Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
99
PhilosophyNow
a magazine of ideas
Ideas Exist,
Not Matter
Berkeley
God As
Nature
Spinoza
Atoms &
Pleasure
Epicurus
A Golden
Manifesto
Mary Midgley
Is
Metaphysics
out of date?
ty
Master’s in Philosophy
ali
M
HA
IN
G u
UC
K
ingQ
ch
B
OF
ITY Tea
IV
E RS
r for
HE
UN
e Yea AND ITS USES TODAY
T
f th
ityo PROFESSOR SIR ROGER SCRUTON FBA
rs
nive
U October 2017 – September 2018 Mall, SW1), and is followed by a dinner
during which participants can engage in
A one-year, London-based programme discussion with the speaker. The topics
of ten evening seminars and individual to be considered include consciousness,
research led by Professor Sir Roger Scruton, emotion, justice, art, God, culture and
offering examples of contemporary ‘faking it’, nature and the environment.
thinking about the perennial questions,
and including lectures by internationally Students pursue their research, under
the guidance of their supervisors, on a
acclaimed philosophers. philosophical topic of their choice.
Previous speakers have included: Examination is by a dissertation of
Professor Jane Heal FBA, St John’s around 20,000 words.
College, University of Cambridge Scholarships and bursaries are available.
Professor Robert Grant, University
of Glasgow Course enquiries and applications:
Professor Sebastian Gardner, Ms Claire Prendergast T: 01280 820204
University College London E: claire.prendergast@buckingham.ac.uk
Professor Simon Blackburn, Trinity
College, University of Cambridge THE UNIVERSITY OF
BUCKINGHAM
Each seminar takes place in the congenial
surroundings of a London club (in Pall LONDON PROGRAMMES
Y
ou will be familiar, in these days of inelegant travel, ever it is that we have in mind, it cannot be a material tree, nor
with the exercise of trying to fit everything you might is anything clarified by saying that we have in mind an aspect
plausibly need into a very small suitcase. It sometimes of the act of perceiving a tree. Rather, ideas must be entities
happens that there is one thing which frustrates the such that (a) we may have them in mind, and (b) they convey to
process, an object with awkward contours that ensure it cannot us the properties we associate with trees.
be packed along with the other necessities. It is of some value But consider now how this view isolates us, the perceivers.
to identify the troublesome object. Would it not be a small tri- Take the case of colours. Since the early modern period it has
umph if you not only identified it, but realized that you didn’t been widely thought that colours are not in bodies. Instead,
need it after all? colours are the result of interactions between the surface prop-
It was a similar realization in the realm of metaphysics that erties of bodies and our sensory organs; and the same is true of
led the young unpublished George Berkeley (1685-1753) to smells, tastes, and sounds. As Galileo wrote in 1623, “I think
breathlessly write in his private philosophical journal, “I won- that tastes, odors, colours, and so on are no more than mere
der not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious tho’ amazing names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned,
truth, I rather wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the liv-
it out before. ‘tis no witchcraft to see.” (Notebooks, in The Works ing creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped
of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne eds A.A. Luce, T.E. Jessop, away and annihilated” (The Assayer, p.274). Following the way
n.279.) Berkeley had been trying to fit together a number of of ideas, then, colours and other sensations are features of
beliefs, and he found that he could not do it. Then, in a single ideas, not of bodies. The world of our experience is a carnival
insight, he saw that one belief frustrated his project, and that of smells and tastes and sounds and colour, but we carry it
he could do without it. about in our minds through a reality that is in itself silent, dark,
The problem lay in fitting together a belief in perception by flavourless. That is what I mean when I say that the way of
means of ideas in immaterial minds, a belief in atoms, a trust in ideas leads the perceiver into isolation.
common sense, and a belief in matter. It was the last belief Moreover, this isolated state of man invites the sceptic to
Berkeley suddenly recognized that he had never needed and ask: How can you be sure that every property of ideas is not like
that by discarding it he could make the others fit together. colours, and just in the mind? How can you be sure there really
This freed him from a double puzzle of being isolated from is a material world at all? On this point the sceptic Pierre Bayle
the physical world in two separate, if related, ways. joked in his philosophical Dictionaire Historique et Critique
(1697) that the way of ideas had produced a stronger sceptical
Travelling The Perilous Way of Ideas challenge than was known even in antiquity.
Let us begin with the sort of isolation caused by a belief in
material things plus a belief in ideas. “Today the new philosophy takes a stronger line [than classical
Looking back on early modern philosophy [that is, from the Pyrrhonian skepticism]: heat, smell, colours, etc, are not in the
early seventeenth century on], Thomas Reid (1710-96) objects of our senses; these are modifications of my soul; I know that
observed that his predecessors had followed the ‘way of ideas’. bodies are not those that appear to me. Some wanted to exclude
In this observation he was certainly correct. The reason was extension and movement, but it wasn’t possible, for if the objects of
that early modern philosophers could see no way for material sense seem coloured to us, or hot, cold, or odorous, while they are
bodies to be present in immaterial minds: how could a material not these things, why can’t they seem extended and figured, at rest
tree be in the mind of a man? Instead there must be some and in motion, while being none of these?” (My translation.)
intermediate entity, an idea. Ideas tie together the material
world of bodies and the immaterial plane of minds, for ideas Bayle wrote toward the end of the seventeenth century, and
can represent bodies but are present in minds. Some interac- even then his argument was hardly new. The father of early
tion between someone’s sense organs and the tree causes the modern philosophy, René Descartes (1596-1650), had consid-
idea to come into being with properties so as to represent the ered the question of the trustworthiness, or not, of our percep-
tree, enabling the person to perceive it. tion of an external world as the very origin of his philosophy,
There was, of course, a great deal of dispute as to how ideas and the power of the sceptical threat can be seen in just how far
ought to be understood. Antoine Arnauld (1612-94) thought that great man and his successors were from answering it. In the
of ideas as aspects of the act of perception. Berkeley found this end, Descartes argued that it would be inconsistent with the
view implausible. It seemed to him that a more robust under- goodness of God for Him to deceive us by presenting us with
standing of ideas was needed, and he found it in the works of ideas of a material world with no material world corresponding
Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) and John Locke (1632- to them. The empiricist Locke argued that a certain “sensitive
1704). Both men took ideas to be not the perceptual acts knowledge” answered scepticism – this being knowledge “of the
themselves. With this Berkeley was in full agreement: what- existence of particular external objects, [gained] by that percep-
George Berkeley
by Darren McAndrew 2016
tion and consciousness we have of the actual entrance of ideas Does Scripture say that God created a material heaven and earth?
from them” (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4.2.12, The sceptic shows how deep the isolation of early modern
1689). Malebranche appealed to Scripture: God is said to have man is with regard to bodies and his perception of them. It is
created heaven and earth, after all. here the conflict arises with Berkeley’s trust in common sense.
These arguments are all, and in the same way, question-beg- He wrote:
ging. The sceptic’s question is whether ideas do in fact reveal a
material world. To say that God would be a deceiver if they did- “Upon the common principles of philosophers, we are not assured
n’t, or that our awareness of ideas goes even a whit toward show- of the existence of things from their being perceived. And we are
ing that they do, is to assume what is to be established. And in taught to distinguish their real nature from that which falls under
order to deflate Malebranche’s reply, the sceptic need only ask, our senses. Hence arise scepticism and paradoxes. It is not enough,
A
re you ready for the ultimate trick question? Here it procedure by stripping the complexity down into its compo-
is: Am I me, and are you? That is: do I and you exist? nents, and you will see that there’s no deus ex machina involved.
Only a yes/no answer is allowed. It wouldn’t be good The whole was only ever a sum of its parts, even if it seemed to
philosophy to say that you ‘sort of’ exist, nor that our minds to acquire a quality of being more than that.
you are a working assumption pending further investigation. It It’s the same with the brain, the materialists argue. Really
is also essential that we don’t just wriggle out of this question complex complexity can even convince itself (ie, me) that it is
by playing with words and definitions. someone, a self, an entity which feels real and substantial and
The easiest way forward would be to defer to the great minds of intrinsic worth. Yet my innermost self is not a ‘pearl’ – an
that have been wrestling with this problem over the last few enduring thing of substance – but a bundle of properties that
decades. Consensus among them, reached by reasoning based on temporarily come together to make a person. Whatever my
the evidence of brain science, is steadily hardening. I’m going to beliefs about God and the soul, I am nothing more than a (per-
attempt to show why this consensus is not only wrong – because haps gloriously deluded) biological automaton. Daniel Dennett
it is based on a dodgy premise – but dangerously misguided. has described the self as a ‘Center of Narrative Gravity’, by
which he means that I am no different to a fictional character
The Materialist Orthodoxy which I and the world make up, and that my sense of self is
Many contemporary philosophers begin by ruling out the similar to my centre of gravity: I have to have one, although I
question ‘Who are you?’ as only of interest to an anthropolo- can’t locate it precisely. However, I wouldn’t be able to func-
gist: ‘who’ defines a person by his relationship to other people tion if I knew that I was merely a coalition of my members, so
– it doesn’t shed any light on human nature. The crunch ques- nature pulls a confidence trick. In effect, it lies to me through
tion, which is the only one a physical scientist would allow, is my brain. In order to live well in society and to be motivated in
‘What am I?’ pursuit of its own interests, the organism needs to have the
Now we’re dealing with stuff. What else is there to deal illusion of separateness, autonomy, and significance. Therefore,
with? If everything that exists is stuff – matter – then it is obvi- I need to believe in a self that is substantial, coherent and sus-
ous that if I am, I must be something too. It would also help to tainable; above all, a self which matters. That I only think I
say where I am because, as Eccles in The Goon Show put it, exist has been called the ‘self illusion’ by Bruce Hood (in The
“Everybody’s got to be somewhere.” Self Illusion: Why There is No ‘You’ Inside Your Head, 2012).
