, perhaps, to align himself more
congruently with Quine's general outlook, which he found congenial).
In fact, in the Preface to The Essential Tension, he says that he is
now persuaded, largely by the work of Quine, that the problem of incommensurability and
partial communication should be treated in another way [than that of the original Scientific
Revolutions]. Proponents of different theories (or different paradigms, in the broader sense
of the term) speak different languages - languages expressing different cognitive com-
mitments, suitable for different worlds. Their abilities to grasp each other's viewpoints are
therefore inevitably limited by the imperfections of the process of translation and of
reference determination. 32
He is right in saying this, but he has not quite grasped how radical the
problem of "translation and ... reference determination" is. There is, and
can be, no neutral ground, on his own theory, by which translation and
reference determination proceed.
That, I say, is precisely what Quine affirms in his theory but effec-
tively rejects in his actual account. (This may not be believed.) It is
true that Quine's theme is accurately captured by a remark like this:
"It is hard to say how else [besides talking of physical objects] there is
to talk, not because our objectifying pattern is an invariable trait of human
132 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
nature, but because we are bound to adopt any alien pattern to our own
in the very process of understanding or translating the alien sentences."33
But, for one thing, Kuhn's thesis need not oppose this concession; and,
for another, if it holds, then, on Quine's own view, it holds also within
our (own) conceptual scheme and world. Hence, the problem of objec-
tivity - of objective reference and predication - remains the same under
Quine's and Kuhn's alternatives. This is doubly obscured by Davidson's
supposing that Kuhn's argument succeeds only if Quine's position
commits him to a false neutrality, and by supposing that Quine does
not actually recover objectivity by invoking a perceptual neutrality he
does not explicitly acknowledge.
Quine admits the first point - in admitting the executive role of
"analytical hypotheses"; but he neutralizes the fact by his insistence on
relying on "stimulus meaning." (Davidson, I should say, ingeniously
eludes both Quine's and Kuhn's formulations, by his well-known strate-
gies of disallowing any philosophical tertia and by assuming a massive
body of true beliefs without philosophical legitimation. 34 I shall come
back to Davidson in a moment.)
IV
Quine actually says, in opening Word and Object: "The motivating

insight, viz. that we can know external things only through impacts at
our nerve endings, is itself based on our general knowledge of the ways
of physical objects - illuminated desks, reflected light, activated retinas.
Small wonder that the quest for sense data should be guided by the
same sort of knowledge that prompts it."35 This is very close to what
Kuhn presses, though it also encourages the equivocation that clearly
misled Kuhn's reading of Quine. For here, very obviously, Quine might
have mentioned "stimuli" or "stimulations" to designate only those unob-
served theoretical causal posits that explain our sensory experience in the
way Kuhn intends. Nevertheless, in developing his own careful notion
of "stimulus meaning," which is all Quine offers in the way of our coming
to understand the linguistic utterances of the natives of a hitherto
unknown language, difficulties arise. I hasten to say that the theory of
"stimilus meanings" is not offered by Quine as a theory of knowledge
in the conventional sense. For one thing, Quine rejects (I should say:
appears to reject) theories of knowledge that escape the constraints of
our "analytical hypotheses" (the conceptual resources of our own society).
For another, "stimulus meaning" is introduced primarily to illustrate

the coherence of recovering objectivity within the prejudicing limits of
our own conceptual scheme; it is not put forward as a fully fashioned
theory of knowledge.
Regarding the famous "Gavagai!" example, to return to the differ-
ence between Quine and Kuhn, Quine says: "The general law for which
[the field linguist] is assembling instances is roughly that the native
will assent to 'Gavagai?' under just those stimulations under which we,
if asked, would assent to 'Rabbit?'; and correspondingly to dissent.,,36
Quine adds puzzlingly: "It is important to think of what prompts the
native's assent to 'Gavagai?' as stimulations and not rabbits. Stimulations
can remain the same though the rabbit be supplanted by a counterfeit.
... A visual stimulation is perhaps best identified, for present purposes,
with the pattern of chromatic irradiation of the eye.'037 But it is hard to
see why "stimulations," though not rabbits, if construed perceptually,
are in a stronger epistemic position than rabbits. If they are causes,
then they are irrelevant; although there can be no doubt that Quine
believes there is a pertinent difference between "rabbits" and "stimula-
tions" perceptually.38 If he means that "deviant" stimulations remain
causally effective, then he cannot mean to speak of "stimulations" merely
in the perceptual sense; and if he insists that he is speaking perceptu-
ally, then he cannot fail to have favored some range of perceptual
discriminations as more neutral than others. He cannot have it both ways.
Quine has never been entirely clear about the matter. 39
The "affirmative stimulus meaning of a sentence such as 'Gavagai',
[he says, is] for a given speaker, the class of all the stimulations (hence
evolving ocular irradiation patterns between properly timed blindfold-
ings) that would prompt his assent." This is further refined, but the
adjustments are not essential. The point is that considerable care is
exercised in developing the account, even though it is in a certain sense
ad hoc and not judged to be reliable beyond a certain rough measure
of usefulness. 4O What misleads Kuhn is that Quine admits, here, the direct
perception of simple causes - which "ought" to be problematic on Quine's
empiricism (as well as on Kuhn's thesis). This is far more important
than the ersatz device of "stimulus meaning," because it intrudes a
relatively neutral language of (minimal) sensory experience and it endows
it with the power to discern causal connections that "ought" (on Quine's
view) to be dependent on our theories of the way the world is (our
"analytical hypotheses").
134 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
Other difficulties arise in Quine's account. Many will be familiar,

though I think they will be seen to be collected here in a relatively
unfamiliar way. I shall take the trouble to remind you of them, catching
up what I have already said, in order to move more efficiently to the
resolution of the issue regarding the "different worlds" idiom. (Frankly,
I am discounting the intended clarifications of Pursuit of Truth.)
First of all, Quine shifts, in talking of "stimulation," from what is
theoretically posited on the basis of our sensory observations to a pre-
ferred subset of sensory observations. Secondly, those observations
("stimuli" or "stimulations") are construed as "effects" produced in us
and discerned as such: "physical things generally, however remote,
become known to us only through the effects which they help to induce
at our sensory surfaces.,,41 (This is very close to Locke, except that, in
Quine, discerned sensations are initially in some sense "holistic" - not
determinate in any referential sense.) Perceptual knowledge is, therefore,
construed primarily in causal terms, linking ourselves and physical
objects that we infer or posit through whatever privilege may be assigned
these perceived "effects." Thirdly, no account is given of why, when
we are open to disagreement about whether there are physical objects
or what they are like, we should privilege these particular sensory
"effects." Fourthly, fixing the native's "assent" entails construing the
native's intentions as benignly congruent with what our own would be
(when interpreted or "parsed"), even though, on the argument, we can
have no separate idea of what the native's interpretation of the physical
world is. So the interpretation of speakers' intentions is adjusted to accord
with what has been privileged in the way of sensory perception for us.
Fifthly, the model is said to have an advantage over Carnap's empir-
ical semantics 42 because it has "to do primarily with sentences of a
sort and not, like Carnap's with terms.,,43 (This is the alleged advan-
tage of Quine's holism.) But, of course, linguistically, there is no way
to disjoin sentences and terms; in particular, there is no way to disjoin
assent to sentences from whatever terms designate (as in picking out
behavior signifying assent): "Occasion sentences and stimulus meaning
are general coin," Quine says; "terms and reference are local to our
conceptual scheme.,,44 That now seems impossible, or impossible without
perceptual privilege. (This is precisely what is so baffling about Pursuit
of Truth. 45 )
Sixthly, "occasion sentences, as against standing sentences, are
sentences such as 'Gavagai', 'Red', 'It hurts', 'His face is dirty', which
command assent or dissent only if queried after an appropriate prompting

stimulation"; whereas, with standing sentences, "the subject may repeat
his old assent or dissent unprompted by current stimulation when we
ask him again on later occasions," and so on,46 which effectively obliges
us to rely on the interpretation of intention and the connection between
stimuli and the native's terms. Finally, natural-language resources
function holistically, so that both the referential and predicative speci-
fication of terms must be projected solely from the vantage of our own
language - hence (one presumes), within the terms of an "analytical
hypothesis. "
In developing his famous theory of the indeterminacy of translation,
Quine maintains: "The whole apparatus is interdependent, and the very
notion of term is ... provincial to our culture .... The native may achieve
the same net effects [as we do, by reference, identity, predication, and
the like] through linguistic structures so different that any eventual con-
struing of our devices in the native language and vice versa can prove
unnatural and largely arbitrary.,,47 But if this is so, then it is difficult to
see how any linguistic or behavioral factors can ever escape being com-
pletely captured by the "analytical hypotheses" of our own language.
Nevertheless, that is not Quine'S view.
Most of this, of course, will be familiar. But what rehearsing Quine's
account in this way permits us to see is how essential to what he says
is the assumption of intra- and interlinguistically neutral resources for
fixing what amount to reference, predication, individuation, identity,
and the like for some privileged array of distinctions, on the strength
of which the plurality of further culturally diverse resources may be coun-
tenanced (without ever ensuring their objective recovery).
Quine insists that inter- and intra-linguistic communication are in
the same boat. Furthermore, only where "translation" goes beyond certain
limits, for instance beyond "observation sentences" (sentences regarding
the use of which "collateral information" is less likely to be invoked48)
or "stimulus-analytic sentences" (sentences to which "a subject ... would
assent to it, or nothing, after every stimulation (within [an assigned]
modulus [of stimulation]),,,49 are we obliged to invoke "analytical
hypotheses" (apparently not before) - that is, the biased conceptual
resources of our own local language, which we simply impose (and
cannot fail to impose) on the native language - and regarding which
no question of objective correctness is even possible. "The point is
not," says Quine, "that we cannot be sure whether the analytical hypoth-
136 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
esis is right, but that there is not even, as there was in the case of
'Gavagai', an objective matter to be right or wrong about ... [Translation
here] can be defended only through the analytical hypotheses, now and
forever. ,,50
I can now put the deeper question about "different worlds" in a single
line. I say: (i) if Quine admits that "analytical hypotheses" extend to
occasion sentences and stimulus-analytic sentences, then he cannot dis-
tinguish his position from Kuhn's (in the relevant respect); and (ii) if
he resists the point of (i), then he has privileged a perceptually neutral
language by which he ensures the defeat (or incoherence) of the
"different worlds" idiom (whether the privileged idiom functions
"holophrastically" or not). It makes no difference, because what Kuhn
had recognized to be "the imperfections of the processes of translation
and of reference determination" (in The Essential Tension), Quine (and,
a fortiori, Davidson) cannot resolve under the twin constraints (that,
we may now presume) Quine and Kuhn share, namely: (a) that refer-
ence and predication (and the like) are tacit artifacts of our conceptual
scheme, whether we speak of one world or of different worlds; and (b)
that there is no perceptually neutral language to appeal to.
v
Quine's account of "analytical hypotheses" is murky. It is possible that,
generously construed, no translational efforts 'are ever unaffected by inter-
vening "analytical hypotheses." In a way, it doesn't matter: but the reason
it doesn't matter is not well understood - and that, I claim, is what vin-
dicates Kuhn's deeper notion of "different worlds" and what draws Quine
closer to Kuhn's view (as Kuhn had hoped, though he himself had already
yielded in Quine's direction) and further away from Davidson's. Let
me put before you the well-known passage in which Quine introduces
"analytical typotheses":
We have had our linguist observing native utterances and their circumstances passively,
to begin with, and then selectively querying native sentences for assent and dissent under
varying circumstances. Let us sum up the possible yield of such methods. (1) Observation
sentences can be translated. There is uncertainty, but the situation is the normal induc-
tive one. (2) Truth functions can be translated. (3) Stimulus-analytic sentences can be
recognized. So can sentences of the opposite type, the "stimulus-contradictory" sen-
tences, which command irreversible dissent. (4) Questions of intersubjective stimulus
synonymy of native occasion sentences even of non-observational kind can be settled if
raised, but the sentences cannot be translated.
And how does the linguist pass these bounds? In broad outline as follows. He segments
heard utterances into conveniently short recurrent parts, and thus compiles a list of native
"words." Various of these he hypothetically equates to English words and phrases, in
such a way as to conform to (1)-(4). Such are his analytical hypotheses, as I call them.
Their conformity to (1)-(4) is ideally as follows. The sentence translations derivable
from the analytical hypotheses are to include those, already established under (1); they
are to fit the prior translation of truth functions, as of (2); they are to carry sentences
that are stimulus-analytic or stimulus-contradictory, according to (3), into English sen-
tences that are likewise stimulus-analytic or stimulus contradictory; and they are to carry
sentence pairs that are stimulus-synonymous, according to (4), into English sentences
that are likewise stimulus-synonymous.
The analytical hypotheses are begun, however tentatively, long before the work of
(1)-(4) is finished, and they help guide the choice of examples for investigation under
(1)-(4). This point is essential to (4), since without indirect hints through analytical
hypotheses there is virtually no telling what pairs of non-observational sentences to try
for intrasubjective stimulus synonymy.51
This is a long passage; but I ask you to consider that there is no way
to interpret it that does not concede: (a) that procedures (1 )-( 4) are
privileged (holophrastically) as far as cognitive reliability is concerned
relative to anything the linguist considers that "pass these bounds"; (b)
that the distinction between what falls under (1 )-( 4) and what does not
is relatively fixed without invoking "analytical hypotheses"; and (c)
that there is no sense given in which the "native" observing us is in
any different position, in terms of cognitive resources, than we are relative
to his utterances. There is, in short, a very strong presumption in Quine
that either "analytical hypotheses" are not invoked at all in the detec-
tion and translation of sentences that fall under (1 )-( 4) or, if they are,
then there is still reliable evidence of the relative pertinence of "obser-
vational" and "collateral" information bearing on interpreting the native's
utterances. Here, Quine warns:
Even for such favored occasion sentences as "Gavagai" and "Rabbit", actually, sameness
of stimulus meaning has its shortcomings as a synonymy relation. The difficulty is that
an informant's assent to or dissent from "Gavagai?" can depend excessively on prior
collateral information as a supplement to the present prompting stimulus. He may assent
on the occasion of nothing better than an ill-glimpsed movement in the grass, because
of his earlier observation, unknown to the linguist, of rabbits near the SpOt. 52
This makes perfectly good sense, of course; but in the spirit of the
'Two Dogmas' paper:
(i) the difficulties confronting us in interlinguistic communication are
the same as those of intralinguistic communication;
138 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
(ii) referential and predicative fixity cannot be relied on except prag-

matically, by way of something like "analytical hypotheses"; and
(iii) the isolation of native sentences, assent to sentences, speaker's inten-
tions, and the dependence of all such distinctions on the reliability
of our own terms (which are) subject to the same indeterminacy
means that distinctions like those between the "analytic" and
"synthetic" and the "observational" and the "collateral" cannot be
invoked except relative to something like Kuhnian "paradigms" or
Quinean "analytical hypotheses."
I suggest, therefore, that Quine must now mean pretty much what
(without putting any serious pressure on the term "paradigm") Kuhn
means when, in his attempt to reconcile his view with Quine's, he tries
to decipher what is meant in speaking "of the experience and knowl-
edge of nature embedded in the stimulus-to-sensation route." Of this
he says: "We have no direct access to what it is we know, no rules or
generalizations with which to express this knowledge [of the 'stimulus-
to-sensation route']. Rules which could supply that access would
refer to stimuli not sensations, and stimuli we can know only through
elaborate theory. In its absence, the knowledge embedded in the stimulus-
to-sensation route remains tacit."s3
"Tacit" means, here: (a) specified under a theory that is itself simi-
larly tacit, not grounded in any cognitively privileged way; and (b)
globally relevant, in the sense that not even the least perceptual, refer-
ential, predicative, individuative, reidentificatory, or similar truth-claim
ever escapes its influence. This is surely what Kuhn means by "the imper-
fections of the processes of translation and of reference determination."
Objectivity and the endorsement of truth-values are artifacts of our
"paradigms" or "analytical hypotheses."
If Quine were to object, then, first, he would not be consistent. If
he did not object, then (I claim) he would be unable to distinguish his
own view from Kuhn's in any relevant way. But that is what the "dif-
ferent worlds" idiom was meant to collect. Davidson is wrong, therefore,
to diagnose Kuhn's thesis as entailing his conviction that Quine's thesis
requires a "neutral" language and perceptual competence. It's rather
that Kuhn believed (for the wrong reasons) that Quine failed to do justice
to our theorizing about sensory experience. Kuhn was afraid that Quine
risked an untenable neutrality by his causal views of perception; whereas
the truth is rather that Quine used the "stimulus" idiom to designate
(holistic or holophrastic) perceptual distinctions rather than theoretical
ones, yielded in the direction of a perceptual neutrality he could not

defend, and failed to address the question of how we proceed cognitively
when even our most minimal perceptual distinctions are "theory-laden"
in the tacit way Kuhn defends.
VI
Thus seen, the "one world"/"different worlds" idiom is misleading. For

the sense in which there is only one world is the trivial (but not unim-
portant) sense in which everything we admit we are discoursing about
we are indeed discoursing about: all that belongs to "one" world (of
discourse). Actually, this is Husserl's compelling point: "the world ...
does not exist as an entity, as an object, but exists with such unique-
ness that the plural makes no sense when applied to it. Every plural
and every singular drawn from it [Husserl adds], presupposes the
world-horizon."54 I take this to mean, first, that the notion of "one"
world does not substantively affect whatever we objectively discern to
be the world's features (whatever they are, they belong to "one" world);
and, secondly, that saying that does not preclude Kuhn's use of the
expression "different worlds" (Priestley and Lavoisier lived in "dif-
ferent worlds," in the "one world").
But this means that Davidson has misrepresented Kuhn's speaking "of
different observers of the same world who come to it with incom-
mensurable systems of concepts as signifying a "total" failure of trans-
latability. "There would be complete failure," Davidson explains, "if
no significant range of sentences in one language could be translated into
the other; there would be partial failure if some range could be trans-
lated and some range could not. ,,55 What Davidson seeks to do is show
the incoherence of "total" failure and then show that "partial" failure
cannot satisfactorily escape the incoherence of the other.
But the counterargument is inadequate. For one thing, Davidson
acknowledges the phenomenon of "meaning change" and nowhere explic-
itly argues in favor of a neutral language, a neutral conceptual scheme,
or a neutral range of experience beyond our conceptual schemes. This
is something of a concession to Feyerabend's (and Kuhn's) thesis (which
he opposes), but it is also, thus far, an accommodation of Quine's view. 56
Secondly, on the argument just given (the Husserlian thesis), reference
to "one world" is logically trivial and does not signify our ability to
theorize about anything like a "total" conceptual scheme. If, therefore,
140 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
Davidson means, when (arguing against Kuhn and Feyerabend, but not
against Quine) he says that "the present question is only whether, if
such changes [changes in our concepts and theoretical terms] were to
take place, we should be justified in calling them alterations in the basic
conceptual apparatus" we use - if we held that what is "basic" requires
reference to some "total" conceptual scheme57 - then he has failed (and,
it seems, must fail) to raise an objection that can be explored in any
operational way at all.
Thirdly, Davidson nowhere shows that Kuhn (or Feyerabend or any
other "conceptual relativist" he has in mind: he names Putnam and
Whorf) ever believed it was possible - or relevant or necessary - to
compare alternative schemes that were completely disjoined from one
another in conceptual resources: "total" or "basic" in the sense intended.
Davidson rightly holds that this doctrine - a "dualism of scheme and
content, of organizing system and something waiting to be organized,"
a "total" conceptual scheme and a "total" world - "cannot be made
intelligible and defensible." He calls it "the third dogma" of empiri-
cism, but it is not clear that anyone subscribes to it. 58
Fourthly, Davidson admits "local" failures of translation: he claims
only, he says, that a failure of "translatability" is unintelligible: "We
can be clear about breakdowns in translation [he says] when they are
local enough, for a background of generally successful translation
provides what is needed to make the failures intelligible. But we were
after larger game: we wanted to make sense of there being a language
we could not translate at all.,,59 But no one subscribes to the doctrine
he attacks. Benjamin Whorf surely does not subscribe to it, though
Davidson cites him as an advocate. 6o No one (among his would-be oppo-
nents) subscribes to a neutral conceptual scheme or a neutral perceptual
access to the world. And no one has the slightest inkling of an adequate
formula for translatability relative to "total" conceptual schemes. Neither
Davidson nor Quine does; neither Kuhn nor Feyerabend does.
Fifthly, even though "untranslatability" in the sense just given means
"unintelligibility," that has nothing to do with the admissibility of incom-
mensurable conceptual schemes, "conceptual relativity," or anything of
the sort, simply because incommensurability and conceptual changes
do not entail even local failures of translation. So Davidson's argument
is a complete non sequitur.
I have labored the point because of its importance. I claim that
Davidson has nowhere shown the incoherence of Kuhn's conjecture about
"different" worlds. I also claim that there is no serious difference between

Quine's insistence on "one" world and Kuhn's on "different" worlds in
the respect at stake. I want now to bring this particular issue to a close
with an even stronger claim, namely, that Davidson makes all the con-
cessions that are needed. For Davidson says, summarizing his own
argument:
It would be wrong [to say] we have shown how communication is possible between people
who have different schemes, a way that works without need of what there cannot be,
namely a neutral ground, or a common co-ordinate system. For we have found no intel-
ligible basis on which it can be said that schemes are different. It would be equally
wrong to announce the glorious news that all mankind - all speakers of language, at
least - share a common scheme and ontology. For if we cannot intelligibly say that schemes
are different, neither can we intelligibly say that they are one. 61
But, of course, if "total" conceptual schemes cannot be marked off, if

"people" [can] have different [less than 'total' conceptual] schemes,"
if translation can fail because of that, if "translatability" is inoperative,
then "partial" conceptual relativity has been shown to be possible - on
Davidson's own terms. Surely, Quine's "indeterminacy of translation"
is just such a thesis.
Ian Hacking makes the same point when, reviewing this same paper
of Davidson's, he observes:
"Truth of sentences," writes Davidson, "remains relative to a language, but that is as
objective as can be." I claim that for part of our language, and perhaps as part of any
language, being true-or-false is a property of sentences only because we reason about those
sentences in certain ways .... The relativist ought to say that there might be whole
other categories of truth-or-falsehood than ours.
Perhaps I am proposing a version of the conceptual scheme idea. Quine's concep-
tual schemes are sets of sentences held for true. Mine would be sets of sentences that
are candidates for truth or falsehood. Does such a notion fall into the "dogma of scheme
and reality" that Davidson resents? I do not think so. The idea of a style of reasoning is
as internal to what we think and say as the Davidsonian form, "s is true and only if p"
is internal to a language. A style is not a scheme that confronts reality.62
I think there is nothing more to be said on this score.
VII
But there is the deeper issue, the one that remains regarding Kuhn's
original remark. Here, once again. Quine is remarkably close to Kuhn.
If you allow that "experience," in Quine's idiom, is usually shorthand for
142 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
"experience of the world" in the innocuous sense suited to a robust

view of the accomplishments of science, then the following well-known
statement of Quine's is committed to a constructivist view of the intel-
ligible world (as is Kuhn's remark about Priestley and Lavoisier):
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geog-
raphy and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics
and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges.
Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary condi-
tions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments
in the interior of the field. 63
Quine's remark is intended to help explain his holism (regarding

the testing of scientific claims) and his stand on the analytic/synthetic
issue; but it is clearly constructivist and argues that there is (as Davidson
would say) no distinction between "scheme" and "content," or between
word and world. I take that to signify the sense in which nearly all late
twentieth-century philosophy is "Kantian" and the sense in which Kant's
own reading of the "Kantian" thesis is no longer favored. For, for one
thing, the Kantian thesis is, in a real sense,the same as that pressed against
the disjunction of scheme and content; and, for a second, the denial of
our being able to specify what conceptual neutrality entails is tantamount
to the rejection of Kant's own reading of the matter. (I have dubbed
this new stance, "post-Kantian.") I say only that, on those grounds and
granting the failure of arguments (like Davidson's) to disqualify incom-
mensurability, "conceptual relativism," and failures of translation),
Quine's remark is tantamount to admitting the coherence of Kuhn's notion
of "different worlds." More than that, there is now no way to preclude
its eligibility - even its ubiquity. For, now, all resources of reference,
predication, individuation, reidentification, and the like are constructivist:
there is no neutral ground in principle on which to fix the objectivity
of truth-claims. This is not to disqualify objectivity, only to confirm
that objectivity is an artifact of the history of our inquiring practices.
As far as I can see, that is the sanest part of Kuhn's (and Feyerabend's)
thesis.
Perhaps the most telling confirmation may be found in the radical
about-face one finds in Hilary Putnam's view of realism. Putnam had
been one of the severest critics of Kuhn and Feyerabend. 64 But he also
(now) opposes "objectivism" (in the Husserlian sense, that is, the sense
Husserl defined): "The deep systemic root of the disease," he says, "lies
in the notion of an 'intrinsic' property, a property something has 'in
itself', apart from any contribution made by language or the mind.,,65

Putnam's thesis now includes at least these two themes: first, that "one
can be both a realist and a conceptual relativist,,;66 second, that "we make
a rough sort of rank ordering (although even here there are disagree-
ments), but the idea of a 'point at which' subjectivity ceases and
Objectivity-with-a-capital-O begins has proved chimerical."67 I contend
that these two doctrines (which Putnam claims to be the heart of his
own "internal realism") is tantamount to Kuhn's doctrine of "different
worlds." Whatever may have been the excesses of Kuhn's original view,
our recognition that Priestley and Lavoisier "lived in different worlds"
cannot have coherently entitled us to say that they could not have under-
stood one another in principle. Putnam, possibly under Davidson's
influence, says: "To tell us that Galileo had 'incommensurable' notions
and then go on to describe them at length is totally incoherent.,,68 This
holds only on Davidson's assumption of "total" schemes or on the
assumption that incommensurability = unintelligibility. But that (that
is, neither of the latter views) could have been what the "different worlds"
idiom captured, regardless of Kuhn's own uncertainties in speaking;
and Putnam himself remarks about the "later" Kuhn: "The notion of
incommensurability still appears in his writings, but now it seems to
signify nothing more than intertheoretic meaning change, as opposed
to uninterpretability.,,69 Of course, it never meant uninterpretability or
untranslatability or unintelligibility for Kuhn.
The best meaning of the "different worlds" idiom is still:
(i) the rejection of neutrality regarding truth, fact, knowledge, language,
conceptual scheme, rational method, reality;
(ii) the symbiosis of "scheme" and "content," or cognizer and cognized,
or word and world;
(iii) the artifactual nature of referential, predicative, and related resources
relative to our conceptual schemes;
(iv) the meaninglessness of "total" conceptual schemes; and
(v) the relativization of incommensurability (not unintelligibility) to our
changing conceptual schemes.
I think this is what Putnam succinctly means when he says: "My own
view, to be frank, is that there is no such thing as the scientific method.,,70
My own suggestion is that the general force of items (i)-(v) is neatly
captured by the acknowledgement that thinking (hence rationality, knowl-
edge, cognitive claims and their confirmation) is historied, historicized,
inherently formed and preformed by the effective enculturing processes
144 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
of one's own society.71 Conceding that, I say, entails moderate concep-

tual incommensurabilities - but not at the cost of intelligibility. For
what that now means is that a viable society is already a congeries of
shifting, plural, and interacting dialects - in much the same sense in
which there are no natural languages for which there are no bilinguals.
The sense in which "our" (one) conceptual scheme remains "one" through
change is the vacuous mate of the sense in which our "one" world remains
one despite our "living in different worlds." Within "its" precincts, we
sort out where (we say) our conceptual schemes converge and diverge.
We never reach the neutral place in which all this can be benignly sorted,
but we never need to.
This is the radical theme of Kuhn's best-known work, but he himself
is equivocal about its greatest strength.
As far as his own texts are concerned, certainly in the Lakatos and
Musgrave volume, Kuhn makes it clear that: "incommensurable" need
not (and in its original usage did not) mean "incomparable"; incom-
mensurability does not preclude translation (though translation "always
involves compromises which alter communication"); translation itself
does not presuppose a neutral language; and incommensurability (even
with regard to paradigm-shifts) does not entail unintelligibility.72 I cannot
see that these distinctions are in any fundamental way different, except
for emphasis and the intention to avoid further misunderstanding, from
what Kuhn originally said about paradigms and incommensurability in
Section XII of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; and I cannot see
any passage in Scientific Revolutions where Kuhn claims unintelligibility
in the strong sense either Davidson or Putnam imputes to him. He empha-
sizes only the difficulty of understanding a paradigm-shift (as opposed
to intelligibility tout court), in a sense that perfectly parallels the dis-
tinction between translatability and failures of translation, and in a sense
that defies the "point-by-point comparison of two successive theories."
I believe the standard charge is a myth as far as Kuhn's texts are con-
cerned, and that his primary emphasis has always been on the rejection
of neutrality and the affirmation of the artifactual nature of the struc-
tures of the intelligible world.
The conclusion I draw from this - though by arguments that are not
entirely obvious - are these (adding now to the preceding tally): (vi)
the coherence of relativism 73 and (vii) the historicity of thinking (already
acknowledged). But though these latter two notions are strenuous, they
are also what is least discussed regarding Kuhn's original claim and most
characteristic of late twentieth-century thought looking forward to the

twenty-first century. What I suggest is that theorists like Quine, Davidson,
and Putnam are as much committed to (vi) and (vii) as is Kuhn, in that
they too are committed to (i)-(v). But they resist the admission.
Temple University,
Philadelphia, PA 19122
NOTES
I Thomas S. Kuhn, 'Revolutions as Changes of World View', The Structure of Scientific

Revolutions, 2nd en!. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 118.
2 Kuhn, 'Revolutions as Changes of World View', p. 120.
3 See, for instance, Thomas S. Kuhn, 'Foreword', to Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Thomas
S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science, trans. Alexander T. Levine (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993), p. xiii.
4 I have read the book in manuscript form, under the title given. The discussion of
Kuhn appears in Ch. 4. It has just recently appeared as The Advancement of Science;
Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusion (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993). I am not entirely sure of the extent to which the text has been changed, with the
assignment of a new title.
5 See, particularly, Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth
of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).
6 Thomas S. Kuhn, 'Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?' in Lakatos and
Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.
1 Kuhn, 'Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?', p. 3.
10 Thomas S. Kuhn, 'Reflections on My Critics', in Criticism and the Growth of
Knowledge, p. 233 and 26.
II Gary Gutting, 'Introduction', in Gary Gutting (ed.), Paradigms and Revolutions;
Appraisals and Applications of Thomas Kuhn's Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), p. 20, n. 8.
12 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. Ill.
13 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 121.
14 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 120-121.
15 See, for instance, Hilary Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle: Open Court,
1987), pp. 26-28, which, effectively, is a confession of his inability to legitimate a
regulative function for truth and rationality, relative to which the "objective" world is
not affected by a change in interpretive perspective (a conceptual scheme, not altogether
different from a Kuhnian "paradigm" but more labile).
11 Thomas S. Kuhn. 'Metaphor in Science', in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 418-419. I may say that, after drafting
146 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
this paper, I came across Hoyningen-Heune's study of Kuhn's philosophy. I found it

textually very convenient (for instance, in locating the reference just given), but I confess
I found the argument disappointing and quite unconvincing. Hoyningen-Heune, I think,
is too much disposed to commit the early Kuhn to Kantian noumena and to intrude here
and there occasionally arbitrary readings in phenomenological terms. See, particularly,
Hoyningen-Heune, Thomas S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science, Ch. 2.
20 I refer, of course, to W. V. Quine's Word and Object (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960),
particularly 8-9.
21 See W. V. Quine, Pursuit of Truth, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1992), Ch. J.
22 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 202, n. 17.
23 Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 192-193.
24 See, Pursuit of Truth, Chs. 1-3 passim.
25 Donald Davidson, 'The Material Mind', Essays on Events and Actions (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1980), p. 253. The same thesis appears in 'Mental Events' (1970), in the
same collection, p. 214. See, also, Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 179-181.
26 On the empirical side, I may perhaps cite Gerald Edelman, Neural Darwinism: The
Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (New York: Basic Books, 1987), which, in effect,
supports Kuhn's contention and shows how it is possible. What Edelman shows, among
other things, is that there cannot, on empirical grounds, be an invariant lawlike connec-
tion between the "mental" and the "physical" and that the neurophysiological processes
require the intervention of some cortical mapping function (ranging over alternative neural
sequences) that is itself effected and subject to alteration in accord with the higher molar
interests of human selves.
27 Donald Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' (1974), Inquiries
into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), pp. 186-192.
28 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', p. 187. See, also, P. F.
Strawson, The Bounds of Sense (London: Methuen, 1966), p. 15.
29 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', p. 187. I have italicized "total."
30 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', pp. 190-195. See, also, W.
V. Quine, 'Speaking of Objects', Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 1; and 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', From a Logical
Point of View (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 42. Both passages in Quine
are cited by Davidson.
31 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', p. 190. See Kuhn, 'Reflections
on My Critics', in Lakatos and Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp.
266-267.
32 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition
and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. xxii-xxiii.
33 Quine, 'Speaking of Objects', p. 1.
34 See Donald Davidson, 'A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge', in Ernest
LePore (ed.), Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
35 Quine, Word and Object, p. 2. I have italicized the phrase "based on."
36 Quine, Word and Object, p. 30.
38 Hoyningen-Huene gives an impression of Kuhn's difficulty in handling a "stimulus
ontology." Thomas S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science, Ch. 2.
39 Pursuit of Truth, Ch. 1, merely deepens the bafflement, since it shows that Quine
cannot do without holistic perceptions answering to "holophrastic" sentences. I confess
the idea seems impossible to defend.
42 See Rudolf Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1956), Supplement D.
45 I may say I raised this point with Quine in an exchange of letters, in the late sixties
I believe, but the correspondence ended before I ever received a proper account. I don't
believe Quine has ever answered the question. It adversely affects his doctrine of "the
indeterminacy of translation," of course.
46 Quine, Word and Object, pp. 35-36.
48 Quine, Word and Object, pp. 40-41.
50 Quine, Word and Object, p. 73; see also p. 68.
53 Kuhn, 'Postscript', p. 196.
54 Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phe-
nomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 143.
55 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', p. 185.
56 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', pp. 187-188,190. See, also,
P. K. Feyerabend, 'Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism', Realism, Rationalism and
Scientific Method (Philosophical Papers, Vol. I) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981).
58 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', pp. 188-189.
60 See Benjamin L. Whorf, 'The Punctual and Segmentative Aspects of Verbs in Hopi',
in John B. Carroll (ed.), Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Papers (New York:
Wiley, 1956).
61 Davidson, 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', pp. 197-198.
62 Ian Hacking, 'Language, Truth and Reason', in Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes (eds.),
Rationality and Relativism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), p. 64.
63 Quine, 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', p. 42.
64 See, for instance, Hilary Putnam, 'Philosophers and Human Understanding',
Philosophical Papers, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), particu-
larly pp. 191-199, which catches up the "different worlds" idiom; and 'The Craving for
148 JOSEPH MARGOLIS
Objectivity', in: James Conant (ed.), Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1990).
6S Hilary Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism (La Salle: Open Court, 1987), p. 8.
66 Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism, p. 17.
68 Putnam, 'Philosophers and Human Understanding', p. 193.
69 Putnam, 'The Craving of Objectivity', p. 127.
11 See, further, Joseph Margolis, The Flux of History and the Flux of Science (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993).
12 Kuhn, 'Reflections on My Critics', particularly pp. 266-268.
13 See Joseph Margolis, The Truth about Relativism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991).
MICHAEL R. MATTHEWS
MULTICULTURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION:

THE CONTRIBUTION OF HISTORY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
INTRODUCTION
School science programmes and science teachers are at present under

pressure from many sides. This is by no means a novel situation for
science teachers. Some of the reasons for this critical scrutiny are: first,
the well-documented claims that, in the western world, there is a massive
problem of scientific illiteracy, and that students are fleeing school and
university science programmes; second, the widely held view that
standard teaching methods in science have not taken account of the
abundant research findings on how children learn science and conse-
quently science teaching is widely inefficient; third, the perception that
the science that is learnt, and that is tested for in most national testing
regimes, consists largely of a rhetoric of conclusions, a litany of formulas,
a collection of algorithms, a maze of unrelated concepts that have little
connection with student experience or interests and that consequently
despite all the effort and resources put into school science, there has been
little impact on the thought processes of the culture; fourth, research
that shows that where science is successfully taught and students have
mastered the subject matter, the science is largely devoid of historical,
philosophical, or cultural dimensions, the human and cultural aspects
of science are ignored in science education and consequently students
have no sense or appreciation of the scientific tradition that has so
markedly transformed western life and society.
Each of these complaints about science education has been made in
the past, either singly or in concert. As at the present they have prompted
large-scale curriculum reforms, the promotion of new teaching methods,
increased funding for science and technology education, and legislative
reforms increasing the amount of compulsory science in school pro-
grammes. What is novel about the present, 'post-modem', situation is the
fact that the very content of science, and its history and philosophy, is
being questioned.
The concern of this paper is multicultural science education. In the
149

150 MICHAEL R. MATTHEWS
last decade many people have claimed that orthodox science, and its
history and textbooks, are culturally biased, and that our schools need
to present a more robust form of multicultural science education.
Additionally it is widely claimed that science education in non-western
cultures needs to be something very different to that in the west; it
needs to be more aggressively multicultural, if not completely ethno-
science.
A great deal of human welfare, and educational and social progress,
depends upon getting proper answers to the intellectual and policy ques-
tions raised by proponents of multicultural science education. I believe
that some considerations from the history and philosophy of science
can shed light on these crucial and vexed questions.
PHILOSOPHY IN THE CURRICULUM
It is now widely recognised that science education is enriched, and is

more faithful to its subject, if something of the exciting and complex
interplay of science with philosophy and culture can be conveyed in
the classroom. The American Association for the Advancement of
Science in its proposal for the reform of college science teaching, The
Liberal Art of Science, recognises that something of the interaction of
science with its wider intellectual context should be examined:
The teaching of science must explore the interplay between science and the intellectual
and cultural traditions in which it is firmly embedded. Science has a history that can
demonstrate the relationship between science and the wider world of ideas and can
illuminate contemporary issues. (AAAS 1990, p. xiv)
AAAS's programme for the reform of secondary science education,

Project 2061 says that:
The national council's recommendations include some topics that are not common in school
curricula. Among these topics are the nature of the scientific enterprise, including how
science, mathematics, and technology relate to one another and to the social system in
general. The council also calls for some knowledge of the most important episodes in
the history of science and technology, and of the major conceptual themes that run through
almost all scientific thinking. (AAA'S 1989, p. 5)
These invitations and challenges to broaden and deepen students'

understanding of science, to see science in its historical and philo-
sophical contexts, can lead onto the examination of other non-western
traditions of science and beliefs about the natural world and its workings.
MUL TICUL TURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION 151
Thus these curriculum exhortations provide the opportunity, if not respon-

sibility, for science teachers in the west to address issues of multicultural
science education; issues that for politcal and educational reasons are
daily faced by science teachers in non-western situations.
THE UNIVERSALIST TRADITION
The long-standing orthodox view about scientific knowledge, now under

attack from many sides, might be called universalism. In 1922 George
Sarton, the founding editor of perhaps the first English history of science
journal, Isis, wrote that:
The development of knowledge knows no political or racial boundaries. It is the only
development which is truly international. If we wish to bring the peoples of the earth
together should we not draw their attention to the treasures which are their common
heirlooms, to the things which unite them? The history of the quest for truth is the
history of no single nation; it is the history of mankind. (In Pyenson 1992, p. 96)
Max Planck was one of many who shared this universalist creed. He
regarded his formulae for the distribution of energy in a heated cavity
as something 'which will necessarily retain its importance for all times
and cultures, even for nonterrestrial and nonhuman ones' (Heilbron 1986,
p. 6). This is a statement of the widest possible independence of scien-
tific truth from human interest, so wide that it was even independent
of extraterrestrial interests.
The core universalist idea is that the world ultimately judges the
adequacy of our accounts of it. How the natural world is unrelated to
human interest, culture, race, or sex. Ultimately the concept is judged
by the object, not the other way around. Just as volcanic eruptions are
indifferent to the race or sex of those in the vicinity, and lava flows
kill blacks, whites, men, women, believers, non-believers equally, so also
the science of lava flows will be the same for all. It is the behaviour
of volcanoes that judges the adequacy of our vulcanology, not the
reverse.
UNIVERSALISM AND IMPERIALISM
Whatever the philosophical virtues of universalism are, it undoubtedly

has had a political and ideological function. The universalist picture of
science provided justification and rationale for the teaching of western
science as the west expanded among, and subjugated, native cultures

in the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. To bring scientific
understanding to alien cultures was often explicitly stated as one part
of the 'Civilising Mission' of the west; the teaching of science was
second only to the teaching of religion as part of the 'White-man's
burden'.
Lewis Pyenson in a series of detailed publications on colonial science
(Pyenson 1985, 1989, 1992) has drawn attention to this supposed civilis-
ing mission of science. Just a few of numerous adulatory accounts of
science that he has marshalled suffice to give the flavour of the civilising
hope held for science. Juan Bautista Menen, the 19th century Ecuadorian
professor of astronomy, opined that 'science in general may be called
a divine gift; and it may reasonably be said that through science man
in particular and society in general progress and develop' (Pyenson 1992,
p. 87). Claude Bernard a French physicist in Hanoi in the 1920s argued
for the inclusion of history of science in the university curriculum because
scientists propose 'ideas of beauty and harmony that raise mankind well
above immediate, practical interests and contribute to moral progress'
(Pyenson 1992, p. 88). Jacob Clay, the Dutch physicist-philosopher in
Java in the 1920s, argued that Indonesian students ought to learn about
the Greek miracle (Archimedes) and its utilisation by Galileo because the
latter's achievements were the 'greatest wonder known to the history
of mankind', and that studying the western scientific classics was
'an especially excellent way' for Indonesians 'to be raised up to higher
civilisation' (Pyenson 1992, p. 90).
Pyenson's observations are echoed by most who have studied the
history of colonial science education. Dart and Pradham for instance
assert that:
Beginning with the earliest missionary schools and continuing through the period of
colonial schools, the attitude and often the intent of western education has been that a
primitive or decadent civilization is to be replaced with a more modem and 'better' one.
The attitude tends to continue even though colonialism is no longer a force behind it,
and it tends to be particularly strong in science teaching, science teaching is taken to be
the one really unique and powerful offering of the western world. (Dart and Pradham 1976,
p. 655)
Proponents of radical science education reform, and proponents of

robust multicultural science education, assert that the foregoing con-
stellation of science-related catastrophes arise from the intellectual
well-springs of western science, and not just from its accidental asso-
ciations with particular western interests. There is a wide-spread recog-

nition that in certain ways science is connected with philosophy,
metaphysics, world views, or culture more generally. At the intellec-
tual heart of the multicultural science education debate is the issue of
whether western science is inextricably connected to western culture, and
whether the truth claims of western science are relative to its philo-
sophical framework.
MUL TICULTURALISM AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
There has been a spectrum of alternatives adopted by science teachers

when teaching science in multicultural or bicultural situations:
Imperialist, where traditional understandings of nature and phenomena
are ignored and western science is taught as it is in the metropolitian
centres: PSSC Physics in Polynesia, Nuffield in Newfoundland, CBA
Chemistry in Colombia etc. Traditional beliefs and systems are only
attended to as pedagogical strategy demands, they are attended to only
in order to prepare the ground for the new knowledge which will supplant
the old.
Integrationist, where alternative understandings and ways of thinking
about nature are recognised, respected, and made use of, but in the last
resort only as a more effective means of having students learn about
western science. Ethno-science is dealt with in an anthropological way:
it is pointed out what other cultures believe and the reasons they so
believe. Efforts might be made to interpret traditional beliefs and prac-
tices in terms of western scientific understanding, and in such ways to
make the western conceptions understandable to traditional peoples. This
option is sometimes referred to as tokenist multiculturalism.
Robust multiculturalist, or non-intervenionist, where native or ethnic
or traditional science is recognised as an intellectually legitimate alter-
native to western science and cultivated in its own terms along with
varying degrees of western science and technique. In some places both
traditions are fully taught and a 'best of both worlds' approach is taken,
in other places, just traditional sciences are taught.
The robust view is partly supported by ethical and political consid-
erations that say that existing cultures, belief systems and ways of life
have a right to continue in existence, and alterations should only come
from within the culture, not be imposed upon it. As one African educator
has said:
The purpose of education in Africa is not to destroy its own civilization or its own
culture, in order to replace it with something that is conceived to be 'better'. To proceed
in that direction or with that implicit attitude is to create unnecessary difficulties in science
education in Africa. (Urevbu 1988, p. 8)
It is not the intention of this paper to appraise these complex cultural,

ethical, and political arguments for robust multiculturalism.
MULTICULTURALISM AND RELATIVISM
What will be addressed here is what I regard as the core epistemo-

logical argument for non-intervention which is the rejection of univer-
salism (or objectivism as it is frequently referred to in educational
literature) as a theory of knowledge. Universalism is rejected in favour
of some form of relativism which says that different knowledge systems
are equally valid, or are incommensurable, and so there is no good
cognitive reason to introduce western science to traditional cultures.
One can find many statements of this in the literature on multicultural
science education. The following are some examples:
Science is a way of knowing and generating reliable knowledge about natural phe-
nomena. Other cultures have generated reliable knowledge about natural phenomena,
therefore reason invites exploration of the possibility that other cultures may have
different sciences. But science teachers wanting to celebrate this diversity have been so
indoctrinated in the Western cultural tradition of science that they lack a methodology
enabling examination of the science of other cultures with little more than tokenism.
(Pomeroy 1992, p. 257)
The American approach to multicultural science education is problematic. It seems
to me that the movement encourages 'universal science for all Americans' without ever
considering the possibility of multi-sciences. (Ogawa 1991)
There is a need to struggle to assert the equal validity of Maori knowledge and frame-
works and conversely to critically engage ideologies which reify Western knowledge
(science) as being superior, more scientific, and therefore more legitimate. (Smith 1992,
p.7)
This process of investigation, called science, is not value neutral; nor is it culturally
independent; furthermore, there can be no ultimate objectivity. (Adams 1990, S-v)
In developing new science curriculum materials, the African world view of nature must
form the foundation. Concepts should be structured in such a way that harmonious co-
existence between the western scientific and the traditional view points are guaranteed.
(Jegede 1989, p. 192)
MUL TICULTURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION 155
SOME TRADITIONAL NON-WESTERN METAPHYSICS
The possibility of co-existence between the western scientific and

traditional world views is a pressing problem posed by multicultural
science education: can western scientific and traditional view points
harmoniously co-exist? And if they are brought into harmony, is the intel-
lectual and educational price too high?
It is crucial to recognise the sense of 'harmoniously' being used. There
is systematic ambiguity about this in the literature. There is no doubt that
subjectively all sorts of mutually inconsistent world views can co-exist
in an individual. Individuals are frequently unaware of the contradictions.
Even when contradictions between intellectual commitments are apparent,
individuals can live with enormous amounts of cognitive dissonance.
Numerous either crude or sophisticated psychological mechanisms can
be cultivated to ameliorate the dissonance and yet still maintain the
full range of contradictory views. The issue to be focussed upon here
is not the psychological possibility of conflicting world views being
accommodated by individuals, but the objective possibility of their co-
existence.
Olugbemiro Jegede is representative of African science educators who
hold a robust form of multiculturalism. He states that there is:
the need to design science education curricula that satisfactorily meet the needs of the
traditional person within Africa in such a way that the African view of nature, socio-
cultural factors, and the logical dialectical reasoning embedded in African metaphysics
are catered for. (Jegede 1989, p. 192) ...
The sense of 'catered for' is not the Integrationist sense where the world
views are acknowledged in order to better promote the learning of western
science, but the robust sense where they are to be taught alongside or
instead of the metaphysics associated with western science. Jegede
then elaborates what these world views are that 'all African communi-
ties' have in common and that science education must be 'rooted in'.
These are:
1. the belief in a separate being whose spiritual powers radiate through
gods (of thunder, fire, iron) and ancestors,
2. re-incarnation and the continuation of life after death,
3. the human as the centre of the universe in traditional African thought,
and
4. the theory of causality. (Jegede 1989, p. 193)
In an unpublished paper Jegede cites the work of 13 anthropologists

and educators that 'now confirm the position that the African [view of
nature] is anthropomorphic as opposed to the mechanistic view of nature
of western science'.
Deborah Pomeroy, who works with Alaskan Indians, is another
representative of robust multicultural science education. She invites
teachers 'to develop meaningful comparisons between the sciences of
different cultures', so that students can engage in inquiries 'which explore
and validate some of the different ways of developing knowledge about
natural phenomena' (Pomeroy 1992, p. 258). This is suggested not only
because of the need to respect other cultures and traditions, but also
because she detects 'a general sense among people today that tradi-
tional [western] ways of solving problems may not be adequate for
some of the extraordinarily complex problems facing the world today'
(p.257).
Pomeroy outlines something of the epistemology of the Indians as one
where 'Native cultures present us with traditions which accept the knowl-
edge of observation, the dream, the sense, and the mystical as most
valuable' (p. 260). The Alaskan culture is anti-experimentalist because
it does not 'believe in exerting control over nature', consequently 'the
process of gathering knowledge is longer and more complicated, but
the knowledge gained is rich and encompasses all the variables inter-
acting in their natural complexity' (p. 262). Traditional Alaskan Indians
lived in and with nature, taking great care and time to observe the behav-
iours of the spirit-imbued animals, and 'the power of this experience
sometimes manifests itself as voices. In this case the test of the knowl-
edge appears to be an external consistency with observations and the
communion with the spirit world, often in the form of animal people'
(p.262).
The ontology of native Alaskans is one wherein 'there are spirits
in everything, including rocks, animals, and plants. Because of these
spirits, animals possess knowledge which humans do not have, and to
gain access to this knowledge, humans must be receptive to the animal
spirits' (p. 261). Finally the culture's understanding of nature is embodied
and transmitted but in ways that are different from the western tradi-
tion, 'indigenous people have built significant sites of learning, such
as . . . the petroglifs of the Alaskan coast. These sites would be com-
parable to Western universities or libraries, but they are built in such a
way that knowledge was manifest to the visible eye' (p. 263).
This is not the place to canvass the myriad non-western world-views

that activate contemporary cultures and inform their sciences - Selin
(1992) is a useful introduction to the literature. Nor is it the place to
canvass the detailed and rich empirical knowledge of animal life,
astronomy, horticulture, and technology that traditional societies possess.
I wish to concentrate upon the world-view, or 'theoretical' aspects of
traditional belief systems. The observations of Jegede and Pomperoy
are sufficient to illustrate the threads of the argument that I wish to
advance, namely that some core epistemological and ontological assump-
tions of western science are in objective conflict with core assumptions
of some traditional belief systems. And this then necessitates a thoughtful
educational response.
The basic matters of ontological contention are the following:
1. Is the world constituted in such a way as to serve human interests?
2. Are processes in the world teleological? That is do events and behav-
iours occur in order to bring about some fitting end state?
3. Are inanimate and non-human animate processes activated and con-
trolled by spiritual influences?
The western scientific tradition after centuries of investigation and
tumultuous debate answers 'No' to each of the above questions, whilst
traditional belief systems often affirm the propositions.
The basic matters of epistemological contention are the following:
1. Does knowledge come from the observation of things as they are
in their natural states?
2. Are knowledge claims validated by successful predictions?
3. Do particular classes or authority figures define knowledge or become
the custodians of knowledge?
4. Is knowledge a fixed and unchanging system?
The western scientific tradition after enormous debate rejects each of
these propositions, whilst many traditional societies affirm some or all
of them. Of course there is some debate about these questions of natural
states, prediction, the institutionalisation of knowledge, and accretion
versus revolutions in knowledge. I believe that even with more nuanced
elaboration the conflict between scientific ontology and epistemology and
numerous traditional ontologies and epistemologies is still maintained.
This was the view of Robin Horton in his classic 1971 study of African
and Western science. After outlining many points of similarity between
African and western science, he concluded by drawing attention to deep
differences. For Horton:
the key difference is a very simple one. It is that in traditional cultures there is no
developed awareness of alternatives to the established body of theoretical tenets; whereas
in scientifically orientated cultures, such an awareness is highly developed. It is this
difference we refer to when we say that traditional cultures are 'closed' and scientifi-
cally oriented cultures are 'open'. (Horton 1971, p. 153)
One of the reasons for concern about teaching western science in

traditional societies is that this objective conflict very quickly spills
over into other domains. Almost all commentators make the observa-
tion that traditional science is much more integrated with other important
cultural systems than is usually apparent in the west. Traditional science
is connected with religion, with health, with politics, with social customs
etc. The fear is that western science will not only subvert or demean
traditional science, it will as a consequence subvert a range of other
significant social institutions and beliefs.
WHAT CONSTITUTES SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE?
The question of what constitutes scientific knowledge is central to the

discussion, Pomeroy advances a view of knowledge - reliable belief
constitutes knowledge - which is widely adopted among advocates of
robust multiculturalism. As quoted above she says: 'Science is a way
of knowing and generating reliable knowledge about natural phenomena.
Other cultures have generated reliable knowledge about natural phe-
nomena, therefore reason invites exploration of the possibility that other
cultures may have different sciences' (Pomeroy 1992, p. 257).
There are two problems with this widespread multiculturalist position:
First, is predictive success a guarantor of knowledge? Second, even if
predictive success constitutes knowledge, can we move from the exis-
tence of different knowledge systems to the proposition that different
knowledge systems are equivalent? The multiculturalist position seems
in error on both counts.
The magnitude of the first problem depends upon the detail, or depth,
at which the predictability thesis is spelt out. Given the onset of night,
most people can soon predict that in about twelve hours daylight will
occur; and that the colder the season the longer it will be before daylight.
But such predictive success is hardly grounds for proclaiming knowledge
of planetary motion. Likewise given the observation of lightening, the
prediction of thunder to follow is easily and reliably made, but this
does not constitute knowledge of atmospheric electrical conditions. As
Plato so long ago realised, to lay claim to knowledge we need not

just successful predictions but good reasons why the predictions are
successful. Without adequate reasons, mere reliable inference hardly
constitutes knowledge in any serious sense. A part of this first problem
is the failure to distinguish empirical from theoretical knowledge. The
account given by Pomeroy, at best, is an account of empirical knowl-
edge, knowledge of regularities among events. But this 'surface level'
knowledge is of a different order than theoretical knowledge where
some account of causal mechanisms are postulated for the regularities
seen.
The tendency to equate empirical knowledge with theoretical knowl-
edge in discussion of multicultural science education is seen in the
following passage from a paper arguing for 'A Culturally Diverse
Perspective on the History of Science':
Many Hispanic mothers know that the flowers of the Daisy Fleabane plant can be boiled
into a tea which is used as a medicine to cure children's illnesses. For hundreds, probably
thousands of years, Hispanic parents have been passing this oral tradition on to their
children. Manzanilla is a mild analgesic which contains acetylsalicylic acid. In herbal
tea form, manzanilla if a traditional cure of healers or curanderos for fevers, aches, and
pains in children. In the year 1853 the German chemist Charles Gerhardt discovered acetyl-
salicylic acid as a natural byproduct of coal tar, he called his discovery aspirin. If the
history of science is to be made meaningful for Hispanic children, the inclusion of the
discovery of aspirin by curanderos needs to be validated.
COMPARISON OF KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
Many advocates of epistemological arguments for robust multicultural

science education maintain that western and traditional sciences cannot
be compared, they are incommensurable. This is the second problem
in Pomeroy's representative formulation of the difference between
western and traditional science. Suppose that a traditional account of agri-
cultural practice, or of medical practice, is well-formed, it does not follow
from this that it is the best available knowledge. It may be well-formed,
predictively reliable, and yet completely wrong - as was Ptolemaic
astronomy for over one thousand years. Or it might be well-formed,
accurate and just inadequate when compared to other accounts of the
same phenomena.
In general, the educational imperative is to teach the best of what is
known, not the second best, or the discredited. This imperative is of
course to be related to student understanding and levels of attainment,
but it is an odd sort of education which sets out knowingly to teach false-
hood or inadequate understanding. Thus there is a requirement upon
educators, at least those who share broadly liberal ideals for education,
to compare and evaluate putative systems of understanding or theories
about phenomena prior to teaching them. Phlogiston theory can usefully
be included in a science programme in order to illustrate certain things
about the history of science, or to illustrate certain things about the
alternative oxygen theory of combustion, or to facilitate the learning of
oxygen theory, but it can hardly be included as the scientific theory of
combustion. Notwithstanding the fact that phlogiston theory was very
reliable, had good predictive properties, and great and intelligent people
believed in it to the end of their days.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND MULTICULTURALISM
The history of science is useful in appraising the epistemological argu-

ments for robust multiculturalism. This history, as with most history, is
also useful in expanding our understanding and appreciation of earlier,
and other, cultural achievements. Further there has been a long tradi-
tion of engagement and accommodation between western science and
western culture from which lessons perhaps can be learned for the present
circumstance where western science is in conflict with culture.
The history of science shows how dependent European science has
been upon the achievements of non-European cultures. Some of this is
fairly obvious. Without the re-discovered Archimedes - of whom Galileo
said that 'his name should not be mentioned except in awe' - there would
not have been a Galilean physics or a Scientific Revolution. Archimedes'
geometry had its origins in Euclid, and this in tum in north African
traditions. The base ten and decimal place system of numbers along
with the number zero, without all of which western science could not
have made much progress, was not of European invention; according
to our best information it was of Indian origin and transmitted to Europe
by Arabian scholars.
As well as European dependence upon non-European scientific and
mathematical achievements, good history of science shows the numerous
autonomous scientific and technical achievements of non-western
cultures. Hunter Adams has provided bibliography of African and
African-American Contributions to Science and Technology (Adams
1990). Ubitrain D' Ambrosio has directed a research project in Sao Paulo,
MULTICULTURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION 161
Brazil, on ethnoscience and ethnomathematics, and the latter is now a

research field in history of mathematics congresses. Eva Krugly-Smolska
(1992) is a useful source of writings on Indian, Chinese, and Islamic
science. Helen Selin has published a guide to over 800 books on non-
western science (Selin 1993). In a preview of that book she cites the
opinion of Dugan that:
Historians of science have focused more attention on Asia than any other non-Western
region. Based on an ancient scholarly tradition, Asian science and technology was theo-
retically sophisticated and technologically advanced, and led the world for the fifteen
centuries prior to the Scientific Revolution in the West. (Selin 1992, p. 408)
There is a wide literature that can be made available to students that

conveys the wealth of technical, medicinal, astronomic, horticultural
and scientific understanding of non-western societies. Such informa-
tion can contribute to the expansion of student understanding of other
cultures and also, by contrast, the better understanding of their own
culture's achievements, failures, and presuppositions.
HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS
The history of science shows the influence of personal, social, sexual,

and cultural interests and understandings on science. The recognition
of such influences is an important component of good science educa-
tion. Often it is only the perspective of history, or that of another culture,
that allows these assumptions to become apparent. Few have expressed
this idea better than Ernst Mach who in his 1883 classic on the history
of mechanics said that:
The historical investigation of the development of a science is most needful, lest the
principles treasured up in it become a system of half-understood precepts, or worse, a
system of prejudices. Historical investigation not only promotes the understanding of
that which now is, but also brings new possibilities before us. (Mach 1883/1960, p. 316)
There have been a number of classic studies of the influence of

social presuppositions and circumstances upon 'good' science. Two
influential ones have been Gideon Freudenthal's study of social atomism
on Newton's mechanical world view (Freudenthal 1986), and Paul
Forman's study of the influence of Wiemar culture on the formulation
of German physics in the 1920s (Forman 1971). This recognition of
the personal, social and cultural influences upon science has been long-
standing. Francis Bacon in the early 17th century wrote about 'The
Idols of the Mind', and the need to recognise, and correct for, psycho-
logical, linguistic, economic, and cultural influences which might distort
understanding.
Many who reject objectivity as norm or goal in science seem to suggest
that all biases compromise science, and that further, such biases cannot
be corrected for. One feminist historian of science writes:
The dominant categories of cultural experience - race, gender, religion, and class will
be reflected in the institution of science itself: in its structure, theories, concepts, values,
ideologies and practices ... scientists are not magical\y capable of suspending belief
and judgement in their approach to the problem. (Bleier 1986)
In contrast to such positions one may, with Mach, Duhem and Bacon,
recognise the operation of deep-seated cultural and other assumptions,
but say that the business of science is to test the adequacy of such
assumptions.
THE TWO-SCIENCE DOCTRINE
Central to the epistemological arguments for robust multicultural science

education is the multi-science thesis. It is repeatedly said that ethnic views
of nature and modes of interacting with nature are scientific and further
such schemes are as validllegitimate/useful/scientific as western scien-
tific systems. Recall the earlier quotes from Pomeroy, Ogawa, Adams,
Jegede and Smith to this effect. The multi-science thesis rejects episte-
mological universalism; likewise it rejects objectivity as an attainable
or desirable goal for intellectual activity, including scientific activity. This
thesis is not peculiar to the multicultural science debate, a form of it,
the two-science doctrine, had a long history in the Marxist tradition. It
culminated in the debacle of Lysenkoism. The weaknesses of the Marxist
two-science doctrine are now reasonably apparent, proponents of the
multi-science doctrine can learn something from the fate of the more
restricted Marxist version.
The seeds of the two-science thesis are laid in Marx's German
Ideology where he says:
The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their life-
process ... Morality, religion, metaphysics, al\ the rest of ideology and their corresponding
forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence ... Life
is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.
MULTICULTURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION 163
On this formulation of historical materialism, economic life determines

the form of morality, religion, and philosophy developed in a society.
There seems no reason why they do not also determine the form of
science developed. Marx ends up affirming this position.
The thesis had its culmination with Stalin's efforts to promote pro-
letarian mathematics, chemistry, biology etc. Not just mathematics,
chemistry, biology to serve proletarian needs and interests, but full-
fledged alternative sciences to bourgeois science. The most documented
part of this programme was the battle fought between 1927 and 1964
in the Soviet Union between Mendelian genetics and the Lysenko's
theories of environmental influence on heredity.! Lysenko's theory was
culturally supportive (at least of official ideology), and politically very
correct (he was a farmer and directed his research to the transforma-
tion of agriculture). His doctrine was advocated with passion and
opponents swept aside.
Unfortunately, although being culturally sensitive and politically
correct, Lysenko's doctrine was false. The world just was not the way
he described it, and not the way he wished it to be. The painful lesson
for the Soviet Union, after purges of politically incorrect scientists and
massive crop failures, was that ideology and culture had to adjust to what
science reveals about the working of the world. What made the lesson
particularly painful was that it seemed that it was bourgeois science
that grasped the actual working of heredity.
Louis Althusser has remarked on the fag-end of this two-science
tradition. In the Introduction of his 1966 For Marx he says:
In our philosophical memory it [1950s] remains the period of intellectuals in arms, hunting
out error from all its hiding-places ... we were making politics out of all writing, and
slicing the world up with a single blade, arts, literatures, philosophies, sciences with the
pitiless demarcation of class - the period summed up in caricature by a single phrase, a
banner flapping in the void: 'bourgeois science, proletarian science'.
CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND CULTURE
Arguments for robust multicultural science education have their begin-

ning in the perceived, and often real, conflict between western science
and valued aspects of non-western or traditional culture. It has earlier
been pointed out that western science has in fact been successfully incor-
porated into a great number of non-western cultures, and that an
enormous variety of world views - materialist, idealist, religious, atheist,
animist, monotheist, polytheist etc. - have been endorsed by highly-

trained western scientists. Nevertheless it is clear that there is a conflict
between the assumptions and practices of western science and the
arrangements and commitments of some cultural traditions. It is this
conflict that produces educational tensions and quandries in the teaching
of science in traditional cultures.
One contribution of the history of science to the present debate is
that it can display the myriad occasions when this same conflict has
occured in the developed of western culture. Conflict between science
and culture is not peculiar to non-western cultures, it has been a feature
of western society since the beginning. Some lessons may be learnt
from the adjustments, accommodations and conflicts of science with
western culture. This is major undertaking and only some brief indica-
tions can here be given of the issues.
The momentous drama of Galileo and the Church, and more gener-
ally the effect of Copernican astronomy and the New Physics on Medieval
society and Aristotelian philosophy, is one instance of the juxtaposi-
tion of science and culture. At stake, so to speak, were matters of the
gravest importance for culture and religion: the authority of scripture, the
authority of the church, the authority of long-established science, the
philosophical underpinnings of the central Christian mysteries, people's
image of their place in the cosmic scheme. 2 Rightly or wrongly Galileo's
astronomy and physics was seen as destructive to all these certainties.
The acceptance of the Copernician world vie and Galileo's new science
caused great pain and distress. Yet few people would claim that this
cost to culture ought not to have been paid in the search for understanding
how the world was constituted and functioned.
Another significant episode in the relation between science and culture
was the nineteenth-century encounter of religion, and western world
views more generally, with Darwinian naturalism and evolutionary theory.
The debate was and is complex, and the scientific and theological
issues at stake need to be carefully delineated. But again most would
agree that truth about the evolution or otherwise of species, and how
homo sapiens fits into the biological scheme of things, needs to be
pursued by science and that culture and religion should accommodate
to what science reveals. The alternative is too dreadful to contemplate:
Inquistions, The Index, religious trials, Gulags, fundamentalisms of the
most rampant sorts, etc.
It may be said that these adjustments of culture to science are peculiar
MUL nCUL TURAL SCIENCE EDUCA nON 165
to the west, other cultures could have their own preferred modes of adjust-
ments which could be different; further, these were adjustments to
a science that belonged to the culture, the issue faced by traditional
societies today is adjustment to a foreign and alien science. With some
qualifications these points are well taken. As much as is being said at
present is that the west has had a history of adjusting culture to science,
and that others faced with the same issue might benefit from exam-
ining how the west has resolved it.
It also needs to be recognised that the western scientific tradition is
also in conflict with an increasing portion of western cultural life. Trash
tabloids, carrying stories on 'I went to Mars with Elvis', and 'Astrological
Guides to Money-Making' etc., are bought at every check-out counter
and newsstand in major cities. Most shopping centres have a Crystal Shop
alongside the Occult Bookshop. The flight from reason and evidence is
apparent even in universities. Scientific illiteracy is rampant, and most
surveys show overwhelming lack of interest in science by the popula-
tion. How science and science education adjusts to this widening conflict
is a major issue to be faced in the West.
CONCLUSIONS
I have said that the history of western science, and its interaction with
western culture, can shed much light on the current pressing questions
about the appropriate kind of science education to promote in non-western
cultures, and in multicultural western communities. This paper has
attempted to canvass and appraise the specifically epistemological argu-
ments advanced by proponents of robust multicultural science education.
My contention is that these relativist and 'multi-science' arguments are
not convincing. Their core problem is that they assume empiricist views
about what constitutes scientific activity and knowledge. As a conse-
quence they underestimate the peculiar features of the western scientific
tradition, and so regard as science, activities and bodies of knowledge
which are very different in structure, form and procedure from western
science. On many of their definitions of science, the undoubtedly intel-
ligent and successful behaviour of chimpanzees in searching out ant nests
would count as science.
Robust multiculturalism opposes the quest for a universal scientific
knowledge. Further in as much as these epistemological arguments for
robust multiculturalism embrace the more general post-modernist claims
about the impossibility of objective knowledge, they fail to distinguish

between the fact of the multiplicity of sexual, racial, class, national and
other interests and perspectives that contribute to the arts, social sciences
and natural sciences and the normative implications of this fact. There
is a long tradition that says that science should bring these effects to pubic
notice and scrutiny. If it is maintained that objectivity is impossible
and not worth striving after, then there are drastic consequences for all
intellectual, moral and political activity. Truth either reduces to power
and so the powerless lose their oldest weapon against tyranny, or fully-
fledged relativism reduces all matters of injustice to just points of view.
Neither of these consequences should sit easily with reflective people
What can be said is that both the epistemological and non-epistemo-
logical arguments for multicultural science programmes raise profound
questions about the purpose and philosophy of education. If education
is simply to be uncritical enculturation into the world views and prac-
tices of society, then the appraisal, by whatever means, of alternative
sciences need not detain teachers. But if education is meant to be a
defense against such uncritical enculturation of individuals - the theo-
retical assumption of the classical liberal tradition if not its universal
practice - then such appraisal is called for. My suggestion is that the
outcome of such appraisals will favour the western scientific tradition.
To paraphrase Churchill, western science may not be a perfect science,
but it is the best we have. Western science has problems, it needs to be
more aware of its limitations, but it is the best we have. Western science
has problems, it needs to be more aware of its limitations, but there is
no doubting its strengths: people do not land on the moon, space craft
cannot be sent to Venus, antibiotics and heart transplants are not routinely
available - if the western scientific tradition is not succeeding in its
task of understanding something of the world around us.
We know enough about human learning to know that cultural beliefs
will affect the understanding of what is taught, and we know that teachers
need to know and appreciate the ideas that children bring to their classes.
All of this suggests that traditional sciences ought to be acknowledged,
and inquired into, in multicultural situations. But it is an altogether dif-
ferent matter to suggest that traditional sciences ought to be cultivated
as science. The African educator Ogunniyi has said that:
the aim of education should not be to supplant or denigrate a traditional culture but to help
the people meet modem challenges. (Ogunniyi 1988, p. 8)
My argument has been that overwhelmingly modem challenges are best

met by western science. And not only modem challenges, but the ancient
challenge of understanding and knowing the physical and animal world
in which we live is also best met by western science. The challenge
for multicultural science education is to recognise this fact, and to teach
science in such a way that traditional cultures are not short-changed
and are not provided with inferior educational goods, and yet such that
their cultural structures are not denigrated. Attention to the history of
western science can provide some assistance with this pressing con-
temporary problem.
School of Education Studies,

University of New South Wales
NOTES
I As with the Galileo and Darwin episodes, the Lysenko episode is more complex than
meets the eye. Joravsky (1970), Lewontin and Levins (1976), and Lecourt (1977) discuss
some of the scientific, philosophical, and political issues involved.
2 The scientific, theological, philosophical, canonical and cultural issues involved in
the Galileo episode are very complex. Good introductions are Langford (1971), Redondi
(1987) and Finocchiaro (1989).
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JOELLE PROUST
FUNCTIONALISM AND MULTIREALIZABILITY

ON INTERACTION BETWEEN STRUCTURE
AND FUNCTION*
Functionalism plays a crucial role in psychology by allowing a precise

and hopefully operational definition of a mental state. The main idea
of functionalism as the term is employed in psychology is derived from
a causal analysis of mental states: the concept of a mental state "involves
essentially the idea of a state being able to cause certain effects or to
be the effect of certain causes and reduces to it" (Armstrong 1981). What
mental states causally determine are behaviors. For example, the desire
to read leads one to buy a book, or to go to the library, or more plainly
to take a book from the shelf at home and open it. There are two species
of causes contributing to determining a mental state; one is the objects
and events present in the environment, perceived consciously or not
and shaping the behavior of the subject. The second is the other mental
states which in interaction with each other induce the mental state con-
sidered. For example, the desire to read may be in part due to the sight
of a book, the memory of particular work to do, by the belief in the
relevance of that book for that work, and so on.
It is a fundamental characteristic of a functionalist approach that it
invokes a causal network. It should be clear that the conditions present
in the environment only belong to the causal network because they affect
internal states which carry information about them. The mental states
are supposed to play the role they do because they carry a certain content
(about the perceived objects and events) and express a certain attitude
towards that content (for example, the belief that this book is useful,
or the desire to get a good grade). The main idea of functionalism is
that what distinguishes a particular mental state is its role in psycho-
logical dynamics, a role which can be derived from the total set of its
relations with the other states of the system, i.e. the input states, the output
states, and the rest of the internal states. For example, being in the mental
state "X wants to read" is not essentially to have a particular sensa-
tion, a qualitatively specifiable experience. "Reduced to the essential",
as Armstrong would put it, this state can be defined by the set of its causal
relations to inputs (11 .. In), outputs (0 1 .. On) and other states, such
169
K. Gavrogiu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 169-185.

