locke1690book2_4
Introduction to Philosophy Fall 2024
Overview
Text for PHIL 1030 Fall 2024
What is Philosophy?
Philosophy is all about exploring life's big questions—like what’s real, what we know, and how we should live. Instead of relying on experiments or hard data like science, philosophy uses critical thinking and logical arguments to dig into these mysteries. Questions like “What is reality?” or “How do we know what’s true?” don’t have easy answers, which is why philosophy is an ongoing conversation that hasn't ended yet!
The roots of philosophy go way back to ancient times in places like Greece, India, and China. Early thinkers from these civilizations wanted to understand the world beyond just stories and myths. In Greece, philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle laid the foundation for Western philosophy by diving into topics like ethics, politics, and knowledge. Meanwhile, in India and China, thinkers like Confucius, Laozi, and the authors of the Upanishads developed their own systems of thought, focusing on reality, the self, and how to live a good life. These early ideas still influence us today, showing that philosophy remains important and relevant.
One of the key things about philosophy is how it challenges ideas through questioning and debate. Philosophers engage in discussion, examining different viewpoints and refining their ideas through logical reasoning. This method, known as dialectic, is central to philosophical inquiry. It’s all about considering different perspectives and questioning even the most basic beliefs. This open-minded approach leads to a deeper understanding and helps us see the world in a more nuanced way.
Philosophy also plays a big role in shaping how we think about ethics and politics. By digging into the principles behind our moral choices and societal rules, philosophy helps us tackle tough issues like justice, rights, and responsibilities. It gives us the tools to critically evaluate laws and social norms, pushing for a more just and fair society. Discussions in philosophy have led to important progress in human rights and social justice, making it clear that philosophy isn’t just about abstract ideas—it’s about practical change in the real world.
The Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics: The study of existence and reality. It asks questions like "What is really real?" and "Do computers have consciousness?"
Epistemology: The study of knowledge. It deals with questions like "How do we know what we know?" and "What is the difference between knowledge and opinion?"
Axiology (Value Theory): This branch includes ethics (the study of right and wrong), political philosophy (how we should govern and be governed), and aesthetics (the study of beauty and art).
In short, philosophy is a vital discipline that helps us explore the most important aspects of human life. Through critical thinking and logical analysis, it guides us in understanding reality, knowledge, and morality. While it may not always give us clear-cut answers, philosophy teaches us to think deeply and critically, sparking a lifelong journey toward wisdom and understanding.
Original: What is Philosophy? – Philosophy in the Humanities (achievingthedream.org)
Edited for clarity and content by Adriel Slaughter and revised for length by OpenAI 2024
You don't actually know what your future self wants
Who Am I?
Personal Identity
Ship of Theseus (Theseus's Paradox)
The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’ paradox, is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object. The paradox is most notably recorded by Plutarch in Life of Theseus from the late first century. Plutarch asked whether a ship that had been restored by replacing every single wooden part remained the same ship.
The paradox had been discussed by other ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus and Plato prior to Plutarch’s writings, and more recently by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Several variants are known, including the grandfather’s axe, which has had both head and handle replaced.
Variations of the paradox
The classic paradox
This particular version of the paradox was first introduced in Greek legend as reported by the historian, biographer, and essayist Plutarch,
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
— Plutarch, Theseus
Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and used to build a second ship. Hobbes asked which ship, if either, would be the original Ship of Theseus.
Modern variations
John Locke proposed a scenario regarding a favorite sock that develops a hole. He pondered whether the sock would still be the same after a patch was applied to the hole, and if it would be the same sock after a second patch was applied, and a third, etc., until all of the material of the original sock has been replaced with patches.
George Washington’s axe (sometimes “my grandfather’s axe”) is the subject of an apocryphal story of unknown origin in which the famous artifact is “still George Washington’s axe” despite having had both its head and handle replaced.
This has also been recited as “Abe Lincoln’s axe”; Lincoln was well known for his ability with an axe, and axes associated with his life are held in various museums.
The French equivalent is the story of Jeannot’s knife, where the eponymous knife has had its blade changed fifteen times and its handle fifteen times but is still the same knife. In some Spanish-speaking countries, Jeannot’s knife is present as a proverb, though referred to simply as “the family knife”. The principle, however, remains the same.
A Hungarian version of the story features “Lajos Kossuth’s pocketknife”, having its blade and handle continuously replaced but still being referred to as the very knife of the famous statesman. As a proverbial expression it is used for objects or solutions being repeatedly renewed and gradually replaced to an extent that it has no original parts.
One version is often discussed in introductory Jurisprudence and Evidence classes in law school, discussing whether a weapon used in a murder, for example, would still be considered the “murder weapon” if both its handle and head/blade were to be replaced at separate, subsequent times.
Examples in popular culture
The paradox appears in various forms in fictional contexts, particularly in fantasy or science-fiction, for example where a character has body parts swapped for artificial replacements until the person has been entirely replaced. There are many other variations with reference to the same concept in popular culture for example axes and brooms.
Examples in Japan
In Japan, Shinto shrines are rebuilt every twenty years with entirely “new wood”. The continuity over the centuries is spiritual and comes from the source of the wood in the case of the Ise Jingu’s Naiku shrine, which is harvested from an adjoining forest that is considered sacred. The shrine has currently been rebuilt 62 times.
Proposed resolutions
Heraclitus
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus attempted to solve the paradox by introducing the idea of a river where water replenishes it. Arius Didymus quoted him as saying “upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow”. Plutarch disputed Heraclitus’ claim about stepping twice into the same river, citing that it cannot be done because “it scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes”.
Aristotle’s causes
According to the philosophical system of Aristotle and his followers, four causes or reasons describe a thing; these causes can be analyzed to get to a solution to the paradox. The formal cause or ‘form’ (perhaps best parsed as the cause of an object’s form or of its having that form) is the design of a thing, while the material cause is the matter of which the thing is made. Another of Aristotle’s causes is the ‘end’ or final cause, which is the intended purpose of a thing. The ship of Theseus would have the same ends, those being, mythically, transporting Theseus, and politically, convincing the Athenians that Theseus was once a living person, though its material cause would change with time. The efficient cause is how and by whom a thing is made, for example, how artisans fabricate and assemble something; in the case of the ship of Theseus, the workers who built the ship in the first place could have used the same tools and techniques to replace the planks in the ship.
According to Aristotle, the “what-it-is” of a thing is its formal cause, so the ship of Theseus is the ‘same’ ship, because the formal cause, or design, does not change, even though the matter used to construct it may vary with time. In the same manner, for Heraclitus’s paradox, a river has the same formal cause, although the material cause (the particular water in it) changes with time, and likewise for the person who steps in the river.
This argument’s validity and soundness as applied to the paradox depend on the accuracy not only of Aristotle’s expressed premise that an object’s formal cause is not only the primary or even sole determiner of its defining characteristic(s) or essence (“what-it-is”) but also of the unstated, stronger premise that an object’s formal cause is the sole determiner of its identity or “which-it-is” (i.e., whether the previous and the later ships or rivers are the “same” ship or river). This latter premise is subject to attack by indirect proof using arguments such as “Suppose two ships are built using the same design and exist at the same time until one sinks the other in battle. Clearly the two ships are not the same ship even before, let alone after, one sinks the other, and yet the two have the same formal cause; therefore, formal cause cannot by itself suffice to determine an object’s identity” or ” […] therefore, two objects’ or object-instances’ having the same formal cause does not by itself suffice to make them the same object or prove that they are the same object.”