Well, there’s only one place I can be. Whatever my self is, it When this is understood, I can begin to see myself in an
must be me the animal, the biological organism, or part thereof. entirely different way: I am better thought of as not a noun but
So I am inseparable from my body: I move around with it, I rely a verb. What I call my ‘self’ is really my brain ‘braining’.
on it for input and output. When my body dies I will disappear. An intellectual consensus is coalescing around this materialist
The search for me can be narrowed down further. Although (or physicalist) view. Many of our greatest contemporary thinkers
I have a foot, I would not say that I am a foot. Rather, the part are quite happy to announce in public, without any irony, that
of me that perceives and thinks is behind my eyes. “Logically,” they do not really exist. It has almost become a badge of macho
says neurobiologist Dick Swaab, “you are your brain” (We Are pride (they’re mostly men, as it happens). It is as if we are in the
Our Brains, 2014). grip of a new fashion for personal nihilism. The theme around the
End of mystery. I am found and explained. All that is left is year 1000 AD was the end of the world; in the twenty-first century
to sort out the neuroscience of why I feel who I feel. I may still we have gone one better and declared the end of ourselves.
believe that there’s more to me than one and a half kilos of elec-
trically active meat – that my rich inner life is more than bio- I Confess To Heresy
logical. I dream, I create, I engage in abstract thought. Above It is not respectable any more to speak up for dualism, the notion
all, unlike any other species I know of, I am self-conscious and that there are two kinds of stuff, the material and the immaterial,
able to tell another being about myself. There must be some- body and mind. But I would like to point out that the materialist’s
thing more going on, surely? argument as I have set it out above does not run smoothly from
Not necessarily. Experiments with computers have shown premise to conclusion, and that dualism is not just a theoretical
that if you start with simple building materials (basically, stuff possibility. It is quite literally inescapable. You are living proof.
capable of binary logic functions) arrange them into complex Half of me does not exist; or at least, I cannot prove to you
patterns, then pile complexity on complexity and let the sys- that it exists – isn’t that the same thing? And I assume it’s the
tem run by itself, adding to its knowledge by learning, then same for you. I can give you independent confirmation of my
you can get extraordinary manifestations of artificial intelli- name, occupation, address, passport number; but I find it hard,
gence that can fool an observer into thinking it’s conscious. if not impossible, to convey to your senses anything about what
The resultant ‘being’ appears uncanny, as if it must have been I think of as the real me – the invisible, intangible, internal sen-
instituted by a supernatural creator. But not at all: reverse the sations of which only I am aware, and which are wholly beyond
words and demonstration. ine objectively, in the sense of carrying out an experiment free
The point I’m making is that the materialist argument as set of bias and error.
out above only works in as far as we must speak objectively • I am experienced differently from the outside and the inside,
about the universe, and specifically, about human beings, with no join between the two perspectives.
including when you speak about someone else. You, to me, are • I am the only possible expert on this aspect of myself.
an object like any other physical thing. I have no direct access • I am unique. For all I know, I may not even be like you.
to what goes on in your mind. From outside it is quite clear to
me that you are an animal, and that everything about you can I literally cannot put my finger on myself. I don’t have mass
be expressed in terms of zoology. If you say you are a con- or volume. I am not solid, liquid, gas, or even another kind of
scious, thinking being, I may give you the benefit of the doubt, physical substance. Some may think I am merely my brain
but I am not going to accept it as demonstrated fact in the same braining, and so conclude that my believing in my conscious
way that I know your hand can hold things. self is an ‘ego trick’, but I have good reason to believe that my
However, if I turn my attention inward, everything changes. doing so is not a trick: I am proof to myself (but not to you)
Unlike all the phenomenon I have experienced through my that there is more to me than matter. I know it, because I am
senses (including reading about them), I have certain unusual it. This is more than “I think, therefore I am.” Trite as this
properties: may sound, I know I am because I am.
• I am the only substance in the universe of which I have inti- The Nothing Beyond Words
mate direct knowledge. I immediately crash into an insurmountable problem in talking
• I am the only substance I can experience that I cannot exam- about this to you. How do I describe this self that I know to
H
I suspect that many of the Nowhere Men see the absurdity of egel’s philosophical influence is out of all proportion to the
the position they have chosen, although they don’t know how actual value of his work, which just goes to show that writing a
to get out of it. Significantly, when David Hume absented great deal of impenetrable prose can get you a long way.
himself from existence, he left a door of hope open behind As a young man, Hegel was initially an enthusiastic supporter of the
him: “If anyone, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, French Revolution. Disillusioned by the failure of the revolution, Hegel
thinks he has a different notion of himself… he may be in the determined to signal his profound sadness by never again writing in a
right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this way anyone could understand (okay, I’m speculating here, but there
particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and has to be some reason for his incomprehensible style).
continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is History, Hegel taught, is the unfolding of the ‘Absolute Idea’ or ‘World
no such principle in me.” Spirit/Mind’. Through a series of contradictions in social structures,
If we are to paddle our way out of the whirlpool of oblivion Reason gradually but inevitably works itself out as human history, so
to which the materialists would apparently consign us, we must that “the history of the world is none other than the progress of the
start by accepting that we are subjective creatures, and that consciousness of freedom.” With me so far? Hegel believed that by fol-
reductionism in the case of consciousness only leads to misun- lowing his thinking we would one day come to know the world as it
derstanding. If you think you are observing reality objectively, really is. This moment, in turn, would represent the historically transcen-
not subjectively, you should not forget that you are in it, way dental stage when Mind – the active force driving history along – comes
above your neck. to know itself. Only now would we live in perfect freedom. Freedom, in
We shouldn’t place all our trust only in branches of human other words, is attained by living rationally in a rationally ordered politi-
knowledge prefixed ‘neuro’. To do so takes us into an endless cal state, which means living in accordance with Mind. . . To sum up, if
loop of the human self exorcising the human self. On the con- you choose not to live in accordance with Reason, you are living irra-
trary, quantum physics suggests that we must allow there to be tionally, and History will simply flatten you as it rolls on by. Hegel also
different levels of explanation to any given phenomena and modestly believed that he had discerned the underlying structure of
that sometimes you just have to accept apparent strangeness reality, which is the Idea as manifest across space. Our minds are simply
for what it is. So could I be both a ‘pearl of self’ and a ‘bundle part of Mind working itself out through time and space. As part of his
of perceptions’, depending on which direction I look at myself self-contained, self-referential philosophical system, he also has a lot to
from, and at which moment? say about politics, logic, religion, art and more besides.
True intellectual courage lies not in declaring yourself pub- As today, people in the Nineteenth Century loved this kind of thing,
lically to be nothing, and your person a mere animal brain and crowds flocked to hear Hegel speak. He was, alas, stopped dead in
whirring away in the service of genes. It consists in accepting his historical tracks in 1831 by cholera. Perhaps this was History’s way
that you are something more than that, even if you can’t say of flattening an irritating, if not irrational, philosopher.
exactly what. © TERENCE GREEN 2016
© NICK INMAN 2016 Terence is a peripatetic (though not Peripatetic) writer, historian and
Nick Inman’s most recent book is A Guide To Mystical France: lecturer. He holds a PhD in the history of political thought from
Secrets, Mysteries, Sacred Sites, published by Findhorn Press. He is Columbia University, NYC, and lives with his wife and their dog in
also the author of Who On Earth Are You?, which began as a letter Wellington, NZ. He blogs at hardlysurprised.blogspot.co.nz
to his bank apologizing for not being able to confirm his true identity. (For more about the immortal Hegel see p.56 and future issues...)
D
o rocks have minds? A minority of modern philoso- to have experienced union with the anima mundi through ecsta-
phers are prepared (but only, perhaps, after some tic meditation. Another Neoplatonist, Iamblichus, believed not
prodding) to admit they believe the answer is ‘yes’ only that the universe was conscious, but that it was packed with
– or at least, ‘sort of’. In the past decade, a number spirits along the lines of The Tempest’s Ariel, who could, through
of bona fide academics, such as Australia’s Freya Mathews, the appropriate rites, be called upon to do our bidding – including
USA’s David Skrbina, and the UK’s Galen Strawson, have by animating (literally ‘ensouling’) stone statues.
emerged as champions of panpsychism: the view that not only The Christian church tried to stamp out such flagrant
rocks, but everything in the universe is – in some sense, and to paganism, but it was never entirely successful, and by the Six-
some extent – conscious. teenth Century the Renaissance’s interest in ancient spirituality
was all over Europe. For instance, the alchemist Paracelsus,
The Roots of Universal Consciousness along with originating the bacterial theory of disease, believed
The idea that inanimate objects have some kind of conscious- that the elements of earth, air, fire and water each had animat-
ness isn’t entirely new. Alfred North Whitehead promoted it ing spirits, ‘elementals’, who could be invoked for magic ritu-
early in the Twentieth Century. Going even further back, early als. In the case of earth – and for our purpose, rocks – the ele-
societies apparently believed that the natural world is popu- mentals are gnomes. Meanwhile, the Hermetic philosopher
lated by intelligent spirits who could control the environment Giordano Bruno claimed “there is nothing that does not pos-
– think of the naiads and driads of Greek myth, for example. sess a soul.” Even the comparatively level-headed English nat-
By the historical period, such animism was on the wane – but ural philosopher William Gilbert, in his treatise On the Magnet
it wasn’t dead. In the Sixth Century BCE, the earliest recorded (1600), argued that magnets had souls, and that compasses
Greek philosopher, Thales, famously wrote “All things are full pointed north because they were attracted by the earth’s soul.
of gods.” Aristotle reported that Thales said this because he Thales and Plato would have nodded approvingly.
noticed that a certain kind of rock, lodestone, has a mysterious
power of attracting iron. So individual gods dwelt in the individ- The Matter with Modern Minds
ual lodestones, and were able to reach out and drag iron nails But why would modern philosophers, raised on the type of
towards them. If such spirits lived in magnetic rocks, Thales view bequeathed by Newton that the universe is essentially a
reasoned, why shouldn’t they also inhabit other objects? vast mechanism, ever flirt with the claim that inanimate objects
It didn’t stop with Thales. Plato, writing in the Fourth Cen- are conscious? The answer is in the question. The universe-as-
tury BCE, believed that the universe as a whole was a conscious, machine metaphor so beloved of early modern scientists
living entity, with an anima mundi or ‘world soul’ (anima is Latin implies that the universe has analysable working parts and that
for ‘soul’, and later writers used it to translate the Greek word we can learn to predict its clock-like behaviour. But clocks do
Plato used, psyche, which can mean either ‘soul’ or ‘mind’). Plato’s not, most would say, have minds. Yet the universe includes
mystically-inclined later followers, the Neoplatonists, went even minds. We know it does, because we have some of them. But
further. In the third century CE, one of them, Plotinus, claimed how can our minds possibly be related to the matter that makes
up our machine-like bodies and the rest of this clockwork uni-
verse? How for example can my mind – not my brain, but my
consciousness – move my hand just by thinking?
This problem has haunted philosophers for centuries. The
Eighteenth Century Anglo-Irish bishop George Berkeley tried
to exorcise it by abolishing the mysterious mind-matter rela-
tion through his audacious claim that there’s no such thing as
matter. There are only minds, and ideas in minds. Allegedly
material objects, such as rocks – or even brains – are really just
ideas in the minds of perceivers looking at them, or in God’s
mind, if there’s no one else looking [see elsewhere this issue for
Berkeley, Ed]. But this mental-only solution to the problem of
mind’s interaction with matter, called idealism, never caught on.
Samuel Johnson certainly wasn’t impressed. “I refute it thus,”
he said, kicking a pebble. In his eyes, he thought he could
prove that the pebble was a chunk of matter by kicking it.