170 JOELLE PROUST
as beliefs (B ... Bo) and desires (D ... Do). In other, more technical
words, the mental state is a theoretical term which can be explained
out by its Ramsey correlate inside an ideally complete psychological
theory.
Ramsey suggested in 1931 how to reduce the theoretical terms of a
formalized theory in an existentially quantified proposition containing
only observational terms. Such a Ramsey Formula is constructed by
replacing every token of a theoretical term by a variable (either of class
or of relation), then by quantifying on this kind of function in order to
express the fact that there exists an entity, a class or a relation that has
all the properties described by the criteria. Once all the theoretical terms
are translated by their observational correlates, only the observational
basis is left, that is, in the present case, only inputs and outputs, plus a
formal structure satisfying the conditions present in experience.
One might here object that the mental states I gave above as examples
- such as the desire to read - may not be the nodes of the relevant
causal network. One should indeed be careful to avoid begging the
question of what the explicandum is, by only claiming that a mental
state is any internal state in an information processing sequence causally
involved in some behavior of the organism under consideration. One ordi-
narily distinguishes in this respect "functionalism" - i.e. the doctrine
according to which functional Ramsey correlates specify mental states
as defined by folk psychology - from "psychofunctionalism" which
views them as theoretical terms of a scientific psychological theory. It
is in the latter context that I will discuss functionalist issues in what
follows.
Initially, functionalism for mental states was defended by a specific
brand of materialists about the mind, such as Lewis and Armstrong.
For these "typephysicalists", mental states defined by their causal roles
are just identical with the cerebral states on which they supervene. 2 For
example, Lewis (1972) defends a view in which a functional character-
ization should tum out carving up nature at the same joints as a
physiological characterization:
Mental state M = the occupant of causal role R (by definition of M). 3
Neural state N = the occupant of causal role R (by the physiological theory).
Therefore mental state M = neural state N (by transitivity of =).
Since the early sixties, the typephysicalist kind of approach has been
under heavy attack from functionalists such as Putnam (1960) and Fodor
FUNCTIONALISM AND MULTIREALIZABILITY 171
(1968). The central argument consists in taking seriously the claim that,
reduced to the essential, mental states are those states which playa causal
role in a behavior given an input and other internal states. Why then
should we restrict ourselves only to neurophysiological systems which
are able to subserve these causal roles? Why for example should a system
have to have C-fibers to be able to have pain?4 Since an organism can
be seen as a Turing Machine, or more exactly as a probabilistic automa-
tion, it is possible to see the Machine Table as the functional organization
of that system under a certain description. As Putnam emphasizes, "know-
ing the Total State of a system relative to a description ( ... ) does not
involve knowing the physical realization of the Sj as, e.g., physical-
chemical states of the brain. The Sj (... ) are specified only implicitly
by the Description - i.e. specified only by the set of transition proba-
bilities given in the Machine Table" (1967) in Block (1980, pp. 226-227).
From the empirical possibility of building a machine matching the
causal network of states characteristic of an organism's psychology,
is derived the conceptual possibility that "psychological predicates
could apply to artifacts". This antichauvinistic stance is the first of three
"empirical considerations" which Block and Fodor (1972) set against a
typephysicalist interpretation of functionalism. In what follows, I will
address successively those three considerations, and to begin with, will
comment on the anti chauvinistic line of reasoning.
My aim here will be to show that there is some distance between the
conceptual possibility that psychological predicates could apply to
artifacts and the theoretically grounded possibility of applying an
antichauvinistic strategy. To show it, I will draw freely on Dennett's
"homuncular functionalism" (Dennett 1978). Such a functionalism,
inspired by work done in Artificial Intelligence, is explicitly "top-down",
insofar as it starts with a problem stated in intentional terms,S then
decomposes it further into sub-problems which are still intentionally char-
acterized, until the point is reached where the required operations can
be performed by stupid agents, only able to discriminate 0 from 1.
This strategy of optimized functional analysis may be extended from
A.1. to a variety of situations in which human beings as well as animals,
artefacts or plants are involved. The question here is not whether the con-
sidered entities do in fact have mental states - but whether it is more
economical to deal with them as if they had, rather than treat them as
being organized at some lower level, for example at the design or at
172 JOELLE PROUST
the physical levels. Two reasons may account for the economy which
results from adopting the intentional stance. From the point of view of
the user or of the interpreter, on the one hand, it is clear that he is at
home with intentional idiom, for it is in this idiom that he naturally
constructs representations of himself and others, and sometimes of Nature
or Deity as well. From the point of view of what is being interpreted,
on the other hand, the interpretation may also be easy and at hand,
given that many systems can be described as an optimized functional
system given the pervasiveness of recursion in natural processes. Indeed,
so many that the question arises as to what could fail to be so describ-
able, if no constraints are put on the ways of defining inputs, outputs
and internal states.
Such a nice match between the needs of the interpreter and the capacity
of the interpretee to yield them does not warrant us in taking the pos-
tulated intentional states as indeed having a causal role, and thus in
concluding that homuncular functionalism does "carve Nature at its
joints". In other words, the interpretive stance corresponds to a predic-
tive strategy which does not have to be grounded on any substantive truth.
It can be useful to say that a computer "understood" a question, or
that a paramecium "tries to avoid acid water" without being committed
to saying that it is the computer's understanding, or the paramecium's
desire, which cause the corresponding behaviors. Although I do not share
Dennett's radical conclusions against realism which he draws from his
view of the intentional stance, I agree that what he does show is that
the simple conceptual possibility of applying a functional characteriza-
tion to the behavior of an organism does not suffice to show that the
functional states so specified do indeed playa causal role in that behavior.
The conceptual possibility of antichauvinism can be explained by the
tendency of psychofunctional systems to export their own features in
order to understand their own world. This by itself does not constitute
a case against typephysicalism.
A second argument for multirealizability is derived from Lashley's views

on neurological equipotentiality, according to which widely different
brain structures can sub serve a given psychological function.
While the generality of this doctrine may be disputed, it does seem clear that the central
nervous system is highly labile and that a given type of psychological process is in fact
often associated with a variety of distinct neurological structures .... Physicalism, as
we have been construing it, requires that organisms are in type-identical psychological
FUNCTIONALISM AND MUL TIREALIZABILITY 173
states if and only if they are in type-identical physical states. Hence equipotentiality (if
true) provides evidence against physicalism (Block and Fodor 1972, in Block 1980,
p. 238).
In his 1929 book, Lashley did question the causal relevance of local
properties for neural activity. "It is very doubtful that the same neurons
or synapses are involved even in two similar reactions for the same
stimulus", he wrote in his 1929 Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence
(p. 3). Lashley contends rather that it is the quantity of cortical substance,
and not its particular anatomical location, which explains causally the
ability of the organism to learn. Equipotentiality thus refers to the capacity
for any brain area to control any particular behavior. It depends in tum
on another property of cortical substance called plasticity, i.e. the capacity
for certain neurons in a definite anatomic zone of the brain to take up
functions previously fulfilled by neurons of another zone once the latter
is damaged.
As a result of the doctrine of equipotentiality, physicalist reductionism
seems to suffer a serious blow, insofar as it is seen as positing that
particular, locally identifiable neurons are ultimately responsible for
information processing tasks and behavior control. But this very claim
of the antitypephysicalist stance may well in tum be questioned. It does
not seem true that typephysical explanations have to give local expla-
nations for types of mental events in order to be counted as explanations.
It may not even be true that causality itself operates at a single level
of physical reality, e.g. at the quantum level, or whatever reduction
basis one may chose. My point here is that the case for multi-realizability
has to provide such a reduction basis; it has the onus of proof of showing
why such a basis provides all that is necessary for physical science to
couch its empirical regularities and its dependency relationships. Only
once this is shown, should it be in a position to show that no such
reduction basis is available in neurophysiological terms for stating regu-
larities and dependency relationships between psychological states and
processes.
My own strategy against Lashley-inspired antitypephysicalism consists
in offering some arguments against the generality of the Lashleyan
doctrine as well as some evidence tending to speak in favor of a
multiplicity of causally relevant levels in brain structure. Thus my point
is not to prove that typephysicalism is right, but that it remains quite
plausible given the present state of knowledge in neurophysiology.
Let us remark first that several decades of research having elapsed
174 JOELLE PROUST
since Lashley's work in the early thirties, we are now in a better position
to tell whether a certain psychological function has to be subserved by
a certain definite well-localized brain subsystem. D. Hubel and T.
Wiesel's works have shown that there are indeed cases of ultra-special-
ization of brain structures, and that a failure to exercise these structures
at sensitive times of development is followed by a loss of the corre-
sponding function. The first kind of findings shows that specific cortex
cells may be uniquely sensitive to specific types of information from
the environment, such as orientation or luminance. The second kind
shows the role of epigenesis in developing specialized structures. A cat
whose visual arrays include from birth on horizontal, but no vertical lines
will have an atrophy on verticality neurons. Epigenetically governed func-
tions definitely lack plasticity.
Antitypephysicalists will retort that although developmental facts make
plasticity difficult in virtue of the failure of a particular function to be
learned, well-established psychological functions do display it. Plasticity
of implementation would then be viewed as a property of the mature
mental functions. But of course, there is no general rule allowing plas-
ticity in adult psychological functions as well. If some neuropsychological
data show that patients are able to recuperate a psychological function
some time after brain damage, others show no such welcome evolu-
tion. Contemporary connectionist models have a story for why a system
may be robust to damage, without involving any strong commitment to
multirealizability. The causally relevant brain structure is the neural
network, a physical entity able in certain conditions to restore its own
integrity through certain causally specifiable mechanisms. We will see in
a moment that no change in the physical implementation has to be
hypothesized to understand that capacity, and even that such a change
would make causality in recuperation processes more obscure. For the
moment, it is enough to conclude that Lashley's intuition about the
equipotentiality of brain structures is disconfirmed in a number of cases,
and thus lacks the generality which its role in a case for multirealizability
would require.
The second kind of rejoinder to Lashley's doctrine consists in ques-
tioning the identification of the appropriate level for a physical causal
explanation as being a local one. 6 In the standard version of the argument,
it is claimed that no single neuron, defined by its anatomical location,
has to be firing for a particular psychological function to be subserved.
Two arguments may diminish some of the appeal of such an intuition.
First, it seems fully compatible with physicalism - in virtue of which a

mental state should be analyzed in neurophysiological terms generaliz-
able to mental states of the same type - that the neurophysiological
facts relevant to various psychological functions may belong to dif-
ferent levels of organization. This way of introducing different levels
of causation does not pose any particular problem when one attempts
to reduce geology to physics, for example. Today, neurophysiologists
such as Changeux (Changeux 1992) or Edelman (Edelman 1989) take
up Hebb's idea that several levels of organization account for different
types of mental processes. Whereas low-order functions can be subserved
by neural circuits, i.e. small sets of neurons, larger neural assemblies
sub serve higher cognitive functions. The latters involve disparate neural
groupings, which explains in part their resilience to lesion - although
a finer analysis would show at what level of performance the function
is maintained.
It is commonly assumed, in statistical mechanics, that a physical
explanation of a phenomenon does not involve more than a probabilistic
characterization of the causally relevant constituants. Analogously, it
appears that the very notion of a level of organization undermines
an analysis of psychologically relevant neurophysiological properties
in terms of single neurons. What it favours rather is a hierarchical
functional analysis in which larger structures supervene on lower sub-
structures.
A second objection against the "local neuron" argument is suggested
by the recent findings concerning the temporal properties of some of
the psychologically relevant properties of neurophysiological states.
Many researchers, such as A. Damasio, F. Crick and C. Koch or R. Llinas
have insisted that coherent synchronous or semi-synchronous oscillations
regulate neuron cooperation: the binding of activation seems to play a
major role in the synthesis of apperception, as well as the establish-
ment of circuits in the course of development. 7 If the properties of
oscillations and neural rythmicity - modulated among other things by
ionic mechanisms - partly determine cerebral connectivity, it is clear that
one cannot expect to grasp fully the implementation of a particular
function by looking only at anatomically grounded regularities. It may
not be the particular firing of a neuron or of a group of neurons which
may be accomplishing that function, but rather some dynamical fact
in virtue of which several neuronal circuits resonate in their on-going
activation.
176 JOELLE PROUST
To conclude this second point against multirealizability, the Lashleyan

line cannot warrant us in rejecting globally any search for neurophysi-
ological regularities constitutive of mental state types. Pointing to a
functional determination of neurons on the basis of intrinsic (self-rythmic)
and relational (oscillatory pairing) properties may help revealing neuro-
physiological invariants for psychological functions at relevant levels
of organization.
A third argument offered by Block and Fodor in favour of multirealiz-

ability dwells on the existence of Darwinian convergences "applying
to the phylogeny of psychology as well as to the phylogeny of mor-
phology and of behavior" (in Block 1980, p. 238). Convergence theory
asserts that very different physiological structures, when submitted to
similar pressures in similar ecological conditions, produce in phyloge-
netic evolution homologous morphological or behavioral configurations.
What holds for anatomical or ethological resemblances seems also likely
to hold for psychological resemblances:
Psychological similarities across species may often reflect convergent environmental
selection rather than underlying physiological similarities. For example, we have no par-
ticular reason to suppose that the physiology of pain in man must have much in com-
mon with the physiology of pain in phylogenetically remote species. But if there are
organisms whose psychology is homologous to our own but whose physiology is quite
different, such organisms may provide counterexamples to the psychophysical correlations
physicalism requires (Block and Fodor 1972, in Block 1980, p. 238).
One could reformulate Block and Fodor's line of reasoning using

Dingwall's distinction between two ways in which a functional resem-
blance can obtain. s Similar psychological states and processes in different
species are said to be homologous when their resemblances can be attrib-
uted to a common phylogenetic origin. They are said analogous when
their resemblances are due to the pressures of environmental factors
common to both species. What Block and Foder maintain is that there
may be across species psychological analogies as well as homologies,
which therefore do not presuppose any common organic characteristic,
holding as they do between widely different types of animals.
This argument presents an interesting difficulty which is sometimes
seen as constituting the hard core of the motivation for functionalism:
on what intuition exactly does one rely when invoking a "psycho-
logical similarity across species"? When one leaves the ground of
neurophysiology, it seems that we lose useful criteria of what it can mean
to say, e.g., that "such and such an organism feels pain". In which
conditions will we be warranted to say that, for example, a species
phylogenetically distant from Homo Sapiens feels pain or believes that
the weather is hot? If we follow the lead of homology, we may have some
ground for saying that related nervous systems have related experiences
and related networks of beliefs, desires, and plans for action. But the ana-
logical lead will offer far fewer obvious clues. In a famous paper, David
Lewis (1980) examined the symmetrical cases of mad pain and of Martian
pain. In the first case, a human subject feels the same qualitative expe-
rience as the other men in pain, with the nervous system typical for
humans, but has deviant causal relations between pain inputs, outputs and
other relevant mental states. For example, in his case pain makes con-
centration easier, invites him to do math, etc. In the Martian case on
the other hand, the non-human subject in pain has the same functional
relations between mental states which defines pain for us, but these
relations supervene on completely different structures. This example
allows us to interpret what distinguishes homological from analogical
psychological resemblances. Homological resemblance presupposes a
common physiological structure, which makes plausible the hypothesis
of a similarity across species of perceptive experience, functional con-
tingencies and bodily outputs. Although "mad pain" is not logically
impossible, it is worth noticing that the case has never been observed.
The identity-theorist takes this fact to confirm that a functionally defined
mental state is identical to a neurophysiologic ally defined cerebral state.
It may be the case that another species could well have developed, in dif-
ferent circumstances, different functional contingencies. But evolution
theory and biology have as their objects real, and not possible living
organisms.
But when it comes to analogical similarity, we are at a loss when
context can be varied at will. Our intuitions stay rather firm when func-
tional characterisation for a state is unchanged, as in the case of Martian
pain. But what of the analogy when both function and physiological
realization are varied? If pain, for example, is only contingently asso-
ciated with a particular causal role and a physical implementation,
homological similarity and analogical similarity should lead to con-
structing disjunctive classes of pain events.
It is obvious that evolution theory is called for at this point to warrant
the functionalist point of view, by supposing that analogous organic needs
- finding food, fleeing predators, mating - will tend to be competi-
178 JOELLE PROUST
tive1y satisfied in similar contexts. These two constraints seem to maintain

functional variation within a tolerably narrow range. Insofar as species
have to perpetuate themselves in biologically similar and ecologically
invariant conditions, i.e. insofar as the input-output pairings are con-
strained to be similar in important respects, functional states can be
said to be isomorphic even though the physiological states on which they
supervene may vary from one species to the next. The question which
is now raised is whether the latter variation can be used as an argument
in favor of multirealizability. This would be true only if the question at
stake still makes sense in the new theoretical background. I would like
to show that it does not.
For one can object here that the very notion of a function on which
we are presently dwelling has nothing in common with the notion which
inspired machine or computational functionalism. As Eliott Sober aptly
remarks (Sober 1990), Turing functionalism deals with the mathe-
matical sense of the term, whereas evolution theory interprets it in a
teleological sense. Whereas one speaks in the first sense of the additive
function, which establishes pairwise correspondences between two or
more numbers and their sum, one speaks in the second sense of the
function of heart as being to pump blood. Sober shows that the teleo-
logical concept of function offers the means to solve problems concerning
the identification of mental states and processes which the mathe-
matical concept of function is unable to solve. For example, Turing
functionalism has it that isomorphic systems have the same mental states.
Thus even an entity constituted by suitably connected individuals - for
example, in Ned Block's example, the entire Chinese people following
a preestablished pattern of rules (Block 1978) - should be recognized
as having mental states if it correctly instantiates the set of causal rela-
tions which are typical of an individual's psychological processes.
Teleological functionalism allows one to reject such an instantiation by
relying on the idea of a normal functioning of an organism, i.e. on the
idea of adapted exchange between the organism and its environment.
What makes the Chinese people unsuitable for realizing a psycholog-
ical functional system is that it is not the normal function of this entity
to process the inputs and to plan the adapted actions as outputs which
are required for its being isomorphic to another system whose normal
function is just this.
But how can we distinguish between "normal" functions from simply
"attributed" ones? Bearing in mind Block's kind of counterexamples,
the notion of teleological function suggests a constraint as to the kind

of relationship between the organism and its environment which any func-
tional attribution of mental states should fulfill. Let us call functional
context the set of input-output pairings mediated by the postulated internal
(mental) states. Two systems will only be (teleologically) functionally
isomorphic if the inputs and outputs used in the functional characteri-
zation are described in a non-arbitrary manner, that is if they are
compatible with the regulatory exchanges between the organism and
its milieu as stated by a biological theory, at least in a subset of contexts
where the functions are norma1. 9 One can then recognize a system as
being contextually functional only if the process of information extrac-
tion as described by the kinds of inputs present in the functional
characterization is such that it could, in certain favorable contexts, allow
the organism to use them in an adequate planning. This precision excludes
from being contextually functional entities internal states such as, e.g.,
those of the Chinese people: such attributed inputs and motor decisions
have nothing to do with the physical equipment nor with the survival!
maintenance needs of the given system. The concept of a "functional
context" dwells on the idea that a system is teleologically functional only
if the kind of information processing which can be attributed to a system
corresponds to some intrinsic evolutionary pressure or physical constraint
on the mind-candidate. In virtue of this constraint, no functional iso-
morphism without a theoretically warranted functional context.
Given these precisions, we see that the concept of a teleological
function is no longer coextensive with the concept of a mathematical
function. There are many examples of systems isomorphic to a bona
fide mental system, i.e. of systems which satisfy the Ramsey formula
of the internal states of a mind-bearer, but which fail to fulfill the
teleological constraint we just indicated.
But the teleological approach which we take as a necessary addition
to classical functionalist approaches of the mind raises a secondary
problem (cf. Sober (1990)). Is a functional characterization sufficient
for identifying all psychological states? In biology, there exists a number
of functionally indistinct facts which nevertheless do playa causal role
at other levels of abstraction. For example, the Java rhinoceros has two
horns, whereas the African one has only one. What does not make any
difference in a narrow functional sense does when the problem is to
explain, for example, what kind of wound the horn can inflict on a
given target. A difference without a functional value may thus be
180 JOELLE PROUST
physically and even biologically significant. It is plausible to think that

psychology is in a similar situation: there may be psychological states
or processes which are functionally inert, plain "artefacts of functional
organization" (Sober 1990, 104).10 To conclude from that fact that such
states and processes do not have to be included in a psychological
theory would undermine their having causal roles at a different level
of explanation. On could expect, as is the case with the rhino's horns,
that different computational states and processes may have the same func-
tional role; whereas it may be justifiable to treat them as equivalent at
a certain causal level, it need not be at other levels.
This long detour which led us from functional analogies to the limits
of applicability of the very concept of a function puts us in a better
position to evaluate the evolutionist argument in favor of multirealiz-
ability. We should appreciate now why the problem of multirealizability
of mental states in a psychology applying to man as well as to higher
animals or machines is posed in a hopelessly vague way. The evolutionist
argument does lead us to acknowledge the existence of psychological
analogies, but does also stress the importance of the inner and outer
constraints which are causally operative in thoses analogies. Thus this
argument does not allow us to anticipate which species are sufficiently
similar to be considered as functionally isomorphic. Take for example
the case of visual perception. Insects have distinctive perceptive appa-
ratuses according to whether they operate during the day, at night, or
at sunset. Their composed eyes contain several thousands of small retinas,
which receive the light rays in apposition, superposition or in a dual
mode. It is clear that psychofunctional differences correspond to these
neurophysiological ones. Considering first the relationship between inputs
and perception, these various insects "do not see the same things" in
the same conditions, not only in the sense that they have qualitatively
different "images" of the world, but in the sense that some insect will
spot a stimulus where another, heterospecific, won't. Second, how about
the relations between internal states? For certain species, like the glow-
worm, visual perception plays the essential role in discovering a mate,
whereas in very similar others, sound or olfaction are the main infor-
mational channels. Are we not here in a situation close to mad pain
instantiated by a Martian: when both functional organization and neuro-
physiological implementation vary simultaneously, a comparison may
still have some interest, but at a level which is less fine-grained than
what mental causality requires. For that matter, we have to rely on empir-
ical psychology to determine, in each case, what is the type of the relevant
inputs, outputs, and other mediating internal states. In this causal per-
spective, it is difficult not to take functional notions such as desire,
pain, or perception, as being relative to a species. 11
Let us now summarize the points made about the type of realizability
of functionally isomorphic structures: should multirealizability be con-
strained? If so, in which ways? Finally, what are the consequences of
recognizing limits to multirealizability for work in cognitive sciences?
We saw earlier that functionalism, as defended by typephysicalists, just
identified mental states with neuronal states, and that, under the influ-
ence of Turing machine functionalists such as Putnam, it was suggested
that mental states can be realized by virtually any physical entity with
the right kind of formal structure. We examined the three arguments ordi-
narily aimed at weakening strong physicalism. The first one relied on the
"conceptual possibility" of applying psychological predicates to artefacts.
We saw that this possibility did not imply more than a disposition of
intentional systems to apply for interpretive purposes an optimized func-
tional analysis to other systems which do not, for that matter, have to
be intrinsically endowed with mental properties. The second argument
relied on there being no neurophysiological regularity corresponding
to psychological ones. But it became clear that neuronal regularities
do not have to be local, but may be enforced at some appropriate level,
i.e. possibly at a non-elementary physical level. Finally, the third
argument insisted on there being psychological similarities between
species under evolutionary pressures, a fact which leads one to believe
that they may supervene on different neurophysiological structures.
The latter argument suggested us to derive from the properly bio-
logical notion of function constraints as to which entities can be brought
to an exact functional isomorphism. From that we concluded that the
concept of a functional organization, if it has the causal meaning which
is required by a psychological theory, is likely to hold only for the very
species whose causal description the theory provides. For the fact that
such a causal description will depend partly on specific afferent and
efferent channels leads one to think that, even in closely connected
species, the relevant inputs, outputs, and internal states may be differ-
ently connected.
From the seventies to the eighties, cognitive sciences were deeply
182 JOELLE PROUST
divided on the role which neurophysiological research would have to

play, insofar as mental states seemed adequately describable only at a
level of abstraction which ignored physical implementation. The argu-
ments which were given at the time seem now subject to revision: on
the one hand, neurophysiological enquiry has gained knowledge on the
regularities of neural activity; on the other hand, philosophical work
has shown unresolved puzzles in the token physicalist doctrine. We
concentrated here only on those having to do with multirealizability of
mental states. Others, such as the threat of epiphenomenalism of the func-
tional level, seem to point to the same kind of difficulty. It seems today
plausible to conceive of the psychofunctional systems as strictly relative
to one species, and to take multirealizability to hold only for inter-indi-
vidual variations within a given species. Such a claim does not amount
to renouncing a general functional level of abstraction; but this level does
not have to be given more than a heuristic role in cognitive research.
The gain in this come back of typephysicalism is a recognition of the
role which neurophysiology has to play in interdisplinary research on
the structure of mental functions and the relationship between mind and
brain.
CREA,
Paris
NOTES
* I thank Pascal Engel, Pierre Jacob, Max Kistler, Elisabeth Pacherie and Franr;ois
Recanati whose remarks helped me to shape the position here defended, and also Sam
Guttenplan for his help with the American translation. Mistakes remain mine.
I Cf. for example Block (1978) in Block (1980), p. 272.
2 It is compatible with functionalism to enroll it within a dualist ontology such as
Descartes'. The present work, as well as most of current research, tries to explore the ways
in which the mental properties can be accounted for in monist, physicalist terms.
3 Pierre Jacob noticed here that one usually considers mental state M as identical to causal
role R, and not to the occupant of that causal role, because in the case of mental states,
causal role specifies a mental state but is not "realized" by it. At the level of physio-
logical characterization, on the other hand, one can consider that a neural state is the
occupant of a causal role as specified in functional terms. David Lewis does offer a jus-
tification for his formulation in (Lewis 1983, n. 6), by exploiting the idea that functional
states are relative to a world: in every world, "pain" refers to whatever state which in
that world turns out to be the occupant of the causal role defining pain.
4 The present argument does not address the specific difficulty having to do with the
qualitative, subjective aspect of sensations which a functionalist approach is well-known
FUNCTION ALIS M AND MUL TIREALIZABILITY 183
to have trouble answering. See Shoemaker in Block (1980) for a possible solution. Second,
this paper will deal with qualia on a par with propositional attitudes, considering that, from
a functional point of view, they carry information, interact causally with other states,
and determine the organism's behavior. Even though one can maintain that qualia are
"special" insofar as they possess some intrinsic qualitative property which cannot be deter-
mined relationally, the same thing seems to hold for propositional attitudes, which also
carry "functionally inert" elements, which Frege named "tone" or "lighting".
5 By an "intentional characterization", is meant a characterization referring to contents
and propositional attitudes; for example, the formulae describing machine states are
interpreted as the desire to win or the belief that the opponent will move her Queen.
6 Fodor and Block (1972) allude to this rejoinder without apparently taking it as a serious
challenge to the antitypephysicalist strategy: " ... Though linguistic functions are normally
represented in the left hemisphere of right-handed persons, insult to the left hemisphere
can lead to the establishment of these functions in the right hemisphere. (Of course,
this point is not conclusive, since there may be some relevant neurological properties in
common to the structures involved.)" (in Block 1980, p. 238).
7 Cf. Damasio (1989), 'The brain binds entities and events by multiregional activation
from convergence zones', Neural Computation 1,123-132; F. Crick & C. Koch (1990),
'Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness', Seminars in the Neurosciences 2,
263-275; R. Llinas (1987), 'Mindness as a functional state of the brain', in C. Blakemore
& S. Greenfield (eds.), Mindwaves, Oxford, Blackwell.
8 Dingwall's distinction is quoted in Tennant (1984), p. 96.
9 Or as stated with some non biological theory, for example a theory describing the energy
exchanges between the entity and its environment. The notion of a functional context
can thus be extended to non organic entities, insofar as the inputs and outputs can in
the latter case be constrained by possible intrinsic conditions such as energetic or main-
tenance needs.
10 Cf. also Gould and Lewontin (1979).
11 Kim (1992) draws a similar conclusion from a different line of argument. Taking
for granted the principle of causal individuation for natural species, in particular for mental
ones, which Fodor (1988) advocates, and the principle of "causal heritage" in virtue of
which a mental property inherits its causal efficacy from its physical realization, he con-
cludes that mental kinds cannot satisfy the principle of causal individuation which would
elevate them to the status of scientific species. One can nevertheless acknowledge there
being disjunctive mental kinds. This line of reasoning, however, favors tacitly a strong
physicalist perspective, whereas token physicalists advocate a milder, "second order"
notion of causality, the latter being realizable by various distinct physiological struc-
tures and processes. I will not tackle this important question here, and refer the reader,
inter alia, to Engel (1992), Jacob (1992) and Jackson and Pettit (1990).
REFERENCES
Armstrong, D. M. (1990), 'The Causal Theory of Mind', in Lycan (ed.) (1990).

Block, N. (1978), 'Troubles with Functionalism', in: C. W. Savage (ed.), Perception
and Cognition. Issues in the Foundations of Psychology, Minnesota Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, t. 9, 261-325; revised version in Block (ed.) (1980), 268-305.
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Block, N. (1980), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1, Cambridge: Harvard

University Press.
Block, N. & Fodor, J. (1972), 'What Psychological States are Not', Philosophical Review
81: 2; revised version in Block (l980a), pp. 237-250.
Changeux, J. P. et al. (1973), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
70: 2974.
Changeux, J. P. (1992), 'Les Neurones de la Raison', La Recherche 244: 704--713.
Crick, F. & Koch, C. (1990), 'Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness',
Seminars in the Neurosciences 2: 263-275.
Dennett, D. (1978), Brainstorms. Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford
Books.
Dennett, D. (1987), The Intentional Stance, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Edelman, G. (1989), The Remembered Present, Basic Books.
Engel, P. (I 992a), Etats D' esprit, Questions de Philosophie de L' esprit, Aix-en-Provence:
Alinea.
Engel, P. (1992b), 'Actions, Raisons et Causes Mentales', Revue de Theologie et de
Philosophie 124: 305-321.
Fodor, J. (1968), Psychological Explanation, Random House.
Fodor, J. (1981), Representations, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fodor, J. (1988), Psychosemantics, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Gardner, H. (1985), The Mind's New Science, A History of the Cognitive Revolution, Basic
Books.
Gould, S. J. & Lewontin, R. (1979), 'The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian
Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme', Proc. Roy. Soc. London B 205:
581-598.
Jackson, F. & Pettit, Ph. (1990), 'Programme Explanation: A General Perspective',
Analysis 50(2): 107-117.
Jacob, P. (1991), 'Are Mental Properties Causally Efficacious', Grazer Philosophische
Studien 39: 51-73.
Jacob, P. (1992), 'Le Probleme du Rapport du Corps et de L'esprit Aujourd'hui; Essai
sur les Forces et les Faiblesses du Fonctionnalisme', in: D. Andler (ed.), Introduction
aux Sciences Cognitives, Paris: Gallimard, pp. 313-351.
Kim, J. (1972), 'Phenomenal Properties, Psychophysical Laws and the Identity Theory',
Monist 56(2): 177-192; reprinted in part as 'Physicalism and the Multiple Realizability
of Mental States' in Block (ed.) (1980), pp. 234--236.
Kim, J. (1992), 'Multiple Realizability and the Metaphysics of Reduction', Philosophy
and Phenomonological Research 52: 1-26.
Lashley, K. (1929), Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Lewis, D. (1972), 'Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications', Australasian Journal
of Philosophy 50: 249-258; reprinted in Block (l980a), pp. 207-215.
Lewis, D. (1980), 'Mad Pain and Martian Pain', in Block (ed.) (1980), pp. 216-222.
Lewis, D. (1983), 'An Argument for Identity Theory', Philosophical Papers 1: 99-107.
Llinas, R. (1987), '''Mindness'' as a Functional State of the Brain', in: C. Blakemore &
S. Greenfield (eds.), Mindwaves, Oxford: Blackwell.
Lycan, W. (1987), Consciousness, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Lycan, W. (ed.) (1990), Mind and Cognition, Oxford: Blackwell.

Putnam, H. (1965), 'Brains and Behavior', in: R. J. Butler (ed.), Analytical Philosophy,
vol. 2, Oxford: Blackwell; reprinted in Block (1980), pp. 24-36.
Putnam, H. (1967), 'The Nature of Mental States', in: W. H. Capitan & D. D. Merrill
(eds.), Art, Mind and Religion, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 37-48.
Reprinted in Block (ed.) (1980), pp. 223-233.
Sober, E. (1990), 'Putting the Function Back into Functionalism', in Lycan (ed.) (1990),
pp.97-106.
Tennant, N. (1984), 'Intentionality, Syntactic Structure and the Evolution of Language',
in: Ch. Hookway (ed.), Minds, Machines & Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge
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Wimsatt, W. C. (1976), 'Reductionism, Levels of Organization and the Mind-body
Problem', Consciousness and the Brain: A Scientific and Philosophical Inquiry, New
York: Plenum.
CHARLES W. SMITH
A CLOSET REALIST
I first met Bob Cohen at Wesleyan University in the fall of my freshman

year in 1956. I had entered Wesleyan with the intention of majoring in
physics as part of a pre-med program. While I had always enjoyed history
and geography, mathematics and the hard sciences were clearly my first
love, due probably in no small way to the fact that I was fairly dyslexic. 1
Wesleyan, in pursuit of its historical emphasis on a critical liberal arts
education, had organized a special integrated program of English and phi-
losophy to run with our intensive accelerated mathematics and physics
courses. It was clear to all of us, that there was considerable concern
that we young scientists not become intellectually overspecialized too
soon.
Bob was assigned the special humanities/philosophy course. The
readings began with the pre-Socratics and moved through Aristotle. The
class was small - about a dozen students - and the class atmosphere
was both supportive and critical. The program was so successful that
of all the young scientists in the program, only one ended up majoring
in science. 2 By Thanksgiving, I for one was hooked on philosophy. In
hindsight, I am quite confident that if Bob had been teaching the physics
course I and a number of others, despite our doubts, would probably have
continued into physics. He was a remarkably stimulating and compas-
sionate mentor.
Throughout these past thirty-five-plus years what has intrigued me
most about Bob is his essential character. He radiates a fundamental force
which is quite unique. It is to this that I want to direct my comments
because I think that it bears on matters of substance and value which
transcend Bob and touch on a number of theoretical issues of importance.
I would like to begin with what has always struck me as the single
most impressive aspect of Robert S. Cohen. Everyone it seems likes Bob.
This would normally not be a compliment given the occupation which
Bob selected; the sad truth is that most academics whom everyone likes
are unimaginative, dull, and quite often insipid. Bob is anything but
this. He not only has strongly held beliefs but he speaks and acts accord-
ingly. He has never been just an ivory tower intellectual; he has always
187

188 CHARLES W. SMITH
been an active political force. How, I ask myself, can someone who is
as committed and as active as Bob be so widely admired and genuinely
liked?
Part of the answer I believe is that Bob has always privileged praxis
over ideology. Here one can clearly see Marx's influence. Thinking
back to the course I took with Bob as a freshman, however, I also see
the influence of Aristotle. According to Aristotle if one wants to know
how to act properly one should observe how the good man behaves.
Bob has always embodied this good man of praxis. It is in fact this
Aristotelian affinity which I have come to see as embodying much of
the best that is Bob Cohen. (In planning this paper, I had the oppor-
tunity to ask Bob what he thought about Aristotle. His response was
quite simply, "Oh, my hero.") The simple fact is that above all else
Bob Cohen is a good person. Moreover, he is a good person by intent
and thought.
One can learn many things by talking to Bob. I, and I believe many
others, however, have learned much more by watching what he does.
Somehow, regardless of the passions of those around him and the heat
of the debate, he manages to remain free of bile and rancor. It is not
so much that he is a loving person, though he is clearly that, but that
he seems to be somehow immunized against hate. Coupled with this is
the fact that he maintains a sense of the ridiculous. He refuses to allow
others to take themselves too seriously because he himself will never take
himself that seriously. He is clearly not a cynic or worse, a disillu-
sioned idealist. Throughout the years he has worked too hard on too many
issues to be so characterized. It is just that through it all, in a true
Aristotelian sense, he maintains a sense of proportion.
While the above may serve to commend and praise Bob and reveal his
Aristotelian identity, it also sets the stage for a more serious analysis
of a number of questions. The most important question from my per-
spective is the simple question how does he do it? The answer I believe
rests on a vision which Bob has which can be of value to all of us.
Part of this vision he has articulated in his own works. Significant parts
of this vision, however, I would suggest he has not explicitly articu-
lated but are rather passively embedded in his writings and perhaps
even more importantly in his daily life. It is even possible that much
of this vision remains tacit even to Bob.
In support of this supposition I would like to recount an episode that
occurred in the freshman humanities class I took with Bob these many
A CLOSET REALIST 189
years ago. The readings as noted above began with the pre-Socratics
and moved through Plato and Aristotle. While I have numerous memories
of this seminar, a few stand out. I remember one particular comment
made during the second month of the class. We were reading Plato at
the time. Somehow, in some context, the subject of Platonic love arose.
In the midst of the general class discussion, Bob, with his classic smile,
dropped the line in passing - it was not delivered as a major theo-
retical observation - that the only thing wrong with Platonic love was
that the girl invariably became pregnant.
The comment was met by a mixture of smirks, swallowed laughs
and blank faces. Nothing much more was said and the discussion con-
tinued. I was, however, quite taken by the comment. It struck me as
highly consistent with the more theoretical themes that I was picking
up from Bob.
There are obviously a number of different interpretations that could
be given to this comment but to me it has always indicated the extent
to which reliance upon the purely cognitive tends to be misleading. We
are grounded in our bodies and our bodies are grounded in a natural
world. Anyone who ignores this fact does so at their own peril regard-
less how noble their ambitions might be. I think that the comment
when made was stimulated more by being confronted by a dozen or so
hormonally driven adolescent males than any deep philosophical intent.
Basic insights, of course, are often tendered in passing rather than in
deliberative presentations. This tends, in fact, to be quite the norm with
Bob. In any case, it is on the underlying philosophic message coupled
with the understated form of its presentation that I want to concentrate.
Clearly the view embodied in this statement reflects a more
Aristotelian view of the world than it does a Platonic. One might argue
that it also has an implicit Marxian message. For me, however, what it
most signifies is a fundamental realism. It is on Bob's realism, his accep-
tance of natural contingencies, his commitment to human agency, and his
recognition of the importance of social-structural factors that I intend
to focus.
While, as I will attempt to show, these ideas pervade Bob's writings
and actions, it must be noted that there also exists a certain tension
between these ideas and others also present in his work. More specifi-
cally, I would suggest that like many others of his generation, Bob got
caught up in various formulations of his day which actually served to
obscure and distort his vision. Here I am thinking primarily of the
ascendancy of epistemology over ontology in the philosophy of science

and a twentieth century love affair with nomothetic empiricism. Despite
these tendencies, I would argue that Bob is essentially more a realist than
an empiricist, more accepting of contingency than normative order, and
above all a believer in the significance of both human agency and social
structures within the physical world.
While all of these issues and ideas can be traced back to the Greeks,
I intend to ground my discussion in a number of more contemporary texts.
In doing this I realize that I will be taking some liberties with the material
with which I will the dealing since my subject is himself not deeply
grounded in the texts to which I will be referring. I feel entitled to do
this because though he is not grounded in these texts, he is, as noted
above, grounded in Marxian thought and much of the materials to which
I will be referring owe much of their origin to such Marxian texts.
There is the added factor that I come to this discussion as a sociolo-
gist, and these are the texts with which I am most familiar. While I
will attempt to deal with each issue separately, it should be noted that
they are all interrelated.
BOB COHEN AS REALIST
That I see Bob to be a realist should not be surprising. I think most critics
would classify both Aristotle and Marx as realists and few thinkers
have had a more profound influence on Bob. Unfortunately, realism is
one of those terms which has been so overused through the years that
it lends itself to misinterpretation. As a consequence I prefer to use the
phrase "the new realism" to avoid a number of common misunder-
standings which, I find, the term "realism" tends to generate; these
misunderstandings run the gamut from equating realism with idealism
to equating realism with empiricism. More specifically, the concept of
realism to which I refer is analogous to that developed by Roy Bhaskar
in his books The Possibility of Naturalism and A Realist Theory of
Science, and used by Harre, Manicas, and Outhwaite to name a few of
my favorites.
For me as a sociologists addicted to field work, the "New Realism,"
as I understand it, makes six important claims:
1. It rejects a phenomenalist empiricism. Kant's world of appearances
is just that: Useful and necessary for science but not the end all and
be all of "reality;"
2. it asserts that there is something out there and it constrains both

what happens and what we can and do experience;
3. it accepts the social, including ideations, as real and emergent.
Meanings, values, norms, etc. exist and have causal powers. They
are, however, grounded in behavior, or more correctly, social
behaviors;
4. it recognizes that most social structures exist within open systems
with the result that predictions within the human/social science
are seldom part of any deductively closed model of "scientific
explanation; "
5. it conceives of the world, and the various structures that constitute
this world, as multi-level. The world is constituted by emergent struc-
tures which are not reducible to structures existing at different levels;
and
6. it sets as the goal of the human sciences explanation and under-
standing of the "causal powers" of significant social structures.
I might add that this last point makes it possible to interpret the human
sciences not only as critical but also as emancipatory. (There is obviously
more entailed by the new realism than this, but it is specifically upon
these implications that my comments will focus.)
It is clearly beyond the scope of this paper to develop any of these
points in any detail, to say nothing of all six. I intend rather to use
them as one would a bricolage. While the above lends itself to many
discussions, the one which I think is most appropriate here is the con-
trast between realism and empiricism. Historically, this has not been
the focus of attention. Attention has rather been focused on contrasting
and/or identifying realism with idealism. For many realism, understood
as asserting the ontological primacy of universals, was equated with a
type of Platonic idealism which forced them into identifying themselves
as materialists rather than realists. From there, it seemed a quick jump
to empiricism. Realism, however, is clearly not empiricism. Realism
refers to the underlying structures that constitute our world. Empiricism
refers only to the interactions of these structures that are the subject of
our sense experiences.
Nowhere does this confusion create more havoc than when it comes
to the theoretical tension between order and contingency. A realist
believes in ordering principles and fundamental causal powers. These
ordering principles and causal powers, however, are not always or even
normally manifested in terms of empirical regularities. One can expect
such empirical regularities only when confronted with relatively closed

systems. In the many and varied open systems which make up our
universe, especially our social worlds, underlying causal powers and
ordering principles more often than not generate behavior which is quite
disordered. Marx knew this as Bob so sharply notes in his classic review.
Aristotle knew it also. If one has listened and watched Bob through the
years, one clearly realizes that Bob knows this also. The ideology of
nomothetic empiricism generated by the logical positivists, however,
can obfuscate this basic insight.
Much the same can be said about causality. Aristotle talks of four types
of causes: Material, formal, efficient and final. The logical positivists and
their first cousins, the behaviorists, tried to convince everyone that the
only "real" type of causality was efficient causality. Even then, they
generally accepted the Humean view that from an empirical basis all
we really could claim was correlation. The fact is that causality, despite
what Kant might have said, is not an empirical concept. Causality is a
power which resides in real structures. If anything, Aristotle gives priority
to formal causes which are conceptually very close to what Harre and
Bhaskar refer to as causal powers. This is point which Marx clearly
understood also.
While Bob, as far as I know, has never formally accepted a view of
causality similar to that developed by Harre, it does not surprise me
that it is an issue to which he has returned again and again. What
strikes me rereading some of his earlier pieces is the extent to which
he recognizes the failures and weaknesses of the more popular formu-
lations. His intuitive sense is clearly on target.
Much the same can be said for his views bearing on contingency. If
a realist believes in anything, he or she accepts and appreciates the
complexity and contingencies of everyday life. There is also an implicit
acknowledgment of the multilevel nature of reality. The universe is full
of emergent properties and overlapping yet distinct levels of reality. There
is not only the physical world, but the human and social world. There
is not only pain and pleasure, but honor and wisdom. There is music
and art. Above all, there is humor.
Given that I am professionally a sociologist, not a philosopher, I feel
very comfortable employing behavioral data to support an argument.
Accordingly, there is little question in my mind that Bob is a thorough
going realist. Let's look at the ethnographic evidence.
Has Bob evidenced the type of eclectic interests in various forms of
life characteristic of a bona fide realist? The answer is clearly yes. As

noted by numerous speakers at his Boston University retirement dinner,
he continually takes on new projects while still in the midst of old
projects. He maintains the curiosity and enthusiasm for new ideas and
new fields which is the mark of a true realist. While many academics
shun the new and unusual as straining their ordered view of the world,
Bob remains continually receptive to the atypical.
The realist appreciates the varieties he or she confronts, but nothing
is more valued than reality and life itself. Life and the universe are
not just to be respected and held in awe. They are to be enjoyed and
valued. It is not accidental that Bob the atheist is taken by the Biblical
challenge of choosing life over death. His whole life seems to embody
this decision. Bob has, and continues to persevere with enthusiasm and
humor.
It is one thing to persevere with enthusiasm and humor if one is an
inherent optimist, if one believes that there exists some benign power
looking over everything, or perhaps if one believes that everything is a
big joke. As indicated above, a realist of Bob's stripe doesn't believe any
of these things. The real world is a very hard and often cruel place.
One perseveres because rationally that is the only option one has. One
does it with good humor and optimism because one recognizes the ever
new possibilities that are inherent in the world. Moreover, one accepts
the human species as a product of this emerging world, a product which
has evidenced the capacity not only for cruelty and stupidity, but also
the capacity for beauty, wisdom and compassion which has the poten-
tial of making the world a better place for all. Unlikely, probably, but
still a real possibility.
In the end, we return against to the notion of the good life and the
good man and the values which inhere in both. To many modem sophis-
ticated thinkers, values reflect only particular subjective orientations.
While accepting the inherently social and hence relational nature of
values - to use Mannheim's concept - the realist recognizes that values
are themselves real. Respecting the values of others does not mean
treating your own values as trivial. Here again, one need only observe
Bob's history to support this view.
While much of the above may read as if it were primarily in praise
of Bob, my intentions are much more ambitious. I was and am quite
serious in arguing that the generally recognized "good" man which is
Bob Cohen is highly dependent upon his vision of life. I am equally
confident, however, that much of this vision remains tacit even to Bob.
Given that most of what we know remains tacit this is not very surprising.
What is perhaps more surprising is that this, i.e. tacit knowledge, and
what I have referred to as the "new realism" of which this is a basic tenet,
is not generally acknowledged. It is this vision that I want to tout not
only because I feel that it grasps much of what Bob Cohen is about
but because I believe it is a valuable tool in tackling the problems to
which Bob has dedicated his life.
As I have already indicated, my professional orientation is that of a
sociologist, in fact, a sociologist dedicated to ethnographic research. If
a picture is worth a thousand words, I believe a good account is worth
a hundred statistical tables as the above would indicate. In this vein I
would like to embellish my support of the new realism with some auto-
biographic data. I think that this is appropriate given that the account I
will give has its roots in that freshman humanities class that I took with
Bob many years ago.
In turning to philosophy in my sophomore year at Wesleyan, my
initial passion was ontology. As I became more and more subject to
the various dominant voices in philosophy at that time, however, I became
more and more focused on epistemological questions. While I had some
interest in logic, my primary concern was with "forms of reasoning".
It continued as my major interest in philosophy and in my under-
graduate and graduate studies in psychology. Later when I moved into
sociology, I continued to pursue related question through studies in the
sociology of knowledge.
My primary hero throughout nearly all of this time continued to be
George Herbert Mead. Why? Because from the moment I first read him
as an undergraduate in philosophy, I felt that he alone had cut the Gordian
knot. He showed how it was possible to accept mind as central to the
human experience, yet to ground this mind in the natural world of human
behavior. (I clearly hadn't renounced my interest in ontological issues
though I was unaware of the fact.) That this required redefining mind
radically, i.e., making it inherently social rather than individual, ini-
tially disturbed me. Each year since then, however, I have come not
only to appreciate this insight more and more, but to understand better
its full implications. To be quite candid about the matter, it is only in
the last few years that I believe I have internalized this perspective
sufficiently to make it now natural to me. (It took a long while for us
to move from the soul theory of mind to the brain theory of mind; I guess
it will take a while to move from the brain theory of mind to the com-
municative/social interaction theory of mind proposed by Mead.)
Despite my respect for Mead, my fascination with "forms of rea-
soning" subjected me, as it seems to most all others, to what I refer to
as "phenomenological drift." I tended to treat forms of thought in and
of themselves and to ignore their grounding in social practices. In fact,
I often found myself reacting in a hostile way to what I saw as the sim-
plistic attempts to "explain" ideas from Marxist and Neo-Marxist camps
on the one hand and by various behaviorists and positivists on the other
hand. I could see the neo-Kantian and even the neo-Hegelian drift in
the works of many of those I most admired, but it seldom irritated me
as much as the "vulgar" materialism of others. My own empirical work
revealed ideations to be terribly complex; I found that they could seldom
if ever be analyzed individually; it was normally necessary to ground
them within some system of thought and then one usually found over-
lapping systems which were themselves highly complicated.
Without going into great detail let is suffice to say that for the greater
part of fifteen years my professional efforts were directed at attempts
to document the ways different "forms/styles/modes" of symbolic rea-
soning pertained to specific situations, ranging from sociology itself
(1979, 1982) to the stock market (1981). When I was asked whether I
was doing philosophy, psychology, or sociology, I tended to mumble inco-
herently. My problem, of course, was that intuitively I knew that although
I was dealing with the "rationalities" of various symbolic/meaning
systems - philosophy? - these systems were embedded in concrete
thought processes - psychology? - and these processes were in turn
embedded within ongoing social practices - sociology? The tensions
generated on the one hand, by the desire to treat such symbolic systems
as real with their own causal powers and, on the other hand, the recog-
nition that these symbolic systems were reflexive of, and grounded in
social practice was significant.
In the mid-seventies, I came across the works of Harre and Secord,
Giddens, and Roy Bhaskar. I discovered that I had a home which for lack
of any better phrase was labelled "the new realism". For the first time
in a long while, I felt that I had access to a frame of reference that
accounted for what I knew to be correct. Equally important, it sensi-
tized me sufficiently to a range of issues which made me better able to
see what I was doing while I was doing it. (It is much easier to function
as a realist when doing empirical work than to account discursively for
one's actions. In fact, as pointed out by a number of observers, most

practitioners function as realists even if they claim to hold a different
view.)
Here I would like to become more specific by reviewing briefly my
recent research on different types of auctions.
When people hear that I spent over ten years studying different types
of auctions, they normally respond by saying something like "Oh, how
interesting, but what are you looking for?" In the old days when I was
asked similar questions about my stock market study, I used to get very
nervous. The reason I used to get nervous is that I knew what they
meant by such questions, especially if they were colleagues. They wanted
to know what sort of correlations I was looking for and/or what pre-
dictions I was hoping to be able to come up with. Often I was asked about
"my variables", my "samples", etc. The problem, of course, was that
all of these questions assumed that I was interested in finding some
sort of empirical regularities characteristic of the stock market. The same
questions were commonly put to me when I was engaged in studying
auctions. But I wasn't then and am not now interested in such regulari-
ties per se. I am interested in empirical patterns but only insofar as
they seem to indicate something about the governing structures. Other
questions usually reveal an underlying assumption that if I am focusing
upon auctions and/or stock markets, that I am primarily interested in
economic activity. This, in turn, usually is accompanied by certain
assumptions about a given "market structure."
While others might be interested in such issues and proceed along such
lines, these have not been and are not now my interests. I was and
continue to be interested in "auctions", not specific transactions and/or
specific individuals. I am interested in auctions first and foremost because
I think they "exist" which means I believe that there is a system of
practices and associated expectations with the capacity to reproduce itself
through the activities of the agents it involves in its own practices.
This, I might add, is not the view of neoclassical economics. In the
neoclassical paradigm auctions and markets do not exist as indepen-
dent structures. All they are are the aggregate results of individual rational
actors. However, for me as a sociologist and a realist, market transac-
tions have a structure of their own.
What I have been interested in understanding is the system of prac-
tices and meanings/expectations/norms which actualizes itself as an
ongoing auction. Moreover, I was interested in determining if there
were different types of such structures and if they exhibit similar repro-
ductive practices. While my language here may sound to some very
obtuse, I much prefer it to mumbling something like "Well I am inter-
ested in finding out what's going on." To put the matter quite simply,
the "new Realism" legitimates what I have been doing and continue to
do. From my own field experiences I knew that what was "scientific
research" from a positivistic perspective was so much nonsense whereas
much so-called soft/sloppy research contributed to basic science; but
the idol of nomothetic empiricism coupled with its twin "subjective
intuitionism" made mumbling the most judictious and prudent conduct.
It is important to realize the full extent to which the new realism
redefines the subject matter of much social scientific research. It not only
enables me to legitimate my focus on "structures" rather than empir-
ical "facts", to look for general tendencies and patterns within behaviors
rather than limiting me to similar behavioral patterns per se, and to strive
for understanding rather than predictive power, but also to accept
ideations as emergent structures which are both collective and real. To
a large extent, of course, I was doing all of this before my own exposure
to the new realism. I sleep better now, however.
There are some things I do now, however, that I didn't do before, or
if I did do them I didn't do them as systematically as I do now. I am
much more concerned now with linking practices with the interpretive
processes. I am more concerned with seeing the way specific practices
and orientations are reproduced. (What Giddens and Bhaskar refer
to as structuration.) I am similarly more sensitive to the fact that agents
need not be aware of all of the "reasons" they do what they do, though
generally they can recognize such "reasons" when confronted with them.
This, in turn, has greatly influenced my research techniques.
In Street Corner Society, Whyte acknowledges that "Doc" really co-
authored the book with him. Since then, scores of field workers have
acknowledged in various ways the special, unequaled value of a prime
informer, an insider who is willing and able to explain what is going
on. Anyone who has done research in an area with which they were
not previously familiar knows this, It is a fact, however, which is handled
minimally and with ambivalence, because it seems to undermine the
objectivity of such studies. What we know, of course, is that such objec-
tivity is a sham. Social structures don't present themselves to us in the
"buff." They come veiled, perfumed, etc. (No chauvinism intended here.)
We shouldn't be ashamed of seeking out "insiders" and then engaging
in "critical joint analysis." We should recognize and admit that this is

the only way to find out anything of much substance and importance.
Usually anything you can find out on your own just by observing, espe-
cially if your time in the field is limited, isn't worth much. In short,
realism not only has important things to say about what we should
study, but also on how we should study it.
In the case of my own work, for example, I tend to think of every
study in terms of three stages. Stage 1. exploratory/participant obser-
vation. Get a general feel for what is happening. Pick up language,
rhythm, types of players, etc. Locate and initiate contact with potential
key informers. Stage 2. Interview key informers as to their views and
opinions of what is going on. Use your own experiences as basis for
questions. Continue with your own observations. Stage 3. Attempt to
synthesize materials, then subject them to the critical feedback of your
best informers. This all sounds very sloppy when compared to generating
random samples, pre-testing questionnaires, third person coding of
data, and hypothesis testing, but then it is intended as the means for
understanding how things work rather than collecting material to fit a
predetermined model.
There is no guarantee, of course, that one will acquire understanding
even if one follows these rules. Just because something is out there
doesn't mean that we can easily grasp its nature. What is even more
difficult, however, is trying to understand the nature of something that
isn't out there. This may sound as if I am trying to be cute, but in point
of fact it points to what in my opinion is one of the, if not the, most
important implications of the new realism, namely, that determining what
is and what isn't is one of the most important jobs of scientific inves-
tigation. The irony here, especially as it applies to the human sciences,
is that what has in recent years been accepted as the unquestioned mark
of "reality" - that something has been empirically experienced, does
not in and of itself signify any particular structure. As noted earlier,
the open system character of the social world is such that it is not the
case that all, or even most, social structures actualize themselves in terms
of patterned behaviors. The reverse, however, is also true. The simple
presence of empirical regularities does not necessarily mean the existence
of some underlying social structure. The regularity may rather be due
to the peculiar intersection of a number of distinct structures and as
such not be in any significant way characteristic of any of the struc-
tures involved. The situation is analogous to the specious correlation -
Kant walking out his front door everyday as the town clock struck the
hour. Given that the issue is the "existence/non-existence" of an assumed
structure, however, the implications are more significant. In the case of
my auction research, for example, the question of whether or not auctions
constituted structures or were merely the intersection of other struc-
tures proved to be one of the most interesting questions of the entire
project.
Here again the new realism has proven useful insofar as it has provided
guidelines for answering this question of "existence." The answer, of
course, is the capacity to reproduce itself. From a research perspective
this entails identifying those practices and constraints which effect repro-
duction. This can and often does lead to reframing the scope of a research
project since the reproductive practices may lie outside the original
boundaries of a particular project. (Courtship practices and patterns are
central to understanding family structures.) In my own work I have found
that the existence of particular types of auctions may be due more to
activities within a law firm or a bank than to activities within the auction
per se.
It is specifically such open, unintended, and generally unrecognized
connections that have generated this essay. Without my own publications
and research, it is doubtful that I would have had the opportunity to
contribute to this volume. Without my quite unpredictable exposure to
the new realism in the late seventies, it is very likely that my own research
may have remained stalled. And without my exposure to Bob Cohen in
the late fifties it is very likely that I would not have been the tacit
realist I was, and would not have been able to appreciate and recog-
nize my home when I found it. Bob said that " ... the only thing wrong
with Platonic love was that the girl invariably became pregnant." The
real twist here might be that there is nothing wrong with it at all. Where
would we be without the unintended, or at least unexpected, germina-
tion of seeds. I for one am glad to have been the recipient of many
such seeds over the years from friends, teachers and students. None
have been more valued than those I received from Robert S. Cohen.
Queens College,
The City University of New York
NOTES
I At that time it wasn't called dyslexia. I was simply labeled a very slow reader who
couldn't spell. Whatever it was called the results were the same. I had to struggle in courses
where there was a lot of reading while I found mathematics and science comparatively
easy.
2 In fairness to Wesleyan, it should be pointed out that this one student probably had a
good deal to do with the rest of us electing to pursue other fields. We had all come to
Wesleyan with fairly high opinions of our individual scientific potential. This one student
so outshone all the rest of us, that most of us became quite discouraged about our
scientific futures.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science (2nd ed.). Atlantic Highland NJ: Humanities
Press, 1978.
Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism. Brighton: Harvester/Atlantic Highland NJ:
Humanities Press, 1979.
Roy Bhaskar, 'Emergence, Explanation, and Emancipation', in: Paul F Secord (ed.),
Explaining Human Behavior. Beverly Hills CA: Sage, 1982.
Patricia Ticineto Clough, The End(s) of Ethnography: From Realism to Social Criticism.
Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992.
Robert S. Cohen, 'Science - Life and Death', Boston University Lecture. Boston: The
Boston University Press, 1968.
Robert S. Cohen, 'Causation in History', Physics, Logics, and History. Oxford: Plenum
Press, 1970.
Robert S. Cohen, 'Dinosaurs and Horses, or: Ways with Nature', Synthese 32. Dordrecht:
D. Reidel Pub., 1975.
Robert S. Cohen, 'Cosmic Order and Human Disorder', in: Wolfgang Yourgrau & Allen
D. Breck (eds.), Cosmology, History and Theology. Oxford: Plenum Press, 1977.
Robert S. Cohen, 'Karl Marx', Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles
Scribner's and Sons, 1978.
Anthony Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Basic Books, 1976.
Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1984.
Donna J. Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern
Science. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York:
Routledge, 1991.
Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Rom Harre & Paul Secord, The Explanation of Social Behavior. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1972.
Rom Harre & E. H. Madden, Causal Powers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975.
David L. Harvey, The Condition ofPostmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural
Change. Cambridge Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1989.
Peter T. Manicas, A History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1988.
Peter T. Manicas, 'The Concept of Social Structure', Journal for the Theory of Social
Behaviour 10: 65-82, 1980.
Peter T. Manicas & Alan Rosenberg, 'Naturalism, epistemological individualism and "The
Strong Programme" in the sociology of knowledge', Journal for the Theory of Social
Behaviour 15, 1985.
G. Nicolis & I. Prigogine, Exploring Complexity: An Introduction. New York: W. H.
Freeman and Company, 1989.
Michael Reed & David L. Harvey, 'The New Science and the Old. Complexity and Realism
in the Social Sciences', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 22: 353-380,
1992.
Charles W. Smith, Critique of Sociological Reasoning: An Essay in Philosophic Sociology.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell/Totowa NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979.
Charles W. Smith, 'On the Sociology of Mind', in: Paul Secord (ed.), Explaining Human
Behavior. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Charles W. Smith, The Mind of the Market: A Study of Stock Market Philosophies, Their
Uses and Implications. Totowa NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981 (Paperback-edition:
Harper and Row-Colophon, 1983).
Charles W. Smith, Auctions: The Social Construction of Values. New York: Free Press,
1989 (Paperback-edition: University of California Press, 1990).
ADOLF GRUNBAUM
THE POVERTY OF THEISTIC MORALITY*
INTRODUCTION
Throughout his career, Bobby Cohen has been a staunch, articulate

advocate of secular humanism. Being a fellow champion of philosoph-
ical naturalism, I wish to honor him by defending here a view of the
world that is dear to both of our hearts. This essay is thus a more philo-
sophical tribute to him than my dedication to him of my 1993 book
Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis (see Note 42).
During a period of considerable strife and moral turmoil in society,
there is a perennial tendency in some quarters to offer ethical nostrums.
Often we are told that the theistic creeds permit the resolution of our
moral perplexities, whereas secular humanism only exacerbates them,
leaving moral decay and the decline of our civilization in its wake. These
claims have also been turned into a political gospel in the United States.
Gravely, William A. Rusher, the former editor of the National Review,
has blamed secular humanism for producing an amoral sort of human
being in our inner cities:
What is happening to us, and what can be done? Simply put, the secular humanists have
been gnawing away at the foundations of Western civilization (God, morality, the family)
for two centuries, and have finally succeeded in producing, especially in our inner cities,
an almost totally amoral kind of human being - a sort of human pit bull. Our country
will recover, if at all, only by discovering and recommitting itself to the great salvific
truths on which our civilization was founded. I
Indeed, as we shall see, our culture is rife with smug and politically
coercive proclamations of the moral superiority of theism over secular
humanism as follows:
(i) Theism is normatively indispensable for the acceptability of moral
imperatives;
(ii) Religious belief in theism is motivationally necessary, as a matter
of psychological fact, to assure such adherence to moral standards
as there is in society at large;
(iii) "Secular humanism is brain dead" (Irving Kristol);
(iv) "The taking away of God dissolves all. Every text becomes pretext,
203

1995 Adolf Griinbaum. All rights reserved.
204 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
every interpretation misinterpretation, and every oath a deceit"

(Richard John Neuhaus). In the same vein, Dostoyevsky had told
us earlier that "If God does not exist, all things are permissible."
Just such theses are also espoused in the recent Jewish journal
Ultimate Issues. 2
More recently, at the Republican National Convention in Houston in
August 1992, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson declared a religious war
on secularism in our society. And George Bush, standing before a sign
"GOD," tried demagogically to secure electoral advantage by com-
plaining that the word "God" was absent from the election platform of
the Democratic Party! Even the philosophically trained William Bennett,
one-time Secretary of Education and anti-drug czar, pugnaciously intoned
the purported religious foundations of democracy.
Alarmed by these untutored, if not malicious, attacks on secular
humanism, I shall examine the conceptual relations between the theo-
logical and moral components of the relevant religious creeds, and enlist
my conclusions in the defense of secular humanism.
In a free society, the purveyors of religious nostrums have, of course,
every right to preach to their own faithful, and indeed to make all others
aware of their moral injunctions. Thus, the Pope is entitled to condemn
the use of socalled "artificial" birth control, as distinct from the "rhythm
method." Yet secular humanists claim entitlement to consider that pro-
hibition barbaric, not only sexually but also demographically, if only
because it contributes to the population explosion and concomitant eco-
logical ravages, especially in the third world countries of Latin America
and Africa. Alas, in the current Pope's new encyclical Veritatis Splendor,
John Paul II reaffirms opposition to artificial birth control (and to
divorce). But, he turns a deaf ear to the plight of the Catholic families
for whom the observance of socalled infertile times fails for biological
reasons. 3
As has been documented by the Nobelist M. F. Perutz from Pope
Pius's 1930 Casti Connubii and from Pope Paul VI's 1965 Humanae
Vitae, "successive popes have ordained that married couples sharing a
bed must practice strict chastity unless they desire a child, with the reluc-
tantly conceded exception of the woman's short infertile period before
and after menstruation.,,4 And Perutz concludes: "Such inhuman demands
could only have been conceived in the minds of celibate old men who
mistook their own envy of happily married couples for the voice of
God." Refreshingly, the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, went
THE POVERTY OF THEISTIC MORALITY 205
to see Pope John Paul II before the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit to
urge that the Catholic ban on birth control is bad for the planet and
must be abandoned. Carey also blamed "the dominant dogma of the
Catholic Church" for excluding population control from the 160-nation
summit's agenda. 5 Thus, significantly, even within orthodox Christendom,
God hardly speaks with a single voice on the moraiity of artificial birth
control.
Yet undaunted, nowadays theistic moral advocacy is again readily
turned into political intimidation, designed to browbeat into conformity
or silence those who share Sidney Hook's perception: "Whatever is wrong
with Western culture, there are no religious remedies for it, for they
have all been tried.,,6 Such coercive attempts are being made in our
society by both Christians and Jews.
The centerpiece of the religious creeds that are purported to be essen-
tial to both private morality and good citizenship is theism: The belief
in the existence of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient God
to whose will the universe owes its existence at all times, and who is
distinct as well as independent from His creation. We learn that this
theistic doctrine is normatively indispensable as the source of meaningful
ethical prescriptions, although the combined attributes of omnipotence
and omnibenevolence are impugned by the abundant existence of moral
evil in the world, which includes evil that is not man-made. Thus, in
the 18th century, Immanuel Kant argued that the realizability of morality,
as construed by him, requires the God of theism and indeed human
immortality as its underwriter. To boot, often we are also told, without
the slightest attempt to supply supporting statistics, that at least for the
vast majority of people, such religious belief is actually motivationally
necessary, in point of empirical fact, to assure such adherence to moral
standards as is found in society. In short, the theistic nostrum is that
its species of religious belief is normatively, and typically also motiva-
tionally, indispensable to moral conduct and good citizenship in our
society. My stated concerns here do not, of course, include dealing with
the tenets of a completely atheistic yet avowedly religious humanism,
as exemplified by classical Buddhism and certain versions, perhaps, of
some other Far Eastern religions. Suffice it to say that these tenets are
cognate to secular humanism and therefore pose no issues here.
I should call attention to various modifications or purported recon-
structions of the classical theism outlined above. Thus, on one reading
of the Book of Genesis, it contains no attributions of omnipotence and
206 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
omnibenevolence to God. And explicit denials of these attributions have

been issued by modem religious thinkers such as Hermann Cohen (of the
Marburg School), who was the dominant influence in German Jewish
philosophy after the tum of the century, and by the American Protestant
theologians Edgar Brightman and Charles Hartshorne, for example. On
some of these construals, God is powerful but not the "Almighty," and
good but not morally perfect. In this way, God's responsibility for the
world is considerably curtailed.
Yet if so, then these theists do not give us an inventory of what God
can or cannot do, nor of what virtues he possesses or lacks. For instance,
can God cure otherwise fatally ill people, whose loved ones address peti-
tionary prayers to Him for their recovery? If not, are such prayers not
a snare and a delusion? And why have the "anti-omni" theists not issued
a sobering caveat to the faithful who say petitionary prayers? It would
seem that their modification of classical theism effects an escapist immu-
nizing maneuver. It serves as an asylum ignorantiae in the face of the
challenge to a theodicy to reconcile the existence of moral evil with
the joint divine attributes of omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
Worse still, some proposed reconstructions of theism tum its doctrines
into babble. Thus, what is one to make of Paul Tillich's view that the
assertion of the existence of God is meaningless, rather than false,
and of Martin Buber's incoherent claim that God does not exist per se
but only in the I-Thou context of human beings? Buber seems to make
God a mere figment of the human imagination a la Feuerbach. Indeed,
at the hands of Karl Barth's "wholly other" God, and of Moses
Maimonides's denial that any humanly conceivable properties at all can
be predicated of God (the via negativa), all the inveterate contorted God-
talk becomes at best a vast circumlocutory sham, if not just gibberish.
What, for example, has thus become of God the creator of the universe
in the opening sentence of Genesis? And why should we not regard
such a purported reconstruction of the Old and New Testaments as a case
of linguistically misleading social engineering or regimentation of the
"masses" of the faithful, if not as bordering on thought-pathology? Those
beset by doubts about the Biblical God who tum to Maimonides's Guide
of the Perplexed for reassurance find their expectations harshly dashed
by false advertising. As Freud wrote aptly in another context in The
Future of an Illusion: 7
Philosophers ... give the name of "God" to some vague abstraction which they have
created for themselves; having done so they can pose before all the world as deists, as
believers in God, and they can even boast that they have recognized a higher, purer concept
of God, notwithstanding that their God is now nothing more than an insubstantial shadow
and no longer the mighty personality of religious doctrines.
For example, Paul Tillich is seen as a Lutheran, even though for him
"God" is just a shorthand for a set of human "ultimate" concerns.
Why then not drop all the Biblical discourse about a single or trini-
tarian personal God "above naming," who is the creator of the universe
and of man, cares for His creation and intervenes in history? And why
not just preserve a code of social justice as in the prophetic Judaism of
the admirable Isaiah? Such "coming clean" would, of course, amount
to embracing secular humanism. Just that challenge prompts some theists
in each of the main line denominations to distance themselves explic-
itly even from "religious humanism." Thus, in an advertisement 'Why
Are Catholics Afraid To Be Catholics?' ,8 the lay Catholic editors of the
New Oxford Review wrote:
The Vatican thunders against abortion, tyrants, illicit sex, consumerism, dissenting the-
ologians, disobedient priests and nuns, and more. But walk into your average parish.
Where's the beef? We get crumbs - and platitudes. We don't hear much, if anything, about
the Church's teachings on abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, pornog-
raphy, the indissolubility of marriage - "too controversial." Birth control and Hell are
taboo subjects. Pop psychology and feel-good theology are "in." Sin is "out," prompting
one to wonder why Christ bothered to get crucified.
We at the New Oxford Review, a monthly magazine edited by lay Catholics, say:
Enough!
We refuse to tum the wine of Catholicism into the water of religious humanism.
Alas, secular humanism has again become a major target, if not the
object of outright slander, by self-declared classical theists. I shall there-
fore hereafter ignore the merely nominal theists who have no quarrel with
philosophical naturalism and atheism.
In just the latter vein, Henry Grunwald, a former editor-in-chief of
Time and one-time U.S. ambassador to Austria opined: 9 "Secular
humanism (a respectable term even though it became a right-wing swear-
word) stubbornly insisted that morality need not be based on the
supernatural. But it gradually became clear that ethics without the
sanction of some higher authority simply were not compelling." And
to emphasize the alleged moral anarchy ensuing from secular humanism,
Grunwald approvingly quotes Chesterton's dictum "When men stop
believing in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."
A like note of moral self-congratulation for theism is struck by Irving
208 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
Kristol, as we shall see, who opined that "Secular rationalism has been
unable to produce a compelling, self-justifying moral code,,,10 whereas
theism allegedly had done so.
This pejorative attitude toward atheism is even codified in the ethi-
cally derogatory secondary meaning of the term "atheist" given in the
unabridged Webster's Dictionary: "A godless person; one who lives
immorally as if disbelieving in God."
Furthermore, as reported in an article on 'America's Holy War',lI it
is now being argued that the separation of church and state in the US
has gone too far: "A nation's identity is informed by morality, and
morality by faith" (p. 62), "faith" being faith in the God of the main-
line theistic religions. This "accommodationist" position is epitomized
by Chief Justice Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, who declared
that the wall of separation between church and state is "based on bad
history ... It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned" (p. 63, caption).
It is also espoused by the Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter who
claimed that this separation was designed "to protect religion from
the state, not the state from religion".12 Relatedly, many devout parents
see evil as instantiated alike by "sex, drugs or secular humanism"
(p. 65).
Indeed, as Time tells us further "such families also believe that faith
is central to serious intellectual activity and should not be relegated to
Sunday school" (p. 65). One must wonder at once how intellectual titans
like Bertrand Russell or Einstein, who rejected theism, ever managed
to make their contributions! Fear of the alleged dire consequences of
secular humanism may well also animate creationist opposition to the
theory of biological evolution, which many creationists see as abetting
secular humanism. 13
For brevity and style, here let the terms "religious" or "religion"
refer to the theistic species of religion, i.e. to theism. This usage is indeed
the primary one given in Webster's Dictionary. The theistic religions
are usually held to comprise Judaism, which is unequivocally mono-
theistic, trinitarian Christianity, and Islam. Christianity and Islam were
successor religions of Judaism.
Yet the term "religion" is employed very ambiguously. For example,
John Dewey's notion of "religion" is far wider than the doctrine of theism.
Sometimes the term is meant to refer to the historical phenomenon of
an institutionalized form of social communion involving participation
in a set of ritualistic practices, in abstraction from any doctrines that may
provide the rationale for them. Yet none other than a Hebrew prophet like
Isaiah hailed righteous conduct as far superior to the fulfillment of the
traditional rituals, and issued a fervent plea for social justice.
The theistic creeds feature claims about the existence of God, His
nature, including His causal relations to the world, as well as ethical
teachings that are held to codify the divine moral order of the world
within the framework of the theological tenets. Yet the appraisal of the
complaints made by theists against secular humanism and of the moral
worth they avow for theism requires that we distinguish the theo-
logical from the moral components of their creeds in order to clarify
the conceptual relations between them.
One vital lesson of that analysis will be that, contrary to the wide-
spread claims of moral asymmetry between theism and atheism, neither
theism nor atheism as such permit the logical deduction of any judgments
of moral value or of any ethical rules of conduct. Moral codes tum out
to be logically extraneous to each of these competing philosophical
theories alike. And if such a code is to be integrated with either of
them in a wider system, the ethical component must be imported from
elsewhere.
In the case of theism, it will emerge that neither the attribution of
omnibenevolence to God nor the invocation of divine commandments
enables its theology to give a cogent justification for any particular
actionable moral code. Theism, no less than atheism, is itself morally
sterile: Concrete ethical codes are autonomous with respect to either of
them.
Just as a system of morals can be tacked onto theism, so also atheism
may be embedded in a secular humanism in which concrete principles
of humane rights and wrongs are supplied on other grounds. Though
atheism itself is devoid of any specific moral precepts, secular humanism
evidently need not be. By the same token, a suitably articulated form
of secular humanism can rule out some modes of conduct while enjoining
others, no less than a religious code in which concrete ethical injunctions
have been externally adjoined to theism (e.g., "do not covet thy neigh-
bor's wife").
Therefore, it should hardly occasion surprise that theism is not
logically necessary as one of the premisses of a systematic moral
code, any more than it is sufficient. And this failure of logical indis-
pensability patently discredits Dostoyevsky's affirmation of it via
Smerdyakov's dictum in The Brothers Karamazov: "If God doesn't exist,
210 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
all things are permissible." Indeed, Smerdyakov's epigram boomerangs:

Since atheism and theism are alike ethically barren, neither doctrine itself
imposes any concrete moral prohibitions on human conduct.
One major conclusion that will emerge from the application of
Socrates's insight in the Euthyphro is the following: In regard to the
theoretical foundation of any and all specific, concrete norms of conduct,
all ethical injunctions, whether their auspices be theistic or secular,
have an extra-theological, mundane and socio-cultural inspiration in
particular historical contexts. Thus, this moral will be seen to hold,
even when the statement of the ethical code and/or its de facto social
inculcation invokes the fear or love of God or employs theological
language and imagery.
My arguments will also undermine the rather strident attacks leveled
against secular humanism in 1991 by Irving Kristol and Richard John
Neuhaus, as well as those delivered earlier by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Some twentieth century theists articulated the notion of divine
omnibenevolence with a view to reconciling it with what most civi-
lized people would surely regard as great moral and natural evil.
Theological apologetics - or so-called "theodicy" - is designed to
vindicate the justice and omnibenevolence of an omnipotent and omni-
scient God in a world of rampant evil. The pronouncements of some
prominent orthodox rabbis will illustrate that the notion of divine
omnibenevolence is shockingly permissive morally, to the point of sanc-
tioning the justice of the Holocaust. True enough, as we shall see, there
are indeed other theists who would reject these fundamentalist biblical
theodicies. Yet I shall argue in detail that precisely their divergence
will itself be evidence for the moral hollowness of theism and for the
ubiquitous inter-denominational and intra-sectarian ethical discord among
theists!
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND THE

MORAL PERMISSIVENESS OF THEISM
The problem of acknowledged moral evil has perennially bedeviled

those who believe in the governance of the world by a just, or even
omnibenevolent God. No wonder, therefore, that the influential twentieth-
century Jewish theologian Martin Buber saw the Nazi Holocaust as a
particularly acute challenge to the doctrine of divine justice. Bewailing
the horrors of Auschwitz, Buber acknowledges its moral challenge:
One asks again and again: how is a Jewish life still possible after Auschwitz? I would
like to frame this question more correctly: how is a life with God still possible in a time
in which there is an Auschwitz? The estrangement has become too cruel, the hidden-
ness too deep.... Dare we recommend to the survivors of Auschwitz, the Job of the
gas chambers: "Give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth
forever"? 14
Paul Edwards explains: 15

Phenomena like Auschwitz, according to Buber, do not show that there is no God but
rather that there are periods when God is in eclipse. It is not just that modem men, because
of their absorption in technology and material progress, have become incapable of hearing
God's voice. God himself is silent in our age and this is the real reason why his voice
has not been heard.
Actually in an attempt to come to terms with the acute challenge posed

by monstrous moral evil to the notion of divine righteousness and
omnibenevolence, Buber offers two distinct versions of an "eclipse of
God" doctrine, one of which is theocentric, while the other is anthro-
pocentrically phenomenological: Citing Isaiah (45: 15), Martin Buber
tells us that, according to the Hebrew Bible, "the living God is not only
a self-revealing but also a self-concealing God" .16 Indeed, he asks rhetor-
ically (1952, p. 66):
... whether it may not be literally true that God formerly spoke to us and is now silent,
and whether this is not to be understood as the Hebrew Bible understands it, namely,
that the living God is not only a self-revealing but also a self-concealing God [refer-
ence omitted]. Let us realize what it means to live in the age of such a concealment,
such a divine silence ...
Buber (p. 105) speaks of this self-concealing God as possessing "unlim-

ited power and knowledge." And he also tells us that the "righteousness"
of the "God of Israel" is "the confirmation of what is just and the over-
coming of what is unjust" (pp. 103-104). Yet the self-concealment of
such a God is simply frivolous. As Edwards goes on to explain, according
to Buber's theocentric version of the eclipse-of-God doctrine, "Men
cannot in our times find God, not or not just because they have become
incapable of I-Thou relationships, but rather because God has turned
his back on the world. This 'divine silence', in [Buber's disciple]
Fackenheim's words, 'persists no matter how devoutly we listen.' ,,17
Indeed, the theocentric version of the eclipse theory, which focuses on
God's self-concealment from the world in our age is, "as Buber rightly
observes, ... clearly implied in various passages in the Bible." But
212 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
this doctrine of the deus absconditus is also espoused by such Christians

as Martin Luther.
Yet what of the merits of Buber's hypothesis that though God is always
very much alive, there are periods when he conceals Himself by with-
drawing into silence and inaction? Edwards's devastating reply is right
on the mark:!8
The obvious retort to it is that God's self-concealment is inconsistent with his perfect
goodness or indeed with any kind of goodness on his part. If a child is in terrible trouble
and his father knows about it and could come to the child's help but refuses to do so,
i.e., begins to "conceal" himself, this would not, surely, be the mark of a perfectly good
father. On the contrary, we would regard him as a monster. It is difficult to see what
other response could be justified toward a deity behaving in this fashion. If a Jew in
Auschwitz desperately needs God's assistance, if God knows about the Jew's need (and
he must know it since he is omniscient), if God furthermore is capable of coming to the
Jew's assistance (since he is omnipotent he can do this) and if he nevertheless refuses
to do so but instead "conceals himself," then this is not simply a deity falling short of
complete goodness but a monstrous deity in comparison with whom, as Bertrand Russell
once put it, Nero would have to be regarded as a saint.
William Safire is completely unmoved by such considerations in his

article 'God Bless Us.' Thus, Safire opines a propos of Abraham
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:
God is not in moral bondage to man. His design is not for us to discern. As the biblical
Job learned, God does not have to do justice on earth - nor need He explain the suf-
fering of innocent babes in Somalia, Bosnia or Kurdistan. 19
Emil Fackenheim gave an elaboration of Buber's view, and offered

a defense of the theocentric version of Buber's eclipse doctrine. 20
(Fackenheim's paper appeared earlier in Commentary, 1964 and in his
book In Quest for Past and Future, Indiana University Press, 1968). Paul
Edwards takes issue with Fackenheim in Edwards's aforecited 1969
Lindley Lecture. 2 ! As Edwards shows there, Fackenheim even elevates
the escapist and evasive role of the eclipse-doctrine into an epistemo-
logical virtue: As Fackenheim sees it, whereas the goodness in the
world does verify the benevolence of God, the evils of the world
do not refute it, because the faith of the true believer will not be
psychologically shaken by the horrors of this world. But, as we know,
characteristically the delusions of paranoiacs and of fanatics are likewise
not dislodged by adverse evidence! Such is Fackenheim's deplorable slide
from epistemological reasoning to the cognitive devices familiar from
psychotic behavior: Heads I win, tails you lose.
The upshot of Fackenheim's Buberian stratagem of rendering Judaic

theology irrefutable is this: In Fackenheim's view, all that follows from
the rampancy of evil is that "God's ways are unintelligible, not that
there are no ways of God .... God was even more inscrutable than
had hitherto been thought, and His revelations even more ambiguous
and intermittent".22 In short, Fackenheim parries the refuting import
of the problem of evil by the twin devices of (i) attributing morally
irresponsible absenteeism to God, and (ii) declaring the reason for this
irresponsibility to be unfathomable.
The anthropocentric, phenomenological version of Buber's eclipse
doctrine pertains to a decline in man's receptivity to the light from God.
This formulation makes God's elusiveness into a human artifact. As given
on some pages of Buber's Eclipse of GOd,23 it states, in Edwards's words
(1970, p. 33): "Modem man, in Buber's terminology, is so absorbed in
I-It dealings that he has lost the capacity for the I-Thou relationship;
and this has made it impossible for him to find God." As Edwards notes
(p. 34), this phenomenological version is hardly original with Buber.
Besides having been held by other theologians, it even resembles
"Heidegger's claim that modem man, because of his immersion in beings
and his excessive concern with technology, has 'forgotten Being'
[whatever THAT is)" (p. 33). In short, the phenomenological version is
that "God is not deliberately hiding himself from men - it is they who
have become incapable of seeing Him".24
For my part, it boggles the mind how Buber's theocentric and Biblical
doctrine of God as self-concealing can be compatible at all with his
anthropocentric version, which blames God's elusiveness on us, unless
the two versions are restricted as pertaining to different times, or are
qualified in some other way. In any case, Buber felt driven to conclude
that God temporarily goes into eclipse during such periods as that of
the Holocaust. But just why a benevolent God would go into eclipse to
accommodate the likes of Adolf Hitler, Buber left glaringly unexplained.
After all, as Paul Edwards noted eloquently and cogently, going into such
an eclipse would seem to be a case of morally irresponsible absen-
teeism on God's part. Indeed, if Buber is to be believed, and if one
looks at the history of the societies that have embraced theism in one
form or another, it is difficult to find any time at all when God was
not at least partially in eclipse.
Buber does not offer a vindication or theodicy of the Holocaust as
such. Yet his theocentric eclipse-of-God doctrine is, in effect, a shabby,
214 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
lame and evasive gambit, serving to immunize the notion of divine

benevolence and righteousness against outright refutation by the peren-
nial existence of evil, including not only the Holocaust but also much
natural evil that is not man-made!
Worse, some recent apologias for the Holocaust from some Jewish
religious quarters have been nothing less than obscene. In a 1987 article,25
Lord Immanuel Jakobovitz, the Chief Orthodox Rabbi of Britain
and the Commonwealth, asserted that the Nazi Holocaust was divine
punishment for the apostasy of the German Jews who founded assimi-
lationist Reform Judaism. "This idol of individual assimilation," he wrote
almost gleefully, "exploded in the very country in which it was invented,
to be eventually melted down and incinerated in the crematoria of
Auschwitz."
Now, when the S.S.-men who implemented the "final solution" had
their reunions, they could say - on the authority of none other than the
Chief Orthodox Rabbi of the United Kingdom - that they were merely
the instruments of the God of Moses. Indeed, if Rabbi Jakobovitz is to
be believed, the wrath of God is so indiscriminate that it prompted the
Nazis to incinerate devoutly orthodox Jews from all over Central Europe,
no less than the supposedly wicked reform Jews of Germany. Moreover,
the vindictiveness of this God is such that the punishment for the doc-
trinal deviance of reform Jews, even within a Mosaic theistic framework,
had to be nothing short of live incineration, rather than some lesser,
reversible misfortune. Far from being just, a God who indiscriminately
assigns wholesale lethal punishment and allows babies to be killed in
front of their mothers by S.S. guards at extermination camps is a sadistic,
satanic monster deserving of cosmic loathing rather than worship and
love.
Rabbi Jakobovitz is hardly alone in the view that the Holocaust
was divinely sanctioned. As reported by the noted Israeli scholar
Amos Funkenstein, the ultra-orthodox Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum - who
lives in Jerusalem but regards the Jewish secular state and government
in Israel as sinful - sees the Holocaust as God's punishment for
the Zionist founding of a Jewish state in advance of the promised
arrival of the purported new Messiah. As Avishai Margalit just pointed
out: 26
The ultra-Orthodox did not experience any crisis of faith or of theology when confronted
with the absolute evil of the Holocaust. Their . . . response to the Holocaust . . .
was directed, then, not at God for having allowed the Jews to be murdered but at
the Zionists .... According to the prominent Orthodox rabbi Moshe Scheinfeld ... The
Zionist leaders ... were "the criminals of the Holocaust who contributed their part to
the destruction."
Evidently, the ultra-orthodox ("haredim") also regard God's justice

as morally indiscriminate. After all, many of the European Jews who
perished in the crematoria were not even Zionists, let alone partici-
pating citizens of the state of Israel. And it seems to have been lost on
all three of the rabbis that the principle of wholesale, collective guilt
and justice is invoked by Islamic terrorists who attack Israeli citizens
no less than others.
Not to be outdone by Rabbis Jakobovitz and Teitelbaum, the ultra-
orthodox Brooklyn Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was even
hailed as the new Messiah by his disciples, gave his own twist to the
vindication of the Holocaust. In his 1980 book Faith and Science
(Emunah v' Madah), this revered sage of orthodoxy opined that, in per-
mitting the Holocaust, God cut off the gangrenous arm of the Jewish
people. On this basis, this man of God concludes, the Holocaust was a
good thing, because without it, the entire Jewish people would have
perished. Just why that should have happened is left unclear.27 The zealots
who proclaim Schneerson to be the new Messiah suggest that the wonders
he will enact are imminent. Yet we can be sure that when these miracles
fail to materialize, we will be treated to other, soothing prophecies on the
model of the "Barnum statements" found in astrological forecasts or
Chinese fortune cookies. Indeed, Schneerson died uneventfully.
Donald J. Dietrich, chairman of the Department of Theology at the
Jesuit Boston College, in his 1994 book God and Humanity at Auschwitz,
Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder, illuminatingly calls
attention to those religious factors which created a climate that per-
mitted the Holocaust by being theologically enculturated.
Sidney Hook explained why he rejects theism, including Judaism,
the religion of his ancestors, in favor of atheism. In a response, the
orthodox Chicago Rabbi Yaakov Homnick (Free Inquiry, Fall 1987)
indicted Hook's rejection of his heritage as "a far greater tragedy than
all of the physically maimed children in the world." Indeed, Rabbi
Homnick goes Buber, as well as Rabbis Jakobovitz, Teitelbaum and
Scheinfeld one better in his discernment of the hand of God, which he
deems patent in the Holocaust: "Yes, without a doubt, the guidance of
history by G-d is perceptible even to our limited gaze. The sense of justice
... is palpable ... Especially is the Holocaust a proof of G-d's justice,
216 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
coming as a climax of a century in which the vast majority of Jews,

after thousands of years of loyalty in exile, decided to cast off the yoke
of the Torah."
The rabbi's deletion of the letter "0" from the spelling of "God" is
intended to convey reverence, as if the word "God" were God's true,
hallowed name. No wonder that, in their prayers, the orthodox ask "May
His name be blessed" in the manner of word magic, although it boggles
the mind just what would happen to His "true" name Yahweh (Jehovah),
if the blessing were effective! No wonder that the kabbalah of Jewish
mysticism is replete with abracadabra and numerology.
Rabbi Homnick's veritable paean to divine retribution prompted
Sidney Hook28 to reply: "All apologists, whether Christian or Jewish,
for the divine inspiration of the Bible end up justifying ... actions that
in ordinary moral discourse we should regard as wicked or evil. This
would be evidence enough that, in our discussions with them, we are
not using terms like good and bad, right and wrong in the same sense."
After all, Hook points out, these apologists "cannot really share with
us a common universe of moral discourse, since they claim that every
event inspired or approved by Jehovah [- such as the Holocaust -] is
morally good."
In fact, the Bible, though called "The Good Book," features some
appalling teachings ranging from genocide in Deuteronomy, to slavery
and the inferior status of women in the New Testament. Thus, in a
barbaric message to male homosexuals in Leviticus (20: 13), it reads:
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of
them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death;
their blood shall be upon them." Besides, "And if a man take a wife
and her mother [sexually], it is wickedness: they shall be burned with
fire, both he and they." A father who has sex with his daughter-in-law
"shall be put to death."
James A. Michener cites these passages and adds that Muslim law
requires the stoning-to-death of an adulterous woman, an event he wit-
nessed in Afghanistan in the 1950's in the presence of a cheering crowd. 29
Yet Michener points to the utter unruliness of the ancient Hebrews as
justification of the harshness of Leviticus. But even if, as he claims oddly
in the title of his Op-Ed piece, 'God is not a Homophobe', the biblical
proscription is still being invoked nowadays in the service of homo-
phobia. Thus, as reported in The New York Times,30 "A Vatican document
on homosexuality [dating from 1986/1987] condemned not only the
behavior but also the orientation as a 'tendency ordered toward an

intrinsic moral evil'." Besides, as Robin Lane Fox has shown,31 the Bible
contains massive historical errors and contradictions, which furnish a
devastating case against strict biblical fundamentalism.
If theological teachings lend themselves to countenancing the stated
enormities, then this unconscionable permissiveness provides strong
reason to reject the pertinent creedal systems.
In my 1992 paper 'In Defense of Secular Humanism', 32 I developed
some of the above criticisms of the recent rabbinical holocaust theodi-
cies. In an indignant reply, Seymour Cain, a veteran historian of world
religions, editor of an anthology on theological responses to the
Holocaust, and a Jewish theist, unwittingly supplies further grist to my
thesis below of the moral sterility and the glaring ethical ambiguity of
theism. 33 Cain does acknowledge the genuineness of these rabbinical
endorsements of the Holocaust as justifying divine punishment of the
Jews for religious backsliding.
Yet he goes into high dudgeon, because these apologias are not sta-
tistically representative of Jewish theological opinion on the Holocaust.
As he puts it (p. 56):
One only has to recall Eliezer Berkovits's Faith After the Holocaust, which puts the
onus for the Holocaust not on backsliding Jews, but on Western civilization and its religion,
Christianity .... I assume that this Orthodox theologian was not mentioned either because
Griinbaum was ignorant of his work or because it did not suit the needs of the adver-
sarial argument.
Or why not mention [Rabbi] Richard Rubenstein, who [in his After Auschwitz] pro-
claimed the death of the God who was traditionally believed to be the protector of his
chosen people? Rubenstein went acutely to the root of the matter, not merely the general
problem of theodicy, but the specific problem of a covenantal God who let his chosen
people endure abysmal humiliation, torture, and death - a now absolutely unbelievable
God. He even blamed the Chosen People claim for leading ultimately to the Holocaust.
Here again Griinbaum makes no mention of an eminent Holocaust theologian who does
not blame Jewish backsliding for the cataclysm, again a skewed omission.... We are
led to believe that Jakobovitz, Schneerson, and Teitelbaum, who interpret the Holocaust
as divine punishment for the modern Jews' abandonment of Torah belief and obser-
vance, are the representative voices of contemporary Jewish theology. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Many Jewish theologians have voiced exactly the same rejection
of the idea of the killer-God of Auschwitz in practically the same words as Griinbaum
. . . e.g., Eugene Borowitz. Any mention of them would not serve the purpose of
Griinbaum's adversarial argument.
But Cain turns a deaf ear to precisely the damaging fact: It is scan-
dalous that Judaism is sufficiently permissive morally to enable some
218 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
world-renowned rabbis to offer a Holocaust-theodicy at all with theo-

logical impunity: It attests to the moral bankruptcy of the notion of a
theological foundation of Jewish ethics. Cain (and other apologists for
Judaism) ought to be deeply embarrassed by this situation, instead of
offering the witless complaint that the rabbinical Holocaust apologists
made "easy targets" for me, like "fish in a barrel." Rabbi J acobovitz
and Rabbi Schneerson, who both vindicated the Holocaust as divine
justice, are world-figures in orthodox Judaism! Clearly, I submit, pre-
cisely the statistics on the depth of the cleavage among the moral verdicts
of Jewish theologians on so over-arching an occurrence as the Holocaust
bespeaks the ethical bankruptcy of their theology. By the same token,
Cain's complaint that I made no allowance for that statistical disper-
sion boomerangs.
William Safire sounds the same note as Cain but in regard to Islam.
Thus, recent attacks by Islamic fundamentalists prompted Safire's admo-
nition 34 that Islam is "one of the world's great religions," and that
non-Muslims should refrain from "thoughtlessly lumping together the
orthodox, the secular and the extremist." And a lead editorial in the
New Republic35 went much further, complaining very implausibly that
"the mass media, showing its [sic] habitual contempt for religion, con-
flated Islam with the most bizarre of modern cults [in Waco, Texas]
and treated the two as almost interchangeable."
No doubt, there are great numbers of Muslims who abhor terrorism
and who interpret their religion in a humane way. But Safire's caveat
against lumping the orthodox together with the extremist surely makes
insufficient allowance for several stubborn facts: (1) Shiite clerics have
loudly claimed the sanction of Islam for meting out death-sentences to
apostates for affronts against Allah (God) or against the Prophet. Thus,
declaring someone an unbeliever, i.e., to engage in takJir al hakim,
provides religious warrant for killing the infidel; (2) Notoriously, the
Immam Khomeini in Iran issued a Jatwa (religious ruling), making it
the religious duty of any Muslim to assassinate Salman Rushdie for
blasphemy. To boot, the Immam's successor, Ayatullah Khamenai ("the
leader"), rejected appeals to rescind Rushdie's death sentence, and
actually doubled the $1 million bounty for carrying it out. Besides,
President Rafsanjani of Iran reaffirmed the Jatwa as irrevocable; (3)
Fatwas may also be issued to enjoin a jihad (holy war), or to coun-
teract any perceived threats to Islam.
They have been and are now being used in some Islamic countries
to suppress secularism. And even in Egypt, the Ministry of Culture of