Definitions of “the same”
One common argument found in the philosophical literature is that in the case of Heraclitus’ river one is tripped up by two different definitions of “the same”. In one sense, things can be “qualitatively identical”, by sharing some properties. In another sense, they might be “numerically identical” by being “one”. As an example, consider two different marbles that look identical. They would be qualitatively, but not numerically, identical. A marble can be numerically identical only to itself.
Note that some languages differentiate between these two forms of identity. In German, for example, “gleich” (“equal”) and “selbe” (“self-same”) are the pertinent terms, respectively. At least in formal speech, the former refers to qualitative identity (e.g. die gleiche Murmel, “the same [qualitative] marble”) and the latter to numerical identity (e.g. die selbe Murmel, “the same [numerical] marble”). Colloquially, “gleich” is also used in place of “selbe“, however.
Four-dimensionalism
Ted Sider and others have proposed that considering objects to extend across time as four-dimensional causal series of three-dimensional “time-slices” could solve the ship of Theseus problem because, in taking such an approach, each time-slice and all four dimensional objects remain numerically identical to themselves while allowing individual time-slices to differ from each other. The aforementioned river, therefore, comprises different three-dimensional time-slices of itself while remaining numerically identical to itself across time; one can never step into the same river-time-slice twice, but one can step into the same (four-dimensional) river twice.
Citation and Use
Levin, Noah, ed. “Introduction to Philosophy and the Ship of Theseus.” In Ancient philosophy reader, AN OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE. NGE Far Press, 2019. https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Book%3A_Ancient_Philosophy_Reader_(Levin)/01%3A_The_Start_of_Western_Philosophy_and_the_Pre-Socratics/1.01%3A_Introduction_to_Philosophy_and_the_Ship_of_Theseus
Use of this work is governed by CC-BY-SA-NC license.
License
Ship of Theseus Copyright © 2020 by Noah Levin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
How do objects survive change?
The Origins of Western Thought
Philosophy as a discipline isn’t easy to define precisely. Issuing from a sense of wonderment about life and the world, it often involves a keen interest in major questions about ourselves, our experience, and our place in the universe as a whole. But philosophy is also reflectively concerned with the methods its practitioners employ in the effort to resolve such questions. Emerging as a central feature of Western culture, philosophy is a tradition of thinking and writing about particular issues in special ways.
Thus, philosophy must be regarded both as content and as activity: It considers alternative views of what is real and the development of reasons for accepting them. It requires both a careful, sympathetic reading of classical texts and a critical, logical examination of the arguments they express. It offers all of us the chance to create and adopt significant beliefs about life and the world, but it also requires each of us to acquire the habits of critical thinking. Philosophy is both sublime and nitpicking.
Since our personal growth in these matters naturally retraces the process of cultural development, study of the history of philosophy in our culture provides an excellent introduction to the discipline as a whole. Here our aim is to examine the appearance of Western philosophy as an interesting and valuable component of our cultural heritage.
Greek Philosophy
Abstract thought about the ultimate nature of the world and of human life began to appear in cultures all over the world during the sixth century B.C.E., as an urge to move beyond superstition toward explanation. We focus here on its embodiment among the ancient Greeks, whose active and tumultuous social life provided ample opportunities for the expression of philosophical thinking of three sorts:
- Speculative thinking expresses human curiosity about the world, striving to understand in natural (rather than super-natural) terms how things really are, what they are made of, and how they function.
- Practical thinking emphasizes the desire to guide conduct by comprehending the nature of life and the place of human beings and human behavior in the greater scheme of reality.
- Critical thinking (the hallmark of philosophy itself) involves a careful examination of the foundations upon which thinking of any sort must rely, trying to achieve an effective method for assessing the reliability of positions adopted on the significant issues.
Beginning with clear examples of thinking of the first two sorts, we will see the gradual emergence of inclinations toward the third.
Milesian Speculation
During the sixth century, in the Greek colony at Miletus, a group of thinkers began to engage in an extended exploration of the speculative issues. Although these Milesians wrote little themselves, other ancient authorities recorded some of their central tenets. Their central urge was to show that the complex world has a simple, permanent underpinning in the reality of a single kind of stuff from which all else emerges.
The philosopher Thales, for example, is remembered as having asserted that all comes from water. (Fragments) Although we have no record of the reasoning that led Thales to this conclusion, it isn’t hard to imagine what it might have been. If we suppose that the ultimate stuff of the world must be chosen from among things familiar to us, water isn’t a bad choice: most of the earth is covered with it, it appears in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms, and it is clearly essential to the existence of life. Everything is moist.
Thales’s student Anaximander, however, found this answer far too simple. Proper attention to the changing face of the universe, he supposed, requires us to consider the cyclical interaction of things of at least four sorts: the hot, the cold, the dry, and the wet. (Fragments) Anaximander held that all of these elements originally arise from a primal, turbulent mass, the the Boundless or Infinite {Gk. απειρων [apeirôn]}. It is only by a gradual process of distillation that everything else emerges—earth, air, fire, water, of course—and even living things evolve.
The next Milesian, Anaximenes, returned to the conviction that there must be a single kind of stuff at the heart of everything, and he proposed vapor or mist {Gk. αερ [aer]} as the most likely candidate. (Fragments) Not only does this warm, wet air combine two of the four elements together, but it also provides a familiar pair of processes for changes in its state: condensation and evaporation. Thus, in its most rarified form of breath or spirit, Anaximenes’s air constitutes the highest representation of life.
As interesting as Milesian speculations are, they embody only the most primitive variety of philosophical speculation. Although they disagreed with each other on many points, each of the thinkers appears to have been satisfied with the activity of proposing his own views in relative isolation from those of his teacher or contemporaries. Later generations initiated the move toward critical thinking by arguing with each other.
Pythagorean Life
The Greek colony in Italy at the same time devoted much more concern to practical matters. Followers of the legendary Pythagoras developed a comprehensive view of a human life in harmony with all of the natural world. Since the Pythagoreans persisted for many generations as a quasi-religious sect, protecting themselves behind a veil of secrecy, it is difficult to recover a detailed account of the original doctrines of their leader, but the basic outlines are clear.
Pythagoras was interested in mathematics: he discovered a proof of the geometrical theorem that still bears his name, described the relationship between the length of strings and the musical pitches they produce when plucked, and engaged in extensive observation of the apparent motion of celestial objects. In each of these aspects of the world, Pythagoras saw order, a regularity of occurrences that could be described in terms of mathematical ratios.
The aim of human life, then, must be to live in harmony with this natural regularity. Our lives are merely small portions of a greater whole. (Fragments) Since the spirit (or breath) of human beings is divine air, Pythagoras supposed, it is naturally immortal; its existence naturally outlives the relatively temporary functions of the human body. Pythagoreans therefore believed that the soul“transmigrates” into other living bodies at death, with animals and plants participating along with human beings in a grand cycle of reincarnation.