The Twentieth Century English philosopher Gilbert Ryle
went in the opposite direction. He insisted there’s no such
thing as mind, if by ‘mind’ we mean some separate ghostly
entity that inhabits the body until death severs the connection.
B
aruch Spinoza was a Seventeenth Century Dutch from the successes of modern science, which is itself largely a
philosopher of Portuguese Jewish descent, and a lens reductionist enterprise – meaning that it tends to explain the
grinder by trade. Though mild-mannered and agree- complex world in terms of layers of increasingly basic con-
able, he was excommunicated by his community for stituents. Mathematical idealism is inspired in particular by the
his ‘abominable heresies’. His most important book Ethics successes of computer science in generating mathematically-
(1677) is concerned with presenting the implications of God’s based models of worlds; in fact, so successfully that the idea that
nature for human happiness. It might surprise you if I said that our universe is itself a computer simulation produced by an
this work is quite relevant for our time, and that it may even advanced civilization has entered the mainstream in philosophy
help us understand some perplexing issues in contemporary sci- (see ‘Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?’, Philosophical
ence, but this is precisely what I will argue in this article. Quarterly, 53(211), Nick Bostrom, 2003).
Specifically, I will try to show that Spinoza’s metaphysics, as However, both positions are ultimately unsatisfactory. For
well as being a good system through which to understand the example, it’s not clear that the qualities of our experiences can
behavior of elementary particles as described by quantum be entirely reduced to or expressed in terms of physical things.
mechanics, also allows us to demystify the mind-body problem And if the world is composed from mathematical truths, the
in cognitive science. question then arises, how we can have any knowledge of these
truths, given that they are outside space and time? Further-
more, if we suppose that these mathematical objects are mental
in nature, we could end up with a circular argument: if, as the
reductionists suppose, the mind can be reduced to the activity
in the brain; and the activity of the brain can be reduced to
interactions between nerve cells; these cellular processes to
interactions between molecules; molecules to atoms; atoms to
subatomic particles; subatomic particles to space-time points;
space-time points to sets of numbers; and finally, sets of num-
bers to the mathematical laws relating them – which some
would argue are essentially mental entities – this then loops us
right back to where we started (see Reality: A Very Short Intro-
duction, by Jan Westerhoff, 2011).
Baruch
Spinoza Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Outline
(1632-1677) Yet before we abandon the metaphysical enterprise to the skep-
tical view that what underlies the world we experience is essen-
Two Modern Metaphysical Positions tially unknowable (or worse, uninteresting), let us consider
The branch of philosophy known as metaphysics is not easy to Spinoza’s thought, which, as you will see, is surprisingly com-
define, but we can say that generally it is concerned with the patible with modern science.
basic categories or ideas that underpin reality. It deals, for Spinoza held that nature – which he equated with God – is
instance, with substances, causality, identity and emergence, and absolutely perfect, determined, infinite, and timeless. This infi-
it relies on our ability to reason about things that cannot be nite ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura) is all-encompassing. We
directly observed or measured. In modern science there is a great are all part of it and there is nothing outside of it. We human
emphasis on observation and measurement, which unfortunately beings have access to two attributes of this infinite Being – exten-
tends to obscure the importance of theory in science. The disci- sion and thought – both of which express its infinite essence, and
pline of metaphysics can help us make our worldview more com- they correspond with each other, because they are expressions
prehensible by integrating insights from science into our overall of the same reality. Besides thought and extension there are
understanding of reality, which cannot rely on observation alone. infinitely many other attributes of the infinite Being, to which
Two influential contemporary metaphysical views are scientific we do not have access but which are nonetheless expressions of
reductionism, which is essentially a materialist position, and math- the same Being, which is, moreover, unconstrained by time.
ematical idealism, which holds that the basis of space and time is To appreciate how novel this thinking was, it is worth
not subatomic particles, but rather, certain mathematical truths. remembering that during Spinoza’s time the predominant view
Both positions derive from long traditions in Western thought, of the universe in Europe was still the medieval notion inher-
and both have merits. Scientific reductionism derives its force ited from Aristotle and Ptolemy of a finite cosmos. As Joseph
Mind-Body Correspondence
CARTOON © CHRIS MADDEN 2016
I
n the first part of this essay (in Issue 116), I suggested to find plausible ways of filling in the background: “Perhaps he
that philosophers have been wrong in thinking that they is ill, and it is an achievement even to do this; perhaps this ges-
were engaged in a hunt for a single and infallible answer ture has some religious or political significance and he is a
to moral questions. They can hope to get nearer to right brave man who will defy the gods or the rulers.”
answers, to get further from some demonstrably wrong ones, But these stories must still be made plausible, and without
and to get a better grasp of the kind of wrongness that is caus- that plausibility the claim is still unintelligible. In fact, it turns
ing most trouble here. But none of this will be final. out that emotivism cannot provide any escape from that
In his book of 1739, A Treatise of Human Nature, David requirement. “In this way,” says Philippa, “even feelings are
Hume famously claimed that it was impossible to logically vulnerable to facts.” As she points out, there are many aspects
derive judgments about values, about what ought to be the involved here:
case, solely from facts about the world. Here Hume showed no
interest in the detailed meaning of the value-judgments them- “How exactly the concepts of harm, advantage, benefit, importance are
selves, simply treating them as solid, ultimate units. His point related to the different moral concepts such as rightness, obligation,
was only that they were matters of feeling, not of reason. goodness, duty and virtue is something that needs the most patient
When I and my Oxford friends Elizabeth Anscombe, investigation. But that they are so related seems undeniable, and it fol-
Philippa Foot and Iris Murdoch began to look into ethics in the lows that a man cannot make his own personal decision about the con-
early 1940s this was still the prevailing view. It had just been siderations which are to count as evidence in morals.”
reinforced in 1936 by the publication of A.J. Ayer’s best-selling (Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices, 1978, p.106)
book Language, Truth and Logic, which outdid Hume in preach-
ing an extreme emotivism, a reduction of all moral matters to So the background by which moral judgments are explained
various kinds of feeling. Philosophers in general tried to accept cannot just take human feelings for granted. It cannot treat
this message of Ayer’s in spite of its alarming implications. them as separate, ultimate units. If we say, for instance, that
They were still convinced by Hume’s account of the matter. Iago resented Othello because he thought his dignity was not
But there was a good deal of uneasiness about its details. being well enough appreciated, we are supplying a familiar
When we were first on the scene, the newest variant was explanation from human nature and we will naturally go on to
‘realism’ ... that in this sense of the word there is no history of philosophy. “At first sight you cannot tell what he is trying to say. But if you will
The ‘realists’ thought that the problems with which philosophy is con- think carefully about the passage you will see that he is answering a
cerned were unchanging... they thought that the same problems which question which he has taken the trouble to formulate in his mind with
were discussed in modern ethical theory were discussed in Plato’s great precision. What you are reading is his answer. Now tell me what
Republic and Aristotle’s Ethics, and that it was a man’s duty to ask himself the question was? ...
whether Aristotle or Kant was right on the points over which they For me, then, there were not two separate sets of questions to be asked,
differ.” (Collingwood, An Autobiography, 1939 pp.58-9) one historical and one philosophical, about a given passage in a given
philosophical author. There was one set only; historical.” (pp.71-2)
In short, they believed that philosophy dealt in doctrines
which were fixed units like tiles or tablets of stone, each Someone who has grasped this approach is not likely to
inscribed with its own permanent message. Instead of this, shift to, for instance, the combative style in which Colin
Collingwood was suggesting that we may need to find out in McGinn was taught to philosophize (see part 1). But the temp-
our search a question which is quite unexpected, perhaps a tation to tidy everything up into a fixed set of stone tablets is
question that has never actually been formulated before – as, evidently still a strong one. And the heirs of the realists still
for instance, clearly happened when people began to think continue to haunt us in the orthodoxies that reign today.
about quanta. And this new question will itself have come from This suggestion of ours – this sweeping (or ‘comprehen-
the answers to further questions, so that we need to look round sive’) call for an end to the artificial separation between values
to find the whole structure which is the source of the trouble. and facts – may seem a bit drastic. It is not, of course, usual for
When somebody’s thought puzzles you (says Collingwood): philosophers, or for scholars generally, to call for destructive
A
n elaborate faux Roman villa, replete with coffered nomic connoisseurship. In antiquity it was the exact opposite.
ceilings and a lavish ‘Vesuvian’ color scheme, rises Epicurus (341-270 BC) abandoned the city of Athens for a
above the Pacific coast at Malibu. Why location house and garden outside its walls. The communards who fol-
scouts didn’t seize upon it for the Coen brothers’ lowed him adopted the pleasure principle as their guide: the
comedy Hail, Caesar is anyone’s guess. But it’s best thought of as purpose of life is to maximise pleasure. But they understood
another kind of prop. Built by John Paul Getty to house his art pleasure not as the fulfillment of desire so much as its rational
collection, the Getty Villa connects the contemporary world mastery. The richest pleasure of all, Epicurus believed, was
with an ancient philosophy that could change the world for the freedom from suffering. “By pleasure,” he insisted, “we mean
better; or, at least, make a difference. Getty modelled his villa the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul.”
on a partially buried seaside mansion at Roman Herculaneum, A troubled soul, Epicurus believed, had two main causes: fear
a victim of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is known as of death, and runaway desire. He tried to banish the first by
‘the Villa of the Papyri’ because it housed a vast collection of pushing back against superstition. There is nothing to fear in
papyrus manuscripts. Most of these are on Epicurean themes. death, he taught, because when you’re alive death is elsewhere,
Epicureanism was the world’s first ‘green’ philosophy. When and when you’re dead you won’t be there – or words to that
people turn to the ancient therapeutic philosophies, or arts of effect. Then, once irrational fears of the afterlife are swept
life, they tend to look to resolute Stoicism for succor. But Epi- aside, the Epicurean can attend to this one finite life. And as for
cureanism, which insists that we learn to be happy with less, is a desire, Epicurus counseled a disposition very close to Eastern
better fit with the anxieties du jour. ascetic simplicity: we are to shun the pursuit of unnecessary
The reason Epicureanism is not often mentioned in this con- pleasures – of new sensations, more possessions – and instead
text is that for more than two thousand years it has been misun- take deep pleasure in simple things. As some of the few surviv-
derstood. Today Epicureanism is regarded as a form of gastro- ing fragments of writings by Epicurus explain, he aimed to live
GETTY VILLA © BOBAK HA’ERI 2007
“The host and keeper of this place, where you will find the pleasure
of the highest good, will offer you freely cakes of barley and fresh
spring water. This garden will not tease your appetite with the dain- "Lyrical and deft….
ties of art but satisfy it with the bounties of nature. Will you not be a [LIGHT] is an eye-catching display,
happy guest?”
reflecting and refracting like a gemstone.”
-- Nature
The Epicurean Cosmos
Attempting to explain the movement of the world’s con-
stituents, Epicurus held that although its atoms tend to fall in a
straight line, they are liable now and then to deviate, or swerve.