the secular government is increasingly yielding to the threats from
fundamentalists by permitting them to censor books scheduled for pub-
lication by the Ministry. Indeed, one of Egypt's most senior theologians
testified in court that secularists are apostates "who should be put to death
by the Government" and that "if the Government failed to carry out
that 'duty,' individuals were free to do SO".36
True enough, some Egyptian Sunni clerics have deemed the fatwa
against Rushdie as less than justified. But just this elasticity in the con-
ception of theologically sanctioned moral injunctions demonstrates anew
the ethical permissiveness that I deplored in Jewish Holocaust theology.
Hence it was misleading on Safire's part to depict Islam as currently being
"under attack from within." And Cain ought to be deeply embarrassed
anew by the murderous fatwas, precisely because - in Safire's words -
"Islam [is] one of the world's great religions."
Most recently, Iran's embarrassment over the failure of the injunc-
tion against Rushdie has prompted its government to rescind it.
THE MORAL STERILITY OF THEISM
The moral hollowness of the theistic superstructure requires both clari-

fication and argument. Why are theological trappings morally unavailing?
It was Socrates who permitted us to realize that if a religious creed is
to yield any specific moral prescriptions at all, the ethics must be extra-
neously imported or tacked on to theism on extra-theological, worldly
grounds, being put into the mouth of God by the clergy when asserting
His goodness or omnibenevolence. This moral sterility of theism comes
into view from the failure of divine omnibenevolence to deal with the
challenge posed by a key question from Socrates in Plato's Euthyphro:
Is the conduct approved by the gods right ("pious"), because of prop-
erties of its own, or merely because it pleases the gods to value or
command it? In the former case, divine omnibenevolence and revela-
tion are at best ethically superfluous, and in the latter, the absolute divine
commands fail to provide any reason at all for imposing particular
kinds of conduct.
For if God values and enjoins us to do what is desirable in its own
right, then ethical rules do not depend for their validity on divine
command, and they can then be independently adopted. But, on the other
hand, if conduct is good merely because God decrees it, then nowadays
220 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
we also have the morally insoluble problem of deciding, in a multi-

religious world, which one of the conflicting purported divine revelations
of ethical commands we are to accept. Indeed, Richard Gale sees the
thrust of Plato's Euthyphro to be the claim that "Ethical propositions
are not of the right categorial sort to be made true by anyone's decision
[command], even God's".37
The plurality of competing revelations is illustrated by those in which
Jesus is the Lord and those in which he is not, as in Islam and Judaism.
And how are we to resolve theologically the basic ethical disagree-
ments existing even within the clergy of the same religious denomination,
such as the debate on pacifism in times of war or the justice of capital
punishment for crime? Just these conflicting moral revelations and intra-
denominational disagreements spell a cardinal lesson: Even if a person
is minded to defer completely to theological authority on moral matters,
he or she cannot avoid deciding which one of the conflicting religious
authorities is to be his/her ethical guide. Thus, try as they may, people
cannot abdicate their own responsibility for deciding by what moral
norms they are to live. In just this decision-making sense, man is
inescapably the measure of all things, for better or for worse. And it is
quite otiose to speak, as Reinhold Niebuhr did, of "God giving us to
see the right".38
True enough, assuming divine omnibenevolence, it presumably follows
that all divinely ordained conduct is morally right. But that is unavailing,
because this much leaves us wholly in the dark as to which moral direc-
tives are binding on us, or what goals are ethically desirable. How, for
example, does divine omnibenevolence tell us whether to share or
abhor the Reverend Falwell's and Rabbi Kahane's claim that a nuclear
Armageddon is part of God's just and loving plan for us, because only
the righteous will be resurrected thereafter? In any case, the existence
of states of affairs in the world that theists themselves acknowledge to
be morally evil, no less than others do, does indeed impugn the purported
omnibenevolence of God. And the existence of evil that is not wrought
by human volition cannot be explained away by recourse to the so-
called "free will defense." That apologia adduces the value of human
freedom to perpetrate evil deeds no less than to do good ones.
The inability of the theological superstructure to yield a moral code
also crops out in Kant's invocation of God (and of personal immor-
tality) as underpinnings of his own system of deontological ethics. His
argument for such a theological foundation starts out from his moral
doctrine that there is a categorical imperative to act only on principles

that everyone could adopt consistently. But Kant avowedly offered only
a formula: Alas, it does not tell us which moral directives to adopt from
a set of competing ones. Thus, instead of being a source of concrete
ethical injunctions, his formula provides only a necessary condition of
their acceptability.
Even at that, Kant's theological underpinning of his ethics loses its
force, if only because the required realizability of the highest good is
hardly assured. Besides, his case for a divine underwriter founders on
its dubious assumption of personal immortality. And his argument
becomes baseless in the context of such rival conceptions of ethics as
are offered by the teleological or self-realization schools. Indeed, even
if the philosophical viability of morality were evidence for the exis-
tence of God, as claimed by Kant, the ubiquitous reality of evil in the
world would be stronger evidence against theism.
It would seem that Kant's own special version of a theological
foundation for ethics fails, even if one disregards the legitimacy of non-
deontological systems of ethics.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Commencement Address at Harvard
showed no awareness of the moral sterility of theism:
There is a disaster which is already very much with us. I am referring to the calamity
of an autonomous [despiritualized] and irreligious, humanistic consciousness. It has
made man the measure of all things on Earth, imperfect man, who is never free of pride,
self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects ... Is it true that man is above
everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him?
Prima facie, this declaration may sound ingratiatingly modest. But,

as it stands, it is morally hollow and theologically question-begging.
Whose revelation, one must ask, is to supplant man as the measure of
all things? That of the Czarist Russian Orthodox Church? Or the edicts
of the Ayatollah Khomeini, as enforced by his mullahs? Those of the
Dutch Reformed Church in apartheid South Africa? Or the teachings
of Pope John Paul II, who - amid starvation in Africa - is getting support
from the native episcopate for the prohibition of "artificial" birth con-
trol? Or yet those of the orthodox rabbinate in Israel, which prohibits
autopsies, for example? And, if the latter, which of the two doctrinally
competing chief rabbis is to be believed, the ashkenazi, or the sephardic
one? If the ethical perplexity of modern man is to be resolved by concrete
moral injunctions, Solzhenitsyn's jeremiad simply replaces secular man
222 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
by selected clergymen, who become the moral touchstone of everything

by claiming revealed truth for their particular ethical directives.
It appears that the moment a theology is to be used to yield ethical
prescriptions, these rules of conduct are obtained by deliberations in
whose outcome secular aims and thought are every bit as decisive as
in the reflections of secular ethicists who deny theism. And the perplexity
of moral problems is not lessened by the theological superstructure, which
itself leaves us in an ethical quandary.
No wonder that Judaeo-Christian theology has been invoked as a
sanction for such diverse ethical doctrines as the divine right of kings;
the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; black
slavery; "Deutschland iiber alles;" the social Darwinism of Spencer,
and socialism. Indeed, as Sidney Hook has pointed out in his own critique
of Solzhenitsyn: 39 "Neither Christianity nor Judaism, in principle, ever
condemned slavery or feudalism. In their modern forms, they have been
humanized in consequence of [the challenge from] the rise of secular
humanism." As the Roman Catholic Judge John T. Noonan Jr. pointed
out more specifically most recently,40 from the time of St. Paul to well
beyond the middle of the 19th century, the Catholic Church taught that
slavery was morally acceptable. And it was not until 1890 that Pope
Leo XIII finally condemned slavery, but "only after the laws of every
civilized land [had] eliminated the practice" (p. 675). At last, Pope John
Paul II included slavery among intrinsic evils in his latest encyclical
Veritatis Splendor.
Furthermore, Noonan explains, for 1200 years, "popes, bishops and
theologians regularly and unanimously denied the religious liberty of
heretics." Indeed, "The duty of a good ruler was to extirpate not only
heresy but heretics" (p. 667), and the Church did all it could to help.
Even when the Church came to acquiesce in religious tolerance after com-
pelling orthodoxy by force, its papal advisors continued to uphold the
enforcement of orthodoxy by the state as an ideal. 41
Some religious sects in India would have us abstain from the surgical
excision of cancerous growths in man, and Christian Scientists in the
West reach somewhat similar conclusions from rather different premises.
Roman Catholics, on the other hand, endorse the medical prevention
of death but condemn interference with nature in the form of birth control,
a position not shared by leading Protestant and Jewish clergymen. Indeed,
both Mahatma Ghandi and Hitler saw themselves as serving God. And
divine Providence was a frequent feature of Hitler's speeches, illustrating
anew that religion can also be the last refuge of the scoundrel. Indeed,
one believer's will of God is another's will of Satan, as illustrated by
the exchange between Ayatollah Khomeini and President Carter, a born-
again Christian.
Unfortunately, leading opinion-makers in the United States seem
unaware not only of the moral sterility of theism, but also of the ethical
abominations perpetrated by theocracies, past and present.
Solzhenitsyn's charge of moral inadequacy against an irreligious
humanistic consciousness is of-a-piece with the point of his rhetorical
questions: "Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior
Spirit above him?" Surely the assumption that man may well not be above
everything hardly requires belief in the existence of God. As we know,
NASA has been scanning the skies for signals from extra-terrestrial and
indeed extra-solar humanoids, whose intelligence may indeed be super-
human.
Nor will it do for clergymen to appeal - as they often do when thus
challenged by the stated damaging considerations - to the finitude of
our minds or to the inscrutability of God, who is said to transcend human
understanding. After all, the clergy is in no better position to transcend
that finitude than anyone else! Nor, it must be emphasized, do religious
apologists have greater expertise than non-believers for discerning the
limits of human cognition. Besides, one would expect that the avowed
inscrutability of God would induce great modesty in regard to fathom-
ing his purported will and alleged ethical commands.
Those who claim a divine foundation for their otherwise favorite moral
code, as against its available rivals, compensate for the ethical empti-
ness of theism by begging the question: They blithely claim revealed
divine sanction for their own moral code. It was Moses, not God, who
issued the Ten Commandments. The famous law code of the Babylonian
King Hammurabi was purportedly received by him from the sun god
Shamash during prayer, a tale similar to the legend of Moses and the
revelation of the Decalogue by Yahweh on Mt. Sinai. Indeed, the theo-
logical grounding of ethics is so shaky that the craving for it legitimately
calls for psychological explanation as part of the psychology of fideist
acceptance of theism. 42
In a recent widely touted plea for the theoretical relevance of religious
ethics to U.S. public policy, Yale's law professor Stephen L. Carter
inadvertently undermines his basis for just that plea. In his book The
Culture of Disbelief,43 he writes: "What was wrong with the 1992
224 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
Republican convention was not the effort to link the name of God to
secular political ends. What was wrong was the choice of secular ends
to which the name of God was linked." Anna Quindlen,44 quotes this
passage after praising Carter's book as "exceptionally intelligent and
provocative. "
But clearly, Stephen Carter makes the linkage to God logically irrele-
vant precisely by assuming that we must already know, independently
of any purported divine commands, which secular political ends are
ethically proper and thereby may properly be chosen for linkage to the
name of God! Otherwise, any secular political ends can be given such
a linkage with theological impunity, as they have been historically and
at the 1992 Republican convention, to Carter's discomfiture.
Thus, George Bush's avowed belief that Jesus is his Savior under-
standably did not prevent him from making demagogic use of the God
sign, when complaining at the 1992 Houston convention that it was absent
from the election platform of the Democratic national convention. Alas,
as The New York Times reports,45 Bush's Democratic successor, President
Clinton, has predicated U.S. political morality emptily on "Seeking to
do God's will" and "has made several attempts to link religious belief
to public and private responsibility, most frequently citing the argu-
ments forwarded [offered] by Stephen L. Carter." Pray tell, Mr. President,
just what is God's will concretely? Does he sanction capital punish-
ment for example? And is that your reason for favoring it? And where
does God stand on abortion? Isn't your appeal to God's will just shallow
rhetoric?
***
Irving Kristol 46 deplores the secularization of American Jewry under
the influence of secular humanism, which he tendentiously describes
as springing from a "new, emergent religious impulse." As he sees it:
Because secular humanism has, from the very beginning, incorporated the modern
scientific view of the universe, it has always felt itself - and today still feels itself -
"liberated" from any kind of religious perspective. But secular humanism is more than
science, because it proceeds to make all kinds of inferences about the human condition
and human possibilities that are not, in any authentic sense, scientific. Those inferences
are metaphysical, and in the end theological.
Kristol muddies the waters: Secular humanists are well aware that
scientific knowledge does not suffice to warrant all parts of a moral code.
But Kristol darkens counsel by designating the motivation for secular

humanism as "religious," and its conception of the human estate as
"theological." In so doing, he ignores that the unabridged Webster's
Dictionary gives the following primary definition of the term "religion":
"The service and adoration of God or a god as expressed in forms of
worship, in obedience to divine commands, especially as found in
accepted sacred writings .... "
Although the term "spiritual" has a supernaturalist tinge, Kristol insists
that secular humanism springs from a "new philosophical-spiritual
impulse" (p. 23):
What, specifically, were (and are) the teachings of this new philosophical-spiritual impulse?
They can be summed up in one phrase: "Man makes himself." That is to say, the universe
is bereft of transcendental meaning, it has no inherent teleology, and it is within the
power of humanity to comprehend natural phenomena and to control and manipulate
them so as to improve the human estate. Creativity, once a divine prerogative, becomes
a distinctly human one. . . .
... Man's immortal soul has been a victim of progress, replaced by the temporal "self"
- which he explores in such sciences as psychology and neurology, as well as in the modem
novel, modem poetry, and modem psychology, all of which proceed without benefit of
what, in traditional terms, was regarded as a religious dimension.
First, we ought to applaud precisely what Kristol bemoaned when

he said: "Creativity, once a divine prerogative, becomes a distinctly
human one." The invocation of a divine creator to provide causal expla-
nations in cosmology or biology suffers from a fundamental defect
vis-a-vis scientific explanations of the effects produced by human agents
or by diverse events: As we know from two thousand years of theology,
the hypothesis of divine creation does not even envision, let alone specify,
an appropriate intermediate causal process that would link the will of
the supposed divine (causal) agency to the effects which are attributed
to it. Nor, it seems, is there any prospect at all that the chronic
inscrutability of the putative causal linkage will be removed by new
theological developments.
In sharp contrast, the discovery that "an aspirin-a-day" keeps many
a heart-attack away has been quickly followed by the quest for a
specification of the mode of action that mediates the prophylaxis afforded
by this drug against coronary infarcts. Similarly for therapeutic benefits
from placebos wrought by the mediation of endorphin-release in the brain
and by the secretions of interferon and of steroids. In physics, there is
either an actual specification or at least a quest for the mediating causal
226 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
dynamics linking presumed causes to their effects. In the case of laws

of temporal coexistence or simultaneous action-at-a-distance, there is
a specification of the concomitant variations of quantified physical
attributes by means of functional dependencies. 47
Indeed, the prominent American Jesuit theologian Michael Buckley
makes an important admission as to the hypothesized process of divine
creation: "We really do not know how God 'pulls it off'. Catholicism has
found no great scandal in this admitted ignorance".48 But if so, the dis-
belief in divine creativity, which Kristol bewails, incurs no explanatory
loss at all.
Kristol also deplores current disbelief in personal immortality of the
soul among educated people. Yet, on examination, that tenet is so obscure
that it should not be consoling to any reflective person. As Maimonides
saw it, the attempt to grasp the nature of eternal bliss in the hereafter
while we are alive is akin to the futile effort of a blind person to expe-
rience color visually. At any rate, the hypothesis of personal immor-
tality collapses in the face of the vast amount of evidence for the depen-
dence of the very existence of consciousness on adequate brain function,
and, moreover, for the dependence of the integrity of our personalities
on such function. Witness, for example, the effects of brain tumors,
Alzheimer's disease, and various drugs, such as alcohol or mood-altering
medications. 49
But Kristol's principal thesis is that two fundamental flaws undermine
the credibility of secular humanism. The first, we learn, lies in its inability
to provide a moral code; the second, which is even more fundamental,
is that its vision renders our lives meaningless and has become "brain
dead."
As to the first, we are told (pp. 24-25):
We have, in recent years, observed two major events that represent turning points in the
history of the 20th century. The first is the death of socialism, both as an ideal and a
political program, a death that has been duly recorded in our consciousness. The second
is the collapse of secular humanism - the religious basis of socialism - as an ideal, but
not yet as an ideological program, a way of life. The emphasis is on "not yet," for as
the ideal is withering away, the real will sooner or later follow suit .
. . . This loss of credibility flows from two fundamental flaws in secular humanism.
First, the philosophical rationalism of secular humanism can, at best, provide us with
a statement of the necessary assumptions of a moral code, but it cannot deliver any such
code itself. Moral codes evolve from the moral experience of communities, and can
claim authority over behavior only to the degree that individuals are reared to look respect-
fully, even reverentially, on the moral traditions of their forefathers. It is the function
of religion to instill such respect and reverence. Morality does not belong to a scientific
mode of thought, or to a philosophical mode, or even to a theological mode, but to a
practical-juridical mode. One accepts a moral code on faith - not on blind faith but on
the faith that one's ancestors, over the generations, were not fools and that we have
much to learn from them and their experience. Pure reason can offer a critique of moral
beliefs but it cannot engender them.
Elsewhere, Kristol claimed more explicitly: "Secular rationalism has been

unable to produce a compelling, self-justifying moral code".50
These assertions call for a series of critical comments, showing that
fideist theism has hardly succeeded ethically where secular rationalism
has failed:
1. What is Kristol's evidence for the purported decline in adherence
to secular humanism among educated people who, he tells us, had widely
accepted secular humanism as an ideal? Indeed, this alleged collapse, and
his prediction of its demise as an ideological program of practical action,
is born of wishful thinking. Witness the well-documented massive erosion
of religious belief and worship in Western Europe, which is publicly
lamented by its religious leaders.
Even in the United States, where avowed religiosity is far greater
than in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church faces a crisis in the recruit-
ment of young people for the priesthood. Just this scarcity of recruits
has lent urgency to the plea that women be ordained as priests. The wide-
spread disregard for the church's prohibition of "artificial" birth control
by American Catholics is likewise well-known. And the pressure to
abandon the requirement of celibacy for the priesthood derives prac-
tical poignancy from the growing number of lawsuits from practicing
Catholics, whose children have been sexually molested by members of
the clergy. On the other hand, fundamentalist Protestant evangelism is on
the rise and, to the consternation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, is
making considerable inroads in certain segments of its erstwhile faithful.
But this headway of fundamentalism is largely confined to the most
poorly educated segment of our society. Thus, it is only cold comfort
for Kristol.
2. More fundamentally, Kristol erects a straw man when he com-
plains that the philosophical rationalism of secular humanism cannot
deliver a moral code. This charge is a red herring for at least two reasons:
(i) Theism as such has turned out to be morally sterile no less than
atheism or "philosophical rationalism," taken by themselves; in fact, when
Kristol urged that "Morality does not belong to a scientific mode of
228 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
thought," he himself conceded that morality also does not belong "even
to a theological mode, but to a practical-juridical mode." (ii) Secular
humanism can tack on moral directives to its atheism on the basis of
value judgments made by its adherents, just as, in point of actual fact,
theists tack on such directives under the purported aegis of inscrutable
divine revelation. Yet, unlike revelationist theists, humanists insist on the
liability of their moral convictions to criticism. Kristol allowed that "Pure
reason can offer a critique of moral beliefs," but his aim in saying so was
not to make a partial concession; instead it was to complete the sentence
by saying one-sidedly: "but it cannot engender them." Nor, as he fails
to see, can theism "produce a compelling, self-justifying moral code."
Kristol draws precisely the wrong lesson from his correct observa-
tion that the erosion of belief in theism attenuated the "moral code
inherited from the Judaeo-Christian tradition." For, in his view, it tells
against secular humanism that thereupon "we have found ourselves
baffled by the Nietzschian challenge: If God is really dead, by what
authority do we say [that] any particular practice is prohibited or per-
mitted?" By now, it should be abundantly clear, however, that in
answering the question as to the "authority" for concrete moral yeas
and nays, we are surely no better off if God is alive than if he is dead!
In fact, the threat of moral anarchy or nihilism arises from the erosion
of belief in God just because the prevailing moral code had been falsely
claimed to derive from Him epistemologically (via revelation), juridi-
cally (in the form of divine commandments), and motivationally (from
the love or fear of God)!
Evidently, Kristol's echoing of Nietzsche's challenge backfires: The
bite of the challenge is injurious to the religious, rather than to the secular
construal of morality.
3. It is a commonplace that "Moral codes evolve from the moral expe-
rience of communities." But this genesis does not warrant Kristol's
normative and motivational view that such codes "can claim authority
over behavior only to the degree that individuals are reared to look
respectfully, even reverentially, on the moral traditions of their fore-
fathers." Surely we ought to winnow the wheat from the chaff in a critical
scrutiny of these traditions.
But how, for example, does Kristol's ethical traditionalism enable him
to avoid asking Jews nowadays to look reverentially at the fact that, at
the time of biblical Judaism, women - but not men - were stoned to death
for adultery, and that the conditions for obtaining a divorce were brutally
asymmetrical as between women and men? Political pressure from

rabbinical theocrats in Israel has made it impossible for a Jew there
nowadays to get a license to marry a Christian (cf. Ian S. Lastick,
For the Land and The Lord, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, New
York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988). How does Kristol's conser-
vative stance allow him to erect safeguards against such totalitarian
tyranny?
Again, are present-day Christians to show respect for the fact that
other devout Western Christians performed barbaric clitoridectomies in
the 19th century to suppress the sexuality of young girls? Or are they
to feel pious stirrings on learning that, with the clergy on his side,
Christopher Columbus could see the holy purpose of initiating slave-
trading against the people of the Americas, saying "Let us in the name
of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves to Europe that can be
sold. The eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow his
way over apparent impossibilities,,?51
If Kristol were to reply that respect for the repository of ancestral
injunctions has to be selective, my retort is the one that Sidney Hook
gave to Solzhenitsyn: " ... what besides the methods of reason and
intelligence can enable us to make the proper choice between [among]
them?" (p. 6). It seems inescapable that all traditional ethical injunc-
tions should be subjected to critical scrutiny and distillation.
Kristol's formula founders on the neglect of the precept afforded by
Socrates's insight in the Euthyphro: If divinely hallowed injunctions
are deserving of adoption, then we must be the ones - in every epoch
anew - to find them worthy. And our only means for doing so are our
intelligence and our informed feelings. We have nowhere else to go.
Yet Kristol concludes that, since our society no longer defers uncriti-
cally or even mindlessly to clerical edicts, contemporary parents are
"impotent before such questions" as "What moral instruction should
we convey to our children."
Kristol's application of his traditionalism to contemporary morality
features his endorsement, as ancestral divine wisdom, of the inhumane
homophobia of biblical Judaism. Referring to the demise of the prohi-
bition of homosexuality as "moral disarray," he says mournfully:
Reform Judaism has even legitimated homosexuality as "an alternative lifestyle," and some
Conservative Jews are trying desperately to figure out why they should not go along.
The biblical prohibition, which is unequivocal, is no longer powerful enough to with-
stand the "why not?" of secular-humanist inquiry (p. 25).
230 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
So much the better for the moral challenge from secular humanism, which
produced a humane advance over barbarism and cynical hypocrisy.
But, in Kristol's view, the inability of secular humanism to deliver a
"compelling, self-justifying moral code," which he employs as a red
herring, is only the first of its "two fundamental flaws." He reserved
his supposed coup de grace for the second:
A second flaw in secular humanism is even more fundamental, since it is the source of
a spiritual disarray that is at the root of moral chaos. If there is one indisputable fact
about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded - or
even if it suspects - that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless
universe .... Secular humanism is brain dead even as its heart continues to pump energy
into all of our institutions.
But why can secular humanists not lead richly meaningful lives, just
because, in their view, the values of life lie within human experience
itself? How would our lives be more meaningful, if we were to suppose
narcissistically that man is the centerpiece of an avowedly inscrutable
overall divine purpose, which constitutes "the" meaning of our lives
but must remain unknown to our finite minds? Being at the focus of
elusive cosmic "meaning" is clearly irrelevant to finding value on this
earth: Experiencing the embrace of someone we love, the intellectual
or artistic life, the fragrance of a rose, the satisfactions of work and
friendship, the sounds of music, the panorama of a glorious sunrise or
sunset, the biological pleasures of the body, and the delights of wit and
humor.
In the movie Limelight, Charlie Chaplin put in a nutshell what is wrong
with the narcissistic delusion that there is such a thing as"the" meaning
of life: Life, said Chaplin, is not a meaning, but a desire. Yet Vaclav
Havel, who has a penchant for mysticism, lists "the meaning of our
being" as a basic human question. 52 And a rabbi demands an "ultimate
meaning" in human life: "In the atheistic premise, there is no ultimate
meaning to human life. It is just there. Now, no human being behaves
as if life had no meaning".53 But what, pray tell, is "the" meaning of life?
Pious cant?
As secular humanists see it, there are as many "meanings" as there are
fulfillments of human aspirations. It is sheer fantasy, if not arrogance,
on the part of theists to proclaim inveterately that their lives must be
more meaningful to them than atheists and secular humanists find their
own lives to be to themselves. Where is their statistical evidence that
despair, depression, suicide, aimlessness or other dysphoria are more
common among unbelievers than among believers? Yet Kristol insists:

"It is crucial to the lives of all our citizens, as it is to all human beings
at all times, that they encounter a world that possesses a transcendent
meaning, a world in which the human experience makes sense".54 This
grandiose assertion is flatly false as a matter of psychological fact.
Regrettably, Kristol did not come to grips with the arguments in Albert
Einstein's paper on 'Science & Religion'. 55 There Einstein first points
out: "Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an
omnipotent, just and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord
men solace, help and guidance; also by virtue of its simplicity the concept
is accessible to the most undeveloped mind" (p. 70). But then Einstein
issues his cardinal plea, which clashes head-on with Kristol's nostrum:
"In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have
the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up
that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power
in the hands of priests" (p. 71).
This rejection of theism as part of Einstein's further explicit denial
of supernatural causes impugns Sir Hermann Bondi's reading that
Einstein championed a belief in a superintelligence who was the "archi-
tect" of the world's complexity. 56 Yet Bondi himself is staunchly anti-
religious.
It is true, if trite, that if there is deep and widespread demoraliza-
tion in a community, as well as pervasive disaffection with its institutions,
its socio-political organization will crumble, and it will become highly
vulnerable to its enemies. Kristol transforms this commonplace into an
ominous charge against secular humanism:
If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can
survive if it is persuaded - or even if it suspects - that its members are leading mean-
ingless lives in a meaningless universe.
But the supposition that the godless lead meaningless lives is just
an ideological phantasm born of moral self-congratulation.
***
In an article entitled 'Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?' ,57 Richard John
Neuhaus argues for a negative answer to the question posed in its
title.
First he tries to cope with the fact that Sidney Hook, a life-long
232 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
ardent secular humanist, was a dedicated, fearless critic of totalitarianism

for decades, who received the Medal of Freedom from the United States
Government. In that attempt, Neuhaus falls into a confusion between
the semantic content of a doctrine and the degree of epistemological con-
fidence that a given supporter of the doctrine may have in it. The content
of theism is the assertion that there is a personal God with specified
attributes, while the content of atheism is the denial of that claim. But
neither content tells us with what degree of confidence a given propo-
nent avows the given tenet.
The Roman Catholic Church claims absolute dogmatic, irrevocable
certitude for its theism, while Madelyn Murray O'Hair has proclaimed
her atheism just as irrevocably. Alternatively, both theism and atheism
alike can be espoused with varying lesser degrees of epistemological con-
fidence. Some may regard their belief as a highly probable hypothesis
in the light of the evidence, while others may see it more tentatively
as the best available working hypothesis.
Theoretical beliefs, however well supported by known evidence, are
still fallible or revocable, because of potentially adverse future evidence.
It is therefore the better part of wisdom to stop short of espousing one's
hypotheses as irrevocably established. Thus, Sidney Hook, Freud,
Einstein, and Bertrand Russell, among others, adopted this less-than-
dogmatic attitude toward their belief in atheism, but without tampering
with its semantic content. Notably, their lack of dogmatism did not,
however, constitute a watering down of their atheism into the different
doctrine called "agnosticism."
In its technical meaning, agnosticism does not rule out either theism
or atheism: It pointedly makes no claim as to the existence of God one
way or the other, even tentatively, because it regards the question as
unanswerable in principle. Thus, neither theists nor atheists are agnos-
tics. And atheists disavow agnosticism no less than theists do.
This fact was untutoredly overlooked by Robert Bork during his
unsuccessful confirmation hearings to become a U.S. Supreme Court
Justice. Eyes flashing, Bork told the senators that he is not an agnostic,
presumably to convey that he is not irreligious. But Bork's rejection of
agnosticism does not rule out his being an atheist.
Neuhaus (p. 17) denies that Sidney Hook was an atheist, claiming that,
instead, Hook was an agnostic. Having wrongly assumed that atheism
must be irrevocably declared true by its champions, Neuhaus concluded
that, since Hook was a fallibilist, his rejection of theism must be tanta-
mount to agnosticism after all. But this conclusion is false: Hook's

commitment was to atheism, not to agnosticism.
Neuhaus is also led to claim incorrectly (p. 20) that the Enlightenment
rationalists were "committed to undoubtable certainty," merely because
they were atheists. As a dogmatic theist, opposed to Laplace's state-
ment to Napoleon, saying that he sees no need for the "hypothesis" of
God, Neuhaus declared sorrowfully: "When God has become a hypoth-
esis, we have traveled a very long way from both the gods of the ancient
city and the God of the Bible" (p. 18). But why is that deplorable, if
modem knowledge compels the demythologizing of the Bible, as indeed
it does?
The principal thesis of Neuhaus's article is that atheists cannot be good
citizens. Therefore, Hook's actual atheism commits Neuhaus willy-nilly
to the further conclusion that Hook, the recipient of the Medal of Freedom
bestowed by the President of the United States, is philosophically unfit
to be a good citizen. Neuhaus's central argument, no less than Kristol's,
turns out to run afoul of the moral sterility of theism. And this ethical
infertility undermines his attack on the separation of church and state,
as well as his irate indictment of those religious people who support
that separation.
Yet in his castigation of religious believers who support the organi-
zation "Americans United for Separation of Church and State," whom
he charges with "political atheism," he abjures even the notion of
the "existence" of God as too this-worldly. Indeed, we learn (p. 18):
"The transcendent, the ineffable, the totally other, the God who acts in
history was tamed and domesticated in order to meet the philosopher's
job description for the post of God." But this jeremiad boomerangs:
If God is indeed so totally transcendent as to be ineffable, and if
He eludes all intelligibility by being "totally other," how can there
possibly be any meaning in the causal assertion that He "acts in
history"?
Indeed, as I remarked early on, how can we possibly escape the con-
clusion that talk about such an avowedly "totally other" entity is just
pretentious babble? Is the insistence on engaging in such discourse not
a case of thought pathology, abetted by the penchant to abuse language?
If, as we were told in the same vein, Yahweh - the God of Moses -
was "above naming and beyond understanding," how can such an entity
be intelligibly taken on faith even without evidence, let alone be loved
or feared?
234 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
It is rank political coerciveness for Neuhaus to tell us that unless we

are willing to parrot such gibberish, we are poor citizens. In striking
contrast, in a letter written in 1790, George Washington explained to a
Jewish community leader in Newport, Rhode Island: 58
The citizens of the United States of America ... all possess alike liberty of conscience
and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their
inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to
bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under
its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions
their effectual support. [footnote omitted]
Bernard Lewis articulates George Washington's distinction between mere

toleration and genuine coexistence very well (ibid.):
In these words, the first president of the United States expressed with striking clarity
the real difference between tolerance and coexistence. Tolerance means that a dominant
group, whether defined by faith or race or other criteria, allows to members of other groups
some - but rarely if ever all - of the rights and privileges enjoyed by its own members.
Coexistence means equality between the different groups composing a political society
as an inherent natural right of all of them - to grant it is no merit, to withhold or limit
it is an offense.
Yet, significantly, Neuhaus deploys his charge of poor citizenship even

against those believers who have felt driven to take intellectual account
of post-Enlightenment developments in the modem world. In fact, he
levels the charge of deicide against them (p. 18).
But the gravamen of Neuhaus's case is yet to come. Having omitted
mention of the fallibilist kind of atheism held by such secular human-
ists as Sidney Hook, Neuhaus tendentiously enumerates the doctrines
of much less reasonable atheists, and then he asks rhetorically (p. 20).
Can these atheists be good citizens? It depends, I suppose, on what is meant by good
citizenship. We may safely assume that the great majority of these people abide by the
laws, pay their taxes, and may even be congenial and helpful neighbors. But can a person
who does not acknowledge that he is accountable to a truth higher than the self, external
to the self, really be trusted? Locke and Rousseau, among many other worthies, thought
not. However confused their theology, they were sure that the social contract was based
upon nature, upon the way the world really is. Rousseau's "civil religion" was appar-
ently itself a social construct, but Locke was convinced that the fear of a higher judgement,
even an eternal judgement was essential to citizenship.
It follows that an atheist could not be trusted to be a good citizen, and therefore
could not be a citizen at all. Locke is rightly celebrated as a champion of religious
toleration, but not of irreligion. "Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being
of a God," he writes in A Letter Concerning Toleration. "Promises, covenants, and oaths,

which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking
away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all." The taking away of God dis-
solves all. Every text becomes pretext, every interpretation misinterpretation, and every
oath a deceit.
Neuhaus offers a red herring in his ambiguous rhetorical question:

"But can a person who does not acknowledge that he is accountable to
a truth higher than the self, external to the self, really be trusted?" A
secular humanist's insistence on the indispensability of reliance on the
intelligence of the human species patently does not entail, as Neuhaus
would have it, that anyone of us is morally accountable only to our
own self!
Here, he is trading on the vagueness and ambiguity of the phrase "truth
higher than the self" to allude to the edicts of purported divine revela-
tion of some sort. Unless he does so, the willingness to acknowledge
accountability to a "social contract based on nature - on the way the
world really is" obviously does not militate in favor of theism as against
secular humanism. Indeed, it is secularism that relies on science to tell
us about "the way the world really is."
The statements that Neuhaus then quotes or echoes from John Locke
are vitiated by the moral sterility of theism, besides being outrageously
false on their face. Indeed, we are being treated to scurrilous demagogy
when Neuhaus declares that, in the case of an atheist, "Every text
becomes pretext, every interpretation misinterpretation, and every oath
a deceit." This is brazen and insolent defamation!
Ironically, Neuhaus's invocation of Locke boomerangs: According
to Locke, citizenship should not be accorded to Roman Catholics either,
because these religious believers owe their ultimate allegiance to the
foreign Pope, rather than to God. Isn't it odd that Neuhaus, the recent
convert to Roman Catholicism, made no mention at all of this highly
inconvenient fact?
In an important recent article,59 George Weigel relates and deplores
the history of allegations in the United States that an ascending
tyrannical "Romanism" or "Papism" poses a threat to the pluralism of
American democracy. The burden of his article, however, is a plea against
a secularist, anti-transcendentalist polity.
Weigel recounts a major episode that, ironically, is a valuable object-
lesson of the dangers run by adopting politically an "absolute" standard
of morality on theological grounds:
236 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
... it is of moment ... that classic American Protestant anti-Catholicism in the 19th
and early 20th centuries simply took it as self-evident that American democracy required
a religious foundation: specifically, a Protestant religious foundation. Absent this, it was
widely believed there were but two possible outcomes to the American experiment: revival
of premodern despotism (linked to Rome), or moral anarchy leading, in short order, to
political collapse.
Significantly, Weigel adds that none of the advocates of this Protestant

anti-Catholicism "ever dreamed of advocating a secular policy in which
religion would be ruled out of the public debate."
Thus, by Weigel's own account, it was not a secularized state that
generated the anti-Catholic turn he bewails; it was rather the denomi-
national insistence on an absolute, divinely sanctioned morality amid
the conflicting theological revelations. Despite ecumenicism, the strife
among the gospels seems ineradicable: Witness the recent breakdown
of negotiations between the Vatican and the Anglican Church, which
were to yield an ecumenical composition of their theological differences.
Or just contemplate the vanishing likelihood that Orthodox Jews will
become persuaded of the salvific divinity of Christ!60
Unaware that his chronicle boomerangs, Weigel concludes by mis-
formulating the clash of ideas between secular humanism and a public
policy informed by a religiously transcendent morality. As he would have
it, this confrontation (Bismarckian "Kulturkampf") is "a struggle between
those who affirm the classic Jewish and Christian notion of an objec-
tive moral order, and those who deny on epistemological grounds that
there is any such thing as an 'objective moral norm.' " Having posed
the issue in these terms, Weigel speaks conjunctively of "secularism
and moral relativism."
But surely the secularist's this-worldly warrant for ethical norms is
neutral as between an "objectivist" and a "relativist" construal of their
epistemological status. To deny that our moral code has a transcendent
religious foundation is not to rule out the objectivity of its secular
grounds. Nay, ironically, the cacophony of divergent absolutist revela-
tions is effectively tantamount to moral relativism as between the rival
religious subcultures.
Alas, Neuhaus's and Weigel's gravamen against secular humanism, no
less than Kristol's, emerges as a shoddy caricature of the doctrine they
attack.
IS THEISTIC MORALITY MOTIVATIONALLY SUPERIOR

TO SECULAR HUMANISM?
It is well-known that there are theists who were (or are) paragons of
morality, such as Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa, who devoted them-
selves sacrificially to the poor and to the care of outcasts (e.g., lepers).
Yet the great harm done by Mother Teresa's Roman Catholic stance on
artificial birth control and her rigid opposition to any and all abortion
detract considerably from the moral benefits of her impact on society.
Furthermore, the humane services of various religious orders, sects or
denominations in hospitals and in the relief of other suffering (e.g.,
famine) are legion. Besides, Pope John XXIII, while Archbishop Roncalli
of Naples, did his utmost to save the Jews of the Balkans from the
Nazis. On the other hand, a Roman Catholic Pope signed concordats with
Hitler in addition to Mussolini and Franco.
Incomparably more significantly, and macro-culturally, however, the
two millennia of Christian history have prompted the German scholar
Karlheinz Deschner to characterize much of it as "criminal" in a very
widely read multi-volume work of documentation: The first three, which
are already published (1986, 1988, 1990) are devoted to antiquity, the
next three volumes to the middle ages, and the last four to modern
times (Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, Hamburg: Rohwolt). Plainly
and notoriously, belief in theism is not at all sufficient motivationally
for the sort of conduct on whose moral worth many theists would agree
with secular humanists.
Some Western historians have characterized the Third Reich and the
Soviet Union as seats of the two great secular movements of our time.
But, even as the theist Cain concedes "some egregious horrors connected
with traditional Western religions," he opines that "far greater horrors
[were] committed by the Third Reich and the Soviet Union," societies
that were "anthropocentric without any transcendent norm".61 It is unclear
just how Cain arrives at these comparative measures of evil, but his com-
parison is, at best, highly and multiply misleading.
In the first place, Cain has to grant that neither of the two societies
he names were ideologically secular humanist; on the contrary, Nazi
Germany and Stalinist Russia are anathema to secular humanists on
both moral and scientific grounds. As for the scientific component of
secularism, the Nazi racial doctrines were pseudo-scientific, as was
Stalin's rejection of biological genetics in favor of Lysenkoism. Similarly
238 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
for the governmentally endorsed distortion of scientific theorizing to

conform to the prevailing political ideology (e.g., "Nordic" science in
Nazi Germany, and "proletarian" science in the USSR).
And in regard to the comparative scale of evil, Cain ignores that the
technologies of Auschwitz and of the Soviet gulag were simply not avail-
able to the Holy office and to Cardinal Torquemada, who had to rely
on the thumbscrew and the rack. Nor, to mention only a few examples,
were they available to those who fought the Thirty Years' War in Europe
for religious stakes, or who slaughtered the Huguenots, or who organized
the loathsome Crusades, or who hanged Quaker women at the stake in
Puritan Massachusetts, or to the host of others who prompted Founding
Father John Adams to describe the Judaeo-Christian tradition as "the most
bloody religion that ever existed".62
Moreover, even the Stalinists who persecuted religious believers did
not burn them at the stake, whereas just that was the fate of heretics in
Christendom for centuries. And nowadays in Islamic Pakistan, the
theocrats are urging that even those who oppose the anti-blasphemy
laws be put to death.
Indeed, two millenia of doctrinal and often murderous Christian anti-
semitism prepared a climate in Nazi Germany, Vichy France and in
Eastern Europe (e.g., in Ustachi Roman Catholic Croatia) that was
hospitable to the Holocaust. Even recently, during the Polish election
campaign that issued in Lech Walesa's presidency, this devout Roman
Catholic demanded that candidates of Jewish origin acknowledge it as
a kind of skeleton in their closet, much as those who have a dubious
personal past should own up to it. And Reinhard Heydrich, the SS
Security Chief and butcher of Lidice, who presided over the genocidal
"Final Solution," was a graduate of a Catholic German High School.
Thus, Cain is driven to admit, after all, that motivationally, theism
is not morally superior to secularism. He grants that even the leaders
of religious institutions, rather than merely the run-of-the-mill faithful,
are no more ethical in practice than are secular leaders. As he acknowl-
edges, both sorts of leaders alike "often put the practical welfare of
their institutions above that of higher ethical values" (p. 56).
Thus, it is further grist to my mill, when Cain points out that secu-
larists like Willy Brandt and religionists like Niemoeller and Bonhoeffer
appealed alike to an authority higher than their secular government in
resisting the Nazis. As Cain notes (p. 56), Willy Brandt's motivation
for his anti-Nazi activities
was clearly secular, based on a democratic socialist humanism, .... As a member of

the Norwegian resistance movement, he became, formally speaking, a traitor to his country,
thus challenging the idolatry of the national state so pervasive in modern times. There
were many other Germans who resisted Nazi tyranny for purely secular reasons, so far
as anything is pure in human existence. Lay religious resisters sometimes found them-
selves abandoned and disavowed by their church leaders, like the simple Austrian carpenter
who inveighed against the Nazi invasion of other countries only to be told by his bishop
that he had no business opposing the governing authorities; hence, the church did nothing
to prevent his execution. A similar case was that of a young Mormon workingman who
engaged in anti-Nazi activities in Germany, only to be excommunicated by his church
leaders and executed.
And again (Cain, pp. 55-56):

Take the so-called righteous Gentiles who helped Jews to escape the Nazi murder machine,
risking deadly danger for themselves and their families. Some of them may have been
acting from a self-sacrificing devotion to values engendered by centuries of Western secular
humanism. Others, like the French Huguenots who saved a remarkable number of Jews,
were moved by religious motives and identification with the People of the Book. And
there may have been French humanistic values mixed in.
Just this record shows that there can readily be moral parity between
secularists and theists, rather than the vaunted superiority proclaimed
by the theists I challenge.
Furthermore, comparison of the crime statistics in the predominantly
theist U.S.A. with the largely irreligious countries of Western Europe and
Scandinavia resoundingly discredits the recurring claim that the moral
conduct of theists is statistically superior to that of secularists, let alone
of secular humanists. A fortiori, these statistics belie the smug thesis
that the fear or love of God is motivationally necessary, in point of
psychological fact, to assure such adherence to moral standards and good
citizenship as there is in society at large.
Thus, the U.S.A. has by far the highest percentage of religious wor-
shippers in its population of any Western nation, and presidents from
Nixon to Clinton recurrently give prayer breakfasts. In Great Britain,
for example, which has the Anglican state church, only about 3 percent
of its citizens attend a place of worship, whereas in the U.S., the figure
is approximately 33 percent, i.e. greater by a factor of eleven! In the U.S.,
about 90 percent of the population profess belief in God, whereas in
Western Europe and Scandinavia the percentage is very considerably
below 50 percent. Nor is the black population in the U.S., in which the
crime rate is high, at all predominantly irreligious. Yet the percentage
incidence of homicides and other crimes in the God-fearing U.S. is much
240 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
higher than in the heavily secularized Western countries. And a corre-

sponding disparity exists between the respective percentages of the prison
populations in these societies. But the inveterate clamor for permitting
prayer in the public schools of this country invokes the supposed efficacy
of such devotionals in fostering "family values."
It emerges that theism and atheism as such are not only alike
sterile qua theoretical foundation for concrete norms of ethical
conduct; motivationally, belief in either of them is far too crude a
touchstone to correlate with civilized moral conduct on the personal,
social or national level. If I may use the received androcentric idiom,
the brotherhood of man does not depend on the fatherhood of God, either
normatively or motivationally.
It is time that this major lesson be heeded widely in word and
deed, especially by those who are at the levers of power in our polity and
vociferously deny it. Thus, Cain (p. 57) was oblivious to the contem-
porary religio-political climate in the U.S., when he wrote:
I would counsel secular humanists to spend much less of their time accumulating proof
texts on the failings and horrors of religion ... [they] should stop finding all the good
in their own camp and all the evil in that of their adversaries. Bigotry, fanaticism, and
the refusal of dialogue are common human failings, affecting secularists as well as reli-
gionists. Let's look for the mote in our own eyes.
Center for Philosophy of Science

2510 Cathedral of Learning
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260, U.S.A.
NOTES
* I am grateful to my colleague Professor Richard Gale, who made several valuable

suggestions in his comments on the first draft.
1 Las Vegas Review Journal, May 5, 1992, p. 7B.
2 E.g., in the special issue 'The Case for Ethical Monotheism', Vol. 7, No.3, 1991.
3 See A. J. DeBethune, 'Catholics in Exile', Letter-to-the-Editor, The New York Times,
October 14, 1993.
4 Letter-to-the-Editor, The New York Review of Books, February 11, 1993, pp. 45-46.
5 See Secular Humanist Bulletin, Vol. 8, No.3, Fall 1992, p. 9.
6 'Solzhenitsyn Attacks Secular Humanism', The Humanist, Nov.lDec. 1978, p. 6.
7 Standard Edition. 1927, 21: 32.
8 The New Republic, February 21, 1994.
9 Time, March 30, 1992, p. 75.

10 Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 1992.
II Time, Vol. 138, No. 23, December 9, 1991.
12 The Culture of Disbelief New York: Basic Books, 1993, p. xxx.
13 See Christopher P. Tourney's review of The Creationist Movement in Modern America
by R. A. Eve and F. B. Harrold, American Scientist, Vol. 80, May-June 1992, p. 292.
14 Quoted from Buber's paper 'The Dialogue Between Heaven and Earth' in: Paul
Edwards and Arthur Pap, A Modern Introduction to Philosophy (Third ed.). New York:
The Free Press, 1973, pp. 394-395.
15 Paul Edwards, 'Buber, Fackenheim and the Appeal to Biblical Faith' in: Edwards &
Pap, op. cit., 1973, p. 395.
16 Eclipse of God. New York: Harper, 1952, p. 66; see also pp. 105-106.
17 See Paul Edwards's 1969 Lindley Lecture 'Buber & Buberism', p. 34, copyright
1970 by the Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas.
18 Op. cit., note 15, p. 395.
19 The New York Times, August 27, 1992, Op-Ed page.
20 'On the Eclipse of God', in: Edwards & Pap, op. cit., Part V, par. 44, pp. 523-533.
21 Op. cit., pp. 44-49; see also Edwards, op. cit., note 15, pp. 395-398.
22 Quoted in Edwards, op. cit., note 15, p. 395.
23 Op. cit., note 16, pp. 127 and 129.
24 Edwards, op. cit., note 17, p. 34.
25 The London Times, May 9, 1987.
26 'The Uses of the Holocaust', The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLI, No.4,
February 17, 1994, p. 7.
27 Cited by Michael J. Prival, Washington Society for Humanistic Judaism, Free Inquiry,
Spring 1988, p. 3.
28 Free Inquiry, Fall 1987, Vol. 7, No.4, pp. 29-31.
29 'God is not a Homophobe', The New York Times, March 30,1993, p. A15.
30 The New York Times, February 6 1994, Book review Section, p. 37.
31 In The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible. New York: Knopf, 1992.
32 Free Inquiry, Vol. 12, No.4, pp. 30-39.
33 Free Inquiry, Vol. 14 No. 1,1993/1994, pp. 55-57.
34 The New York Times, March 18, 1993, Op-Ed p. A15.
35 The New Republic, March 29, 1993, p. 9.
36 'Fundamentalists Impose Culture on Egypt', The New York Times, February 3, 1994,
p. A6.
37 R. M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1991, p. 34.
38 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 'Reinhold Niebuhr's Long Shadow', The New York Times,
June 22, 1992, Op-Ed, p. A13.
39 The Humanist, Nov.lDec. 1978, p. 5.
40 'Development in Moral Theology', Theological Studies, Vol. 54, No.4, December
1993, pp. 662-677.
41 Cf. Peter Steinfels, 'Beliefs', The New York Times, February 19, 1994, p. 8.
42 Cf. A. Griinbaum, Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis. Madison
CT: International Universities Press, 1992, ch. 7: 'Psychoanalysis and Theism'. Inciden-
tally, I should point out in the present Festschrift that this Validation book of mine bears
242 ADOLF GRUNBAUM
the following dedication: "To Robert Sonne Cohen with affectionate gratitude for fifty
years of devoted friendship."
43 Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief New York: Basic Books, 1993, p. 229.
44 'America's Sleeping Sickness', The New York Times, October 17, 1993, Section E,
p. 17.
45 The New York Times, February 4, 1994, p. All.
46 'The Future of American Jewry', Commentary, Vol. 92, No.2, August 1992, pp.
21-26.
47 See my 'Creation as a Pseudo-Explanation in Current Physical Cosmology', Erkenntnis
35, 1991, pp. 233-254.
48 'Religion and Science: Paul Davies and John Paul II', Theological Studies 51, 1990,
p.314.
49 For a fuller discussion, see Paul Edwards, 'The Dependence of Consciousness on
the Brain', in: Paul Edwards (ed.), Immortality. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.,
1992, pp. 292-307.
50 Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 1992.
51 Quoted in Adolf Griinbaum, 'The Place of Secular Humanism in Current American
Political Culture', Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. 54, No.2, November 1,1987, p. 43.
52 'A Dream for Czechoslovakia', The New York Review of Books, June 25, 1992,
p. 12.
53 Louis Jacobs, The Book of Jewish Belief West Orange NJ: Behrman House, 1984,
p. 10.
54 'Quotable', Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 1992.
55 The paper was delivered in 1941 at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York;
reprinted in D. J. Bronstein & H. M. Schulweis (eds.), Approaches to the Philosophy of
Religion. New York: Prentice Hall, 1954, pp. 68-72.
56 'Humanism - The Only Valid Foundation of Ethics', 67th Conway Memorial Lecture,
24 January 1992, London: South Place Ethical Society.
57 First Things, Aug.lSept. 1991, pp. 17-21.
58 Quoted in Bernard Lewis, 'Muslims, Christians, and Jews: The Dream of Coexistence',
New York Review of Books, March 26, 1992, p. 49.
59 'The New Anti-Catholicism', Commentary, June 1992, pp. 25-31.
60 Cf. Y. Leibowitz, Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State. Cambridge Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1992.
61 Free Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. I, 1993/1994, p. 55.
62 Cf. Barbara Ehrenreich, Time, September 7, 1992, p. 72.
ERAZIM KOHAK
KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL . . . (GENESIS 3: 5B)*
The purpose of this paper is to undertake a Husserlian inquiry into the

experiential foundations of good and evil. Specifically, we shall seek
to address the question whether the distinction of good and evil - which
we shall understand as a distinction between what is to be sought and
cherished and what is to be shunned and avoided - is an arbitrary one
or whether it reflects some more basic experiential distinction. We shall
claim that Husserl's basic insight that reality is primordially a Lebenswelt,
a Welt des Lebens, enables us to claim that the distinction of good and
evil does indeed have an ontological justification: some things sustain
life, others destroy it.
First, though, a methodological caveat may be in order. The task we
wish to undertake is a philosophic, not a historical one. While working
in the spirit of Husserl, we do not wish to construct and reconstruct an
intricate lacework of Husserl's concepts. That is an honorable task, but
it is a task for historians of philosophy, not for philosophers. Nor do
we wish to peruse Husserl's texts in search of sentences we could treat
as the Master's Voice from beyond the grave, Husserl's prescient answers
to questions which emerged much later. That is a task for some rebbe's
chasidim and, given the evident incommensurability of idioms, inher-
ently problematic.
Rather, we shall seek to pose a genuinely philosophical question,
one that emerges from the process of living rather than from an exercise
in doxography, and to see whether we can answer it with conceptual tools
borrowed from Edmund Husserl's philosophical workshop, especially
from his Ideen II and Krisis. 1
The problem we shall address is specifically this: does the distinc-
tion of good and evil have an ontological grounding or is it entirely
arbitrary and conventional? And, if we answer with Husserl that it is
grounded in the experience of life's functioning, does that lead us beyond
phenomenology and into a pragmatism?
The dominant contemporary view appears to be that moral judgements
are indeed entirely conventional and that pragmatism is the only sus-
243

244 ERAZIM KOHAK
tainable view. 2 The age that fancied itself "modem" had been still an heir,
albeit an impoverished one, to the Stoic faith in the ultimate rationality
of the universe and in the power of reason to identify with that ratio-
nality. The age which fancies itself "post-modem" is far more heir to
Epicurus and to the atomists. Not altogether, to be sure: Lucretius con-
ceived of his great poem, De rerum natura, as a consolatory epistle,
not as an essay in metaphysics. By contrast, post-modem writers for
the most part seek not to console but to proclaim a (negation of) meta-
physics. Still, they share with Lucretius the conviction that reality
is something wholly contingent, a product - at least in the Epicurean
metaphor - of chance encounters of freely falling atoms, due to disin-
tegrate again in its time.
Today, to be sure, that metaphor is likely to be enhanced by Cartesian
categories. Reality is res extensa - or, with a somewhat un-cartesian twist,
only extension is real. All else is merely "subjective," a function of the
flight of cogitationes of the res cogitans. Since, with Locke, we are
wont to conceive of the res cogitans as discrete res cogitantes, that will
make all but extension wholly arbitrary and conventional. If meaning,
including the distinction of good and evil, is something imposed upon
a meaning-less extended reality by ghastly thinking substances - minds
- it cannot be otherwise. Picnics or pogroms, it is just a matter of personal
preference. Or again, peace and justice or nationalist arrogance; some
people prefer the one, others the other. It is just a matter of taste, just
like trees or automobiles.
A Husserlian approach to that problem might well set out by ques-
tioning such a conception of reality. On that conception, reality is taken
to be whatever is "objective," whatever would remain if we could remove
all the subjects who distort reality with their observation. By contrast,
a Husserlian approach might point out that life, including subjects who
engage in observation and in other purposive activities, is not a cosmic
afterthought but an integral part of reality.3 Certainly, we can, purely
hypothetically, reconstruct an image of the world as putatively it once
was, before the emergence of life. That, though, is a construct, at best
an abstraction: it is not experienced reality. Our actual world, the world
wherein we live, intrinsically includes life, purposive self-perpetuating
activity. It is not an "objective" world which we only "subjectively"
endow with value and meaning. It is, ab initio and intrinsically,
life's world, die Welt des Lebens,4 meaningfully ordered and laden with
KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL . . . " 245
value in virtue of life's presence therein. Subjectivity - that is, an ordering

in terms of meaning and value with reference to a purposive self-
perpetuating activity or "subject" - belongs to what the world "objec-
tively" is.
That is the first step: the world is die Welt des Lebens, a Lebenswelt.
Jan Patocka, in his study, "Natural World and Phenomenology,"S claims
that Husserl derived his conception of life's world from the neutral
monism of his time. As a matter of positive historiography, he may
well be right: Husserl did read Avenarius and Mach.6 As an aid to
grasping the term's significance, however, the claim is rather misleading.
In Krisis 7 Lebenswelt clearly does not refer to an abstraction from the
philosophy of science but to the world of lived experience as Renaissance
writers - and their heirs in the central European Enlightenment, Comenius
and Leibniz - describe it. When Masaryk asserts that meaning is also
a fact, he is speaking in this tradition. 8 The initial given of lived expe-
rience is not an "objective" world but rather the actual experienced world,
value laden and meaningfully ordered by the presence of life.
Metaphorically speaking, we could treat the conception of reality as
life's world as Husserl's answer to Gorgias' first sceptical claim, that
nothing is - or, more exactly, that what is, is of itself no thing, that
being is devoid of univocity.9 For if being is primordially ordered by
the presence of life, it is some thing. Continuing the metaphor, we could
say that Husserl's response to Gorgias' second claim - that even were
there aught, we should be incapable of comprehending it - is the con-
ception of Wesensanschauung. 1O That is the term which Boyce-Gibson
misleadingly translated into English as "essential intuition."l1 However,
the reality to which it refers is as straightforward as the translations
are obscure. It is simply a recognition that in our experiencing we
encounter not only discrete particulars but also patterns. The relation
"greater than" or "nearer than" is an experiential given, not an arbi-
trary conceptual construct.
That, again, is something not only asserted by Husserl but also empir-
ically demonstrated by Gestalt psychologists like Kohler or Koffka. 12 The
chickens in their famous experiment discerned the relation "darker than"
rather than associating grain with a specific shade. SUbject perception
is not a matter of recording discrete data and constructing patterns out
of them. It is a matter of discerning patterns. Therein human "subjec-
tivity" is simply one instance of subjectivity as it functions simply as
246 ERAZIM KOHAK
such - that is, of life's tendency to constitute its context as a mean-

ingful whole or a "world" with reference to its activity.
That, then, is the point: the relations in terms of which a subject
understands its world are not arbitrary products of reflection but are a
function of life's purposive presence. Reflection registers and articu-
lates them, but it does not create them ex nihilo. Certainly, meaning is
a relational reality.13 Something can be nearer or farther only in relation
to a subject, a bearer of purposive activity. However, it is not arbitrary.
Given a subject's actual location, one object either is or is not nearer than
another - and no amount of wishing will change that. Though subject-
related, that meaning is a "matter of fact," "objective" - or, less
misleadingly, a given.
It is within this context that we need to build up a Husserlian con-
ception of value. Like all meaning, value, too, is a relational reality.
As with all meaning, whether value has nor has not an ontological
grounding depends on whether in experience there are or are not non-
arbitrary relations of the type "dearer than" which our value terms
articulate but do not create. Whether, that is, we can legitimately
speak of value in conception depends on whether we first encounter a
corresponding relation in perception - or, in another terminology, we
can legitimately speak of value in thought if we can first locate it in
experience.
Thus a Husserlian inquiry into the ontological status of value would
hinge upon an inquiry into the value-structure of experience, if any. Do
we in truth experience value, and if so, how? Max Scheler's simple asser-
tion that of course we do l4 may be true, but it is not sufficient: we need
a careful descriptive phenomenology of value experience.
One dimension of value experience has already been described by
Jan Patocka among others. Life's world is a value-laden world in part
because life is purposive in its very nature. Life is, minimally, a pur-
posive activity: to live means to strive to accomplish something, even
if that something is as minimal as simply remaining alive. We might well
hesitate to attribute any grand aspirations to a sprouting bean, but the
purposive activity of life interacting with a context is hard to deny even
on this level. I6 So is the fact that that context is not neutral. Some aspects
of it foster, others hinder life's purposive activity. A bean may not
speak or presumably even think of it in those terms, but the relation of
sustaining or hindering life, positive or negative from life's viewpoint,
is already present. When humans articulate their experience in the moral
" . . . KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL . . . " 247
categories of "good" and "evil," they, too, are not applying arbitrary
labels to a neutral activity. They are articulating a structure of relations
which is already prereflectively present in life itself.
It is this dimension of value experience, the experience of reality as
fostering or as hindering life, that is the basis of all utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism can be convincing because it is not an arbitrary super-
imposition of greed upon reality to produce a particular schema of values.
It reflects the recognition that, primordially, we do experience value as
utility.
There is, however, a second dimension of value experience as well,
one which philosophers have tended to consider distinctively human.
Whatever is true of other life, humans, in any case, do remember and
so also anticipate. Because we do, we do not face the world with a
blank stare, prepared for anything and anticipating nothing. We confront
it with very definite expectations. As a result, we do not experience
the world only as fostering or as hindering our activity - that is, as
good or bad - but also as better or worse in terms of living up or failing
to live up to our expectations. Though an act may be wholly neutral
with respect to our purposes, as, say, a hero's deed at the siege of Troy,
it is not neutral with respect of what we expect of heroes; we do perceive
it as good or bad in terms of our expectations. 17
It is an open question to what range of living beings we can attribute
this dimension of experience. Humans, clearly, have their expectations
and experience satisfaction or disappointment. So do a great many higher
organisms: dogs manifest unambiguous disappointment when they do
not encounter expected treatment, swallows when they do not find
their habitual nest. To the extent to which expectation is a function of
habit, this dimension of value may well extend wherever we encounter
habitual behavior. Do beans carry an expectation of growth in their
genetic code?
It does not matter, since we are concerned with a phenomenology,
not with an empirical study of value experience - with its nature and
meaning, that is, rather than with the conditions of its occurrence. The
significant point is that value judgements have an experiential founda-
tion not only in the experience of utility, but also in the experience of
relative perfection, of coming up to expectation. Here, again, value is
a relational reality though not necessarily an arbitrary one. To be sure,
our expectations may be no more than a matter of personal preference
or cultural fixity, though they are no less real for that. They can, however,
248 ERAZIM KOHAK
also be derived from the place of a being in the context of a whole. Given
the role of rain in the cycle of nature, we can, quite non-arbitrarily, speak
of a good rain. Similarly, given the human potential for empathy, for love,
for kindness, for truth, we can quite non-arbitrarily speak of a good
person. That is not a function of whether that person fosters or hinders
our personal purposive activity or comes up to our personal expectations.
It is a question of whether slhe comes up to what, given human poten-
tial, can be considered a legitimate expectation.
Here, though, an obvious objection presents itself: humans also have
a potential for selfishness, for hate, for cruelty, for dishonesty. Certainly,
we could point out, with Max Scheler,18 that we experience that poten-
tial as undesirable, to be avoided rather than sought - as bad, not as good.
That, though, is only a fact, not an explanation, and a fact can be wholly
contingent. What is it about the structure of experience that leads us
so to experience them?
Here a third dimension of value experience becomes relevant - life
as a value for itself. Less obscurely stated, whatever is alive, wants to
remain alive. Anything that lives would rather live than die. Though
the terminology is admittedly anthropomorphic, the reality itself is not.
Grass struggles to grow along a hard-packed path. A wounded animal
licks its wounds, drags itself to water, struggles to live. Not as a matter
of doctrine, but as a matter of experience, life is a value for itself.
On this level, too, we could say that value is a relational reality,
even though the relation is wholly intemal,19 and that it is not an arbi-
trary relation. Being is good, to be sought and sustained, perishing is bad,
to be shunned and voided. Certainly, there are situations in which par-
ticular agents may decide to give up the struggle, may decide that it is
time to die that the pain of age or fortune outweighs life's value. But
that is a particular (utilitarian) decision. Likewise, since in a finite space-
time life's infinite claims conflict, particular life is good in its place,
in harmony with all other life: a random multiplication of life is a cancer.
Death, too, is a part of the order of good life. Still, the general experi-
ential given is that life is good, a value for itself, and that anything
that sustains it is good as well, anything that destroys it bad. To that
extent we can say, on a phenomenological basis, that the distinction
between good and evil - and the assignation of value in general - is
not arbitrary. Rather, it expresses a basic, irreducible dimension of lived
experience - that life is precious and that some aspects of reality foster
it, others hinder it. Picnics or pogroms, justice or egotism, trees or
automobiles ... it is not a matter of individual preference. Some are

good, others bad.
That, finally, is a conclusion implicit in Husserl's late writings. The
great achievement of phenomenology, he tells us in the very last para-
graph of Krisis, was to uncover the meaningful order of the life world
within which human value judgements find their grounding:
... die absolut fungierende Subjektivitat zu entdecken, nicht die menschliche, sondern
die als menschliche oder zuerst als menschliche sich objektivierende .... 20
Is such a result, though, still a phenomenology in any meaningful sense

- or has it turned into pragmatism? When we took our closer look at
the structure of value experience, we noted that in all cases the value
relation is the function of an activity. Where there is no purposeful
activity, where there is only random interaction of matter in motion, there
is neither good nor evil. Good and evil enter in with life, as something
fosters or hinders the activity of living. Is that really more than verbally
different frQIn the claim that good is whatever works - and the true is
whatever is good? Really, is this still phenomenology - or has it become
a pragmatism?
It certainly is not the kind of descriptive phenomenology that Husserl
appears to have had in mind still in the first volume of ldeen. 21 There
his project and his hope were still positivistic, as he himself asserts openly
- " ... dann sind wir die echten Positivisten." Here phenomenology
was to provide apodictically certain descriptions of the absolute meaning
structure of reality - and to do it in terms as universally valid as those
of chemistry. Yet already a chapter later, when Husserl touches on the
topic of the constitution of meaning, he moves beyond that project.
Less than six years later, in Ideen II, under the title of die personalis-
tische Welt,22 he already describes what in Krisis will become the
Lebenswelt. Phenomenology remains a careful observation and faithful
articulation of the eidetic structures of lived experience, but its onto-
logical and noetic presuppositions shift drastically. The "subjectivity"
- the meaning structure of value ordering of the life world - which was
static in Ideen becomes, in Krisis, die fungierende Subjektivitiit. 23
Still, it is not a pragmatism if by that term we mean the belief that
value - and meaning in general - is a function of the arbitrary prefer-
ence of a particular human subject or group of subjects. Yet did any of
the great pragmatist thinkers really subscribe to that thesis? Did James,
Dewey, Rorty really attempt no more than to provide a shortcut to truth,
250 ERAZIM KOHAK
conceived still in its "modern" sense of a faithful mental image of a

putative extra-mental reality? Or did they mean to challenge that con-
ception of truth altogether and revert to what may well be a rather more
basic, non-"modern" mode of thought, some very old way thinking?
Here drawing back a step might well enable us to leap better. The
premodern Western conception treated truth as a transcendental quality
of being, convertible with the two other transcendental qualities: esse
est unum, bonum et verum - being is one, good, true. Truth, in other
words, appeared as that quality of being which enables us to make true
propositions about it, not primordially a quality of those propositions,
and that quality of being in turn appeared only formally distinct from
the qualities of univocity (unum) and goodness (bonum). By contrast,
in our "modern" conception, unchallenged at least since the 19th century,
truth appeared not as a quality of being but as a quality of a proposi-
tion such that the proposition presents a faithful image of reality. Even
Husserl in Ideen I does not challenge that assumption, seeking only to
make philosophical propositions mirror the eidetic structure rather than
the empirical fact-content of experience. 24 As for unity and goodness,
those, "modernity" assumed, reside solely in individual minds.
Relativism essentially follows from such a conception of truth. An
image is the depiction of an appearance: an X must appear in order to
be reflected in a mirror, whether physical mirror or the putative mirror
of the mind. Appearance, though, is a function of perspective: how an
X appears depends on who is looking and where from. As many per-
spective, so many images. We can, to be sure, attempt to achieve an
absolute perspective, the God's-eye point of view much beloved by the
philosophy of science of an earlier generation. Such an attempt, though,
is vain. To be universal, such a perspective must have no content and
so be irrelevant. Once it acquires content, it becomes relevant - but ceases
to be transcendental. If truth were a matter of mirroring, relativism would
be inescapable.
The point of pragmatism, brought out most explicitly by Richard
Rorty,25 is that knowledge is not a matter of mirroring but of guiding
practice. If that is true, then philosophy is not an accumulation of facts
but a love of wisdom - and wisdom is a matter of comporting oneself
wisely. Finally, truth is then not a matter of a faithful image but of a
successful program of sustainable and productive action. Here there is
then little room for relativism. Appearances may differ from mirror to
mirror, actions are univocal. Some sustain and foster life in its harmony
KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL . . . " 251
and diversity, others damage and destroy it. Some social beliefs sustain
their people and help them prosper, others lead them to perish. Some
things work, others just do not. That is not a matter of taste, that is
not a function of preference. It is just the way it is. Or, in our earlier
terminology, to the extent to which we can judge being as good or bad,
we can also describe it as one and true. So understood, pragmatism
then is not an attempt to substitute relativity for truth but rather an attempt
to base truth on goodness. Through Husserlian eyes, pragmatism would
not be an attempt to subordinate reason to the irrationality of the will
but rather to ground theoretical in practical reason. It is the assertion
of the primacy of pure practical reason.
Richard Rorty, to be sure, would most likely reject any such inter-
pretation of pragmatism, in great part, perhaps, because Husserl has no
answer to Gorgias' third claim, that even if we could know the truth,
we could not communicate it, and Rorty is not content with the answer
Paul Ricoeur gives in Husserl's behalf.26 If, however, we were to under-
stand by pragmatism not a shift to relativism but a shift from the primacy
of true to the primacy of the good, from the primacy of pure theo-
retical to the primacy of the pure practical reason, then we might
reasonably claim that the position that Husserl presents in the third part
of Krisis is fully compatible with it. On such a reading, transcendental
subjectivity appears not as an attempt at a description from God's eye
point of view but as the absolutely functioning subjectivity: life, together
with the meaning structure of good and evil derived from life's purpo-
siveness. Being is true and one because it is primordially good. Cruelty
is the greatest evil we can commit ... ironically, whether we realise it
or not.
Is that, though, the true mens auetoris, what Husserl really meant
by the transcendental subjectivity of Krisis III.B? Most probably not:
in an unguarded moment, Husserl told Dorion Cairns and Eugen Fink
that transcendental subjectivity is the community of all transcendental
subjects to which humans refer as God. 27 Nor is a Kantian primacy of
practical reason what most practicing pragmatists understand by their
creed. Yet at the very start we noted that our task is philosophical, not
historical - to resolve a problem, not to determine what Husserl "really
meant." That task we gladly leave to the historians of philosophy. For
our part, we set out to resolve a particular philosophical question: on
what ground, if any, can we claim that moral judgements - transindi-
vidually valid normative propositions - are legitimate? To that we have
252 ERAZIM KOHA.K
answered, on Husserlian grounds, that it is because, quite apart from indi-

vidual preference, some things sustain life, others destroy it - and because
life is good.
So, to paraphrase Patrick Henry, Hegel had his Nietzsche, Husserl had
his Derrida, and we may profit by their example. If this be pragma-
tism, make the most of it. 28
Boston University, and

Univerzita Karlova,
Prague
NOTES
* First presented in Czech at the Husserl, Ingarden and Patocka Conference at Charles
University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, May 16, 1992.
I Edmund Husserl, Indeen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen
Philosophie. Zweites Buch, Phiinomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, Hua
IV, Ed. Marly Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1952); -, Krisis der europiiischen
Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phiinomenologie, Hua VI, Ed. Walter Biemel (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1962).
2 Richard Rorty argues this cogently in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) as well as movingly in Contingency, Irony
and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). For an overview of con-
temporary writings available to a Slovak or Czech reader, see Egon Gal, Za zrkadlom
moderny (Bratislava: Archa, 1992).
3 That is the point of the second section of Ideen II, op. cit., 'Die Konstitution der
animalischen Natur', 35-42. The term die personalistische Welt in Section III, 49-53,
is a world of which subject being is an intrinsic part, truly a life's world.
4 Jan Patoeka habitually translates Lebenswelt as "svet naseho zivota," that is, as die Welt
unseres Lebens, the world of our life. See e.g. his 'Edmund Husserl's Philosophy of the
Crisis of the Sciences and his Conception of a Phenomenology of the "Life-World" " in
Erazim Kohiik, Jan Patocka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) pp. 232-238.
5 Jan Patocka, 'The "Natural" World and Phenomenology', ibid., pp. 239-272.
6 This is not a matter of conjecture. The reader can verify what Husserl read in Karl
Schunmann, Husserl-Chronik (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977). For instance, '20.
September 1899. H. liest Avenarius', p. 57.
7 Edmund Husserl, Krisis der europiiischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phiinomenologie, Hua VI, Ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962),
28-39 ff.
8 'Faktem neni pouze kamen, nybd i cit' ['Not only a stone but also emotion is a fact']
cited by Jaromir Dolezal, Masaryk BO.letY (Praha: Statni nakladatelstvi, 1931) from Cas,
April 15, 1893, pp. 228-233.
9 Following the summary in Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, Lib. VII, 65-87;
English in Works, tr. R.G. Bury, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940).
10 Eisler's Handworterbuch der Philosophie (Berlin: Mittler and Sohn, 1913, 2d ed.,
1922), a faithful reflection of German usage at the time, presents Wesenschauung as
Husserl's neologism, but offers a long treatise concerning the term Wesen, including a
definition from Lotze ("das Gesetz der Verhaltungsweise eines Dinges") which captures
Husserl's use with an uncanny accuracy, once again testifying to the kinship between
Husserl and personalism.
II In his pioneer translation, Ideas (1931), Boyce-Gibson opted for the translation "essen-
tial intuition." Fred Kersten (1982) chose "eidetic seeing." See also Dorion Cairns,A Guide
to Translating Husserl (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973) for other options.
12 Kurt Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935,
2d ed. 1963). The best known experiment is one in which chickens were fed on the grey
portion of a white and grey surface. When a grey and black feeding surface was substi-
tuted, the chickens sought their food on the black portion, suggesting that they associated
feeding with the darker surface, not just with the grey.
13 For arguments supporting this claim, see John Lachs and Erazim Kohak, 'A Dialogue
on Value', Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 1, Spring 1991, pp. 1-24.
14 Max Scheler treats Wesenschau as strictly analogous with individual perception so
that the quality good is for him, much as for G. E. Moore, a simple, irreducible given.
Cf. Formalismus in der Ethik und die materia Ie Wertethik (Bern: A. Francke, 5th ed.,
1955), Part I.2.B.
15 Jan Patocka, op. cit. in note 4 supra.
16 But compare Emanuel Radl, Utecha zfilosofie (Praha: Leichter, 1947), pp. 87 ff.
17 For supporting arguments, see my 'Why is there Something Good, Not Simply
Something', op. cit., note 13 supra, and 'Perceiving the Good' (Metaphysical Society
of America, April 16, 1989), publication pending.
18 Max Scheler, op. cit., II.5/9.b.
19 As I have argued elsewhere, note 17 supra, I believe there are good reasons for con-
sidering intrinsic worth an absolute, not a relational quality, honoring an idiom established
in Western thought since Plotinus. However, we could also use a relational idiom, noting
that intrinsic worth is a function of a self-relation, the value which its own life has for
the subject. Then the manifest tendency of whatever is to seek to remain in being - as
the sprouting bean cited by Radl in note 16 supra - becomes evidence of the intrinsic
value being has for itself. That, to be sure, does not mean that being is "friendly" or
benevolent, but it does mean it is good and worthy of respect.
20 Krisis 72 (Hua VI. 265; Czech tr. Kouba, Krize evropskych ved, p. 285).
21 All three references here are to Ideen I. Husserl's claim to be the true positivist is
in 20, his claim that phenomenological terms should be univocal in 66, the reference
to the constitution of eidetic patterns in 86.
22 In part III of Ideen II (note 6 supra) Husserl treats "personalistisch" as equivalent
to "geistig." Both refer to reality as constituted as a meaningful whole - i.e. a Welt-
by the purposeful presence of a subject, at this stage still conceived as a human subject,
though already clearly transcendental - "subject in principle" - rather than psycho-
logical (this or that subject).
23 Alfred Schutz in Der sinnhafte Aujbau der sozialen Welt (Wien: Julius Springer, 1932),
2.17 et passim speaks of die wirkende Welt, anticipating Husserl's conception of
fungierende (note 20 supra). Also Patoeka's conclusion that the life world is a world of
good and evil (note 15 supra).
254 ERAZIM KOHAK
24 Until the early 1930s, Husserl appears to have preserved a hope of a "higher level
objectivity," in effect a God's-eye view of the eidetic structure of the life world. So
explicitly in Ideen I, esp 7l-74. However, his posthumously published texts (Zur
Phiinomenologie der Intersubjektivitiit, Hua XIII-XV, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973)
suggest he had doubts on that score at least since 1917, helping explain the odd differ-
ence in tone between Krisis 72 and the text which Walter Biemel included as 73 in
Hua VI - not to mention the notorious Beilage XXVIII which begins "Philosophie als
Wissenschaft ... - der Traum ist ausgetrliumt" (Hua VI. 508).
25 Rorty's argument in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is open to the objection
that it reduces mentalist language but treats physicalist language as privileged, in effect
a true mirror. His argument is far stronger in Contingency . .. where he turns his critique
of mirroring against physicalism as well (note 2 supra).
26 Paul Ricoeur in Le meraphore vive [The Rule of Metaphor], tf. Robert Czerny (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1977), follows Karl Jaspers' suggestion that all language
is metaphoric, pointing to the truth rather than containing it. However, like Socrates,
Ricoeur remains convinced that there is a truth to which it can point: "Something must
be for something to be said" (p. 304).
27 Dorion Cairns, Conversations with Husserl and Fink (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1976) reports in two places that Husserl, while considering it merely a "private opinion,"
tended to equate transcendental subjectivity with God; so pp. 22-23 and 14.
28 "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third ...
may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." Patrick Henry to
the Virginia House of Burgesses, May 29, 1765, according to John Bartlett, Familiar
Quotations.
HILLEL LEVINE
IS JUDAISM THISWORDLY?*
Cosmological Boundaries, Soteriological Bridges,
and Social References in Judaism
Integrity, however, compels us to state that for the many

who today tarry for new prophets and saviors the
situation is the same as resounds in the beautiful
Edomite Watchman's song of the period of exile that
has been included among Isaiah's oracles: "He calleth
to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? The
watchman said, the morning cometh and also the night:
If ye will inquire, inquire ye: Return, come." The people
to whom this was said has inquired and tarried for more
than two millennia and we are shaken when we realize
its fate. From this we want to draw the lesson that
nothing is gained by yearning and tarrying alone and
we shall act differently. We shall set to work and meet
the "demands of the day" in human relations as
well as in our vocations. (Max Weber, 'Science as a
Vocation', 1918)
Excessive polarization of thisworldly and otherworldly oriented action

in Judaism is challenged by the living and "calling" of Robert S. Cohen.
By all appearances and by the criteria of Max Weber, Bob is an alto-
gether secular Jew. But the life of inquiry, integrity, and the passionate
commitment of the scholar, teacher, entrepreneur of ideas, and friend
(as much as the erudition and involvement in Jewish life of his progeny
and progeny's progeny) point to Bob's affinities with and nurturance
by the tradition of Isaiah and the reversibility of Weber's concept of
secularization. To him and to our more than two decades of the most
delightful friendship, of reflecting upon and meeting "the 'demands of
the day' in human relations as well as in our vocations," I joyfully
dedicate these musings.
Within the comparative study of world religions, Judaism often has
been classified among the most thisworldly of religions. Biblical religion
is thought to have strongly influenced the process by which the cosmos
is disenchanted, making the world of everyday life a safe and purpose-
ful arena for human action. Theologically tainted notions of Judaism,
255

256 HILLEL LEVINE
as behaviorism and legalism, lacking interiority and spiritualism have

crept into the scholarly literature. l
Max Weber, in whose historical sociology of religion typifications
of worldliness and otherworldliness become a particularly powerful
analytical tool, finds in Judaism an extra measure of quotidian charac-
teristics. This he exemplifies in historical claims that biblical Judaism
lays the foundations for "science, technology, and modem capitalism."
But he does not develop this argument more systematically in accordance
with his own methodology. He indicates that Judaism does not spatially
remove its adherents, even its virtuosi, from the world of everyday life
but accepts that world as a place in which the Jew can live with piety
and devotion. Neither does it firmly reject the worldly and the material,
even at the core of its religious action. Its eschatology, moreover, envi-
sions transformations that are focussed upon the world of common
experience rather than extricating from that world to another those who
merit salvation.
At the same time, Weber more than acknowledges historical examples
and more general tendencies within Judaism to reject empirical reality
and to aspire to other worlds, to "yearn" and to "tarry" rather than
to "work and meet the demands of the day." Weber is impressed by
post-exilic Jewish history because the Jews, unlike other nations whose
beliefs were disconfirmed by historic events, cling all the more tena-
ciously to their God and to their belief in ultimate redemption. But he
senses the inherent conflict between this acceptance of "irrational"
resolutions to the problems of Jewish history and Jewish propensities
to rationalize the cosmos. It is unclear with what conviction he sug-
gests that Jews absorb and spend their rationalism through Talmudic
casuistry, the meticulous observance of ritual, and their guarding against
the dangerous impulses of their own resentment towards others. He
does distinguish his position on the significance of this resentment from
Nietzche's harping on ressentiment as a "decisive element" in Judaism.
Even if the God of Israel was singularly concerned with vengeance and
that God's people with compensation, Weber concedes that Judaism
has experienced "historical changes." His assessment of those changes
is not based on the soundest historical scholarship of his day. His analysis,
for example, of Jewish attitudes to moneylending and what he con-
cludes about Jewish parameters of moral concern is altogether faulty.
But Weber himself avoids directly applying these terms of thisworldi-
ness and otherworldliness to Judaism. Ultimately, Weber equivocates
IS JUDAISM THISWORLDL Y? 257
in his pronouncements upon Judaism. He lists rather than links its

this worldly and otherworldly dimensions, adumbrating details rather
than positing typifications that would incorporate and account for
complexities. 2
An examination of different epochs in the history of Jews and a careful
analysis of diverse and sometimes conflicting trends within Judaism make
one-dimensional characterizations all but impossible, an explanation,
perhaps even a justification for Weber's equivocations. For example,
prophetic disenchantment had little effect upon the everyday world of
Jewish life which was not experienced wholly bereft of numinous and
magical qualities, as Weber indicates in Ancient Judaism. But the problem
is not only historical, it is conceptual. Weber's avoidance is more than
a lost opportunity to grapple with historical complexities and to present
interpretations of Judaism that likely would have been very cogent. By
adumbrating details of the case of Judaism rather than positing typifi-
cations that would incorporate and account for complexities, Weber
also loses this opportunity to add new complexities to the typology of
thisworldliness and otherworldliness.
The difficulties that Weber himself has in arranging the history of
Judaism along his thisworldly-otherworldly axis illustrates important
modes of differentiation that he overlooks. The lost opportunity in
Weber's corpus to pursue his agenda of reconciling idealist and materi-
alist interpretations of history is a result of some of the very problems
that Weber scholars in recent years have tried to rectify. In assessing
the "paradox of rationalization," they point to the need to distinguish con-
ceptually with greater sharpness and plot historical affinities between
ideas as they lead to greater calculability, mastery, or rejection of the
world, as they point to sites or provide evidence and legitimations of
salvation. 3
A particular complexity of the case of Judaism - its external social
relations and the manner in which these are imaged - calls for explo-
ration and suggests a mode of differentiation by which thisworldly and
otherworldly tendencies in Judaism may be more systematically
examined. Cosmologies, it must be underscored, to whatever degree they
may be thisworldly or otherworldly, do not develop in a social vacuum.
The ideas by which Jews image their celestial and terrestrial environ-
ments, their imagination for future transformations, and the bodies of
"saving knowledge" by which they expect to bring this transformation
about are shaped by, and in tum influence, their social realities and
258 HILLEL LEVINE
their perceptions of those realities. Cosmologies must account for social

boundaries; what is experienced as "above" and "below" relates to
perceptions of what is "in" and what is "out." For Jews, particularly
during periods when they were subordinate to and dispersed among
other nations, their actual social positions and the degree to which
these prompted different combinations of negative or positive reference
to their non-Jewish neighbors, had an important influence upon their
tendencies to affirm or reject the world of everyday life as a sphere of
meaningful and purposeful activity. Weber's use, however guardedly,
of the concept "pariah," sheds little light on the historical varieties
of those social relations and the historical ways in which they were
understood and imaged by Jews. Put somewhat differently, their inner-
directedness or their negative reference to Gentiles, and their outer-
directedness or their positive reference to Gentiles must be postulated
as variables in their thisworldly and otherworldly orientations.
This paper will examine the relationships between cosmologies and
social boundaries in several formative periods in the history of Judaism.
It will suggest variants of thisworldliness and otherworldliness as they
illuminate unique qualities of that history as well as enable us to make
Weber's historical sociology more sociological.
At first glance there appear to be good reasons for the typification of