Even those who did not fully accept the religious implications of Pythagorean thought were often influenced by its thematic structure. As we’ll see later, many Western philosophers have been interested in the immortality of the human soul and in the relationship between human beings and the natural world.
During the fifth century B.C.E., Greek philosophers began to engage in extended controversies that represent a movement toward the development of genuinely critical thinking. Although they often lacked enough common ground upon which to adjudicate their disputes and rarely engaged in the self-criticism that is characteristic of genuine philosophy, these thinkers did try to defend their own positions and attack those of their rivals by providing attempts at rational argumentation.
Heraclitus and the Eleatics
Dissatisfied with earlier efforts to comprehend the world, Heraclitus of Ephesus earned his reputation as “the Riddler” by delivering his pronouncements in deliberately contradictory (or at least paradoxical) form. The structure of puzzling statements, he believed, mirrors the chaotic structure of thought, which in turn is parallel to the complex, dynamic character of the world itself.
Rejecting the Pythagorean ideal of harmony as peaceful coexistence, Heraclitus saw the natural world as an environment of perpetual struggle and strife. “All is flux,” he supposed; everything is changing all the time. As Heraclitus is often reported to have said, “Upon those who step into the same river, different waters flow.” The tension and conflict which govern everything in our experience are moderated only by the operation of a universal principle of proportionality in all things.
Against this position, the Eleatics defended the unity and stability of the universe. Their leader, Parmenides supposed that language embodies a logic of perfect immutability: “What is, is.” (Fragments) Since everything is what it is and not something else, he argued in Περι Φυσις (ON NATURE), it can never correct to say that one and the same thing both has and does not have some feature, so the supposed change from having the feature to not having it is utterly impossible. Of course, change does seem to occur, so we must distinguish sharply between the many mere appearances that are part of our experience and the one true reality that is discernible only by intellect.
Other Eleatics delighted in attacking Heraclitus with arguments designed to show the absurdityof his notion that the world is perpetual changing. Zeno of Elea in particular fashioned four paradoxes about motion, covering every possible combination of continuous or discrete intervals and the direct motion of single bodies or the relative motion of several:
- The Dichotomy: It is impossible to move around a racetrack since we must first go halfway, and before that go half of halfway, and before that half of half of halfway, and . . . . If space is infinitely divisible, we have infinitely many partial distances to cover, and cannot get under way in any finite time.
- Achilles and the Tortoise: Similarly, given a ten meter head-start, a tortoise can never be overtaken by Achilles in a race, since Achilles must catch up to where the tortoise began. But by then the tortoise has moved ahead, and Achilles must catch up to that new point, and so on. Again, the suppostition that things really move leads to an infinite regress.
- The Arrow: If, on the other hand, motion occurs in discrete intervals, then at any given moment during its flight through the air, an arrow is not moving. But since its entire flight comprises only such moments, the arrow never moves.
- The Stadium: Similarly, if three chariots of equal length, one stationary and the others travelling in opposite directions, were to pass by each other at the same time, then each of the supposedly moving ones would take only half as long to pass the other as to pass the third, making 1=2!
The patent absurdity that results in each of these cases, Zeno concluded, shows that motion (and, hence, change of any sort) is impossible. (Fragments)What all of this raises is the question of “the one and the many.” How can there be any genuine unity in a world that appears to be multiple? To the extent that a satisfactory answer involves a distinction between appearance and reality and the use of dialectical reasoning in the effort to understand what is real, this pursuit of the Eleatics set important standards for the future development of Western thought.
Empedocles and Anaxagoras
In the next generation, Empedocles introduced the plurality from the very beginning. Everything in the world, he supposed, is ultimately made up of some mixture of the four elements, considered as irreducible components. The unique character of each item depends solely upon the special balance of the four that is present only in it. Change takes place because there are two competing forces at work in the world. Love {Gk. φιλια [philia]} is always putting things together, while Strife {Gk. νεικος [neikos]} is always tearing them apart. The interplay of the two constitutes the activity we see in nature.
His rival, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, returned in some measure to the Milesian effort to identify a common stuff out of which everything is composed. Matter is, indeed, a chaotic primordial mass, infinitely divisible in principle, yet in which nothing is differentiated. But Anaxagoras held that order is brought to this mass by the power of Mind {Gk. νους [nous]}, the source of all explanation by reference to cosmic intelligence. Although later philosophers praised Anaxagoras for this explicit introduction of mind into the description of the world, it is not clear whether he meant by his use of this word what they would suppose. (Fragments)
Greek Atomism
The inclination to regard the world as pluralistic took its most extreme form in the work of the ancient atomists. Although the basic outlines of the view were apparently developed by Leucippus, the more complete exposition by Democritus, including a discussion of its ethical implications, was more influential. Our best source of information about the atomists is the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by the later Roman philosopher Lucretius.
For the atomists, all substance is material and the true elements of the natural world are the tiny, indivisible, unobservable solid bodies called “atoms.” Since these particles exist, packed more or less densely together, in an infinite empty space, their motion is not only possible but ineveitable. Everything that happens in the world, the atomists supposed, is a result of microscopic collisions among atoms. Thus, as Epicurus would later make clear, the actions and passions of human life are also inevitable consequences of material motions. Although atomism has a decidedly modern ring, notice that, since it could not be based on observation of microscopic particles in the way that modern science is, ancient atomism was merely another fashionable form of cosmological speculation.
The Sophists
Fifth-century Athens was a politically troubled city-state: it underwent a sequence of external attacks and internal rebellions that no social entity could envy. During several decades, however, the Athenians maintained a nominally democratic government in which (at least some) citizens had the opportunity to participate directly in important social decisions. This contributed to a renewed interest in practical philosophy. Itinerate teachers known as the sophists offered to provide their students with training in the effective exercise of citizenship.
Since the central goal of political manipulation was to outwit and publicly defeat an opponent, the rhetorical techniques of persuasion naturally played an important role. But the best of the Sophists also made use of Eleatic methods of logical argumentation in pursuit of similar aims. Driven by the urge to defend expedient solutions to particular problems, their efforts often encouraged relativism or evan an extreme skepticism about the likelihood of discovering the truth.
A Sophist named Gorgias, for example, argued (perhaps ironically) that: (a) Nothing exists; (b) If it did, we could not know it; and (c) If we knew anything, we could not talk about it. Protagoras, on the other hand, supposed that since human beings are “the measure of all things,” it follows that truth is subjectively unique to each individual. In a more political vein, Thrasymachus argued that it is better to perform unjust actions than to be the victim of the injustice committed by others. The ideas and methods of these thinkers provided the lively intellectual environment in which the greatest Athenian philosophers thrived.
License:
Remixed from Introduction to Philosophy by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Heraclitus
Heraclitus and the Eleatics
Dissatisfied with earlier efforts to comprehend the world, Heraclitus of Ephesus earned his reputation as “the Riddler” by delivering his pronouncements in deliberately contradictory (or at least paradoxical) form. The structure of puzzling statements, he believed, mirrors the chaotic structure of thought, which in turn is parallel to the complex, dynamic character of the world itself.