This primitive version of the particle theory of matter has pro-
found psychological and ethical implications, since the swerve
in nature allows for human freedom. By imbuing the basic
stuff of matter with an erratic, unpredictable quality, a ‘free
movement’, Epicurus hoped to release mankind from the
chains of predestination. Without this swerve, none of us are
responsible for our actions, since they would have then been
determined, as a second-century AD Epicurean, Diogenes of
Oinoanda, explained. The end result of a deterministic world
is that “all admonition and censure are nullified and not even
the wicked” can be justly punished.
Our planet is one among many, Epicurus argues. But Epi-
curus’s philosophy resolutely denies the existence of a spiritual
or abstract, supernatural world – such as was offered by the
Platonic, then Christian traditions, and even Stoic cosmology,
which insists on a determined universe infused with the breath
of a cosmic god. Epicureanism, most importantly, rejects all
thought of a postponement of happiness to a paradise in the
heavens. At the point of death, Epicurus believed, we simply Light
dissolve into the basic constituents of the universe, the atoms. begins in myth and ends in mastery.
It was this courageous questioning of received ideas about
religion that encouraged his followers to picture Epicurus as a
Between lies a 3,000 year journey of
liberator, a breaker of shackles, a champion of humanity – a
saviour. “Therefore Superstition is now in her turn cast down philosophy, scripture, painting,
and trampled underfoot,” writes Lucretius in celebration of his photography, and more.
master’s atheism, “whilst we by the victory are exalted high as
heaven.” Lucretius views Epicurus as a philosophical freedom From the Ancient Greeks to the Romantic
fighter who has turned religion on its head so as to exalt man – Poets, from the sunrise at Stonehenge to
an image that was to exert a formative influence many cen- the latest LEDs, from the oldest creation
turies later on the young Karl Marx. There is much of Epicu- stories to the newest lasers,
rus – who was the subject of Marx’s doctoral dissertation – in
the young revolutionary’s early thinking. The Marxist notion
of the philosopher as change-agent takes its heroic colours
Light:
from Lucretius’ celebration of Epicurus the liberator. And A Radiant History... shines.
Marx’s vision of the Communist utopia, in which a man might
“hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the
evening, criticize after dinner” has a distinct Epicurean cast.
Happy Simplicity hand, it is remarkable just how directly the Epicurean ideal
The Epicurean message, stripped to its essence, really is a call speaks to many contemporary needs. In antiquity this ideal was
to liberation – from a superstitious fear of death, and from distilled to a quatrain of spare yet beautiful phrases:
destructive desire. Its less-is-more ethos is remarkably, improb-
ably, providentially relevant, twenty-three centuries after it was “Nothing to fear in God;
first articulated. As the late College de France scholar of Nothing to feel in Death;
antique philosophy, Pierre Hadot, explained, it enjoins us to Good can be attained;
“learn to be content with what satisfies fundamental needs, Evil can be endured.”
while renouncing what is superfluous. A simple formula, but
one that cannot but imply a radical upheaval of our lives.” This tetrapharmakos, or ‘fourfold remedy’, shows us how to
If translated into contemporary terms, this thinking might achieve the Epicurean ideal of being happy in this moment, to
compel us to temper our mania for consumption; for more stop postponing our joy – to, in the famous formulation of the
cars, more gadgets – more stuff. What gives Epicureanism its Roman Epicurean poet Horace, “Seize the day!”
contemporary usefulness is that it talks not of an angst and
guilt-ridden need to make do with less – the dilemma, broadly Epicurean Economics
speaking, of eco-minded people – but of the rich pleasure to be Just how practical for contemporary people is the ‘radical
had from doing so. It’s essentially an egoistic or selfish philoso- upheaval’ (in Hadot’s phrase) implied by Epicureanism?
phy with altruistic consequences. So the philosophy of the gar- Chicago University philosopher Martha Nussbaum, a world
den addresses an urgent ethical question: how do we manage authority on Hellenistic philosophy, argues, “The whole world
the threat of global warming caused by human over-industrial- cannot organize into little Epicurean communities; such com-
isation, and the crisis of environmental degradation that ulti- munities are always parasitic upon the economic and political
mately follows? Epicurus answered this question long before it life of the larger world.” And yet I would counsel against a too-
was a question by invoking the idea of natural limits as a guide ready association of the Epicurean spirit of retreat with a bare,
to action: “He who understands the limits of life knows how primitive, passive, parasitical existence. The nineteenth cen-
easy it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want and tury French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau – little known out-
make the whole of life complete and perfect,” he wrote. side his native land, although he was the first to coin what
“Hence he has no longer any need of things which are not to would become the Durkheimian notion of anomie – wrote a
be won save by labour and conflict.” Time and again Epicurus beautiful work of Epicurean advocacy and analysis titled La
and his followers return to the theme of limits: “One must Morale d’Epicure. In it he points out that the lines with which
regard wealth beyond what is natural as of no more use than Lucretius ends Book Five of his magisterial poem De Rerum
water to a container that is full to overflowing.” Natura amount to a “doctrine du progress intellectual et moral de
It might seem to make no sense to airlift a philosophy of l’homme” and are a passionate hymn to creativity and social
deep antiquity twenty-three centuries on from its origin and dynamism achieved by building upon simplicity:
expect it to precisely dovetail with contemporary needs, and
yet it is eerily prophetic. Robert and Edward Skidelsky’s 2013 “Seafaring and farming, city walls and laws
treatise, How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life, is a cri- And arms, roads, clothing, and all such other things,
tique of exponential economic growth that opens with a quote All the rewards and delights of life,
from Epicurus: “Nothing is enough for the man for whom Songs, pictures, statues curiously wrought,
enough is too little.” And a few lines from the Epicurean poet All these they learnt by practice gradually
Lucretius, penned at the height of paganism, also strike home And by experiments of eager minds
in the age of the smartphone: As step by step they made their forward way.
So each thing in its turn by slow degrees
“While we can’t get what we want, that seems Time doth bring forward to the lives of men,
Of all things most desirable, And reason lifts it to the light of day.
Once got, For as one concept followed on another
We must have something else.” Men saw it form and brighten in their minds
Till by their arts they scaled the highest peak.”
It should be remembered, however, that the philosophy of
Epicurus is very old, and despite its contemporary resonance, is In ancient statuary, Socrates is invariably pug-nosed and
now and then rather strange. For example, believing in the ugly. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Emperor, looks like a guy you
absolute authority of the senses, Epicurus considered the sun can trust. Epicurus, eyes set deeply behind a furrowed brow, is
no bigger than an orange because it seemed that size to the permanently cranky. He’s no voluptuary, no gastronomic bore.
naked eye. Even in the domain of ethics, where Epicureanism is He’s a radical with a burning idea. It burns fiercely still.
at its most attractive, its various dictates mix the reasonable – © LUKE SLATTERY 2016
“There are three motives to injurious acts among men – hatred, Luke Slattery is a Sydney-based writer, and an honorary associate in
envy and contempt; and these the wise man will overcome with the University of Sydney’s department of Classics and Ancient His-
reason” – with the ludicrous: “The wise man will not make fine tory. He is the author of four books, including Reclaiming Epicurus
speeches…Nor will he dribble when drunk.” On the other (Penguin, 2012).
Each week, Corey Mohler draws a new Existential Comics strip and posts it at http://existentialcomics.com
The Epicureans, despite being avowed hedonists and the modern connota- hangovers), but simple pleasures that fulfill basic desires (hungry, sleep,
tions of the word, weren't really interested in the sort of sensual pleasure etc). Likewise you should avoid excess or unnecessary desires such as
that we think of as hedonism. They believed that the most pleasurable life greed, lust, and domination over others. Their prescribed path might be
mostly consisted of avoiding pain and unpleasantness by leading a simple, viewed as boring by many modern and ancient readers: doing gardening,
tranquil life free of worries and suffering. The best kinds of pleasures were meditating, and avoid politics and conflict. Epicurus said that he could be
not excessive ones that could lead to displeasure down the line (such as satisfied with merely water, bread, weak wine and a “pot of cheese.”
A
ccording to Epicurus, “The discourse of the philoso- Now according to Emmy Van Deurzen, “psychotherapists,
pher that wouldn’t cure any human affectation is psychologists or psychiatrists often have considerable difficulties
indeed an empty one.” So in a society where cut- in recognizing the validity of philosophical questioning. They
backs are destroying education, where money is con- are reluctant to engage in theoretical discussions with clients and
sidered the main blessing and intelligence an embarrassment, patients who are seemingly disturbed, but who actually may be
what is the point of philosophy? I believe it is to keep us well. in search of meaning” (‘Existentialism And Existential Psy-
Whilst working in a semi-open prison as a counsellor, I chotherapy’, 1999). When people are distressed and questioning
came across several men who were nearing the end of very we often shut them up, either with pills or platitudes. But why
long sentences. They had all committed violent crimes, and shut them up, when what they really need is to think through
some of them had spent their entire adult lives in prison, hav- what has happened and who they are? I think the modern cliché
ing entered the system at sixteen or seventeen. They had spent I most dislike, posing as a piece of philosophy (but which is really
a long time being institutionalised; but had also been able to a form of shutting people up) is “Everything happens for a rea-
spend a long time thinking. Where else do you get the oppor- son.” Okay, explain sudden cot death. Or suicide bombing. Or
tunity to reflect so long on life, morality, and individual worth? my cat getting run over. Or domestic violence.
The problem for these men was that as the end of their Philosophy doesn’t shut us up, it opens us up. We don’t need
time inside drew near, they began to feel very distressed. It a university education to question, to wonder, to find meaning –
wasn’t just the thought of sorting out housing and money. It we just need space to reflect, and perhaps, to debate. We need to
wasn’t always about lost relationships or the world having tell our story, and in telling it find out who we are. We can do
moved on. It was a question of not knowing who they were: this alone, in our heads or on paper. However, to do it in the
about not having a purpose. company of another human is both challenging and reassuring.
A lot of prisoners are physically and mentally unwell and rely We can piece together ideas between us. And why stop at two? A
on medication to get through. Some of them go to counselling. host of questioning human beings can be a fine thing.
In counselling they are able to discuss the meaning of life. Anxi-
ety and depression cause a person to feel isolated. We tend to Choose Meaning
start questioning our existence when we are in crisis or have suf- Psychiatrist and philosopher Viktor Frankl, imprisoned in the
fered great loss. Philosophy can help us feel connected. As a Auschwitz concentration camp, asked himself why some prison-
counsellor with a doctorate in philosophy, I have found some of ers survived and some did not. What made the difference? He
my most memorable conversations have
occurred with a prisoner in a small room
be dealt with in whatever manner their there are limits. For example, if the son
parents chose, with little or no interference kills the father, then normally the son
from outsiders. Severe beatings, infanticide, would not be excused! The most impor-
child slavery, the selling of young girls as tant value in Confucianism is self-actu-
prostitutes, child betrothal, and foot-binding alization, so the son cultivating the
were not uncommon.” Is it true that Confu- father is part of the game. The son
cian ideas of filial piety say children are the should not be rebellious, but the father,
property of their parents? Doesn’t the Clas- like the son, has to improve. So in that
sic of Filial Piety teach that the basis of fil- connection, the reciprocal relationship
ial piety is love? is very much emphasized.