Judaism and the Jewish experience as thisworldly. Biblical Judaism
posited a radically transcendental God who creates the world as the sphere
of man's activity. The homologies and holistic conceptions of the rela-
tions between the mundane and transmundane orders which were central
to the cosmologies of pre-Axial Age religions were opposed or rendered
into mere metaphor in the biblical literature. God's creative spirit was
seen as nurturing. But notions of a cosmic continuum were replaced
by the emphasis upon the "otherness of God" who, though infinitely
distant, nevertheless acts in history. That God reveals God's self and
chooses Israel with whom God enters into a covenant. While the abyss
between God and Israel remains vast, it is bridged by God's will which
God makes known in revelation and in the rewards and the punish-
ments that the transcendental God dispenses in accordance with man's
fulfillment of God's commands. The person approaches God through
prayer, study, and obedience and fulfillment of God's law but never
IS JUDAISM THIS WORLDLY? 259
fully crosses the infinitely wide abyss which separates mortals from God.
God's commands, as recorded in the Bible cover a comprehensive range
of thisworldly activities; these are expanded and elaborated upon still
more by the rabbis in later periods. Ritual evokes historical moments and
recalls the covenant rather than regenerating nature, its purpose in pre-
Axial Age religions. 4
Biblical soteriology, likewise, may be seen as distinctly worldly.
Primordial memories of the patriarch Abraham's "Get thee out" from
the idolatrous beliefs of his Mesopotamian homeland; of the exodus of
the children of Israel from bondage in the land of Egypt; of their war
against the nations whose land they were to inherit but whose paganism
and immorality they were to loathe; of the political power and inde-
pendence achieved under the kingship of David and his descendants all
influenced conceptions of thisworldly redemption in the future "end of
days."
The strength of Israel and its loyalty to God, its central role vouch-
safe in future dramas of redemption including the restoration of God's
kingdom on earth were contingent upon Israel's separateness from the
other nations.
After the doings of the land of Egypt where ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the
doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk
in their statutes ... Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and mine ordinances which if a
man do, he shall live by them (Leviticus 18:3-5).
Positive reference by Israel to the practices and beliefs of neighbors is

strongly condemned. And yet - and this is the crux of the matter - neither
could Israel have been entirely oblivious to the opinion of Gentile
"others" because of the special relationship it believed itself to have with
God and its all-important eschatological role. In the "end of days," nations
will tum to the "mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob"
and then God's Torah, that heretofore had been the legacy of Zion, will
"go out" and be universalized (Isaiah, 2:2-4). At that time, Israel, the
"saviours," will "judge the mount of Esau. Then, the kingdom shall be
the Lord's" (Obadiah, 21). In this vision of God's people restored to
its lofty and central position as the transcendental God will be immanent
in God's kingdom, we sense two important and not altogether unrelated
sources of strain and tension manifest in Jewish worldliness: There is
vehement rejection of the proximate world of social relations, while
preserving concern for the attitude and ultimate fate of Gentile neighbors
260 HILLEL LEVINE
and there is passionate yearning for the radical otherness of God's

kingdom albeit established as a new order in this world.
However compelling the evidence may be in pointing to a dominant
worldly orientation of Judaism to is religious acts, to the social location
of its religious communities and to the images which it projects of its
religious futures, we should be suspicious, nevertheless, of any simple
characterizations. It is impressive that Judaism preserved a common core
of precepts and beliefs despite Jews' millennia of geographic and cultural
dispersion and the absence of central institutions. We must recognize,
however, the many stages through which Judaism develops and the
multiple strands into which it divides. Moreover, the powerful and sus-
tained experiences of the subordination of Jews to nations viewing Jewish
past and current fate in terms different than Jews did and the actual
exile of an increasing proportion of the Jewish people from a territo-
rial and spiritual center must have had an important influence on Jewish
cosmologies even if they had at any time manifested the paradigmatic
thisworldliness which is claimed for them.
Recent studies provide the conceptual grounds for examining the inner
tensions of Jewish worldliness. S. N. Eisenstadt calls our attention to
the interrelatedness of this- and otherworldly orientations in the great
monotheistic religions, particularly in concepts of salvation and their
derivative tensions. s He points to but does not fully assess the issues
of thisworldliness in Judaism. Accordingly, in trying to understand
historical complexities of Judaism, we must move beyond typological
thinking which reduces and oversimplifies and consider inner dialec-
tics of Judaism. Moreover, as phenomenologists have suggested, between
thisworldly and otherworldly postures there are mUltiple realities devel-
oped to varying degrees in different religious traditions which combine
elements of thisworldliness and otherworldliness. 6 Weber's typology,
therefore, requires modification if it is to lead us to more nuanced
analysis. We must assess, among other considerations, how these com-
binations are influenced by the actual social relations between Jews
and Gentiles and the ways in which these social relations are imaged
by Jews.
II
In reviewing the history of Judaism in its formative stages, we indeed

find important otherworldly orientations in counterpoint to Jewish world-
liness. Otherworldly conceptions derive from several sources: residual

otherworldly conceptions, such as the animistic cosmological beliefs,
manifesting amazing endurance against a variety of prophetic assaults
and other Axial Age breakthroughs; 7 compensatory otherworldliness,
developing in response to the religious and psychological crises of a
disenchanted cosmos including various soteriologies whose predictions,
when not realized, fail to satisfy otherworldly cravings and lead to the
formulation of new and more radical ideas that completely eliminate
the chasm between the mundane and transmundane worlds; and the
influence of trans-cultural intellectual movements such as gnosticism,
pantheism, and acosmicism. 8
The great moments of demythologization that left their traces on the
biblical narrative were often limited in duration and restricted to certain
social classes of intellectuals. The struggle with the nature religions of
the surrounding peoples such as the Canaanites was bitter and protracted.
The biblical narrator indeed may have seen a complete antinomy between
the religion of Israel whose God was above nature and the Canaanite
religions of nature whose gods were undifferentiated from the natural
plenum. In the living religious consciousness and experience, however,
these polarities may have proven to be reconcilable. 9
The sustained sense of immanence may have resolved theistic tensions
prompted by the fear that God has abandoned the world. Spheres of God's
emanation in the forms of light or wisdom connected the mundane and
transmundane worlds and excited thinking about mystical union. The
re-enchantment of the cosmos, however, was often experienced as the
spread of diabolic forces, particularly related to gods of other nations.
This projection of the ethical onto the cosmological and its relation-
ship to the social boundaries between Jews and their Gentile neighbors
ultimately heightened rather than decreased dualistic tensions.
It is because of the susceptibility of the Israelites to the more immanent
cosmologies of their neighbors that they are warned and adjured to
separate themselves from these "others" and disengage from their envi-
ronment. Idolatry, temptation, and sedition are associated with Gentiles,
bolstering Israelite social exclusiveness. These negative references were
generalized to the practices, the beliefs, and the wisdom of gentiles and
could be evoked to discredit particular bodies of knowledge.
Alien wisdom became a category whose precise substance and epis-
temologies varied from period to period and whose validity and utility
varied in accordance with the degree of social exclusiveness or positive
262 HILLEL LEVINE
reference - the inner or outerdirectedness of Jews to their Gentile envi-

ronment. 10 The way in which this perception of origins influenced the
valence of modes of knowing can be seen in the respective attitudes
towards hokhmah or wisdom literature and apocalypticism. Both became
influential during the Second Commonwealth at a time of harmonious
relations with the classical world. Both posited connections between
the mundane and trans-mundane and influenced attitudes towards nature.
The early hokhmah literature, in particular, tended to promote a prac-
tical and technical rather than a metaphysical approach to everyday life,
while the apocalyptic literature generated an otherworldly orientation,
often to the degree of world rejection. Both had indigenous roots but
incorporated alien sources as well. Only in regard to hokhmah, however,
was the memory of these alien sources preserved. As the reaction against
Hellenism increased at various times and in different places in the late
classical world, the valence attached to hokhmah, and with it the world-
liness and universality associated with that literature, became more
negative. Science, despite the efforts of Jewish savants to establish for
it indigenous roots, often suffered from "guilt by association" with alien
wisdom. A new category, hokhmah yevanit, or Greek wisdom emerged
again without specific content but with worldly connotations that were
often but not always decidedly negative.
The tension between mundane and transmundane realities experienced
by all Axial Age civilizations was increased considerably for the people
of Israel. Their cherished sense of chosenness from all the nations, their
belief that they were elected to merit God's special revelation became
more and more dissonant with their external reality. In addition to all
other vulnerabilities, they had to cope with Gentile scorn. As the
longevity of their exile increased and their residential status among the
nations became more permanent, it became less convincing to explain
this situation with traditional theodicies: "You only have I known of
all the families of the world; therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities" (Amos 3:2).
The plausibility of a disenchanted and demythologized cosmos - the
cosmology which Israel shared with other Axial Age nations of the
classical world - became more difficult for Israel to sustain because of
its cultural and political subservience at the hands of those same nations.
Notions of a transcendental God somewhat detached from earthly events
provided some explanation of suffering but extended little hope. In the
years following the destruction of the Second Temple and the rise of
Christianity, Jewish-Christian sectarians on the one side and Gentiles

on the other, proffered their own explanations. However prepared the
rabbis were to deride and discount the challenge of sectarians and
Gentiles, they had to respond to the dissonance between reality and belief
in order to strengthen the sagging faith of their own people. ll This could
be accomplished most effectively by spiritualizing conceptions of the
world to come and thereby downgrading the ultimate implications of
mundane reality, impugning the reference to hostile others, or both.
This might provide the ideational and existential roots of increased Jewish
inner-directedness and greater social exclusiveness as well as of inten-
sified otherworldliness. And yet, there were strong limitations to the
degree to which Jews could disengage from the larger social and natural
worlds.
Disengagement did not preclude heightened sensitivity to the judgment
of others. Beyond pragmatic needs to establish modes of living with
Gentile neighbors at certain times in Jewish history, sufficient religious
import was attached to the opinion of non-Jews such that to make a
positive impression was considered kiddush Hashem, sanctification of
God's name, whereas to make a negative impression was thought to be
a religious desecration or, hillul Hashem. 12 While the terms were coined
in a later period, they denoted ideas that were already explicit in the Bible.
Both Israel's fate and deeds reflect only upon its merit but ultimately
upon God. Moses pressures God into forgiving Israel by suggesting
that their punishment, even if just, will cause Egypt to sneer: "For evil
did He bring them forth to slay them in the mountains and consume them
from the face of the earth" (Exodus 36: 12). Similarly, and against the
justifications for the exile developing at a later time which described dis-
persion as an opportunity to spread God's name, Israel's fate will cause
desecration: "When they came unto the nations whither they profaned
my holy name in that men said of them: These are the people of the
Lord and are gone forth out of His land" (Ezekiel 36:20).13 As we have
already seen, the acceptance by the Gentiles of God's ways was deemed
integral to the eschatological drama of the "end of days"; the action of
Jews could have some influence on this acceptance and thus, have an
impact on trans-mundane processes. These demonstrative purposes of
kiddush Hashem are, furthermore, indicated by its association with
martyrdom of sacrifice. At the same time, Israel was excluded from an
forewarned against certain involvement in that world shared with gentiles
because of the dangerous and tempting ways of the nations.
264 HILLEL LEVINE
There are other areas in which worldliness and otherworldliness

combined notions of life after death and redemption, more spiritual-
ized eschatologies notions of esoteric knowledge and personal mysticism
developed both within Judaism and, at times, through its contact with
other cultures where Judaism could transform and provide reinterpreta-
tions of Gentile symbols. These combinations and their derivative
tensions led to heterodoxy and schism at times, but at others, they added
new levels of interpretation to Torah study and new sets of motives and
intentions to the obedience to God's will as expressed in the fulfill-
ment of the precepts. 14 Thus, some of the polytheistic elements which
were not quite eradicated from mainstream Judaism and survived the
early Axial Age surfaced with varying degrees of intensity and longevity
in otherworldly orientations, in folk religion, gnosticism, and mysti-
cism. They became the building blocks of soteriological bridges; but at
times, because of the spiritual intensity which they evoked, they washed
away those same bridges in the emotional flood of spiritual movements.
Thus they precipitated rebellion against earlier resolutions of the tension
between worldliness and otherworldliness. We see examples of this in
the short-lived but influential world rejection of the Essenes and Qumran
sects.
III
Rabbinic Judaism, in confronting the longevity of exile, the loss of a

spiritual center, foreign domination, and cultural encroachment, and the
need to create religious institutions which would foster piety while they
would regulate political and social relations, created new combinations
of and amplified the tensions between worldliness and otherworldli-
ness. In its pervasive influence for nearly two millennia, it spelled
out in ever greater detail the contents of God's revelation and man's
obedience as registered in the Bible; the fulfillment of concrete reli-
gious actions or mitzvot governing all dimensions of life became the
emphasis of religious life. Jewish intellectualism, in its many modes,
centered upon the interpretation of sacred texts. These interpretations
provide secondary legitimations for the performance of the mitzvot
beyond the belief that they are God's commandments. M idrash halakhah
or the interpretations which provide standards of behavior is accom-
panied by midrash aggadah, or the interpretation which provides models
of belief. IS While the first presents mimetic motives for the performance
IS JUDAISM THIS WORLDLY? 265
of the ritual precepts, as the second suggests some uncensored

mythopoeic and folk rationales, neither implies the direct mechanical
regeneration of the cycle of life. Imitato Dei is a moral principle oriented
towards the social sphere rather than a reflexive act, with direct imp Ii -
cations and consequences for regenerating the cosmos.
The analysis and systematization of these mythopoeic and spiritual-
izing elements in the aggadah - the homoletical material of Rabbinic
literature, parallel to and interwoven with the legal material in the Talmud
and anthologized in separate collections - spawned and supported ratio-
nalism, particularly when this systematization is prompted by the concern
for the disapproval of Gentiles or the efforts to harmonize Torah with
the truth claims of alien wisdom. The genre of commentary which
provided ta' amai ha'mitzvot, the origins and reasons for the precepts,
and the efforts to codify the halakhah also fostered rationalism within
Jewish intellectual life. The degree to which this rationalism could at
times be applies to the world of everyday life was determined at least
as much by those who controlled the political and economic levers - most
often the Gentile rulers whose sources of authority and power were
external to Jewish collective life - as by any internal "ethic." The Jewish
life experience in most epochs of instability and uncertainty did not
provide motivation for nor lend plausibility to systematic worldly
activity.
The centrality of Torah study and within this, the importance of the
knowledge of halakhah, provided ongoing connectedness to an enchanted
world of Jewish communal existence which was worldly insofar as it
dealt with the minutiae of the most mundane of activities, as it spiritu-
alized those activities and assigned to them meanings within the
coordinates of a wholly other world. This gloss on everyday life is char-
acterized by the rabbis themselves in terse terms as "[the laws concerning
defilement through] leprosy-signs an tents" (Babylonian Talmud,
Hagigah 14a) or the talmudic "arguments of Abaye and Rava" (BT,
Sukkah 28a) that deal with matters of seemingly great worldliness but
not necessarily pertaining to any world of everyday life. It is this dis-
tinction that has often been lost upon those who try to classify Judaism
along the worldly-otherworldly axis.
Halakah extended boundaries in two directions: Between the world
of Jewish communal existence and what was believed to a trans-sub-
jective and trans-mundane world on the one hand and between the Jewish
inter-subjective world of everyday life resided in by Jews and that which
266 HILLEL LEVINE
they shared with Gentiles. Modes of Torah study included knowledge

that spiritualized the literal and was otherworldly in its orientation.
Only on rare occasions in the history of rabbinic Judaism could reli-
gious authority or intellectual leadership be established that was not based
upon competence, if not mastery of rabbinic legal material. But this
authority cannot be readily associated with what Weber considered "legal-
rational" authority based upon practical knowledge. For while this
knowledge was purportedly of the "leprosy-signs and tents" type, much
of it referred, in fact, to no existing world because of a broad range of
changes. Nevertheless, this knowledge was still regarded as sacred and
normative.
Radical world rejection would be a difficult posture to sustain for
the greatest of spiritual virtuosi in view of the religious centrality of
the community in Judaism and the precariousness of diaspora existence
for Jews from which the community offered protection. On the other
hand, tendencies towards otherworldliness in Judaism were both more
and less thoroughgoing and extreme than the world rejection of other
religions. The Jews sought to sustain the belief that contrary to their
appearance in the world of everyday life - the social reality which they
shared with Gentiles - as downtrodden and subordinate, they remained
God's chosen people. As a result of this overwhelming contradiction
between appearances and inner truths, all appearances became suspect.
The mundane world of nature and the social and political reality of
Gentile society could no longer be perceived as realities that provide
an accurate reflection of ultimate truths. With the accent of reality
removed from everyday life and its sphere of activity, there were no
overwhelming religious needs for any more radical form of world
renunciation.
Somewhat paradoxically, therefore, the obliteration of the world on
the level of meaning enabled the Jews to partake in the world. While
there were Jewish ascetics and pietists in various periods and places,
this did not become a dominant religious modality. With the proper
attitude and appropriate restraint, the Jewish homo religious could
enjoy worldly pleasures; with the correct intention, where the rabbis so
designated, and with the appropriate berakha or blessing, those pleasures
could even be sanctified.
Another example of how rabbinic Judaism regulated the tensions and
created new combinations between this- and otherworldly conceptions
can be seen in messianism. The messianism of the rabbis, in its many
expressions, was far more elaborate and explicit than biblical messianism.
That messianism ranged from conceptions very worldly in the means and
manner by which they would transform the world of everyday life, to
radically otherworldly and fantastic models of "the world to come."
For example, some rabbis concluded that the messiah had in fact already
come in the days of King Hezekiah or that the only difference between
the world as the rabbis knew it and "the world to come" would be the
liberation from political oppression. Others predicted that in the mes-
sianic age, a new Torah would replace the Torah of creation; the messiah
would abrogate the commandments. Messianic logic at times led to the
inversion of the proposition such that antinomianism would be advocated
to demonstrate that the redemption was at hand or even to precipitate
the messiah's arrival. Considering the low degree of centralized authority
and the limited effectiveness of mechanisms of ideational control, it is
rather remarkable that Judaism did not spawn greater heterodoxy. While
occasional, small messianic movements and messiah claimants did
appear, these generally subsided or became heretical and were quickly
spun off Judaism rather than enduring as sectarian enclaves. With the
exception of the messianic movements that took place in the early
Christian er, and the Sabbatian movement in the seventeenth century,
none was historically significant in terms of having a sustained impact
on Jews and Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism prevailed.
The strength of rabbinic Judaism may be seen precisely in its ability
to sustain hope and commitment by taming and domesticating mes-
sianism. Rabbinic Judaism provided an enduring and stable road across
the soteriological gap of exile, weaving together worldliness and other-
worldly orientations and actions. The rabbis institutionalized, what Jacob
Neusner calls "the remarkable systems of Torah study, synagogue worship
and observance of precepts to accommodate the loss of a cosmic center,
even in terrestrial Jerusalem. Rather than shifting the location of the cult,
as the Essenes and Qumran sects attempted, or completely transforming
its meaning and losing important ties to the past, the rabbis describe
this cult, its measurements, its rites and its rules, with great detail, in
words, These words about the works of the Temple enable many gen-
erations of Jews to:
experience anywhere and anytime that cosmic center of the world described by Mishnah:
Cosmic center in words is made utopia. Mishnah permits the people, Israel, to carry
that world along through time, until the center will once more be regained .... In the
long centuries after Mishnah comes into being, complete with its useless map of the
268 HILLEL LEVINE
inaccessible cosmos and its rules of the cult, learning Mishnah would describe a remark-
ably apt mode of cartography of that unattainable sacred city, the city constructed only
in the consciousness of the Jewish people. This then is the map of the city of Israel, in
which, in mind only, now are joined heaven and earth. 16
The propensity to create detailed maps without concern for their

correspondence to a territory existing in the world of everyday life, nor
for social verification by those beyond the boundaries of the Jewish com-
munity, was integral to rabbinic Judaism and developed with historical
variations in later periods.
This illustrates the dual propensity of Jewish otherworldliness: It is
"other" in its multiple rejections of the worlds of appearances in their
geographic, temporal and social terms downgrading the ontological status
of daily life; it is also "other" in that it affirms an enchanted cosmos,
not bereft of God's concern and providence.
Categories of knowledge were deemed useful, if not true, by their
support for this map. Insofar as we have identified this "remarkably
apt mode of cartography", which transforms into words the avodah, or
works, of God's Temple and preserves a map of the City of Israel without
landscape, a heaven and earth joined in mind and words with little
attention to the works of God's creation - we might speculate as to
how, at later date, this cartography and its maps inhibited the new efforts
to join heaven and earth by utilizing the new words and methods of
science to examine those landscapes and works of God's creation. 17
That world assigned the accent of reality, and removed from everyday
life, was the one created through the intensity of Jewish communal life,
including Torah study, observance of the precepts and prayer, as well
as the inner world of memory and longing for Zion in its celestial and
politically restored terrestrial forms. Here we see a particularly signifi-
cant example of the tension and interweaving between mundane and
transcendental orders. While these religious modalities wee experienced
in the mundane order and often observed through worldly activities,
they were oriented towards a trans-mundane sphere. Moreover, the social
political order in Jewish life was itself bifurcated by the historical
realities of diaspora existence. Between the world of appearances, the
mundane natural order on the one hand, and the world of ultimate reality,
the transcendental order on the other, the social political order, which
was based on the authority of Gentile rulers, was likely to be experienced
as closer to the mundane; and the social political order which was based
upon whatever degree of self-government that was attained by Jewish
IS JUDAISM THISWORLDLY? 269
communities at any particular historical moment was likely to be expe-

rienced as closer to the transcendental order. The structures of self-
government provided a social domain and cognitive structure which could
be, but was not always, nor ever fully governed by Jewish law and
legitimated through recourse to Jewish values and sentiments. God was
experienced as immanent to the holy Jewish community: "And I
shall dwell in their midst" (Exodus 25:8; 29:45). God even suffered the
privation and shame of his children in exile. At the same time, God
was experienced as transcending not only the forces of chaos, and the
order of nature which he created but from which he departed, but the
forces of foreign domination to which his children in exile had to submit.
Insofar as this accurately describes the experience of an "other" world
in contrast to the world of everyday life, it may account for a degree
of disengagement from the environment, including the natural environ-
ment. While observing the hand of God in nature was not alien to Jewish
experience, the degree to which God bothered himself to maintain
ongoing influence over the lower spheres was questioned by Jewish ratio-
nalists and mystics alike. Judaism, as a diasporic religion emphasized
freedom from place. It became "utopian" in the literal sense of the
word, a religion of "nowhere," of transcendence. IS
In the experience of otherworldliness, Gentile encroachment, and exile,
there may have been a phenomenological connection between the expe-
rience of an alien and dominating socio-political reality and the reality
of nature: Both realities could be perceived alternately as God's emis-
saries, the agents of God's punishment, or that to which God allowed
some independent existence and which separated God and Israel. In
this diasporic religion of utopia or "nowhere," whose divine protector
was tied to no land, while "The heavens might relate God's glory," his
proudest and most significant works were to be seen in history and Torah.
Torah was not only a literary corpus but a cosmogonic force as well.
The ways of nature which God indeed created, just as the patterns of
Gentiles' relations to God's people, Israel, for which God claimed
ultimate responsibility (the Nebuchadnezzars always being the rod of
God's wrath), were not studied in a systematic way. Other than to
speculate upon God's intentions, there was little incentive provided for
the systematic study of nature which, whether contingent upon God's will
or too insignificant to merit God's special providence, was ultimately
of that world of appearance whose reality was anyhow questionable. 19
Thus, we see that the Jewish mode of otherworldliness, supported by
270 HILLEL LEVINE
the experience of domination and exile, may have influenced attitudes

towards the primary and unmediated experience of nature and towards
the intellectual valence assigned to the accumulated bodies of knowledge
about nature - science. Attitudes towards the study of nature, moreover,
were often influenced by attitudes towards alien wisdom on the one
side and by attitudes towards rationalism in the middle ages and more
specifically, towards Aristotelianism, on the other. While some rabbis felt
that the study of God's works could lead to metaphysical knowledge,
or was important to demonstrate Israel's greatness to the Gentiles, others
emphasized that the study of aggadah, or God's words, would lead to
deeper and more reliable knowledge of God. Before Jews could estab-
lish truths about nature, nature had to be "within the true" of Judaism. 20
The Jewish experience of the outer side of social boundaries as unsafe
and ephemeral influenced perceptions of the underside of cosmological
boundaries, the mundane world and may have reduced the curiosity which
Jews experienced in regard to the natural order.
IV
To summarize, the history of Judaism and the historical experiences of

Jews include diverse and at times, conflicting trends, particularly in
regard to the scope and intensity of relations between Jews and the larger
society in which they resided at any given moment. Jews often eschewed
positive reference to the larger society of which they were a part, while,
for the sake of God's glory, they felt obligated to positively impress
their Gentile neighbors. We have further noted that combinations of
thisworldliness and otherworldliness are in fact a characteristic of the
great monotheistic traditions. Moreover, we have suggested a degree of
interrelatedness between these combinations and patterns of Jewish-
Gentile relations. At times these cosmologies express and at other times
they influence the tensions in the social sphere.
This interrelatedness can be demonstrated in the different orienta-
tions to what Weber calls the "problem of meaning" and the "apotheosis
of suffering" of Jews in the middle ages who see themselves as standing
within those traditions of biblical and rabbinic JUdaism. 21 For example,
Jews of the germanic area, Ashkenazim, tended to have little concern
for nor reference to the proximate world of social relations. Under the
pressure of the Crusades, they often opted for dramatic demonstrations
of their religious tenacity, martyrdom, and other modes of world rejec-
tion. Their belief in salvation was contingent upon personal piety. Their
messianism tended to have otherworldly goals and, as a result, there were
relatively few messianic movements seeking worldly transformation
among these Jews. Their interest in alien wisdom and natural science was
derivative from the influence of Jews in other areas and was minimal.
By contrast, their Jewish contemporaries in Iberia who had enjoyed and
sustained memories of social and intellectual integration within their
Gentile environment, including the flowering of Jewish rationalism,
interest in science, even a sensate appreciation for nature, responded
quite differently to religious tensions in the 14th and 15th century
culminating with the expulsion of 1492 and 1496. Even under duress,
many maintained their cosmopolitan and worldliness by converting to
Christianity. Some converted fully accepting their new religion, others
did so without much conviction while still other converts maintained and
passed on subterranean Jewish practices that became more syncretic
with each generation. At the same time, even among the converts, "open
and public messianic speculation" prevailed with rationalism placed in
the service of observing and analyzing the "sings of the times.,,22 The
"Hellenic spirit" that had been so influential among Sephardim inspired
the belief in a predetermined moment of redemption, quite independent
of personal piety. It was the strength and worldly orientation of this
messianism which enabled these Sephardim to maintain their ambiva-
lent situation and cope with strong feelings of guilt as "New Christians"
by all outward signs and as crypto-Jews. Messianic movements espousing
world transformation developed in Iberia and within the Sephardic
diaspora. These two traditions - coherent and consistent in their own right
- had volatile qualities when they merged. A consequence of the Iberian
expUlsions was that Jewries which previously had been fairly insulated
one from the other, came together often leading to new combinations
of thisworldliness and otherworldliness.
In mid-sixteenth century Sefad, one such new combination crystal-
lized with consequences that shook the Jewish world for centuries.
Lurianic Kabbalah first developed among a mixed coterie of Ashkenazim
and Sephardim. Isaac Luria himself, a younger contemporary of Nicholas
Copernicus, was of Germanic descent but spent his youth in a Sephardi
environment in Egypt. Lurianic Kabbalah found plausibility and ardent
adherents in both communities. The history of those ideas, their diffu-
sion and their impact, are extremely complex. Suffice it to say that
what was transmitted incorporated an interesting combination of the
272 HILLEL LEVINE
elements that we have been studying. Lurianic Kabbalah fostered

Ashkenazi piety to an extreme degree such that every deed perpetrated
by the Jew in this world had eschatological consequences. Insofar as
this doctrine was popularized throughout the Jewish world and entered
the day-to-day consciousness of Jews through liturgy and the like,
it heightened spiritual tensions. It carried with it, from the Sephardi
tradition, the metaphysical intellectualism and the emphasis upon the
mundane world as the arena for salvation. In fact, the natural world,
terrestrial space, for the first time was accorded a place in Isaac
Luria's system of the sephirot, the chart of celestial space. 23 This onto-
logical elevation of the natural world necessarily carried with it a
derogation of the valence of science in that the natural world was now
re-enchanted, religiously significant, and Jewishly, hardly neutral. Science
and Kabbalah presented competitive hermeneutic strategies for inter-
preting the "Book of nature." After the first round, it was clear that
Kabbalah was in the lead within the Jewish community. At the same time,
the reduction of theistic, dualistic tensions may have had unanticipated
consequences. In connecting the lower sphere with the higher spheres,
it suggested a monism that could develop into the pantheism and the
deism, so important in the growth of modem science. 24 The suggestion
that "God and nature are one", initially provoking mystical joy, soon
became a dangerous heresy. Radical spiritualization proved to be the other
side of radical secularization. While incorporating the natural world,
Lurianic Kabbalah rejected the larger social world of Gentiles, thus sharp-
ening the way in which the cleavages between the nations and Israel
would be imaged by the Jews. Redemption was a drama to be played
out solely by God and Israel. But this decreased reference to gentiles
in cosmological terms may have unleashed elusive forces. The outer-
directedness of Jews in the modem period is largely a consequence
of political and economic processes unfolding among Jews and in the
larger society. But there is much need to investigate the influence of such
cosmologies of early modem Judaism on social attitudes and patterns
of social relations of Jews.
In Weber's fragmentary references to Jews and Judaism in the modem

period, scattered throughout his work, we sense a consistent theme: To
account for what he believed to be the case that the heirs of the prophetic
tradition and its disenchantment of the world did not develop "science,
technology and modem capitalism" whatever foundations they did lay.
Had Weber stated his initial propositions about classical Judaism with
the nuance characteristic of his work, had he been consistent with his
own modus operandi which thrives upon the complex and ironic his-
torical combinations of the rational and the irrational, the worldly and
otherworldly, his contribution to the explication of Judaism could have
been considerable while the varieties of Jewish historical experiences
would have provided an important laboratory for the testing of his
hypotheses. The fact is that Weber's position on Judaism was very much
influenced by the polemics of his day.
Weber's comparison of Jews to lower Indian castes - their alleged
insider-outsider status which generates double standards of ethical
behavior - as an explanation for the loss of a type of rationalism that
could be transformative of institutions and interests was quite impre-
cise, as Weber himself knew and for which later critics repeatedly took
him to task. Why, then, was he prompted to make what he could defend
as only a partial analogy at best? Here, I suspect, is evidence of Weber's
reluctance to include the history of Judaism in the religious history of
the West, with whole historical influence and transformations he was
so concerned. In his day, it was common to speak of Judaism as an
oriental religion. to emphasize this association of Judaism with an eastern
culture was specifically useful for Weber. By comparing the social
position of European Jews to the peculiarly Indian social configuration,
Weber could safely remove Judaism from the transformations that he
wanted to study in the West. On the other hand, because he empha-
sized the concreteness of biblical religion and because he was somewhat
influenced by the Protestant theological stance that did not see Judaism
as possessing any truly sublime spiritual or conceptual theology of its
own, Weber did not wish to typify Judaism as strictly otherworldly; he
equivocated. But the upshot of these efforts was more than to refute Marx
and Sombart's historically unbased and excessive claims regarding
Judaism and modem capitalism. Weber understated the significant Jewish
contribution to the establishment of market and fiscal capitalism. 25
Ambivalent as he was, in regard to modernity, he could not join his
contemporaries who seemingly eased that ambivalence by placing
Judaism at its cornerstone and blaming Jews for undermining lost worlds.
To attribute to Judaism worldly transformative influence would strengthen
the position of Marx and the Marxists on the Jewish origins of capitalism.
274 HILLEL LEVINE
In order for Weber to bolster one of the main lines of his research -
the spiritual and psychological motives derived from ascetic Protestantism
which spurred the growth of modem capitalism - he had to neutralize
the transformative powers of Judaism.
Despite this effort, it was precisely this question of Jewish contribu-
tions to capitalism that continued to generate the strongest polemic
against Weber's work during his lifetime. Sombart's undifferentiated
notion of rationalism and its Jewish sources spelled out arguments first
adumbrated by Marx. Weber responded with a new set of equivoca-
tions regarding the history of Jews and Judaism. Weber's treatment of
this history has raised many questions. Here is not the place to summarize
that literature. It suffices to say that the debate with Sombart had other
unfortunate consequences; it sidetracked both Weber and his critics into
a discussion of Judaism and the economy. The possible impact of the
rationalism allegedly fostered by Judaism on other sectors of social reality
such as politics and science has been neglected. Moreover, the evidence
for Jewish rationalism and its transformative capacities must be more
carefully considered. Propensities for rationalistic orientations have been
inferred by Sombart and others from behavior and social organization
without reference to the broad, ongoing, and intensive argument within
the Jewish community regarding rationalism itself as a mode of knowl-
edge and a mode of the organization of action. On the other hand,
rationalistic orientations have not been carefully plotted against external
social structural factors which mayor may not be supportive of those
attitudes. So, for example, Weber can point to the lack of involvement
of Jews in a particular period in industrial production as evidence of
the ineffectiveness and otherworldly orientation of Jewish rationality
without raising questions about the larger economy and its capacity
to support certain types of production, nor about the position of Jews
within that economy and about their opportunities for becoming entre-
preneurs. Attitudes and intentions are not the only prerequisites of
capital accumulation. The patterns of economic participation of Jews
in the larger society, or what came to be known under the influence of
the Enlightenment rhetoric of reform as the problem of "productiviza-
tion", is determined not only by what makes sense but by what makes
economic sense.
In extending the parameters of the discussion of Jewish rationality and
what influences its worldly and otherworldly orientations, we must move
beyond Weber and Sombart in the hope of creating needed indicators
of the modernization of consciousness. It is in this investigation that

we find the opportunity to examine the otherworldly orientations which
ultimately contributed to the ability of Jews to "meet the 'demands of
the day' in human relations as well as in ... vocations."
Brookline,
Massachusetts
NOTES
* I am pleased to acknowledge comments made on earlier versions of this paper by

Professors S. N. Eisenstadt and Ilana Silber of the Hebrew University and Robert
Cohen and Stephen Kalberg of Boston University. Professor Kalberg, in particular, most
generously shared his deep erudition in the literature of Max Weber and his critics, making
many helpful suggestions and correcting errors. The usual disclaimers of responsibility
apply.
I Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung and Ziel der Geschichte (Zurich, 1949); Eric Voegelin,
Order and History, vol. I (Baton Rouge, 1956), pp. 1-5; 111-183; vol. IV (Baton Rouge,
1974), pp. 1-58; 308-313; Benjamin Schwartz (ed.), 'Wisdom, Revelation, and Doubt:
Perspectives on the First Millennium', Daedalus, Spring, 1975. Compare with treatment
of similar issues in Ezekiel Kaufman, Toledot Haemuna Hayisraelit (Tel Aviv, 1964),
vols. I-VIII. Some of these attitudes derive from nineteenth century liberal Protestant
theologians who uncritically accepted classical Christian perceptions of Judaism as pre-
occupied with law and as such, little more than "religious behaviorism" lacking spiritual
motives and theological formulations.
2 See, for example, Max Weber, in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds.), Economy
and Society, vol. I (Berkeley, 1978), pp. 492-499; 611-623. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills
(eds.), From Max Weber (New York, 1958), pp. 267-359. The over-simplifications and
equivocations in Weber's work on JUdaism, particularly beyond the classical period,
have been attributed to the fragmentary nature of his last works and the "feverish style
of composition" rather than to the evolution of his ideas. Others have been less generous
towards Weber and his interpretation of Judaism. Though the purpose of this essay is
not to explicate Weber per se through a careful textual analysis, see below for a
"sociology of knowledge" suggestion as to why Weber seemed to have difficulty deciding
whether Judaism is to be included among "world religions" and how to assess "its
historic and autonomous significance for the development of the modem economic ethic"
among other aspects of modernity, ibid., p. 267.
3 S. N. Eisenstadt, 'Transcendental Visions - Otherworldliness and Its Transformation',
Religion (1983) vol. 13, p. 10 ff. Guenther Roth and Wolfgang Schluchter, Max Weber's
Vision of History: Ethics and Methods (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), pp. 16-22
point to directions in which Weber's "frame of reference" may be enlarged and recon-
structed. Within that tradition of Weber criticism, this paper will formulate another
direction to accommodate the historical particularisms of Judaism.
4 Michael Fishbane, 'Israel and the Mothers', in Peter Berger (ed.), The Other Side of
God (Garden City, New York, 1981) pp. 28-47.
276 HILLEL LEVINE
5 S. N. Eisenstadt, op. cit., p. 7.

6 See Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, vol. I (The Hague, 1970), p. 207 ff. In his essay,
'On Multiple Realities', Schutz develops concepts of the reality of the world of everyday
life in contrast with paramount reality. These concepts are borrowed from William James
and George Herbert Mead.
7 Fishbane, op. cit., p. 32 ff.
8 Arthur Lovejoy discusses this in relation to the contrast between Indian and European
thought. While the introduction of the Copernican cosmology is generally considered
important in the turn of attention to the terrestrial sphere and thisworldly concerns,
this intellectual development could very well have had the opposite effect inten-
sifying otherworldliness to compensate for the diminished position of the terrestrial
sphere. See Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA, 1973), pp.
142-143.
9 Ibid., p. 41.
10 See Arnaldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge,
1975), pp. 1-21.
11 Ephraim Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, vol. I (Jerusalem, 1979),
p. 542 ff.
12 Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (New York, 1961), particularly pp. 60--62;
153-158.
13 For parallel rabbinic sources, see Urbach, op. cit., p. 526 ff.
14 What Scholem says about conservative and revolutionary mysticism pertains to this
as well. See Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York, 1965),
pp. 5-31.
15 Y. L. Zunz, Haderashot Beyisrael (Jerusalem, 1974), for one position on the rela-
tionship of these two types of midrashim and the relationship of legend and law.
16 Jacob Neusner, 'Map Without Territory: Mishnah's System of Sacrifices and
Sanctuary', History of Religions, 1979, pp. 126-127.
17 Hillel Levine, 'Jewish Reticence towards Science in the Eighteenth Century', Harvard
Center for Jewish Studies Symposium on the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA, forth-
coming). Yitzhak Baer, Galut (New York, 1947).
18 Jonathan A. Smith, 'Map is Not Territory', Studies in the History of Religions. Studies
in Judaism in Late Antiquity, no. 36 (Leiden, 1978), pp. XIII-XV. Quoted in Jacob
Neusner, op. cit., pp. 123-124.
19 Yosef Yerushalmi makes a similar point in regard to the attention paid to historical
detail. See Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle and London, 1982).
20 Foucault discusses the condition under which facts and details become "within the
true" of knowledge. See Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York,
1976), pp. 223-224.
21 Momigliano, op. cit., p. 100.
22 Gerson Cohen, 'Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim', Leo Baeck
Memorial Lecture (New York, 1967), pp. 22-23.
23 Isaiah Tishbi points out that Isaac Luria and his disciples, by contrast with the early
Kabbalists, incorporated the lower world into their cosmological models. While the
mundane world still remained on the lowest level of the mystical cosmology, that it was
in fact considered in these mystical depictions implies the assignment of some spiritual
valence to the terrestrial world. See F. Lahover and I. Tishbi (eds.), Mishnat Zohar, 2
volumes (Jerusalem, 1957), I, p. 390. also see Moshe Idel, 'Iggrot Shel R. Yitzhak
Mipisa (?) Bi'shalosh Nusahoteha', KobetzAI Yad, vol. X (1982), pp. 161-214, particu-
larly pp. 180-181. For reconsiderations of the degree to which Lurianic Kabbalah was
popularized, see Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1989).
24 See Margaret Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and
Republicans (London, 1981).
25 See Hillel Levine, Economic Origins ofAntisemitism: Poland and Its Jews in the Early
Modern Period (New Haven, 1991), pp. 107-135.
wALTER GEORGE MUELDER
A GLOSS ON ROBERT S. COHEN'S

AMBIGUITIES OF SCIENCE
Victor Weisskopf, who like Robert S. Cohen has an interactive under-

standing of science, society and nature, and a concern for the ecological
whole, has stated: "Compassion without curiosity is ineffective. Curiosity
without compassion is inhuman."( By curiosity Weisskopf means science;
and his compassion is global concern. Cohen's professional contributions
move from the scientific part to the philosophical whole and from the
social whole to the personal part. His life and work show both extra-
ordinary intellectual curiosity and profound social and ethical insight.
This present essay is a gloss on 'Reflections on the Ambiguity of Science'
which appeared in Foundations of Ethics in 1983. 2 He meditated on
two quotations, one by C. S. Lewis, "What we call man's power over
nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other
men, with nature as an instrument;" the other by Max Horkheimer, "The
ideological dimension of science comes to light, above all, in what
science closes its eyes to." Some of the philosophical and ethical concerns
of Horkheimer and Cohen were pressed on my consciousness as a student
under the former at the University of Frankfurt in 1930-31. My appre-
ciation for Cohen emerges from long association and friendship with him
at Boston University. His essay on the ambiguity of science opens up
a very broad range of issues in my field of social ethics, some of which
are highlighted below. In dealing with them, I presuppose my commit-
ment to communitarian personalism in philosophy.
Science, like ethics and philosophy, has both a theoretical and a prac-
tical dimension, both an intrinsic value and an instrumental function.
Science has the intrinsic value "to know," but scientists and science "will
have a difficult time during the remainder of this century and at least
the first half of the next, protecting themselves from increased, enhanced
exploitation.,,3 This will be the case particularly if, as Cohen says, science
is the only ideology with species-wide legitimacy.4 The natural sciences
are no more immune from exploitation than are the social sciences or
religion, though the interpenetration of facts, values and beliefs is more
evident and openly acknowledged in the latter than in the former. The
intrinsic values of truth, goodness and beauty compenetrate, even when
279

280 W AL TER GEORGE MUELDER
facts by themselves do not improve anything and scientific discoveries

of fact by themselves are not based on moral criteria when they are
judged, for example, to be beautiful. We may illustrate this observation
below both from Einstein, and from Myrdal in due course. "Einstein
was wise to say that moral questions and scientific questions are not
joined as such, and surely neither in the behavior, nor the language nor
the thinking of scientists."s
Heisenberg records a conversation with Einstein on the matter of the
former's discovery of the laws of quantum mechanics and the latter's
discovery of the general theory of relativity. Heisenberg writes:
If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty ... that no one
has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true", that they reveal
a genuine feature of nature .... You must have felt this too: the most frightening
simplicity and wholeness of the relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before
us and for which none of us was in the least prepared. 6
In 1950 Einstein sent a communication to the Societa Italiana per il

Progresso della Scienze when it met in Lucca, Italy, the message being
entitled 'On the Moral Obligation of the Scientist.' It said:
Let me then make a confession: I believe that the struggle to achieve greater insight
and understanding is one of those independent objectives without which a thinking indi-
vidual could not have a conscious, positive attitude toward life .... It is the very
essence of our efforts for greater understanding that, on the one hand, man attempts to
encompass the great and complex variety of human experience, while on the other, he
looks for simplicity and economy in the basic assumptions. In view of the primitive
state of our scientific knowledge, the belief that these two objectives can exist side by side
is a matter of faith. However, without such a faith I could not have so strong and unshak-
able a conviction concerning the independent value of knowledge .... The attitude of
the man engaged in scientific work, which, in a sense, is a religious attitude, exerts a
certain influence upon his whole personality. 7
All science is a socio-historical activity, though science is sometimes

treated as if it were inherently ahistorical and the work of impartial
bystanders. The interpenetration of social and historical values in science
was frankly faced more than fifty years ago by Gunnar Myrdal, men-
tioned above. Myrdal came to grips with valuations and beliefs in social
science in an era when Robert S. Lynd pressed the question in Knowledge
for What? and Louis Wirth was urging sociologists to recognize what
they were doing with values. In a famous Appendix to An American
Dilemma, dealing with valuation in social science, Myrdal writes:
ROBERT COHEN'S AMBIGUITIES OF SCIENCE 281
Neither can biases be avoided by the scientist stopping short of drawing practical con-
clusions. Science becomes no better protected against biases by the entirely negative device
of refusing to arrange its results for practical or political utilization. 8
"Biases in research," he added,

are much deeper seated than in the formulation of avowedly practical conclusions. They
are not valuations attached to research but rather they permeate research. They are the
unfortunate results of concealed valuations that insinuate themselves in research at all
stages, from its planning to its final presentation. 9
And again,
Beliefs concerning the facts re the very building stones for the logical hierarchies of
valuations into which a person tries to shape his opinions. When the valuations are con-
flicting, as they normally are, beliefs serve the rationalization function of bridging
illogicalities. 10
How deeply, then, do beliefs and valuations enter into the processes
of social science? "The need for rationalization will tend to influence
(1) the objects chosen for research, (2) the selection of relevant data,
(3) the recording of observations, (4) the theoretical and practical infer-
ences drawn, and (5) the manner of presentation of results."11 Myrdal
showed how these entered specifically the study of race relations in the
United States. He showed how various interpretations of the "American
Dilemma" were related to the "American Dream" and affected research.
One could show today how both theory and field studies on the so-
called "underclass" in urban America are influenced by "political
correctness" in its various guises in universities as well as the gap
between theory and field study. Myrdal noted fifty years ago how "the
strongest psychic resistance is aroused when an attempt is made to teach
the better situated classes in a society about actual lower class stand-
ards of living and what causes them.,,12 Even trained scientists are
seduced by the behavioral aspects of the urban "underclass" and seem
morally and therefore scientifically blind to the structural economic
causes of their behavior.
Myrdal's solution to the problems of beliefs, biases, and valuations
in social science is to bring them out in the open. Students in the field
of race relations will recall his scales of biases. Among them is the
scale of "radicalism - conservatism," which, he says, has always had
strong influences upon both the selection of research problems and the
conclusions drawn from research. "In a sense it is the master scale of
biases in the social science."13 It can be broken up into several biases like
282 WALTER GEORGE MUELDER
equalitarianism-aristocratism, environmentalism-biological determinism,

reformism-Iaissez-faire, and the like. Other scales include optimism-
pessimism, isolation-integration, and scientific integrity. The latter scale
bears on the degree to which a scientist is prepared to study unpopular
subjects and to state frankly the unpopular conclusions drawn from
such studies. As noted above, such problems may be related to the
degree of "political correctness" which dominates the atmosphere of a
campus.
Robert Cohen recognizes the above kinds of ambiguity candidly:
Was there, or might there have been, a feminist way with nature? Or might there be, or
was there, a proletarian science? .... Different models, different tests, different verifi-
cations? If we had selected different problems, perhaps there would have been a different
kind of science, or perhaps, to use a mechanical image, a different weight, a different
center of gravity, in a feminist or proletarian or a different-based science. 14
These are speculative problems, but the historical context of science,

he observes, is not speculative.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, the subjective morality of the creative
scientist and the external utilitarian dimension of science were parallel. The two went
together pretty well. It was the age of Little Science, in Derek Price's apt words. With
the swing to the twentieth-century industrialized Big Science, however, there was a shift
in the moral life of scientists. At this point the servants had become soldiers, with assigned
tasks to be carried OUt. 15
Certainly, the historical and social challenges enter into the direc-
tion of emphases in science, such as making and exploding an atomic
bomb, other weapons of mass destruction, the race for putting a human
being on the moon, the quest for a space station, the AIDS epidemic,
molecular biology and genetic concerns, and the like. From such Big
Science associated with technology like supercolliders, there is a "trickle
down" opportunity for pure research. And theory must sometimes seek
a solution for the problems raised by unexpected technological break-
throughs.
There are two value-laden aspects of science which at this point are
of interest in the development of the field. Though there is the value
of mutual respect in the democratic republic or community of scien-
tists, there is also keen competition and personal rivalry. They may lead
to excessive protection of one's work, on the one hand, or one's being
too eager to get published, a by-product of market-place practices in
the publish-or-perish polity of academia. In both cases there may be
premature closure with respect to verification and even refinement

of hypotheses. Fortunately, the public character of scientific checks on
experimentation and subsequent criticism, will eventually expose non-
sequiturs and lack of integrity, but the errors may reflect the social
relations of science. Fortunate also is the built-in rebellion in the scien-
tific mentality, which constantly operates to doubt assumptions and
nurtures an "epistemology of suspicion." Indeed, the essence of a uni-
versity at its best is to be dedicated to dissent. Though traditions should
be handed on, lest precious truth be lost, every dissertation at the research
level should be dedicated to making a contribution to knowledge, to
something new. The "knowledge class" should be the "dissent class"
of society, culture's bulwark against various "fundamentalisms." Yet,
rampant fundamentalisms are still a threat to free enquiry and liberal
democracy. After centuries, Pope John Paul II has acknowledged the
church's error in respect to Galileo, but new fundamentalisms rise to
be ideologies choking science as a "species-wide ideology."
The flip-side of the coin of dissent is the bias toward optimism. So
much obvious success has occurred in science and technology based
on it, that many persons believe there is a scientific and technological
"fix" to most any problem. However, much of society's treasure can
be wasted when new products are based on premature closure in scien-
tific theories and practices. Moreover, the prestige of science has fed a
rationalistic Liberalism in its belief in a unified structure of the world.
This, in turn, has historically carried a bias of a pre-established harmony
in the nature of things extending far beyond the Age of Enlightenment.
Many have assumed that free scientists, sharing their findings in a free
economic and political market, would produce an era of harmonious well-
being for everyone. Such a view, held quite explicitly in the nineteenth
century, still has its lure in the violence-beset twentieth and holds out
a utopian hope for the twenty-first millennium. Clearly, only slightly
modified versions of the integration of growth, progress and perfectibility
dominate in the optimism of certain conservative economic groups. For
them the tragic aspects of human life, culture and history are inadequately
addressed. Conflict and perversion are inescapable features of society.
Self-contradictions and self-centeredness pervade persons-in-community.
Their reality slips through the nets of rationalistic scientific enquiry which
is solely based on models of the pre-established harmony of the unified
structure of nature.
James Luther Adams has stated the tragic aspects of history succinctly:
284 wALTER GEORGE MUELDER
"When we say that history is tragic, we mean that the perversions and
failures in history are associated precisely with the highest creative
powers of humanity and thus with our greatest achievements.,,16 In
science and technology there is a tendency to think optimistically and
in a mode of linear development. But history amply illustrates that there
is no such unilinear development in moral achievement. Human volition
is highly ambiguous as are the contexts of science, for human freedom
is both a source of meaning and a source for the negation of meaning.
Medical cures, for example, based on disciplined science may become
the occasion for immoral license. Non-consenting patients may become
the objects rather than the subjects of medical research. As we shall
note below, the misuse of freedom has cumulatively led to an assault
on nature which constitutes in scientific enquiry and ethical practice a
major ecological crisis. Undoubtedly, the scientific temper has fed the
cognitive tradition that optimistically takes for granted the "idea of
unity in the world, in society, and in the structure of the individual
psyche." There can be, of course, as Bonaventura named it, "an affec-
tive science" which looks to a constructive interdisciplinary community,
fully cognizant of the non-rational and anti-rational tendencies in human
beings. Such work is radically dialectical when it faces the challenge
presented by Horkheimer at the opening of this essay. It belongs to the
great merit of Robert Cohen that he is an exponent of this inclusive philo-
sophical perspective. But on the whole, I must agree with Myrdal that
most social scientists still "are under the influence of the general tendency
of any man or any public not to want to be disturbed by deeply dis-
couraging statements about the social situation and impending trends
or by demands for fundamental changes of policy.,,17
Social policy is an important ingredient in the contextual equation
of science. In Myrdal's treatment of the American Dilemma in race
relations, for example, he stressed multiple causation and cumulative
causation. Cumulative causation as a principle led to the policy issues
of the "vicious circle" and the "benign circle." Social science, he pointed
out, has drawn heavily from the natural science notion of equilibrium.
For his pmt, Myrdal contended that for dynamic analysis of the process
of change in human relations, it is highly desirable to disengage one's
thinking from the stable equilibrium scheme. He put forward the hypo-
thetical explanatory scheme of the rational recognition of the cumulation
of forces. ls There are many factors that make up the dynamics of causal
relations. Any significant change in one of these forces will by the aggre-
gate weight of the cumulative effects running back and forth between
them all start the whole system moving in one direction or the other.
He based his hope for a benign circle on this dynamic principle of
multiple and cumulative causation. This takes account in social policy
of the role of the rank order of values and beliefs in a society. Analysis
of these values indicates a priority in the causative factors to be addressed.
Thus, in the current ecological crisis a ranking of the cumulative causes
of the crisis is indispensable in shaping social policy with respect to
the emphasis in scientific research on the crisis. This entails a series of
valuational judgments.
We tum now to another aspect of concern. Much advance in science
is the product of the convergence of many initially independent studies.
Science is dependent on the support it receives from private and public
sources which are sometimes impatient for results from their investments.
Fundamental research may take a long time to complete. Sponsors are
often expecting practical applications that warrant continuing funding.
Bernard D. Davis has noted that this is the case in genetic revolution
and that of molecular recombination. "The development of recombi-
nant DNA," he writes, "offers profound lessons on the nature of scientific
advance. Rather than being a single great discovery, it emerged from a
synthesis of a number of earlier discoveries each initially esoteric.
Moreover, it was quite unpredictable, like most highly original discov-
eries that open up new fields. Finally, the discovery of molecular
recombination illustrates the long delay that often occurs before basic
research yields major payoffs - a major point, since legislators had under-
standably been impatient that so few practical applications had emerged
after two decades of increasing support of molecular genetics. 19
This genetics breakthrough proved to be a real revolution in science,
since it affected a paradigm of the way nature was viewed, the assump-
tion that mutations can occur only randomly and cannot be directed,
and the assumption that our knowledge about the tempo and pattern of
evolution must come from indirect evidence. Induced genetic changes
raises fears among some persons equal to or exceeding the induced social
changes alluded to in Myrdal's research in social science. Some fears
among the public dealt with the possible dire consequences for the
human race and for the pollution and weakening of wild nature, roughly
analogous to some of the social and natural consequences of physics
related to the discoveries that nuclear energy could be implemented in
technology and weaponry. Such problems connected with genetics could
be the costs of wild areas, erosion of the soil, and the exacerbation of
the population problem. Some agronomists have stressed the dangerous
effects of further genetic domestication of crops over time. Hence the
genetics revolution poses problems for public policy. Bernard Davis
responds to the general problem as follows: "Micro-biologists and
molecular biologists now agree that regulations should be based on the
properties of the organism - whether potentially dangerous or likely to
be harmless - rather than treating variants produced by genetic engi-
neering as a special class because of the techniques used to obtain
them.,,20 On the scale of values Optimism-Pessimism, noted earlier, Davis
and his colleagues tend to fall on the optimistic end of the scale, while
admitting that "we surely cannot foresee where the genetic revolution
will take us ... nor can we solve these future problems for posterity.,,21
Once again, science shows itself to be inherently on the side of curiosity.
Taking the side of curiosity is, of course, a value bias that enters into
the eventual ecological equation, the cosmic world in which scientists
and public live, act, and have their being. But before turning to the
ecological issues explicitly, it is of interest to reflect further on science
as a global ideology. Taking future generations into account now, instead
of letting posterity pick up the pieces, may balance curiosity with what
Weisskopf called compassion.
There are ambiguities in Cohen's remark that science is the only
species-wide ideology. The point must not be pushed too far. David
Easton wrestles with the question of "the division, integration, and
transfer of knowledge" across disciplines and across cultures. The ambi-
guities may be more acute in the social than in the natural sciences,
but the issues of pluralism have broad concern for all knowledge. This
is due in part to increasing specialization and related problems. Non-
Western nations often meet science first in its applied form as technology
with power wielded in war and economic domination. Technology pushes
enquiry to its scientific roots and makes interest in science primarily
instrumental, rather than intrinsic. This tendency for Third World peoples
is reminiscent of the early days of American industry when Britain and
Europe were widely copied in technology and product processing.
Creative primary research came later.
When knowledge is transferred from one culture to another, Easton
notes, differing assumptions and perspectives come into play. Western
scholars organize knowledge differently from their Chinese colleagues,
for example. Western scholars may take a classic like Adam Smith's
Wealth of Nations, which dealt with morality as well as with economics,

and separate the latter element and attach it to a different theory of human
nature and ethics. Similarly, the humanism of Karl Marx can be radi-
cally transformed as his works migrate transnationally and transculturally
to China. Chinese social science is much less specialized than that in
the West. Just as most work in the University is multi-disciplinary rather
than interdisciplinary, so it may be trans-disciplinary rather than inter-
disciplinary when its specialties move from one culture to another. 22
For example, what is poverty? What does it mean? It is not, Easton writes,
exclusively economic; there is a culture of poverty, a social structure
of poverty, a politics of poverty. We may add that there is an ideology
of poverty and also an ethical "option for the poor" that modifies the
whole procedure of dealing with poverty as in "liberation theology and
ethics" in Latin America. Theologians speak of the "epistemological
privilege of the poor," because they can perceive factual realities, values
and relations which are missed by those in power who are blind to these
human realities. Consciousness-raising is fruitful for science also, espe-
cially when inter-structural methods are used integrating race, class,
gender, and transcendent values. Marx noted the radical difference
between only interpreting the world and seeking to change it. John Dewey
contrasted a retrospective and a prospective use of reason.
Easton points out that as the globalization of society and knowledge
proceeds, particularly as less-developed countries get into closer contact
with advanced technical and industrial societies, two tendencies have
emerged: the diffusion of natural and social science and the view that
it is "both natural and desirable for knowledge to accumulate into one
international pool of ideas and methods, accessible to all.'023 Yet, here
Cohen's principal concerns are in order - that scientists will be treated
as the footsoldiers of dominant interests and powers. This danger and
trend is not only a concern for the use and the projects of science, but
may reach into the scientific tools themselves. Easton holds: "Non-
Western scholars need to develop their own analytic, tools appropriate
to a native consciousness of their own culture." He asks, "Why should
we believe - except out of some cultural blindness or hubris - that our
experience in the West leads to universal criteria for the production of
reliable knowledge but that divergent experiences of other cultures fall
short of offering the same?" This question leads naturally to one of a
quest for substantive universalism. On this matter it may well be that
natural science is in advance of other forms of knowledge, but contex-
tual forces may treat science as a means to ideological ends. Must sub-
stantive universalism be preceded by methodological universalism? The
question is complicated by the fact that some non-western scholars see
the West as claiming, at least implicitly, that Western methods repre-
sent the way the mind works, discovered after two thousand years of
effort. 24 This is dubious.
Returning now to the national scene, what are the implications of
all the above for national policy in science and engineering? The pre-
eminence of U.S. scientists and engineers has often been noted. In 1984,
35 percent of all the science and technology articles published in a
set of the world's influential journals were authored by U.S. scientists
and engineers. It has come as a shock that this preeminence has not
guaranteed America's world industrial leadership. Preeminence in science
shows that the political economy can support a creative community,
but is not necessarily a begetter of wealth or of an economy that assures
employment for all. There may be mute, inglorious Einsteins as well
as Miltons in the "underclass" of the nations's cities.
The physicist, Lewis M. Branscomb, raises the question of a national
policy with the proposal that strong science must be coupled to strong
engineering. He holds that among the de facto elements in the present
policy of the United States is the proposition: "Fundamental research
in science is a public good and should be funded by the federal gov-
ernment, primarily in universities, in cooperation with state and private
sources." A related proposition states:
Vitality and creativity of science and technology are enhanced by scientific autonomy
and by federal restraint in both industrial technology and control of higher education.
This tradition of decentralized initiative draws strength from principles of intellectual
freedom rooted in the Bill of Rights. 25
As a matter of fact, since the national technical enterprise is bifurcated

between a private commercial economic sector with little R&D support
and a military sector receiving the majority of federal R&D investments,
this situation comprises a two-economy model. This is entailed in a
prevailing political perspective, based on military and/or large space
and energy projects, which results in a "spin-off or trickle-down model"
in technology. "Technology benefits from large and very complex engi-
neering projects, such as the Apollo program, the space station, or the
aerospace plane, arise from the notion that new science should be first
introduced into technology in a highly sophisticated application in which
unique new functions can justify high COSt.,,26 Branscomb contrasts this
"trickle-down" and linear new-science-to-technology model with the
Japanese "trickle-up" practice. In the latter case, new scientific discov-
eries are first introduced into low cost consumer products but at design
points that do not stress the function of the new technology, keeping risks
and costs low. 27
The upshot of de Jacto policy and its assumptions is that federally
funded R&D decisions are left to "a combination of the autonomous
decisions of the scientific community, the ambitions of the (federal)
agencies, and the political destiny of these ambitions when they reach
the Congress.'>28
Scientific progress does not inevitably lead to technological progress,
but technology "avails itself of science at every step of the innovation
process: conception, design, development, production, engineering, test-
ing, and field support.',29 They are interactive.
There is stress between science and engineering because of finan-
cial constraints to cover the peak funding rates for already started
projects, such as the space station, the superconducting super-collider,
and the aerospace plane, not to mention the program to sequence the
human genome. The historic conflict between "little science" and "big
science" threatens the prospects of novelty or originality in innovation.
Then, too, the advocates of science hold that it is the key to long-term
economic opportunity. Here the contrasting economic strategies of
Germany, Japan, and the U.S.A. are relevant as shown in the recent works
of Robert Reich, The Work oj Nations and Lester Thurow, Head to
Head as they assess the prospects for American capitalism in the next
century. In each case the role and relationship with government is crucial
as is the outlook and ethics of the capitalist leadership.
A strong case can be made for a policy whereby the National Science
Foundation focuses on basic research, whether its application will occur
relatively soon or far in the future. This case must be made because
increasingly knowledge-intensive industries are vital in international
trade.
The contemporary interpenetration of science, technology, engineering,
productive industry, and international trade requires that nations appre-
ciate their responsibilities to a common pool of basic innovation. This
observation reinforces the points made by Easton earlier. There is danger
when nations try to live off the store of fundamental science provided
by others. Branscomb pushes this point hard:
The net result of many nations trying to live off the table set by their competitors could
ultimately be a downward spiral in national investments in basic science, to the detri-
ment of worldwide technical progress and economic growth. Political leaders of nations
must be induced to think of the world pool of knowledge as a common resource to
which each must contribute as well as draw. 30
Intellectual protectionism is a formula for international disaster.

We come, finally, to a cluster of issues which Cohen noted among
the ambiguities of science, namely ecology, or nature itself taken as a
whole. He writes: "Because science is the only species-wide ideology,
if there is to be any nature to have a science of, that science must
include a new value: nature itself as context for the human species.,,31
Here theologians, philosophers, ethicists and scientists can join in the
enterprise of "loving nature", to note James A. Nash's felicitous book
title.
From their beginnings both science and Western religions have been
eager to master, possess, and subdue nature. The ecological crisis has
exposed many value-laden dilemmas as consequences of this attitude.
James A. Nash calls for a posture and program of "loving nature.,,32
So, too, in Carl Sagan's appeal to religious leaders to cherish the eco-
logical whole. In his appeal on behalf of scientists, he recognized that
the assults on the environment were not caused by anyone political group
or anyone generation.
Intrinsically, they are transnational, trans generational , and transideological. So are all
conceivable solutions. To escape these traps requires a perspective that embraces the people
of the planet and all generations yet to come .... Problems of such magnitude, and
solutions demanding so broad a perspective must be recognized from the outset as having
a religious as well as a scientific dimension. 33
We must note, therefore, both scientific, technological and ultimate

values. In 1988 the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
(IIASA) issued a report that dealt with the impact of climatic varia-
tions on agriculture and the human food supply, to which we shall first
tum.
Martin Parry stated that from "the growing evidence and increasing
concentrations of carbon dioxide and other radiatively active trace gases
in the atmosphere" there will be "a long-term effect on the world's
climate. ,,34 Preliminary estimates had indicated that warmer climate may
cause a northward shift in mid-to-high-latitude cereal-growing zones.
"This shift could be on the order of several hundred kilometers per degree
of centigrade change.,,35 Continual research is needed to plan sound

strategies of response, to assay opportunities for agriculture, to relate
short-term to long-term effects of climate changes and to indicate appro-
priate adjustments and policies to mitigate or exploit the effects of warmer
climate.
Eleven regions of the world were chosen for the project done as case
studies. Different regions will probably be impacted differently. Cool
regions are likely to feel the most pronounced impact of climate warming
on their agricultural potential. Semiarid regions will be subject to short-
term disasters such as severe droughts and floods. The economic effects
in each case could be very great. The greenhouse effect on the produc-
tion of rice, for example, in Japan could be "an acute surplus of expensive
rice, which would require drastic government action for its disposal."
The collateral problem in international markets and for trade policies
could exacerbate an already critical problem. The point is that scien-
tific research on aspects of ecological problems quickly translates into
a plethora of compenetrating issues, showing how closely science and
social policy are related in the contemporary world. Everywhere in the
world adjustments in agriculture will be taking place in one dimensions
or another of ecology. The causes are multicausal and the effects are
cumulative. Without scientifically responsible adjustments and wise
policies, food supplies would be seriously threated globally. Cross-
disciplinary enquiry into both social values, scientific methods, and
new technology can conceivably build a constructive ethical whole.
Meanwhile, both persons and governments suffer from radical changes
in their ecosystems. Substitutes are costly, such as using commercial
fertilizers when soils are losing their natural fertility; when rivers have
to be dredged because of floods and soil erosion farther upstream; when
crops fail because insect pollination declined with indiscriminate use
of pesticides; when the air is polluted in areas once filtered by lush
vegetation, and the like. Technological fixes are thus often both expen-
sive and disastrous. "Inadvertent tinkering with the physiology of the
planet," made possible by science, becomes a threat to carrying forward
any science whatever.
The theme is recurrent: to think ecologically requires that thinking
be interdisciplinary and adhere to interdisciplinary policies. Ecology is
a wholistic problem with many interdependent parts or aspects. Nathan
Keyfits raises the question why the ecological crisis could have come
upon us so suddenly. Perhaps economic and biological research, oper-
ating so independently, may illustrate both the scientific and the social
policy crises. The answer, he says, is not in biology or in economics
alone, "but only in the interaction between the growth of population
and human institutions, on the one hand, and the natural system on the
other. It is this interaction that non-linearity turns Up.,,36 For example, the
ocean fisheries involve the interaction of two systems: the fish market
confronts the biology of fish reproduction. The meeting point is popu-
lation growth and harvest sustainability. When the sustainability of the
ecological system is exceeded by overfishing, then "even without any
further increase of human population or of demand in relation to the
smaller fishery, the overfishing will be itself intensify. Though fish are
scarcer, the higher price may make them more interesting to producers.
Further capitalization in the competition to catch what fish are left can
be a rational economic response. Depending on how the price change
compares with the change in fishing effort, all per kilogram of catch,
rising prices can bring new entrants into the fishery just in the phase
of declining capacity of the biological system. When the fishery needs
rest, the market impels more intense search and capture.,,37
A major pressure in the ecological crisis is population growth, a
point with which we shall conclude this essay. Scholars like Jessica
Tuchman Mathews put population growth at the core of the environmental
trends. She argues that accompanying population growth, world economic
activity has occurred on an unprecedented scale. Global economic activity
has quadrupled since 1950 and must continue to grow just to meet basic
human needs, not to speak of lifting people out of poverty. Yet economic
activity means more energy use, more emissions and wastes, more land
converted from its natural state, and more need for products of natural
systems. 38 Population control must be an ingredient of any responsible
ecological program. To argue that the scientifically advanced nations
must learn to live more simply in order that others can simply live is
compassionate, but is only one aspect of the over-population issue.
The interdisciplinary work of scientists and policy makers, respecting
the participatory claims of the most disadvantaged and the claims of
sustainability of ecosystems, must be guided by value systems appro-
priate to the multicausal and cumulative challenges. To a degree that
Francis Bacon could not envisage, his aphorism, "Nature to be com-
manded, but be obeyed," has both old and new meaning.
The ambiguities of this essay compounding those so insightfully raised
by Prof. Cohen may be painful realities in the century ahead. Lester
Thurow warns: "The histories of the world's richest countries illustrate

an iron law of economic development, no country can become rich
without a century of good economic performance and of very slow
population growth. Many of today's poor countries have population
growth rates between 3 and 4 percent. If Japan, Germany, and the United
States had had such rates of population increase, their standards of
living today would be no higher than they were one hundred years ago."39
The ambiguities must be addressed with both species-wide compassion
and species-wide curiosity.
Boston University
NOTES
I Quoted in Bulletin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLII, no. 6, March,
1989, p. 14.
2 Leroy Rouner (ed.), Foundations of Ethics, being vol. 4 of the Boston University Studies
in Philosophy and Religion. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press,
1983.
} Ibid., p. 224.
4 Ibid., p. 223.
5 Ibid., p. 230.
6 Quoted by Subrahamyan Chandresekar, 'The Perception of Beauty and the Pursuit of
Science', Bulletin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLII, no. 8, May, 1989,
p. 15.
7 OUo Nathan and Henry Norden (eds.), Einstein on Peace. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1960, p. 535.
8 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944,
p. 104l.
9 Ibid., p. 1043.
10 Ibid., p. 103l.
II Ibid., p. 1036.
12 Ibid., p. 1029.
]} Ibid., p. 1038.
14 Op. cit., p. 226.
15 Loc. cit.
16 James Luther Adams, On Being Human Religiously, Second edition. Max L.
Stackhouse (ed.), Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, p. 47.
17 Myrdal, op. cit., p. 1038.
18 Ibid., Appendix 3, 'A Methodological Note on the Principle of Cumulation', pp.
1065-1070.
19 Bernard B. Davis, 'The Genetic Revolution, Scientific Prospects and Public
Perspectives', Bulletin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLV, no. 1, Oct.,
1991, pp. 7-8.
20 Ibid., p. 13.
21 Ibid., p. 14.
22 David Easton, 'The Division, Integration, and Transfer of Knowledge', Bulletin,
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLIV, no. 4, Jan., 1991.
23 Ibid., pp. 21-22.
24 Ibid., p. 24.
25 Lewis M. Branscomb, 'Policy for Science in 1989: A Public Agenda for Economic
Renewal', Bulletin, American Academy for Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLII, no. 3, December,
1988, p. 15.
26 Ibid., p. 17.
27 Ibid., p. 18.
28 Ibid., p. 19.
29 Ibid., p. 21.
30 Ibid., p. 27.
31 Foundations of Ethics, p. 233.
32 James A. Nash, Loving Nature: Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility.
Washington, D.C.: Abingdon Press and the Churches Center for Theology and Public
Policy, 1991.
33 For a full text of the scientists' appeal and response from religious leaders, see Parade
Magazine, March I, 1992.
34 lIAS A Report, Bulletin, American Academy of arts and Sciences, Vol. XLII, no. 8,
May, 1989.
35 Ibid., p. 30.
36 Nathan Keyfits, Report in Bulletin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol.
XLV, no. 3, Feb., 1992.
37 Ibid., p. 7.
38 Jessica Tuchman Mathews, 'Environment, Development, and International Security',
Bulletin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLIII, no. 7, April, 1990,
p. 12.
39 Lester Thurow, Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle among Japan, Europe,
and America. New York: William Morrow, 1992, p. 207.
DEBRA NAILS
SOCRATES AND PLATO:

UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD AND CHANGING IT
As Socrates is said to have been attracted to the natural philosophy of

Anaxagoras in his youth, Bob Cohen's PhD was in physics, and the
textbook he authored in that subject is still widely used. As Socrates
irritated powerful Athenians who put him on trial, Bob ran honourably
afoul of the McCarthyites and was consequently denied tenure at
Wesleyan (where he was later to be named a trustee). True, there was
no hemlock, but his brush with academic oblivion was a harsh lesson
in the importance of institutional support. While I would not presume
to pronounce what his motives were in founding, with Marx Wartofsky,
the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science, the Boston
Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, the Boston Philosophy of
Science Association, and various affiliated editorial and other projects,
I have no compunctions whatever about championing the important
consequences of the establishment of those institutions.
Modern universities are too large and too internally diverse to be
academies in Plato's sense. But the complex of institutions I have just
named became powerful enough in its own right to accomplish much that
a host university could never have, and powerful enough to act inde-
pendently of its host. The Center quickly developed into a community
of academics - many hundreds of academics and independent scholars
over the years - a large number of whom found in the Center the only
academic community they had ever known, the hallmark of which was,
and is, serious conversation about research. This has been particularly
the case for overseas visitors and fellows from dozens of countries, coun-
tries as diverse politically as Cuba and South Africa. Some Boston-
Cambridge residents have been regulars at the Colloquium for decades,
others have been occasional participants or sideliners attending inter-
mittently; many have made themselves available as resources to Center
fellows from abroad. And Son-of-Boston-Colloquium has sprung up in
distant cities as visitors have returned home inspired to perpetuate their
Boston experience.
What I present below is a solution to the Socratic problem, that noto-
rious tangle of questions - who Socrates really was, what he really
295
K. Gavroglu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 295-313

296 DEBRA NAILS
thought, how that may have differed from what Plato thought, what Plato
wrote, what others wrote - that derives from Socrates's having written
nothing himself. Many have thought that inconsistencies and contra-
dictions in Plato's dialogues could be explained by attributing some
positions to Socrates and others to Plato. I I have a different solution,
one that depends not on who Socrates and Plato were, not on what doc-
trines they held, but on what they did, how they conducted philosophy.
My experiences over ten years in South Africa have enabled me to see
more resonance between the philosophical lives of Socrates and Plato,
and our own, than I had recognized before; and I can now understand
something that puzzled me years ago: "There are plenty of books," Bob
would often reply to those, including me, who attempted to persuade him
to elaborate and publish some useful and interesting position or other.
How was so flippant a retort to be reconciled with his concrete encour-
agement of so many others to begin, continue, and complete their books?
If Bob Cohen resisted setting out a systematic philosophy between hard
covers, in favor of many shorter works on topics geared to the inter-
ests and needs of his diverse audiences, well, so did Plato. Community
building, both difficult and rare, is also noble.
SOCRATES'S CONDUCT OF PHILOSOPHY
Socrates conversed on the agora and in other public and private places
with a variety of different people (young and old, male and female,
slave and free) - that is, with virtually anyone he could persuade to
join with him in his question-and-answer method of conversing about
serious matters. Many of these conversations were likely to have been
quite short, with people coming and going, picking up and dropping lines
of argument; but some may have lasted for as long as a few hours (an
afternoon, an evening) and may have involved only one or two other
people. Yet the fact that Socrates had such success in attracting people
to him, enough to make Athenians suspicious and angry, is contingent
evidence that, for the most part, his conversations were lively and
stimulating; He probably did not give eloquent speeches, for example.
Sophists lectured, and so did rhetors, with much display, and anyone who
wished could hear these fellows hawking their doctrines in public places
in Athens; while it is true that some of Socrates's protreptic discourses
in, say, the Gorgias are short enough that he could have held the atten-
tion of an audience if he had delivered them in the agora, it is more likely
SOCRATES AND PLATO 297
that he confined his practice almost exclusively to what he became

noted for, the question-and-answer method of inquiring into ethical
matters. For reasons I will discuss below, question-and-answer works
better in the conduct of philosophy than speeches, and the philosoph-
ical Socrates was someone who valued methods that work. Socrates
was serious in his efforts to improve souls by fostering insight and under-
standing and thus serious about conducting philosophy, and concerned
with good results. 2
Unlike speeches, or texts for that matter, a great advantage of oral con-
versation is that it can be adapted exactly to the needs and interests of
one's dialectical partner, and modified as radically and as often as neces-
sary throughout the inquiry, keeping one's partner actively involved
and thinking. Confusions can be overcome at an early stage, and the ques-
tioner can choose vocabulary and presentation appropriate to the person
being addressed. Examples can come from real life, implying a force and
vividness that make encounters memorable. Socrates in the dialogues
of both Plato and Xenophon seems sometimes to be in the presence of,
almost pointing to, some artisan at work. Similarly, Socrates's face-to-
face oral methods enable him to draw a diagram in the dust if need be.
But these are mostly practical matters that enhance the effect of the
oral conduct of philosophy, rather than matters essential to the practice
itself.
Also on the periphery of the practice is its connection to other aspects
of Athenian life that would have been familiar to Socrates's interlocu-
tors: that is, some of the techniques of question-and-answer were not
unique to philosophy, but could be observed in the assembly or law court.
By contrast, in the case of Socratic questioning, one thing that marks a
difference in attitude is that the partner's participation is usually volun-
tary. While there are notable cases of Socrates's shaming interlocutors
into continuing a discussion past their desire (usually past their having
been refuted), these are the exception.
The oral conduct of philosophy is personal, and the importance of that
fact in its success can hardly be overrated. 3 While the ultimate goal of
the inquiry might be the definition of one of the virtues, or the recon-
ciliation of a controversy over names, the immediate object of discussion
is always someone's beliefs. When one's own beliefs are being chal-
lenged, one's attention is charged; and even when it is one's friend who
is under the gun, one must be attentive because no one is certain who
might next be asked a stunning question, or invited to assume the mantle
298 DEBRA NAILS
of defending a targeted position. The more sincerely one holds the beliefs
being examined, the more seriously one is likely to take the discussion.
But other forms of questioning than the type we associate with Socrates
elicit rapt attention as well, even the demand for recall of memorized
information. A defining trait of the dialectical method as opposed to
others is that the answers provided by one's partner actually shape the
discussion itself. The dialectic, whether in elenctic, psychagogic, or some
other form, reincorporates responses to determine each successive move
in the process. While the questioner bears responsibility for keeping
the discussion within the very broad parameters set by the issue under
discussion and a few general principles of logic, the particular course
of any given conversation is unknown except as it unfolds in the dialec-
tical activity itself.
Another set of factors in accounting for the success of oral philosophy
is that the experience of reaching a state of confusion, or of realizing that
one's own cherished belief cannot be true, or the sheer pleasure of
drawing a valid inference, is almost always a more profound one than
auditing or reading a treatise-style account, however true. The truths
that one arrives at through the dialectical process are one's own in some
fairly classic senses: one's own intellectual labors have been exerted in
reaching them, and they are defensible because an account can be
provided. This is a fact about the conduct of philosophy that Plato, at
least, considers in admirable detail, particularly in the Meno and the
Gorgias where the disadvantages of having "learned" the "truth" from
an "authority" - one's sophist or rhetor teacher - are explored: the student
forgets the details of the authoritative account and cannot defend the
position under attack, usually having forgotten the reasons why the
position is supposed to be true. If the Meno is any sort of guide to oral
methods, which it purports to be, then the accomplishment of a teacher
like Socrates is twofold: he instills a desire to seek the truth (as opposed
to the sophistic desire to defeat an opponent or entertain onlookers);
and he teaches in situ a method to guide the search (as opposed to
adopting the canned truths offered in speeches that will later be forgotten
or found to be indefensible).
But the intellectual work of seeking the truth, pursuing excellence,
is never complete; one can never rest satisfied with one's conclusions.
In other words, the pursuit itself must be construed as an objective also.
One of the most conspicuous features of Socrates's method is its very
tentativeness. Not only is aporia characteristic of the "conclusion" of
many of his conversations, but one of the options available to inter-

locutors when aporia occurs is a return to questioning the assumptions
with which that particular discussion began. Moreover, the same subjects
can always be raised another time, beginning with new assumptions
incompatible with those of previous discussions. The doors of inquiry
are never allowed to swing shut behind him. This characterizes the most
significant contribution of Plato to the history of philosophy: the double
open-endedness of philosophical method. I say "Plato" here only because
it is he who immortalizes it, no matter whether the philosophical Socrates
or he himself developed it and realized its power and importance.
In determining which dialogues are Socratic, that is, which ones depict
a Socrates involved in the oral conduct of philosophy as I have just
described it, method is the crux. Moreover, the question-and-answer
method of Socrates is very much broader than mere elenchus. Socrates
does more than weed out false beliefs from among the true; the dialec-
tical activity into which he attracts others is a process that has positive
aspects as well, the instilling of a desire for truth, and the provision of
a method for undertaking inquiry. The philosophical Socrates has plenty
of strings for his bow, and can accommodate an astonishing range of
different types of intelligence and interest and philosophical task. It is
not too much to say that the signal feature of his philosophical practice,
as opposed to that of the more ordinary philosopher who might adopt
his methods, is Socrates's flexibility, his capacity for adapting to a wide
variety of partners, rooting out falsehoods, demonstrating the use of philo-
sophical techniques, but also bringing out in each individual whatever
philosophical ideas are ready for birth. 4
In such an activity, the doctrinal content of the Socratic dialectical
process is of secondary importance, at best. So long as the learner
approaches doctrines critically rather than believing them because they
are the pronouncements of authorities, it does not matter much what
beliefs are taken up and defended at any particular time. I reject the
hallowed custom in Plato studies strictly to limit Socrates's interests to
ethics. To do so requires suppressing, or stretching interpretations of,
passages in all three primary sources on Socrates: Aristophanes, Plato,
and Xenophon. Thus, when I characterize a dialogue as "Socratic", I refer
to method alone.
For all the good that can come of philosophical interaction with
Socrates, however, I emphasize that there are no guarantees that his
methods will work on any particular individual. Alexander Nehamas, who
300 DEBRA NAILS
explores Nietzsche's ambivalent attitude toward Socrates,5 catalogues the

failures, "Protagoras, Gorgias, Polus, Callicles, Hippias, Euthydemus, and
Dionysiodorus remain unmoved. So do Euthyphro, Ion, and Meno."
And those are only the less infamous failures. Critias, Charmides, and
Aristoteles were among the Thirty Tyrants, and Alcibiades betrayed
Athens to the Spartans. Nehamas argues that a certain character is
required to do philosophy in the first place and, claiming sanction from
"middle" Plato, criticizes Socrates as someone who, "imprudently encour-
ages everyone, whatever their moral fiber, to become well versed in
the sort of argument that can as easily destroy as establish moral value"
[1992b: 281]. In the first place, so far as we know, arguments had nothing
to do with the heinous crimes of the worst of these people, nor were
the others taught to argue by Socrates but by sophists. Second, although
I have some sympathy generally with reluctance to arm one's enemies,
we have such a thin historical record for the association of most of
these men with Socrates that the evidence is difficult to evaluate. Not
only do we have no idea whatever what their character was like before
they became famous and infamous, we do not even know how much time
they spent with Socrates and with rhetors and with sophists and with their
mothers. But third, would Socrates not be even more at fault if he made
no effort to win so charming and promising a young man as Alcibiades
to philosophy, or if he shunned Critias for fear the man would learn some-
thing? I grant that it is difficult to imagine that these two, at least, could
have been much worse if they had not associated with Socrates, but we
do not and cannot know whether that is so. I do not shrink from saying
that the Socratic method sometimes fails, but I am unwilling to say in
advance that any particular traits of character should be prerequisite
for admission. 6
Why it fails when it fails is my next objective. The fact alluded to
above, that some people are so (fill in the blank: stupid, evil,
psychologically disturbed, preoccupied ...) that the desire to seek truth
never takes hold, or the method is never acquired, is real enough; and
the openness with which Socrates conducted philosophy meant concretely
that such people could enter into the discussions Socrates conducted if
they wished. At least they could hang about to sneer and jeer and distract
the group from the serious activity of philosophy. But Socrates may in
fact have been quite good at discouraging those who had no ability, so
I am disinclined to make this a central reason for the failure of the
method. An equal cause, if personalities are at issue, may have been

that Socrates's reputation (confused as it was with those of the sophists)
probably limited the amount of time serious youths were allowed by their
upright fathers to spend in his company.
There is a more serious reason for the failure: with mere oral teaching
there is no common background that guarantees the level of the dis-
cussion. In the MenD, it first had to be established that the slave knew
Greek and a few geometrical definitions before the demonstration could
begin, but a great deal more background than that, not only in techniques
but in content, is required if philosophical conversations are to get
anywhere. In the time-bound periods available to him, moreover, there
was no way for Socrates to introduce a systematic body of doctrine
that all those around him could be expected to digest critically so the
group as a whole could discuss the content. And the group was very
unlikely to be the same from day to day, much less year to year. While
it is true that Socrates's practice went on for many years and that each
new age cohort could benefit in some ways from the experience of
being questioned by Socrates, "advanced" education, building on a shared
critical understanding of others' intricately argued positions, was impos-
sible with oral methods alone. The flip side of not being able to look
critically at a systematic body of doctrine and to analyze it effectively
is the lack of opportunity to build anything positive oneself. For all the
years of conversation, there was no positive body of evidence, nothing
to demonstrate that the Socratic method was capable of bearing fruit.
There is a closely related detrimental effect of Socrates's having used
only oral methods that should be mentioned. Plato lived long enough
to see Socrates claimed as the founder or taken up as the inspiration
behind nearly every philosophical movement of the fourth century. 7 Some
would say it is a disadvantage of the oral conduct of philosophy that one's
views and methods can be represented variously and commandeered to
any purpose. A story from the Ion (533d-e) can be appropriated to good
use here. As a magnet not only holds but in turn magnetizes iron rings
and bits of iron, forming a long chain of such rings and bits in suspen-
sion from one another (which, according to the story, is how the Muse
inspires the poet who inspires the rhapsode etc.), but each less well
magnetized and held than the last, so is the philosopher who writes
nothing.
302 DEBRA NAILS
PLATO'S ACADEMY
The failures of the Socratic method and the reasons for those failures
mayor may not have been what consciously motivated Plato to estab-
lish the Academy in about 387. He, like Gorgias's student Isocrates
only three years before, may have been responding to the abhorrent
condition of education in Athens, described by Isocrates in Against the
Sophists:
If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead
of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfil, they would not be in such bad
repute with the lay-public. As it is, however, the teachers who do not scruple to vaunt
their powers with utter disregard of the truth have created the impression that those who
choose a life of careless indolence are better advised than those who devote themselves
to serious study. (291.1, Norlin trans.)
One way to combat the insidious influence of the sophists was to set
up a school in public opposition to the claims they made for their
methods. Or, to consider another possibility, Plato may simply have
been eager to find an honourable career for himself outside the polit-
ical realm he held in such contempt. But I am not concerned with motives.
The founding of the Academy, whatever Plato's intentions, and whatever
else it accomplished, removed two impediments to the Socratic oral
method.
By setting up a formal school, Plato simultaneously placed himself
in a position to exclude those whom he discovered to be incapable of,
or insincere about, the rigourous study of philosophy, and provided a
respectable alternative institution for youths in search of higher educa-
tion. The kind of fathers who had objected to their sons' keeping company
with Socrates and the riffraff around him, could hardly object to the
aristocratic Plato's philosophical school. Thus was assured a commu-
nity of aspirants to philosophy, serious and like-minded enough to desire
the instruction available there.
The schools of Athens, so far as we know, were not cults for initiates. 8
But because the Academy, unlike the agora, was a closed community
in the sense that one's affiliation was formal, it was as necessary and
appropriate for Plato as it had been for Isocrates, to publicize the edu-
cational goals and activities that one could expect to embrace if one
joined. Of the publication of his Against the Sophists, Isocrates wrote,
"when these works had been written and distributed, I gained a wide-
spread reputation and attracted many pUpilS."9 The Gorgias, whether
or not it was so used, made a perfect "college brochure," contrasting