Rejecting the Pythagorean ideal of harmony as peaceful coexistence, Heraclitus saw the natural world as an environment of perpetual struggle and strife. “All is flux,” he supposed; everything is changing all the time. As Heraclitus is often reported to have said, “Upon those who step into the same river, different waters flow.” The tension and conflict which govern everything in our experience are moderated only by the operation of a universal principle of proportionality in all things.
Against this position, the Eleatics defended the unity and stability of the universe. Their leader, Parmenides supposed that language embodies a logic of perfect immutability: “What is, is.” (Fragments) Since everything is what it is and not something else, he argued in Περι Φυσις (ON NATURE), it can never correct to say that one and the same thing both has and does not have some feature, so the supposed change from having the feature to not having it is utterly impossible. Of course, change does seem to occur, so we must distinguish sharply between the many mere appearances that are part of our experience and the one true reality that is discernible only by intellect.
Other Eleatics delighted in attacking Heraclitus with arguments designed to show the absurdityof his notion that the world is perpetual changing. Zeno of Elea in particular fashioned four paradoxes about motion, covering every possible combination of continuous or discrete intervals and the direct motion of single bodies or the relative motion of several:
- The Dichotomy: It is impossible to move around a racetrack since we must first go halfway, and before that go half of halfway, and before that half of half of halfway, and . . . . If space is infinitely divisible, we have infinitely many partial distances to cover, and cannot get under way in any finite time.
- Achilles and the Tortoise: Similarly, given a ten meter head-start, a tortoise can never be overtaken by Achilles in a race, since Achilles must catch up to where the tortoise began. But by then the tortoise has moved ahead, and Achilles must catch up to that new point, and so on. Again, the suppostition that things really move leads to an infinite regress.
- The Arrow: If, on the other hand, motion occurs in discrete intervals, then at any given moment during its flight through the air, an arrow is not moving. But since its entire flight comprises only such moments, the arrow never moves.
- The Stadium: Similarly, if three chariots of equal length, one stationary and the others travelling in opposite directions, were to pass by each other at the same time, then each of the supposedly moving ones would take only half as long to pass the other as to pass the third, making 1=2!
The patent absurdity that results in each of these cases, Zeno concluded, shows that motion (and, hence, change of any sort) is impossible. (Fragments)What all of this raises is the question of “the one and the many.” How can there be any genuine unity in a world that appears to be multiple? To the extent that a satisfactory answer involves a distinction between appearance and reality and the use of dialectical reasoning in the effort to understand what is real, this pursuit of the Eleatics set important standards for the future development of Western thought.
Reference: The Origins of Western Thought – Introduction to Philosophy (achievingthedream.org)
Parmenides
Parmenides
(c. 515-440 BC)
Parmenides came from the Greek colony of Elea in Italy. There he founded the Eleatic school that included the famous generator of Paradoxes, Zeno of Elea.
Parmenides' great work, On Nature is in the form of an epic poem, written in the hexameters of Homer and Hesiod. And although he is best known for his somewhat mysterious (perhaps Pythagorean?) claim that what exists is eternal and unchanging, the third part of his poem contains reflections on the Ionian "physiologoi" who replaced mythical gods with natural explanations for phenomena.
Parmenides was the source of Plato's claim that Parmenidean Being is more "real" than Heraclitean Becoming, which may only be an "illusion."
For Plato, his forms or "ideas" are prior to any instance of an object with a given form. The forms exist in another "realm" that is more "real" than the everyday physical world of material objects. The forms are properly outside of time, like Immanuel Kant's noumenal world. Aristotle challenged Plato's idea and argued that the forms are merely "perfect" and "idealized" abstractions from the many "imperfect" examples found in the world.
In mathematics, the ideal circle consists of an infinite number of infinitesimal points that satisfy an equation. Such an infinity is never realized in the empirical world, in which objects are composed of a finite number of material particles, for example, atoms. Arguably, an ideal circle has an unchanging, eternal nature. It will be the same for any thinking entity, now in the real world, and forever in any possible world.
Plato thus set up the fundamental dualism of philosophy, the distinction between idealism and materialism, between abstract eternal essences and concrete ephemeral existences, between In his Timaeus 27d, Plato asked "What is Being always, but has no Becoming (origin or genesis), and what is Becoming always, and never Being?"
τί τὸ ὂν ἀεί͵ γένεσιν δὲ οὐκ ἔχον͵ καὶ τί τὸ γιγνόμενον μὲν ἀεί͵ ὂν δὲ οὐδέποτε;
In Plato's Parmenides, there is much talk of "Being" as "the One," but it is not clear whether Plato accepts the One completely, as the Socratic dialectic avoids coming to any conclusion. The dialogue is full of dazzling wordplay about infinite regresses, as well as claims that many things both are and are not, in various respects. The "One" is both like and unlike itself. (147c ff) The "One" both touches, and does not touch, both itself and others. (149d) The "One" is alike equal to, greater than, and less than, both itself and others. (151b)
Since the existent has not-being and the nonexistent has being, the "One" also, since it does not exist, must have being in order to be nonexistent. Thus it appears that the "One" has "being," if it is nonexistent, and also, since it is not existent, has not-being. (162b) The nonexistent "One" both comes to be and ceases to be, and also does not come to be or cease to be. (163b)
καὶ τὸ ἓν ἄρα μὴ ὂν ἀλλοιούμενον μὲν γίγνεταί τε καὶ ἀπόλλυται, μὴ ἀλλοιούμενον δὲ οὔτε γίγνεται οὔτε ἀπόλλυται: καὶ οὕτω τὸ ἓν μὴ ὂν γίγνεταί τε καὶ ἀπόλλυται, καὶ οὔτε γίγνεται οὔτ᾽ ἀπόλλυται. (163b)
The Parmenides appears to be the locus classicus and origin of the dialectical nonsense that is the hallmark of much idealist philosophy down to G.W.F.Hegel and Martin Heidegger, as well as many modern metaphysicians.
Despite the empty verbal debates, the principal goal for Parmenides is to show that some one thing cannot be many things. In particular, it cannot be like another thing (in the sense of having a property) and yet not like that thing, that is have one property and yet not have that property.
Socrates demolishes Parmenides by arguing that properties are relative. One can have the property of being tall and not tall. Simmias is tall because he is taller than Socrates. But he also is short, shorter than Phaedo (Phaedo 102b). SImmias is both tall (with respect to Socrates) and not tall (with respect to Phaedo).
Socrates dispenses with Parmenides' claim that one cannot be many. He is one of the many philosophers and yet consists of many parts - head, hands, etc. Socrates then turns to a suggestion that the "Forms" are just "Thoughts," the ideas in some mind. Parmenides is well known for claiming that "Being is Thinking." Parmenides argues that if a form is a thought, that then any object with a form is a thinking thing. This "panpsychism" is unacceptable to both Parmenides and Socrates.
Socrates then suggests that forms are merely "patterns" in nature. This is the essence of information philosophy. When a form/pattern in an object is isomorphic to the form/pattern in a mind, when some part of the information in a structure is the same information stored in a mind, we can say that the thinker has some knowledge of the object. But one object can contain many different "patterns" or properties.