Korbin’s view is distorted, and I would
say erroneous, for a number of reasons. The Confucian philosopher Mencius once
In the Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius explained that it’s not a good idea for a
makes filial piety the root of all virtue, junzi [Confucian gentleman displaying
starting with the piety of the Emperor moral nobility] to teach his son, because if the
Tu
towards his parents and the good conse- student doesn’t do his work, the teacher may
quences of that for all his decisions. A become angry, which a father shouldn’t do.
disciple asks the Master (Confucius) Do we know why this is the case?
whether simple obedience to a father This is a very famous, yet sometimes
Weiming
can be called filial piety. Confucius overlooked, aspect of the Confucian tra-
reacts strongly (“What words are dition. The father-son relationship
these?”) and replies that the Emperor should always be cordial. Well, that’s not
who had ministers willing to argue with the right term. Loving and caring. So,
is a philosophy professor him would not lose his state and “the for example, I would teach my friend’s
father who had a son that would remon- children and my friend teaches my chil-
at Harvard University strate with him would not sink into the dren. This is because the discipline of
gulf of unrighteous deeds. Therefore the teacher is incompatible with the car-
and Chair of the Institute when a case of unrighteous conduct is ing of the father. A teacher-student rela-
for Advanced Humanistic concerned, a son must by no means tionship should be able to endure a
keep from remonstrating with his father, great deal of pressure because of the dis-
Studies at Peking nor a minister from remonstrating with cipline involved. But this is not desirable
his ruler.” So the son’s responsibility is in the father-son relationship. It’s all
University. He is an to help the father to become more right for the teacher to have indignation
ethicist and is one of the fatherly. The father disciplines the son, if the student doesn’t obey the rules, but
of course, but the son is obligated to see between a father and son, anger is coun-
leading lights of to it that the father acts according to the terproductive.
fatherly principle.
New Confucianism. According to Confucius’ approach to In the Analects, Mang Wubo asks Confucius
David Volodzko asked the Rectification of Names [ie Chinese about filial piety, and Confucius talks about
philosophy of language] if you occupy parents who worry if their children are sick.
him about the relevance the position of father, then that very Can you talk about this?
concept implies that you act in certain There are 109 references to humanity,
of Confucius today. ways. The father acts fatherly so that the or ren, in the Analects, so in this one
son will be able to act in filial reverence. case, Confucius says that in filial piety
So the notion of obeying an abusive it’s difficult to have the right attitude.
father is totally distorted and, I would Amy Chua, the ‘tiger mother’ [author of
say, against basic Confucian principles. the bestselling book Battle Hymn of the
The principle of reciprocity, shu, is Tiger Mother], who teaches at Yale, made
important in governing this relation- a few comments, after she became a
ship. The abuse of authoritarian power celebrity, that her older daughter is very
[in Chinese politics] occurred from time amenable to this kind of pressure, while
Voting For Self-Destruction Contractual Obligations For Life But suppose B and C make the addi-
DEAR EDITOR: Your Editorial in Issue DEAR EDITOR: In Issue 116, Stephen tional demand that A furnish them with
116 concluded that in the long term, the Faison argues that adherents of a social food, clothing and shelter as part of the
communal view of ordinary people contract must provide the means to contract. At best, this looks like a bad
should be trusted. I wouldn’t disagree food, clothing and shelter, since “the deal for A, one he would never accept
with that. But this is not the ‘Five Year contract recognizes that the individual without coercion. At worst, it seems like
Democracy’ model of politics we and possesses a natural right to survive.” Yet B and C are extorting A by agreeing not
other so-called ‘democratic’ countries how can a contract, a literal or figurative to attack him so long as he provides
have adopted. Take, for example, the piece of paper, recognize anything? Fai- them food, clothing and shelter.
environment. The very future of our son must mean that individuals recog- There are arguments for equitable
world depends on our solving a host of nize that each individual possesses a nat- distribution of basic goods, including
environmental issues. One of those is ural right to survive. But from where John Rawls’ social contract theory incor-
overuse of the world’s resources. If does this recognition arrive? In a state of porating a ‘veil of ignorance’; but I’m not
resource consumption continues at cur- nature, individuals are concerned only convinced that Faison is on the right
rent rates the Earth will finally become a with their own self-interests and will do track with his ‘license to steal’.
barren desert and a poisoned sea. Con- whatever necessary to advance those GREG HICKEY
certed international action to stop this is interests, including attacking others. If CHICAGO
needed now. And ‘Now means Now!’ individuals recognize the natural rights
But the good sense of the general of other individuals, they wouldn’t DEAR EDITOR: I’ve recently discovered
population will take a lot longer than attack one another and wouldn’t be in a Philosophy Now and I love it. But I am
five years to show. What politician, state of nature in the first place. Rather, struggling with Faison’s article, ‘The
knowing they must go to the polls individuals in a hypothetical state of Social Contract: A License to Steal’: I am
within that time-scale, is going to tell nature would agree to a social contract constantly distracted by the use of the
people that they must stop using their simply because that contract would terms ‘he’ and ‘man’ in contexts that are
cars, buying things they don’t need, and advance their interests by allowing them clearly intended to be gender-neutral. It’s
switching the heating on, instead of to live without constant threat of attack. particularly galling given that the article
wearing more jumpers? Our economy is Any claims about ‘natural rights’ are addresses the state’s responsibility to pro-
based on a capitalist system which needs unnecessary. tect citizens, yet it is so often women (and
ever-increasing use of the world’s Faison goes on to explain that the their children) whom the state fails to
resources to generate growth, jobs and state must furnish food, clothing and protect. Surely authors could be advised
profits. What politicians are going to tell shelter for all its individuals as though that sexist language is unacceptable in
companies more powerful than their the state were some nebulous entity Philosophy Now; and that if a submitted
governments that they must stop pro- external to the contractors. But the state manuscript includes sexist language, its
ducing junk and over-packaging it, chop- is merely the legal arrangement to author will be asked to correct it?
ping down forests to produce burgers which individuals agree when they enter VIRGINIA SIMPSON-YOUNG
and oil, and turning mineral-rich coun- into a social contract. It’s nothing more NEW SOUTH WALES
tries into big holes in the ground? than a collection of individuals, so Fai-
I’m usually quite an optimistic soul, son’s claim amounts to saying that some More Unfeasible Election Conditions
but not in this case. Our politicians can individuals must furnish food, clothing DEAR EDITOR: I’d like to address how
make a few of the right noises and sit and shelter for other individuals. Lorenzo Capitani wants to count votes in
through conferences at Kyoto and Consider a hypothetical state of his article ‘Informed Voting’ in Issue 116.
Copenhagen. But any of them who seri- nature where A is in a position of advan- Capitani argues that those with particular
ously suggested to the voters that they tage relative to B and C by virtue of A’s experience within a specific topic should
must stop consuming resources at any- superior natural abilities or material have their vote on that topic count more
thing like the level we do now would possessions. A could kill or steal from B than a layperson. For example, a police-
not get a sniff of the benches at West- or C, but B and C are strong enough man’s vote would count more than mine
minster or seats at the Senate in Wash- together to kill or steal from A. A, B and concerning issue of criminal justice.
ington. C all have reason to enter into a social This sounds reasonable, but why
MEURIG PARRI, contract in which each of them agrees to should we take working within a profes-
CAERDYDD refrain from attacking any other party. sion to be a guarantee of the quality of
I
mprisoned inside the walls of the Bastille in 1717 accused Master of the Art of Shaping Perceptions
of composing poems which mocked the family of France’s Seldom in one place more than a few years, Voltaire’s life was
ruling Regent, twenty-three-year-old writer François largely that of a wanderer. Never far from controversy, he often
Marie Arouet was hard at work on his first play. He later left a city in flight, as when faced with the prospect of another
boasted that his cell offered him quiet time to think. It seems term in the Bastille in 1723. The wily troublemaker this time
Arouet took this time to ruminate over the injustice of the contrived an alternative, commuting his sentence to a period of
charges: the subject of the play bears the unmistakable irony of exile in London. Voltaire’s career had to this point leaned more
satire. He chose to adapt Oedipus, the classic Greek incest toward literature than philosophy, but in England’s more laissez-
tragedy. The irony? The Regent, whose family Arouet had faire market of ideas, Voltaire started to engage with convention-
allegedly defamed, was widely rumoured to have carried on rela- challenging concepts about the universe and man’s place in it.
tions with his own daughter. Drawing such an unabashed com- Warily returning to France in 1726, Voltaire was eager to
parison, the play was destined to spark controversy, even before repair his tattered public image there. Keenly aware of the
opening. But while libel was a punishable crime, satiric insinua- machinations of noble favouritism, he began a deliberate cam-
tion was not. As if to make sure of his inculpability, the author paign of literary output and influence-courting in Paris. His
for the first time graced his work with a nom de plume, a single tip-toeing around potential controversy in this period paid off,
word: Voltaire. and by the end of 1732 he had taken up residence at court in
This vignette of the rebellious young writer coining his Versailles – a sign his reputation was restored. While there he
now notorious pen name is in many ways characteristic of struck up a relationship with the Marquise Emilie du Châtelet,
Voltaire’s entire life. Throughout a long career, Voltaire was whose vivacious personality and remarkable intellect proved an
never a stranger to controversy. On the contrary, he courted it, instinctive draw. But his repaired standing and new-found
revelling in every chance to outmaneuver an opponent favour at court would be short-lived.
through rhetorical mastery and biting wit. A natural provoca- While at Versailles, Voltaire refined and expanded on his
teur ever testing limits, this penchant for feather-ruffling won Letters Concerning the English Nation, the result of a fruitful
him admirers as well as enemies. A humanist who championed infusion of new perspectives while across the Channel. These
reason over superstition and tolerance over bigotry, Voltaire essays mark his shift toward philosophy and the examination of
helped France cast off a shadow that lingered over it after cen- social mores, extolling such far-ranging topics as religious tol-
turies of religious conflict. erance of the Quakers to the natural philosophy of English
thinkers such as Isaac Newton. Despite Voltaire’s dutifully
Early Years applying for approval from royal censors, Letters was illicitly
Born in 1694 with what’s now diagnosed as Crohn’s disease, released by its publisher in 1733 without the author’s approval.