Socratic oral methods with three successively less reputable characters:
Gorgias (a rhetor, still alive and teaching in 387), Polus (like Isocrates,
a student of Gorgias), and Callicles (a sophist). If, as Socrates demon-
strates (371e7-427al), rhetoric is worthless in seeking the truth, and
yet Socrates - even within the same dialogue - engages in speechmaking,
what are we to think? One possibility is that Plato is saying to poten-
tial students, if you want to learn to make speeches, we can teach you
that too, but it is not what is really important, and if you come to the
Academy, you will come to see why that is so. There is the corroborating
story from a fragment of one of Aristotle's dialogues about "a Corinthian
farmer who read Plato's Gorgias, and was so impressed by it that he
left his fields and vines and went to Athens to become one of Plato's
pupils" (fr. 64 Rose, Harvey trans.). Whether there is so much as a
grain of truth in this or other such stories, I invoke it here to empha-
size a point that slips away very often in the interpretation of Plato:
his philosophical practice, like that of Socrates, was embedded in the
social relations of his time.
THE PLATONIC DIALOGUES
Just as there are a number of different plausible motives for Plato's having
established the Academy in Athens when he did, dozens of motivations
for his writing, and for his writing dialogues, have been proffered.
Whatever Plato may have intended, however, two things are clear. First,
there were plenty of existing genres available to him, and precedents
for many of the literary techniques he uses, so he was not compelled
to use the dialogue from, and - since Socratic logoi were being written
by others at the same time, including at least one philosopher elder to
Plato, Antisthenes - there is no particular reason to claim for Plato the
invention of that genre for his special purposes. Second, and of material
importance to the distinction I advocate between the philosophical
Socrates and Plato, the dialogues systematically compensate for the
deficiencies of the Socratic oral method identified above: lack of shared
background to guarantee the level of discussion; inability to introduce
large and complex philosophical systems for analysis: and inability to
produce positive contributions to philosophy. The dialogues do this, as
I will show, without relinquishing what is most valuable in the oral
conduct of philosophy.
304 DEBRA NAILS
If students of the Academy read existing treatises, pre-Socratic philoso-

phers, rhetors, and sophists in primary sources, the first two defects in
the Socratic method would thereby be compensated without Plato's
having to write a word. With whatever intention, Plato took some trouble
to layout the philosophical views of recognizable others in his own
dialogues. to But the Academy, at least if it was succeeding in attracting
good philosophical minds, would have been developing philosophical
positions and methods as worth pursuing intellectually as some of the
"ancient" texts, so these too presumably deserved to be recorded in
such a way that they could be consulted and challenged systematically.
But if Plato were to write treatises, he would thereby negate most of
the positive features of the oral conduct of philosophy identified above:
the fact that the dialectic is personal (with its several subordinate
benefits), the emphasis on acquiring a method rather than doctrines,
and the double open-endedness of the dialectic.
Dialogues preserve and extend the benefits of Socrates's methods,
as represented in the dialogues, in three interrelated ways that would have
been impossible for treatises, and these are worth considering individ-
ually. First, as I have said, the single most important contribution made
to the history of philosophy by the philosophical Socrates and Plato is
a dialectical method that leaves both the assumptions with which inquiry
begins, and its conclusions, radically open to further challenge. II The dia-
logues both illustrate and instantiate that doubly open-ended method,
not only at the fine levels of Socratic openness to interlocutor sugges-
tion, the critical return to assumptions made previously, and frequent
aporia, but at the level of whole dialogues that begin with incom-
patible assumptions, take different paths, and reach different destinations
on the same subject (the Gorgias vs. the Protagoras, for example). This
crucial move of Plato's has the effect of changing the focus from doctrine
to method, the process of philosophy. Further, it is not only positions and
arguments that remain subject to scrutiny: crucially, the dialectical method
itself, its assumptions, its procedures, and its results - all are subject
to radical challenge. 12 Why not several treatises arguing from contra-
dictory premises to contradictory conclusions like the puzzles of Zeno
or the antinomies of Kant? The easy answer is that treatises exhibit
only one method and, anyway, that is what the sophists were already
doing, with the palpable effect of undermining the search for truth by
representing the truth as relative, a view often under attack in the dia-
logues. But the more difficult answer is tied to the next positive feature.
The second major consequence of the dialogue form, as opposed to

that of the treatise, for preserving Socratic method is its emphasis that
the process of philosophy is an irreducibly socially embedded activity,
that the positions advocated by particular individuals derive from their
teachers, their ambitions, and their social and economic backgrounds,
as well as from whatever natural ability to philosophize they may have.
Part of the effect of the personal nature of the elenchus is thereby main-
tained, enabling students to see themselves, so to speak, in the dialogues
and join in the dispute at any and all points. And, insofar as Plato may
have used arguments in the dialogues that had recognizable histories in
explicit Academic discussions (as Holger Thesleff has argued for
Aristotle's role in the Parmenides, for example), he would further have
protected the oral dialectic's role in respecting and reintegrating the
contributions of individuals. 13 There is a vitality associated with pre-
sentation in dialogue form that exposition rarely touches. Rhetoricians
believed that the medium profoundly influenced whether the hearer
accepted the message, and thus wrought lovely speeches that captivated
their audiences and rendered them more receptive to their ideas - this
is a capsule summary of a goal of a person like, say, Gorgias. What
Plato does instead is to present Gorgias's method in full form, then either
take it apart in the dialogue itself (as in the Phaedrus), or allow that to
happen elsewhere, probably in discussion in the Academy.
Third, the effect of the dialogues as we have inherited them is to make
it difficult or impossible - I suspect it is the latter - to figure out pre-
cisely what Plato himself believed. Is that because members of the
Academy already knew? I think not. Rather, as Michael Frede has argued
so sensibly, it is because Plato strenuously resisted setting himself up
as an expert, an authority, in the way Athenians persistently did in
Socrates's presence. 14 If Plato had written treatises, he would have run
the risk that associates in the Academy would have believed particular
doctrines because the master promulgated them, rather than developing
their own accounts and defenses. Consequently, I believe it is incon-
ceivable that Plato would conceal his doctrines systematically in such
a way that they could be recovered. The dialogues of Plato are there
for all to read and reject or embrace in whole or in part, without his
insinuating himself between the reader and the written word. Individuals,
ultimately, must do their own intellectual work, develop their own jus-
tifications for their own true beliefs, if they are to have knowledge and
virtue.
306 DEBRA NAILS
In short, Plato's invoking a theory, by assigning the statement of it

to his character Socrates for example, need not mean he advocates it,
or that some way must be found to make that statement consistent with
others on the same topic - even in dialogues that have been thought to
have been written at about the same time. But of course Plato's philo-
sophical practice is not limited to setting out others' positions and
methods in any case. The dialogues develop a variety of positions and
methods, some recognizably those of other philosophers, some that
contradict others, but far more often positions that are variants of one
another: different accounts of the forms, of recollection, of knowledge
as infallible and of the real - all broadly considered Platonic. This is
far from the claim that Plato was at heart a relativist (a position criticized
effectively in the dialogues) or a skeptic - either in the sense that he
had no doctrines, or in the sense that he argued for none in the dia-
logues. On the contrary, Plato sets his characters to argue forcefully for
some doctrines; but here is the catch: discussion is never closed and
the production of dogma is not a goal. 15 As illustrated by the Socratic
oral method in the dialogues, and as instantiated by the dialogues them-
selves, not only do conclusions remain controversial, but the very starting
points of the dialectic are left exposed to later attack.
THE ORAL AND THE WRITTEN COMBINED '6
No matter how successfully the dialogues systematically compensate

for the defects in Socrates's oral method while retaining its best features,
and even though many of the dialogues illustrate better examples of effec-
tive dialectical conversation than we are likely to have in the flesh, the
written word does inevitably invite system-building, even if its misin-
terpretation is required for that purpose. Plato's dialogues are in fact often
treated in the literature as reservoirs of Plato's own doctrines to be
structured hierarchically in accordance with some principle or other.
One of the ways that Plato could best achieve the open-endedness
exemplified in the dialogues was by keeping Socratic oral method alive
in the Academy itself where it had more of an opportunity to thrive
than in the agora. We have a few overt indications that he did so. For
one thing, there is the representation of elenchus and other question-
and-answer techniques in so many of the dialogues. If the Socratic oral
method were a poor method, one or two examples of it would have
provided all the ammunition required for effective criticism. The fact that
it is illustrated again and again in the dialogues indicates the method itself
was worth studying and repeating. For another, there are explicit recom-
mendations in the dialogues about how to conduct dialectical argument,
some of which hark back to exactly those methods we associate with
the oral conduct of philosophy.17
But none of this implies that the dialogues were expendable or even
secondary to oral philosophy, and our best indications are that the two
methods worked in close association: dialogues were perfect occasions
for analysis and critique, for philosophizing, in Plato's time as well as
ours. And verbalizing disagreement was (as it is) a good way to keep
the views represented in the dialogues from fossilizing. The blunt instru-
ment against relying too slavishly on oral methods alone is the sheer
fact that Plato established the Academy and wrote (and kept on writing)
dialogues; but finer tools are also available. Two lines of argument have
been used to subordinate the role of the written word generally, and
the dialogues specifically, that I want to consider for a moment in order
to reject them. The first is that Plato mistrusted the written word, and
the second is that the dialogues are merely for philosophical beginners.
Too much has been made of the anti-writing remarks in the Phaedrus
(whether or not they are explicitly supported by comments in Epistle
7):
Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures
of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn
silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intel-
ligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say
only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about,
alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows
not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always
needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself. ls
Plato's Socrates has, by then, already expressed the opinion that it is

not all writing that is shameful ("The disgrace, I fancy, consists in
speaking or writing not well, but disgracefully and badly," Phaedrus
258d). I suggest now extending the context of the passage to see that
such remarks against writing were not peculiar to Plato, not related to
any special penchant he had for privileging the oral, but simply common.
Xenophon gives Socrates several pages at Memorabilia 4.2 to poke fun
at the sophist Euthydemus for his collection of books; and Isocrates
says in Epistle 1 that "all men trust the spoken word more than the written
word" (Harris trans.; cf. Isocrates 5 [Philip] 25-27). I grant that neither
308 DEBRA NAILS
passage is so thoroughly devastating to bad writing as Plato's, but my

point is only that the view expressed in Plato's Phaedrus is not unique.
If the context is extended further to "ordinary" fourth-century Athenians,
a wealth of citations has been produced by others that writing was not
trusted. 19 Plato's mistrust of writing has been overestimated, given the
weight of his having written so much himself. One thing that is not an
issue, however, though related to the spoken and the written, is whether
the dialogues were themselves read aloud or even performed, rather
than read silently by individuals in the Academy.20 What is at issue is
the difference in effect between codified argument and free, dialectical
conversation. Both were necessary to a philosophical education, and
we are not entitled to privilege the oral on the basis of the Phaedrus.
It has sometimes been held that the type of conversation illustrated
in the dialogues is itself evidence that they were useful in educating philo-
sophical beginners but not advanced students. Specifically, a question
that eventually puzzles many students of the dialogues is, Why is it
that no dialogue illustrates a mature philosophical conversation between
equals? Several things can be said in reply. One is that, even in con-
temporary philosophical life, it is typical for one person to defend a
carefully researched and argued view, the details of which are not as
familiar to one's auditors or even interlocutors or commentators. Another
is the Platonic methodological advice that the questioner and the answerer
should exchange roles frequently. Still another is that there are examples
in the dialogues of opposing positions being developed by characters
other than Socrates (especially in the Phaedo). I would add that the corpus
taken as a whole is an excellent and instructive instance of both combat
and cooperating among mature philosophical theories: the Parmenides
against the Phaedo and the Republic; the Republic vs. the Politic us vs.
the Laws; the Gorgias vs. the Protagoras; and there are many others.
If Plato is not read as dogmatic in the guise of systematic, if the drive
to render Socrates's statements somehow consistent across dialogues is
abandoned, the result is a wonderfully rich source of a variety of posi-
tions of Plato and others, inviting philosophers (however advanced) to
philosophize - regardless of what Plato's own most cherished beliefs may
have been.
It is apparent to any philosopher that the dialogues do in fact, and
as their primary task, expound philosophical positions, and a great many
of them - though of course those positions need not be, cannot all be,
Plato's. And, insofar as Academics may have been encouraged to write
in order to clarify their own positions, accounting for the school accu-
mulation Thesleff suspects characterizes so much of the corpus, the value
of writing itself is heightened, not diminished. And it is more likely
that the advanced members of the Academy, not the beginners, would
be the potential contributors to the school's permanent collection.
A FEW IMPLICATIONS
Since it is the conduct of philosophy that I value above its particular doc-
trinal results, I have analyzed Plato's philosophy - a doubly open-ended,
irreducibly social, educational practice - into an oral public method,
that of Socrates, and an Academic method that retains aspects of the
oral while redeeming each of its deficiencies. Thus I join Plato in focusing
on method rather than doctrine. The thesis that I have developed, that the
Socratic problem is best solved by distinguishing the different methods
used by the two philosophers, has the advantage over previously tried
solutions that it does not immediately land Plato in a morass of special
pleading and ad hoc argument in defense of shaky premises. Its dis-
advantage is that it is minimal. Instead of producing a host of answers
to substantive philosophical issues, it only cautions us against certain
kinds of arguments in the pursuit of those answers, but that is enough.
I would rather analyze the Platonic texts from a minimal but true assump-
tion than from a rich but false one.
My solution to the Socratic problem is an inference from my views
about the Platonic corpus: Socrates was a public figure in Athens who
conversed in the agora and elsewhere with anyone who would join him
in discussion. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates is found in the discussions,
strictly elenctic and other question-and-answer formats, that are short
enough to be plausibly carried out in a few hours. If we desire to use
the world "Socratic" of dialogues, it is applicable not only to the short
aporetic dialogues like the dramatic-style Laches and the reported-style
Lysis (regardless of when they were written) but to the portions of the
Cratylus and the Philebus that have elenctic form (regardless of the
content of the doctrines being discussed), and not to the protreptic
speeches of the Gorgias, for example. Table I provides a list of dialogues
that reflects the solution to the Socratic problem that I have proposed.
"Socratic" dialogues are those that illustrate the Platonic character
Socrates in the plausible context of everyday Athenian activity, encom-
passing the conduct of philosophy by oral methods, including, for
310 DEBRA NAILS
TABLE I
Dialogue Assignment by Method 21
SOCRATIC MIXED DIDACTIC
Alcibiades 1 & 2 Apology Critias

Amatores Cratylus Epinomis
Charm ides Crito Laws
Cleitophon Gorgias Menexenus
Euthydemus Parmenides Politicus
Euthyphro Phaedo Republic ll-X
Hipparchus Phaedrus Sophist
Hippias Major & Minor Philebus Timaeus
10n Symposium
Laches
Lysis
Meno
Minos
Protagoras
Republic 1
Theages
Theaetetus
example, the elenchus; "Socratic" does not entail an early date of com-
position; and neither the "Socrates" of Aristophanes nor that of Xeno-
phon contradicts, though they supplement, the philosophical Socrates. 22
"Didactic" dialogues are those that set out a complex or large theory
or body of information, subordinating the role of interlocutor to yes-
man. "Mixed" is the term I use to designate dialogues that combine
the Socratic and the didactic at a gross level (minor discrepancies
I ignore in these assignments). The dialogues are listed here in alpha-
betical order. I have taken no position on authenticity although I tend
to Thesleff's side on that issue; whether particular dialogues are authen-
tically and solely Plato's, co-authored, contributed by some other member
of the Academy, or forgeries, they can still be categorized by method,
so all thirty-five of the dialogues from the Thrasyllus tetralogies are
included.
For too long, since Aristotle in fact, Plato's philosophy has too often
been taught as The Rise and Fall of the Theory of Forms, an almost
entirely content-driven perspective on Plato. The content is of course
riveting. But, ultimately, contemporary philosophy owes to the methods
of Plato its greatest debt. I have said that Plato's preeminent theo-
retical innovation is the doubly open-ended philosophical method, the

insistence he demonstrates at every level that inquiry is never complete.
Assumptions as well as conclusions must be rigorously rethought, includ-
ing assumptions about method itself. An implication of the openness is
that the dialogues have steadfastly refused for over two and a half
millennia to allow themselves to be set up as authorities; their very
form demands intellectual combat. But I also appreciate the dialogues'
representation of philosophy as a socially embedded educational practice.
There are aspects of the contemporary conduct of philosophy that have
their beginnings in the Platonic dialogues. The voice of the interlocutor
is still present if partially submerged in good writing, raising objec-
tions to claims. And to ignore one's critics is viewed as worse than
mere bad form (like the lecturer who refuses to take questions), but
akin to something more like plagiarism. The Platonic interlocutor has
reappeared or evolved into the principle of charity, into our collective
contempt for straw men, into our eagerness to have respondents at our
meetings - none of which we would get from the pre-Socratics, the
sophists or an Isocrates. The reason for so many fresh beginnings in
the dialogues, the reason we find inconsistencies and contradictions,
is not that Plato was evolving intellectually (though he may also have
evolved), rejecting doctrines and methods as he developed, but that no
doctrine was inviolable. That unique contribution of Plato sets his version
of the dialectical method above any that had preceded him.
Mary Washington College
NOTES
I I have argued elsewhere on several occasions that all such attempts fail. They rely
on three premises, each of which is impossible to establish with certainty: (1) Plato's philo-
sophical doctrines evolved over his productive lifetime; (2) the chronological order of
composition of the dialogues can be established; and (3) the Socrates of Plato's "earliest"
dialogues is the one most true to the historical Socrates.
2 Whether his seriousness arose out of a desire to care for his own soul (as Nehamas
argues in 'What Did Socrates Teach and to Whom Did He Teach It?', The Review of
Metaphysics 46:2 [1992b], 279-306), or from his perceived god-given mission (Plato's
Apology), or because he loved people (Euthyphro 3d), is of no interest to me.
3 I am not here alluding to theories of education that promote the "personal" in its
more familiar sense of mixing the emotional and private aspects of students' lives into
their "learning situation". Socrates, however he might introduce personal details in a
discussion, keeps the inquiry moving in directions that immediately promise progress
312 DEBRA NAILS
toward the goal originally intended. In doing so, he implicitly endorses the practice of
keeping intellectual investigations intellectual.
4 If the words of Aristophanes and Xenophon are allowed to count for anything, as
Nehamas suggests ('Voices of Silence: On Gregory Vlastos' Socrates', Arion 2 [1992a],
157-186), there was much more to the man Socrates than a one-shot elenctic effort.
S From the passages quoted from Birth o/Tragedy and Twilight o/the Idols by Nehamas
(1992b: 279-280), Nietzsche appears to be criticizing, though under the general rubric
"dialectic", a Socrates who does not fit the description I have been giving. Nietzsche
mentions specifically the effect of speeches at meetings as evidence that the dialectic
arouses mistrust and is easily erased - but this is exactly the opposite of philosophy
conducted by oral methods, so I will not pursue the Nietzschean line of Nehamas's
argument.
6 Nehamas cites Republic 539b-d with its enduring image of youngsters, like puppies,
using argument to chew up everything, injuring themselves and philosophy in the process.
Whether or not that particular view was held by Plato himself, or one he gave voice to
take it up in conversation, Republic 503e-504a reminds us that one cannot tell in advance
who has what disposition and who will tum out to be skillful in an activity, thus it is
necessary to follow training with observation and testing. Without implying anything
sinister in the arguments of Plato or Nehamas, I am always suspicious of claims that
philosophy should be reserved for certain types, or that certain other types are unsuited
to do philosophy. The field is inbred enough without formal gatekeeping.
7 Nehamas (1992a) documents this historical episode abundantly.
8 At least not analogous to the Eleusinian mysteries or other secret sects. I find no
compelling arguments anywhere that there was an oral doctrine that was reserved for
members, or some members, of the Academy and suspect that the desire to identify such
a doctrine is of a piece with other attempts to isolate Plato's Own Doctrines - exactly what
I find wrongheadedly anti-Platonic. But there seems to be growing a benign use of the
word "initiate" denoting members of the Academy, analogous merely to saying that
someone is "in the program" of a graduate school.
9 Antidosis 12 (dated 353), Turner trans.
10 Dialogues in which Plato develops Pythagorean positions include Timaeus, Critias,
and Philebus (in the principles of the limited and unlimited). The Eleatic position is
given in the second part of the Parmenides; the Heraclitean in both Theaetetus and
Cratylus. Similarly, views of Protagoras are both developed and refuted in both the
Theaetetus and Protagoras; Eucleides and the Cynics are defended in the beginning of
the Philebus (until Socrates changes his position). The Gorgias and Phaedrus both build
and tear down the positions of such rhetors as Gorgias and Isocrates. Euthydemus, Hippias
Major and Meno attack the positions of sophists. This is not nearly an exhaustive list,
but it is suggestive.
11 This is so whether or not the historical Socrates provided an actual oral precedent
for that contribution.
12 The elaboration of this claim about Plato's method is a tantalizing but very large objec-
tive. One of the reasons the dialectical method is complex is that no single element
within it (e.g. elenchus) can examine its own presuppositions, though the necessity of
examining presuppositions is paramount.
13 Similarly, insofar as dialogues written by other members of the Academy were
welcomed into what Thesleff calls a "school accumulation" around the core of authentic
Platonic dialogues, the personal involvement of other philosophers there was increased.
See Studies in Platonic Chronology (Helsinki 1982), a rich philological account of Plato
that takes into account the material conditions of academic life.
14 See 'Plato's Arguments and the Dialogue form', in: J. C. Klagge & N. D. Smith (eds.),
Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues (Oxford 1992).
15 When teaching a course in the history of ancient philosophy to undergraduates, advo-
cating each successive position as a teaching strategy, the appearance may be that our
minds are changing repeatedly all semester. We want students to understand and to fight
for and against each successive position, not to second guess what our own beliefs are
so they can adopt our positions. With advanced students, this danger subsides and pos-
turing becomes increasingly inappropriate; this is another reason why I stop far short of
the view that, because Plato's dialogues do not tell us explicitly what his views were,
he had none.
16 It is on this subject that Frede (1992) is especially enlightening. Although I disagree
with him about some relatively minor points, his development of this theme is richer
than the more narrow and specific account of the issue I give.
17 Emphasis on taking turns in the questioning and answering roles is one example
(Republic 35Oc-e, Protagoras 338d-e, 348a, and Gorgias 458a-b, 462a, 474b, 506c).
18 275d-e, Fowler trans. Although I consider Epistle 7 genuine, it is too controversial
to use as more than an ancillary source.
19 See, for many examples, William Harris's Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass. 1989),
pp.88-92.
20 Since Knox's 'Silent Reading in Antiquity' (Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 9
[1968],421-435), one rarely encounters the argument any longer that the ancients were
incapable of reading silently to themselves. Individuals with good aural training might
be expected to gain more from oral presentations than perhaps modems do from lectures,
but - since the claim that cognitive advances follow acquaintance with the written word
has not been demonstrated, despite the efforts of Eric Havelock, and Jack Goody and
Ian Watt - there is no reason to think the ancients would have gained more from reading
than from hearing (or the contrary).
21 These rather crude divisions could be further and usefully analyzed into a great number
of subsidiary methods, and there is in fact already a substantial literature in that direc-
tion. My point is not to conflate fine points of difference, but to urge replacement of
the common early, middle, late division with a serviceable alternative.
22 A subdivision of the Socratic might be preferred designating dialogues that, in addition
to featuring Socratic method, also establish the doctrines of the interlocutor or someone
else (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Meno, Protagoras, and Theaetetus
would be candidates); I have not performed such a division for two reasons. First, the
presentation of others' views in such brief form is compatible with everyday oral practice.
Second, the extent to which the views attributed to others in the dialogues represent
views they actually held is fraught, and research of a different sort would be required to
address those problems.
LEROY S. ROVNER
SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THE QUEST FOR TRUTH

Aristotle and Tillich on the First Principles of Knowledge
Robert Cohen's contribution to the philosophy and history of science

is well documented in his own writings, and in the prodigious publica-
tions of his Boston Colloquium. Less well known are his collegial
connections with those in other fields. For some years he and I have been
colleagues and friends, and have often made common cause at Boston
University between his Center for the Philosophy and History of Science,
and my Institute for Philosophy and Religion. Our office complexes
are at opposite ends of the Philosophy Department at Boston University,
and the symbolism of that spatial balance is significant for a Department
which has historically made substantive contributions in both fields.
Philosophers of religion, alas, have seldom known much about the history
and philosophy of science, whereas philosophers of science have occa-
sionally been quite knowledgeable about religious matters. Cohen is in
this tradition. In a university community which boasts a number of
"Rennaissance" men and women, Cohen is nevertheless distinctive in the
broad range of his interests and sympathies, and his specific knowl-
edge in a wide variety of fields. He and I have often discussed issues
in the philosophy of religion, and on one occasion did a joint paper on
scientific and religious ways of knowing. What follows is a continua-
tion of that paper, a celebration of his ecumenical interests and wide
sympathies, and a testament of warm affection and high regard for a
valued colleague and friend.
Since the Rennaissance, the common wisdom in Western culture has pre-
supposed a radical difference between scientific and religious ways of
knowing, based on the differing objects of knowledge (Nature and God),
the way that knowledge is received (Reason and Revelation), and the
kind of language used to express it (Philosophy and Theology). The
natural sciences, for example, strive for a coin of communication which
is, indeed, like a coin; clearly defined, specific, limited, particular.
Scientific ideas are much more like coins than they are like clouds;
315

316 LEROY S. ROVNER
whereas religious thought has always been very cloudy indeed. "God,"
"salvation," "redemption," "faith," - these are all ideas with varied
content which are often unspecific and even unintegrated. There is no
philosophically serious attempt to define any of these terms in the
Christian New Testament, for example; and the subsequent tradition of
Christian philosophical theology has failed to provide definitions which
had universal assent. So the language of scientific knowledge is as
different from the language of religious knowledge as a coin is from a
cloud.
This distinction is further reflected in the means of knowledge.
Scientific rationality has clear rules and genuine universality. We all agree
that "2 + 2 = 4," or that "this particular rock is granite," and we all
recognize the rational and empirical rules by which we came to that
conclusion. There is therefore nothing mysterious, or weird, or hidden,
about such scientific affirmations, no matter what one's ethnic, cultural
or religious background. The affirmation is thoroughly exoteric and
publicly available. Scientific reason is therefore a natural ally of both
democracy and common sense. Religion, on the other hand, regularly
appeals to "revelation," a means of knowledge which is "beyond reason,"
and is open only to those who have had this distinctive experience.
Religious reason is therefore esoteric; a natural ally of secrecy, and of
aristocracies. Or so the common wisdom holds.
My argument, in opposition to the common wisdom, is that there is
a critical point at which scientific ways of knowing and religious ways
of knowing are comparable. That point comes when one asks how one
can know that the basic principles which undergird one's knowledge
are actually true. These basic principles are what Aristotle calls the archai
of any science. To make that argument I have chosen to compare the
views of Aristotle and Tillich on knowledge of first principles. My
argument has two purposes. The first is modest, and admittedly defen-
sive. I want to counter the view that religious appeals to a non-rational
revelation are necessarily irrational. I do this by analysing a precedent
in Aristotle, who also appeals to non-rational (but not irrational) ways
of knowing in order to establish the truth of the archai of science. To
be sure, while this view may be characteristic of Greek thought, it has
not found favor in modem Western philosophy, where the "truth question"
is thoroughly vexed. But that whole discussion is much too complex
and extensive to attempt here. I shall be content if my modest observa-
tion is clear, and delighted if it is persuasive.
SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THE QUEST FOR TRUTH 317
The second purpose is hopefully more interesting. I suggest that Tillich

has provided a more imaginative analysis than Aristotle of the way we
come to know that the first principles of our knowledge are true. This
analysis comes in the unlikely context of Tillich's doctrine of "ecstatic
reason." Despite its Romantic overtones, it seems to me to say something
which Aristotle needs to say but which he does not develop.
II
In the De Anima Aristotle understands nous, the power of knowing, as

functional and dynamic. It is functional in that it is always an opera-
tion within a specific context. Nous is capacity or potentiality exercised
in the process of knowing whatever is known. And it is always dynamic,
because the power of nous is activated by "desire" in response to an
object. This desired object "moves" the power of no us to know it. In
causing the mind to desire to know it, however, the object of desire is
not changed itself. It moves something else, but is not itself moved; it
is an "unmoved mover." As a factor in the knowing process it stimu-
lates that process, and is the point toward which the process is directed.
On the other hand, it is outside the process because it is not affected
by it. I
For human conduct and action the highest intellectual excellence for
Aristotle is practical intelligence which he equates with art, and which
John Hermann Randall, Jr. identifies with "what we Americans have
come to call 'know-how.' ,,2 But both practical intelligence and art differ
from theoretical wisdom, a combination of science, or demonstration from
first principles (archai), and nous, which must finally evaluate and
authenticate these archai. Nous, as theoretical wisdom, thus deals with
universals, things that always are, and cannot be other than they are.
But nous, for Aristotle, is regularly "passive," in that the universal acts
upon it in producing knowledge. Two point are significant here. One is
that nous exists only in the act of nousing. The other is that nous has
no structure, because it is potentially all universals. As pure potentiality
it is possible to know things as they really are, without an intermediary
(and distorting) structure.
Here, of course, Aristotle's realism and naturalism is at odds with most
post-Kantian Western philosophy, where knowledge is made possible
by the interpreting and constructive capacities of thought. For Aristotle,
knowing is a transaction which takes place in an intelligible world,
318 LEROY S. ROVNER
when the power of the subject to know conjoins with the power of the
object to be known. Sensations are not a barrier between the mind and
the world of objects for Aristotle, as they later were for Locke, because
he regards them as the natural means by which the mind knows its natural
world. For modem philosophy, on the other hand, knowing is a trans-
action which takes place in the mind of the knower, when percepts are
turned into concepts. Experience must therefore be a construct, because
the world, qua world, is not inherently intelligible. The world becomes
intelligible only when the mind interprets and re-constructs experience.
But this intelligibility is in the mind of the knower, not in the world.
In this context the "truth question" regarding the first principles of any
science is almost impossible to frame, much less to solve; and philoso-
phizing takes place under the threatening shadow of solipsism. For
Aristotle, on the other hand, nous makes it possible for us to know an
intelligible world as it really is.
But for this to be true, knowing must be separable from the body
and its qualities, its structures and especially its limitations. 3 Given his
functionalism and contextualism, however, this separability presents a
problem for Aristotle. Nous is to be understood in relation to its desired
objects, the universals. And while these universals are not separate from
matter, since a universal is always of something, we can conceive them
as so, in the same way that we can conceive mathematical objects, such
as a curve, as separable from curved objects in our experienced world.
We can speak of "a curve" as though it could exist independently of curve
balls, the snubness of Socrates' nose, etc.; even though, for Aristotle,
the universal is real only as the meaning of "curve" in our experience
of particulars. Yet how, Aristotle asks, is it possible for the separated
nous to think, since thinking is a being acted upon? How is it possible
for it to know itself, if it has no structure or nature of its own?
His response is not entirely clear. There is the brief and famous para-
graph in De Anima which later interpreters described as his doctrine of
the "active intellect," in which he states that there is a dimension of mind
which transcends its passivity, one in which mind is "a sort of positive
state like light" and is "in its essential nature activity.,,4 Werner Jaeger,
A.E. Taylor, John H. Randall, Jr. and others have argued that this is a
fragmentary remnant from his younger "Platonic" thinking, and that
the "active intellect" is not a significant part of De Anima. Be that as
it may, it is relevant to the issue of how we know that the first princi-
ples of a science are true. In the Posterior Analytics he concludes that
"there can be no scientific knowledge of primary premisses, and since

except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will
be intuition that apprehends the primary premisses.,,5 This intuition is,
as for Plato, a kind of "seeing," or recognition. It is an exercise of intel-
ligence; or, as Randall used to say to his students, it is like getting the
point of a joke. But surely this is a weak "explanation," and says little
more than that we do indeed somehow seem to know it.
The doctrine of the "active intellect" does provide an explanation,
but such a mind would constitute the "Unmoved Mover" of the world's
intelligibility - i.e., the divine mind - and that "religious" affirmation
is counter to the spirit and most of the content of Aristotle's naturalism.
Randall - himself a naturalist - suggests that Aristotle's problem is that
of any naturalistic theory of knowing and intelligence, which tries to stick
to the facts.
If we grant "knowing" to be a fact - if we hold that intelligence is not merely an organ
of adjustment and adaptation, but a means of arriving at what may fairly be called "truth"
- then mind does seem to rise above the limitations and conditions of its bodily instru-
ment, and to be, as Aristotle puts it, "unmixed and separable," and in its vision "deathless
and eternal." This is Plato's insight. It is not so much a theory about the ontological
status of nous, as an appreciation of what nous can do. 6
If one holds with the "Platonizing" interpretations of Aristotle, the

"active intellect" is the cosmic nous, or God, which "illuminates" the
"passive intellect" of humankind. The result is a view happily at home
with many Christian doctrines of "revelation," in which the mind of
God "illuminates" our minds. But that is probably claiming too much.
At the very least, however, Aristotle is clear that our confirming knowl-
edge of the archai of any science cannot be "scientific" knowledge,
but must be something even more certain, an "intuitive" grasp of truth.
Such non-scientific knowledge is non-rational, but not irrational, since
it is the comer-stone of science and all rational knowledge. The unre-
solved issue is how no us can actually be "unmixed and separable" in
the act of "intuiting" the truth of archai. This is an issue which Tillich
explores in his doctrine of "ecstatic reason."
III
The problem for Tillich's doctrine of "Reason and the Quest for
Revelation,,7 is that he needs an epistemology which is both modem
and classical. He is a post-Kantian philosopher who understands expe-
320 LEROY S. ROUNER
rience as constituted by interpretation and construction, what he calls

the "grasping and shaping" powers of reason, in contrast to Aristotle's
characteristically Greek understanding of reason as passive. At the same
time, as a philosophical theologian, Tillich needs a conception of human
Logos which can provide a bridge to the divine Logos, the "Word" of
God. So he proposes "Two Concepts of Reason.,,8 One is modem; "tech-
nological reason," is the individual human capacity for "reasoning." It
is instrumental and operational, in the spirit of American Pragmatism.
The other is "ontological reason," which is reason as "the structure of
the mind."
He conjoins these two by arguing that "According to the classical
tradition, reason is the structure of the mind which enables the mind to
grasp and to transform reality.,,9 While the statement is historically mis-
leading, this view makes it possible for Tillich to integrate the two
conceptions. Schelling's German Idealism here joins hands with Dewey's
American Pragmatism. "Grasping and shaping" is what we modems must
do; but we can do it only because this function is grounded in the onto-
logical structures of the mind recognized by German Idealists and the
classical Greek conception of reason. "Neither structures, Gestalt
processes, values, nor meanings can be grasped without ontological
reason.,,10 "Subjective reason" - the rational structure of the mind - is
therefore related to "Objective reason" - the rational structure of reality.
Tillich suggests four ways of conceiving this relationship - Realism,
Idealism, Dualism and Monism - but, qua theologian, makes no judgment
about them. What is significant for our purposes, however, is his
Existentialism.
Rational activity always involves both continuity and change, and
for Tillich both the static and dynamic elements of reason are subject
to "existential distortion." This is a far cry from Aristotle's view that
knowing is a natural function in a naturally intelligible world. Aristotle
took it for granted that we know. Hisphilosophical task was simply to
analyse how that process works. Tillich, on the other hand, inherits the
modem "problem of knowledge" which requires an explanation of how
we can really know anything at all. This existential distortion is partly
because "an emotional element is present in every rational act.,,11 But
more importantly, reason is actual only in the processes of being, exis-
tence and life; and "Being is finite, existence is self-contradictory, and
life is ambiguous.,,12 Tillich, following Plato, argues that actual existence
is "fallen" from the realm of essence, which is its true nature. Although
Tillich does not use the metaphor, "existential distortion" is his version
of the skia, or "shadows" of reality which is all experience provides in
the Republic's "myth of the cave." How, then, is it possible to have any
objective knowledge? And especially, how is it possible to "know that
my Redeemer liveth"?
Aristotle's answer to the question about the foundations of knowl-
edge is that we "intuit" their truth. While this is not an explanation,
it is viable in Aristotle's philosophy because he has previously estab-
lished how the mind has true knowledge of its experienced world.
His "intuition" is an extrapolation from this scientific knowledge of
the world. Tillich, following Nicolaus Cusanus' doctrine of "learned
ignorance" and Kant's doctrine of "critical ignorance," argues that
actual reason cannot escape finitude. This is not radically opposed to
Aristotle's views on how we know our experienced world, since the expe-
rience which reason seeks to understand is initially that of a finite world
anyway.
The distinction between the two comes when the foundational question
arises. Aristotle wants to maintain the integrity of nous, even though there
must be a dimension of nous, or a moment in the process of knowing,
when nous is "separable" from its normally passive condition. The dif-
ference between Aristotle and Tillich is that for Tillich, there is a limit
to the power of nous, when something distinctively different comes into
play. Aristotle toyed with the notion of an "active intellect" as a solution
to his problem, but then drew back. Tillich presents a theory of how
the divine mind illuminates our minds. But this is to get ahead of the
argument.
The "ignorance" noted in both Cusanus and Kant is of something
which reason reaches for but cannot grasp, and that is its own founda-
tions. Again, Tillich is not radically different from Aristotle at this
point. Both recognize that nous needs a new dimension in order to
establish its own foundations. Tillich uses a metaphor - "the depth of
reason" - to name a "power and meaning" which is manifest in actual
reason, but which "precedes" it "The depth of reason is its quality of
pointing to truth-itself, namely, to the infinite power of being and of
the ultimately real, through the relative truths in every field of knowl-
edge.,,13 This, too, is Aristotelian. But Tillich, committed to both classical
and modern views, elaborates a dialectical view. This "reaching out"
of reason, its "quest," derives from the polarity within actual reason
between its structure and its "depth." This leads to a conflict between
322 LEROY S. ROUNER
what Tillich calls "autonomy and heteronomy under the conditions of

existence," and leads to "the quest for theonomy."
Tillich has partly revived ("autonomy" and "heteronomy") and partly
invented ("theonomy") a distinctive philosophical jargon which needs
definition. Autonomous reason is what he has earlier referred to as
"technical reason." This is reason as instrument, "reasoning" in the
modem world of autonomous individuals, whereby we interpret and shape
our immediate world of experience. It is reason which "affirms and
actualizes its structure without regarding its depth."14 Heteronomy
("strange law") is more complicated, because its relationship to autonomy
is both "outside" and "inside." Autonomous reason seeks freedom from
the restraints of heteronomy, which imposes its law from outside, but
it does so in the name of the depth of reason, which autonomy has
forsaken.
These are difficult concepts, because Tillich is very abstract, seldom
offering illustrations. An example, however, would be the struggle within
the Roman Catholic Church between "modernist" tendencies (autonomy)
and the authority of the hierarchy (heteronomy). In conflict with a shallow
autonomy, heteronomy seeks to speak in an unconditional way for the
"ground" of being-itself, or for truth-itself. This is a tragic conflict within
reason itself, since reason requires both the freedom of autonomy, and
the grounding of heteronomy. So the existential conflict within actual
reason seeks a resolution and integration, in what Tillich calls
"theonomy," the creative law of the divine mind, in which autonomous
reason re-establishes its ground.
For Aristotle the "unmixed and separable" nous is "divine" - or,
perhaps better, "transcendent" - in that it conjoins the intelligibility of
our minds with the intelligibility of the cosmic Nous itself. Aristotle's
naturalism shows no interest in religion, but - as the difficult issue of
the "active intellect" in De Anima indicates - he has either said too much
or not enough on the issue of transcendent knowing. Randall suggests
that he said too much. I think he didn't say enough. If, indeed, human
knowing is capable of a vision which is "deathless and eternal" that
fact is of great philosophical significance, and ought to be explored.
Because he is a theologian Tillich cannot avoid a philosophical analysis
of transcendent knowing. Whether his analysis would make Aristotle
happy is another matter. But at least Tillich has an interesting view of
what it means to "intuit" the cosmic Nous.
As a Christian, Tillich needs to distinguish between the transcen-
dent/divine mind and our minds, since God cannot "save" us unless he
is, in some sense, different from us. So human reason is not "divine," but
it does know the divine. This knowledge is "revelation." That is to say,
the activating energy flows not from our "active intellect" but from the
"Unmoved Mover" to us. For Tillich the cosmic Nous is different from
the human nous, but no us in us has the capacity to receive this tran-
scendental reality because it can "stand outside" itself. Or, as Aristotle
puts it, our nous is capable of being "separable" and "unmixed" in relation
to the ordinary functions of human knowing.
Tillich begins by pointing out that the transcendental reality to be
known is "mysterious." There is theological content to this idea which
need not concern us here. On the philosophical side, this encounter with
mystery drives reason beyond itself to that which precedes it, its depth,
"to the fact that 'being is and nonbeing is not' (Parmenides), to the
original fact (UrTatsache) that there is something and not nothing.,,15
In Aristotle's terms this is only to recognize that a vision of the "death-
less and eternal" is obviously something which cannot be approached
through our ordinary ways of knowing, because nothing in our world
of experience is "deathless and eternal." Tillich adds that a genuine
mystery cannot lose its mysteriousness, even when it is "revealed."
That is to say, to know the "deathless and eternal" is precisely to "know"
something that is "beyond knowing" because it is unlike anything we can
ordinarily know.
It is possible to "know" this mystery, however, because of the pos-
sibility of "ecstacy," which Tillich defines as "standing outside oneself,"
and which is not unlike Aristotle's notion of a condition in which mind
is "unmixed and separable." Tillich argues that it
points to a state of mind which is extraordinary in the sense that the mind transcends
its ordinary situation. Ecstacy is not a negation of reason; it is the state of mind in which
reason is beyond itself, that is, beyond the subject-object structure. In being beyond
itself reason does not deny itself. "Ecstatic reason" remains reason; it does not receive
anything irrational or antirational - which it could not do without self-destruction - but
it transcends the basic condition of finite rationality, the subject-object structure ....
Ecstacy occurs only if the mind is grasped by the mystery, namely, by the ground of
being and meaning. And, conversely, there is no revelation without ecstacy.16
Tillich is eager to distinguish his use of ecstacy from popular religious

usage because ecstatic movements tend to put heavy emphasis on the
emotional content of ecstacy. He admits that ecstatic experience neces-
sarily has a subjective side, and that ecstacy therefore always has
324 LEROY S. ROVNER
emotional content. This is also true, of course, for the philosopher who
has a vision of the "deathless and eternal." This is always at least an
"Aha!" experience; to have this "intuition" without excitement is impos-
sible. But Tillich is primarily concerned with the objective side of ecstacy.
It transcends the psychological level of experience. In so doing "It reveals
something valid about the relation between the mystery of our being
and ourselves.,,17
What takes us out of ourselves in this ecstatic experience is what
Tillich calls "ontological shock." What he has to say about it is colored
with romanticism and existentialism, neither of which are character-
istic of Aristotle. On the other hand, a vision of the "deathless and
eternal" not only has to be emotionally exciting, it has to be meta-
physically reorienting/disorienting. Such a vision would be literally
"awesome." To encounter the cosmic Nous, wherein being and meaning
are revealed as deathless and eternal is, for Tillich, also to confront the
possibility of non-being, and experience the power of the classical query,
"Why is there something and not nothing?" So he argues that
The threat of nonbeing, grasping the mind, produces the "ontological shock" in which
the negative side of the mystery of being - its abysmal element - is experienced. "Shock"
points to a state of mind in which the mind is thrown out of its normal balance, shaken
in its structure. Reason reaches its boundary line, is thrown back on itself, and then is
driven again to its extreme situation. This experience of ontological shock is expressed
in the cognitive function by the basic philosophical question, the question of being and
nonbeing. It is, of course, misleading if one asks with some philosophers:
Why is there something? Why not nothing? For this form of the question points to
something that precedes being, from which being can be derived. But being can only be
derived from being. The meaning of this question can be expressed in the statement that
being is the original fact which cannot be derived from anything else. Taken in this
sense, the question is a paradoxical expression of the ontological shock and, as such,
the beginning of all genuine philosophy.IS
Tillich takes pains to emphasize that ecstatic experience does not

destroy the rational structure of the mind. What the "ontological shock"
does do, however, is to both annihilate and elevate our rational experi-
ence of self and world. It is annihilating in that the ecstatic experience
of mind as "separable and unmixed" sets aside our ordinary rational expe-
rience. At the same time, this same experience elevates our no us to heady
relationship with the cosmic Nous. Tillich uses the terminology which
Rudolph Otto's Idea of the Holy made famous; this is the experience
of mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascinosum.
Aristotle and Tillich have very different philosophical sensibilities,
and they did their philosophising in very different cultural contexts.

Nevertheless, there are some fundamental questions which are relevant
to philosophy in whatever age. Chief among these is how we know that
our foundational principles are true. On such questions conversations
between philosophers of science and philosophers of religion can at
least be suggestive, perhaps even mutually helpful.
Institute for Philosophy and Religion,

Boston University
NOTES
I De Anima, III, ch. 9.

2 John Hennan Randall, Jr., Aristotle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960),
p. 77.
3 "Therefore, since everything is a possible object of thought, mind in order, as
Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is to know, must be pure from all admixture ... "
De Anima, III, ch. 4: 429a 18-20. All Aristotle quotations are from Richard McKeon,
The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941).
4 De Anima, III, ch. 5, 430a, 15-20.
5 Posterior Analytics, II, ch. 19, l00b, 10-12.

6 Randall, op. cit., p. 103.
7 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1951), pp. 71-105.
8 Tillich, ibid., p. 71.
9 Ibid., p. 72.
10 Ibid., p. 73.
II Ibid., p. 77.
12 Ibid., p. 81.
13 Ibid., p. 79.
14 Ibid., p. 83.
15 Ibid., p. 110.
16 Ibid., pp. 111-112.
17 Ibid., p. 113.
18 Ibid.
RUTH L. SMITH
RELATIONAL MORALITY:
WHICH RELATIONS, WHICH MORALS?
THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY: THEIR MORAL RELATIONS
I began chewing on questions about constructions of the individual and

society in liberal moral philosophies and theologies while a graduate
student in religious studies at Boston University. My questions developed
in relation to my involvement in feminism, in the study of Marx, and
previous work in linguistics. During this process, Bob Cohen was a
collegial and generous teacher and the second reader for my disserta-
tion on the constructions of the individual and society in Reinhold
Niebuhr and Karl Marx. Our many discussions were marked by Bob's
insistence on careful attention to the text at hand, by his willingness to
consider any argument with the same exacting and exploratory style,
and by his rejection of all easy answers. For the past ten years I have
continued to think about liberal moral constructions and feminist
responses to them, often working by immanent critique. In this article
I extend this process by exploring the plural notions of society and
morality in liberal thinking that become evident when we consider their
gender and class relations. 1
In attending to the moral problems embedded in liberal individu-
alism, critics may forget the extent to which liberal definitions of society
also stake out moral claims. Indeed, liberal thinkers have long strug-
gled with the question of how to inscribe morality on a society committed
to the primacy of autonomous individual peers and their interests.
Theorists of social contract attempted to resolve the problem of estab-
lishing coherence between individual autonomy and relations with others,
but the result was always a restless fit, even on its own terms. 2 Liberal
moral theorists, thinking particularly of Kant and Mill, rallied to the
task of defining the terms of moral obligations and relations which would
have appeared to reach their pinnacle in the self-sovereignty of this
emergent historical expression of individuality. But the confidence of
these theories in the individual was impeded by the uncertain locus and
signification of the moral in relation to society and the social.
The uncertainty about its locus and significance results from the
327

328 RUTH L. SMITH
primacy of an atomistic notion of individuality which throws into doubt

the value of all relations; and from the primacy of bourgeois relations
which throw into doubt the value of all non-bourgeois relations. The
view of society according to the atomistic notion of individuality is
that society has only negative value since social relations bear no positive
connection to individuals, be they economic agents, citizens, or moral
agents. Indeed, relations threaten and undermine individuality because
they "naturally" express disorder and irrationality because they "natu-
rally" express disorder and irrationality. On the other hand, from the
point of view of the primacy of bourgeois relations, society has value
inasmuch as it expresses individual freedom and autonomy in bour-
geois terms. Indeed, such a society is the "natural" result of freely
acting individuals.
These distinctions between individuality and sociality are often
articulated in moral theory in terms such as self-interest versus altruism,
self-interest versus disinterest, power versus morality, and rights versus
responsibilities. We can break through the endless see-sawing between
these tiresome dualisms by recognizing that they are not abstractions
but reflect concrete and specific social contexts. My emphasis here will
be on those of gender and the middle class. 3
The issue of gender makes many aspects of the imputed liberal abstrac-
tions of individual and society concrete and also introduces the argument
made by many feminists that individuality and morality are social and
relational. While the historical connections are not always explicitly
drawn, the relational claim is, in its fullest sense, an argument against
the liberal construction of individuality and moral agency as an abstrac-
tion that exists, necessarily, apart from all social and historical relations
and an argument that exposes the concrete relations of liberal individuals
and society that do exist. The feminist critique is similar to that of
Marx, though it goes on to identify the construction of individuality
as not only bourgeois but as patriarchal and to identity the obscuring
of social relations not only with class domination but also with male
domination. 4
To understand morality relationally, however, does not mean that
morality becomes unproblematic. Others have argued that the focus on
relationality, particularly as developed in conjunction with care and moth-
ering, leaves troubling questions in its wake. For example, Lynn Segal
argues that morality defined as nurture is associated with those who
are subjugated, whoever they may be; therefore, to adopt it as a feminist
RELATIONAL MORALITY 329
alternative perpetuates patterns of subordination. Jessica Benjamin argues

that the idealization of maternal nurturance constitutes a cultural fantasy
about the omnipotent mother that legitimates male domination and
conceals the practical needs of mothers and children in the United States.
Marilyn Friedman asks whether or not the feminist notion of a social self
provides moral motivation for concern with distant strangers. Jean Tronto
argues that feminist notions of care need to broaden, not narrow, the scope
of whom we care about. Elsewhere I have argued that Carol Gilligan's
view isolates the experiences of motherhood and childhood from their
historical, economic, and political dimensions by accepting the liberal
terms of the public and private spheres. Significant differences exist
among the arguments of the thinkers I have noted but all of them urge
more complex and subtle considerations of morality, power, and social
relations in feminists' moral reconstructions. 5 In the neglect of these
issues, habitual patterns of hierarchy and domination remain unaddressed
in arguments for the relational values of reciprocity and mutuality; as
a consequence, morality persists in producing undemocratic expres-
sions, reinforcing the very problems notions of relationality should
critically take on.
This article does not evolve through a discourse of argument and coun-
terargument nor does a theoretical solution await you at the end. Instead,
I bring forward aspects of liberal thinking in which we can explore the
joinings and divisions of society, nature, individuality, and morality.
The frame for this problem is the asymmetrical way in which white
middle-class women move around differentially in these constructions,
telling us something about the stability and instability of the locus and
definition of morality, the plural character of gender, and moral rela-
tions of domination. I have chosen this group to highlight particular
ambiguities in their socio-moral positions that are also reflected in current
discussion in feminist moral theory. Other groups would highlight similar
and different ambiguities.
My argument has four parts which form the structure of the article:
1. Liberalism carries two notions of society which are aligned with
two views of nature; in tum, these divide within themselves and in
relation to each other.
2. These mUltiple views of society reveal stability and instability
regarding the loci and status of liberal social relations and morality.
3. These versions of society and morality are gendered. They coalesce
in ambiguous and reinforcing patterns of domination and subordi-
330 RUTH L. SMITH
nation about who counts as an individual, citizen, and moral agent

that are particularly evident with regard to white middle class women.
4. Feminist claims that morality is relational need to further distin-
guish themselves from the social relations of domination in liberal
moral practice and theory.6
GOOD NATURE AND BAD NATURE:

LIBERAL VERSIONS OF SOCIETY
The claim that individuals and societies exist in an oppositional relation

has been central to liberal moral theory and practice. The imputed divide
is evident in its theories of individuality as well as its theories of society.
The opposition is taken to be not an argument but a description of the
natural state of things. Accordingly, society in the modem sense that
Raymond Williams identifies as "the body of institutions and relation-
ships within which a large number of people live" is by its nature
antithetical to the nature of free, rational individuality, so the story goes.?
The uptake of this outlook for liberal moral theories has been a notion
of moral agency defined in abstraction from all social and historical rela-
tions in terms presuming various constructions of an "ideal observer."
From this imputedly universal perspective, society in its particularity and
contingency is a pollutant to morality. For moral capacity to be exercised
society can and must be escaped. g
However, liberalism has another story to tell about society as well.
According to this second story, society is not by nature antithetical-to
individuality but itself expresses the very nature of individuals in their
freely made actions and relations. Liberal society is devoid of the artifice
of institution and organization which would govern its individuals exter-
nally, in violation of their autonomy. Instead, society is the on-going result
of autonomously executed thoughts and actions unbound by fetters of
history, power, or relationship. Because rationality and goodness are
coterminous in individual actions, the morally good character of society
does not have to be sought of itself. Morality is the fortunate by-product
requiring no direct intervention on its own behalf. This view is expressed
most directly in the notion of "the harmony of interests" by which the
exercise of individual self-interest was to lead of itself to the interests
of all, as in Adam Smith and John Locke. Here society is not opposi-
tional but instead merges completely with individuality or more
accurately, is completely dissolvable into it. 9 At this point, keep in mind
that in the first version society and morality are in contradiction while
in the second they merge. Note also that these models are male in their
shared assumption that individuality is atomistic in character. 1o
The terms by which morality is present and absent in these stories
is coordinate with the different view of nature embedded in each. Jean
Baudrillard alerts us to the birfurcation in the bourgeois view of nature
in his analysis of the restrictive codes of political economy in Marx's
notions of rationality, production, historical law, and labor. Baudrillard
draws the distinction between "good and bad nature" to identify a
consistent split in the formulations of the moral philosophy of the
enlightenment that extends into Marx's conception of the development
of society. II
In Baudrillard's analysis of this bifurcation, bourgeois society is good
nature; all outside its boundaries is "bad nature." The distinction between
good and bad nature separates freedom from necessity, order from
disorder, goodness from evil. Good nature is the civilizing result of
individuals freely expressing and pursuing their market and political
interests as such; it is bourgeois society itself. The notion of "good
nature" is defined in relation to its opposite, "bad nature." Bad nature
is the realm of necessity in which determination obtains over freedom,
desire rules over reason, and disorder prevails over order. Whatever is
imputed to bad nature lacks the pre-conditions for order and consequently
threatens order. For both reasons bad nature requires the control that good
nature "naturally" supplies. 12
Baudrillard opposes good to bad nature in terms of the bourgeois
definition of what is inside (good) and what is outside (bad) society.
However, I would argue that his view is not sufficiently complex to
take account of the range of bourgeois views of society in association
with views of nature. I would propose instead that both views of nature
express bourgeois views of society. The bourgeois construction of society
is itself bifurcated, depending, as with the bifurcation of nature, on the
locus of autonomous individuality. Thus, one model of society coordi-
nates with good nature while the other model of society coordinates
with bad nature. In the one in which society is good nature, the con-
structions of society and individuality naturally express each other.
Society is the association of individuals, fully and freely created by
them and always divisible into them. In the other in which society is
bad nature, society is naturally antithetical to free, autonomous indi-
viduality and therefore, a threat to it. It is this view of nature that the first
332 RUTH L. SMITH
view of society classically opposes. By understanding bad nature to be

not simply the exterior to good society, as Baudrillard does, but to be
itself a construction of society, we are in a position to see the plurality
of bourgeois views of society and nature that dualistically shift back
and forth in relation to morality and power.
In order to explore the participation of and consequences for morality
in this bifurcation, it is important to see that each of these versions divides
further according to the value and disvalue of society and its constituents.
In the theories of social contract, the most familiar bourgeois stories about
society, the divide entails the distinction between society as the natural
harmony of individual interests and society as the brutal competition
among individual interests. In the first, associated with Locke, govern-
ment ensues from self-sovereignty; in the second, associated with Hobbes,
government requires an absolute monarchY
This disagreement which becomes paradigmatic for liberal social and
political debate obscures not only the shared terms of bourgeois self-
interest as constitutive of society but also the shared terms of boundary
maintenance regarding power, citizenship, and morality. Granted that
in the view in which individuals are jostling for scarce goods, including
power, society is a negative good because its task is the negative one
of curtailing aggression. But society is still a good and an absolutely
necessary one because without it we could not have any kind of social
interaction; we must therefore value society even or especially in its com-
promised form. Thus, society in contract terms is always evaluated as
a good, whether for its harmony or its prevention of disharmony, not only
because it is an agreement among individuals whereby they can proceed
with their public activity, but also because these stories share the defi-
nition of who can engage in this activity. Contract theorists disagree about
the "natural" capacities of individuals for order and disorder and con-
sequently about whether or not individuals can be freely self-regulating.
However, the classic formulation of their differences in terms of human
nature obscures their agreement about who "naturally" counts as an
individual and who does not. The contractual agreements, whether made
under an absolute sovereign or by reason alone, are contracts among
white, middle-class men and therefore are agreements not only about how
society comes into existence but also about who "naturally" qualifies
as an individual and thus as a participant in society.'4
The other dominant version of society shifts terms from a contract
society that is totally resolvable into the actions and decisions of free
individuals to society as the realm of relations and connections that are
totally prohibitive of individuality.15 This model is not in disagreement
with the contract theorists in that it also holds to the primacy of
autonomous individuality. What the model of society as "bad nature"
does is emphasize the strong boundaries between individuals and the
social relations of the non-autonomous or to phrase the issue anther
way, the disjuncture between individuality and relations understood
relationally, instead of atomistically. The emphasis makes particularly
clear another point of agreement between the two models of society,
that is, the identification of who is not an individual.
Women, poor people, and peoples of color have been traditionally
placed in society as the arena of "bad nature." Such people are defined
by their relations and therefore, according to this logic, cannot exercise
the rationality and freedom requisite for individuality and moral agency.
They are part of the disorder of nature which in this construction is
wild and untamed or passive and unproductive. Unlike the disorder of
autonomous moral agents which is remediable in its responsiveness to
control, their position is irremedially outside the terms of redemption
or restoration. In this version, society is not to be valued but to be
feared and controlled, inasmuch as control is possible.1 6
The debilitating effect that relations are viewed as having on indi-
viduality is not just an abstraction from which to generate imputedly
timeless contrasts between the individual and society, society as poten-
tially good and society as inevitably bad, order and anarchy, morality and
power. Embedded in these abstractions are moral and political deci-
sions already made in the shaping of the categories themselves and
their dualistic oppositions about the conditions and definitions of who
is a moral agent. In other words, the view of social relations as pollu-
tants is about people who are pollutants. The debilitating effect of
relations is defined by its "natural" population of persons who are without
the requisites for rational and moral judgment and who are consigned
to a notion of society against the prevailing value of autonomy. In this
construction, those within the boundaries of society as bad nature are
constituted by relations and therefore not amenable to self-sovereignty
and its properties of rationality, moral judgment, and ownership, aspects
which are neither fully reducible to each other nor as stable as they
may appear to be. l ?
334 RUTH L. SMITH
BOURGEOIS MORALITY: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY
Amidst the apparent clarity of these boundaries about the presence and
absence of morality, the contradictory liberal terms of society and nature
pose a problem for ethics: morality in society appears to be either unnec-
essary or impossible. If society is coterminous with reason and if reason
in itself is good, then morality in society is unnecessary. If society is
defined by the existence of legitimate domination, either because of the
self-interest of individuals or because some do not qualify as individuals,
then morality in society is not possible. Thus, the instability of society
participates in the instability of morality, an instability defined by the
fact that morality has no clear locus in society as society. Morality
vacillates between its "natural" congruence with the aggregate of rea-
soning individual consciences and its incongruence with the "natural"
determinations of uncontrolled desire, aggression, and social relations.
For seemingly opposite reasons, morality as an identifiable aspect of
human relations has no logical home in the society of market and contract.
Bourgeois individuals are naturally moral in their autonomy and so do
not need morality; society as the repository of the non-autonomous is
naturally without judgment and so cannot express morality.
In the two bourgeois views the disorder of "bad nature" is imput-
edly neutralized by the rationality of free individuals or it is legitimately
controlled by society constructed as a necessary evil that has a good
effect. The disorder of self-interested aggression in contract terms is
not of the same kind as the disorder of those who do not count as indi-
viduals because the latter lack sufficient rationality to make contracts and
do not own property. IS In the juxtaposition of these constructions, the
locus and definition of morality would appear to be firmly located in
society as good nature, even if its expression is not firmly present. The
absence of morality in the face of the "disorder" of society as bad nature
would appear to be be firmly fixed as well. But it turns out that under
particular circumstances disorder can be modified. We saw that society
as good nature divides internally between benign and aggressive self-
interest. In the nineteenth century, society as bad nature also divides
internally.
During the nineteenth century, confidence grows in the eighteenth
century view of society as the rational pursuit of self-interests which
naturally results in the harmony of interests. 19 In this model the exercise
of interest and morality is completely merged in individuality: women
RELA TIONAL MORALITY 335
have neither. However, another version develops in which the disor-

derly side of society as good nature correlates with a division in society
as bad nature. In this model, the public realm is naturally constituted
by ruthless competition among self-interested individuals, conditions
which displace morality. Instead, morality is located in women who as
nurturers preside over the private realm of relations. In this move, women
become not the antithesis to, but the embodiment of morality because
they are "by nature" suited to the task. Accordingly, by nature, morality
and power divide between relations and society; relations are naturally
good and society is naturally evil. However, the construction also reverses
because the construction of women as the natural expression of the moral
good is confined to the middle class. As a standard all women should
meet but only some can, the cult of true womanhood divides women
between good and bad nature. 20
The two constructions of nature help us see that the two models of
society are not simply the abstract counterpart to the individual. By
tracing the shifting constructions of nature, we can identify not only
that different models of society exist in liberalism but also that they
are populated differentially according to hierarchical patterns in which
nature and society are at one point at odds, at another point merged.
Bourgeois men are naturally moral in their rational autonomy. Bourgeois
women are naturally moral in their relational nurture. Non-bourgeois
people are naturally incapable of morality. These notions and arrange-
ments of goodness, including the power differentials between women and
men and between women and women, are not constructed separately
but are constructed together through activities of people which enmesh
male and female, female and female, gender and class.
MIDDLE CLASS WHITE WOMEN: MORALITY AND DOMINATION
Historian Mary Ryan's work makes evident ways that women's caring
was part of the gender and class relations which men and women both
made in early nineteenth century Oneida County, New York. Following
the emphasis of the Second Great Awakening on nurture instead of
judgment as the purpose of the Christian family, women instead of
men became the primary transmitters of moral culture to the young.
But the care that women provided was complex in its intentions and
goals. Intertwined with the religious transition was the development of
a market economy that depended on a kind of individuality that was
336 RUTH L. SMITH
both independent and cautious, competitive and circumspect and that was
constructed as autonomous. The raising of autonomous sons for an advan-
tageous market position was a project of the entire family which got
its start in the home. The work of men was increasingly moved away
from homes into factories and offices; the home became the province
of female work, centered around child rearing. 21
The issue, however, is not simply that of a gendered division of labor
but of the relations that men and women created together in making a
new society. Ryan's analysis attests to women's participation in the
making of society as good nature. As part of the valorization of the white
middle class, middle-class women's activities became normative for all
women yet they were available only to middle-class women for whom
the newly bourgeois arrangements of home and work could at least appear
to be possible. Middle-class women did not have equal power with men
and were excluded from many official political and economic func-
tions; their presence in the paid work force was itself obscured by the
need to establish the gendered patterns imputedly separating home and
work, women and men, morality and market society. At the same time,
women whose middle class position allowed them to have servants super-
vised their clothing, their morals, and their work habits, even in some
cases insisting on industrial-like efficiency practices, all of which asserted
control and the value of hierarchy.22 From these instances, we can see
that the ambiguities of class-gender relations have exhibited variety even
within the middle class.
Women used the spaces opened up by the initial religious fervor of
the Second Great Awakening to establish public activities of their own
in the missionary societies and philanthropic organizations that flour-
ished. Yet this "public" participation as well as "private" participation
was marked by their middle class status. Middle class white women
took care of the transition from nature to culture in shaping children to
participate in the good order of society, a transition that appeared to be
seamless because the order of society was presented as natural. These
women took care of society as "bad nature" through their activities for
the unChristian, the foreign, and the poor. Their activities in some ways
brought needed assistance but they also enforced boundaries defining
those women and men who had morality firmly in their possession and
those who were in need of it even if it was, by construction, beyond
their "natural" grasp.
Taking into account a more complex and shifting view of white
middle-class women makes evident the that the relations of middle-

class women are neither biologically natural nor natural in the liberal
sense that they evolve from women's nature. They are the self-activi-
ties of historically existing women. Their history is not only about gender,
but is also about class and class formation; their relations involve the
empowering of women through the initial enthusiasm of the Second Great
Awakening, the empowering of young men especially by women in the
home, the power of middle class women over working class and poor
people, the power of white women and men over African-American
women and men, the power of a male centered political economy over
women. It is these relations that call into question liberal assumptions
that the relations of society as "good nature" are of themselves moral.
Without referring to these complex historical snapshots, feminist social
and moral claims about care easily reproduce the assumption that one
particular experience of relations is universal and is natural, that is, is the
kind of society and behavior human beings express when freely left to
do so. Under such conditions morality for middle class women is con-
strued to be unnecessary; they simply express morality by virtue of
their "natural" orientation to relations and care. Questions about the
meaning of gender and morality within class and race become unask-
able and resistance within the middle class is made trivial or invisible.
However, as Ryan's work shows, the female voice of society as good
nature is unstable, but its morality is not without socially made and
effected power.
The gender domination of morality is complex because while morality
appears firmly located in bourgeois women, it is nonetheless placed in
those who are political subordinates. As subordinates, women's moral
agency is naturalized but not politicized so that it remains in construc-
tion clearly distinguished from full citizenship and power. Middle class
women live within the moral options constructed for all women between
the "naturally" pathological and the "naturally" good, that is, between
those who cannot in their "bad nature" be moral and those who cannot
in their "good nature" be anything but moral. But because of their class
location, bourgeois women do not have the same relations to these options
as do non-bourgeois women.
These moral-political-economic differentiations and their zig-zag paths
of historical construction are at all points boundary markers, some more
complex than others, about the conditions of legitimated citizenship,
market participation, and moral agency. The problem can be framed as
338 RUTH L. SMITH
one of the exclusion of women from the social contract which is then
to be solved by inclusion. But such a diagnosis fails to grasp the
significance of what is at stake in the juxtapositions of morality, society,
and nature in which all the terms simultaneously presume the subordi-
nation of women to men and of everyone else to the white middle classes.
Women are not just left out of the social contract; by design the contracts
are arrangements of subordination. 23 In the second model of society by
which some women are moral agents, the unequal power relations of
the contract also obtain. The moral agency of white middle class women
is constructed to support the social contract as both contrast and com-
plement to economic and political power. The conditions by which
white middle class women are acknowledge to be moral agents, involves
both their own subordination and their participation in the subordina-
tion of others.
The arrangements of domination and subordination are described
morally by the contrast between self-interest and dis-interest or self-
interest and self-sacrifice. Notice the gendered difference between
the moral alternatives. Dis-interest is available only to the abstract,
autonomous individual, the middle-class male; women do not have kind
of independence. Self-sacrifice is available only to the nurturer of rela-
tions, the middle-class female; men do not have that kind of dependence.
Men are free moral critics; women are relational moral saints. The
divergence of moral goals that is our legacy from Victorian morality
reminds us of the embedded social logic by which autonomy and per-
fection require distinction and require each other. As Jessica Benjamin
argues, autonomy and perfection require distinction in order to maintain
the gendered division of domination and subordination within the middle
class. They require each other as polar opposites that maintain the terms
of the apparent absolute moral claim of each, which in turn produces
and depends on class domination. 24
WHICH RELATIONS? WHICH MORALS?
I began this article with the argument that two dominant versions of
society occur in the history of liberalism. Extending Baudrillard's analysis
of bourgeois views of nature, I defined the versions as society as good
nature and society as bad nature, each of which divides within itself
between good and bad nature. Their dualism accords with the presence
and absence of autonomy and morality though, autonomy and morality
are not necessarily coexistent as in the case of middle class women.