Much in the Parmenides has the character of Heraclitus's thought. He concluded rather dialectically that we both "step and do not step into the river, that we are and are not," sounding obscurely like the modern obscurant Hegel.
ποταμοῖσ τοῖσ αὐτοῖσ ἐμβαίνομεν τε και οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμεν τε και οὐκεἶμεν.
(Diels-Kranz B49a, "Homeric Questions.")
It concludes on a difficult note,
Thus, in sum, we may conclude, If there is no one, there is nothing at all.To this we may add the conclusion. It seems that, whether there is or is not a one, both that one and the others alike are and are not, and appear and do not appear to be, all manner of things in all manner of ways, with respect to themselves and to one another.
Most true.
Reference: Parmenides (informationphilosopher.com)
Heraclitus (fragments)
B12 | B13 | B31 | B36 | B61 | B76 | B77 | B91
Water is not the main element in Heraclitus' cosmology: fire is. But water plays an important role. Fire turns into water. This happens at sunset (when the fire from the sun turns into water and is absorbed into the sea). Of the water, half turns back into fire (in the form of a hurricane of some kind) and half turns into earth (B31). The exact details of the cosmic cycle are unclear, and they seem to be inconsequential. What matters is that all the elements are in constant state of flux into one another.
The cosmic cycle has consequences for souls. Since souls are made of fire, water brings the death of souls. This has large consequences for human ethics and happiness, and this seems to me to have been an important part of Heraclitus' theory.
Heraclitus uses water in a few analogies. Fore example, he shows that salt water is both pure and impure -- for fish, pure; for humans, lethal. Also, pigs delight more in mud than in pure water. These analogies serve as proofs or illustrations of doctrines (like the harmony of opposites).
The most exciting analogy using water is the river. Different versions of the so-called 'river fragment' exist. I take B12 to be the authentic version. It illustrates Heraclitus' idea of stability-through-change (see B84). The river is constantly changing as the waters flow; at any given moment, the water at one location will be different than it was the previous moment. And yet we call it the same river. In fact, if the water stopped flowing, the river would not longer exist. Like fire, the river is dependent upon change for its constant existence.
Reference: Heraclitus (heraclitusfragments.com)
Socrates and Plato
Socrates and Plato
Socrates
Socrates is widely regarded as the founder of European philosophy and rational inquiry. He was born around 470 BCE and tried and executed in 399 BCE. Socrates was the first of the three major Greek philosophers. The others were Socrates’ student Plato and Plato’s student Aristotle.
Socrates did not write anything himself. We know of his views primarily through Plato’s dialogues where Socrates is the primary character. Socrates is also known through the plays of Aristophanes and the historical writings of Xenophon. In many of Plato’s dialogues, it is difficult to determine when Socrates’ views are being represented and when the character of Socrates is used as a mouthpiece for Plato’s views.
Socrates was well-known in Athens. He was eccentric, poor, ugly, brave, stoic, and temperate. He was a distinguished veteran who fought bravely on Athens’ behalf and was apparently indifferent to the discomforts of war. Socrates claimed to hear a divine inner voice he called his daimon, and he was prone to go into catatonic states of concentration.
The conflicting views of the Presocratic philosophers of nature encouraged skepticism about our ability to obtain knowledge through rational inquiry. Among the Sophists, this skepticism is manifested in epistemic and Moral Relativism. Epistemic relativism is the view that there is no objective standard for evaluating the truth or likely truth of our beliefs. Rather, epistemic standards of reasoning are relative to one’s point of view and interests. Roughly, this is the view that what is true for me might not be true for you (when we are not just talking about ourselves). Epistemic relativism marks no distinction between knowledge, belief, or opinion on the one hand, and truth and reality on the other. To take a rather silly example, if I think it’s Tuesday, then that’s what’s true for me; and if you think it’s Thursday, then that’s what is true for you. In cases like this, epistemic relativism seems quite absurd, yet many of us have grown comfortable with the notion that, say, beliefs about the moral acceptability of capital punishment might be true for some people and not for others.
Moral relativism is the parallel doctrine about moral standards. The moral relativist takes there to be no objective grounds for judging some ethical opinions to be correct and others not. Rather, ethical judgments can only be made relative to one or another system of moral beliefs, and no system can be evaluated as objectively better than another. Since earlier attempts at rational inquiry had produced conflicting results, the Sophists held that no opinion could be said to constitute knowledge. According to the Sophists, rather than providing grounds for thinking some beliefs are true and others false, rational argument can only be fruitfully employed as rhetoric, the art of persuasion. For the epistemic relativist, the value of reason lies not in revealing the truth, but in advancing one’s interests. The epistemic and moral relativism of the Sophist has become popular again in recent years and has an academic following in much "post- modern" writing.
Socrates was not an epistemic or moral relativist. He pursued rational inquiry as a means of discovering the truth about ethical matters. But he did not advance any ethical doctrines or lay claim to any knowledge about ethical matters. Instead, his criticism of the Sophists and his contribution to philosophy and science came in the form of his method of inquiry.
As the Socratic Method is portrayed in Plato’s Socratic dialogues, an interlocutor proposes a definition or analysis of some important concept, Socrates raises an objection or offers counter-examples, then the interlocutor reformulates his position to handle the objection. Socrates raises a more refined objection. Further reformulations are offered, and so forth. Socrates uses dialectic to discredit others’ claims to knowledge. While revealing the ignorance of his interlocutors, Socrates also shows how to make progress toward more adequate understanding.
Euthyphro
A good example of the Socratic Method at work can be found in one of Plato’s early Socratic dialogues, Euthyphro. In Plato’s dialogues, we often find Socrates asking about the nature of something and then critically examining proposed answers, finding assorted illuminating objections that often suggest the next steps. In this dialogue, Socrates and Euthyphro are discussing the nature of piety or holiness. Socrates and Euthyphro never conclusively discover what piety is, but they learn much about how various attempts to define piety fail. The dialogue works the same if we substitute moral goodness for piety. Understood in this way, Euthyphro provides a classic argument against Divine Command Theory, a view about the nature of morality that says that what is right is right simply because it is commanded by God.
Socrates would not have us believe our questions have no correct answers. He is genuinely seeking the truth of the matter. But he would impress on us that inquiry is hard and that untested claims to knowledge amount to little more than vanity. Even though Euthyphro and Socrates don’t achieve full knowledge of the nature of piety, their understanding is advanced through testing the answers that Euthyphro suggests. We come to see why piety can’t be understood just by identifying examples of it. While examples of pious acts fail to give us a general understanding of piety, the fact that we can identify examples of what is pious suggests that we have some grasp of the notion even in the absence of a clear understanding of it.