Voltaire constantly defied prognoses that he was not long for Causing yet another scandal, the book was banned, even
the world, although the degenerative condition often left him burned, when it appeared in France.
confined to bed. As a boy he received a strict Catholic Jesuit This controversy saw Voltaire’s careful campaign of appear-
education. From this he acquired two things: impeccable ances undone, in part due to his assertions of Newtonian nat-
learning, including in Latin, theology, and rhetoric; and an ural philosophy. The concept of a natural world governed by a
abiding skepticism and mistrust for authority. set of fundamental laws observable and understandable through
Rebelling against his father’s wish to carry on the family experimentation had already won over Protestant nations. The
practice in law, the young libertine chose for himself the life of French, however, clung stubbornly to their own science, rooted
a writer. Instead of performing the duties of a notary as his in the work of Descartes, and French Academy elders rejected
father had arranged, the young Arouet spent his post-college Newton’s theories. Underlying the discrepancies was a deeper
days scribbling poetry and charming the salons of Paris’s social tension between the methods of the two schools. The deductive
elite. When his deceit was eventually uncovered, his father Cartesian system demanded explanations for why natural phe-
sent him abroad to serve the French ambassador in Holland, nomena occurred, while the inductive Newtonian method
but scandal followed close behind when the impetuous poet favored empirical investigation, and was content to take nature
fell in love with a French Protestant. The idea of an interfaith as it was observed. In Letters, Voltaire broke down Newton’s
marriage was too much for his father to swallow, so the errant math-heavy works, and espoused empiricism as a more objec-
son was shuffled back to Paris. tive standard of truth over the “useless” Descartes, but his asser-
His time abroad in Holland’s more liberal society is often tion that Descartes “was a dreamer, and [Newton] a sage” was
cited as a source of Voltaire’s humanist values, but the sting of tantamount to heresy among the Academy establishment.
a foiled love affair at such a tender age cannot be overlooked. As the debate swirled in Paris, Voltaire and his partner in
In any case, shaped by the ironies of his early life, his character crime, du Châtelet, fanned the flames by publishing scientific
would be defined by his eagerness to embrace the role of intel- experiments alongside a steady stream of pamphlets and essays
lectual outsider. in support of Newtonian theories. By the time the authoritative
S
peculating on ethics from the bleak Levinas, all these principles and rules for The Failure Of Theodicy
post-apocalyptic 2009 film The Road how I should act get in the way of and Before exploring more closely how The
(based on Cormac McCarthy’s bleak obtrude my relationship with the Other. Road illustrates Levinas’s ethic, it will be
post-apocalyptic novel of the same name) Facing the Other, I simply ask: ‘What do helpful to place his philosophy in context,
seems like a contradiction-in-terms. After you need from me?’ When I encounter as a response to the horrors of World War
all, The Road recounts the journey of a another, I ought to put aside my concerns Two, in the wake of which much of Europe
father and son over an inhospitable Earth and projects to provide succor to the was in a condition not a far cry from the
smothered in a cloud of dust, where civi- Other any way I can. There should be no devastated ruins of the world of The Road.
lization is dead and buried under the ashes. hesitation, no qualification in my response. As Levinas attested in Difficult Freedom
Humanity has become a fast-diminishing Levinas says that our responsibility to the (1990), his life and thought were “domi-
refugee species, forced to make brutal deci- Other has no limits. Nor are there any nated by the presentiment and the memo-
sions in the face of bitter cold, starvation, ry of the Nazi horror.” Yet the genocidal
and roaming cannibals, as the beleaguered Emmanuel devastation of the Holocaust, which took
survivors eke out what little food remains Levinas the lives of several members of Levinas’s
while avoiding becoming food for others. 1906-1995 family, did not undermine his hope in
Why then propose this film as an illustra- humanity. Rather, it showed him the
tion of the ethical thought of Emmanuel moral bankruptcy of ethical systems that
Levinas (1906-1995), a philosopher who magnify rational characteristics or social
stresses our unconditional responsibility values over directly addressing the person.
LEVINAS PHOTO © BRACHA L. ETTINGER
for the welfare of others? In a world where Levinas expounds on the deficit of stan-
any underlying decency has long ago been dard moral theories in light of the
squelched by rumbling stomachs, where Holocaust and other horrific atrocities in
churches have long since burnt down and an essay entitled ‘Useless Suffering’. Here
ethical treatises have either succumbed to he addresses the centuries-old question of
mildew or been consumed as fuel to keep how an all-loving, all-powerful and all-
warm, Levinas’s message seems over- knowing God could allow humans to suf-
whelmingly out of place. Yet it is precisely fer. For Levinas, the absurd, superfluous
when the clamor of all the sensible and character of suffering is magnified in the
rational theories of moral obligation have light of the senseless convulsions of the
been silenced that his message of an Twentieth Century. But despite the vari-
inescapable moral responsibility resonates ous efforts of Western philosophers and
the loudest. In other words, Levinas’s theologians over the centuries to justify or
ethics is the definitive ethics of emergency, explain suffering, often by appealing
for the destitute, the abandoned, the root- beyond experience to a supersensible
less. His ethics is a sure and steady guide Being, Levinas, not unlike many of his
along The Road, especially as Levinas and contemporaries, believed a tipping point
Cormac McCarthy converge in their limitations on whom qualifies as the was reached against these theodicies [theo-
attempts to salvage a shred of humanity Other. Seeing someone in terms of their logical explanations of evil, Ed] in the
from the gaping maw of an inhuman world. gender, race, creed, or any other distin- Twentieth Century, with its total wars and
guishing characteristic only risks blocking merciless genocides. It is not merely that
My Responsibility To The Other my access to the singular individual before the humanistic culture of the
What makes Levinas’s ethics so singular is me. So we bear an ethical responsibility Enlightenment, with its emphasis on rea-
his unrelenting insistence on the individu- that we have not chosen, to respond to a son, human rights, and the inviolable free-
al’s absolute responsibility to others. This call of obligation we can never fulfill. If dom of the person, was unable to prevent
is not an ethics where my obligations to this brief sketch of Levinas’s ethics shows the rise of murderous totalitarian ideolo-
the Other (person) are mediated through anything, it is the sheer difficulty of living gies, but that these Enlightenment values
some general, rational principle, or up to your responsibility to the Other. In a were fundamentally unable to justify such
through some algorithm of utility. I do not sense, it’s impossible –your obligations are senseless horror. The point is not simply
calculate how I should act toward the never exhausted: the more we meet our that no one can write moral treatises, let
Other by asking what that person would obligations, the more that is asked of us. alone poetry, after the Holocaust. Rather,
want done in my place, or what an impar- But it is this impossible obligation to the any attempt to even explain such an event
tial spectator would suggest I do. For Other that resonates so deeply in The Road. falls flat. So for Levinas, Auschwitz under-
with archaic, obscure words, The Road’s The son has even tired of his father’s tales phy: the frailty of goodness and redemption,
focus on dead and dying words illustrates of the past, of deeds of goodness and hero- and the isolation of the individual in and
how the apocalypse might also transform ism, complaining that these stories are not from the vast, senseless universe surround-
thought and language. true, yet offering no tales in their place. Yet ing her. Such fragile goodness is exhibited
Levinas grapples with a similar dynamic the reaching-out of story-creating and The Road in small acts of senseless kindness,
of transforming language, for instance story-telling remains. When the father whether it be the father and boy sharing
through his distinction between ‘saying’ and dies, the boy kneels besides him, saying his their meager supplies with a bedraggled
‘said’. He argues that the Other’s unique- name over and over again. Although this is stranger, or the family at the end adopting
ness – the way they express or say themselves a name we never hear or even need to hear, the now orphaned boy. Yet one must not be
to your self – cannot be captured through it assures us that through his love this man misled by this last fleeting glimpse of good-
the stale, general concepts and empty terms fashioned an identity, the story of a self, ness. Such acts will not save the world.
of rational argumentation – what is said. And and that in the desolation of the world’s Things cannot be made right.
even though Levinas employs traditional ending, the father’s life meant something. Levinas also acknowledges that there are
spatial and temporal terms to depict the The boy also promises to talk to the father no guarantees or unequivocal measures to
Other, such as the height from which the every day – a promise of love that validates be taken to ward off evil. Nor is there any
Other calls to us, or the distant past from the use of memory which the father had certainty that history will not repeat itself
which it summons us, the concepts are once thought too harmful in this world, in new and more horrendous holocausts, be
drained of their conventional meaning. This since all it seemed to do was evoke the pain they human, animal, or planetary. Perhaps
height cannot be traversed; this past is so of loss. So the conclusion of The Road inti- it’s enough to be content with acknowledg-
remote as to have never transpired. These mates that the boy will assume the father’s ing the fragility of our civilization, with its
puzzling formulations of space and time mantle in continuing to tell stories, talking Bibles, Mona Lisas, and Constitutions, and,
accentuate that the Other stands apart from to his absent father every day not in order as McCarthy in a rare interview with Oprah
context – the Other is not a character within to chart the passing of time or understand Winfrey pithily summed up, “Be grateful.”
a shared spatial and temporal context. For the world, as much as to sustain his rela- © DR MICHAEL J. BURKE 2016
Levinas, the said (rational discourse) seeks tionship to the father, and by doing so, sus- Michael Burke is Associate Professor of Philosophy
futilely to compensate for the absence of a tain goodness and love in the world. This at St Joseph’s College, New York.