The dualism also accords with the presence and absence of kinds of
power. Power is constructed in the middle classes as benign (naturally
good self-interest), as competition and as domination, all expressions
of control. Power is constructed in the non-bourgeois classes as disorder
and hostility, expressions which imputedly require external control. Power
to control is coextensive with the middle class but not fully with morality
when middle class morality is located in women who are constructed
as both orderly and disorderly, dominating and dominated.
These differentiations of socio-moral relations indicate that the rela-
tions of domination in morality are not well understood by collapsing
a monolithic notion of morality into a monolithic notion of power. This
kind of reductionism, which occurs in strands of both Marxism and lib-
eralism, is ahistorical and non-relational. It ascribes essentialist meaning
to class, power, and morality as if they are all one stable, unitary, and
natural phenomenon. However, as this brief exploration of middle class
moral relations shows, these relations are shifting and unstable in
location. The model often embraced from the nineteenth century locates
morality in the public sphere insofar as it is linked with autonomy yet
dislocates morality from the public sphere because of its competitive
character. By participating in their ascribed inherent capacity for nurture,
women participate in the making of the autonomous males who officially
constitute bourgeois society; in this activity, nurture and autonomy come
together. But autonomy is not historically available to women themselves
and so autonomy and the morality of nurture also divide. In these ways
which could easily be elaborated further, we can see that the terms of
class, power, and morality shift not only in relation to each other but
within themselves. A reductionist view obscures these relations which
are not monolithic, monocausal, nor discrete but which have complex
and variable moral histories that push us beyond the mechanistic choice
of "free" or "determined."
The relational orientation to morality urged by many feminists injects
a perspective unarticulated by liberal moral theories that define morality
according to autonomy and its notion of freedom but, it does not neces-
sarily inject a perspective unarticulated by liberal practices or views of
society. In fact, relations do have a place in liberal practice and thinking,
one which emerges only when we reject the bourgeois view of all rela-
tions as natural and consider their historical and plural character. Without
this move, feminist constructions easily reproduce bourgeois patterns
340 RUTH L. SMITH
whereby domination is located with autonomy and morality is located

with "naturally good" relations, thereby obscuring domination within the
relations of nurture and care, be these relations by which women govern
servants or relations by which women teach male children autonomy.25
A relational orientation does not of itself "naturally" result in non-hier-
archical and democratic moral practices, also important feminist claims;
it can recommend "society as good nature."
An important advantage of a notion of relationality is that it can
bring forward the permeable character of self and social relations in
contrast to autonomy which appears to be absolute and self-contained.
However, a relational orientation can also take on an absolute character
of its own, which results in protecting both autonomy and a particular
view of relationality. When relationality is exclusively and uncritically
collapsed with the relations of care and nurture defined by the bour-
geois world, it presumes the perfectionism of complete self-giving in
contrast to complete self-containment. Benjamin argues that each indulges
in a fantasy of absoluteness; the fantasy of autonomy is to take all into
itself, leaving nothing outside to challenge or threaten it. The fantasy
of perfection is also one of omnipotence in which the goal is the complete
sacrificial giving out of the self, leaving nothing inside to support inde-
pendence and differentiation. 26 In this context, attention to relations
does not distance us from the absolute self and its ambiguities of depen-
dence and independence, sameness and differentiation, self and society.
Through the terms of their absoluteness and their ambiguity, bourgeois
relations and autonomy protect their shared hierarchical notions of indi-
viduality and society.
My explorations are not intended to indicate that future ideas about
individuality and society will be without ambiguities and contradic-
tions. I am interested in how the ambiguities and contradictions of
liberalism work so that we can continue to figure out ways this dominant
moral history and its familiar habits bleed into and subvert new con-
structions. My explorations are not intended to identify an error that once
corrected would firmly distinguish feminist notions of self and society
from the notions of liberalism. To further articulate a notion of rela-
tionality does not of itself erase this historical legacy but helps make it
permeable so that we can continuously rearticulate the social relations
of morality.
NOTES
I Ruth L. Smith, The Individual and Society in Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Marx (Ann
Arbor: University Microfilms, 1982). Portions of this article are drawn from 'Relationality
and the Ordering of Differences', Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 9 (Spring/Fall
1993) 199-214. Both articles bring together arguments I have treated separately elsewhere
about the juxtaposition of the moral constructions of gender, class, and society. See par-
ticularly, 'Order and Disorder: the Naturalization of Poverty', Cultural Critique (Winter
1989-90),209-229 and 'The Evasion of Otherness', Union Seminary Quarterly Review
43 (1989) 145-161.
2 The dis-ease of the contract entails ambivalence among its early formulators about a
society predicated on the autonomy of individuals and their interests. For example, Locke
firmly establishes the conditions for the primacy of individual rights and property and
at the same time is uneasy about the extent to which self-interest can keep a society together
morally as he looks wistfully on waning notions of a Christian commonwealth. See dis-
cussion in John Dunn, Rethinking Modern Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985). The dis-ease also involves the coalescing of universal, democ-
ratic claims with exclusionary ones as to who counts as a citizen and contract participant.
See Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).
3 My work in this article primarily addresses the dominant moral relations of the white
middle class as a class. I do not develop the aspects of race and racism that are entailed
in white middle class identity nor do I discuss the construct of "class" per se. Several
perspectives on these issues are important to the writing and reading of this article.
Class is part of racial differentiation and of differentiation within race. For a discussion
of the need to consider gender and class identity among African-Americans see Evelyn
Brooks Higginbotham, 'African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of
Race', Signs 17 (Winter 1992), 251-274. While class is a significant marker in capi-
talist societies, it is not a unitary phenomenon; all people in one class do not share the
same social practices or habits of thought. The middle class is a cluster of classes which
have increasingly different experiences of economic, social, and political power among
themselves. Nonetheless, the middle class has been historically dominant and we live in
a society in which many people continue to claim middle class identity.
4 The significance of Marx's critique for a social and relational account of individuals
and their social world is developed by Carol C. Gould in her book Marx's Social Ontology
(Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1978).
5 Lynn Segal, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism
(London: Virago, 1987); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love (New York: Pantheon,
1988); Marilyn Friedman, 'The Social Self and Partiality Debates', in Claudia Card
(ed.), Feminist Ethics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 161-179; Jean Tronto,
'Women and Caring', Alison M. Jagger and Susan Bordo (eds.), Gender/Body/Knowledge
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989); Ruth L. Smith, 'Moral Transcendence
and Moral Space in the Historical Experiences of Women', Journal of Feminist Studies
in Religion 4 (Fall 1988), 48-68.
6 The assumption that moral theory and practice are embedded in each other and that
their disassociation from each other is part of the imputed abstraction of liberal moral
theory is widely shared among feminists and is again a claim similar to Marx's critique.
Other contemporary thinkers reflecting critically on liberal constructions of ethics also
342 RUTH L. SMITH
make this point. Alasdair MacIntyre states the problem this way: "There ought not to
be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theo-
rising, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only
by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs
and concepts; every piece of theorising and every expression of belief is a political and
moral action." After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981),58.
7 Raymond Williams. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana
Press, 1976), 291.
8 I think Kant's argument that the moral actor is separable from all aspects of contin-
gency and thus social and historical identity remains the most challenging one in the history
of the liberal period. Versions of this view appear in Roderick Firth, John Rawls, and
Thomas Nagel. For discussion of Nagel's recent book The View from Nowhere (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1986) see Wendy Lee-Lampshire, 'Moral "I": The Feminist
SUbject and the Grammar of Self-Reference', Hypatia 7 (Winter 1992),34-51. See also
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty's interesting discussion in 'Persons, Policies, and Bodies', in her
collection of essays Mind in Action (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988),61-77.
9 See Roberto Mangabeira Unger's discussion of this problem throughout Knowledge and
Politics (London: Macmillan, 1984).
10 Two versions of society may occur to readers that appear to present exceptions, both
of which emerge as arguments against bourgeois notions of society. One, countering bour-
geois production and individualism, entails various nineteenth century notions of society
in terms of its potential for solidarity that shows up differentially in Marx and Engels,
Robert Owen, T. E. Green, and the Social Gospel Movement in the United States. Another
version, countering the bourgeois ideology of inevitable moral and political progress, is
defined by political and Christian realists, primarily Reinhold Niebuhr, in mid-twentieth
century. While these versions present significant alternative aspects, they are also entan-
gled with the dualism by which dross and essence divide from each other. For example,
in the first, society appears as good nature in its transformation by revolution, ratio-
nality, and brotherhood, In the second, society appears as bad nature as it carries the
indelible mark of a world without grace.
11 Jean Baudrillard, The Mirror of Production, translated. by Mark Poster (St. Louis:
Telos Press, 1975), 53-56.
12 Jean Baudrillard, The Mirror of Production (St. Louis: Telos Press, 1975), 57-59.
13 Classically these formulations belong to Locke and Hobbes respectively. See Thomas
Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: Viking Penguin, 1981; orig. 1651) and John Locke, Two
Treatises of Government (New York: New American Library, 1965, orig. 1689). The
commonly stated differences between them should not obscure similarities of concern
about order and other differences. Carole Pateman argues that Hobbes is much more willing
to make evident the political relations, including gender, that precede the contract. The
Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). 44.
14 See Carole Pateman's analysis of this issue in The Sexual Contract.
15 Unger describes this phenomenon throughout Knowledge and Politics. See for example
64-66.
16 See Mary Midgley, Can't We Make Moral Judgements (New York: St. Martins,
1991) on John Stuart Mill's fear of society's encroachment on individuality, 38-41. While
this fear was at times expressed in terms of state intervention it also expressed the nine-
teenth century fear of the "great masses." On the threat that women pose to rationality
and morality see Carole Pateman, 'The Disorder of Women: Women, Love, and the
Sense of Jusice', in The Disorder of Women (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989)
17-32.
17 See Pateman, op. cit., chapter 3.
18 See Christine Di Stefano, 'Masculinity as Political Ideology in Political Theory:
Hobbesian Man Considered', Hypatia 6 (1983) Pateman discusses the issue of who
counts as an individual throughout The Sexual Contract. See particularly chapter 8.
19 See Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1960),
340.
20 See Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, 'The Cross and the Pedestal: Women, Anti-Ritualism,
and the Emergence of the American Bourgeoisie', Disorderly Conduct, Visions of Gender
in Victorian America (New York: Knopf, 1985), 129-164.
21 Mary Ryan. Cradle of the Middle Class, The Family in Oneida County, New York,
1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). See especially chapters 2
and 4.
22 Ryan, op. cit., 172; 206-207.
23 In varying ways. this problem is present not only in the classical constructions of
the social contract but in contemporary ones as well. See discussion in Pateman, The Sexual
Contract, for example, pp. 41-43, 230-232.
24 Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem
of Domination (New York: Pantheon, 1988), chapter five.
25 For discussion of contemporary teaching of hierarchical relations to children see
Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), particularly chapter
four.
26 Benjamin, op. cit., p. 214.
JOHN SILBER
ON BOB COHEN
Robert Cohen and I met 45 years ago when we were both graduate
students at Yale. I remember well our political discussions in the spring
of 1948 during the race for the presidency among Truman, Dewey and
Wallace. Bob and I were united in our opposition to Dewey, but divided
over who might successfully challenge him. He supported Wallace while
I supported Truman, arguing that a vote for Wallace was in effect a
vote for Dewey. At that time, I did not know enough of the lingo to
use my strongest argument against Bob - to dismiss his position as one
of utopian idealism.
Bob Cohen stood out from most of the graduate students by virtue
of his remarkable range of interests and knowledge while still so young.
His grounding in the history of philosophy was extraordinary. He not
only knew the Classical Tradition of Plato and Aristotle but he was
thoroughly informed about the Vienna Circle. Having completed a Ph.D.
in physics, his knowledge of the philosophy of science surpassed that
of all but one or two of the faculty. And he was an expert on Marxism.
It was not particularly surprising that with his knowledge of German
idealism he should be well acquainted with the writing of Karl Marx
and Engels, but it was remarkable that he should know the writings of
Lenin and Stalin and Bukharin and Trotsky and the history of the
Communist movement, its theoretical conflicts, and the issues which
unified and divided it. Unlike most who spoke about Marxism in those
days, Cohen was exceptional in his three-dimensional understanding
that it was not simply a social and political movement but one with
deep philosophical and quasi-theological roots.
A mere lad not yet 30, his knowledge of philosophy, physics and polit-
ical thought compared favorably with the knowledge of most members
of what was then generally recognized as the strongest department of
philosophy in the country. It is not surprising that as a beginning graduate
student I looked up to Bob, who took his Ph.D. in the year I began my
graduate work. What is more remarkable is that ten years later, on the
basis of more mature comparisons and judgment, I realized that Bob in
1948 had the depth and insight of scholars 15 years his senior.
345

346 JOHN SILBER
He was not merely a collector of information but a man who had

recognized the truth of T. S. Eliot's point that we become preoccupied
with facts at the expense of knowledge and knowledge at the expense
of wisdom. He had a mature coherence of thought and a capacity for
exposition that was riveting. As a young member of the Yale faculty,
he taught the finest course on Marxism I ever sat in on. And if he were
invited to lecture on Marxism in another course, he could in one or
three or six lectures provide an overview with varying degrees of detail,
but always distinguished by accuracy, balance and excitement.
As a personality, he was then as he is today: quietly amiable. And
in philosophical debate and discussion: gentle, even courtly, in his ques-
tioning and comment. I was surprised by his departure from Yale to
Wesleyan and wondered about the judgment of the senior faculty at
Yale in allowing such talent to escape. But that was only the harbinger
of the accelerating folly that brought a brilliant philosophy department
near ruin only 15 years later.
A review of Bob's resume reflects his range of interests. He is a
generalist and an interdisciplinarian. He does honor to the concepts: a
generalist who has totally escaped the pitfalls of the popularizer, an inter-
disciplinarian whose claim to the title is grounded on his thorough
mastery of not one but many disciplines.
His knowledge of American higher education and of higher educa-
tion in Europe reflects not book learning so much as an extraordinary
range of visiting appointments and lectureships.
His enduring contribution to Boston University and to philosophy
is found in his role as a founder and director of the Center for the
Philosophy and History of Science and in his editorship of the Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science. In his direction of the Center, Robert
Cohen has never been narrow or parochial in his interests but has cast
a broad net and welcomed discussion on scientific issues and philo-
sophical issues without regard to ideology and intellectual fads. Who
but Bob Cohen~ for example, would have organized a conference around
the geometrical and physical speCUlations of Paul Lorenzen who, from
the basis of a constructivist foundation, held that the space of the universe
is defined by a Euclidean metric and that relativity physics is to be under-
stood on the basis of transforms from that metric? Most physicists dismiss
without examination such speculations as obviously false, on no better
grounds than that such speculations are unfashionable. Not Robert Cohen.
ON BOB COHEN 347
In the tradition of Hamlet he had always sought grounds "more relative

than this."
Boston University has also been honored by his service on the general
editorial committee of the Vienna Circle Collection. But for decades if
not for centuries Boston University will be honored by the 155 volumes
published in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science including
40 for which Robert Cohen was personally responsible.
As President of Boston University, one of my major frustrations was
in failing to force Bob into large undergraduate classes where each
semester 200 or 300 students would be drawn into the magnetic field
of his powerful lecturing. Such, however, are the limitations of academic
freedom that I could only urge his greater involvement in the teaching
of undergraduates which, from our earliest years of association, I recog-
nized to be his forte, or more precisely, one of his many strengths.
If Bob was cursed, it was the curse of too many talents, of knowing
so much, of being competent in so widely different fields. His mastery
of such an enormous amount of knowledge, and his gifts, not only
of original thought but also of exposition of the views of others, were
so great that sometimes his circumference of interests - to turn to
Nietzsche's metaphor - obscured their center.
Nevertheless, Bob's has been a magnificently successful career and
his influence had marked the lives of many: his many hundreds of
students and the thousands of philosophers, scientists and intellectuals
with general interests who have read his writings and studied the volumes
he has edited. His legacy will always be a source of honor and pride
to Boston University.
On a personal note, I should mention that it was Bob Cohen who,
as far as I know, first called my name to the attention of the search
committee that was established at Boston University following the
resignation of my predecessor. And it was Bob Cohen who, in the fall
of 1970, called me to ask if I would be interested in being considered
for the presidency. Our differences at times have been sufficiently intense
that I sometimes wonder if he has ever regretted the role he played in
my recruitment. But despite our differences, we have remained friends.
I feel privileged to express my respect, admiration and affection for
this outstanding man.
Boston University
ALFRED I. TAUBER
ON THE TRANSVALUATION OF VALUES*

Nietzsche Contra Foucault
1. CRITICS OF HISTORY
Nietzsche and Foucault are easily linked. Foucault disconcerts (Taylor

1986, p. 69), Nietzsche confounds, allures and forbids (Heller 1988,
p. 17). Both are "prophets of extremity" (Megill 1985), sharing a severe
skepticism of knowledge, a radical perspectivism for methodological
analysis, and an overarching aestheticism. Each might be read as a "deter-
mined joker" (Foot 1991), not literally but ironically, not as guides but
as opponents, whose work, like that of an artist, exists "in a state of
tension with the given." (Megill 1985, p. 315) Not only did Foucault
himself address his indebtedness to Nietzsche, he has been called
"Nietzsche's closest successor" (Megill 1985, p. 30), based on the
comparison both of the manifest product and methodology of their
respective critiques; when Foucault summarizes his endeavor to create
a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings
are made subjects (that is to say, the objectivization of the individual
and his subjection to control (Foucault 1983a, p. 208, there is a strong
resemblance to Nietzsche's orientation. But Foucault's most obvious
intersection with Nietzsche concerns genealogical analysis that probes
the developmental process by which man has become an "object" - as
opposed to his self-asserted "subjectedness."
The genealogist in Foucault's formulation is a diagnostician concen-
trating on the relations of power, knowledge, and the body in modern
society to determine what it is that conditions and institutionalizes each.
In 'Nietzsche, Genealogy and History' (Foucault 1984b), Foucault dis-
tinguished such analysis from that of his earlier opus concerning the
archaeology of knowledge. The explicit parallelism with Nietzsche in
such discourse is strangely implicit, for at no point does he endorse
Nietzsche's larger purpose, nor signify an indebtedness. They perhaps
shared a method, not a project. This distancing in fact reflects an appro-
priate separation and deserves special scrutiny. The genealogy of values
and knowledge is committed to the endeavor to trace development and
emergence of socially constructed truths.) Foucault's genealogist does
349

350 ALFRED 1. TAUBER
not seek meaning in deep analysis; the character of eros or sex or illness
is revealed when viewed from the right distance: in surface events, minor
details, subtle change, the hidden is revealed. Interpretation becomes a
never-ending task. As Foucault proclaimed earlier in 'Nietzsche, Freud,
Marx,' "There is nothing absolutely primary to interpret because, when
all is said and done, underneath it all everything is already interpreta-
tion". (Foucault 1986) Interpretation arises from social constructions.
What is defined as objective but masks subjective motivations, and this
issue introduces Foucault's concern with power as defined in Discipline
and Punish:
power produces knowledge ... power and knowledge directly imply one another; that
there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge,
nor any knowledge that does not pre-suppose and constitute at the same time power
relations .... In short, it is not the activity of the subject of knowledge that produces a
corpus of knowledge, useful or resistant to power, but power-knowledge, the processes
and struggles that traverse it and of which it is made up, that determines the forms and
possible domains of knowledge. (Foucault 1977, pp. 27-28)
To understand Foucauldian Power in its various disguises becomes the

object of the genealogist's mission. 2 All knowledge remains relative
and serves as an instrument or expression of power, and can emerge in
history only as a result of societal forces. History is "effective"
to the degree that it introduces discontinuity into our very being - as it divides our
emotions, dramatizes our instincts, multiplies our body and sets it against itself. "Effective"
history deprives the self of the reassuring stability of life and nature ... because knowl-
edge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting. (Foucault 1984b, p. 88)
Nietzsche and Foucault share in the history of their own times a profound
skepticism. Their common purpose is to make history "a curative science"
(since "historical sense has more in common with medicine than phi-
losophy" (Foucault 1984b, p. 90), but they quickly separate.
Although Nietzsche and Foucault each discover man as object, they
arrive at his conclusion from an ethos derived from very different origins:
Nietzsche regarded man as self-creative, self-renewing and ultimately
self-responsible. This dynamic process of self-definition bespeaks a
potential emanating from some origin and striving towards an ideal.
Foucault's vision of man as a construct, arising from historical process,
hapless in the churning of societal forces, thus begins with a cultural
entity far removed from the true origins Nietzsche discerned and the
potential inherent in that description. Man became an object in histor-
ON THE TRANSVALUATION OF VALUES 351
ical process, but his true identity defies such a restriction in Nietzsche's
ethical cosmos. Foucault's kinship in fact goes beyond a similar diag-
nosis, but includes an echoed cry of Nietzschean individualization:
"Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to
refuse what we are." (Foucault 1983a, p. 216) But without the philo-
sophical analysis, Foucault's history and sociologic critique cannot offer
a radicalized "solution." It is at this juncture that the depth of Nietzsche's
own genealogic soundings offer profound meaning.
Given the complexity of this topic, I must direct my analysis to the
core concept of power as understood by Nietzsche and Foucault, the
derivative subject/object of power - the body - and finally the resul-
tant position of their analyses. The thesis to be expounded is that
Nietzsche and Foucault are only superficially regarded in tandem as
critics of history and culture, that their respective intellectual product
is a constructive ethics vs. a dissolute relativism and deconstruction,
respectively, and that such disparate end points arise in their radically
different concepts of power that form the bedrock of their respective
systems. Nietzsche understood power as the subject of his analysis: the
universe, with man specifically the product of competing drives and
instincts, was governed by the Will to Power, a pervasive force, whose
various manifestations created and formed life. Power is. As subject,
not object, power - albeit through the body - expresses not only the
primeval energetics of the organic, but creates all those expressions of
human endeavor that eventuate in culture and its history. To understand
Man is to recognize how the Will to Power is governed, controlled,
perverted into the negative nihilistic depiction of late 19th century
European civilization. Ironically, without the antecedent genealogy of
power as construed by Nietzsche, Foucault joins the critical attack of
culture at the level of dissecting how power controls. Foucault analyzes
power as a societal weapon to establish hegemony over the individual's
body, action and thought. In this scheme, the body becomes an object,
and power, the means of control; power is divorced from its origins
and appears as a radically formulated schema of analysis. And it is pre-
cisely this point that highlights the fundamental difference between
Nietzsche and Foucault. The basis of Nietzsche's critique of modern
culture, philosophy, history was that each conspired to contort the body
from true subject, to an object. Nietzsche railed against rationalism and
sought to recognize the primacy of the body as the foundation of his
Transvaluation of Values. When Foucault wrote
352 ALFRED I. TAUBER
Nothing in man - not even his body - is sufficiently stable to serve as the basis
for Self-recognition or for understanding . . . [emphasis added] (Foucault 1984b,
p.88).
he revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of, and irreparable sepa-

ration from Nietzsche. Power for Foucault is an object for analysis, and
for Nietzsche power is his true subject - the protagonist of his inquiry.
For Foucault, power is but a means to define the self and therefore it
cannot constitute the self's very basis, as in Nietzsche's understanding.
Consequently, their respective conceptualizations of power project diver-
gent vectors of thought, and to analyze how they each regarded the
problem of the body as the expression (Nietzsche) or object (Foucault)
of power, we discern the radically disparate discharge of their endeavors.
Following a summary description of this analysis, I will briefly consider
its implications.
2. POWER AS NIETZSCHE'S SUBJECT AND

FOUCAULT'S OBJECT
To begin, how does Nietzsche define power? As discussed elsewhere

(Tauber 1994a), the argument depends on, and remains tethered to, a
biological self-consciousness. The critique of man thus originates in
Nietzsche's concepts of biologicism, i.e. as an organic creature. In cele-
brating evolutionary origins as the legitimate foundation of his critique,
Nietzsche views the body as the only valid arbiter of man's essential
being. Our intellectualisms, rationality, morality have distorted man's true
nature and diseased it. Therefore, Nietzsche argues, we must first recog-
nize our primary bodily essence. And that essence is but the expression
of the Will to Power. Nietzsche's Will to Power is no less than the
primary organic force, manifest in different derivative forms as the
instinctual basis of man's behavior. The instincts were sublimated in both
creative and destructive activities (canonized by Freud and others in
dynamic psychiatry), so that all human endeavor could be traced to them.
He argued that such inferior drives competed with and ultimately cor-
rupted the primary force, the Will to Power, which was the source of
all of life's ascendancy and perfection. His mission then was to discover
both a means to rescue man from the nihilistic abyss that a perverse
morality had left him, and to provide an ethic that originates in a profound
cognizance of man's animal nature, i.e. a creature willing to power.
Organic function, whether viewed from an evolutionary or physio-
logical perspective, leads to a new vision of man - developing, over-

coming, becoming - through the Will. Nietzsche begins with the
biological as the foundation of his new ethics. From the organic, the
true nature of man must emerge. Our moral values are then to be dis-
covered by examining and understanding our basic and undisguised
biological nature. Not only would this strategy invoke a healthier
psychology, but more crucial to Nietzsche's purpose, it leads to an anti-
nihilistic ethic. 3
Since the very nature of the Will is to strive, to forever seek
greater power, there are on-going, and ever-changing relations, so that
dominated spirits may generate anew and triumph over commanding
forces: "The species do not grow in perfection: the weak prevail over
the strong again and again." (Nietzsche 1959b, p. 523) This process,
which Nietzsche sees throughout organic nature, is what he terms "self-
overcoming" (Selbstiiberwindung) ("And life itself confided this secret
to me: Behold, I am that which must always overcome itself' ," (Nietzsche
1959a, p. 225, and is personified in the Obermensch. The process of
self-overcoming emerges from the struggle of the dominated: "Along
stealthy paths the weaker steals into the castle and into the very heart
of the more powerful - and there steals power." (Nietzsche 1959a, p. 227)
To the extent his dynamic must be viewed as integral to the individual,
whether organism, species, civilization, or morality, the law applies to
all selves: "All great things bring about their own destruction through
an act of self-overcoming; thus the law of life will have it, the law of
the necessity of 'self-overcoming' in the nature of life." (Nietzsche 1967a,
p. 161) The subject then is a dialectical construct. 4 In constant encounter
with its other, both internal and external, the subject becomes renewed
in its ever-changing adjustment to inferior forces seeking their own
self-aggrandizement and with the environment, which serves as the
external challenge to the organism.
In stark contrast is Foucault's vision. Instead of an autonomous,
striving, self-defining entity, the body is first objectified to become but
another focus of power. Foucault examined the body in its various guises
as the object of bio-power. When he chose to critique the biomedical
formulation in Birth of the Clinic (Foucault 1973), Foucault argues that
a fundamental change in medical thinking occurred in post-Revolutionary
France as the hospital emerged as a new institution with a radically altered
style of medical thought and practice associated with it. Aside from
the politico-economic motives and organizational imperatives of that
tumultuous period, Foucault traced how at the beginning of the 19th

century, a new objectification of disease signs and symptoms, an under-
standing of probability, variation, and the continuum of phenomena
revolutionized medical thinking. A new program to connect observa-
tion ("fact") with a self-conscious clinical language for exhaustive
description led to clinical methods that did not merely look at the surface
of the body but penetrated it to reveal the hidden source of disease.
The autopsy became a fundamental instrument of inquiry to correlate
signs/symptoms with pathology. The primacy of the autopsy, according
to Foucault, was not delayed by "religion, morality or stubborn preju-
dice" (Foucault 1973, p. 124), but because medicine failed to recognize
the strata of objectivity which the autopsy afforded. This conceptual
revolution resulted from a new objectification of the body, disease and
death - all forms of life: "The idea of a disease attacking life must be
replaced by the much denser notion of pathological life" (Foucault
1973, p. 153), and death appears as the very source of disease ("it is
because he may die that man may fall ill" (Foucault 1973, p. 155.
The classical view of disease as something independent of the body is
eliminated, and the way we "see" in the modem medical gaze was fixed
and permits our understanding, providing the key to unlock a "forbidden,
imminent secret: the knowledge of the individual." (Foucault 1973,
p. 170) The body objectified, in a new form of knowledge: "The moment
that counts in a history of the biological sciences is that of the consti-
tution of the object and the formation of the concept." (Foucault 1989,
p.20)
In Foucault's scheme, Bichat's conceptualization is used as another
object of power. The body, so well defined under the scrutiny of medical
objectivity, is subject to the same expressions of knowledge/power
operative in other discursive analysis, i.e. in the analysis of punitive prac-
tices or sexuality. For instance, the same orientation is found in The
History of Sexuality (Foucault 1978), where Foucault confronts the
banality of "sexuality" as it has emerged since the early nineteenth
century. He offered a conjectural history of the experience of sexuality,
understood through the development of fields of knowledge related to
sexual practices, the emergence of normative practices, and historical
models within which persons are obliged to constitute themselves as
sexual beings. The underlying notion of power permeating Foucault's
analysis of sexuality precludes the active self of Nietzschean morality.
The Foucauldian self remains fundamentally decentered - an object of

knowledge and power - simultaneously constituted and bound by the
discursive practices which define historically specific experiences of
sexuality, desire, and ultimately repression.
As Foucault expounded in Discipline and Punish, the social appara-
tuses and institutions operate in "a microphysics of power." (Foucault
1977, p. 26) Power acts upon the body, "conceived not as a property,
but as a strategy ... power is exercised rather than possessed." (Foucault
1977, p. 26) Foucault brilliantly linked the body's subtle and minute
social practices with the large scale organization of power, but he failed
to recognize that the body's corruption and sickness, its enslavement
by work, its desires molded by cultural expectation, were perversions
of what Nietzsche sought as its true essence. The body's pollution was
a given for Foucault, the inevitable result of societal power in history.
The body is but an object to scrutinize in the genealogical endeavor -
albeit an important source, but still only an object of inquiry. Nietzsche
begins his critique with a firm metaphysical foundation - there is power,
it is manifest as the Will to Power, the body is its expression, and an
ideal arises from this conceptualization. Foucault does not offer a means
of escape - neither self-renewal, nor an ethic is his concern. But for
Nietzsche, to understand power was to establish that curative vision.
Foucault claimed to have isolated the mechanism by which power
operates ("meticulous rituals of power"), the manner in which power is
localized ("political technologies of the body"), and the dynamics of how
power works ("a microphysics of power"). It is a fecund sociological
analysis, but Foucault's description of power cannot be related to
Nietzsche's formulation that serves as the very foundation of his phi-
losophy. Foucault clearly acknowledges that his conception of power
becomes a phenomenology of behavior. He, like Marx, does not analyze
power in terms of its "what" or "why", i.e. to understand power's fun-
damental character, but to trace "how" it acts. The "how" is defined as
by what means power is exercised and the consequences of such exerted
power between individuals; the term "power" is used to designate rela-
tionships (Foucault 1983a), and therefore Foucault analyzes power
relations, not power itself. In the context of Foucault's role as Nietzsche's
successor, a glaring problem arises: Foucault does not believe Power
exists: "something called Power, with or without a capital letter, which
is assumed to exist universally in a concentrated or diffused form, does
not exist. Power exists only when it is put into action." (Foucault 1983a,
p. 219) Foucault takes this position because of his distrust of metaphysical
inquiry:
To begin the analysis with a "how" is to suggest that power as such does not exist . ...
The little question, what happens? although flat and empirical, once it is scrutinized is
seen to avoid accusing a metaphysics or an ontology of power of being fraudulent; rather
it attempts a critical investigation into the thematics of power. (Foucault 1983a, p. 217)
[emphasis added]
Be that as it may, Foucault then forfeits functioning as anything more

than a critic. He may claim legitimacy for kinship with Nietzsche on
that basis, but Nietzsche's critique was only to lay the basis of a new
ethic. To become the "physician of the soul" Nietzsche's analysis of
culture's dynamic infrastructure enabled him to project a remedy for
negative nihilism. Foucault's timorous dealing with the philosophical
issue left him untainted with metaphysics, but also left him bereft of
participating at that level of discourse in which analysis rises above the
fray in order to offer, if not solutions, at least hope.
3. FROM POWER TO ETHIC
Nietzsche's sensitivity to the biological resides at several levels: the

organic is the true basis of Man - to understand his psychology is to com-
prehend his instinctual drives and behavior. These in turn are only
manifestations of the Will to Power. It is the Will from which man
must understand his ontogeny (birth of being). Nietzsche based his meta-
physics of the Will to Power on the primacy of biological struggle. If
all human endeavor originated in man's biological heritage, that char-
acter was one of ceaseless striving, struggle and competition. The issue
was to direct that drive to an ethical end. Evolution as a biological
force is subordinated to the Will, and the Will remains at the myste-
rious nexus of life itself: "What has been the relation of the total organic
process to the rest of nature? - That is where its fundamental will stands
revealed." (Nietzsche 1967b, p. 368).5 It is Man's unique position (and
responsibility) to understand that revelation, which Nietzsche proposes
in the Eternal Recurrence.
So how is that nexus explored? The epiphany of Nietzsche's moral
insight is the Eternal Recurrence, which is fundamentally organic in
the implicit sense of renewal, regeneration, return. Nietzsche's philos-
ophy assumes its most profound biological orientation in this context.

There are those who understand Eternal Recurrence as a cosmological
principle, whose reasons for rejection are amply argued elsewhere.
(Nehamas 1985, pp. 142-167) Philosophically, Nietzsche uses Eternal
Recurrence as a theory not of the world, but of the self. The interpre-
tation of the Eternal Recurrence must reside in a consistent reading of
Nietzsche's concepts of the Will to Power and the corollary of becoming
as true being. In a profound sense, he argues that the Eternal Recurrence
is the fulfillment of living each moment, each act, each choice without
concern for past remorse or future judgment. We are enjoined to live
as if each moment is to be relived, unchanged, into eternity. With that
perspective, each moment is not only immutable, but precious, and
forever accountable to ourselves. Nietzsche's Recurrence was "not to
a life precisely like this one, but to this very life" (Williams 1952, p. 100),
which imbues the quality of eternity in every moment and in every choice.
This then leads to a supreme self-consciousness of our ultimate and
inescapable responsibility for our acts. The last element of the ethic
then is that the acceptance of Eternal Recurrence distinguishes the
strong from the weak, that is the irrevocability of every decision enables
those who adopt the mandate of assuming responsibility for their life,
the life to be lived again and again, eternally, a distinguishing moral
character.
Responsibility resides solely with Man, whose identity is based on
fully acknowledging the primacy of the Will and living its full mandate,
freed of false and encumbering moral restrictions. This is commitment
only the strong might assume, for the sick sigh, "If only I were someone
else" (Nietzsche 1967a, p. 122). If life is to be eternally recurrent, then
we must accept living in the present in its full and self-sufficient com-
plement. Time's vector is pointed not to the past or future, but towards
us, moving steadily forward in the present. In this sense, Nietzsche
accepts "becoming," but he does so with the particular proviso of the
omnipotent present as full being, which in turn is defined as the rejec-
tion of becoming as an end or goal. "The everything recurs is the closest
approximation of a world of becoming to a world of being: high point
of the meditation." (Nietzsche 1967b, p. 330) Thus he removes an extra-
neous moral context, and life is lived as full and unencumbered Will -
alone on its own axis (un-self-conscious), it knows no past or future.
(Nietzsche 1959a, p. 251)
The Eternal Recurrence, as an ethic becomes the penultimate asser-
tion of that Will. The power of the Eternal Recurrence, the distinction
of the moral dimension, is that the past may be altered by the Will in
the present:
The will is a creator. All "it was" is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful accident - until the
creative will says to it, "But this I willed". Until the creative will says to it. "But thus I
will it; thus shall I will it." (Nehamas 1985, p. 160) [This translation of Zarathustra's
speech (Nietzsche 1959a, p. 251) is "poetic" and differs from standard versions.]
The present vision of the self defines the past, and if the present is
accepted, then all that has led to that juncture is enjoined, and most impor-
tant, the past as forming the future is acknowledged. Thus to accept
the present in Nietzsche's terms is to have willed all that led to that
moment. Finally, "the significance of the past lies in its relationship to
the future. And since the future is yet to come, neither the significance
of the past nor its nature is yet settled." (Nietzsche 1985, pp. 160-161)
The ascendancy of power, achieved in constant striving, forms the basis
of Nietzsche's ethics, since the distinction of living force is its ability
to control itself, which is the expression of spirituality (i.e. spirit is
self-mastery); the higher such control, the greater the spiritual attainment.
The individual then attains identity - freedom - in assuming self-respon-
sibility. (Nietzsche 1959b, p. 542) In this moral exercise of the Will,
the self becomes freed and healed. Here then is an expansive ethic, to
which a fully creative Will is celebrated - redemption may be achieved. 6
The moral dimension is based on the revaluation of values, assuming
responsibility of our self in full cognizance of the biological basis of
man's being. To become free spirits, Nietzsche preached an "integrity
which, having become instinct and passion, wages war against the 'holy
lie' even more than against any other lie." (Nietzsche 1959c, p. 609)
In a variety of contexts, Nietzsche denounces the SUbjugation of man's
instincts by a restrictive morality or intelligence/rationality. He attributes
both nihilism and disease to this basic distortion:
man's suffering of man, of himself - the result of a forcible sundering from his animal
past, as it were a leap and plunge into new surroundings and conditions of existence, a
declaration of war against the old instincts upon which his strength, joy and terribleness
had rested hitherto. (Nietzsche 1967a, p. 85)
Nietzsche's unique contribution and importance do not reside in his

enunciation of the ancient Apollo-Dionysus conflict, nor in the cele-
bration of the unconscious, nor even in its elucidation. We are most
indebted to Nietzsche's demand that we assume a moral responsibility

for ourselves, in our totality. ("For what is freedom? That one has the
will to assume responsibility for oneself." (Nietzsche 1959b, p. 542)) His
moral imperative was to show that we are the body, the instincts, the
unconscious. It is not enough to delineate a hierarchy of selves - an
id, an ego, a superego, each controlling a different aspect of behavior and
somehow consolidated in the individual. The individual is his primor-
dial will, expressed by different affects, passions, behavior, intellects, but
each a manifestation of a single individualizing force, groping for power
- selfhood. Selfhood is found, as Zarathustra acclaims, in the truth of
the body:
I want to speak to the despisers of the body ... body am I entirely, and nothing else;
and soul is only a word for something about the body ....
"1", you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is ... your body and its great
reason: that does not say "1", but does "I." ... Behind your thoughts and feeling ...
there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage - whose name is Self. In your body he
dwells; he is your body. (Nietzsche 1959a, p. 146)
That identity is fundamentally and profoundly active, dialectical with

its experience, and ever-changing and growing. The spirit thus evolves.
And moreover, we are responsible for our acts and choices in an ethic
of Eternal Recurrence.
Nietzsche's philosophy proclaims the vigorous assertion of will,
freedom and choice: shackled with suffering, conflict and struggle, the
self occupies a world of constant strife, but remains essentially hopeful
within the ethical context of the Eternal Recurrence. The biological model
he chose was dialectical and active, where each of the crucial require-
ments of Nietzsche's creative, invigorated living individual is fulfilled
by this most organismal portraits of the self. Nietzsche's essential con-
tribution must be viewed as helping to frame the construction by which
a secularized world might assume an ethic of individual responsibility.
If the deified Other is no longer there, then the Self must define itself,
by experiencing, assimilating, responding - asserting its Will. There is
the ever-present danger of narcissistic self-engulfment, which I believe
is the achilles heel of his entire project (Tauber 1995), but here let
us focus solely on his moral offering of selfhood. Always in flux,
Nietzsche's core concept of our essential identity is Will, and in affirming
the primacy of the Will, and man's reawakened awareness of it, Nietzsche
affirmed self as a moral category. He demanded direct encounter with
our being, firmly rooted in the organic (emotional/instinctual) realm.

Selfhood is thereby profoundly indebted to this biological vision,
refracted by the Eternal Recurrence as a moral mandate.
4. CRITIC VERSUS PHILOSOPHER
Power is not neutral as it heralds highly politicized reactions and impli-

cations, and expectedly, Foucault, towards the end of his career, was
forced to address the ethical implications of his writings. He came ill-
prepared (i.e. Taylor's indignant, "The very claim not to be oriented
by a notion of the good is one which seems to me to be incredible
... " (Taylor 1989, p. 489. The crucial missing component is that
there is no "system" - no systematic structure of values guided by a
governing ethos. Despite Nietzsche's disjointed writings, aphoristic style,
poetic hyperbole, there remain a consistency of purpose and direction
of his thought. He endeavored to become physician to the soul, presenting
a means towards achieving a transvaluation of values, an ethos of self-
realization and growth. Not only is there an exuberance in his elucidation
of Will to Power, it is firmly anchored in a characterization of the organic
that is developed into a psychology guided by an normative ideal to
"become." In Nietzsche's biologicism, a foundation to orient and expli-
cate the development of an ethical response to nihilism has been offered.
Without some orienting position, any such construction would not be
possible. When we address Foucault's critique, the question of ethics
arises only near the end of his career and remains unformulated and
self-consciously obscure. Part of the problem relates to the narrow
confines of Foucault's formulation. To the extent that Foucault's
Nietzschean theory, according to Taylor's perceptive analysis (Taylor
1986), allows only monolithic analyses, it fails to allow for power's
expression as both domination and self-rule. That reading arises from the
exclusive focus on Nietzsche's sense of arbitrariness of interpretation (i.e.
radical perspectivism) and ignores the Dionysian vision of the eternal
return and its ethos of affirmation, and the negativity of post-modernism's
anti-Romanticism. 7 Foucault's ethics have no such orientation and arrive
as an appendix to his major inquiry.
To come full circle, Foucault addressed ethics as one of genealogy's
domains: a historical ontology to constitute ourselves 1) in relation to
truth as subjects of knowledge [The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of
Things], 2) in relation to power as subjects acting on others [Discipline
and Punish] and 3) in relation to ethics through which we constitute

ourselves as moral agents [The History of Sexuality]. (Foucault 1983b,
p.237)
the kind of relationship you ought to have with yourself, rapport a soi, which I call
ethics and which determines how the individual is supposed to constitute himself as a moral
subject of his own actions. (Foucault 1983b, p. 238) [emphasis added]
He then further defines this self-constitution by four criteria:

1. which aspect of myself or my behavior is concerned with moral
conduct? [feelings, not intentions];
2. mode of subjection, i.e. how is moral obligation recognized?
3. what are the means to change into ethical subjects? [self-forming
activity, or the techne of self];
4. what kind of being does moral behavior aspire too? [e.g. immortal,
free].
But these modalities still leave ethics afloat in the historical milieu of
a particular period and the individual fundamentally a contingency.
Each period has a particular discursive means by which selves are formed,
particular practices made available as discourse, moral ideals to which
one might aspire, to be integrated with the knowledge base relegated
to moral consciousness of that period.
Given the contingency of Foucault's formulation, Dreyfus and
Rubinow asked the pertinent question: "So, what kind of ethics can we
build now, when we know that between ethics and other structures there
are only historical coagulations and not a necessary relation?" (Foucault
1983b, p. 236) Foucault responded, "couldn't everyone's life become a
work of art?", by which he meant that since "the self is not given to
us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create
ourselves as a work of art." (ibid.) Nietzsche must be regarded as the
crucial author of this position, which Foucault acknowledges (Foucault
1983b, p. 237): the self arises from a plastic state that is constantly
being molded in dialectical encounters. (Tauber 1992; 1994) Responding
and altering to accommodate, incorporate and negotiate its world, the self
resides divided between an actuality and its potential. In this sense, the
self is active and evolving, never given. The defining force is art, for
the governing centrality of aesthetic rapture is Nietzsche's ethos of being.
Here we may only note the outline of Nietzsche's complex vision of
art as a generic (and defining) modality. First, Nietzsche's reconstruc-
tion of life as a redemption of one's own past has been alluded to in
context of the Eternal Recurrence. He passionately argued that to achieve

a view of one's past, present and future was a self-creation and consti-
tuted an aesthetic unit. (Nehamas 1985) He further maintained, as
Schopenhauer before him, that the beautiful is made, not discovered: one
makes things beautiful by enriching "everything out of one's own
fullness" to transform "things until they mirror his power - until they
are reflections of his perfection." (Nietzsche 1959b, p. 518) When these
principles are applied to the ethical domain, the self-defining process
becomes manifest and consistent.
Foucault calls in no uncertain terms for resistance to domination. But why? Why is struggle
preferable to submission? Why ought domination to be resisted? Only with the introduction
of normative notions of some kind could Foucault begin to answer such questions.
(Fraser 1981, p. 283)
Instead of offering a structure of values, Foucault presents critique as

an ethos. Acknowledging the difference between ethics (action) and ethos
("process of being") (Foucault 1984c), his project to seek "a historical
ontology of ourselves" (Foucault 1984a) falls squarely into the latter
domain. But this is criticism, not ethics. s The lack of a normative ori-
entation leaves Foucault's ethics adrift in postmodern relativism.
Although Foucault and Nietzsche share a critical attitude towards
the Enlightenment and its ideals,9 employ similar irrational rhetorical
techniques, and conclude with similar notions to aestheticize mean-
ingful personal experience, there is an irredeemable gulf between the
critic and the philosopher. Nietzsche offered a philosophical founda-
tion on which he built a defined telos, aspiring to a poetic ideal and
governed by a commitment to a conception of Man firmly anchored
in his organic identity. From that position, a psychology and ethic
emerged. Foucault could not offer any such orientation - Man remained
a poorly defined product of his society - derived from the historical
development of culture, subjected to the phylogiston character of power
(Paternek 1987, p. 119) Foucault's ethos is as thoroughly self-overcoming
as Nietzsche's, but it loses its metaphysical mooring. By rupturing any
basis for representation to organize knowledge (viz. experience), there
can be no return to search for its origins or essence. "In his [Foucault's]
thought no identity seeks itself, is imminent or near to itself, liberates
itself by proper self-appropriation, or fulfills itself. His analysis of these
characteristics of modern thought is without a teleology." (Scott 1990,
p. 82) In setting aside the priority of the self, "is self-overcoming a
new discipline of self-relation?" (ibid.; p. 87) Nietzsche would not fall

into this essentially nihilistic position. Man as the object of power's
exercise is never its source: isolated in its meanderings, there is little
to do but contemplate power's manifestations. Where is the ideal, and
the concomitant hope? All knowledge is reduced to disguised power,
all selfhood is historical contingency. Where is Man? Are we left simply
with a critical vision that leaves us without identity and profound
suspicion of any basis on which we might erect an ethical scaffold? In
some profound sense, "we" ourselves are always in question. (Rajchman
1991, p. 146) In contrast, Nietzsche asserts the individuality of power,
the active quest of the self, the ethos of man's Will to Power as the source
of his true essence. From action to description - a sorry fate for decon-
structionism, which began with Nietzsche's attempt to demolish in order
to build again. To what extent Nietzsche was successful is another
question. (Tauber 1995)
To conclude, what is at stake is not only what is the self, but whether
a self even exists. Modernity posits the possibility of attaining individ-
uality and self-determination. In fact this represents its core mission.
The progress towards freedom, whether as mastered nature, political
liberty, or individual autonomy, rested on the notion that a self existed
and whose essential nature was its self-assertion and growing self-
consciousness. Nietzsche is the metaphysician where self-assertion is
always a process of returning into its essence, into the origins, and in
the process, becoming. Zarathustra is the prophet proclaiming that all
being is Will to Power and this self-assertion is the basis of erecting
the concept of the Ubermensch, the champion of post-nihilism. Nietzsche
makes no attempt to re-create a Kantain enlightenment ideal of critical
self-consciousness based on assumed "values" or an assumed epis-
temological foundation. There is no traditional appeal to nature or any
transcendental subject as a source of value. But what harvest did
Nietzsche gather? He supposedly showed that the modern faith in
rationality was merely a contingent strategy in a struggle for power
(Foucault's later anthem), and thus modernity naively misunderstood
itself. Nietzsche hoped to have assumed a more enlightened self-
conscious position. No matter how much Man is dismantled and recon-
structed, however much autonomy is espoused as "self-overcoming"
(as opposed to a more traditional "self-realization"), the essential basis
of revealing his true identity remains the issue to pursue - and ulti-
mately assert. Fundamentally, and barely hidden in Nietzsche's tantrum
364 ALFRED 1. TAUBER
(or those of the postmodernists who trace themselves to a Nietzschean

assertion [Koelb 1990]) is the essential modernist quest for freedom of
the self, captured by a philosophical construct firmly lodged in that prob-
lematic. And thus I read Nietszche as a modernist, with all the limitations
thereof. (Tauber 1994b)
Philosophy Department,
Boston University
NOTES
* I am most appreciative of the critical comments offered by Anne Dubitzky, Margaret
Paternek, and Christopher Ricks, and underlying my effort, the general support and encour-
agement of Bob Cohen, to whose mentorship I am deeply indebted.
I A major portion of "Nietzsche" concerns the meaning of genealogy, which is made
explicit in how Nietzsche employed terms such as Ursprung (origin, extraction) Entstehung
(origin, emergence), and Herkunft (origin, descent), and Foucault explains that instead
of discovering true origins, the genealogist discovers "the secret that they [things] have
no essence or that essence was fabricated in a piecemeal fashion from alien forms,"
(Foucault 1984b, p. 78), and thus history "teaches how to laugh at the solemnities of
the origin." (Foucault 1984b, p. 79) The most thorough study of Foucault as genealo-
gist is that of Michael Mahon, whose careful comparison with Nietzsche's project
concludes that "Foucault is the better genealogist." (Mahon 1992, p. 3) Perhaps, but
more saliently, Nietzsche is the better ethicist, because of what Mahon perceives as
Nietszche's weaknesses: the construction of the self and its underlying metaphysics. These
"weaknesses" are precisely the required foundation for a renewed attempt at erecting a
moral scaffolding.
2 "If interpretation were the slow exposure of the meaning hidden in an origin, then
only metaphysics could interpret the development of humanity. But if interpretation is
the violent or surreptitious appropriation of a system of rules, which in itself has no
essential meaning, in order to impose a direction, to bend it to a new will, to force its
participation in a different game, and to subject it to secondary rules, then the develop-
ment of humanity is a series of interpretations. The role of genealogy is to record its
history," (Foucault 1984b, p. 86)
3 The issue of nihilism is ambiguous, in that for Nietzsche there are both active and
passive forms, resulting in either an increased or reduced "power of spirit." (Nietzsche
1967b, p. 17) A "devine way of thinking," (ibid., p. 15) denies God, but arises from "a
reverence for the Self, a love of this life, and a desire to be creative;" (Thiele 1990,
p. 88) spiritual anarchy results from the rejection of this vision of the Self. Throughout
this essay, nihilism is used in the pejorative (Le. passive) sense, although recognizing
that Nietzsche employed the term with these double meanings in different contexts.
4 Dialectical in this sense is not Hegelian, signifying two forces creating a third;
Nietzsche's Self is composed of multiple forces in free competition achieving tempo-
rary order of dominance.
5 The Will to Power, the notebooks published by Nietzsche's sister in 1904, are collec-
tively referred to as the disputed Nachlass. It has been used in this discussion, for I
agree with Warren (1988) that it may be employed when there is no dispute with
Nietzsche's published works; the material quoted from Will to Power has been chosen
on the basis that it particularly elaborates what may less clearly be discerned in the
published corpus. For comprehensive cross-references to these sources, see Moles
(1990).
6 But by what guidelines would Nietzsche suggest that modem Man, in the absence of
an Other, alone to experience his full will, accomplish this mandate? Again he returns
to biological criteria, where the organism is most fully alive - in a state that he calls rapture.
Rapture is attained in its highest context through the aesthetic, which incorporates man's
full cognitive, emotional and spiritual strengths - recall, each is but a manifestation of
the Will to Power! The centrality of rapture in experiencing the aesthetic has been well-
described as originating in Nietzsche's concept of the Dionysian (Heidegger 1979), and
this aspect will not be further discussed. My purpose is simply to note this primal organic
response of the self to its experience, which captures man's biological sensibility and inte-
grates the highest intelligent, cognitive functions with emotion.
7 This interpretation is echoed in the general criticism of Foucault's analysis as conflicted
between the public and private domains of experience. This second issue pertains to a
persistent dichotomy of purpose. Rorty, elaborating on Descombes's characterization of
an American and French Foucault, attributes this ambiguity to a "split" identity: the
American version has most of the Nietzscheanism drained away, i.e. the intellectual's com-
mitment to a moral identity in democratic society implicitly remains, whereas the French
Foucault is fully Nietzschean, i.e. the moral persona forms a part of identity, and the
more important issue is the "private search for autonomy." (Rorty 1991, p. 193) Rorty
diagnoses the issue of the private quest becoming confused with the public discourse
("He wanted to help them while inventing a self which had nothing much (indeed as
little as possible) to do with theirs." (ibid., p. 196 Generically it is difficult to erect
that bridge, but there are even more salient issues. Critics cannot allow such volatile poten-
tial as the analysis of Power to remain isolated in the domain of the personal.
8 This assessment is opposite to Bernauer's, who views Foucault's critical process as
the basis, on its own, of an ethics. Bernauer argues that the prison, i.e. the target of
Foucault's criticism, is "none other than the modem identity of man himselr' (Bernauer
1990, p. 9) which is given an ethos in its own right. In this view, Foucault is consid-
ered as offering an ethical inquiry that is acknowledged as neither a code for thinking,
nor even an exemplary model for inquiry. The critique purportedly presents a means of
escape from a confining intellectual milieu, and through knowledge alone, moral dis-
cernment and decision arises. Foucault's ethics then become the practice of intellectual
freedom. A similarly sympathetic reading is offered by Rajchman, who views Foucault's
last writings on sexuality as an opportunity to "reinvent ethical thought" by "understanding
how our bonds, our freedom and our truth might form part of a contemporary critical philo-
sophical activity." (Rajchman, p. 99) Again it is the critical position in and of itself that
constitutes the ethic. "To be free ... we must be able to question the ways our own history
defines us." (Rajchman 1991, p. 111) The issue for Foucault thus becomes technical, in
that critical philosophy is assigned the attempt to specify what about ourselves or world
must be freed. The issue of course is to establish the governing criteria. Again, truth is
left to a critical philosophy, but is this ethic? My position, although derived from a
different perspective, is generally supported by Fraser (1981) and Taylor (1986).
9 Foucault and Nietzsche each regarded reason as means of control, another manifesta-
tion of public power. And to the extent that reason serves as the herald of the
Enlightenment, as Foucault states, "Reason - the despotic enlightenment" (Foucault
1989, p. 12) they join in assailing the bastion. But reason and Enlightenment are not to
be uncritically commingled, for in Foucault's view the essence of modernity is the Critique
and its ideal Autonomy. (Foucault 1984a, p. 42) Foucault, like Nietzsche would focus
on the "principle of a critique and a permanent creation of ourselves in our autonomy
... a principle that is at the heart of the historical consciousness that the Enlightenment
has of itself." (Foucault 1984a, p. 44) (See Mahon 1992.)
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ELIE WIESEL
RABBI YEHUDA-THE-PRINCE*
As usual, times were bad. Even worse than usual. For now the people
of Judea were challenged not only by Roman soldiery and its collabo-
rators but also by the elements: the land was dry. Barren. Saintly men
prayed for rain but prayers were not answered: the population remained
hungry.
When all other means had failed, the nation's leader Rabbi Yehuda-
the-prince invited all the scholars and their students to his house to be
fed. "Please enter," he said, "please enter all of you who have studied
Torah, and you who have studied Mishna, and you who have studied
Gemara, and you who remember Halakha and you who transmit Aggada
- all of you please enter - but let no ignoramus enter my house."
Those from the privileged categories stood in line but one man stub-
bornly pressed forward until he found himself before Rabbi Yehuda:
"Rabbi," he said, "parneseni - Feed me, master."
A strange examination followed: "Have you studied Torah, my son?"
- "No," said the man. - "Have you studied Mishna?" - Again, the man
said no. "But then how can I feed you?" - "Feed me, master, feed me
as you would a dog or a crow."
Rabbi Yehuda could not dismiss such an argument: dogs and crows
are not known as teachers or students, yet God does feed them - was
Rabbi Yehuda to be choosier than God? And so he fed the man. But after-
wards he regretted it and remarked: "Alas, I have given my bread to
an ignoramus."
Wishing to reassure him, his son Shimon said: "Perhaps that was
Yonathan ben Amram, your disciple who all his life refused to profit from
the Torah."
They investigated and found this to be so. Then Rabbi Yehuda said:
"Let everyone enter."
* For Bob Cohen, whose admirable contribution to the philosophy of science has helped
his grateful students and readers understand science as philosophy.
From his colleague and friend, Elie Wiesel.
369

370 ELIE WIESEL
From this episode which sounds authentic we get some interesting

impressions of the man and his way of life; we also get an insight into
a particular teacher-student relationship.
There is something about Yonathan ben Amram that we fail to under-
stand: why didn't he tell the truth? Why did he say that he was an
ignoramus when he was not? (Usually it's the other way around.) Why?
Perhaps because one of the first and most important precepts of Torah
is humility: Yonathan ben Amram knew that all his studies notwith-
standing, he still did not know Torah. There may be another explanation
for his behavior: he may have wished to teach his teacher humility. To
prove a point to him about social equality and distribution of wealth.
What won't a scholar do to prove a point?
Now with regard to Rabbi Yehuda himself, we learn from the episode:
Firstly - that he was rich for he could afford to feed the hungry.
Secondly - that he taught by personal example, expecting other
wealthy people to do as he did.
Thirdly - that while he practiced favoritism by singling out the
scholars, he did so not on the basis of their opinions and/or allegiance;
he welcomed them all.
Fourthly - that while the scholars were numerous, Yonathan ben
Amram had to do some serious pushing and shoving to enter the Rabbi's
house.
Fifthly - that he had many pupils, so many that he did not recog-
nize them all, not individually, not even such an illustrious disciple as
Yonathan ben Amram.
And lastly - that he was neither fanatic nor stubborn. He did not
say: since God wants his people to be hungry, why should I feed them?
Instead he thought: perhaps God wants them hungry so that I may feed
them. And when Yonathan ben Amram made his point, Rabbi Yehuda
the prince did not get angry. Quite the contrary: he yielded. He agreed
that when people are hungry, one should not discriminate between them;
all deserve to be helped. Feed them first, ask questions later.
In the enchanting gallery of Talmudic masters, Rabbi Yehuda ha-nassi,
the prince, occupies a place of distinction and honor. You say "Rabbi"
- the master - and we know that you mean him, the teacher par excel-
lence. Occasionally texts refer to him as Rabbenu hakadosh - our holy
master. Prince, leader educator, legislator, codifier: few men had such
an impact on his generation - and those that followed.
The Mishna - the idea, the concept of repetition as a creative force
RABBI YEHUDA-THE-PRINCE 371
- is his. We still repeat his words, his interpretations, just as he and

his friends repeated those of their teachers and their followers.
In no other tradition is the element of repetition as powerfully
appealing. For us, repetition means memory and solidarity - and what
would Judaism be without either?
The fact that generations and generations of fathers and sons repeat
prayers and stories that earlier generations of fathers and sons have
shared, gives everyone of us a sense of belonging - and strength: there
exists a link between Rabbi Akiba and me, between Rashi and my son.
What Moses heard at Sinai, we repeat - together - to this day. Without
Mishna there would be no Guemara, no study, no soul, no life, no
survival.
Mishna means remembering. Sharing. Preserving. Lending eternity
to the fleeting instant.
Concretely, the Mishna comprises innumerable legal and religious
debates on a multitude of issues, both timely and timeless, that fash-
ioned Jewish intellectual life in Palestine during four centuries. Divided
into Six Orders and 36 tractates, the Mishna - begun by Rabbi Akiba and
continued by Rabbi Meir - bears the seal of the man who brought the
project to fruition. Under the guidance of Rabbi Yehuda-the-prince, the
Mishna attained perfection and became an extraordinary monument to
literature, history and jurisprudence.
Before him, every Master taught in his own school and students took
notes. In his time all schools were merged yet none lost its specific
character or intrinsic singularity. He drew from all sources, adapted all
systems, listened to all views: both the majority and the minority had
to be remembered, and their opinions faithfully noted and transmitted
from generation to generation.
The accomplishment of this change implied unprecedented courage.
For centuries the torah she-bal-pe, the oral tradition had to remain oral;
to transcribe it was forbidden. It was he, Rabbi Yehuda, who decided:
et laasot laadoshem he/erou toratecha - there are times when for the sake
of heaven one may transgress its law. Had he not acted then, and so
promptly, so vigorously, both the existing and future oral tradition almost
certainly would have become distorted and possibly would have slid
into oblivion. He felt he had to write the book and seal it to prevent
its substance from being exposed to erosion and possible extinction.
Only a great leader, a visionary could feel the inner strength to engage
in such revolutionary methods - and he was among the greatest.
372 ELIE WIESEL
When he died people said, "Not since Moses were high office and
learning combined in anyone person as they were in him."
His disciple Shimon bar Kappara cried: "Metzukim nizchu et arelim
... Angels and men have contended for the possession of the tables of
the covenant; and the angels have prevailed. They have now taken hold
of the tables and the covenant; and carried them away."
And Rabbi Yosse the priest issued a ruling that there was to be "no
priesthood today in Israel," meaning that all the priests were allowed
to participate in the funeral. And they did - as did the entire nation.
The funeral took place on a Friday. And on that day a miracle occurred:
the day grew longer - long enough for everybody to pay him their
respects and yet reach home before Shabbat.
Yidaker mi sheomer Rabbi met, his pupils shouted: whoever says that
Rabbi Yehuda has died will be knifed on the spot. Why? They could
not accept the idea that he, even he, was mortal. But then since it was
true, why not say it? Is the messenger responsible for his message - is
he to be punished for articulating tragic truth? We shall return to this
question later.
A few words about the masterwork of his life: Was the Mishna written
or simply memorized? Saul Lieberman, my teacher, and one of the great
Talmudic scholars, believes it was not written:
Since in the entire Talmudic literature we do not find that a book of the Mishna was
ever consulted in the case of controversies or doubt concerning a particular reading, we
may safely conclude that the compilation was not published in writing, that a written
ekdosis (edition) of the Mishna did not exist ... The Mishna was published in a dif-
ferent way: a regular oral ekdsosis (edition) of the Mishna was in existence, a fixed text
recited by the Tanaim of the college. The Tanna (repeater, reciter) committed to memory
the text of certain portions of the Mishna which he subsequently recited in the college
in the presence of the great Masters of the Law. Those Tanaim were pupils chosen for
their extraordinary memory, although they were not always endowed with due intelligence
... When the Mishna was committed to memory and the Tanaim recited it in the college,
it was thereby published and possessed all the traits and features of a written ekdosis;
and could no longer be cancelled.
The overall impression of Rabbi Yehuda is one of greatness; he

dominates his surroundings and sets an example. A figure apart - he is
unique.
Whatever he undertakes inevitably leads to success. Whatever others
did, he did better. He could do no wrong - whatever he was involved
with could not go wrong: his presence was overpowering.
Other sages moved heaven and earth trying to alleviate Roman

oppression; they went to Rome hoping to be admitted into the presence
of a minister; Rabbi Yehuda stayed home - and the emperor himself,
a mysterious Roman named Antoninus, came to see him, and was
apparently grateful that he had been received at all.
Other sages considered themselves fortunate when the Prophet Elijah
visited them to teach them; not so Rabbi Yehuda: Elijah appeared before
him as a disciple burning with desire to learn from him.
Other Presidents - his own father included - had to reckon with their
associates: next to the Nassi sat the Av-bet-din, the president of the
tribunal, and next to him sat the Hakham, the Speaker of the assembly.
Not so under Rabbi Yehuda: whatever he did, he did alone; he wanted
and needed no one else to arbitrate, to judge and issue rulings.
So much personal power, so much authority should have, in the end,
annoyed his contemporaries. People often dislike heroes who are both
famous and happy; they may be one or the other - but not both. (If heroes
are not suffering, people make them suffer.)
Except that Rabbi Yehuda was not happy. The expression Bacha Rabbi
- the Rabbi wept - occurs frequently in the sources. Why did he weep
- and why in public? The explanations are vague and not always con-
vincing. We sense that the character is more complex, more secretive
than he appears; beneath Rabbi Yehuda's triumphant exterior one senses
another facet of his personality that wants to emerge and win, or - why
not, lose.
At this point let us open his file, a file which Talmudic tellers of tales
have generously endowed with details - some of them accurate and
even precise.
His birth is veiled in legend. We are told that he was born the day
Rabbi Akiba was put to death. Also: that he owed his life to a miracle.
The people of Judea were living through the era of blood and fire.
Rome was doing what it could to destroy the land and suppress the
spirit of the Jewish nation. Laws and edicts followed one another, one
harsher than the other. The study of Torah was a capital offense. As
was the observation of Shabbat - or circumcision.
When Yehuda was born, his father, President Shimon ben Gamliel,
naturally chose to circumcise him according to Jewish law. An informer
denounced him to the Roman governor who summoned father and son
before him - to be executed. But then a woman who belonged to Roman
374 ELIE WIESEL
aristocracy felt sorry for the Jewish infant - and momentarily exchanged
him for her own newborn son who could then, safely, be shown to the
governor. The Roman infant later became known as Antoninus.
This legend may have been invented to explain or justify their sub-
sequent friendship. For in truth we do not know when and where Rabbi
Yehuda was born. All we can ascertain is that it must have been around
130-135 of the common era; and that his father, Rabbi Shimon ben
Gamliel, descendant of Hillel and David, left him the title and the prestige
of the Presidency around the year 170.
A precocious child, Rabbi Yehuda became, at the age of thirteen,
the pupil of Rabbi Yehuda ben Hai. His other teachers were: his father,
Rabbi Yaakov ben Korshai, Rabbi Meir, perhaps Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai
and surely the latter's son Rabbi Eleazar.
He was married but we don't know to whom: his wife's name has
not been recorded. He had two sons - whose names were recorded -
and one daughter whose name was not. We do know her husband's
name however: a certain Ben Elassa, famous for his riches and - his
ignorance.
After the death of his wife, Rabbi Yehuda wanted to marry the
widow of his friend Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon. But she refused - rather
harshly - on the grounds that he wasn't good enough for her - not saintly
enough. So he married someone else, and here again: we don't know
her.
We know much about his public life: the way he conducted the affairs
of the academy, the manner in which he organized and reorganized Jewish
life and Jewish thought, and the way he received visitors at home.
In his home people had to speak Hebrew - not Aramean. He himself
mastered foreign languages - as he mastered sciences and astronomy -
but he considered foreign languages good for foreigners. Among Jews,
he felt, only Hebrew ought to be spoken. He compelled his servants to
learn the sacred tongue and use it. They obeyed - so much so that,
according to legend, there were times when scholars would come to
his maids for advice and assistance in matters of vocabulary, grammar
and linguistics.
He dwelled in a royal palace and invited guests to his meals: some
recited poetry or acrostics; others entertained with their brilliant riddles:
his home was the center and life line of the nation.
He had servants and body guards, private secretaries and police, scribes
and personal physicians at his disposal. Legend has it that there were
more gold and jewels to be found in his stable than in the Persian king's
treasury.
Curiously enough, Talmudic authors emphasize his wealth - as though
it mattered. But then in his case it did: he knew what to do with his
wealth. What is even more curious is the mention made in the Talmud
that Rabbi mekhabed ashirim - he treated the rich with respect. If the
Talmud mentions it, it means that they didn't deserve it: they were
respected and honored only because they were rich.
But then he respected everybody. His most fervent ambition was to
establish harmony among his fellow men. When Jews live in peace
with one another, he would say, they are invincible: God himself wouldn't
harm them - no matter how many sins they had committed. He also
said: all lies are forbidden, except those one utters for the sake of peace.
He in turn elicited love and admiration from his pupils. Rav stated: if
the Messiah is among the living, our teacher resembles him. Surely you
have noticed: Rav doesn't say that Rabbi Yehuda is the Messiah, only
that he resembles him. Flattery is one thing, but there must be a limit
- and the Messiah is the limit.
But in spite of all the honors bestowed upon him by his contem-
poraries, and ours, his portrait as drawn in Talmudic sources seems
not to be excessively idealized: he is not an idol to be worshipped
- that is against Jewish tradition - he is a teacher to be followed,
a wise companion to be loved. He is great but human and therefore
limited.
True - in questions of protocol and prestige his positions prevailed
against everyone else's. But in Halakha he yielded to the majority. True
- no one was ordained without his approval, true - he had veto-power
over the Sanhedrin, but in matters of jurisprudence he often admitted
his errors. Though he was the powerful editor of the Mishna, he encoun-
tered antagonism, not unlike Moses.
When he appointed judges and rabbis without consulting the
Sanhedrin, he was criticized by Rabbi Shimon ben Aleazar: in our
tradition nobody is considered infallible.
And while he did display qualities of leadership, and inspired his
generation, opening the gates of ancient and new scholarship, it is a
fact that of the many times he found himself in conflict with his peers,
he won only twice. And while he did complete the Mishna, in it his name
is mentioned no more than 34 times, perhaps less.
In spite of his erudition, the Talmud does not hesitate to inform us that
376 ELIE WIESEL
the great Rabbi Yehuda was faced with three questions which he felt
unable to answer.
Even his faithful disciples occasionally resorted to humor at his
expense.
When Rabbi Yishmael ben Yosse came to study under him, he was
asked by his future colleagues: "are you worthy of such honor?" - "Was
Moses worthy of studying under God," he replied. - "What? Do you think
you are Moses?" - "And do you think that Rabbi Yehuda is God?," he
snapped back.
He was accepted and Rabbi Yehuda never regretted it. On the contrary
... Listen:
One day Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nassi delivered one of his lectures. He
spoke and spoke so well and so long that everybody in the audience
fell asleep. To awaken them he used the well-known shock treatment
of making an absurd, impossible, implausible statement. "There once
lived a woman," he said, "a woman who gave birth to six hundred
thousand children - who knows her name?" Only one pupil rose to
reply: "Yocheved," he said, "Moses' mother - she gave birth to him
and he, later, gave birth to a liberated people of 600,000." The name
of the perceptive pupil: Rabbi Yishmael ben Yosse. The others went
on sleeping.
Another episode: one day he told his close disciple Rabbi Hiya of
his admiration for the exilarch, the Resh-Galuta Rav Huna. Should he
decide to leave Babylon, he said, and come to settle here, I would
abdicate in his favor. Deeply impressed with his humility, Rabbi Hiya
must have kept quite; had he answered, we would know. For we do know
what happened subsequently. The day came when Rabbi Yehuda was
teaching and Rabbi Hiya came in running. "Master," he said breathlessly,
"Master: he has arrived - Rav Huna, the Resh-Galuta has arrived ... "
He saw Rabbi Yehuda change color - thinking of his pledge to abdi-
ciate. After a short suspense, Rabbi Hiya completed his sentence: "He
has arrived ... in his coffin. To be buried here." Rabbi Yehuda, this time,
did not appreciate his disciple's sense of humor. As reprimand, he
excluded him from the House of Study for 30 days.
Too rigorous a punishment? Perhaps. But it is also possible that,
even there he wished to teach his disciple an important lesson - namely:
that death is nothing to joke about.
Another disciple, Bar Kappara, was punished for publicly mocking his
ignorant son-in-law Ben Elassa; he was never ordained. There too, Rabbi
Yehuda wanted to teach us a lesson: no man may use his knowledge to

humiliate another.
When the irony was aimed at him, personally, he didn't mind. Rabbi
Hiya's two sons got drunk at his table, and remarked aloud that the
Messiah would come only whenever the Jewish people would rid itself
of its Presidents . . . Rather than showing them the door the host only
smiled indulgently.
Yes - Talmudic tellers of tales did allow themselves comments
about him that were not all praise; therein lies their greatness - and his
too.
Rabbi Yehuda's humanism may be illustrated by the following legend:
It is said that Rabbi Yehuda-the-prince could preach twenty-four sermons
on one lament by Jeremiah ... But Rabbi Yohanan-ben-Napkha could
preach sixty on the same topic. What? More than Rabbi Yehuda? Yes,
more. Because when Rabbi Yehuda lectured, he was still surrounded
by some of the old men who remembered the Temple and its destruc-
tion. And when they heard him, they wept - and were so afflicted that
they would leave - therefore Rabbi Yehuda shortened his lectures. (What
a lesson for his contemporaries - and ours ... Today experts speak of
another Destruction - and they don't care that some men and women
are still around, and they remember ... )
But then - Rabbi Yehuda knew that words must be used with caution.
He learned it the hard way. One day, at the Babylonian House of Study
in Tzipori, a calf came running over and moaned, as though asking for
protection: the calf was refusing to go and let itself be slaughtered. -
"Sorry," said Rabbi Yehuda, "I can be of no help to you - you must
go - you were created for that purpose." And because he had no com-
passion for the calf, he was punished with thirteen years of toothaches
and seventeen years of stomach-pains ... Once he had learned his lesson,
he prevented his daughter from killing even insects. They are alive, he
said, let them live.
He loved nature, he 10vecYpeople, all people, especially the poor, the
helpless. The Talmud mentions this on many occasions. In matters of
Shmita, he pleaded for the laborers and sought to interpret the Law in
their favor. When questio~d about his leniency toward peasants, he
replied simply: "what would you want them to do? They are poor; they
are hungry."
One day he noticed the daughter of Elisha ben Abouya standing in
line for food. "Forgive the evil my father committed," she said to him,
378 ELIE WIESEL
"only remember the knowledge he acquired." Rabbi Yehuda listened

and agreed. And offered her food.
Still, there was one category of people that remained outside his
compassion: the ignoramuses. He reacted in an almost physical way to
their life-style, their arrogance, to what they represented. Ignorance too
may be contagious, he felt; it must be fought, lest it invade the whole
world. "Whatever evils beset this world they are all due to ignoramuses,"
he would say.
Hence his love for Torah and those engaged in its study - whether
as teachers or as students. "Torah is comparable to water," he would
say. "Why? When you are thirsty, you search for water everywhere - you
ask for water even from someone smaller than yourself: in studying
Torah, do not be ashamed to ask someone younger than yourself. Also:
when you are thirsty, are you waiting for water to come to you? No:
you go and get it. In Torah too: do not wait - go and get it."
He said: "I have learned from my colleagues more than from my
masters - but from my pupils I have learned even more."
To grasp the greatness of his pupils we have but to read the fol-
lowing episode:
One day, while teaching his class, Rabbi Yehuda caught a whiff of
garlic. It annoyed him. "Whoever ate garlic should leave," he said. Rabbi
Hiya rose and left. A moment later, all the disciples rose and followed
him. Next day Rabbi Shimon asked his friend Rabbi Hiya: "why did
you hurt my father? why did you eat garlic when you knew it wasn't
good for his health?" "I did not eat garlic," said Rabbi Hiya. "If I left
it was so as not to embarrass the one who did."
But Jews were not the only ones who admired him, Romans did so
too. In fact, his most fervent and devoted admirer was the legendary
emperor Antoninus. The two were friends. They would meet frequently
to discuss life and its meaning, philosophy and its limits, theology and
its demands. Antoninus went as far as soliciting his advice on how to
educate his recalcitrant daughter, and on how to balance his national
budget.
The Talmud is full of stories about their encounters. Some say they
were clandestine, that Antoninus ordered a tunnel dug between his palace
in Rome and Rabbi Yehuda's mansion in Galilee.
A story: One day the emperor remarked: "you know, there exists a way
for man to cheat God and escape his justice." - "Impossible," said the
RABBI YEHUDA- THE-PRINCE 379
sage. - "Listen," said the emperor. "What is man? A body, a soul. Imagine
the body addressing God: I have not sinned - who am I? What am I?
Nothing but dust. That's what I am without the soul - so, please God:
blame the soul, not me."
Then the soul would speak up with equal eloquence: "What do I
hear? Am I the accused now? But really - where would I not be without
this body pulling me down? Without a body I would be like a bird
drunk with freedom and with a thirst for purity and loftiness. All sins
are sins of flesh, all corruption is corruption of the senses - am I to be
blamed for them? I am innocent, by definition innocent."
"Both will be right," said the emperor. "Both will go straight into
paradise. There is nothing God could do about it. Correct?"
"No," said the sage.
Now let me tell you a story - about a king who appointed two guards to keep and protect
the precious fruit in his splendid garden. To make sure that they themselves would not
be exposed to temptation, he chose one who was blind and another who had no legs.
Next morning, however, the legless man described to his blind associate what he saw inside
the garden: beautiful trees, fruits, oranges, pears, cherries. He had an idea: he would
climb on the blind man's shoulder and so both could enter the garden and eat, and eat -
which they did. Naturally the king called them in for questioning: what happened? who
stole my fruit? Not me, said the legless cripple: can you see me walk inside the garden?
- Not me, said the blind. I haven't even seen the garden.
Both arguments sounded logical - but the king wasn't stupid either. He ordered the
legless guard to climb on the blind man's shoulders - and punished them together. And
it is together, concluded Rabbi Yehuda, that body and soul are punished.
What do we learn from this parable? Firstly - that rulers, already then,
had problems with their law-enforcing agents. Secondly - that they had
Jewish friends with whom they studied Jewish ethics: even then -
Judaism was already fashionable.
We also learn that in the Jewish tradition all things begin and end with
the law: one may try to oppose it but one may not ignore it. When
justice and reason contradict one another, something is wrong with both.
In the world of truth it is impossible to cheat the king - it is impos-
sible to cheat, period.
But who was Antoninus? There is no trace of him in Roman history;
he is remembered only in our literature, or rather: remembered as a
legendary figure. Did he in fact exist? If not, why was he invented? To
praise Rabbi Yehuda for the improved conditions of Jews in Roman-
occupied Judea? Not so: their friendship - to the extent that it existed
- was not the reason but the result of the improvement. And the change
380 ELIE WIESEL
occurred in Rome, not in Caesarea. A wicked ruler died and another

one, less bloodthirsty, succeeded him: that was enough to alleviate our
national suffering. The harsh trials, the dark catastrophes yielded to
respite; our collective torment receded in man's memory and children's
faces looked sunnier.
It is quite possible that Rabbi Yehuda may have befriended an impor-
tant Roman official. We have often intrigued foreigners - and especially
enemies. They have always wished to comprehend the mystery of our
obstinacy and faith: what could possibly account for our desire to live
in an alien, inhuman society? for our stubborn hope in a hopeless world?
what could possibly drive us to proclaim man's right to dignity and
truth when one gesture of one hangman commands more power than
the most eloquent of prophets? Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians,
Persians, Turks, Christians - from Pharaoh to Haman to Hitler and
Stalin - throughout the centuries tyrants tried desperately to compre-
hend our destiny. By beating us they felt closer to conquering the
helplessness they experienced when faced with the baffling phenom-
enon of Jewish survival. (So - the situation in Judea having improved,
it is quite conceivable that, as a result, Rabbi Yehuda and a Roman official
became friends.)
But who was that emperor Antoninus who, according to one text,
chose, at the end of his life, to convert to Judaism?
Historians and Talmudic scholars have conducted formidable research
and - I am tempted to say - "detective work" to unmask, if not identify,
Antoninus. There are those who believe that he was Antoninus Pius.
Marcus Jost prefers Caracalla. Rappaport favors Marcus Aurelius. For
Frankel it cannot be anyone but Lucius Verus, while Heinrich Graetz
is convinced that all are wrong since Antoninus is, and must be Alexander
Severus, of course. But since the dates don't agree - and stubbornly refuse
to bend - Graetz comes up with an idea ... True, Severus reigned
between 222-235, that is after Rabbi Yehuda's death, but who tells us
that Rabbi Yehuda was the prince we think he was? The answer is simple:
the Rabbi Yehuda in question is actually his ... grandson, or so Graetz
swears.
Is this the end of the hypotheses? Not at all. There exists a school
of thought claiming that, really, everybody is wrong about everybody
else: That the Rabbi could be any rabbi - and Antoninus any emperor:
that both were only symbols.
Be that as it may - we tend to believe that Rabbi, in this context, refers
to Rabbi Yehuda the prince. And that the story of Antoninus was told
or invented to show Rabbi Yehuda's influence outside Jewish spheres:
even an emperor asked for his advice and praised his wisdom - and
already then - paid for it with golden coins and real estate.
However, his real greatness will be measured by his influence in
Jewish terms - in Jewish categories. He had reached out and had an
impact on outside events and he had done so from within - while working
for the future of his tormented people. His preoccupation - his main
obsession had been how to assure continuity and give it some creative
meaning. The Temple was gone, even its ruins were gone. And while
the oppressor had abolished some of the harsh anti-Jewish measures,
and schools had been created and were all blooming, that in itself became
a threat: there were too many opinions going around on too many
subjects. Discipline was weak. Rabbi Yehuda and his disciple Rabbi Hiya
violently disagreed on the question of whether Torah should be taught
in the open market place. Rabbi Yehuda said no, but Rabbi Hiya disre-
garded his wish. Whereupon his teacher got angry. But why? What is
wrong with teaching children anywhere? Nothing, except that Torah
needs its own decorum, its own mood and Rabbi Yehuda must have
anticipated the Houses of Study, the Shtiblech, the Yeshivot where
Talmud would be taught; where the Talmud itself became a protective
enclosure.
Clearly, only the fate of the community preoccupied Rabbi Yehuda.
To belong, by an act of memory or faith, to a single community would
lend the individual Jew a force that would enable him to survive. That
is why, in the time of Rabbi Yehuda, the emphasis was placed on having
Jews everywhere observe holidays at the same time. Emissaries and
envoys were dispatched regularly to watch the moon rise and to inform
Jewish settlers everywhere when to celebrate Rosh-hodesh, Rosh-hashana
and Shavout. He wanted all Jews to say the same prayers, at the same
time, and thus link Jews one to another, and all to their ancestors.
In those days, Jews welcomed the new moon shouting: David melekh
Israel chai vekayam - yes, David is alive, and he shall live forever.
And yes, as long as we shall go on singing his psalms, as long as we
shall go on listening to his melodies, he will live for us - in us.
It was Rabbi Yehuda too who decreed that the Shma be recited in
Hebrew. What? Doesn't God understand Greek, Aramean or English?
He does - but the Jews don't. There must be one tongue that all
understand.
382 ELIE WIESEL
Like Hillel, he stressed the need to build the community and safeguard
its interests. It is forbidden for leaders, he said, to impose extreme charges
on the community. Laws that cannot be enforced ought not to be adopted.
We are told symbolically that during the thirteen years his contem-
poraries lived under his protection women did not miscarry their children,
nor did they suffer too much when giving birth; also: there was enough
rain in the land.
For individuals he had the following advice: "Consider these three
things and you will not fall into sin; there is an eye that is watching,
and an ear that is listening - and all that you do is being written down
somewhere. "
He also said: "Do not look at the vessel but at what it contains."
And "Do not drink from one glass while looking at another."
He rarely lost his temper. But it happened - it happened one day
when he was asked for his opinion on a strange issue: imagine a boy born
with two heads - on which is he supposed to lay Tephillin? He sent
the questioner away. But then a woman came to inform him: yes, there
was such a boy - she knew the case herself.
Occasionally he was moody. Troubled. We sense some tragic facet
of his personality. He was successful, powerful, but not happy. Respected,
admired, loved - but not happy.
Was it because of his children whose place he was unable to secure
in Talmudic history? Or was he melancholy simply because most authors
are after finishing their work?
He would frequently burst into tears - or laughter. And we are dis-
turbed, even shaken, by his laugher more than by his weeping. Bacha
Rabbi - and Rabbi cried - is an expression one frequently encounters
in the Talmud. In most cases we know why - he himself tells us why.
Remember? Rabbi Hanina was being led away to be burned at the
stake. His daughter, Brurya was weeping: "I weep for the Torah that is
to be burned with you," she explained. "Don't," her father replied: "The
Torah is fire, and no fire can bum fire."
They seized him and wrapped him in Torah scrolls, heaped wood on
him and lit the pyre. Then they took woolen rags, soaked them in water
and laid them on his heart, so that he should not die quickly. "What do
you see, Rabbi?," his disciples asked him. - "I see the parchments
consumed by fire, but the letters, the holy letters are flying aloft ... "
Then he was advised: "open your mouth wider, let the flames enter
more swiftly." He refused: "it's forbidden to hasten our death, life remains
sacred to the very end." Then the executioner said: "If I quicken the
flames, will you bring me into eternal life?" - "Yes," said Rabbi Hanina.
- "Swear it," said the Roman soldier. Rabbi Hanina swore. The execu-
tioner quickened the flames and the old master died soon after. Then,
all of a sudden, the soldier threw himself into the flames. And a heavenly
voice was heard: Hananya ben Tradyon and his executioner are both
chosen for the life in the world to come.
When Rabbi Yehuda heard the story, he wept: "Look," he said. "One
man can win eternal life in one hour, while another needs many years."
Wonderful Rabbi Yehuda! He wept because of a story! Was he jealous
of the executioner's reward? No, he cried because of the master whom
nobody could help - nobody but the executioner.
But it also happened that he would burst into laughter - and would
give no reason why. However the Talmud adds that whenever this
happened, it was a bad omen for the world: Paranut baa laolam - it
predicted upheavals and catastrophes. But, if so, why did he laugh?
couldn't he contain himself?
Perhaps he was misinterpreted, misunderstood. Perhaps he laughed not
before the upheavals but during, and after; perhaps he saw in laughter
a human attitude of defiance, of rebellion - a weapon to fight the
invincible elements of destiny.
Only great men - only tragic men - can use laughter for such purpose.
Only great men know not to laugh or cry at the wrong time or for the
wrong reason.
Well, the time has come for us to take leave of Rabbi Yehuda the prince.
The old master is old - old and weak. But lucid to the end, aware of
his responsibilities.
As the end drew nearer, he said: "I wish to see the sages and teachers
of Israel." They entered and stood at his bedside. "This is my will," he
said. "Do not eulogize me in the cities - and see to it that the academy
is opened after 30 days."
This he knew they would do. Study must never be interrupted. But
then he expressed another wish - which they did not fulfill. "My son
Shimon," he said, "is to serve as Speaker of the academy and my son
Gamliel will be its President; Hanina will preside over the rabbinic
tribunal."
The people did not accept his sons as his successors - and he may
well have guessed they would not. Yet he called for his two sons and
384 ELIE WIESEL
instructed them separately how to discharge their high office. Then he

was left alone. Alone with God. The pains grew unbearable - to the point
that every hour he laid his tephilin only to remove them immediately.
"Ribono shel olam," he said, "Master of the Universe, you are my witness
that with my ten fingers I did nothing else than labor for the Torah, in
the Torah, and never drew any benefit from it - but now I can take
it no longer: all I desire is peace, please, grant me some measure of
peace."
And a celestial voice called out: "let him be in peace." So, in spite
of his excruciating pain, he departed in peace - heartbroken but in peace
- he left behind an accomplished work. The Mishna continues to live and
keep its readers alive.
Outside the rabbis interrupted their prayer. They told Bar Kappara
to go inside and see. He went inside and saw his master. He tore his
clothes and cried: "the angels have defeated men; they have taken the
covenant's tables away."
"Is he dead?," the rabbis wanted to know. - "you said so," he
answered, "not I."
The entire nation took part in the funeral; even the priests. Bar
Kappara's outcry rings true to this day: death's victory always empha-
sizes man's defeat.
Yidaker mi sheomer Rabbi met - whoever will say that our master died
is to be knifed. This is what his disciples declared while they were waiting
outside his home, waiting for the inevitable.
Earlier, we asked: why such punishment? Since it is true, why not
say it? And the answer is: because it is true.
There are events that transcend human comprehension, events that
are mutilated in transmission.
There are agonies, there are tragedies that one cannot speak about.
And therefore - must not.
Boston University
ARNO J. MAYER
MEMORY AND HISTORY: ON THE POVERTY OF

REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING THE JUDEOCIDE
The year after the publication of my book Why Did

the Heavens Not Darken? (1988), Jewish students of
the local Hillel chapter began to boycott my under-
graduate course at Princeton University. In the spring
of 1992, they invited me to speak on Yom Hashoah
[Day of Remembrance of victims of the Judeocide -
Ed.} to give me "the opportunity" to prove, publicly,
that I was "neither an anti-Semite nor a 'revisionist'."
After careful consideration I decided to accept this well-
intentioned but defiant invitation, but on the condition
that it be understood that I would commemorate the
victims of the Judeocide in my own way, without any
apologia for whatever transgressions may have been
imputed to me over the last few years. This essay is
an expanded version of that talk, and as such it is very
much a piece de circonstance rather than a scholarly
paper. Princeton-Cherence Summer 1992
In these tentative reflections on our "mental diaries" of the Judeocide,

I am concerned with selective remembering as well as with selective
forgetting. I also propose to consider the timeliness of reinserting a
universal dimension into the social and public memory of the Judeocide
that, it seems to me, has become excessively sectarian.
My views are, of course, influenced by my being an unbelieving yet
unflinching Jew whose maternal grandfather died in the Theresienstadt
concentration camp. They are also conditioned by my being a dissident
yet unrepentant contemporary historian who is a critic rather than servant
of power. In both capacities, I follow Marc Bloch's injunction to maintain
a continuing dialogue with the dead. This mandate is the more compelling
for coming, as it does, from one of this century's great historians who,
during World War II, was persecuted for being Jewish and executed for
his active role in the French resistance. Bloch may well have shared
Walter Benjamin's fear that "should the enemies of the dead be victo-
rious, even the dead would not be safe from victors who do not cease
to score victories."}
385