After a few failed attempts to define piety, Euthyphro suggests that what is pious is what is loved by the gods (all of them, the Greeks recognized quite a few). Many religious believers continue to hold some version of Divine Command Theory. In his response to Euthyphro, Socrates points us towards a rather devastating critique of this view and any view that grounds morality in authority. Socrates asks whether what is pious is pious because the gods love it or whether the gods love what is pious because it is pious. Let’s suppose that the gods agree in loving just what is pious. The question remains whether their loving the pious explains its piety or whether some things being pious explains why the gods love them. Once this question of what is supposed to explain what is made clear, Euthyphro agrees with Socrates that the gods love what is pious because it is pious. The problem with the alternative view, that what is pious is pious because it is loved by the gods, is that this view makes piety wholly arbitrary. Anything could be pious if piety is just a matter of being loved by the gods. If the gods love puppy torture, then this would be pious. Hopefully this seems absurd. Neither Socrates nor Euthyphro is willing to accept that what is pious is completely arbitrary. At this point, Socrates points out to Euthyphro that since an act’s being pious is what explains why the gods love it, he has failed to give an account of what piety is. The explanation can’t run in both directions. In taking piety to explain being loved by the gods, we are left lacking an explanation of what piety itself is. Euthyphro gives up shortly after this failed attempt and walks off in a huff.
If we substitute talk of God making things right or wrong by way of commanding them for talk of the gods loving what is pious in this exchange of ideas, we can readily see that Divine Command Theory has the rather unsavory result that torturing innocent puppies would be right if God commanded it. We will return to this problem when we take up ethical theory later in the course. While we don’t reach the end of inquiry into piety (or goodness) in Euthyphro, we do make discernible progress in coming to see why a few faulty accounts must be set aside. Socrates does not refute the skeptic or the relativist Sophist by claiming to discover the truth about anything. What he does instead is show us how to engage in rational inquiry and show us how we can make progress by taking the possibility of rational inquiry seriously.
Apology
This dialogue by Plato is a dramatization of Socrates’ defense at his trial for corrupting the youth among other things. Socrates tells the story of his friend Chaerophon who visits the Oracle of Delphi and asks if anyone in Athens is wiser than Socrates. The Oracle answered that no one is wiser than Socrates. Socrates is astounded by this and makes it his mission in life to test and understand the Oracle’s pronouncement. He seeks out people who have a reputation for wisdom in various regards and tests their claims to knowledge through questioning. He discovers a good deal of vain ignorance and false claims to knowledge, but no one with genuine wisdom.
Ultimately, Socrates concludes that he is the wisest, but not because he possesses special knowledge not had by others. Rather, he finds that he is wisest because he recognizes his own lack of knowledge while others think they know, but do not.
Of course people generally, and alleged experts especially, are quite happy to think that what they believe is right. We tend to be content with our opinions and we rather like it when others affirm this contentment by agreeing with us, deferring to our claims to know, or at least by “respecting our opinion” (whatever that is supposed to mean). We are vain about our opinions even to the point of self-identifying with them (I’m the guy who is right about this or that). Not claiming to know, Socrates demonstrates some intellectual humility in allowing that his opinions might be wrong and being willing to subject them to examination. But in critically examining various opinions, including those of the supposed experts, he pierces the vanity of many of Athens’ prestigious citizens. Engaging in rational inquiry is dangerous business, and Socrates is eventually brought up on charges of corrupting the youth who liked to follow him around and listen to him reveal people’s claims to knowledge as false pride. The Apology documents Socrates’ defense of his of behavior and the Athenian assembly’s decision to sentence him to death anyway.
Plato
Plato (429-347 BCE) came from a family of high status in ancient Athens. He was a friend and fan of Socrates and some of his early dialogues chronicle events in Socrates’ life. Socrates is a character in all of Plato’s dialogues. But in many, the figure of Socrates is employed as a voice for Plato’s own views. Unlike Socrates, Plato offers very developed and carefully reasoned views about a great many things. Here we will briefly introduce his core metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical views.
Metaphysics and Epistemology
Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology are best summarized by his device of the divided line. The vertical line between the columns below distinguishes reality and knowledge. It is divided into levels that identify what in reality corresponds with specific modes of thought.
In saying that the forms are abstract, we are saying that while they do exist, they do not exist in space and time. They are ideals in the sense that a form, say the form of horseness, is the template or paradigm of being a horse. All the physical horses partake of the form of horseness, but exemplify it only to partial and varying degrees of perfection. No actual triangular object is perfectly triangular, for instance. But all actual triangles have something in common, triangularity. The form of triangularity is free from all of the imperfections of the various actual instances of being triangular. We get the idea of something being more or less perfectly triangular. For various triangles to come closer to perfection than others suggests that there is some ideal standard of “perfectly triangularity.” This for Plato, is the form of triangularity. Plato also takes moral standards like justice and aesthetic standards like beauty to admit of such degrees of perfection. Beautiful physical things all partake of the form of beauty to some degree or another. But all are imperfect in varying degrees and ways. The form of beauty, however, lacks the imperfections of its space and time bound instances. Perfect beauty is not something we can picture or imagine. But an ideal form of beauty is required to account for how beautiful things are similar and to make sense of how things can be beautiful to some less than perfect degree or another.
Only opinion can be had regarding the physical things, events, and states of affairs we are acquainted with through our sensory experience. With physical things constantly changing, the degree to which we can grasp how things are at any given place and time is of little consequence. Knowledge of the nature of the forms is a grasp of the universal essential natures of things. It is the intellectual perception of what various things, like horses or people, have in common that makes them things of a kind. Plato accepts Socrates’ view that to know the good is to do the good. So his notion of epistemic excellence in seeking knowledge of the forms will be a central component of his conception of moral virtue.
Ethics
Plato offers us a tripartite account of the soul. The soul consists of a rational thinking element, a motivating willful element, and a desire-generating appetitive element. Plato offers a story of the rational element of the soul falling from a state of grace (knowledge of the forms) and being dragged down into a human state by the unruly appetites. This story of the soul’s relation to the imperfect body supports Plato’s view that the knowledge of the forms is a kind of remembrance. This provides a convenient source of knowledge as an alternative to the merely empirical and imperfect support of our sense experience. Plato draws an analogy between his conception of the soul and a chariot drawn by two horses, one obedient, the other rebellious. The charioteer in this picture represents the rational element of the soul, the good horse the obedient will, and the bad horse, of course, represents those nasty earthly appetites. To each of the elements of the soul, there corresponds a virtue; for the rational element there is wisdom, for the willing element of the soul there is courage, and for the appetitive element, there is temperance. Temperance is a matter of having your appetites under control. This might sound like chronic self-denial and repression, but properly understood, it is not. Temperance and courage are cultivated through habit. In guiding our appetites by cultivating good habits, Plato holds, we can come to desire what is really good for us (you know, good diet, exercise, less cable TV, and lots more philosophy - that kind of stuff).
Wisdom is acquired through teaching, via dialectic, or “remembrance.” Perhaps, to make the epistemological point a little less metaphysically loaded, we can think of remembrance as insight. A more general virtue of justice is conceived as each thing functioning as it should.
To get Plato’s concept of justice as it applies to a person, think of the charioteer managing and controlling his team; keeping both horses running in the intended direction and at the intended speed. Justice involves the rational element of being wise and in charge. For a person to be just is simply a matter of having the other virtues and having them functioning together harmoniously.