I
has a lot to say about being, especially in the
experience of walking into a bookshop, notoriously difficult middle books, whose would still be the primary and fundamental
seeing a shelf marked ‘Metaphysics’ and, inquiry into substance is clearly relevant to science, but for a different reason. Now, its
beginning to peruse it, only then finding that the study of being (especially since the philosophical primacy will have to do with
it’s filled with volumes on mindfulness, crys- Greek word for substance, ousia, is derived the primacy of God.
tals, and learning about one’s past lives. I from the verb einai, meaning ‘to be’). These are two very different ways of
wouldn’t be surprised if New Age enthusiasts According to this way of thinking about understanding the Metaphysics, and hence,
have occasionally had the reverse disap- metaphysics, as being concerned with being metaphysics: are the treatise, and the branch
pointment upon learning that a ‘Metaphysics’ itself, it has a good claim to be the most gen- of philosophy, about being, or about God? Or
course they signed up for will involve arguing eral philosophical subject, and hence in a perhaps there are two kinds of science
about the nature of reality, personal identity, way, the most fundamental science. Ethics here: it became traditional to speak of meta-
and the problem of free will. studies only human happiness and virtue; physica specialis (about God) and meta-
This confusion over what metaphysics is, zoology only animals; physics only physical physica generalis (about being). But allowing
exactly, is an old one. A historically-minded things. Metaphysics would study everything, this would undermine the cherished idea
person asked to define this field of philoso- since everything that is has being. The meta- that Aristotle did have a unified project.
phy might say that metaphysics simply stud- physician should however bear in mind Aris- That was presupposed in a dispute
ies the sort of issues tackled in Aristotle’s totle’s dictum that “being is said in many between two leading thinkers of the Islamic
Metaphysics, the first work to use the word ways.” I myself, for instance, will have being world, Avicenna and Averroes. Avicenna
in its title. But this answer would need a sig- in a different and more primary way than my believed that metaphysics is really the
nificant caveat: Aristotle did not use this title baldness has being. In Aristotle’s terminol- study of being, and that talking of God, even
himself, and indeed the book is almost cer- ogy, my baldness is only an ‘accident’ – a proving His existence, is just part of this
tainly a collection of disparate materials cob- property that belongs to me and depends on general enterprise. Averroes disagreed. He
bled together centuries after Aristotle’s death. me for its being; whereas I am a ‘substance’, pointed out that Aristotle proves God’s exis-
Because it is a composite work, maybe meaning that I have being independently of tence in the Physics, and thus the Meta-
we should not expect a unifying theme in the other substances. physics only discusses the manner of God’s
Metaphysics. Perhaps it is called by this title Now that we’re thinking along these lines, causality. But this is as it should be. As the
just because it is to be read after (meta) Aris- we might wonder: is there some being, or first cause of being, God is the proper sub-
totle’s discussion of natural philosophy in his kind of being, that is most fundamental or ject matter of metaphysics; and Aristotle
Physics. On the other hand, perhaps the primary? teaches that no science should try to prove
compiler had good reasons for putting these Many readers, especially in the medieval the existence of its own subject matter.
materials together as a single text. Intelligent period, thought that such a being makes its This debate has relevance for our under-
readers, from the great ancient commenta- appearance only in the twelfth of the four- standing of metaphysics today. The linger-
tor Alexander of Aphrodisias, to the also teen books of the Metaphysics. Here Aristo- ing association between the word ‘meta-
pretty great medieval commentators Aver- tle discusses the immaterial intellects that in physics’ and theology or the supernatural
roes and Thomas Aquinas, have indeed his view are responsible for moving the (what comes ‘after physics’ in another
detected a single project running throughout heavens. One single intellect stands over all sense), has real historical roots. Some are
the Metaphysics, although without agreeing the others, initiating or coordinating the therefore suspicious of the whole enter-
what it was. motion of the entire universe by thinking. prise. But they need not reject the term, or
This disagreement was only to be This is Aristotle’s God. the discipline, since there is an equally
expected. The Metaphysics takes on an Perhaps then Aristotle’s plan all along sound historical precedent for understand-
enormous range of problems, from the prin- was to move through preparatory stages of ing metaphysics to be something quite dif-
ciple of non-contradiction, to the nature of discussion before finally reaching the real ferent – an inquiry into all that is. This would
God; from an analysis of material substance, object of his investigation, namely the divine arguably make metaphysics the most gen-
to a refutation of Plato’s ideas about mathe- First Mover. Thus, once we work through the eral and fundamental part of philosophy.
matics. One book even takes the form of an Metaphysics we will have grasped the © PROF. PETER ADAMSON 2016
extended philosophical lexicon. If however nature of the first cause of all things. Since, Peter Adamson is the author of A History of
you want to argue that the Metaphysics is according to Aristotle, we understand things Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Vols 1, 2
about just one central topic, then an obvious by tracing back their causes, metaphysics & 3, available from OUP. Both are based on
candidate for that topic is being. Aristotle therefore provides a foundation for the his popular History of Philosophy podcast.
T
he greatest mysteries are often upon the miracle of our sense-making world: John is indicating that God ensured
those we are most likely to capacity. Consider the relative volumes of that His creation and His chosen species
overlook. Supreme among these our heads (4 litres) and of the universe (4 x should be so designed that the latter
is the fact that the world is 1023 cubic light years). In our less-than- should make sense of the former. ‘Let
intelligible to us, at least to some degree. pin-pricks bonces, the universe comes to there be light!’ was ‘Let there be sense!’ as
Of course, if we could not make moment- know itself as ‘the universe’ and some of its well as ‘Let there be stuff!’ However, this
to-moment sense of what was going on most general properties are understood. replaces one mystery with many others.
around us, there could be no us. Inhabiting That this knowledge is incomplete does Moreover, it does not seem to accommo-
an entirely unintelligible world in which not diminish the achievement. Indeed, the date the story of the gradual advance in
nothing could be understood, anticipated, intuition that our knowledge is bounded understanding, by no means complete,
or acted upon with reliable consequences, by ignorance, that things (causes, laws, that has been the great, hard-won achieve-
would be incompatible with life. mechanisms, distant places) may be con- ment of humanity. It puts it all in the
But there is no ‘of course’ even about cealed from us, that there are hidden human starter pack.
this. That human existence requires a more truths, realities, modes of being, has been Logos has a history beyond even the
or less intelligible world doesn’t solve the the necessary motor of our shared cogni- wide realm of a faith that has filled two
mystery, it simply moves the mystery on. tive advance. Man, as the American thousand years with hope, joy, bloodshed,
After all, the vast majority of organisms act, philosopher Willard Quine said, is the terror, and oppression. This history – bril-
or at least react, and flourish, without mak- creature who invented doubt – as well as liantly summarised in James Hastings’
ing sense of the world. That one thing is measurement, provisional generalisation, monumental Encyclopaedia of Religion and
explained by another thing is not the kind and modes of active inquiry. Ethics (1906-1928) – is all the more com-
of thing that bacteria (the most successful It takes two to tango. The fact that the plex because Logos has a multitude of
organisms) entertain; and at a higher level, world is intelligible clearly cannot be just senses, mobilised in different contexts. It
the laws of nature as we understand them down to us, otherwise our stories about has a field of meanings, with nodes here
are beyond the cognitive reach of all but H. how things hang together would be some- and there. This is hardly surprising, given
sapiens. What’s more, many humans thrived where between myths and an evolving con- that it registers such a profound encounter
before Newton announced his discoveries sensual hallucination. The balance between of human consciousness with itself.
or Einstein formulated the General Theory the contributions of what is out there and We cannot be sure when something
of Relativity. what is in us, between the extent to which equivalent to Logos first made its appear-
Let us unpack our sense-making a little. the mind conforms to the universe and the ance in our conversation with ourselves.
We live in a world in which happenings universe has mind-compatible properties, is Some scholars trace it back to the Pyramid
seem to be explained by other happenings: an issue that has had a long history, shared Texts of Heliopolis, nearly 2,500 years
‘this happened because of that’. We not between theology and philosophy. before St John wrote his gospel. From the
only observe causes, but actively seek them primal waters the god Atum arose: he was
out. We also note patterns, connect and The Word and The World the light of the rising sun and the embodi-
quantify those patterns, and so arrive at the One word that haunts discussion of our ment of the conscious Word or Logos, the
natural laws which have proved so empow- astonishing capacity to make sense of the essence of life.
ering, enabling us to predict events and world is Logos. In Western culture, its most The Egyptian Logos does not map
manipulate things. All of this takes place in famous occurrence is in the extraordinary clearly on to what Logos subsequently
a shared, boundless public cognitive space, opening verse of the gospel according to became. The term was in common use
draws on a vast collective past, and reaches St John: “In the beginning was the Logos.” when the Pre-Socratic philosophers –
into an ever-lengthening and ever-widen- This has kept thousands of commentators those “tyrants of the spirit who wanted to
ing future. busy, because Logos, which is often trans- reach the core of all being with one leap”
The extraordinary character of the lated ‘word’ or ‘reason’, does a lot of work as Nietzsche characterised them in Philoso-
sense-making animal may be highlighted – encompassing the Word that was God’s phy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks –
by contrasting a wild animal looking for command that the universe should come employed it, partly to pat themselves on
the origin of a threatening signal with a into being as well as the Word that was the back for their own reason-based
team of scientists listening into space to made flesh in the body of Jesus Christ in approach to questions about the nature of
test a hypothesis about the Big Bang, hav- fulfilment of a promise of salvation. At a the cosmos. Although Logos referred to the
ing secured a large grant to do so. more abstract level, the Logos is offered as way human rationality was reflected or
This suggests another way of coming an explanation of the intelligibility of the expressed in discourse, it also captured the
which is unstable and untrue. According to was now identified with Christ. In the New
Aristotle, the Logos was the inherent for- Testament, the Logos is the Word, the wis-
mula determining the nature, life and activ- dom of God, the reason in all things, and
ity of the body, as well as, more narrowly, God Himself.
‘significant utterance’. Secularists may smile at such responses
These ideas inspired the Stoics, for to the extraordinary fact that we make
whom the Logos was a supreme directive sense of the world. But when we think of
principle, the source of all the activity and the alternatives – such as Kant’s claim in
rationality of an ordered world that was The Critique of Pure Reason that the experi-
both intelligible and intelligent. It was the enced world makes sense because we fash-
‘seminal reason’ or underlying principle of ion that world through our senses and
the world, manifest in all the phenomena understanding, or an evolutionary episte-
of nature. It acted as a kind of force, con- mology that argues that the fit between
ferring inner unity on bodies and on the mind and world is a Darwinian necessity –
world as a whole, and at the same time the smile may fade and wonder return. The
guaranteed the intelligibility of the world endeavour to understand the sense-making
to humans, since the human soul partici- animal has a long way to go.
pated in the cosmic Logos. It is also because © PROF. RAYMOND TALLIS 2016
the one Logos is present in many human Raymond Tallis’s latest book The Mystery of
souls that we are able to communicate with Being Human: God, Freedom and the
Atum, Egyptian embodiment each other: we all partake of ‘common NHS was published in September. His website
of reason
sense’. The Stoics’ message was that is raymondtallis.com.
Philosophy Now has been published since 1991, so it is hardly surprising that
BACK ISSUES VOLUME TWO
we’re often asked for back issues which have long since sold out. Therefore Philosophy Now
a magazine of ideas
we’ve put our first eighty issues onto four CDs in PDF format. The CDs work
Issues 1-20
equally well on Mac and PC, and when opened on your computer screen will
BACK ISSUES
Philosophy Now
a magazine of ideas
Vol. 1: Issues 01-20; Vol. 2: Issues 21-40; Vol. 3: Issues 41-60; Vol. 4: Issues 61-80
Issues 41-60
VOLUME THREE
IP-BASED ONLINE ACCESS is available for schools and colleges – please visit philosophynow.org/institutions
• I’d like to buy the following paper back issues: TOTAL AMOUNT PAYABLE: $_______
______________________________________
Please make your check payable to ‘Philosophy Documentation Center’
• I’d like to buy ___ binders to hold my back issues. or fill in your card details below:
Card no.