1995 All rights reserved
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
386 ARNO J. MAYER
It is precisely because I am an unregenerate Jew, and a historian,

that I can have no truck with the self-proclaimed but counterfeit "revi-
sionists" who categorically deny the Judeocide. 2 To be sure, these
negationists have unwittingly asked some pertinent questions. Even so,
they are hatemongers with outright contempt for genuine scholarship and
intellection. 3 Precisely because of their crass casuistry and imposture,
they should be ignored instead of showered with critical and censo-
rious attention, which simply and solely feeds their political notoriety
and their feigned martyrdom.
Nor can I reason with dogmatists who seek to reify and sacralize the
Holocaust for being absolutely unprecedented and totally mysterious.
Obviously, the purposes of most dogmatists are altogether honorable
and many of them continue to make important contributions to the study
of the Final Solution. Even so, ultimately the dogmatizers maintain that
the Holocaust was so utterly unique as to balk all efforts at aesthetic
transfiguration and historical imagining, which cannot dispense with
universalizing categories and idioms. The zealots among them even go
so far as to claim that there is no appropriate language in which to narrate
the Judeocide and that "to tell the story [of the Holocaust] is to distort
and diminish ... a mystery [that should] be protected from the process
of demystification.,,4 But to peremptorily treat the Judeocide as a super-
natural event, to doggedly shield it from reality, and to incessantly bewail
it, is neither to prove nor to dignify its peculiar anomaly.s
In my judgment it is to be unfaithful to the victims to argue with
fanatic negationists and hard-line dogmatists who approach debates about
the Judeocide as boxing matches, in which they score points or knock-
out punches for an uncontested and final truth. Interpretations of the
Judeocide - not unlike interpretations of the decline of Rome, the
Christian Crusades, the Wars of Religion, the causes of World War I,
the French and Russian Revolutions - will forever remain subject to
intense debate and reappraisal. Indeed, authentic rethinking and re-inquiry
are the historian's noblest and most exacting tasks.
Revision requires sympathetic understanding and open scholarly
exchange if it is to confront and reconcile conflicting insights and
approaches into an everchanging but artless critical and analytic vision.
In sum, the notion of instantly achieving an ultimate truth about the
Judeocide is as implausible as the notion that with additional time and
research such a truth will sooner or later crystallize.6 Memory is certainly
very much in fashion these days: in Caen, in Jerusalem, in Washington,
MEMORY AND HISTORY 387
in Moscow, in Warsaw, in Berlin, in Oradour, on Goree Island. [Caen

is the site of a new World War II memorial in Normandy; Oradour is a
French village where the Nazi SS massacred residents; Goree Island,
Senegal is the departure point from which Africans were shipped across
the Atlantic into slavery. Pope John Paul II visited Goree Island in
February, 1992. - Ed.] It is being commodified for profit and instru-
men tali zed for political ends. It is also the latest radical chic among
Western historians who are rushing to study commemorations, memo-
rials, historials, and museums. The world is haunted less by "the specter
of man without memory,,7 than by the specter of man without forget-
ting, perhaps best captured in Let the Artists Die, Tadeusz Kantor's
pandemoniac play. Surely this rage for memory is neither politically
innocent nor historically fortuitous. Whereas, until relatively recently the
extreme depreciation of memory was correlated with the "principle of
hope"g and the project of progress, today's flourishing theory and practice
of memory coincides with the "principle of disenchantment,,9 and the
raging doubt and despair about the promises of the Enlightenment.
Indeed, it is as if Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre were wreaking
their vengeance on Voltaire and Condorcet.
Even in many regions of the Third World where at first glance the
political reactivation of social memories seems to play a liberating role,
on closer examination the situation turns out to be extremely problem-
atic. Inevitably there is memory and memory: it can be progressive and
it can be retrogressive. However, most likely and in most places, memory
pulls simultaneously and unevenly in both directions, with serious risks
of spinning out of control. At any rate, memory privileges piety and
consensus over freethinking and criticism. It tends to foreclose discus-
sion rather than to free and encourage it. Memory is not intrinsically
or even primarily a fount of "dangerous" thoughts and subversive inten-
tions, even if, under certain circumstances, it certainly can and does
contribute to fueling liberalizing dissent and rebellion. 10
The memory of Auschwitz has become overly static, inflexible, and
undialectical, with the accent almost exclusively on the unfathomable
barbarity of the Nazis and the monstrous degradation and suffering of
the victims. With historical pasteurization animated by ideological deter-
minism, the social, economic, and cultural mainsprings of the horrors
of Auschwitz have been lost from sight. This foreshortened view marks
a withdrawal from history rather than a commitment to it. As constructed,
the memory of Auschwitz disremembers that its death machine was
388 ARNO J. MAYER
relentlessly driven not only by I. G. Farben [The company that operated

a synthetic rubber plant at Auschwitz with slave labor - Ed.] - which
is presently changing its name in order to erase its past - but also by
Nazi Germany's war of conquest and crusade against Bolshevism in
eastern Europe. This elision is in tune with the primitive anti-Marxism,
leavened by fashionable modernist postmodernism, which feeds the
shift from causality, diachrony, facticity, and configuration, to indeter-
minacy, representation, deconstruction, and fragmentation. It is not the
horrors of Auschwitz that, in and of themselves, haunt several social
memories, including the impossible yet ever incipient universal memory.
Rather, these memories are burdened by the suspicion that these horrors
could not have materialized without the synergy of advanced bureau-
cracy, science, technology, medicine, law, and education, mediated by
established elites motivated by ordinary self-interest. Perhaps the once-
pregnant aphorism that whoever does not speak about capitalism had
best be quiet about fascism, should be revised to read that whoever
does not treat of fascism should forgo discussing the memory of
Auschwitz.
In sum, it is not enough to emotionalize and "dwell on [the] horrors"
of Auschwitz. Instead of allowing these horrors to "paralyze" our critical
intelligence, they should be read with a view to discerning "political
contexts" and mobilizing "political passions" relevant to present-day
concerns. II
There is, of course, no way of knowing "the past simply as past,"
without intellectual - and hence biased - intervention. 12 The past - any
past, our past, is constructed by the "after-meditation"13 of the scribes
of both memory and history.
The memories as well as the histories of the Judeocide are shaped
by us - by "after meditators" - who stand if not outside nevertheless con-
siderably removed from the particular and larger tangled past in which
it was embedded. We seek to understand it through lenses tinted by
outcomes and consequences which were unknowable and unknown to the
victims, perpetrators, and bystanders of the time. The muses of both
memory and history take pains to clarify, simplify, rearrange, and exag-
gerate discrete aspects of the afflictions of the Jews in order to highlight
those elements of quintessential uniqueness that distinguish the Jewish
torment from the torments of the other victims of Nazi Germany. There
being no way of retrieving personal remembrances of life in Auschwitz
simply as remembrances, the chroniclers of the Judeocide - like the
chroniclers of other, if lesser, fiery ordeals - select, distill, and simplify

oral and written eyewitness accounts. At the same time, they uncon-
sciously but willfully reshape them to fit into a collectively remembered
past; any memory being, intrinsically, shared or social, rather than insular
or individual.
To be sure, individuals have remembrances that are direct, literal,
and tangible - like those my maternal grandmother relayed to me about
her internal life in Theresienstadt. But even such distinctly personal
recollections, in addition to being shared, are swayed, not to say adul-
terated, by the present, which conditions the way they are articulated.
Personal remembrances are singular to individuals at the same time that
they intersect with the impersonal memories of the larger group to
which every individual necessarily belongs. In fact, since individuals
are "never really alone," they construct their autobiographical recollec-
tions in reciprocal relation with the no-less-constructed reminiscences
of others. Ultimately, then, individual and collective or social memories
are a seamless web, whose patterns are imprinted with later under-
standings and concerns, and whose articulations are ordered and
symbolized in accordance with conventional yet changeable codes of
narrative exposition. Memory, unlike history, originates and develops
within a distinct group, to which it remains confined. Being "limited
in space and time," memory also stresses the resemblances of the
in-group at the expense of its inherent dissimilarities. In sum, just as
there is no isolated and impermeable personal memory, so "there is no
universal memory."14
A brief look at the grand memorial at Douaumont near Verdun may
help to capture the peculiarly modem aspects of the self-conscious and
deliberate construction and transmission of the memory of the Judeocide,
as coordinated by the memorial authority of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
[The Israeli memorial to victims of the Holocaust - Ed.] The principle
and production of memory that is so characteristic of our time may be
said to date from the Great War of 1914-1918. This colossal conflict was
the first major phase of the Thirty Years War of the twentieth century
which egregiously extended, not to say transgressed, the heretofore con-
ventional limits of man's inhumanity to man. While Verdun became
emblematic of the slaughter of World War I, Auschwitz became emblem-
atic of the slaughter of World War II.
In the immediate aftermath of 1918 and 1945 respectively, the
field of slaughter of Verdun, and the death factory of Auschwitz were
390 ARNO J. MAYER
perceived to be radically unprecedented, unique, and hitherto un-

imaginable. the one was remembered through the memorial complex at
Douaumont and the commemoration of Armistice Day, the other through
the memorial complex at Yad Vashem and the commemoration of Yom
Hashoah. In its own way, each represents an important milestone on
the contemporary road to the studied construction and diffusion of col-
lective memory. Both center around the cult of the untold millions killed
in the wars of a cursedly bloody epoch: Douaumont was charged with
keeping alive the memory of millions of French soldiers killed in World
War I, whose casualties were virtually all fighting men; Yad Vashem
is charged with keeping alive the memory of millions of Jews murdered
in World War II, which claimed more civilian than military casualties.
Both Douaumont and Yad Vashem were and are inherently sectarian:
the one was intended to restore the deeply wounded national identity
of a long-established sovereign state; the other was founded to invent
and anchor the founding myth of a newly created and therefore highly
vulnerable state.
Characteristically the tranchee des baionnettes and the ossuaire at
Douaumont were legendary despite the stark reality of their ideographic
representation. 15 The French soldiers "sleeping standing up and clutching
rifles" fitted with bayonets in the unaffected Trench of Bayonets are
supposed to have been buried alive by collapsing embankments while
heroically defending their patrie, though the bayonet was anything but
a defensive weapon; the bones displayed in the ossuary are presumed
to be those of 130,000 "unknown" French soldiers killed on battlefields
which were also littered with the bones of thousands of equally
"unknown" German soldiers. The memorial complex at Douaumont,
including its voie sacree, is both secular and hallowed, civilian and
military. Until 1940 it was France's preeminent space for the cult of
the fallen soldier, with ritualized ceremonies, pilgrimages, and invoca-
tions. Even the grandiose annual ceremony of 11 November at the Tomb
of the Unknown Soldier under the Arch of Triumph in Paris, derived
its legitimacy from the rites of Verdun.
Clearly, among the dead, the victorious poilus were carefully sepa-
rated from the defeated boches, as if to suggest that they were continuing
their mutual slaughter from beyond their graves. The cult of France's
fallen heroes was integrated into a civic religion of nationalism whose
officiators were political, military, and religious leaders with essentially
conservative world views and agendas.
While Douaumont originated in civil society but soon became an

official undertaking, Yad Vashem was, from the outset, charted and
defined by an act of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. 16 As a non-
governmental yet official memorial authority, it was directed to retrieve
and inscribe the names of all the victims of the Judeocide on an honor
roll, to record and document vital aspects of the Shoah, to promote
discussions and publications for the benefit of future generations, and
to fix and devise an official day of memorial observances.
Inevitably, the "inventors" of Yom Hashoah rooted it in Jewish
tradition in which there is little room for ideography. It was conceived
not simply as a day of mourning but also as a day of heroism. Although
a relatively residual or recessive strand in the Jewish past, military valor
was now heralded for linking the last stand at Massada [A Jewish fortress
where, in AD 73, after a lengthy siege, the 960 Jewish defenders killed
themselves rather than surrender to the Romans - Ed.] and the hopeless
uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto with the wars for independence of the
nascent state oflsrael. Modeled on the sounding of the Shofar [The ram's
hom blown on the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement - Ed.]
wailing sirens summon the entire nation to observe a two-minute silence
as a prelude to the day's commemorative ceremonies. As for the date
chosen for Yom Hashoah, it was anything but random: the 27th day
of Nissan falls in the period of Sfirah in which "the first crusaders,
the ancestors of the Nazis, had destroyed many 'holy' (i.e., Jewish)
communities" in the Rhineland. Israel's Day of Remembrance embodies
a subtle admixture of time-honored history and memory with the blis-
tering recollection of recent experience and the press of contemporary
politics.
It is worth emphasizing that collective memories are a generational
matter, in that they do not remain raw and burning too long after the
extinction of the members of the group which experienced the events
firsthand, and their immediate progeny and "heirs." With time, and in
a radically changed political climate, Douaumont has been transmuted
from a sanctuary for pilgrimage and commemoration to a prosaic tourist
site: "don't miss this summit of your holiday."l? Simultaneously the once
solemn Armistice Day of 11 November has been assimilated into France's
peculiar cult and culture of vacations. Even the spectacular gesture of
reconciliation of 23 September 1984 - when President Mitterrand and
Chancellor Kohl stood in silence and hand in hand in the cemetery at
Douaumont - was something of an anticlimax (unlike Willy Brandt's
392 ARNO J. MAYER
ingenuous kneeling at the Memorial of the Warsaw Ghetto on 7 December

1970, which was precursive). It all but completed the desectarianiza-
tion and decanonization of the rites of Verdun. 18 Will Yad Vashem and
Yom Hashoah avoid a similar evolution by virtue of the singular nature
of the Jewish memory to be preserved?
In this day and age the annalists of both memory and history maintain
that there is no spontaneous, self-generating memory. Especially with
today's withering attention span, collective memory cannot take form
and persevere without organization and orchestration. To be remembered
and singularized, the Judeocide needs anniversaries like those of Crystal
Night, of the Vel d'Hiv' Roundup, ["Crystal Night" was the night in
November 1938 when the Nazi government sent Stormtroopers to attack
Jews and synagogues throughout Germany; the "Vel d'Hiv' Roundup"
took place in July 1942, when thousands of Jews were rounded up
by the French police in Paris, taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver, and
then deported to Auschwitz - Ed.] and of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising;
commemorations like Yom Hashoah; pilgrimages to Theresienstadt,
Auschwitz, and Treblinka; and memorial centers like Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem and the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Furthermore, in
addition to being anchored in consecrated spaces, memory must be
encoded in speeches, images, relics, and music. In sum, without sustained
efforts to foster the interiorization and transmission of the memory of the
Judeocide, much of this memory risks being swept away sooner rather
than later, by the tide of irreverent historical scholarship.
In "literate" societies, profane history takes "the relay of oral testi-
mony and social remembering" in the dusk of inviolable and uncontested
collective memory.19 Unlike the chroniclers of memory, who are parochial
and beholden to the in-group, the chroniclers of history use universal-
izing concepts and languages to examine groups from the outside, with
close attention to their unexceptional dissemblances, tensions, and cleav-
ages. Critical historians of the Judeocide distinguish the behavior and
fate of eastern and western Jews, of the Jewish classes and masses, of
orthodox religious and secularized assimilated Jews, and of unpolitical
and politically engaged Jews.
It might be said that commemorations, monuments, and honor rolls
are to the memory of the Judeocide what dates, documents, diaries, and
statistics are to its history. The construction of the histories of the
Judeocide differs from the construction of its memories. It differs in
the ways in which historians gather and validate evidence, transmit,
preserve, and revise findings and explanations, probe irreversible and

defining moments which were not known - could not have been known
- to eyewitnesses. 20 In other words, the very act of recovering a more
encompassing and uncertain past - which calls for the sifting of dis-
cordant firsthand testimonies and the correction of received narratives
and interpretations - challenges the memory of the Judeocide which is
both categorical and sectarian, and which the curators of Yad Vashem
and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council are appointed to safeguard.
Needless to say, this memory, unlike its history, is solemn, emotive,
and lachrymose.
There are, then, two major modes of access to the Judeocide: memory
and history. What deserves special emphasis, however, is that both
memory and history tend to be used and misused for political ends.
Through the ages, historical narratives and interpretations have served
numerous functions other than the advancement of scholarship. They have
been - and continue to be - shaped and instrumentalized to exalt rulers,
to generate founding legends, to promote national identities, to brace
belief systems, and to rationalize abuses of power. 21 Similarly, the
memory of the Judeocide - not unlike the memory of the other genocides
and ethnocides of this century - is angled and mediated to aid and abet
the fugitive present as it encroaches on the uncertain future. Indeed,
the purpose of heralding a collective memory is less to preserve an
immutable receding past than to readjust and enliven it for use in argu-
ments over policies for today and tomorrow: to deny or minimize the
instrumental aspects of collective or social memory is to misconceive
it. In 1976, at Yad Vashem's Wall of Remembrance, Mordechai Gur, then
Israel's chief of staff - and currently its vice-minister of defense -
declared the Holocaust to be "the root and legitimation of our enterprise,"
and insisted that the army "draws its power and strength . . . from the
holy martyrs of the Holocaust and from the heroes of the [Warsaw ghetto]
revolt.'m And to this day, in the debate over Arab-Israeli peace, the hawks
who incessantly extol survival and security as absolute values, contend
that to go back to the pre-1967 frontiers would be to return to the "borders
of Auschwitz.,,23 In tum, the doves favoring a genuine policy of peace
for land cry out against the officialized hegemony of a "cast-iron" creedal
and emotional Holocaust memory that justifies repressive excesses
against Palestinians, which they fear will corrode and ultimately destroy
Israe1. 24
It is often argued that "only in Israel, and nowhere else, is the injunc-
394 ARNO J. MAYER
tion to remember felt as a religious imperative to an entire people.,,25

It is not to disagree with this interpretation to insist that for other peoples,
or in other countries - including in as yet only imagined ones - this
command to remember is equally binding and blinding.
Today's innumerable national(ity), ethnic, and cultural conflicts, many
of them intensified by religious fervor, are unthinkable without the
driving engine of instrumentalized social memory: in Israel and the
Occupied Territories; in the lands of yesterday's Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia; in Kashmir and Sri Lanka; in the Sudan and Somalia; and
more. Many neighborhoods of our planet are threatened by volcanic erup-
tions of highly selective, sectarian, and sacralized social memories.
Although in the recent past men and women died "for the fatherland"
- after 1945 even my grandfather was said to have died pour La patrie
in Theresienstadt - in this fin de siecle they are dying, and killing, "for
memory."
In enlightened circles it was once fashionable to denounce super-
patriotism as the last refuge of political scoundrels. Nowadays rare are
the voices that decry the overzealous invocations of memory whose
rage is equivalent to yesteryear's strident appeals of integral nationalism,
not to say of "blood and soil," presently called "ethnic cleansing." To
be sure, many of the collective memories which are flaring up among
today's "peoples without history" have in large part been transmitted
"through folksongs, epic poems, and oral traditions.,,26 But this does
not make them any more spontaneous and consensual than those that have
acted on the Irish and the Poles through the centuries. To the contrary,
collective memories are intentionally reanimated and recast in the fires
of intramural political, social, economic, and cultural conflicts, particu-
larly in moments of acute tension. In each would-be "nation" seeking
statehood, the communal self is as much at war with itself as it is at
war with the non-self(selves) or the other(s). In any case, whereas at
present there are only about 180 recognized nation states, many times
that number are claiming to be formed and certified.
This is not the appropriate occasion to attempt an etiology of the
current rise of runaway public collective memories which will, inevitably,
increase the world's store of martyrs, monuments, memorial authori-
ties, and historical museums. 27 But this wildfire of memory-driven and
manipulated conflicts enjoins attention to the enigma of forgetting. 28
In the late nineteenth century Nietzsche considered Europe - which
was the only world he penetrated and prized - to be "suffering from a
malignant historical fever" due to man's "prodigious memory," more par-

ticularly due to "man's capacity not to forget anything.,,29 To be sure,
he fully recognized that there was a "need and a right time" for selec-
tive remembering. But Nietzsche was no less emphatic about a need
and a right time for selective forgetting.
In Nietzsche's view, life was "absolutely impossible" without unre-
membering. Indeed, he held that memory unalleviated by wise forgetting
was "a festering sore." He postulated a link between, on the one hand,
"intestinal and venomous" memories that fire the resentments of the
powerless in the face of extreme and unmerited suffering and, on the
other hand, a burning desire for endless vengeance. 3D Certainly there is
no denying that often in history, memory and vengeance have gone
hand in hand, and that in several regions of the globe they continue to
do so even now. Distant and near descendants or survivors often seek,
at a minimum, symbolic revenge. And, in many instances, when they
do proceed to kill for memory, they do so furiously, savagely, and indis-
criminately. Though not an apostle of redemption, Nietzsche was led
to consider that "to be redeemed from vengeance - that is for me the
bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.,,31
It may be extravagant to claim that Nietzsche's meditations on
vengeance provide the key to "his way of thinking, and hence to the
inner core of his metaphysics.,,32 Regardless, and no matter how per-
plexing, his musings about the tangled linkage of memory, forgetting,
and vengeance remain heuristically powerful. Of course, the Judeocide,
whatever its degree of uniqueness, is too enormous ever to be wholly
forgotten, let alone either forgiven or avenged. But it does invite, possibly
demands, a refiguration of the necessary relationship of remembering and
forgetting in the embers of its memory.
Disremembering or unremembering, not unlike remembering, is com-
plex and composite; willful and unconscious, systematic and random,
biased and innocent, official and unofficial. What is forgotten and
repressed for being insignificant, extraneous, or inconvenient at one
moment, may be considered essential and expedient at another. In sum,
"acts of oblivion,,,33 not unlike acts of remembrance, are subject to con-
testation - not only Babi Yar [The ravine outside Kiev where the Nazis
machine-gunned 30,000 Jews in September, 1941 - Ed.] and Yad Vashem,
but also the abortive ceremony at Bitburg and the exclusionist convent
and cross of Carmelites at Auschwitz.
There should be ways of judiciously mixing selective remembering
396 ARNO J. MAYER
and selective forgetting. The objective of any such mixing would be to

reduce the sectarianism of public collective memory without robbing
memory of its essential virtues. Not that this is an easy task, judging
by the current polemics about memorial monuments in Berlin, which
are at once instructive and disquieting. 34 The controversy started in 1988,
on the fiftieth anniversary of Crystal Night: a local citizens' committee
launched a campaign to erect a Holocaust monument in Berlin to honor
the victims of the Judeocide. With the collapse of the Wall the idea gained
force. The monument was to be built on a prominent location south of
the Brandenburg Gate, near the underground bunkers of Hitler's razed
chancellery (which some city officials propose to turn into yet another
lieu de memoire collective).
Soon after the start of the campaign, the Central Council of German
Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) demanded that the Holocaust memorial be con-
ceived to commemorate the common destiny of Jews and Gypsies, many
thousands of Gypsies, men and women, infants and adults, young and
old, healthy and sick - having perished in the concentration camps and
killing centers of the Third Reich. In response, the original proponents,
supported by the president of Germany's Jewish community, maintained
that the singular quality and quantity of the Jewish torment called for
a specific and separate monument. Besides, should Gypsy victims be
admitted to the sanctum, other victims might have to be let in. In turn,
the advocates of the Gypsy community objected to Gypsy victims sharing
a separate memorial in Berlin with an array of "lesser" martyrs: victims
of euthanasia, Soviet prisoners of war, non-Jewish Poles and Russians,
Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners, homosexuals. They also con-
sidered it humiliating to be offered a separate-but-not-equal monument
on the remote and secluded grounds of what had been a Gypsy camp
in southwest Germany.
In the face of the argumentation and opposition of the Gypsies and
their allies, as well as of the danger of the proliferation, if not satura-
tion, of mortifying memorial sites in Berlin, attention is now turned to
the establishment of an ecumenical memorial park. The idea is to design
an admonitory memorial complex to commemorate the trials and tribu-
lations of all the victims of Nazism - not of all the victims of war, as
foreshadowed by the unseemly ceremony at Bitburg (and at the Yasukuni
Shrine, which is the Shinto repository for the souls of Japan's war dead,
including the civil and military leaders convicted of war crimes at the
Tokyo Trial). It is hoped that a spatial and monumental architecture
can be conceived that will reflect a certain "hierarchy" of suffering in

Nazi Germany's hell on earth, without forgetting or slighting any of
the unjustly damned. Incidentally, the Daimler-Benz and Bosch corpo-
rations, as if to atone for a heavy past, stand ready to act as financial
sponsors.
Constructed to symbolize and decry the full range of Nazi crimes
and horrors, this architectural lament - this "frozen music" (Schelling)
- is likely to further both reverent and critical reflection about the kinship
and distinctiveness of evil. But it will not be easy to control "the banality
of commemoration" once what is likely to become one of Europe's salient
memorial sites turns into a prime way station - another lucrative theme
park - on the mass tourist circuit, inviting "the oblique genuflections
of devout but hurried pilgrims."35
The exaggerated self-centeredness, if not entrenchment, of the Jewish
memory of the Judeocide, which entails the egregious forgetting of the
larger whole and of all other victims, has intensified this confronta-
tional struggle and drive for the articulation of other memories. Rather
than leave it to others to expose and attack the intemperate narrowness
of their memory, Israelis and Jews should rethink and refigure it them-
selves.
Why not begin by resituating Primo Levi's testimony of his depor-
tation and concentration-camp experience, first published in 1947? The
original title of his seminal chronicle, If This Is A Man,36 better captures
the universal temper of his remembering and lament than the revised title,
Survival at Auschwitz, which is distorting and restrictive. Why not suggest
to the governors of Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum that to take
into account, or not to forget, the torment of mixed Afro-German off-
spring, of euthanasia victims, of Gypsies, and of Soviet prisoners of
war, would be to enhance the integrity and outreach of their mission?
After five hundred years, and especially since in March 1992 King Juan
Carlos went to collect himself in Madrid's main synagogue, why not
stress the joint suffering of Jews and Moors following the edict of mass
expulsion from Spain in 1492? After 900 years, why not emphasize
that Jews and Moslems were kindred victims of the sacralized fury of the
first Christian crusade?
Indeed, through the centuries, severe and large-scale torments of
Jews have tended to coincide with severe and large-scale torments of
other minority communities - a common fate in which their respective
uniqueness was respected even as they were "hung" separately. (If, over
398 ARNO J. MAYER
the last few years, prominent Jews had acknowledged the Gypsies to have
been their fellow martyrs at the hands of the Third Reich, today's German
government would think twice before deporting over 20,000 Gypsies back
to Romania. In several important respects this deportation is reminis-
cent of Nazi Germany's deportation of Jews of Polish nationality to
Poland on the eve of Crystal Night.)
In any case, I hope and suspect that it is not to betray the victims of
the Judeocide to de sectarianize or, if you prefer, re-universalize their
memory by illuminating it with contextual and homologic history. Their
torment is certain to forever remain the quintessential embodiment not
only of Nazi Germany's uniquely merciless victimization of Jews but
also of man's infinite capacity to be savage to man - If This Is A Man.
Probably Marc Bloch would not consider it a violation of our compact
with the dead to adapt the commemoration of Yom Hashoah to also incite
critical reflection, lest it serve to perpetuate the numbing of our sense
of common humanity in the face of the cunning persistence of history
in this fin-de-siecle.
Fifty years after Auschwitz and Treblinka, Jews should consider
leaving "the wilderness of [their] great grief" as well as their "ghetto
of indifference" to the fate of other peoples, past and present. 37 The
outside world's halting reaction to the killing in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
the starvation in Somalia - and to the iniquity in the Occupied Territories
- is only the latest reminder that "seclusion from the world ... is
a form of barbarism,"38 and the cause of the Jews remains, as always,
inseparable from that of other endangered and potentially forsaken
peoples.
NOTES
I Walter Benjamin, /lluminationen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977),253.

2 The following three paragraphs draw on the Afterword to the paperback edition of
Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The "Final Solution" in History (New York: Pantheon,
1990).
3 See Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Les Assassins de la memoire (Paris: Editions la Decouverte,
1987).
4 For a convenient collection of Elie Wiesel's statements about the mystery and sacred-
ness of the Holocaust, and about its remaining beyond the imagination and vocabulary
of historians, see Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel, III, ed. Irving
Abrahamson (New York: The Holocaust Library, 1985).
5 This formulation is inspired by Edgar Quinet's critical reflections on the terror of the
French Revolution in his La Revolution (Paris: Belin, 1987), passim.
6 Bhikhu Parekh, 'Social and Political Thought and the Problem of Ideology', in
Knowledge and Belief in Politics: The Problem of Ideology, ed. Robert Benewick, R.
N. Berki et al. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973),57-87, esp. 82-85.
7 Theodor Adorno cited in Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1964),99.
8 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986).
9 For a discussion of Max Weber's notion of the "disenchantment of the world," a
phrase taken over from Friedrich Schiller, see From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,
ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946); and
Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage: An Historical Interpretation of Max Weber (New York:
Grosset and Dunlap, 1969).
10 Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 98-99.
II Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1973), 411.
12 David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), esp. 231-238; and E. H. Carr, What Is History? (New York: Knopf, 1962).
13 William Wordsworth cited in Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country, 196. Walter
Benjamin's notion of Eingedenken, or rememorization, has a similar tonality. See his
Das Passagenwerk, in Gesammelte Schriften I (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985),589.
14 Maurice Halbwachs, La Memoire Collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1968).
See also Halbwachs, Les Cadres sociaux de la memo ire (Paris: Presses Universitaires,
1952).
15 This discussion of Douaumont is based on Antoine Prost, 'Verdun', in Les Lieux de
memo ire II, ed. Pierre Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 111-141. See also George L. Mosse,
Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (New York: Oxford, 1990),
esp.92-99.
16 This discussion of Yad Vashem and Yom Hashoah is based on Benzion Dinur,
'Problems Confronting Yad Washem in its Work of Research', in Yad Washem Studies
on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance I (Jerusalem, 1957),7-30; and James
E. Young, 'When a Day Remembers: A Performative History of Yom Ha-Shoah', in
History and Memory 2 (1991): 54--75.
17 Signboard at the entrance of the Douaumont Museum.
18 Ironically, the very day that he encountered Kohl at Douaumont, Mitterrand honored
Marshal Philippe Petain, the victor of Verdun, by having a wreath placed on his tomb.
By so doing Mitterrand offended the memory of the victims of the collaboration of Petain's
Vichy Government with the Final Solution.
19 Halbwachs, 'Memoire et Societe', in Annee Sociologique, Troisieme Serie (1940-
1948), I, 78-79.
20 Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?, 15-18.
21 Peter Burke, 'History as Social Memory', in Memory: History, Culture, and the
Mind, ed. Thomas Butler (London: Basil Blackwell, 1989), chap. v.
22 Cited in Young, When a Day Remembers, 68.
23 Aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, cited in New York Times (16 May 1992).
24 Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1992).
25 Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (New York:
Schocken, 1989), 9.
400 ARNO J. MAYER
26 Butler in Memory, 4.
27 See E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. chap. 6.
28 See Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country 204ff.; Burke in Memory, 106-109;
Alan Baddeley, 'The Psychology of Remembering and Forgetting', in Memory, 33-60,
esp.58.
29 For Nietzsche's reflections on memory and forgetting in the sweep of European history,
see his Beyond Good and Evil, chaps. 7-8; The Genealogy of Morals, esp. the second
essay; and Thoughts Out of Season, esp. part I of "The Use and Abuse of History."
30 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche et la Philosophie (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1962),
131-134, esp. 133.
31 Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, part II, chap. XXIX ("The Tarantulas"). Italics
in text.
32 Martin Heidegger, Was heisst Denken? (Tubingen: M. Niemeyer, 1954), passim, but
esp.38.
33 Burke in Memory, 108.
34 This discussion of the polemics surrounding Berlin's commemorative monuments
relies heavily on Rudolf Kraft, 'In trennendem Gedenken', Die Zeit 31 (24 July 1992).
3S "[L']oblique genuflexion des devots presses." Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary,
III, cited by Claude Lanzmann in interview in Liberation (26 August 1992).
36 Primo Levi, Se Questo e un Vomo (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1958).
37 Philip Roth, The Counterlife (New York: Penguin, 1986), 165; Sonja Margolina,
Das Ende der Lilgen: Russland und die Juden im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Siedler Verlag,
1992), 150.
38 Hannah Arendt cited in Margolina, Das Ende der Lugen, 151.
THEODORE SHAPIRO
REMEMBERING AND REALITY
I met Bob Cohen and then his wife, Robin, and two of their children
in the early 1950s when I was an undergraduate at Wesleyan. He taught
a diverse array of courses, including thermodynamics, Marxism, and
Philosophy of Science. I spent the most continuous time with him in those
years studying philosophy of science. Even though I was going on to
medical school to become a physician, I had an extraordinary curiosity
about abstract ideas and the underpinnings of thought and Bob fur-
thered that curiosity. I also had my most personal contact with Bob and
Robin during that time because of who they were and because Wesleyan
was, at that time, a place where the ideal of a community of scholars
seemed to flower - at least I thought so as a student. Since then I have
had only intermittant contact, while on vacation on Cape Cod or at
other intellectual occasions. The fact that I was a student did not decrease
the possibility of feeling like a colleague, because role distinction was
not decided by age or position with Bob. It always seemed to depend
on who had something to teach whom, and intellectual exchange was
the vehicle for mutual interest and then friendship. When I say intel-
lectual exchange, I mean it to convey the fullness of passion that can
emanate from the study of ideas and their relation to affects, and human
warmth, and social action, rather than an abstract impersonal relation-
ship around empty debate that feeds the needs of some to out-do the
other.
The biographical fact of having met under the circumstance of being
a student and teacher has colored the relationship but has never permitted
it to be static because of my mentor's generous acceptance of my ques-
tioning and my skepticism. That which has changed however, is based
on our mutual understanding of the realities of our life circumstances,
our different stages of life, and our stage of interest in each other. He
was a young professor with a humanistic passion, with a wife and two
children, and I was an eager student planning a career, seeking a com-
panion, and scheduled to leave campus two years later. To contribute
to a Festschrift on behalf of Bob Cohen represents not an opportunity
to write yet another paper, especially one outside of my immediate
401

402 THEODORE SHAPIRO
domain of interest, but rather to pay tribute to the man, his accom-
plishments, career, and to thank him - and perhaps to provide a token
of my indebtedness for what he has taught me. I count him as a major
mentor whose impact has been longlasting. Nonetheless, in reality, we
shared a brief span of time with each other.
I have used the word, reality, because it is that that I will address in
this essay - at least the way we register reality in memory - I have
become a physician since those early days and then a psychiatrist and
psychoanalyst. I also have maintained an academic position in two
medical schools, first at New York University and now at Cornell.
Remembering reality in the psychoanalytic context has seen a number
of transformations and these various considerations are touched by the
philosophical trends of the '90s.
I learned from Bob about Platonic shadows and ideals, Lockean empir-
ical isomorphism, Cartesian rational innate ideas, Kantian categories, and
cautious Twentieth Century approaches to metaphysical queries ranging
from Carnap and Wittgenstein through Davidson. All these eponyms
used as rubrics can be looked at as aspects of the larger problem of
appearance and reality. I carry these background models and scholarly
information into my thinking about some of the current problems we face
in psychoanalysis. These issues are not only problems that arise because
of the intellectual zeitgeist, but because of the changes in technical under-
standing in my discipline as it is influenced by innovations in other
sciences and disciplines. In many ways, I continued my philosophical
musings and rode the crest of the linguistic revolution and then melded
that body of knowledge with my psychoanalytic studies to advance our
field. My own personal development was away from abstract philosophy,
turning towards practical application of philosophical traditions to the
study of healing by talking. The gaps in my understanding did not deter
me from practicing my profession (it seems that it never does), but it
did permit me to continue to ask what it is we are talking about, what
are the basic assumptions of analysis, and where can we go with this
or that interdisciplinary infusion as a concept to create a new heuristic
for clinical use or theoretical advance about how the mind works.
From Freud on, psychoanalysts have suggested that hysterics suffer
from reminiscences (Freud 1895) and by extension, all neuroses result
from the complexities of being born half competent with long periods
of obligatory caretaking and time for storage of ideas about people per-
ceived in the surround who are the caretakers. Thus, memory plays a very
REMEMBERING AND REALITY 403
important role in the psychoanalytic tradition. Initially, it was the memory

of traumatic events that occupied Freud. Later it was the memory and
stored experiences that became condensed in the idea of strain trauma,
but at each juncture he was concerned about how the mind reworks
what was in the percept-, or state-dependent situation of registration.
It seems to me that the psychoanalytic situation and process is a
method by which one may explicate the nature of the effect of memory
on current behavior, and study the persistence of memories that are stored
in personal ideographic systems that serve as the determinants of future
behavior. Indeed, the special attention we pay to fantasies as human
creations is simply a restatement of our preoccupation with memory. Thus
from the onset, central psychoanalytic propositions pointed to the idea
that the lawfulness of a person's behavior is based not only in the way
in which we rearrange reality, but on the fact that reality has in some way
impinged upon us so as to conspire with past experiences, wishes, and
desires to create a memory. Yet we all know that memory is feckless, and
not devoted to a simple retelling of it as it happened. In fact, we have
as little idea of it as of the Kantian thing in itself. Some of the things
that we remember most acutely turn out to be constructed as in screen
memories (Freud 1899), and the events that happened and are recorded
at a time distant period can receive a multidimensional interpretation
according to the vantage of the observer then and now - In various forms
of Art such as Durrel's novels, The Alexandria Quartet, or in the film,
Rashomon, we are treated to the varied subjective registrations of what
is or was "out there".
This multifaceted subjective registration has led to a divergent vision
for our psychoanalytic perspective. One extreme is devoted to hermeneu-
tics or the possibility of interpretive propositions, in theory, without limit
- the danger of a deconstructive infinite regress is manifest in such ideas.
The other approach is represented by an attempt at scientific unpacking
of the memories. This approach presumes that deciphering of memory
is indeed a discovery and not just another narrative truth in an indefi-
nite array of possible narratives, none of which have any basis in reality.
To make the problem even more complex, psychoanalysts are instructed
that their work is constrained by not paying too close attention to
insoluble queries about what has "really" happened, but to "psychic
reality", i.e. the unfolding of a patient's story of her life.
It is in such narrative unfolding that the observing and participating
analyst and patient can together construct a plausible image of a life.
In a similar manner, psychoanalysts are constrained to distrust first

tellings and to derive psychic reality only from the surface of what is
said. In that sense, psychoanalytic listening is more like the vantage
described in speech act literature that suggests that the phrase as stated
does not yield to a simple semantic reading, but that it rather relates to
a series of indexical significances which are implied. The linguistic notion
in a simple form can be described as follows: A linguist once described
the woman who said, 'I wish I weren't so short' - This implies a clear
wish and also refers to an apparent reality concerning her height.
However, it also serves as a request when encountered within a certain
context. For example, if she were seen in her own kitchen trying to get
a dish from a high shelf, and you were a taller observer, the response
might be, "Oh, I'll get that for you". Heard in a context of a women's
basketball game, it might be taken as a plaint regarding the relative
disadvantage she has as her peers outshoot her. The complaint, "I wish
I weren't so short" taken within an analytic situation, however, might
serve as a different source of interest for the analyst. It not only expresses
a wish, but also suggests a comparison. It suggests a comparative in
the context of psychoanalytic situation that might even indicate that
there is a history to the idea that she never grew, that she still considers
herself a child, that she is incapable and unable to be effective, that
what holds on now in adulthood is a remnant of her past sense of
inadequacy or insufficiency. This is what we mean, by and large, by
the notion that we interpret behaviors, rather than address utterances as
simple propositions in an analytic situation.
The fact that the woman may be making an accurate statement about
the reality of her height in relation to others is not the issue for us. We
dare not leave it at that. The reality that all children are indeed, short,
is not the necessary correlate either. Our attitudes towards height as
children and our attitudes towards height as grownups may carry very
different inferences and lead to very different dreams or discouragements.
The child may look forward to growing - the adult is stuck. However,
the child often harbors the idea that as they grow, their parents shrink.
To make matters worse or more complex, the plaint is registered to a
specific person in a dialogic pair and could be a wishful expression in
the transferential relationship where the analyst is the object of envy
by proxy.
Spence (1982) makes a distinction between narrative truths and
historical truths. In so doing, he criticizes Freud for his investment in
the notion that the narratives somehow indicate the historical past as it
was. Other people use words like actuality to denote what really happened
(Erikson 1962). I would submit that what really happened that could
be observed by the fly on the wall observer is just another form of reality.
The naive or common sense view of consensual agreement leads to many
practical conclusions useful to man, but we know from social psychology
experiments how vulnerable we are to influence and that that influence
may be compounded by hierarchies of authority. The form of reality
that is discovered in the psychoanalytic situation is the reality that pertains
to the individual in his role as interpreter, and how he or she construes
the world around him or her. More important is how that construal
influences life.
Language is a central vehicle of expression, but language in use
includes not only the code of words and phrases, but also the paralin-
guistic, the attitudinal set, and the gestural mimetic componants of the
exchange all of which influence the Analyst listening to the monologue
from the couch. Analysands or clients not only "tell" with their words,
they "tell" with their whole bodies and the affective valence of what is
expressed is part of the message (Shapiro, T. 1979, 1988). A feature
analysis of a word without context can provide us with a number of
significant denotative understandings. However, it never tells us what
is meant, unless we understand some of the personal idiolectic vari-
ables of what the discourse means to the individual.
By way of example, we can make one-to-one translation from one
language to another, but as Cassirer (1953) suggests, by example - the
word "moon" and the word, "La Lune" in French have very different
connotative significances. Moon is mentally related to measurement,
months, La Lune is related to light, influenced by light-lunacy: Without
stretching our commentary to the linguistic relativism of the Whorf-Sapir
(1962) hypothesis, that the language tells you all about a person's reality,
let me suggest as others before have that words are not simply inter-
changeable. Flaubert's search for Ie mot juste is but one example of the
intense selectivity of our wish to convey meaning accurately. But it is
no more significant than the inadvertent slip of the tongue that betrays
a vast array of unconscious intentions. Thus, the essential query is
accuracy according to which agency of mind?
We know from the analysis of individuals who are bilingual, that
they slide from one language to another when they are interested in
conveying one thing or another. In a recent autobiography, "Lost in
Translation" the author writes, "In English I should marry him, but in
Polish, I should not" (Hoffman, Eva 1989). Even within the language
codes, we have choices. Let us engage in a thought experiment: think
for a moment of the affective valence of the word feces, or stool, as
compared to shit or "doodoo". Or if I could ask the reader to think of
the earliest word he or she used for his or her own bowel movement it
might raise a blush to the cheek of the most fettered among us (Shapiro,
T. 1979). These symbols each refers referentially to the same specie of
excrement. However, each word's impact on the individual in terms of
eliciting associative thoughts and affects of shame, embarrassment, guilt,
etc. are quite varied. Will the real excrement stand up? I do not know
what is real but, I do know that analysands will use one or another
word and have affective responses to their use, or defensive isolation
from their feelings in their utterance in accord with what they want to
convey to the listener. Similarly, a provocative 5-year-old might say,
"shit" to his parents as well as the more acceptable "BM" or "poop"
and elicit surprise, outrage, or business as usual in accord with the
home climate.
Given this background, we are back in the two-person system of
the analyst listening to the patient, but what is he listening for? He is
listening to understand the implied reality behind surface reality. The
speaker attempts to hide as well as to reveal by speaking. She is at
once telling and withholding. Hartmann (1964) once said that psycho-
analysis is the systematic study of self-deception. If that is so, it is one
of the higher philosophical enterprises insofar as it uncovers truth in a
world of appearances. It deals with subjective construals of a world
that can only exist as complex percepts and be conveyed in imprecise
codes such as language. The most abstract of these, mathematics, is the
basic code that serves as the underpinning of regularities studied by some
sciences, but do not have the appearances of the data which are to be
explained.
Although we use language in its many forms to understand and to
decipher the message of patients, it is but another form of discourse.
All the philosophical questions remain in place as to what form of reality
is being conveyed. What kind of recounting are we hearing. One thing
we can be certain of is that as it is told is never the way things actually
were, but it is only seen through the strong filter of the experience of
the individual, but that is after all, what we are after - i.e. how have
we personalized experience and how do such idiosyncratic stamps change

expectations or help predict later experience.
This leads to another proposition of psychoanalysis that also involves
the notion of reality. It is the concept of transference. This essential
psychoanalytic idea suggests that we learn about a patient and the con-
strual of her world by the enactments with the analyst which we assume
carry the weight of past, repeated habits, or what some people call the
effects of procedural memory (Clyman, R. 1991). The need to encode
these procedures or these interactions into language as a vehicle to
make conscious what is going on unwittingly is an aim of the analysis
and is believed to be a vehicle for change. One psychoanalyst (Loewald,
H. 1989) suggests that we do not remember our past, we are our past.
Freud wrote a most significant paper called, 'Remembering, Repeating
and Working Through'. It is in the form of the repeating that we can
envision the structuring elements of behavior as they are carried out in
inappropriate places. In this instance the consulting room - paradoxically,
it was once thought that no mutative analytic action would be possible
without transference interpretation and one way we believe we foster
change is through encouragement of such reactions and their interpre-
tations. We tum action into words and we then store words to direct
later behavior.
For the laboratory or clinical scientist who takes varying measure-
ments and watches meters these ideas may seem remote, but we all know
that measurements are often plotted on a graph leading to a series of
points on a 2 dimensional plane. Points which entail the relationship of
variable X to Yare one form of data that are graphed. The formulaic
line that splits the dots is no more a reality than the reality that I am
dealing with when I deal with my patients. A line that obeys the law
of y = mx + b may not impinge on any particular point on the graph.
It is simply a compromise, an averaging, an attempt to say, "this is the
most general law that can be derived from these data". I do not feel hard-
put to suggest that in a similar manner a psychoanalyst makes repeated
approximations of reality and restates them to his patient in a small
number of formulaic proposals which ultimately describe the lawful-
ness in their behavior which we would consider to be the reality just
under the surface that dictates their surface actions.
A reality that conforms to the rules of these behaviors represents
the resolution of a conflict between a wish A and a prohibition B, or
that the behavior of the analysand with the analyst is a remnant of a

habitually experienced behavior between the person and an early object
in his life, e.g. the parent in an oedipal constellation. It is through repeated
encounters with the same sort of data, to be sure, not data that are pub-
lically on view except if tape recorded, but data which repeatedly return
to the same solution that we understand personal dynamisms. In short
and in the end, we are exceedingly repetitive in our repertory of inter-
actions with others. That our repetition is based upon some paradigm
of action that is each person's individual resultant expressed in life events
is a central thesis of our discipline - Even impulsive behavior is not
random, but patterned in accord with unconscious determinants.
Thus, as a method, psychoanalysis does not look at what particular
congruence there is between an actual event and its memory. Instead it
defines the impact of the real in a simple minded way. It depends on
the structuring aspects of mind which possibly have a kind of pre-estab-
lished Kantian organization as exemplified by the oedipal constellation
(Shapiro, T. 1988). The variants of that formula lead to lawful descrip-
tions of future behavior in enactments and permit only a limited scope
of world configurations. In that manner, we would not ask a lay person
in a dialogue to read the same inferences that we do in a therapeutic
situation. However, by permitting such a person to hear a life story as
recorded from the couch, and its repetitiousness, similar inferences might
be made. Nonetheless, this method helps to derive continuity in life
stories and points to a reality that is carried within the individual and
sometimes even reconstituted in a repeated and senseless fashion in
symptoms as well as in personal enactments with others.
There is no doubt as an historical fact that I came in contact in my
University years with a young professor named Robert Cohen. Were it
not for that fact, and the respect that I have for him, I would not be
writing this essay. We have at least a two-person verification of this
encounter because were it not for the fact that Robin and he remem-
bered that I was his student and that through future contact, I was an
academic semi-philosopher, I would not have been asked to write this
essay. There is no way to tell however, from those initial contacts, what
I would be writing about, how I would write it, and what my inner con-
viction would be about the longlasting impact of that teacher on this
student. Nor can I provide any more insight into our relationship, except
that having applied the method I described, I can attest to my devotion,
affection, and gratitude to the Celebrant. I am pleased to be able to

contribute to honoring the man, the teacher, and the friend, Bob Cohen.
Payne Whitney Clinic,

Cornell University Medical College
REFERENCES
Cassirer, E. (1953), An Essay on Man. New York: Doubleday.

Clyman, R. B. (1991), The Procedural Organization of Emotions: A contribution from
Cognitive Science to the Psychoanalytic Theory of Therapeutic Action. New York: Int'!
Universities Press.
Erikson, E. (1962), 'Reality and Actuality', J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn. 10: 451-474.
Freud, S. (1895), 'Studies on Hysteria', S.E. 2.
Freud, S. (1899), 'Screen Memories', S.E. 3: 301-322.
Hartmann, H. (1964), 'Concept Formation in Psychoanalysis', Psychoanal. Study of Child.
19: 11-47.
Hoffman, E. (1989), Lost in Translation. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Loewald, H. (1986), 'Transference, Countertransference', J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn.
34: 275.
Shapiro, T. (1979), Clinical Psycholinguistics. New York: Plenum Press.
Shapiro, T. (1986), 'Sign, Symbol and Structural Theory. From Psychoanalysis: The
Science of Mental Conflict', in: A. D. Richards & M. S. Willick (eds.), Essays in Honor
of Charles Brenner. Hillside, NJ: Analytic Press.
Shapiro, T. (1988), 'Linguistic Structure and Psychoanalytic Structure', in: T. Shapiro
(ed.), Structure and Psychoanalysis 35, New York: Int'! Universities Press.
Spence, D. (1982), Narrative Truth and Historical Truth. New York: Norton.
Whorf, B. L. (1962), Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge: MIT Press.
ALFRED F. YOUNG
COMMON SENSE AND THE

RIGHTS OF MAN IN AMERICA *
The Celebration and Damnation of Thomas Paine
On June 10, 1809, when Thomas Paine was buried on his own farm in
New Rochelle, in Westchester County, New York, there were less than
a dozen people at his funeral: Willett Hicks, a Quaker who had been
unsuccessful in getting the Society of Friends to accept Paine's request
that he be laid to rest in their burial grounds in New York City; Thomas
Addis Emmett, a Paineite political emigre who had been imprisoned in
Ireland, now a rising lawyer in the city; Walter Morton, a friend; two
African American men, one perhaps the grave-digger; Margaret de
Bonneville and her two young sons, Benjamin and Thomas, Paine's
godson, all refugees from Napoleonic France who Paine had sustained
in the United States in gratitude for the support she and her husband,
Nicholas, had given Paine in France before and after his imprisonment.
All these had made the 25-mile journey from Greenwich Village, then
on the outskirts of New York City, where Paine had died. They may
have been joined by a few neighbors from New Rochelle where he had
lived intermittently since his return from France in 1802. No political
leaders attended; no one, it seems, gave a eulogy. Years later Madame
de Bonneville recollected the poignant moment: 1
The interment was a scene to affect and wound any sensible heart. Contemplating who
it was, what man it was, that we were committing him to an obscure grave on an open
and disregarded bit of land, I could not help feeling most acutely. Before the earth was
thrown down around the coffin, I placing myself at the east end of the grave, said to
my son Benjamin, "stand you there, at the other end, as a witness for grateful America".
Looking round me, and beholding the small group of spectators, I exclaimed, as the
earth was tumbled into the grave, "Oh! Mr Paine! My son stands here as testimony of
the gratitude of America, and I, for France!"
A few others may have paid their last respects to Paine in the city
in response to a paragraph the day before in the Public Advertiser by
Jacob Frank, its editor, inviting friends "to attend the funeral from
[Paine's] late residence", but if so, it was not enough to write about in
the papers. There was no memorial service in New York or any other
city. A few tributes appeared in newspapers edited by Jacobin refugees
411

412 ALFRED F. YOUNG
from British persecution, now successful Jeffersonians. New York politi-

cians who had known Paine and his record, Vice President George Clinton
and his nephew, Dewitt Clinton, the Mayor of the city, were silent, as
were the national leaders who had been his co-workers: Thomas Jefferson
who had played host to him in 1803 at the White House on his return
from France; James Monroe, the United States Minister who had inter-
vened to free him from a French prison in 1794; Benjamin Rush who
in 1776 had given the title to Common Sense - all were silent. And
later in 1809, when James Cheetham, the renegade Paineite editor,
brought out a scurrilous biography of Paine in New York, the source
of much of the scandalous misinformation over the decades, it went
unchallenged. Philip Freneau, alone among American writers of his day,
paid tribute to Paine in poetry.2
What had happened? Thomas Paine was the author of the three
most widely read and influential pamphlets in the English language in
the last quarter of the eighteenth century: Common Sense (1776), The
Rights of Man (1791-1792) and The Age of Reason (1795). In 1776
Common Sense, Paine claimed with only slight exaggeration, "awaked
America to a declaration of Independence.,,3 It was published anony-
mously so he did not reap the full fruits of authorship. But during the
war, the Crisis papers, written by Thomas Paine, "author of Common
Sense" which began with "These are the times that try men's souls," con-
firmed his reputation as a leading patriot. Washington had them read
to his troops. Paine was known to all the leaders of the Revolution.
Congress appointed him Secretary to its Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Pennsylvania made him clerk to its Assembly. Robert R. Livingston, in
effect the Secretary of State, and Robert Morris, the Secretary of the
Treasury, issued government funds to sustain him as a pamphleteer. After
the war, when Paine petitioned Congress to pay him for expenses in
the public service he calculated at $6000, Congress recognized that he
was "entitled to a liberal gratification from the United States," but met
only half of his claim.4 In the Virginia legislature, a bill to reward him
with land strongly endorsed by George Washington, failed by one vote.
But Pennsylvania awarded him 500 for his "many very eminent
services." And New York granted him a 250 acre farm in New Rochelle
confiscated from a Loyalist for his "eminent services" and "distinguished
merit" in the Revolution. 5 The Rights of Man which circulated widely
in the 1790s renewed this popular reputation.
What explains Paine's fall from grace? The most commonly offered
COMMON SENSE AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 413
explanation lies in the response to The Age of Reason, the third of his
best selling works, which followed on the heels of Rights of Man and
circulated through the late 1790s. His attack on organized religion as
the historical handmaiden of political oppression and his rational critique
of the miraculous side of the Bible as superstition brought deism out
of gentlemen's drawing rooms to the village tavern and the artisan's
hearth as no other work before or since. It probably eclipsed Rights of
Man in the breadth and intensity of the reaction it provoked. 6
The religious explanation is appealing. The orthodox clergy in the
United States attacked Paine with an unprecedented fury. Federalist
leaders exploited the religious issue. And many Jeffersonian politicians,
even if closet deists, found Paine's irreligion politically embarrass-
ing, especially because so many of their supporters were evangelical
Baptists and Methodists. The second Great Awakening of the early 1800s
sank roots among poorer farmers in the countryside and artisans and
journeymen in the cities, the natural constituents of the Democratic
Republicans. And it may be that in the last analysis Paine's deism sealed
his fate.
But was it so simple? Why was the attack on Paine's religious views
so effective? I would like to explore three additional hypotheses for
the eclipse of Thomas Paine. 7 First, from the outset of his American
career, Paine was under attack for his democratic political radicalism.
From 1776 through 1794, long before the Age of Reason made its appear-
ance, Paine was the target of one wing of the American conservative elite
and he remained so throughout his life. Second, the failure of Paine to
retain the popular reputation he won during the Revolution from 1776
to 1783 is part of a persistent problem in American history of passing
on the history of one generation to another. And third, Paine might be
considered a "victim of the Rights of Man", a felicitous phrase Robert
R. Palmer used some 40 years ago. 8 The election of Jefferson in 1801
and certainly his reelection in 1804, guaranteed the triumph of the core
principles Paine advocated. Paine, the person, thus was a victim of the
success of his political ideas.
To probe this seeming puzzle of the rejection of Paine in the first
decade of the nineteenth century, we should try to unlock the secrets
of his success. I will turn first to an exploration of the reception of
Common Sense in 1776, second to the reception of Rights of Man in
the 1790s in the United States and England, and then return to the
American scene in Paine's last years from 1802 to 1809.
414 ALFRED F. YOUNG
One needs Common Sense to understand The Rights of Man. It was the
basis of his subsequent reputation. On the title page of the Rights of
Man Paine identified himself as the author of Common Sense. More
important, as Paine had no hesitation in admitting, the principles in Rights
of Man "were the same as those in Common Sense . .. The only dif-
ference between the two works was, that one was adapted to the local
circumstances of England and the other to those in America. ,>9 Indeed
the very structure of the argument of Part II of Rights of Man and much
of the language follow Common Sense.
Common Sense has come down in history oversimply as an argument
for American Independence. Actually, the message to Americans was
triple-barreled: independence, republicanism and confidence in the
common people. Abandon the goal of reconciliation with the mother
country, he told his readers, and adopt the goal of independence; reject
not only King George III but the principle of monarchy and put in its
place republican government based on broad popular participation; and
third, in a message implicit in the style addressed to ordinary people in
the plainest of language, rely not on learned authorities but on your
own reason, your own common sense.
The tone of the writing was warmly egalitarian. "Male and female
are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven;
but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest
... is worth inquiring into." "Of more worth is one honest man to society,
and in the sight of God than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.,,10
The language was irreverent, often coarse. The first king was "nothing
better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang". The claim of
William the Conqueror, "a French bastard landing with an armed banditti
and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the
natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath
no divinity in it."ll And the appeal was suffused with a millenialist
idealism: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A
situation similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah
until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand ... "12
The popularity of the pamphlet was extraordinary by any measure.
If its success was not quite as Paine proclaimed - "beyond anything since
the invention of printing" - it very likely was read by or read to a large
share of the adult white male population in the colonies and a good many
women. 13 Paine who could observe the printing history from the vantage
point of Philadelphia (in effect the capital where the Continental Congress
was sitting), claimed 120,000 copies by April, 1776, four months after
its initial printing there in mid-January, which he later raised to 150,000
and then reduced (not necessarily accurately) in 1792 to 100,000 in a
footnote in Rights of Man. 14 Scholars have generally accepted a circu-
lation of 100,000 to 150,000 copies (although none of them make clear
how they reached their conclusions). This was in a country of about
3,000,000 (500,000 of whom were African Americans, almost all slaves),
which meant about 350,000 Anglo American families. Some 200,000
men served in the militia or regular army over seven years of war. The
pamphlet was cheap, one shilling, which put it in the category not of
the lowest price chapbooks and almanacs, but well below the cost of most
books. And it was relatively short, 47 pages in its first edition, usually
less than 60 pages in other printings, and arranged in four systematic
chapters, written in a plain style which made it accessible. IS
Between January and June, 1776, the pamphlet went through some
35 separate printings (counting the several editions), 15 in Philadelphia
where it first appeared and from which it was distributed to the South,
16 in New England. 16 There was no copyright law; printers simply
reprinted whatever version arrived at their shop. Paine said he never made
a penny from the work. Vain and boastful as Paine was, there was some-
thing to his claim in April, 1776, about the speed of its circulation:
there "never a pamphlet since the use of letters ... of which so great
a number went off in so short a time.,,17 Pamphlets were one of the
principal forms of expression in the revolutionary decade; Bernard Bailyn
has analyzed some 400 which appeared in the decade before 1776
but prior to Paine, the best seller among them may have been John
Dickinson's with a circulation of about 15,000 copies. IS A sale of 2000
was more common for a pamphlet. A speller might sell 20,000 copies,
a psalm book 30,000, the annual printing of Benjamin Franklin's Poor
Richard's Almanack 20,000 and an unusually popular almanac like
Nathanial Ames's, 60,000, but these were all steady sellers with a very
broad audience. 19
A wealth of anecdotal evidence from sources high and low attest to
the enormous popularity of Common Sense in the first six months of
1776. A Philadelphian who sent a copy to a friend in England reported
that it "is read to all ranks; and as many as read, so many become con-
verted; though perhaps the hour before were most violent against the least
416 ALFRED F. YOUNG
idea of independence." By March General Washington wrote, "I find

Common Sense is working a powerful change in the minds of men."
Punitive British military actions, "added to the sound doctrine and
unanswerable reasoning . . . was winning people to the propriety of a
separation. ,,20
It was successful because it came at precisely the time when people
were ready for its message. After a decade of intense political contro-
versy, war had broken out at Lexington and Concord in April, 1775. Tens
of thousands of men were in arms in the militia or the new regular
army authorized by Congress with Washington as commander-in-chief.
Committees were forming everywhere setting up, in effect, a dual govern-
ment, as British government collapsed. A war was on, but what were
Americans fighting for? The prospect of reconciliation with Britain was
fading, and to more and more people was no longer desirable.
In weighing influence of a tract, the active role of the reader is often
unappreciated. Reading is an act of volition. A person had to buy the
pamphlet; one shilling was cheap as pamphlets went but costly to a
common carpenter who might make 3 shillings a day or to a shoemaker
who made even less and out of the question for a common laborer who
earned 118 a day.21 Or a person had to borrow the pamphlet, seeking
out an owner, or respond to someone's blandishments to read it. When
it was read aloud, as it was in taverns and other public places, a person
had to make a decision to come to listen or stay to hear it out. Alfred
Owen Aldridge points out that Common Sense had a "high multiple
readership," that handwritten copies and summaries circulated, and news-
papers reprinted excerpts. Brissot de Warville, a French observer, thought
the pamphlet "had such a prodigious effect only because it was a hundred
times cited and reproduced in those gazettes devoured with avidity by
the artisan, the farmer, and the man of all classes.'022
As some political leaders interpreted the process, Paine's pamphlet
"converted" people or "awaked" them to independence, as Paine put
it. Common Sense, one army officer wrote to another, "has made many
proselytes, and I believe will open the eyes of the common people."23
David Ramsay, the South Carolina physician who wrote one of the
first histories of the Revolution, thought it "produced surprising effects.
Many thousands were convinced by it and were led to approve and long
for a separation from the Mother Country." But others, perhaps more
immersed in the popular upsurge, thought of Paine as expressing opinions
they already held. Joseph Hawley, a leader in western Massachussets,
wrote: "every sentiment has sunk into my well prepared heart." As Ashbel
Green, then a sixteen year old in New Jersey, remembered it more than
sixty years later, Common Sense "struck a string which required but a
touch to make it vibrate. The country was ripe for independence and only
needed somebody to tell the people so, with decision, boldness and
plausibility.,,24 Thus John Adams was not entirely wrong in claiming years
later, even if he was putting down Paine, that "the idea of indepen-
dence was familiar, even among the common people, much earlier than
some persons pretend" and that the first idea of independence was not
"suggested to them by the pamphlet Common Sense".25
Thus Paine, it could be argued, crystallized an inchoate or unexpressed
sentiment for independence. His special contribution - which Adams
could not abide - was to link independence to republicanism and give
the common people (a term obviously in popular usage) a sense of their
own capacity to shape events. As Adams well knew, Paine's pamphlet
precipitated a three-cornered debate. The first between the opponents and
advocates of independence - between Paine and some since forgotten
Loyalist pamphleteers - was easily won and after The Declaration of
Independence, July 4, 1776, was irrelevant. The second was among
patriots as to what kind of a republic should replace British rule and
this debate continued through the revolutionary era and into the 1790s.
Here the debate was explicitly between Paine and a host of radical demo-
cratic republicans on the one hand and conservative republican patriots
like Adams and ultraconservatives like Carter Braxton of Virginia on
the other.
From the outset, Adams was ambivalent about Paine's multiple
messages. Years later, he vividly remembered his mood in 1776: 26
The arguments in favor of Independence I liked very well [but] the part relative to a
form of government I considered as flowing from simple ignorance, and a mere desire
to please the Democratic party in Philadelphia ... I dreaded the effect so popular a
pamphlet might have ... His plan was so democratical without any restraint or even an
attempt at any equilibrium or counterpoise.
Very soon Adams was in the thick of this internal debate. He circu-
lated his manuscript, 'Thoughts on Government,' which he rapidly put
into print to instruct patriot leaders in drafting safe constitutions for
the newly independent states. Paine's ideals led to the Pennsylvania
constitution, the most democratic of any: a one-house legislature elected
annually by a broad taxpayer suffrage with no property qualifications
418 ALFRED F. YOUNG
for office holding, a weak executive, and laws passed only after the
legislature allowed them to circulate among the people. Adams's ideals
were embodied in the Massachusetts constitution of 1780 he helped draft:
a two-branch legislature with graduated property qualifications for office-
holding and voting; a governor with a high property qualification; and
an independent judiciary. The two houses would check and balance
each other and the governor could veto their laws. Adams's plan made
numerous concessions to the town meeting democracy of New England
but a fundamental principle was "respect for person of authority" - the
antithesis of Paine's egalitarianism. 27
Adams feared as well the spillover of this political radicalism into a
"levelling spirit" or a general "impudence." He had a taste of it in his
own family. In March 1776, out of the blue, Adams' wife, Abigail wrote
to him to "remember the ladies" in recasting a code of laws for America.
"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.
Remember all men would be tyrants if they could." Adams put her
down playfully, expressing shock. Everyone was casting off deference.
We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bonds of goverrunent everywhere.
That children and Apprentices were disobedient - that schools and colleges were grown
turbulent - that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters
... Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.
It could not have been lost upon John Adams that Abigail had read the
copy of Common Sense he had sent her the month before and was
"charmed by its sentiments". Abigail Adams did not "foment a female
rebellion" as she threatened, but she continued to press the issue on
her husband. And everywhere elites had to contend with rebelliousness
of all sorts among subordinate classes, including a wave of near insur-
rection and flight among slaves. 28
In 1819, forty years later, smoke still came out of his ears as John
Adams fumed about the pamphlet. "What a poor, ignorant, Malicious,
short-sighted Crapulous Mass is Tom Paine's Common Sense.,,29
II
In the 1790s the Right of Man appeared in the thick of a renewed conflict
between the two types of republicanism epitomized by Paine and Adams
in 1776. Paine's name now appeared on the title page, variously iden-
tified as the author of Common Sense and The Crisis. To understand
the celebration and damnation of Rights of Man two contexts are needed:
the history of the fifteen years gone by since 1776 and the history of
Federalist policies of the 1790s which again "struck a string which
required but a touch to make it vibrate." Without these, it is a puzzle why
Rights of Man should have been popular at all in the United States.
Paine left for a trip to England in 1787; he wrote both parts I and II of
the pamphlet in England for an English audience. Part I in 1791 was a
lengthy, discursive defense of the French Revolution in response to an
attack on it by an English politician, Edmund Burke. It had neither the
immediacy nor style of Common Sense. In 1792, Part II (with the excep-
tion of chapter 5) was a restatement of Common Sense, demanding reform
of the English political system which set up the United States as a
model for England to follow. Why should such a work have become
popular in the United States?30
In the United States between 1776 and 1789 there was a struggle
between the two kinds of republicanism. During the Revolution patriot
elites - would-be ruling classes - divided in their strategy as to how
to contain the democratic tides that overflowed all banks. Some were
advocates of accommodation, others of coercion or repression. The
metaphors of two New York aristocrats epitomize the difference. Robert
R. Livingston, Jr., leader of the great landed family of the upper Hudson
Valley, was convinced "of the propriety of Swimming with a stream
which it is impossible to stem;" he advised his colleagues "that they
should yield to the torrent if they hoped to direct its course." On the other
hand, Gouverneur Morris, the young son of the owner of the tenanted
estate of Morrisania which embraced a good part of Westchester County,
used the metaphor of a snake to describe the popular movement. Staring
at a vast open-air meeting of mechanics and tradesmen in New York City
in 1774, he wrote:
The mob begins to think and reason. Poor reptiles. It is with them a vernal morning;
they are struggling to cast off their winter's slough, they bask in the sunshine and ere noon
they will bite, depend on it ... They fairly contended about the future forms of our
government, whether it should be founded upon aristocratic or democratic principle.
A snake had to be scotched; it could hardly be tamed. Others compared

the people to a horse which had to be whipped. John Adams, with a
constituency ranging from Yankee yeoman and assertive mechanics to
opulent merchant princes, leaned sometimes towards accommodation,
sometimes towards coercion. In 1799 Gouverneur Morris sniffed at
420 ALFRED F. YOUNG
Thomas Paine with aristocratric snobbery: he was "a mere adventurer

from England, without fortune without family or connections, ignorant
even of gramner." And as Minister to France in the 1790s he was willing
to let Paine rot in a French prison. Robert R. Livingston, by contrast,
put Paine on the government payroll. 31
The first New York State constitution in 1777 was, in the words
of John Jay, its chief architect, a "perfect blend of the aristocratic and
democratic." Much the same could be said of Adams's Massachussets
constitution and the federal constitution which emerged in 1787. The
federal convention at Philadelphia was dominated by a gentry who had
been tutored by men like Adams and James Madison in the virtues of
a balanced government. Many framers were intrigued by the extremist
proposal of Alexander Hamilton (who had married into the New York
aristocracy) for a president elected for life, a senate elected for life, a
house for two-year terms and a president with the power to appoint
the state governors and veto state laws. Gouverneur Morris, under-
standably, was enthusiastic. But the framers, as a group, knew that a
government of King, Lords and Commons was not suited to what James
Madison called "the genius of the people" - we would say spirit of the
people - which was much more Paineite. And so they adopted a more
accommodating middle-of-the road plan which pleased John Adams no
end but left Paine dissatisfied. In 1788 Paine was in Paris where he
ardently debated the new constitution with Jefferson and Lafayette "in
a convention of our own." Paine swallowed his objections because for
him any national government was better than the weak confederation
as long as it provided the means for future amendment. In 1787-1788
the Federalists under the leadership of Madison made their first accom-
modation. In 1789-1791, they made a second accommodation of the
democratic opponents of the Constitution by adding a Bill of Rights. 32
III
In the 1790s, Rights of Man won an audience because once in power,

the Federalists moved away from accommodation towards coercion.
Federalists strung new "strings" which Rights of Man could vibrate. First,
they attempted to give the national government what they called a "high
tone," raising the seemingly dead issues of aristocracy and monarchy.
Federalists toyed with the idea of titles. Vice-President John Adams asked
the Senate whether he should address President Washington as "His most
benign highness" or "His elective highness". Some irreverent Senators

suggested Adams might be called the "Duke of Braintree" (his home
town) or "His Rotundity." But the cat was out of the bag, and Adams,
undismayed, was soon in print with a series of articles justifying titles
to create an aura of dignity around officials in order to command the
respect of the common people. 33
Second, Alexander Hamilton, by his financial policies - funding the
national debt, assuming the state debts, and chartering a Bank of the
United States - by a wave of the Secretary of the Treasury's wand, created
a monied interest to support the national government. Consciously
modelled after the British system, the Hamiltonian program raised ques-
tions as to whether the United States was adopting the corruption it
had abandoned. Moreover, the taxes to raise this grand Hamiltonian
edifice seemed to fall heavily on the backs of farmers. 34
Federalist foreign policies provided a third string to vibrate. In
1789-1790, the French Revolution was not a partisan issue; France had
been America's indispensable ally in the Revolution and a formal Franco-
American alliance was still in place. But the Revolution moved to the
left establishing a republic, the republic practiced the regicide Americans
had done only symbolically in '76, and a radical reform movement threat-
ened revolution in Great Britain. As France and Britain went to war,
two contrasting philosophies of government seemed to be at stake. The
Federalists, by pursuing a policy of economic and ideological alliance
with Britain, brought the French Revolution and the French alliance
into American politics. By 1791-1792 the coalition that Washington held
together was fracturing on the national level as Jefferson and Madison
parted company with Hamilton. From 1792 to 1794 popular opposition
to the internal excise taxes on the farmer's production of whiskey was
in full bloom. In 1793 policy to France and the French Revolution moved
to center stage, in 1795 with Jay's Treaty, policy to Great Britain. By
1795 more than 40 Democratic Republican Societies were meeting.
Electoral battles for Congress, underway in 1794, were in full swing in
1796 as Jefferson challenged Adams for the presidency.35
Federalist policy veered from accommodation to repression. In
1794-1795, they sent an army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in
western Pennsylvania, attempted in Congress to "censure" the Democratic
Societies as "self created," and condemned the crowds demonstrating
against Jay's Treaty as "the swinish multitude." In 1798 with Adams
as President, Congress ended up passing the Alien and Sedition Laws
422 ALFRED F. YOUNG
under which Federalists prosecuted criticism of the government as

sedition - a "reign of terror" Jefferson called it. 36
Thus the Rights of Man, while directed at the British system of
government, unintentionally could vibrate some of the same American
strings that Common Sense had plucked. Once again, Paine blasted away
at monarchy: "If I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the
tradesman and down through all the occupations of life to the common
laborer, what service is monarchy to him? He can give me no answer.'>37
Adams and Hamilton had defended the system of King, Lords, and
Commons as appropriate for Great Britain with enough rigor to create
an American resonance to Paine's attack.
Paine went after what he called the "farce of titles" which Adams
had advocated. "Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand,"
wrote Paine, "to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured
within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life
of man."38 Paine was merciless to the hereditary principle in language
appealing to Americans who sought recognition on the basis of achieve-
ment. "Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy . . . It
requires some talents to be a common mechanic, but to be a king, requires
only the animal figure of a man - a sort of breathing automaton. ,,39
Paine had harsh words for the English funding system which his
American readers could construe against its Hamiltonian imitation. Most
important, Paine returned again and again to the theme of the "excess
and inequality of taxation." His target was always Britain; in America,
he contended, "their taxes are few because their government is just. There
the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged."40 But to farmers
in western Pennsylvania and Kentucky ready to tar and feather excise tax
collectors, such lines may have been more an incitement than a comfort.
Paine linked the cost of monarchy and aristocracy to taxation. The
issue for the individual was "whether the fruits of his labor shall be
enjoyed by himself, or consumed by the profligacy of governments," and
in so framing the issue, he touched a deep nerve among American farmers
which, when rubbed raw, had contributed to the Revolution and agrarian
rebellions before and after. It is also entirely likely that Paine's remark-
able chapter 5 in Part II, addressing the "mass of wretchedness" in
civilized countries ("We see age going to the work-house and youth to
the gallows") also resonated in America. In the United States one might
not be "shocked by ragged and hungry children and persons of seventy
and eighty years of age begging for bread" as was Paine in England.
But in the seaboard cities the poor houses were often overcrowded, and
hard-put journeymen printers and shoemakers who lived on the edge
of poverty, conducted the first strikes against master artisans. Unques-
tionably there were, as Paine wrote," a considerable number of middling
tradesmen who having lived decently in the former part of life, [who]
begin, as age approaches to lose their business and at last fall into
decay."41 In 1818 when Congress finally got around to pensions for
veterans of the Revolution, restricting them to those "in the lowest
grade of poverty", 20,000 men applied. Such men and women might
well have responded to Paine's plan for a system of old age pensions,
education, child subsidies - the lineaments of the welfare state. 42
In the 1790s, no less than in 1776, Paine appealed to the millenialist
streak among Americans. "It is an age of revolutions in which everything
may be looked for." And everything was not confined to governments.
When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance
nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of
beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my
friend because I am a friend of its happiness - when these things can be said then may
that country boast of its constitution and its government. 43
Rights of Man thus had the potential to reach a wide audience in the
United States. Exactly how wide was it? There is no study of the pub-
lishing history of the pamphlet in the United States as there is for
Common Sense. It clearly was one of the most widely circulated titles
of the 1790s but how many copies is difficult to say. This time Paine -
who was in England until 1792 and then in France until 1802 - was
not in a position to make a claim for the total sales in the United States,
as he had in 1776 for Common Sense. The frequency and location of
printings offers the best clue. There were more printers than in 1776
and they were in more places. There may have been more partisan
printers. But printers were in business to make money. Whatever their
politics, they could not afford to bring out non-sellers.44
Using the standard bibliographic guides, I count for the 1790s about
26 printings of Rights of Man, 12 of Part I in seven different cities and
9 of Part II in six cities, plus several combined printings of Parts I and
11.45 If the circulation statistics are beyond recovery, there are several
clues as its popularity. First, there were multiple editions in the large
coastal cities, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. There were also
editions in small towns where printers had distribution networks into
424 ALFRED F. YOUNG
the countryside (Bennington, Vt.; Carlisle, Penn.; Albany, N.Y.; and New
London, Conn.). Knowledgeable, successful printers like Isaiah Thomas,
Hugh Gaine and Matthew Carey brought out Rights of Man. Secondly,
printers were willing to risk bringing out the collected "works" or
"writings" of Paine in two or more volumes, something which could
probably not be said at this time for many other leaders of the Revolution.
The Albany printers, for example, published his writings, acting for a
consortium of printers in the Hudson Valley at Lansingburgh, Hudson,
Poughkeepsie and New York. Third, printers brought out cheap editions.
In Boston, Thomas and John Fleet, whose stock in trade was broadside
ballads and chap books, advertised a "cheap edition in two parts stitched
together at only 3 shillings" (still cheap allowing for inflation since the
1 shilling price of Common Sense in 1776). American booksellers and
book peddlers also sold cheap copies imported from England. My guess,
taking into account all of these sources, is that Rights of Man had a
total sale of from 50,000 to 100,000 copies. And this would not measure
its full readership. It was doubtless stocked by circulating libraries;
there were more than 250 by 1800. And passages were frequently
reprinted in newspapers which had grown from about 44 in 1776 to
100 in 1790 to 230 in 1880.46 It may be that, all told, as many people
read Rights of Man as read Common Sense; certainly as many knew about
it.
The Age of Reason, to get a comparison in place, followed from
1794 to 1796 with 18 American printings in five cities, seven of them
in New York sponsored by John Fellows, an active deist. Isaiah Thomas,
ever attuned to what would sell, whether it was Mother Goose or Fanny
Hill, brought out two printings in Worcester, in central Massachusetts,
perhaps not as solidly Congregational and Baptist as we have thought.
In the 1790s, Age of Reason probably did not match Rights of Man in
number of copies, although, if the number of titles published in oppo-
sition is any measure, it stirred up more passionate responses, pro and
con. 47
Measuring the impact of Rights of Man is difficult. The population
was larger than in 1776 - 4,000,000 people in 1790,5,000,000 in 1800.
Unlike Common Sense, Rights of Man was not focused on a single goal
like independence, and it circulated over a longer period of time, from
1791 to the late 1790s. It therefore lacked the immediacy of the 1776
publication. It began as a cause celebre as a result of the brouhaha over
the first printing of Part I in Philadelphia. Madison had sent Jefferson
his copy, one of the first to arrive from England; Jefferson by agree-
ment sent it to Samuel Harrison Smith, a Philadelphian printer, with a
note he claimed he did not intend for publication which Smith ran as a
preface: "I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted here, and
that something is at length to be publicly said against the political heresies
which have sprung up among us. I have no doubt our citizens will rally
a second time round the standard of Common Sense."48 Jefferson of
course had John Adams in mind. Adams obligingly put the shoe on. "I
detest that book and its tendency from the bottom of my heart," he
wrote privately in 1791. Staying his pen, the Vice-President allowed
his son, John Quincy Adams, to take on Paine, writing as "Publicola"
(which everyone took to be John Adams, anyway).49 Republican writers
took up the gauntlet and the controversy was hot and heavy in the news-
papers in 1791-1792. It was as if all the characters in the political play
had taken their assigned parts, dramatizing the issues Paine was dis-
cussing. In 1791, shortly after Part I appeared, Jefferson, the Secretary
of States, wrote enthusiasticly to Paine that it was "much read here
with avidity and pleasure," but his frame of reference was Philadelphia,
the capito1. 50 Moreover, it is not possible to match this with similar
anecdotal comment for the rest of the decade. Rights of Man did not
produce an epiphany in readers, as had Common Sense and as would
Age of Reason.
There are, however, several measures of its impact. One lies in the
toasts that became a common feature of political celebrations of inde-
pendence on July 4 or of victories of the French Revolution. Toasts in
New York City may well be representative. The Tammany Society - a
fraternal order with an aura of liberalism, not yet a party appendage -
toasted "The Clarion of Freedom - Thomas Paine" in mid-July, 1792,
and in December, "The Citizen of the World, Thomas Paine." The
General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen lifted a glass to "The
mechanic, Thomas Paine". On July 4, 1795, the Mechanics, Tammany
and the Democratic societies in a joint celebration, sang a song, "The
Rights of Man," which dwelled on Paine's theme, the nexus of aristoc-
racy to taxes:
Luxurious pomp, which brings taxes and woes

No more we'll maintain with the sweat of our brows.
It ended with:
426 ALFRED F. YOUNG
To conclude - Here's success to Honest TOM PAINE