Given Plato’s ethical view of virtue as a matter of the three elements of the soul functioning together as they should, Plato’s political philosophy is given in his view of the state as the human “writ at large.” Project the standards Plato offers for virtue in an individual human onto the aggregate of individuals in a society and you have Plato’s vision of the virtuous state. In the virtuous state, the rational element (the philosophers) are in charge. The willing element (the guardians or the military class) is obedient and courageous in carrying out the policies of the rational leadership. And the appetitive element (the profit-driven business class) functions within the rules and constraints devised by the rational element (for instance, by honestly adhering to standards of accounting). A temperate business class has the profit motive guided by the interests of the community via regulation devised by the most rational. The virtuous business class refrains from making its comfort and indulgence the overriding concern of the state. Plato, in other words, would be no fan of totally free markets, but neither would he do away with the market economy altogether.
Plato’s vision of social justice is non-egalitarian and anti-democratic. While his view would not be popular today, it is still worthwhile to consider his criticism of democracy and rule by the people. Plato has Socrates address this dialectically by asking a series of questions about who we would want to take on various jobs. Suppose we had grain and wanted it processed into flour.
We would not go to the cobbler or the horse trainer for this, we’d go to the miller. Suppose we had a horse in need of training. We obviously would not go to the miller or the baker for this important task, we’d go to the horse trainer. In general, we want important functions to be carried out by people with the expertise or wisdom to do them well. Now suppose we had a state to run. Obviously, we would not want to turn this important task over to the miller, the cobbler, or the horse trainer. We’d want someone who knows what he or she is doing in charge. Plato has a healthy regard for expertise. As Plato sees it, democracy amounts to turning over the ethically most important jobs to the people who have the least expertise and wisdom in this area. There is very little reason to expect that a state run by cobblers, millers, and horse trainers will be a virtuous state.
Reference:
An Introduction to Philosophy, Second Edition | Chapter 3: Ancient Greek Philosophy | OER CommonsPhaedo (IEP)
Plato: Phaedo
The Phaedo is one of the most widely read dialogues written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It claims to recount the events and conversations that occurred on the day that Plato’s teacher, Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.), was put to death by the state of Athens. It is the final episode in the series of dialogues recounting Socrates’ trial and death. The earlier Euthyphro dialogue portrayed Socrates in discussion outside the court where he was to be prosecuted on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth; the Apology described his defense before the Athenian jury; and the Crito described a conversation during his subsequent imprisonment. The Phaedo now brings things to a close by describing the moments in the prison cell leading up to Socrates’ death from poisoning by use of hemlock.
Among these “trial and death” dialogues, the Phaedo is unique in that it presents Plato’s own metaphysical, psychological, and epistemological views; thus it belongs to Plato’s middle period rather than with his earlier works detailing Socrates’ conversations regarding ethics. Known to ancient commentators by the title On the Soul, the dialogue presents no less than four arguments for the soul’s immortality. It also contains discussions of Plato’s doctrine of knowledge as recollection, his account of the soul’s relationship to the body, and his views about causality and scientific explanation. Most importantly of all, Plato sets forth his most distinctive philosophical theory—the theory of Forms—for what is arguably the first time. So, the Phaedo merges Plato’s own philosophical worldview with an enduring portrait of Socrates in the hours leading up to his death.
Table of Contents
- The Place of the Phaedo within Plato’s works
- Drama and Doctrine
- Outline of the Dialogue
- References and Further Reading
1. The Place of the Phaedo within Plato’s works
Plato wrote approximately thirty dialogues. The Phaedo is usually placed at the beginning of his “middle” period, which contains his own distinctive views about the nature of knowledge, reality, and the soul, as well as the implications of these views for human ethical and political life. Its middle-period classification puts it after “early” dialogues such as the Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Protagoras, and others which present Socrates’ search—usually inconclusive—for ethical definitions, and before “late” dialogues like the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. Within the middle dialogues, it is uncontroversial that the Phaedo was written before the Republic, and most scholars think it belongs before the Symposium as well. Thus, in addition to being an account of what Socrates said and did on the day he died, the Phaedo contains what is probably Plato’s first overall statement of his own philosophy. His most famous theory, the theory of Forms, is presented in four different places in the dialogue.
2. Drama and Doctrine
In addition to its central role in conveying Plato’s philosophy, the Phaedo is widely agreed to be a masterpiece of ancient Greek literature. Besides philosophical argumentation, it contains a narrative framing device that resembles the chorus in Greek tragedy, references to the Greek myth of Theseus and the fables of Aesop, Plato’s own original myth about the afterlife, and in its opening and closing pages, a moving portrait of Socrates in the hours leading up to his death. Plato draws attention (at 59b) to the fact that he himself was not present during the events retold, suggesting that he wants the dialogue to be seen as work of fiction.
Contemporary commentators have struggled to put together the dialogue’s dramatic components with its lengthy sections of philosophical argumentation—most importantly, with the four arguments for the soul’s immortality, which tend to strike even Plato’s charitable interpreters as being in need of further defense. (Socrates himself challenges his listeners to provide such defense at 84c-d.) How seriously does Plato take these arguments, and what does the surrounding context contribute to our understanding of them? While this article will concentrate on the philosophical aspects of the Phaedo, readers are advised to pay close attention to the interwoven dramatic features as well.
3. Outline of the Dialogue
The dialogue revolves around the topic of death and immortality: how the philosopher is supposed to relate to death, and what we can expect to happen to our souls after we die. The text can be divided, rather unevenly, into five sections:
(1) an initial discussion of the philosopher and death (59c-69e)
(2) three arguments for the soul’s immortality (69e-84b)
(3) some objections to these arguments from Socrates’ interlocutors and his response, which includes a fourth argument (84c-107b)
(4) a myth about the afterlife (107c-115a)
(5) a description of the final moments of Socrates’ life (115a-118a)
The dialogue commences with a conversation (57a-59c) between two characters, Echecrates and Phaedo, occurring sometime after Socrates’ death in the Greek city of Phlius. The former asks the latter, who was present on that day, to recount what took place. Phaedo begins by explaining why some time had elapsed between Socrates’ trial and his execution: the Athenians had sent their annual religious mission to Delos the day before the trial, and executions are forbidden until the mission returns. He also lists the friends who were present and describes their mood as “an unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and pain,” since Socrates appeared happy and without fear but his friends knew that he was going to die. He agrees to tell the whole story from the beginning; within this story the main interlocutors are Socrates, Simmias, and Cebes. Some commentators on the dialogue have taken the latter two characters to be followers of the philosopher Pythagoras (570-490 B.C).
a. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)
Socrates’ friends learn that he will die on the present day, since the mission from Delos has returned. They go in to the prison to find Socrates with his wife Xanthippe and their baby, who are then sent away. Socrates, rubbing the place on his leg where his just removed bonds had been, remarks on how strange it is that a man cannot have both pleasure and pain at the same time, yet when he pursues and catches one, he is sure to meet with the other as well. Cebes asks Socrates about the poetry he is said to have begun writing, since Evenus (a Sophist teacher, not present) was wondering about this. Socrates relates how certain dreams have caused him to do so, and says that he is presently putting Aesop’s fables into verse. He then asks Cebes to convey to Evenus his farewell, and to tell him that—even though it would be wrong to take his own life—he, like any philosopher, should be prepared to follow Socrates to his death.