TOTAL AMOUNT PAYABLE: _________
Expiry______ Security Code______ Name on card___________________
Please make your cheque payable to ‘Philosophy Now’ or fill in your
Mastercard /Visa /Maestro card details below: and send it to: Philosophy Documentation Center,
Card no. P.O. Box 7147,
Expiry______ Security Code______ Name on card___________________ Charlottesville, VA 22906-7147
and send it to: Philosophy Now Subscriptions U.S.A.
Kelvin House, Grays Road,
Westerham, Kent TN16 2JB,
(You can also order on 800-444-2419 or email pkswope@pdcnet.org)
United Kingdom
I
doubt there are two philosophers further apart in their ideas brings Barzun’s metaphor to my mind. Barzun likened Kant’s
than George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and idea of the mind putting its stamp on reality to a waffle iron
David Hume (1711-1776). Hegel’s rationalist metaphysics, acting on batter. Fortunately, there’s another metaphor that
based on the arguments of reason, ranges far afield and is diffi- reverses Barzun’s. Locke says that at birth the mind is a blank
cult to understand. Hume’s empiricism, on the other hand, with slate upon which the chalk of experience writes. That makes
its conclusions derived through experience, is accessible to the much more sense. To put it briefly, Hegel, ideas arise from
layman. A thoroughgoing skeptic, Hume thought that meta- experience. However, abstract rationalism such as yours
physics should be “committed to the flames.” Hegel was six years depends more on invention than experience!
old when Hume died, so there was no professional overlap. But
here they’re in the philosopher’s afterlife outside of time, able to Hegel: Yet there are cases in which the ideas arising from pure
see the entire history of philosophy. I see them in comfortable reason are later empirically demonstrated. For instance,
chairs before a cozy fire, each sipping brandy as they talk. through pure reason Leucippus and Democritus theorized the
existence of atoms over two thousand years before your
Hegel: [Gesturing at the fire.] So, Hume, you say that meta- vaunted empiricism confirmed their philosophy.
physics should be committed to the flames. Does this con-
tempt for thinking beyond what we can observe derive from a Hume: I grant the Greek atomists their luck. But most such
philosophical stance? Or does it simply stem from insecurity cases don’t get beyond speculation. Plato’s nether world of
regarding your unease in tackling pure reason? Forms has yet to be proved empirically, and I dare say it will
remain in his metaphysical cave. Incidentally, you just said so
Hume: The flames are figurative of course. I’m not a book yourself: atomic theory was confirmed by empiricism. Still, I
burner, and I wouldn’t stand in the way of people who wish to must concede that if Plato’s Ideal Brandy is better than the
publish nonsense. But I readily admit to unease over any spec- superlative stuff we’re drinking, then I tip my hat to him.
ulation that professes absolute certainty.
Hegel: We agree on that, Hume. Here’s to Plato.
Hegel: Yet you yourself claim a sort of certainty regarding [They raise their glasses and drink.]
experiences that arise from the senses; those which you call Let’s leave the ancients and move to more modern times. We
‘impressions’. rationalists believe that so-called ‘empirical proof’ is unnecessary:
one can gain knowledge purely through step-by-step reasoning.
Hume: You misinterpret me. I make no such claim. I concede Descartes proved this when he concluded ‘I think therefore I
certainty only in mathematics, where, to quote myself, there am’. He proved his existence by doubting it, then through pure
are “relationships among ideas true and certain.” Three times reason carefully built a logical proof that overturned his doubt.
five equals fifteen, Hegel, and always will. I do however say
that the liveliest thought is inferior to the dullest sensation. Hume: Descartes wrote that he wanted absolute privacy for a
few days, and so squirreled himself away to think. But his soli-
Hegel: But Kant taught us that the mind does not simply pas- tude demonstrates the two main weaknesses of pure rational-
sively receive information through the senses, but organizes ism – its need for error-free rigor and its extreme subjectivity.
our experience. So our ‘impressions’ are partly a creation of Bertrand Russell illustrates the first well when he describes
our intellect. In other words, we know the world by the work rationalism as an inverted pyramid, with the first premise pin-
of the mind, and the world just as we experience it does not pointed on the ground. If it and all subsequent premises and
exist independent of us. conclusions are sound, all is well. But if just one mistake is pre-
Hume: A predictable rejoinder from a rationalist! You seem to Hegel: Now you’re getting into the spirit of it yourself,
think you have a monopoly on the mind – that empiricists Hume! In fact, reality is actually constituted by mind. At first,
don’t employ it at all. Well, let me disabuse you of that notion. mind is unaware of this: it sees the world as something inde-
The intellect’s greatest contribution to knowledge is being pendent of it, even hostile or alien to it. It’s estranged from
acutely aware of impressions and emotions as they surface. In reality, tries to understand it, and fails. Only when mind
short, mind is best used for awareness of its own processes. In awakens and realizes that reality is a creation of mind can it
this way it can tame the passions – and prevent flights of give up reaching beyond itself. It then knows there is nothing
Hegelian fancy. Unfortunately, few are very aware. beyond itself. On the contrary, objective reality is thought;
By the way, there’s a revealing statement by your fellow ratio- and thought is objective reality.
nalist Descartes, seemingly unconscious. He writes, and I
quote, “We must occupy ourselves only with those objects that Hume: Indeed, Russell called your Absolute Mind a sort of
our intellectual powers appear competent to know certainly God: “truly a professor’s God” – Mind dwelling on its own
and indubitably.” Isn’t that wonderful? thoughts! The whole thing is quite fascinating, even if it is
nonsense. But let me see if I have it right. The engine that
Hegel: It’s perfectly reasonable. What’s your point, Hume? propels this metaphysical journey is your dialectic. One stage
of this journey of human culture is negated as development
Hume: His recommendation certainly seems wise. But first continues: as you phrase it, a thesis meets its antithesis; there
note the words ‘only’, ‘certainly’, and ‘indubitably’. These are is a clash; then the two are melded into a synthesis, which
words of certitude. But in the statement is also a word that becomes the new thesis; and so on it goes.
conveys uncertainty. That word is ‘appear’. It’s an escape word
– a means of explaining how one could be wrong, despite all Hegel: I never used those terms. They were added to my the-
the certitude that reason can attain! I find it charming. ory by my followers. But there is a stage-by-stage advance,
Hume: Tell me, what happens to our bodies when we reach Hegel: Yes, I’m aware of Nagel – an American, no less. In fact,
that exalted state? Do we shed them and ascend to an intellec- he attempts to find a middle ground between my idealism and
tual heaven like a rapture? All I can say is that one would miss materialism by saying there’s a gap between the explanations
one’s brandy. available to science and explanations for consciousness. He says
the physical sciences can describe the behaviour and physical
Hegel: You make light of it, Hume. That’s a familiar reaction constitutions of organisms like ourselves, but they cannot
to profound thought from someone who shies away from describe our subjective experiences, such as how things appear
metaphysical exploration. Unfortunately, I cannot describe the to our different points of view. This gap, he says, reflects a deep
particulars of the final destination of consciousness. metaphysical difference between consciousness and the brain –
between mind and matter. Dualism dies hard, eh? Still, I am
Hume: Sorry, Hegel, but you strike me as taking yourself too encouraged by his existence, and by your defense of his idea.
seriously. Nonetheless, your metaphysical edifice is exceed-
ingly impressive. Your theory is magnificent – truly a monu- Hume: I didn’t exactly defend his idea.
ment of unprecedented intellectual achievement. It puts you
at the pinnacle of philosophical idealism. It’s unfortunate that Hegel: No, but you seem to caution his critics.
it smacks of bloody rubbish. But this is unsurprising, since you
follow in the rationalist footsteps of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Hume: I don’t like knee-jerk reactions. But I do like Nagel’s
Plato, right on up to Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, even idea that science is limited regarding its knowledge of subjec-
surpassing them in speculation. tive viewpoints. However, he says it follows that biological
evolution must be more than just a physical process – that the
Hegel: I take that as a compliment, Hume. I see myself as theory of evolution must incorporate a mental aspect.
standing on the shoulders of my predecessors. After all, my
philosophy is all-inclusive. The dialectic of history is a Hegel: But the greater theory need not be theistic, Hume. It
process; it does not do away with what came before. can be seen as an expanded form of understanding that
includes the mental, but is still scientific.
Hume: But in the final analysis your majestic edifice is a reli-
gious one, despite your claim to the contrary. That’s the great Hume: Of course I find that appealing. But his leaping from
irony of pure rationalism. It claims the mathematical precision that to speculating that consciousness has a purpose in the cos-
of logic, but its conclusions ultimately require faith. I suspect mos strikes me as reaching too far.
you rationalists secretly crave the approval of empiricism.
Hegel: Hume, you ought to let your imagination soar a bit. So
Hegel: Recall Democritus and his atoms. Perhaps some day let’s imagine that there’s a post firmly lodged in the ground –
my metaphysical theory will be proved empirically – even if it the Post of Skepticism. A rope is attached to the post, with the
takes over two thousand years! other end tied around your waist. My guess is that you, my
friend, would never stray far from the Post of Skepticism, and
Hume: There’s an important distinction between your think- would always keep a firm grip on the rope.
ing and that of Democritus. While you both employ pure rea-
son, you propose a metaphysical theory, concerning a purpose Hume: And you?
and end to human development. Democritus, on the other
hand, proposed the physical existence of atoms. You dwell on Hegel: I would venture out wherever my mind demands, in
metaphysics, he on physics. He was a materialist, let’s not for- the search for higher knowledge.
get. His theory was provable by empiricism. I doubt yours is.
Hume: And, dear Hegel, when you felt the tug on the rope, you
Hegel: You doubt everything, Hume. That’s a certainty I find would slip the knot and float away into the metaphysical mists.
quite ironic. And in the twentieth century your skepticism But I must say – and this may be the brandy talking – despite our
lead to its own extreme result – analytic philosophy. It seems differences, I would miss you. A toast, Hegel – to philosophy!
that speculative philosophy is now dead. Philosophy’s role has
become merely to analyze the workings of language. Still, my Hegel: To philosophy!
theory cannot be disproved. [They raise their glasses and drink.]
© CHRIS CHRISTENSEN 2016
Hume: It’s not incumbent on the doubter to disprove an asser- Chris Christensen is a delivery driver in Portland, Oregon. In addi-
tion: the onus is on the maker of an assertion to prove it. But tion to studying philosophy, he and his wife Bobbie produce a blog
you can dream, Hegel; and your dream never ends. Even in the called Red Stitches: Mostly Baseball.
This popular
science book is
widely available as a
paperback and ebook “This is practical philosophy at its very best, stripped of all pretense
on Amazon and other and wisely applied to the most important questions of our time.”
online retailers. —Joshua Greene, author of Moral TribesTribes
“An accessible introduction to the work of a philosopher who would
not regard being described as ‘accessible’ as an insult. . . . Despite
their brevity, the essays do not shirk the big moral questions.”
—Economist
“Singer demonstrates how to write pungently and succinctly about
moral philosophy.”
—Daniel Johnson, Standpoint