May he live to enjoy what he well does explain.
After 1795, the toasts to Paine faded. A toast from the Patriotic Junior
Association in 1797 - "Thomas Paine: May his Rights of Man be handed
down to our latest posterity but may his Age of Reason never live to
see the rising generation" - suggests that among Republicans, a process
of disassociation from deism was underway.51
A second measure of the influence of the pamphlet is the use of the
phrase, "the rights of man." On July Fourth celebrations which were
rapidly becoming Democratic-Republican festivals, invariably there was
a toast to the "The Rights of Man" but the reference, I think, was less
to Paine's book than to the concept which Paine's title unquestionably
had popularized. In the 1760s and l770s Americans defended their
"liberties" or their "rights as Englishmen," and in the Declaration of
Independence their natural rights. The phrase, "rights of man," does
not seem to have entered the American political vocabulary until the
l790s, a change which has eluded a generation of scholars preoccupied
with the language of republicanism. 52
Finally, the rhetoric of the Democratic-Republican societies which
lasted to about 1797, is a token of Paine's influence. The largest and
most influential clubs were in the cities where their membership was
drawn overwhelmingly from mechanics and tradesmen but included
merchants, doctors, and lawyers. But they were also in country towns,
some four in Vermont, several in New York State, two on the Pennsyl-
vania frontier, three in Kentucky, five in South Carolina. They did not
owe their founding, as Federalists charged, to Paine or Citizen Genet,
the French minister. Yet as one reads through their numerous mani-
festos and resolutions, it is impossible not to feel that these were the
work of writers who had read Paine, their "lodestar" in the eyes of a
modem historian of the societies. And one can say as much for the
more numerous Independence Day orations given under Republican
auspices. 53
A comparison of the response to Rights of Man in the United States
to Great Britain sets off the limits of the American reception. The
pamphlet almost did for the British what Common Sense had done for
Americans in 1776. In the l790s, we have it on the commanding authority
of E. P Thompson, "something like an 'English Revolution' took place"
in which Paine's works played a decisive role. Edmund Burke's
Reflections on the French Revolution (1790) sold an estimated 30,000

copies over two years. Rights of Man, Part I, sold 50,000 copies
in 1791 and by 1793 Parts I and II together, Thompson is convinced,
sold 200,000 copies in England, Wales and Scotland. In a population
of 10,000,000, this was "in a true sense phenomenal." Part I was priced
at 3 shillings, but part II was 6 pence, making it unusually cheap.
Thompson is not alone among scholars in these claims. By 1802 Paine
claimed a circulation of four to five hundred thousand copies. 54
The pamphlet reached deep into the laboring classes. One could not
write for the United States a paragraph comparable to Thompson's
summary for England:
In Sheffield it was said that "every cutler" had a copy. At Newcastle, Paine's publica-
tions were said to be "in a almost every hand" and in particular those of the journeymen
potters: "more than two thirds of this populous neighborhood are ripe for revolt, especially
the lower class inhabitants". Paine's book was found in Cornish tin-mines, in Mendip
villages, in the Scottish highlands, and a little later in most parts of Ireland ... The
book, wrote an English correspondent "is now made as much a standard book in this
country as Robinson Crusoe & the Pilgrim's Progress".
Small wonder, then, that a frightened government indicted Paine for

sedition and after he fled to France tried him in absentia and found him
guilty. The movement for radical reform was suppressed but in the nine-
teenth century, the book became, in Thompson's words, "a foundation-
text of the British working-class movement.,,55
Thus by comparison, the influence of Rights of Man in America, it
could be argued, was neither as widespread nor as intense as in the British
Isles. Nor, insofar as we can tell, did it sink roots as deeply among the
laboring classes and the poor. Rather it percolated over a period of
years through a democratic movement largely of the middling sort,
helping to set its tone. It also had readers among women who found
that Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (1791)
"speaks my mind," as Elizabeth Drinker confided to her diary. In the
1790s, Paine was simply not as much of a hero in America as he was
in Britain or as he had been in America in the Revolution. Moreover,
in Britain he was the target of vicious attacks - scurrilous biographies,
counter-tracts (historians have counted some 400 to 500 titles), and
cartoon caricatures - which made their way to the United States and were
replenished by poison-pen journalists like William Cobbett, then in his
arch-Tory phase in Philadelphia. In fact, Tom Paine was on the way to
428 ALFRED F. YOUNG
becoming an anti-hero. From the mid l790s on, his enemies tarred him
with the excesses of the French Revolution, even though as a member
of the French Convention he had opposed the execution of the King
and had been imprisoned for almost a year under the "Reign of Terror".
In 1796, he had made the political blunder of writing a pamphlet blaming
the heroic Washington for his long incarceration (when in reality
Gouverneur Morris, the American Minister to France was to blame). And
a barrage of tracts answering the Age of Reason branded him as an
"atheist" and an "infidel." Taken together, all of this helps to explain why,
despite the success of Rights of Man he failed to consolidate his earlier
reputation. 56
IV
Let me return now to the hypotheses I suggested to explain the eclipse

of Paine in the United States, 1802-1809.
First, the question of Paine's deism. When Paine, at age 65, returned
to the United States in 1802 after a fifteen-year absence, he was greeted
with a wave of abuse in which the dominant theme was religious blended
with an attack on his private moral character. He was, to take the epithets
only from the most genteel Federalist papers, "a lying, drunken, brutal
infidel", "the loathsome Thomas Paine, a drunken atheist", "an obscene
old sinner"; he was "godless", "impious", "a blasphemer".57
This attack on Paine caught on among ordinary people. In Washington
inn keepers refused to put Paine up and he finally entered a hotel under
an assumed name. At Trenton, one stagecoach driver refused to carry him
to New York: "I'll be damned if he shall go on my stage." And another
refused, saying, "My stage and horses were once struck by lightening,
and I don't want them to suffer again." A preacher who visited Paine
in New York was disciplined. In New Rochelle mothers warned their
children to stay away from Paine - he was a bad man. Paine, in short
was demonized. In New York City he was honored at first by a small
testimonial dinner and Republican papers ran his articles but over the
years he had a dwindling circle of admirers confined to deists, "old Jacks"
from the British Isles, and mechanics. 58
Given the long history of political opposition to Paine, the Age of
Reason was a god-send to his enemies, to use a phrase that would not
have found favor with Paine. There is much to the Republican claim
that the attack on him was political. Paine got the nub of it in a letter
to Samuel Adams in 1803. "All this war whoop of the pulpit has some
concealed object. Religion is not the cause but is the stalking horse. They
put it forward to conceal themselves behind it."s9 As William Duane,
the Paineite editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, put it, "It is not Thomas
Paine's want of religion but his want of faith in kings and priests that
has made him the object of Tory detestation ... " (1801), "His reli-
gious sentiments have been denounced for political purposes and nothing
else" (1803). John Adams offered a backhanded confirmation. "His
political writings," he wrote in 1810, "I am singular to believe, have done
more harm than his irreligious ones. He understands neither govern-
ment nor religion. ,,60
While the antagonism of orthodox religion to deism was widespread
and intense, we should not exaggerate it. In the making of the American
Revolution at key moments there had been an alliance of evangelicals
and deists. The Philadelphia radical democrats drew from both groups.
Even in Boston, Samuel Adams, the Puritan politician, protected his deist
lieutenant, Dr. Thomas Young, from the wrath of church deacons. Earlier
Young had been tried for blasphemy in New York; his book, Reason
the Only Oracle of Man written in collaboration with Ethan Allen, would
be published under Allen's name in 1784. Allen, himself, was the leader
of a movement of Congregationalist and Baptist settlers of Vermont,
the Green Mountain boys, who shared with him a common hatred of
New York's land engrossing aristocrats. 61 And in Virginia, Jefferson,
the gentleman deist, and Madison, formed an alliance with the state's
dissenting Protestant denominations in their common cause of separating
church and state which led in 1786 to Virginia's famous Statute for
Religious Liberty. Baptists elsewhere remembered this when they voted
for Jefferson. After 1801, Baptist farmers in Cheshire, Massachusetts,
paid homage to their benefactor by sending a mammoth 400 pound cheese
to him at the White House. 62
Paine was aware of the common stake of deists and evangelicals in
religious liberty. In the election campaign for Jefferson in the fall of 1804,
in the sleepy fishing village of Stonington, Connecticut, Paine was visited
by a group of Baptists who included three ministers. As he reported
the conversation to Jefferson, one of them said: 63
They cry out against Mr Jefferson because they say he is a Deist. Well a Deist may be
a good man, and if he think it right it is right to him. For my own part, [said he] I had
rather vote for a Deist than a blue-skin presbyterian [a reference to the rigid Connecticut
blue laws].
430 ALFRED F. YOUNG
You judge right, [said I] for a man that is not of any of the sectaries will hold the
balance between all; but give power to a bigot of any sectary and he will use it to the
oppression of the rest, as the blue skins do in Connecticut.
Equally important, there was a species of evangelicals unappreciated

by scholars who blended the Bible with Paine. Thompson has called
attention to them; in Wales, for example there were "itinerant Methodist
preachers who descant on the Rights of Man and attack Kingly gov-
ernment." Nathan Hatch has found them to be prominent in the United
States. Lorenzo Dow, the Methodist circuit rider, who according to Hatch,
"preached to more people, travelled more miles, and consistently attracted
larger audiences to camp meetings than any preacher in his day ... could
begin a sermon by quoting Tom Paine." Dow wrote a pamphlet, Analects
upon the Rights of Man, which breathed Paine's egalitarianism. The
two shared a "deep seated aversion to traditional inquiry.,,64
But despite these cracks in the orthodox world, the religious issue
functioned to silence the Jeffersonians on Paine. True believers among
them, like Samuel Adams, were hostile. Unitarian Jeffersonians, like
Joseph Priestly, wanted to disassociate their religious liberalism from
radical deism. Others were unwilling either to come out of the closet
with their deism or to take a stand on the principle that religion was a
matter of private opinion. Jeffersonian politicians, fearful of losing their
constituents, were scared off.65
Second, among the hypotheses is the role played by the loss of his-
torical memory. The fading of Paine's achievements in the Revolution
in the public mind made possible the success of the attack that isolated
him. This was part of the larger difficulty of passing on the historical
experience of one generation to another, a problem which shocked the
aging leaders of the revolutionary generation early in the nineteenth
century, no less than succeeding generations. Paine put his finger on it
in 1806 after he suffered the humiliation of the election inspectors in New
Rochelle denying him the right to vote on the grounds (inspired by
Gouverneur Morris, his old nemesis) that he was no longer an American
citizen because he had served in the French legislature. From New York
city Paine beseeched Vice President George Clinton for support.
As it is a new generation that has risen up since the declaration of independence, they
know nothing of what the political state of the country was at the time the pamphlet
Common Sense appeared; and besides this there are but few of the old standers left and
known that I know of in this city.66
There were as yet few historians of the Revolution and they were
not widely read. Even the Republican Mercy Otis Warren whose three-
volume history of the Revolution appeared in 1806, found no room for
Paine (or the efforts of Abigail Adams or other women). In 1784
Congress had dangled the job of "Historiographer of the American
Revolution" before Paine in lieu of settling his claims but when Paine
rejected the idea, it made no other effort to find one. The institutions
that pass on official heritage, historical societies and museums, were
in their infancy and those in the making were under the auspices of
conservative gentlemen. Fourth of July orators who celebrated the
Revolution passed on historical abstractions. 67 The tens of thousands
of war veterans passed on largely their personal military experiences
by oral transmission. 68
The problem was not confined to radical democrats. In 1809, the
year Paine died, a conservative republican like John Adams complained
bitterly of "a very extraordinary and unaccountable inattention in our
countrymen to the History of their own country". The "original histo-
rians" of colonial times were "very much neglected," patriots like Samuel
Adams and John Hancock were "almost buried in oblivion," and the
newspapers were full of "falsehoods."69 Adams, of course, was especially
jealous of his own place in history, overshadowed as he had always
been by such great men as Washington and Franklin, and defeated in
public opinion by men like Jefferson and Paine. In general most of the
men whose chief claim of fame lay in the making of the Revolution
before 1776 - Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, even John Adams (to
Jefferson "the Atlas of American independence") - were being cast aside
in favor of George Washington, the father of his country who filled a
need for a symbol of nationalism. Parson Weems's life of Washington,
replete with its numerous fabricated cherry-tree stories, was on the
way to becoming the best selling historical work of the nineteenth
century.70
Finally, Paine, it could be argued as have Robert R. Palmer and others,
was the victim of the success of his political ideas. Paine's ideological
targets had been defeated. There was never a serious prospect of
monarchy in America. As Paine put it, "If I ask a man in America if
he wants a king, he retorts, and asks me if I take him for an idiot.'m
The idea of a hereditary aristocracy never took root; witness the fate
of the Society of Cincinnati. In 1799, Matthew Lyon, the Vermont
Republican Congressman was found guilty under the Sedition Law for
432 ALFRED F. YOUNG
assailing John Adams for "his unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp"
but his constituents reelected him to Congress from jail while Adams was
retired to private life.72 In 1801 the coercive school of American con-
servatism was defeated and Jefferson, Madison, the accommodators, took
over. Out of power, Hamilton reflected ruefully to Gouverneur Morris,
"This American world was not made for me." And Morris could have
said the same. They had learned neither to swim with the tide nor scotch
the snake of democratic opinion. 73
It was not that the principles of Rights of Man were irrelevant. The
Jacobin refugees from British persecution who established themselves
as Jeffersonian editors and politicians in American cities took up a variety
of causes: expanding the suffrage, making more offices elective, democ-
ratizing state constitutions, reforming the judicial system, eliminating
English common law and expanding education. Paine dabbled in these
issues in his last years but they did not sustain his attention. 74 Nor did
the issue of slavery which he found compelling when he first came to
the country. He wrote against retaining slavery in the Louisiana terri-
tory and wanted Jefferson to abandon his fearful policy of refusing
admission to fugitives from Santo Domingo, but he was silent on slavery
in the south. Nor did he return to the "rights of women" which he spoke
for in his first year in American in 1775. Had not the core of his ideas
triumphed?75
In the United states, neither Paine nor the middle class bearers of
his eighteenth-century radicalism were prepared to extend the princi-
ples of chapter 5 of the second part of The Right of Man or of Agrarian
Justice (1797) to do battle with poverty. The cause of poverty to Paine
lay in corrupt governments redistributing the "fruits of labor" of the
common people via unjust taxes. In the first decade of the nineteenth
century, neither Paine not the Jeffersonians were willing to take up the
cause of journeymen shoemakers as they went out on strike in one city
after another against a poverty created by master artisans, much less
the cause of women workers in city sweatshops or of women and children
in the first textile mills of New England. There was a mote of utopian
optimism in Paine's aging eyes that seems to have blinded him to the
harshest realities of American life. Very soon, others would take up these
causes, many of them inspired by Paine's republicanism. 76
For all of Paine fading from public favor in his last years, there is a
truth to an observation by John Adams about his long-term influence.
Adams, Paine's life-long foe, is at first blush an unlikely witness to testify
about Thomas Paine. Paine was Adams's nemesis in 1776, in 1791, and
again in 1801, his ideas contributing to Adams's defeat by Jefferson.
Adams's judgment was not always reliable; he often resorted to hyper-
bole and he clearly could be vitriolic, but over the decades he had
calibrated Paine's influence the way a seismograph tracks an earth-
quake.
In 1805, a friend had written Adams using the phrase "the Age of
Reason" to refer to the era of the American and French Revolutions.
Adams was besides himself: "Call it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Fury,
Brutality ... or the age of the burning brand from the bottomless Pitt
... anything but the age of Reason." Then he made a quick leap.
I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or
affairs for the last thirty years [1776-1805] than Tom Paine. There can be no severer
satyr [satire?] on the age. For such a mongrel between pigs and puppy, begotten by a
wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the
Poltroonery of Mankind to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age
of Paine. 77
NOTES
* I wish to thank the Thomas Paine National Historical Association at whose confer-
ence in New Rochelle, New York, 1991, I gave an early version of this essay. Marcus
Daniel, Simon Newman, Richard Twomey, and David Wilson offered valuable criti-
cisms of this early draft and generously shared with me their research in progress. I am
also indebted to Elizabeth Reilly, Sean Wilentz, James Green, and David Henly for their
suggestions and to John Aubrey, Reference Librarian, Newberry Library.
I Cited in Alfred Owen Aldridge, Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine
(Philadelphia, 1959), 316.
2 For the funeral and response to Paine's death, Moncure Daniel Conway, The Life of
Thomas Paine, 2 vols. (New York, 1892; I vol. ed, New York, 1969), 322-324; David
Freeman Hawke, Paine (New York, 1974),399-401.
3 'The Will of Thomas Paine', in Philip S. Foner (ed.). The Complete Writings of Thomas
Paine, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), 1498, paged continuously.
4 For Paine's account of his services, 'Petition To a Committee of the Continental
Congress [October, 1983]', in Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 1226-1242 and Paine to
Robert Morris, May 19, 1783, in E. James Ferguson et al. (eds.), The Papers of Robert
Morris, 9 vols. (Pittsburgh, 1973-) VIII (forthcoming), which I read in typescript, a
valuable unpublished letter.
S For summaries: John Bach MaMaster, A History of the People of the United States
(New York, 1896), I, 75, 153-154; Hawke, Paine, 138-140, 142-148; Conway, Life of
Paine, 80-86; Aldridge, Thomas Paine, 97-98, 101-104; for contemporary recognition
of Paine's services to the Revolution, Eric Foner, 'The Preeminent Historical and Lasting
Significance of Thomas Paine to the Nation' (Washington, D. C., April II, 1994, ms.
434 ALFRED F. YOUNG
testimony before National Capitol Memorial Commission); for later recognition see Joseph
N. Moreau (comp.), Testimonials to the Merit of Thomas Paine (Boston, 1874).
6 For the attack on Paine, see below, sec. IV; for deism: G. Adolf Koch, Republican
Religion: The American Revolution and the Cult of Reason (New York, 1933); Herbert
M. Morais, Deism in Eighteenth Century America (New York, 1934).
7 For various interpretations of the problem of Paine's reputation: Dixon Wecter, 'Hero
in Reverse', Virginia Quarterly Review XVIII (1942), 234-259; Aldridge, Life of Paine,
317-322; Conway, Life of Paine, 279-317; Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary
American (New York, 1976), 261-270; Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and
Political Thought (Boston, 1989), 209-217.
8 Robert R. Palmer, 'Tom Paine, Victim of the Rights of Man', Pennsylvania Magazine
of History and Biography LXVI (1942), 161-175.
9 'To the Citizens of the United States', Letter I, Nov.15, 1802, in Foner (ed.), Complete
Writings, 910.
10 Paine, Common Sense in Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 16.
II Ibid., 14.
12 Ibid., 45; for analysis of the rhetorical qualities of Common Sense: Foner, Tom Paine,
74-87; Harry Hayden Clark (ed.), Thomas Paine: Representative Writings (New York,
1961, rev. ed.), introduction, Part VI; David A. Wilson, Paine and Cobbett: The
Transatlantic Connection (Kingston, Can., 1988), 48-56.
13 Paine to Henry Laurens, Jan. 14, 1779, P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 1160-1165
gives the printing history and his claim, "not short of 150,000". For women readers see
n.28.
14 For his 1792 claim of "not less than one hundred thousand copies," Foner (ed.),
Complete Writings, 406, n. 29. In Philadelphia Paine had supervised a printing of 6000
copies with two printers; he may have projected his total from estimates of the size of runs
multiplied by the number of printings in other cities he heard about.
15 For a recent discussion of circulation, Alfred Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine's
American Ideology (Newark, N. J., 1984), 45; for comparative data on length and
costs of books, Elizabeth Reilly, 'Common and Learned Readers: Shared and Separate
Spheres in Mid-Eighteenth Century New England' (Doctoral Diss., Boston University,
1994), ch 4.
16 Richard Gimbel, A Bibliographic Checklist of Common Sense (New Haven, 1956);
Thomas R. Adams, American Independence, The Growth of an Idea: A Bibliographical
Study of the American Political Pamphlets between 1764 and 1776 Dealing with the
Dispute between Great Britain and her Colonies (Providence, 1965) with a supplement,
Papers of the American Bibliographical Society of America 69 (1975). 398-402. Adams
lists 25 "editions" of Common Sense; I prefer "printing." Paine added to the original work,
allowing us to speak of three editions, but each printing was not a new "edition."
17 Paine, 'The Forester's Letters', in Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 67.
18 Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass,
1964). Bailyn considered Common Sense "a superbly rhetorical and iconoclastic pamphlet"
citing Harold Laski that Paine "with the exception of Marx was 'the most influential
pamphleteer of all time';" for Bailyn's later interpretation, Bailyn, 'Common Sense',
American Heritage XXV (1973), reprinted in Bailyn, Faces of Revolution: Personalities
and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence (New York, 1960).
19 For the context of printers: G. Thomas Tanselle, 'Some Statistics on American Printing,
1764-1783', in Bernard Bailyn and John B. Hench (eds.), The Press and the American
Revolution (Boston, 1981), 315-372; for colonial book distribution and readership, Reilly,
'Common and Learned Readers', ch. 4.
20 Letter from Philadelphia, April 4, 1776, in Margaret W. Willard (ed.), Letters on
the American Revolution, 1774-1776 (Boston, 1925), 390-391; Washington cited in
Hawke, Paine, 47; for other contemporary opinion, Merrill Jensen The Founding of a
Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776 (New York, 1968),669. For
the fullest summary of contemporary responses, see Arnold King, 'Thomas Paine in
America, 1774-1787' (Doctoral Diss., University of Chicago, 1951),72-86.
21 Reilly, 'Common and Learned Readers', ch. 4; Jackson Turner Main, The Social
Structure of Revolutionary America (Princeton, N. J., 1965), ch. 8; Billy Smith, "The
Lower Sort:" Philadelphia's Laboring People, 1750-1800 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990).
22 Aldridge, Paine's American Ideology, 45, citing Brissot de Warville, Memoires (Paris,
1830-1832) III, 65.
23 James Cogswell to Joseph Ward, March 5, 1776, Ward Papers, Chicago Historical
Society, reprinted in Alfred Young, Terry Fife and Mary Janzen, We the People: Voices
and Images of the New Nation (Philadelphia, 1993),51; Extracts of a Letter from New
York City, April 12, 1776, in Willard (ed.), Letters on the American Revolution, 306;
for the outmoded historical interpretation of Paine as a "propagandist" and "manipu-
lator of opinion," Philip Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763-1783
(Chapel Hill, N. C., 1941), 13-14,349.
24 David Ramsay History of the American Revolution, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1789), I,
338-339; Joseph Hawley cited in Foner, Tom Paine, 86; The Life of Ashbel Green (New
York, 1849), 46. In the 184Os, Green, a Presbyterian minister and no friend of Paine's
writings, wrote, "I think this pamphlet had a greater run than any other ever published
in our country." He remembered it advertised for 18 pence.
25 John Adams to Benjamin Rush, May 21, 1807, John Schutz and Douglass Adair (eds.),
The Spur of Fame: Dialogues ofJohn Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805-1813 (San Marino,
Ca., 1966),88, Page Smith, John Adams, 2 vols. (Garden City, N. Y., 1962), I, 239-
240.
26 L. H. Butterfield (ed.), Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge,
Mass, 1961), III, 330-341.
27 Smith, John Adams I, 243-249; Elisha Douglass, Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle
for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule during the American Revolution (Chapel Hill,
N. C., 1955), chs. 9-11 (Massachusetts) and chs. 12-14 (Pennsylvania); Merrill Jensen,
The American Revolution Within America (New York, 1974), ch. 2.
28 Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776; John Adams to Abigail Adams, April
17, 1776; Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, April 27, 1776, L. H. Butterfield (ed.),
Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge, Ma., 1963), 369-371, 381-383, 396-398;
Alfred Young, 'The Women of Boston: "Persons of Consequence" in the Making of the
American Revolution', in Harriet B. Applewhite and Darlene G. Levy (eds.), Women
and Politics in the Age of the Democratic Revolution (Ann Arbor, Mich. 1990), 181-226;
Peter Wood, '''Liberty is Sweet": African-American Freedom Struggles in the Years
Before White Independence', in Alfred Young (ed.), Beyond the American Revolution:
Explorartions in the History of American Radicalism (Dekalb, II., 1994), 149-184; W.
436 ALFRED F. YOUNG
J. Rorabaugh, '''I Thought I Should Liberate Myself From the Thraldom of Others":
Apprentices, Masters and the Revolution', ibid., 185-217.
29 John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 22,1819, Lester J. Cappon (ed.), The Adams-
Jefferson Letters, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, N. C.), 1959, II, 542.
30 Paine, Rights of Man and Rights of Man, Part Second in P. Foner (ed.), Complete
Paine, 243-344, 345-462; for an accessible modern reprint, Michael Foot and Isaac
Kramnick (eds.), Thomas Paine Reader (New York, 1987) and Eric Foner (ed.), Thomas
Paine Writings (New York, 1995) in The Library of America.
31 Robert R. Livingston to William Duer, June 12, 1777; Governeur Morris to John Penn,
May 20, 1774, cited in Alfred F. Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York,
1763-1797 (Chapel Hill, N. C.), 1967, 12, 15; Gouverneur Morris cited in P. Foner
(ed.), Introduction to Complete Writings, xviii.
32 I have elaborated this interpretation in 'Conservatives, the Constitution and the "Spirit
of Accommodation",' in Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra (eds.), How
Democratic is the Constitution? (Washington, D. c., 1980), 117-148 and in 'The Framers
of the Constitution and the "Genius of the People" " Radical History Review 42 (1988),
with commentary by others, 7-47.
33 Smith, John Adams II, 749-760, Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen Veit (eds.); The Diary
of William Maclay (Baltimore, Md., 1988).
34 John R, Nelson, Liberty and Property. Political Economy and Policymaking in the
New Nation, 1789-1812 (Baltimore, 1987), chs. 2-4; Michael Merrill and Sean Wilentz
(eds.), The Key of Liberty: The Life and Democratic Writings of William Manning, "A
Laborer" (Cambridge, Mass, 1993).
35 Young, Democratic Republicans, chs. 16-20; Eugene Perry Link, Democratic
Republican Societies, 1790-1800 (New York, 1942); Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a
New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s (New York, 1984).
36 Thomas Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American
Revolution (New York, 1986); James Morton Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and
Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N. Y., 1966); Leonard W. Levy,
The Emergence of a Free Press (New York, 1985).
37 Paine, Rights of Man, P. Foner,(ed.), Complete Writings, 326-327.
38 Ibid., 287.
39 Ibid., 366.
40 Ibid., 360.
41 Ibid., Part II, ch. 5, quotations at 404,405; see also 431.
42 On American poverty, Lee Soltow, The Distribution of Wealth and Income in the
United States in 1798 (Pittsburgh, 1989); John Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary
War Veterans and Political Culture in the Early Republic (forthcoming).
43 Paine, Rights of Man, P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 344, 446.
44 Stephen Botein, '''Meer Mechanics" and an Open Press: The Business and Political
Strategies of Colonial American Printers', Perspectives in American History IX (1975),
127-225; Isaiah Thomas. The History of Printing in America (Albany, N.Y., 1874, 2nd.
ed; New York, 1970).
45 Charles Evans (comp.), American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All
Books, Pamphlets, and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America
... 1630 . .. to . .. 1820, Reprint, 12 vols. (New York, 1941-1942); Vol XIII by
Clifford Shipton; Vol XIV, Index by Roger P. Bristol (Worcester, Mass, 1959); Clifford
K. Shipton and James E. Mooney, National Index of Early American Imprints through
1800: The Short-Title Evans, 2 vols. (Worcester, Mass., 1969). With the assistance of John
Aubrey, reference librarian at the Newberry Library, I am conducting a search for Rights
of Man in several recently available electronic catalogs, comparing these entries to the
standard printed guides. Thus far (Spring, 1994) this search has not located any signifi-
cant number of additional printings to alter the pattern I have outlined.
46 For the circulation of printed material in the new nation: Cathy Davidson, Revolution
and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York, 1986), ch. 2; William J.
Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and Cultural Life in Rural New
England, 1780-1835 (Knoxville, Tn, 1989), chs. 5. 6.; for newspapers, Donald H Stewart,
The Opposition Press of the Federalist Period (Albany, N.Y., 1969) and Michael Durey,
'Tom Paine's Apostles: Radical Emigres and the Triumph of Jeffersonian RepUblicanism',
William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. 44 (1987), 661-688. James Green, Curator of the
Library Company of Philadelphia, estimates a run of 1000 for each American printing,
2000 for the collected edition and that British booksellers "flooded" the American market
after 1793 with copies banned in the British Isles (letter to author, March 6, 11, 1792).
47 I have used the finding aids listed in note 45; for Age of Reason, Foner (ed.), Complete
Writings, 463-604, available in many modem printings; Conway, Thomas Paine, ch.
35; Claeys, Thomas Paine, ch. 7.
48 Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, May 8,1791; Jefferson to James Madison,
May 4, 1791; Jefferson to James Monroe, July 10, 1791, in Paul L. Ford (ed.), The
Works of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1904), VI, 254-256, 257-258, 280-281; Jefferson
Preface to Rights of Man, ibid., 283.
49 Smith, John Adams II, 815-825.
50 Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Boston, 1951), ch. 21.
51 Young, Democratic Republicans, Part IV, passim; Simon Newman, 'American Political
Culture in the Age of the French Revolution' (Doctoral Diss., Princeton Univ., 1991),
chs. 3, 4. Professor Newman has provided additional toasts from other cities which thus
far support the pattern I have suggested.
52 Edward Countryman, '''To Secure the Blessings of Liberty": Language, the Revolution
and American Capitalism', in Young (ed.), Beyond the American Revolution, 123-
148; Gordon Wood The Creation of the Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1969).
53 Philip S. Foner (ed.), The Democratic Republican Societies, 1790-1800: A
Documentary Sourcebook of Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions and
Toasts (Westport, Ct., 1976), passim; Link, Democratic-Republican Societies, 104, 109.
54 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1963; New York,
1966), 107-108. According to Thompson, in 1802, Paine claimed 400,000 to 500,000
copies for the British Isles, including Ireland, and in 1809, 1,500,000 "was claimed,"
(by whom is not clear). R. R. Palmer, Age of the Democratic Revolution, 2 vols. (New
York, 1959-1964), II, 476, accepts 200,000 and mentions 1,500,000 as "unbelievable."
For the impact, see, among others, Albert Goodwin, The Friends of Liberty: The English
Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution (London, 1979), 208-258
and Claeys, Thomas Paine, ch. 5.
55 Thompson, Making, 108, 90 (foundation-text).
438 ALFRED F. YOUNG
56 Elizabeth Drinker.cited in Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology
in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, N. c., 1980), 223-224; Drinker read Paine and
disliked him. For the campaign against Paine in the 1790s: Hawke, Paine, chs. 18-23;
Aldrige, Life of Paine, chs. 14-22; Wilson, Paine and Cobbett, 129-135; Claeys, Thomas
Paine, ch. 6.
57 For the abusive epithets: Jerry W. Knudson, 'The Rage Around Tom Paine: Newspaper
Reaction of his Homecoming in 1802', New York Historical Society Quarterly 53 (1969).
34-63 and Hawke, Paine, ch. 25; for details on Paine's personal life over the course of
his life, see the numerous entries in the index to Hawke, Paine, under "Paine, personal
life" for appearance, drinking, health and living habits; Conway, Life of Paine, ch. 43
"Personal Traits." Paine drank on social occasions; he drank to prime himself when writing;
he drank when he was sick and in pain as he was after his imprisonment in France; he
drank to excess when he was isolated, rejected and lonely, as he was frequently in his
last few years in New York. But he was hardly a drunkard. And his drinking was not a
subject of public discussion until the political attacks of the 1790s.
58 Cited in Hawke, Paine, 366; Mark Lause, 'The "Unwashed Infideltiy": Thomas
Paine and Early New York City Labor History', Labor History 27 (1986), 385-409.
59 Paine to Samuel Adams, Jan. I, 1803, P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 1436.
60 Philadelphia Aurora, Aug. 3, 1801, Jan. II, 1803, cited in Aldridge, Thomas Paine,
277; John Adams to Benjamin Rush, Jan. 21, 1810, Schutz and Adair (eds.), Spur of Fame,
160.
61 For Young, Pauline Maier, The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of
Samuel Adams (New York, 1980), ch. 3; Michael Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan
Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (Charlottesville,
Va., 1993).
62 Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805 (Boston, 1970),
106-108.
63 Paine to Jefferson, Jan 25, 1805, P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 1459-1460.
64 Thompson, Making, 108; Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity
(New Haven, Ct., 1989),36-37.
65 For analysis of the controversy in England, Marcus Daniel, 'Reason and Revelation:
Morality, Politics and Reform in the Debate on Thomas Paine's Age of Reason'
(Unpublished ms., Princeton, 1990); Claeys, Thomas Paine, ch. 7.
66 Paine to Vice President George Clinton, May 4, 1807, P. Foner (ed.), Complete
Writings, 1487-1488; see also Paine to Madison, May 3, 1807, Paine to Joel Barlow,
May 4,1807, ibid., 1486-1487, 1488-1489.
67 Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American
Revolution, 2 vols. (Boston, 1805); for changing popular perceptions of the Revolution,
see especially Michael Kammen, A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the
Historical Imagination (New York, 1978); Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The
Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, 1991), Part One.
68 Alfred F. Young, 'George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742-1840): A Boston Shoemaker
and the Memory of the American Revolution', William and Mary Quarterly, 3d seT., 38
(1981),561-623; John C. Dann (ed.), The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts
of the War for Independence (Chicago, 1980).
69 John Adams to Joseph Ward, June 6, 1809, Ward Papers, Chicago Historical Society,
reprinted in Young, Fife and Janzen, We the People, 19l.
10 Garry Wills, Cincinattus: George Washington and the Enlightenment (Garden City,
N. Y., 1984).
11 Paine, Rights of Man, P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 326-327.
72 Aleine Austin, Matthew Lyon: "New Man" of the Democratic Revolution, 1749-1822
(University Park, Pn., 1981), chs. 8-10.
13 Hamilton to Gouverneur Morris, Feb. 29, 1802, in Harold C. Syrett et al. (eds.),
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 27 vols. (New York, 1961-1987), XXV, 544-545.
14 Richard Twomey, Jacobins and Jeffersonians: Anglo-American Radicalism in the
United States, 1790-1820 (Westport, Ct., 1990); Durey, 'Thomas Paine's Apostles'.
1S For Paine's early writings on these themes: P. Foner (ed.), Complete Writings, 'African
Slavery in America', 'A Serious Thought' and 'Emancipation of Slaves', 15-22, 'An
Occasional Letter on the Female Sex', 134-138.
16 For the revival of Paine in the labor movement, Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic:
New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class,1788-1850 (New York, 1984),
passim; for the boundaries of Paine's liberalism: Foner, Tom Paine, chs. 5, 6; Isaac
Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Liberalism: Political Ideology in Late Eighteenth
England and American (Ithaca, N. Y., 1990), ch. 5.
11 John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, Oct. 29, 1805, Adrienne Koch and William
Peden (eds.), The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams (New York, 1946),
147-148; for other letters on Paine, Adams to Benjamin Rush, Apr. 12, 1809; Jan 21,
1810, ibid., 153-157.
INDEX OF NAMES
Abouya, Elisha ben 377 Aristotle 12, 67, 68, 97, 123, 127, 189,
Abraham 259 190, 192, 300, 315-325 passim
Achilles 89 Armstrong, D.M. 169, 170, 183
Adair, D. 435, 438 Arp, H. 8
Adams, A. 418, 431 Aubrey, J. 433, 437
Adams, J.Q. 417, 154, 160, 162,417-439 Augustine, St. 6
passim Austin, A. 438
Adams, J.L. 283 Avenarius 245
Adams, J.L. 293
Adams, S. 429, 431, 438 Bacon, F. 162, 292
Adams, T.R. 434 Baddeley, A. 400
Adorno, T. 31, 40, 399 Baer, Y. 276
Akiba, Rabbi 371, 373 Bailyn, B. 415, 434
Alberti, L.B. 6, 17 Baker, G.P. 7
Alcibiades 115, 300 Balazs, B. 42
Aldridge, A.D. 416, 433 Balzac, H. de 38, 39
Aleazar, Shimon ben, Rabbi 375 Barlow, J. 438
Alexander Severus 380 Barnes, J. 70
Allen, E. 429 Barrow, J.D. 88
Althusser, L. 163 Barth, K. 206
Ambartsumian 8 Baudrillard, J. 331, 332, 338, 342
Ambrosio, U. D' 160 Baum, M. 69
American Association for the Advance- Beardsley, M. 21,23
ment of Science 150, 167 Becker 104
Ames, N. 415 Begas-Parmentier, L. 107
Amos 262 Bellesiles, S. 438
Amram, Yonathan ben 369, 370 Benjamin, J. 40, 41, 329, 338, 340, 341,
Anaxagoras 325 343
Anscombe, G.E.M. 93, 97 Benjamin, W. 385, 398, 399
Antal, F. 33, 40, 43 Bennett, W. 204
Antisthenes II, 303 Benseler, F. 42
Antoninus 374, 378-381 Berger, P. 275
Antoninus Pius 380 Berkovits, E. 217
Appleby, J. 436 Bernard, c. 152
Applewhite, H.B. 435 Bernard, J.H. 70
Archimedes 152, 160 Bernauer, J.W. 365, 366
Arendt, H. 399, 400 Berofsky, B. 88
Aristophanes 299, 310, 312 Bethune, A.J. de 240
441
442 INDEX OF NAMES
Bhaskar, R. 190, 192, 197,200 Cain,S. 217,218,219,237,238,239,240

Biemel, M. 252 Cairns, D. 251, 253, 254
Bienenstock, M. 55-70 Callicles 300, 303
Bilson, E.M. 7 Cantor II
Birkhoff, G. 18 Capek, M. 87
Blakemore, C. 183 Cappon, L.J. 436
Bleier, R. 162, 167 Carcalla 380
Bloch, E. 399 Card, C. 341
Bloch, M. 385, 398 Carey, G., Archbishop 204, 205
Block, N. 171, 176, 178, 179-184 Carey, M. 424
Bohr, N. 88 Carnap, R. 134, 147, 402
Bois-Reymond 102 Carr, D. 147
Boltzmann, L. 102, 119 Carr, E.H. 399
Bonaventura 284 Carroll, J.B. 147
Bondi, H. 231 Carter, J.E. 223
Bonhoeffer, D. 238 Carter, S.L. 208, 223, 224, 241
Bonneville, B. de 411 Cartwright, N. 18
Borad, C.D. 88 Cassirer, E. 405, 409
Bork, R. 232 Cennini, C. 17
Born, Max 7, 17 Chamberlain, H.S. 19
Borowitz, E. 217 Chandrasekhar, S. 293
Botein, S. 436 Changeux, J.P. 175, 184
Bowling, K.R. 436 Chaplin, Charlie 230
Boyce-Gibson 245, 253 Charm ides 300
Briicke, E.W. 107, 109, 110, 115, 119 Cheetham, J. 412
Brahe, Tycho 12 Chesterton, G.K. 207
Brandt, W. 238, 391 Churchill, W. 166
Branscomb, L.M. 288, 289, 294 Claeys, G. 434
Braxton, C. 417 Clark, H.H. 434
Brightman, E. 206 Claudius 73
Bristol, R.P. 436 Clay, J. 152
Brown, J.R. 88 Cleisthenes 5
Brown, S.F. 18 Clinton, D. 412
Brurya 382 Clinton, G. 412, 430, 438
Buber, M. 206, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, Clinton, W. 224, 239
241 Clough, P.T. 200
Buchanan, P. 204 Clyman, R.B. 407, 409
Buckley, M. 226 Cobbett, W. 427
Bukharin 345 Cogswell, J. 435
Biirger, P. 43 Cohen, G. 276
Buridan 123 Cohen, H. 206
Burke, E. 387,400,419,426 Cohen, R. 401
Burke, P. 399 Cohen, R.S. 42, 69, 97, 119, 187-201
Bush, G. 204, 224 passim, 203, 255, 275, 279-294
Butler, S. 400 passim, 295,296, 315, 327, 345-347
Butterfield, L.H. 435 passim, 401-409 passim
INDEX OF NAMES 443
Columbus, Christopher 229 Douglass, E. 435

Comenius 245 Dow, L. 430
Condorcet 387 Drinker, E. 427, 437
Conrat, F. 112, 119, 120, 121 Duane, W. 429
Conway, M.D. 433 Dubitzky, A. 364
Copernicus, N. 271 Duer, W. 436
Costa de Beauregard, o. 88 Dugan 161
Countryman, E. 437 Duhem 162
Crick, F. 175, 183, 184 Dunn, J. 341
Critias 300 Durey, M. 437
Croce 19 Durrell, L. 403
Curtis, H. 8 Dvorak, M. 33, 40
Cusanus, N. 321 Dziemidok, B. 22, 26
Dahlhaus, C. 17 Eastlake, C. 114

Damasio, A. 175, 183 Easton, D. 286, 287, 289, 294
Daniel, M. 433, 438 Ebenda, S. 120, 121, 122
Dann, J.C. 438 Ebert, T. 69
Dart, F.E. 152, 167 Edelman, G. 146, 175, 184
Darwin, C. 37, 167 Edwards, P. 211, 212, 213, 241
Dascal, M. 69 Eherenreich, B. 242
David, King 259, 374, 381 Eigen, M. 122
Davidson, C. 130, 131, 132, 136, 138, Eilstein, H. 71-88
139,140,141,144,145,402,437 Einstein, A. 7, 17,76,77,78,88,208,
Davidson, D. 129, 146 231,232,280,288
Davidson, P. 435 Eisenstadt, S.N. 260, 275
Davies, P.C.W. 88 Eisler 253
Davis, B. 285, 286, 293 Elassa, ben 374
Davis, P.E. 88 Eleazar, Rabbi 374
Davis, Ph. 88 Eliade, M. 4
Deleuze, G. 400 Elijah 373
Dennett, D. 171, 172, 184 Eliot, T.S. 346
Derrida 27, 252 Elvee, R.Q. 88
Descartes, R. 7, 11, 12, 24, 182 Emmett, T.A. 411
Deschner, K. 237 Engel, P. 182, 183, 184
Descombes 365 Engels, F. 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 342,
Dewey,J. 208, 249, 320 345
Diamond, C. 97 Epicurus 244
Dickie, G. 21, 22, 23, 26 Erikson, E. 404, 409
Dickinson, J. 415 Esau 259
Dietrich, D.A. 215 Euclid 13, 160, 312
Dingwall 176, 183 Euthphyro 300
Dinur, B. 399 Euthydemus 300, 307
Dionysodorus 300 Evans, C. 436
DoleZal, J. 252 Exodus 263, 269
Dostoyevsky, F. 204, 209 Ezekiel 263
444 INDEX OF NAMES
Fackenheim, E. 212, 213 Freud, S. 33, 206, 232, 350, 402, 403,
Falwell, I., Reverend 220 404,407,409
Fechner, E. 119 Freudenthal, G. 161
Fellows, I. 424 Friedman, M. 241, 329
Ferguson, E.I. 433 Fritz, K. von 17
Fermi, E. 17 Funkenstein, A. 214
Feuerbach 206
Feyerabend, P. 1-18, 26, 139, 140, 142, Giich, M. 42
147 Gadol, I. 17
Fichte, I.H. WI, 107 Gaine, H. 424
Fichte, I.G. 101 Gal, G. 18
Fiedler 33 Gale, R. 87,220,240,241
Fife, T. 435 Galileo 7,12,123,127,143,152,160,
Fink, E. 251 164, 167,283
Finocchiaro 167 Gamleil, Shimon ben, Rabbi 373, 374
Firth, R. 342 Gardner, H. 184
Fischer, K. 107 Gassner, H. 42
Fishbane, M. 275, 276 Geach, P.T. 98
Fiaubert, G. 400, 405 Genet, Citizen 426
Fleet, I. 424 Gentile, G. 19,26
Fleet, T. 424 George III, King 414
Florian, St. 105 Geraets, T.F. 69
Fodor, I. 170,171,176,183,184 Gerrard, S. 89-98
Foner, P. 439 Gerth, H. 275
Foner, P.S. 433, 437 Ghandi, Mahatma 222
Foot, M. 436 Giddens, A. 195,197,200
Foot, P. 349, 366 Gilligan, C. 329
Forbes, D. 69 Gilmore, W.J. 437
Ford, P.L. 437 Gimbel, R. 434
Forman, P. 161 Goethe, I.W. 2, 3, 6, 8, 99, 100, 101, 104,
Foucault, M. 26, 276, 349-367 passim 109, 112, 113, 114, liS, 116, 117,
Fowler 313 118, 121
Fox, R.L. 217 Gogh, V. van 25
Francis of Assisi 237 Goldwin, R.A. 436
Franco 237 Gombrich, E.H. 31, 42
Frank, I. 411 Goodwin, A. 437
Frank, Ph. 87 Goody, I. 313
Frankel 380 Gorgias 245, 251, 300, 303, 305, 312
Frankfurt, H. 83 Gould, C.C. 341
Franklin, B. 415, 431 Gould, S.I. 183, 184
Fraser, N. 366 Graetz, H. 380
Frauenstadt, I. 104, 107 Grant, E. 18
Frede, M. 305, 313 Green, A. 417, 435
Frege, G. 89 Green, T.E. 342
Freneau, P. 412 Greenfield, S. 183
INDEX OF NAMES 445
Griffin, D.R. 88 Helmholtz-, H.L.F. von 99-122 passim

Grosseteste 6 Henly, D. 433
Gruengard, O. 69 Henry,P.252,254,431
Griinbaum, A. 203-242 Hering 107
Grunwald, H. 207 Hertz, H. 102
Gur, M. 393 Hewes, G.W.T. 438
Guthrie, W.K.C. 4 Heydrich, R. 238
Guttenplan, S. 182 Hezekiah 267
Gutting, G. 126, 145 Hicks, W. 411
Hiestand, E.L. 45-54
Habermas, J. 167 Higginbotham, E.B. 341
Hacker, P.M.S. 97 Hilbert 89
Hacking, I. 141, 147 Hildebrand 33
Halbwachs, M. 399 Hillel, Yehoshua bar, Rabbi 374, 382
Haman 380 Hippias 300
Hamilton, A. 420, 421, 422 Hitler, A. 213, 222, 237, 380
Hamlet 347 Hiya, Rabbi 376, 377, 378, 381
Hammurabi 223 Hoaglund, J. 23
Hancock, J. 431 Hobbes, T. 332, 342
Hanina, Rabbi 382, 383 Hobsbawm, E.J. 400
Haraway, D.J. 200 Hoffman, E. 406, 409
Harding, S. 200 Homer 4
Harre, R. 192, 195,200 Homnick, Y., Rabbi 215, 216
Harris, H.S. 69 Hook, S. 205,215, 216, 222, 229, 231,
Harris, W. 307, 313 232, 233, 234
Hartmann, H. 406, 409 Horkheimer, M. 279, 284
Hartshorne, C. 206 Horstmann, R.P. 69
Harvey, D.L. 200,201,303 Horton, R. 157, 158, 167
Hatch, N. 430, 438 Horz, H. 99-122
Hauser, A. 29-43 Hoyle, E. 7
Havel, V. 230 Hoyningen-Heune 146, 147
Havelock, E. 313 Hrokheimer 31
Hawke, D.F. 433, 438 Hubel, D. 7, 174
Hawley, J. 416, 435 Hume, D. 94, 98
Hayn, A.W. 120 Husserl, E. 139, 142, 147,243,245,245,
Hebb 175 249,250,251,252,253,254
Hegel, G.W.F. 4, 19, 35, 55-70 passim, Hyrtl 107
100, 114, 252
Heidegger, M. 25,213,365,366,400 Ilai, Yehuda ben, Rabbi 374
Heilbron, J.L. 151, 167 Ion 300
Heisenberg, W. 280 Isaiah 209, 211, 259
Heitier, W. 122 Isocrates 302, 303, 307, 312
Heller, E. 349, 366
Helmholtz, A.F.J. von 101, 107, 110, Ill, Jackson, F. 183, 184
112, 113 Jacob, M. 277
446 INDEX OF NAMES
Jacob, P. 180, 182, 183, 184 Klagge, J.C. 313

Jacobs, L. 242 Klauss, K. 121
Jaeger, W. 318 Knox, J. 313
Jakobovitz, I., Chief Rabbi 214, 215, 217, Knudson, J.W. 437
218 Koch, A. 439
James, H. 20 Koch, C. 175, 183, 184
Jantsch, E. 117, 122 Koch, G.A. 434
Janzen, M. 435 Koenigsberger, L. 119, 120
Jaspers, K. 275 Koffka, K. 245, 253
Jay, J. 420, 421 Kohler 245
Jefferson, T. 412, 413, 420, 421, 422, Kobak, E. 243-254
424,425,429,431,432 Kohl, H. 391, 399
Jegede, O. 154, 155, 156, 157, 162, 167, Korshai, Yaakov ben, Rabbi 374
168 Kraft, R. 400
Jensen, M. 435 Kramnick, I. 436, 439
Jesus 224 Krausz, M. 26
John Paul II, Pope 204, 205, 221, 222, Kris, E. 33
283,387 Kristol, I. 203, 207, 208, 210, 224, 225,
John XXIII, Pope 237 226,227,228,229,230,231,233,236
Joravsky, D. 167, 168 Krugly-Smolska, E. 161
Jost, M. 380 Kuhn, T. 26, 123-148 passim
Jourdain 71
Juan Carlos, King 397 LaaB, A. 119
Lachs, J. 253
Kaem, M. 42 Lafayette 420
Kahane, Rabbi 220 Lahover, F. 276
Kalberg, S. 275 Lakatos, I. 125, 144, 145, 146
Kammen, M. 438 Langford, J.J. 167, 168
Kant, I. 6, 24,63,64,65,66,67,70,107, Lanzmann, C. 400
109, 142, 199, 205, 220, 221, 304, Laplace, H. de 13, 233
321, 327, 342 Lashley, K. 173,174, 184
Kantor, T. 387 Laski, H. 434
Kappara, Shimon bar 372, 376, 384 Lastick, I.S. 229
Kariidi, E. 42 Laurens, H. 434
Katz, J. 276 Lause, M. 438
Kaufman, E. 275 Lavoisier, A.L. 123, 127, 142, 143
Kepler, J. 12 Lecourt, D. 168, 168
Kerber, L. 437 Lee-Hampshire, W. 342
Kersten, F. 253 Leibnitz, G.F.W. von 12,245
Kettler, D. 42 Leibowitz, Y. 242
Keyfits, N. 291,294 Lenin, V.I. 37, 38, 42, 43, 345
Khamenai, Ayatollah 218 Lenk, K. 43
Khomeini, Immam 218, 221, 223 Leo XIII, Pope 222
Kim, J. 183, 184 Lepenies, W. 116, 122
Kistler, M. 182 Levi, P. 397, 400
Kitcher, P. 124 Levine, H. 255-277
INDEX OF NAMES 447
Levins, R. 167, 168 Malraux, A. 34

Leviticus 259 MaMaster, J.B. 433
Levy, D.G. 435 Manicas, P.T. 200
Levy, L.W. 436 Mannheim, K. 29,33,37,39,40,41,42,
Lewis, C.S. 279 43, 193
Lewis, D. 170, 177, 182, 184 Manuel, F. 18
Lewis, R. 234 Marcus Aurelius 380
Lewontin, R. 167, 168, 183, 184 Marcuse, H. 399
Lieberman, Saul 372 Margalit, A. 214
Liebowitz, Y. 399 Margolina 400
Lifschitz 36 Margolis, J. 23, 24, 123-148
Lincoln, A. 212 Mark, R. 18
Link, E.P. 436 Markus, Gy. 42
Livingston, R.L. 436 Marx, K. 24, 36, 37, 38, 39, 162, 163,
Livingston, R.R., Jr. 412, 419, 420 190, 192, 274, 287, 327, 328, 331,
Llinas, R. 175, 183, 184 341, 342, 345, 350
Locke, J. 134, 234, 235, 244, 318, 330, Masaryk 245
332,342 Mathews, J.T. 292, 294
Loewald, H. 407, 409 Matthews, M.R. 149-168
Lorenzen, P. 346 Maxwell, J.C. 17
Lotze 253 Mayer, AJ. 385-400
Love, A.C.H. 18 Mayer, R. 110, III
Lovejoy, A. 276 McGinn, C. 146
Lowenthal, D. 399, 400 McKeon, R. 325
Lucius Verus 380 McTaggart, J.M.E. 88
Lucretius 244 Mead, G.H. 194, 195,276
Ludwig, C.F.W. 101, 107, 108, 109, 110, Megill, A. 349, 366
119 Meir, Rabbi 371, 374
Lukacs, G. 29, 33, 36, 37,39, 41, 42 Meist, K. 69
Luria, I. 271, 272, 276 Menen, J.B. 152
Luria, S.E. 7, 17 Meno 300
Luther, M. 212 Merrill, M. 436
Lycan, W. 184, 185 Michelson, J. 17
Lyd, R.S. 280 Michener, J.A. 216
Lyon, M. 431, 438 Midgley, M. 342
Lysenko 163, 167 Mill, J.S. 327, 342
Miller, A.V. 69
Mach, E. 5, 161, 162, 168,245 Mills, C.W. 275
MacIntyre, A. 342 Milton, J. 288
Madden, E.H. 200 Mitterand, F. 391, 399
Madison, J. 420, 421, 432 Mitzman, A. 399
Maier, P. 438 Moffmeister, J. 69
Maimonides, M. 206, 226 Moles, A. 365, 367
Main, J.T. 435 Momigliano, A. 276
Maistre, J. de 387 Mooney, J.E. 436
Malone, D. 437,438 Moore, G.E. 129, 130, 253
448 INDEX OF NAMES
Morais, H.M. 434 Norden, H. 293

Moreau, J.N. 434 Norlin 302
Morris, G. 419, 420, 428, 430, 432, 436,
439 O'Hair, M.M. 232
Morris, R. 412, 433 Obadiah 259
Morton, W. 411 Ockham, William 11
Moses 214, 223, 233, 263, 371, 375, 376 Oedipus 72, 73
Mosse, G.L. 399 Ogawa, M. 154, 162, 168
Mother Teresa 237 Ogunniyi, M.B. 166, 168
Muelder, W.G. 279-294 Oresme, N. 123
Muller 119 Otto, R. 325
Murray, G. 4 Owen, R. 342
Musgrave, C. 125, 144, 145, 146
Mussolini, B. 19, 237 Pacherie, E. 182
Myrdal, G. 280, 281, 284, 285, 293 Paine, T. 411-439 passim
Palmer, R.R. 413, 431, 434, 437
Nagel, T. 342 Parekh, B. 399
Nails, D. 295-3l3 Parmenides 323
Napkha, Yonahan ben, Rabbi 377 Parry, M. 290
Napoleon 233 Pateman, C. 341, 342, 343
Nash, J.A. 290, 294 Pater, W. 6
Nathan, O. 293 Paternek, M.A. 363, 364, 367
Nebuchadnezzar 269 Patoeka, J. 245, 246, 252
Nehamas, A. 299, 300, 311, 312, 357, Patrocles 89
358, 362, 367 Paul, D.B. 168
Nekrasov 38 Paul IV, Pope 204
Nelson, J.R. 436 Paul, S. 122
Nepos, C. 115 Paul, St. 222
Neuhaus, R.J. 204,210, 231, 232, 233, Pavlov, I.P. 112, 121
234, 235, 236 Peden, W. 439
Neumann, C. 108 Penn, J. 436
Neusner, J. 276 Penne, C. 101
Newman, S. 437 Penne, W. 101
Newton, I. 3, 7, 11, 12, l3, 18, 99, 100, Perutz, M.F. 204
113, 114, 115, 117, 161 Petain, P. 399
Nicolis, G. 201 Pettit, Ph. 183, 184
Niebuhr, R. 220, 241, 327, 341, 342 Pevsner, N. 17
Niemoeller 238 Pharaoh 380
Nietzsche, F. 4, 25, 26, 228, 252, 256, Pinder, W. 40
300, 312, 349-367 passim, 394, 395, Pius, Pope 204
400 Planck, M. 17, 126, 151
Nisbet, H.B. 69 Plato 6
Niven, W.O. 17 Plato 11, 17,159,189,219,220,295-313
Nixon, R.M. 239 passim, 319, 320
Noah 414 Plekhanov 38
Noonan, J.T., Jr. 222 Podolsky 78
Nora, P. 399 Poincare, H. de 7, l3
INDEX OF NAMES 449
Pollock,J.6 Ricoeur, P. 251, 254

Polus 300, 303 Riegl 33, 35
Pomeroy, D. 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162 Rietdijk, C.W. 88
Popper, K. 56,68, 124, 125 Robertson, P. 204
Poster, M. 342 Roncalli, Archbishop 237
Pradham, P.L. 152, 167 Rorty, A. O. 342
Prandtl, L. 8 Rorty,R. 24,26,27, 249,250, 251, 252,
Presley, E. 165 254, 365, 367
Price, D. 282 Rosas, A. 109
Priestley, J. 123, 127, 142, 143, 430 Rose 303
Prigogine, I. 201 Rosen 78
Prival, M.J. 241 Rosenberg, A. 19
Prost, A. 399 Rosenfield, I. 96
Protagoras 300, 312 Roth, G. 275
Proust, J. 169-185 Roth, P. 400
Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita 9 Rouner, L.S. 293, 315-325
Pushkin 38 Rousseau, J.J. 234
Putnam, H. 26, 127, 140, 142, 143, 144, Rubenstein, R., Rabbi 217
145, 147, 148, 170, 171, 181, 185 Rush, B. 435, 438, 439
Pyenson, L. lSI, 152, 168 Rushdie, S. 218, 219
Rusher, W.A. 203
Quindlen, A. 224 Russell, B. 90, 97, 208
Quine, W.V.O. 24, 128, 129, 130, 131, Rutherford, E. 17
132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, Ryan, M. 335, 336, 337, 343
140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 147
Quinet, E. 398 Sacks, O. 95, 98
Safire, W. 212, 218, 219
Radi, E. 253 Sagan, C. 290
Rafael 6 Sapir 405
Rafsanjani, President of Iran 218 Sarkar, S. 364
Rajchman, J. 363, 365, 367 Sarton, G. lSI, 168
Ramsay, D. 416, 435 Schambra, W.A. 436
Ramsey 170, 179 Scharfschwerdt, J. 43
Randall, J.H., Je. 26,27,170,179,317, Scheinfeld 215
318,319,322,325 Scheler, M. 246, 248, 253
Rappaport 380 Schelling, M. 320, 397
Rashi 371 Schiller, F. 399
Rav Huna, Resh-Galuta 375, 376 Schleinitz, Griifin 107
Rawls, J. 342 Schlesinger, A., Jr. 241
Recanati, F. 182 Schluchter, W. 275
Redondi, P. 167, 168 Schneerson, M.M., Rabbi 215, 217, 218
Reed, M. 201 Schoenberg 3
Reich 289 Scholem, G. 276
Reilly, E. 433, 434 Schopenhauer 99-122 passim, 362
Resch, J. 436 Schulz, A. 275
Rhees, R. 97 Schumnann, K. 252
Ricks, C. 364 SchUtz, A. 253
450 INDEX OF NAMES
Schutz, I. 435, 438 Spence, D. 404, 409

Schwartz, B. 275 Spencer, I.R. 17, 222
Schwitter, K. 16 Spinoza II
Scott, C.E. 363, 367 Stalin 163, 237, 345, 380
Scotus, Duns II Stapp, H. 77
Secord, P. 195, 200 Stecker, R. 23
Seebeck, TJ. II4 Stefano, C. Di 343
Segal, L. 328, 341 Steiner, R. 2
Selin, H. 157, 161, 168 Steinfels, P. 241
Sextus Empiricus 252 Stevin, S. 5
Shamash 223 Stewart, D.H. 437
Shamir, Y. 399 Strawson, P.F. 86, 88, 130, 146
Shanker, S.G. 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 97 Struve 42
Shapiro, G. 27 Suchting, W.A. 69
Shapiro, T. 401-409 Suger of St. Denis 9
Shapley 8 Syrett, H.C. 439
Sheehan, H. 168
Shimon, Eleazar ben, Rabbi 374, 378 Tait, E.F. 108
Shipton, C.K. 436 TanselIe, G.T. 435
Shoemaker 182 Tauber, A.I. 349-367
Shusterman, R. 27 Tayler, R. 85
Siemens-Helmholz, E. 120 Taylor, A.E. 318,349,360,362
Silber, I. 275 Taylor, C. 68, 367
Silber, J. 345-347 Taylor, R. 71, 87
Silbermann, A. 43 Teitelbaum, I., Rabbi 214, 215, 217
Simmel, G. 33, 40, 41, 42 Tennant, N. 183, 185
Simson, O. von 18 Terzian, Y. 7
Slaughter, T. 436 Thesleff, H. 305, 309, 310
Smith, A. 286, 330 Thiele, L.P. 364, 367
Smith, B. 435 Thomas, I. 424
Smith, C.W. 154, 162, 187-201 Thomas, St. 11
Smith, G.H. 168 Thompson, D.V., Jr. 17
Smith, I.A. 276 Thompson, E.P. 426, 427, 430, 437
Smith, I.M. 436 Thomson 108
Smith, N.D. 313 Thrasyllus 310
Smith, P. 435 Thurow, L. 289, 294
Smith, R.L. 327-434 Tillich, P. 206, 207, 315-325 passim
Smith, S.H. 425 Tishbi, I. 276
Smith-Rosenberg, C. 343 Tolstoy, L.D. 38, 43
Sober, E. 178, 179, 180, 185 Torquemada, Cardinal 238
Socrates 210, 219, 229, 295-313 passim Tourney, C.P. 241
Solon 5 Traydon, Hananya ben 383
Soltow, L. 436 Trede, I.H. 69
Solzhenitsyn, A. 210, 221, 222, 223, 229 Trembath, P. 27
Sombart 274 Tronto, I. 329, 341
Speiser, A. II7, 122 Trotsky, L.D. 345
Spelman, E. 343 Truitt, W.H. 19-27
INDEX OF NAMES 451
Tschennag-Seysenegg, A. 119 Wiesel, E. 369-384, 398

Tullian, L. 110, 121 Wiesel, T. 174
Turing, A. 89, 91,92,93,94,95,97,171, Wilentz, S. 433, 436, 439
178 Willard, M.W. 435
Turner 312 William the Conqueror 414
Twomey, R. 433, 439 Williams, R. 330, 342, 357
Williams, W.O. 367
Unger, R.M. 342 Wills, G. 438
Urbach, E. 276 Wilson, D.A. 433, 434
Urevbu 154 Wimsatt, W.C. 185
Winkler, R. 122
Veit, H. 436 Wirth, L. 280
Vezer, E. 42 Wittgenstein, L. 89-98 passim, 402
Vidal-Naquet, P. 398 Wittich, C. 275
Viollet-Ie-Duc, E.E. 8 Wolfflin 33, 35
Vlastos, G. 312 Wolf, F.A. 113
Voegelin, E. 275 Wolff, K.H. 42
Voltaire387 Wolin, S. 343
Wolkenstein, Graf 107
Walesa, L. 238 Wood, A. 69
Ward, J. 435, 438 Wood, G. 437
Warnke, M. 43 Wood, P. 435
Warren, M.O. 365,367,431,435,438 Wordsworth, W. 399
Wartofsky, M. 295 Wright, G.H. von 97
Warvill, B. de 416, 435
Washington, G. 234, 412, 416, 420, 428, Xenophanes 4
431, 437 Xenophon 297, 299, 307, 310, 312
Waszek, N. 69
Waterhouse, B. 439 Yahweh (Jehovah) 216, 223, 233
Watt, 1. 313 Yehuda, Shimon ben 369
Waugh, J. 27 Yehuda-the-prince, Rabbi 369-384
Weber, M. 33, 40, 255, 256, 257, 258, passim
260,266,270,272,273,274,275,399 Yerushalmi, Y.H. 276, 399
Weber, W. 108 Yocheved 376
Webern, A. von 2, 3 Yohai, Shimon ben, Rabbi 374
Wecter, D. 434 Yosse, Yishmael ben, Rabbi 372, 376
Weems, Parson 431 Young, A.F. 399, 411-439
Weigel, G. 235, 236 Young, La Monte 1
Weinberg, S. 78 Young, T. 429
Weischedel, W. 119
Weisskopf, V. 279 Zalai, B. 41
Weitz, M. 21, 22, 23, 26 Zaslove, J. 41
Wessely, A. 29-43 Zeno 304
Weyl, H. 76 Zollner, F. lOS, 106, 108, 109
Wheeler, J.A. 78, 88 ZOllner, J.C. 120
Whorfe, B.L. 140, 147, 405, 409 Zunz, Y.L. 276
Whyte 197
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Editor: Robert S. Cohen, Boston University
1. M.W. Wartofsky (ed.): Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the

Philosophy of Science, 19611l962. [Synthese Library 6] 1963
ISBN 90-277-0021-4
2. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium
for the Philosophy of Science, 1f)6211964. In Honor of P. Frank. [Synthese
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Han.son. [Synthese Library 14] 1967 ISBN 90-277-0013-3
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ISBN 90-277-0014-1
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ISBN 90-277-OO15-X
6. R.S. Cohen and RJ. Seeger (eds.): Ernst Mach, Physicist and Philosopher.
[Synthese Library 27] 1970 ISBN 90-277-0016-8
7. M. Capek: Bergson and Modern Physics. A Reinterpretation and Re-evaluation.
[Synthese Library 37] 1971 ISBN 90-277-0186-5
8. R.C. Buck and R.S. Cohen (eds.): PSA 1970. Proceedings of the 2nd Biennial
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ISBN 90-277-0193-8; Pb 90-277-0324-8
10. L. Tondl: Scientific Procedures. A Contribution Concerning the Methodologi-
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12. A. Griinbaum: Philosophical Problems of Space and Times. 2nd enlarged ed.
[Synthese Library 55] 1973 ISBN 90-277-0357-4; Pb 90-277-0358-2
13. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Logical and Epistemological Studies
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14. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Methodological and Historical Essays
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16. N. Geschwind: Selected Papers on Language and the Brains. [Synthese Library
68] 1974 ISBN 90-277-0262-4; Pb 90-277-0263-2
17. B.G. Kuznetsov: Reason and Being. Translated from Russian. Edited by C.R.
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18. P. Mittelstaedt: Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics. Translated from
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19. H. Mehlberg: Time, Causality, and the Quantum Theory. Studies in the
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Michigan, Fall 1972). [Synthese Library 64] 1974
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21. R.S. Cohen and J.J. Stachel (eds.): Selected Papers of Leon Rosenfeld.
22. M. Capek (ed.): The Concepts of Space and Time. Their Structure and Their
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23. M. Grene: The Understanding of Nature. Essays in the Philosophy of Biology.
24. D. Ihde: Technics and Praxis. A Philosophy of Technology. [Synthese Library
130] 1979 ISBN 90-277-0953-X; Pb 90-277-0954-8
25. J. Hintikka and U. Remes: The Method of Analysis. Its Geometrical Origin and
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ISBN 90-277-0532-1; Pb 90-277-0543-7
26. J.E. Murdoch and E.D. Sylla (eds.): The Cultural Context of Medieval
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[Synthese Library 84] 1976 ISBN 9O-277-0595-X; Pb 90-277-0596-8
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31. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Language, Logic, and Method. 1983
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32. R.S. Cohen, C.A. Hooker, A.C. Michalos and J.W. van Evra (eds.): PSA 1974.
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40. Not published.
41. Not published.
42. H.R. Maturana and F.J. Varela: Autopoiesis and Cognition. The Realization of
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1984 ISBN 90-277-0827-4
45. Not published.
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52. K. Kosik: Dialectics of the Concrete. A Study on Problems of Man and World.
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ISBN 90-277-0773-1; Pb 90-277-0774-X
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55. M: Lazerowitz: The Language of Philosophy. Freud and Wittgenstein.
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57. J. Margolis: Persons and Mind. The Prospects of Nonreductive Materialism.
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[Synthese Library 125] 1978 ISBN 90-277-0921-1; Pb 90-277-0922-X
59. G. Radnitzky and G. Andersson (eds.): The Structure and Development of
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60. T. Nickles (ed.): Scientific Discovery. Case Studies. 1980
ISBN 90-277-1092-9; Pb 90-277-1093-7
61. M.A. Finocchiaro: Galileo and the Art of Reasoning. Rhetorical Foundation of
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63. F. Rapp: Analytical Philosophy of Technology. Translated from German. 1981
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64. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Hegel and the Sciences. 1984
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ISBN 90-277-1244-1; Pb 90-277-1245-X
66. L. Tondl: Problems of Semantics. A Contribution to the Analysis of the
Language of Science. Translated from Czech. 1981
ISBN 90-277-0148-2; Pb 90-277-0316-7
67. J. Agassi and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Scientific Philosophy Today. Essays in Honor
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68. W. Krajewski (ed.): Polish Essays in the Philosophy of the Natural Sciences.
Translated from Polish and edited by R.S. Cohen and C.R. Fawcett. 1982
ISBN 90-277-1286-7; Pb 90-277-1287-5
69. J.H. Fetzer: Scientific Knowledge. Causation, Explanation and Corroboration.
1981 ISBN 90-277-1335-9; Pb 90-277-1336-7
70. S. Grossberg: Studies of Mind and Brain. Neural Principles of Learning,
Perception, Development, Cognition, and Motor Control. 1982
ISBN 90-277-1359-6; Pb 90-277-1 360-X
71. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Epistemology, Methodology, and the
Social Sciences. 1983. ISBN 90-277-1454-1
72. K. Berka: Measurement. Its Concepts, Theories and Problems. Translated from
Czech. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1416-9
73. G.L. Pandit: The Structure and Growth of Scientific Knowledge. A Study in the
Methodology of Epistemic Appraisal. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1434-7
74. A.A. Zinov'ev: Logical Physics. Translated from Russian. Edited by R.S.
Cohen. 1983 ISBN 90-277-0734-0
See also Volume 9.
75. G-G. Granger: Formal Thought and the Sciences of Man. Translated from
French. With and Introduction by A. Rosenberg. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1524-6
76. R.S. Cohen and L. Laudan (eds.): Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis.
Essays in Honor of Adolf Griinbaum. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1533-5
77. G. Bohme, W. van den Daele, R. Hohlfeld, W. Krohn and W. Schafer:
Finalization in Science. The Social Orientation of Scientific Progress.
Translated from German. Edited by W. Schafer. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1549-1
78. D. Shapere: Reason and the Search for Knowledge. Investigations in the
Philosophy of Science. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1551-3; Pb 90-277-1641-2
79. G. Andersson (ed.): Rationality in Science and Politics. Translated from
German. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1575-0; Pb 90-277-1953-5
80. P.T. Durbin and F. Rapp (eds.): Philosophy and Technology. [Also Philosophy
and Technology Series, Vol. 1] 1983 ISBN 90-277-1576-9
81. M. Markovic: Dialectical Theory of Meaning. Translated from Serbo-Croat.
1984 ISBN 90-277-1596-3
82. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Physical Sciences and History of
Physics. 1984. ISBN 90-277-1615-3
83. E. Meyerson: The Relativistic Deduction. Epistemological Implications of the
Theory of Relativity. Translated from French. With a Review by Albert
Einstein and an Introduction by Milic Capek. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1699-4
84. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Methodology, Metaphysics and the
History of Science. In Memory of Benjamin Nelson. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1711-7
85. G. Tam~s: The Logic of Categories. Translated from Hungarian. Edited by R.S.
Cohen. 1986 ISBN 90-277-1742-7
86. S.L. de C. Fernandes: Foundations of Objective Knowledge. The Relations of
Popper's Theory of Knowledge to That of Kant. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1809-1
87. R.S. Cohen and T. Schnelle (eds.): Cognition and Fact. Materials on Ludwik
Fleck. 1986 ISBN 90-277-1902-0
88. G. Freudenthal: Atom and Individual in the Age of Newton. On the Genesis of
the Mechanistic World View. Translated from German. 1986
ISBN 90-277-1905-5
89. A. Donagan, A.N. Perovich Jr and M.V. Wedin (eds.): Human Nature and
Natural Knowledge. Essays presented to Marjorie Grene on the Occasion of
Her 75th Birthday. 1986 ISBN 90-277-1974-8
90. C. Mitcham and A. Hunning (eds.): Philosophy and Technology II. Information
Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice. [Also Philosophy and
Technology Series, Vol. 2] 1986 ISBN 90-277-1975-6
91. M. Grene and D. Nails (eds.): Spinoza and the Sciences. 1986
ISBN 90-277-1976-4
92. S.P. Turner: The Search for a Methodology of Social Science. Durkheim,
Weber, and the 19th-Century Problem of Cause, Probability, and Action. 1986.
ISBN 90-277-2067-3
93. I.e. Jarvie: Thinking about Society. Theory and Practice. 1986
ISBN 90-277-2068-1
94. E. Ullmann-Margalit (ed.): The Kaleidoscope of Science. The Israel Collo-
quium: Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Vol. 1. 1986
ISBN 90-277-2158-0; Pb 90-277-2159-9
95. E. Ullmann-Margalit (ed.): The Prism of Science. The Israel Colloquium:
Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Vol. 2. 1986
ISBN 90-277-2160-2; Pb 90-277-2161-0
96. G. Markus: Language and Production. A Critique of the Paradigms. Translated
from French. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2169-6
97. F. Amrine, F.J. Zucker and H. Wheeler (eds.): Goethe and the Sciences: A
Reappraisal. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2265-X; Pb 90-277-2400-8
98. J.C. Pitt and M. Pera (eds.): Rational Changes in Science. Essays on Scientific
Reasoning. Translated from Italian. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2417-2
99. o. Costa de Beauregard: Time, the Physical Magnitude. 1987
ISBN 90-277-2444-X
100. A. Shimony and D. Nails (eds.): Naturalistic Epistemology. A Symposium of
Two Decades. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2337-0
101. N. Rotenstreich: Time and Meaning in History. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2467-9
102. D.B. Zilberman: The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought. Edited by R.S.
Cohen. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2497-0
103. T.F. Glick (ed.): The Comparative Reception of Relativity. 1987
ISBN 90-277-2498-9
104. Z. Harris, M. Gottfried, T. Ryckman, P. Mattick Jr, A. Daladier, T.N. Harris
and S. Harris: The Form of Information in Science. Analysis of an Immunology
Sublanguage. With a Preface by Hilary Putnam. 1989 ISBN 90-277-2516-0
105. F. Burwick (ed.): Approaches to Organic Form. Permutations in Science and
Culture. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2541-1
106. M. Almasi: The Philosophy ofAppearances. Translated from Hungarian. 1989
ISBN 90-277-2150-5
107. S. Hook, W.L. O'Neill and R. O'Toole (eds.): Philosophy, History and Social
Action. Essays in Honor of Lewis Feuer. With an Autobiographical Essay by L.
Feuer. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2644-2
108. I. Hronszky, M. Feher and B. Dajka: Scientific Knowledge Socialized. Selected
Proceedings of the 5th Joint International Conference on the History and
Philosophy of Science organized by the IUHPS (Veszprem, Hungary, 1984).
1988 ISBN 90-277-2284-6
109. P. Tillers and E.D. Green (eds.): Probability and Inference in the Law of
Evidence. The Uses and Limits of Bayesianism. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2689-2
110. E. Ullmann-Margalit (ed.): Science in Reflection. The Israel Colloquium:
Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Vol. 3. 1988
ISBN 90-277-2712-0; Pb 90-277-2713-9
111. K. Gavroglu, Y. Goudaroulis and P. Nicolacopoulos (eds.): Imre Lakatos and
Theories of Scientific Change. 1989 ISBN 90-277-2766-X
112. B. Glassner and J.D. Moreno (eds.): The Qualitative-Quantitative Distinction in
the Social Sciences. 1989 ISBN 90-277-2829-1
113. K. Arens: Structures of Knowing. Psychologies of the 19th Century. 1989
ISBN 0-7923-0009-2
114. A. Janik: Style, Politics and the Future of Philosophy. 1989
ISBN 0-7923-0056-4
115. F. Amrine (ed.): Literature and Science as Modes of Expression. With an
Introduction by S. Weininger. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0133-1
116. J.R. Brown and J. Mittelstrass (eds.): An Intimate Relation. Studies in the
History and Philosophy of Science. Presented to Robert E. Butts on His 60th
Birthday. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0169-2
117. F. D' Agostino and I.C. Jarvie (eds.): Freedom and Rationality. Essays in Honor
of John Watkins. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0264-8
118. D. Zolo: Reflexive Epistemology. The Philosophical Legacy of Otto Neurath.
1989 ISBN 0-7923-0320-2
119. M. Kearn, B.S. Philips and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Georg Simmel and Contem-
porary Sociology. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0407-1
120. T.H. Levere and W.R. Shea (eds.): Nature, Experiment and the Science. Essays
on Galileo and the Nature of Science. In Honour of Stillman Drake. 1989
ISBN 0-7923-0420-9
121. P. Nicolacopoulos (ed.): Greek Studies in the Philosophy and History of
Science. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0717-8
122. R. Cooke and D. Costantini (eds.): Statistics in Science. The Foundations of
Statistical Methods in Biology, Physics and Economics. 1990
ISBN 0-7923-0797-6
123. P. Duhem: The Origins of Statics. Translated from French by G.F. Leneaux,
V.N. Vagliente and G.H. Wagner. With an Introduction by S.L. Jaki. 1991
ISBN 0-7923-0898-0
124. H. Kamerlingh Onnes: Through Measurement to Knowledge. The Selected
Papers, 1853-1926. Edited and with an Introduction by K. Gavroglu and Y.
Goudaroulis. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-0825-5
125. M. Capek: The New Aspects of Time: Its Continuity and Novelties. Selected
Papers in the Philosophy of Science. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-0911-1
126. S. Unguru (ed.): Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy, 1300-1700. Tension and
Accommodation. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-1022-5
127. Z. Bechler: Newton's Physics on the Conceptual Structure of the Scientific
Revolution. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-1054-3
128. E. Meyerson: Explanation in the Sciences. Translated from French by M-A.
Siple and D.A. Siple. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-1129-9
129. A.I. Tauber (ed.): Organism and the Origins of Self. 1991
ISBN 0-7923-1185-X
130. FJ. Varela and J-P. Dupuy (eds.): Understanding Origins. Contemporary
Views on the Origin of Life, Mind and Society. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1251-1
131. G.L. Pandit: Methodological Variance. Essays in Epistemological Ontology
and the Methodology of Science. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-1263-5
132. G. Munevar (ed.): Beyond Reason. Essays on the Philosophy of Paul
Feyerabend.1991 ISBN 0-7923-1272-4
133. T.E. Uebel (ed.): Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle. Austrian Studies
on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle. Partly translated from German. 1991
ISBN 0-7923-1276-7
134. W.R. Woodward and R.S. Cohen (eds.): World Views and Scientific Discipline
Formation. Science Studies in the [former] German Democratic Republic.
Partly translated from German by W.R. Woodward. 1991
ISBN 0-7923-1286-4
135. P. Zambelli: The Speculum Astronomiae and Its Enigma. Astrology, Theology
and Science in Albertus Magnus and His Contemporaries. 1992
ISBN 0-7923-1380-1
136. P. Petitjean, C. Jami and A.M. Moulin (eds.): Science and Empires. Historical
Studies about Scientific Development and European Expansion.
ISBN 0-7923-1518-9
137. W.A. Wallace: Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Background,
Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics.1992 ISBN 0-7923-1577-4
138. W.A. Wallace: Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and
Commentary, of His Appropriated Latin Questions on Aristotle's Posterior
Analytics. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1578-2
Set (137 + 138) ISBN 0-7923-1579-0
139. MJ. Nye, J.L. Richards and R.H. Stuewer (eds.): The Invention of Physical
Science. Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy since
the Seventeenth Century. Essays in Honor of Erwin N. Hiebert. 1992
ISBN 0-7923-1753-X
140. G. Corsi, M.L. dalla Chiara and G.c. Ghirardi (eds.): Bridging the Gap:
Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics. Lectures on the Foundations of Science.
1992 ISBN 0-7923-1761-0
141. C.-H. Lin and D. Fu (eds.): Philosophy and Conceptual History of Science in
Taiwan. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1766-1
142. S. Sarkar (ed.): The Founders of Evolutionary Genetics. A Centenary Reap-
praisal. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1777-7
143. J. Blackmore (ed.): Ernst Mach - A Deeper Look. Documents and New
Perspectives. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1853-6
144. P. Kroes and M. Bakker (eds.): Technological Development and Science in the
Industrial Age. New Perspectives on the Science-Technology Relationship.
1992 ISBN 0-7923-1898-6
145. S. Amsterdamski: Between History and Method. Disputes about the Rationality
of Science. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1941-9
146. E. Ullmann-Margalit (ed.): The Scientific Enterprise. The Bar-Hillel Collo-
quium: Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, Volume 4.
1992 ISBN 0-7923-1992-3
147. L. Embree (ed.): Metaarchaeology. Reflections by Archaeologists and Philos-
ophers. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-2023-9
148. S. French and H. Kamminga (eds.): Correspondence, Invariance and Heuris-
tics. Essays in Honour of Heinz Post. 1993 ISBN 0-7923-2085-9
149. M. Bunzl: The Context of Explanation. 1993 ISBN 0-7923-2153-7
150. LB. Cohen (ed.): The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences. Some Critical
and Historical Perspectives. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2223-1
151. K. Gavroglu, Y. Christianidis and E. Nicolaidis (eds.): Trends in the Historio-
graphy of Science. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2255-X
152. S. Poggi and M. Bossi (eds.): Romanticism in Science. Science in Europe,
1790--1840. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2336-X
153. J. Faye and H.I. Folse (eds.): Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy. 1994
ISBN 0-7923-2378-5
154. C.C. Gould and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Artifacts, Representations, and Social
Practice. Essays for Marx W. Wartofsky. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2481-1
155. R.E. Butts: Historical Pragmatics. Philosophical Essays. 1993
ISBN 0-7923-2498-6
156. R. Rashed: The Development of Arabic Mathematics: Between Arithmetic and
Algebra. Translated from French by A.F.W. Armstrong. 1994
ISBN 0-7923-2565-6
157. I. Szumilewicz-Lachman (ed.): Zygmunt Zawirski: His Life and Work. With
Selected Writings on Time, Logic and the Methodology of Science. Transla-
tions by Feliks Lachman. Ed. by R.S. Cohen, with the assistance of B. Bergo.
1994 ISBN 0-7923-2566-4
158. S.N. Haq: Names, Natures and Things. The Alchemist Jabir ibn I;Iayyan and
His Kitiib al-A1}jiir (Book of Stones). 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2587-7
159. P. P1aass: Kant's Theory of Natural Science. Translation, Analytic Introduction
and Commentary by Alfred E. and Maria G. Miller. 1994
ISBN 0-7923-2750-0
160. J. Misiek (ed.): The Problem of Rationality in Science and its Philosophy. On
Popper vs. Polanyi. The Polish Conferences 1988-89. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-2925-2
161. I.C. Jarvie and N. Laor (eds.): Critical Rationalism, Metaphysics and Science.
Essays for Joseph Agassi, Volume I. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-2960-0
162. I.C. Jarvie and N. Laor (eds.): Critical Rationalism, the Social Sciences and the
Humanities. Essays for Joseph Agassi, Volume II. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-2961-9
Set (161-162) ISBN 0-7923-2962-7
163. K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Physics, Philosophy, and
the Scientific Community. Essays in the Philosophy and History of the Natural
Sciences and Mathematics. In Honor of Robert S. Cohen. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-2988-0
164. K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Science, Politics and
Social Practice. Essays on Marxism and Science, Philosophy of Culture and
the Social Sciences. In Honor of Robert S. Cohen. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-2989-9
165. K. Gavroglu, J. Stachel and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): Science, Mind and Art.
Essays on Science and the Humanistic Understanding in Art, Epistemology,
Religion and Ethics. Essays in Honor of Robert S. Cohen. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-2990-2
Set (163-165) ISBN 0-7923-2991-0
166. K.H. Wolff: Transformation in the Writing. A Case of Surrender-and-Catch.
1995 ISBN 0-7923-3178-8
167. A.J. Kox and D.M. Siegel (eds.): No Truth Except in the Details. Essays in
Honor of Martin J. Klein. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3195-8
168. J. Blackmore: Ludwig Boltzmann, His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906.
Book One: A Documentary History. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3231-8
169. R.S. Cohen, R. Hilpinen and Q. Renzong (eds.): Realism and Anti-Realism in
the Philosophy of Science. Beijing International Conference, 1992. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-3233-4
170. I. Ku~uradi and R.S. Cohen (eds.): The Concept of Knowledge. The Ankara
Seminar. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3241-5
171. M.A. Grodin (ed.): Meta Medical Ethics: The Philosophical Foundations of
Bioethics. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3344-6
172. S. Ramirez and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Mexican Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3462-0
173. C. Dilworth: The Metaphysics of Science. An Account of Modem Science in
Terms of Principles, Laws and Theories. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3693-3
174. J. Blackmore: Ludwig Boltzmann, His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900-1906
Book Two: The Philosopher. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3464-7
175. P. Damerow: Abstraction and Representation. Essays on the Cultural Evolution
of Thinking. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3813-8
176. G. Tarozzi (ed.): Karl Popper, Philosopher of Science. (in prep.)
177. M. Marion and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Quebec Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
Part I: Logic, Mathematics, Physics and History of Science. Essays in Honor of
Hugues Leblanc. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3559-7
178. M. Marion and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Quebec Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
Part II: Biology, Psychology, Cognitive Science and Economics. Essays in
Honor of Hugues Leblanc. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3560-0
Set (177-178) ISBN 0-7923-3561-9
179. F. Dainian and R.S. Cohen (eds.): Chinese Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science and Technology. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3463-9
180. P. Forman and J.M. Sanchez-Ron (eds.): National Military Establishments and
the Advancement of Science and Technology. Studies in 20th Century History.
1995 ISBN 0-7923-3541-4
181. E.J. Post: Quantum Reprogramming. Ensembles and Single Systems: A Two-
Tier Approach to Quantum Mechanics. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3565-1
Also of interest:
R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky (eds.): A Portrait of Twenty-Five Years Boston
Colloquia for the Philosophy of Science, 1960-1985. 1985 ISBN Pb 90-277-1971-3
Previous volumes are still available.
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS - DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON

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SCIENCE, MIND AND ART

BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University

Editorial Advisory Board

TIIOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University

Editorial Committee for the Robert S. Cohen Festschrifts:

KOSTAS GAVROGLU, National Technical University, Athens, Greece

Volume I Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,

Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates

Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada

In all other countries, sold and distributed

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

A. AESTHETICS, ART HISTORY AND

PAUL FEYERABEND / Art as a Product of Nature as a Work

B. EPISTEMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND,

MYRIAM BIENENSTOCK / Hegel's Conception of Teleology 55

C. PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION AND HUMAN VALUES

ADOLF GRUNBAUM / The Poverty of Theistic Morality 203

D. HISTORY, MEMORY AND REALITY

ARNO J. MAYER / Memory and History: On the Poverty of

INDEX OF NAMES 441

KOSTAS GAVROGLU National Technical University, Athens

ART AS A PRODUCT OF NATURE

K. Gavroglu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 1-18.

It is impossible to give an account of what is beautiful in nature and in the arts; to

Von Webern repeats and summarises:

For von Webern, accordingly, the history of (Western) music is the

Now if it is indeed true that works of art are products of nature in

The first consequence is that individual creativity is considerably reduced.

not intended. It was the unintended side effect of special arrangements

4. THE SCATTERED UNITY OF HUMAN EFFORTS

The two examples make it clear that inventions in metaphysics and in

just such an "overestimating of measuring accuracies" is the rule in

5. EARLY GOTHIC ARTIFACTS

Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, the 19th century architect, archaeol-

for the realization of artistic forms could be obtained independently of

practical matter. 17 Another reason is that modem attempts at a theoret-

According to this thesis 19 nature as described by our scientists is an

a large role in many cultures; they exceed humans in power, existed

Take a simple scientific measurement such as weighing with a pre-

using corresponding procedures get respectable results. They succeed

answers. It is true that allowing abundance to take over would be the

NEO-PRAGMATISM AND THE NEW AESTHETIC

K. Gavroglu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 19-27.

The Twilight of the Twentieth Century brings with it a similar phe-

temological realism.? The antithesis of epistemological realism which

something called the "artworld" really existed. However let me specify

The new post-scientific/post-modernist method of say, Rorty, rejects

10 B. Dzemidok, 'Institutional Definition of a Work of Art', Philosophical Inquiry, 1984.

THE READER'S PROGRESS: REMARKS ON

In 1918, at the University of Budapest, two friends, Karl Mannheim

K. Gavroglu et al. (eds.), Science, Mind and Art, 29-43.

who could provide a similarly supportive intellectual background, a

Arnold Hauser was neither a historian, nor a sociologist, nor a committed

different questions. Aesthetic value, historical significance, and cultural

appreciation 15 fascinates with its erudition and apparent profundity. But

style is the result of attempts to solve personal problems, it represents

Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. The closest parallel to Hauser's conception

progressive or reactionary in their age and on this basis it is possible

Struggling with the same problem of how to reconcile the ideo-

Instead, he mocked this identification as romantic escapism and as a