Here the conversation turns toward an examination of the philosopher’s attitude toward death. The discussion starts with the question of suicide. If philosophers are so willing to die, asks Cebes, why is it wrong for them to kill themselves? Socrates’ initial answer is that the gods are our guardians, and that they will be angry if one of their possessions kills itself without permission. As Cebes and Simmias immediately point out, however, this appears to contradict his earlier claim that the philosopher should be willing to die: for what truly wise man would want to leave the service of the best of all masters, the gods?
In reply to their objection, Socrates offers to “make a defense” of his view, as if he were in court, and submits that he hopes this defense will be more convincing to them than it was to the jury. (He is referring here, of course, to his defense at his trial, which is recounted in Plato’s Apology.) The thesis to be supported is a generalized version of his earlier advice to Evenus: that “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (64a3-4).
Socrates begins his defense of this thesis, which takes up the remainder of the present section, by defining death as the separation of body and soul. This definition goes unchallenged by his interlocutors, as does its dualistic assumption that body and soul are two distinct entities. (The Greek word psuchē is only roughly approximate to our word “soul”; the Greeks thought of psuchē as what makes something alive, and Aristotle talks about non-human animals and even plants as having souls in this sense.) Granted that death is a soul/body separation, Socrates sets forth a number of reasons why philosophers are prepared for such an event. First, the true philosopher despises bodily pleasures such as food, drink, and sex, so he more than anyone else wants to free himself from his body (64d-65a). Additionally, since the bodily senses are inaccurate and deceptive, the philosopher’s search for knowledge is most successful when the soul is “most by itself.”
The latter point holds especially for the objects of philosophical knowledge that Plato later on in the dialogue (103e) refers to as “Forms.” Here Forms are mentioned for what is perhaps the first time in Plato’s dialogues: the Just itself, the Beautiful, and the Good; Bigness, Health, and Strength; and “in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is” (65d). They are best approached not by sense perception but by pure thought alone. These entities are granted again without argument by Simmias and Cebes, and are discussed in more detail later. .
All told, then, the body is a constant impediment to philosophers in their search for truth: “It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body” (66c). To have pure knowledge, therefore, philosophers must escape from the influence of the body as much as is possible in this life. Philosophy itself is, in fact, a kind of “training for dying” (67e), a purification of the philosopher’s soul from its bodily attachment.
Thus, Socrates concludes, it would be unreasonable for a philosopher to fear death, since upon dying he is most likely to obtain the wisdom which he has been seeking his whole life. Both the philosopher’s courage in the face of death and his moderation with respect to bodily pleasures which result from the pursuit of wisdom stand in stark contrast to the courage and moderation practiced by ordinary people. (Wisdom, courage, and moderation are key virtues in Plato’s writings, and are included in his definition of justice in the Republic.) Ordinary people are only brave in regard to some things because they fear even worse things happening, and only moderate in relation to some pleasures because they want to be immoderate with respect to others. But this is only “an illusory appearance of virtue”—for as it happens, “moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing or purification” (69b-c). Since Socrates counts himself among these philosophers, why wouldn’t he be prepared to meet death? Thus ends his defense.
b. Three Arguments for the Soul’s Immortality (69e-84b)
But what about those, says Cebes, who believe that the soul is destroyed when a person dies? To persuade them that it continues to exist on its own will require some compelling argument. Readers should note several important features of Cebes’ brief objection (70a-b). First, he presents the belief in the immortality of the soul as an uncommon belief (“men find it hard to believe . . .”). Secondly, he identifies two things which need to be demonstrated in order to convince those who are skeptical: (a) that the soul continues to exist after a person’s death, and (b) that it still possesses intelligence. The first argument that Socrates deploys appears to be intended to respond to (a), and the second to (b).
i. The Cyclical Argument (70c-72e)
Socrates mentions an ancient theory holding that just as the souls of the dead in the underworld come from those living in this world, the living souls come back from those of the dead (70c-d). He uses this theory as the inspiration for his first argument, which may be reconstructed as follows:
1. All things come to be from their opposite states: for example, something that comes to be “larger” must necessarily have been “smaller” before (70e-71a).
2. Between every pair of opposite states there are two opposite processes: for example, between the pair “smaller” and “larger” there are the processes “increase” and “decrease” (71b).
3. If the two opposite processes did not balance each other out, everything would eventually be in the same state: for example, if increase did not balance out decrease, everything would keep becoming smaller and smaller (72b).
4. Since “being alive” and “being dead” are opposite states, and “dying” and “coming-to-life” are the two opposite processes between these states, coming-to-life must balance out dying (71c-e).
5. Therefore, everything that dies must come back to life again (72a).
A main question that arises in regard to this argument is what Socrates means by “opposites.” We can see at least two different ways in which this term is used in reference to the opposed states he mentions. In a first sense, it is used for “comparatives” such as larger and smaller (and also the pairs weaker/stronger and swifter/slower at 71a), opposites which admit of various degrees and which even may be present in the same object at once (on this latter point, see 102b-c). However, Socrates also refers to “being alive” and “being dead” as opposites—but this pair is rather different from comparative states such as larger and smaller, since something can’t be deader, but only dead. Being alive and being dead are what logicians call “contraries” (as opposed to “contradictories,” such as “alive” and “not-alive,” which exclude any third possibility). With this terminology in mind, some contemporary commentators have maintained that the argument relies on covertly shifting between these different kinds of opposites.
Clever readers may notice other apparent difficulties as well. Does the principle about balance in (3), for instance, necessarily apply to living things? Couldn’t all life simply cease to exist at some point, without returning? Moreover, how does Plato account for adding new living souls to the human population? While these questions are perhaps not unanswerable from the point of view of the present argument, we should keep in mind that Socrates has several arguments remaining, and he later suggests that this first one should be seen as complementing the second (77c-d).
ii. The Argument from Recollection (72e-78b)
Cebes mentions that the soul’s immortality also is supported by Socrates’ theory that learning is “recollection” (a theory which is, by most accounts, distinctively Platonic, and one that plays a role in his dialogues Meno and Phaedrus as well). As evidence of this theory he mentions instances in which people can “recollect” answers to questions they did not previously appear to possess when this knowledge is elicited from them using the proper methods. This is likely a reference to the Meno (82b ff.), where Socrates elicits knowledge about basic geometry from a slave-boy by asking the latter a series of questions to guide him in the right direction. Asked by Simmias to elaborate further upon this doctrine, Socrates explains that recollection occurs “when a man sees or hears or in some other way perceives one thing and not only knows that thing but also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is not the same but different . . .” (73c). For example, when a lover sees his beloved’s lyre, the image of his beloved comes into his mind as well, even though the lyre and the beloved are two distinct things.
Based on this theory, Socrates now commences a second proof for the soul’s immortality—one which is referred to with approval in later passages in the dialogue (77a-b, 87a, 91e-92a, and 92d-e). The argument may be reconstructed as follows:
1. Things in the world which appear to be equal in measurement are in fact deficient in the equality they possess (74b, d-e).
2. Therefore, they are not the same as true equality, that is, “the Equal itself” (74c).
3. When we see the deficiency of the examples of equality, it helps us to think of, or “recollect,” the Equal itself (74c-d).
4. In order to do this, we must have had some prior knowledge of the Equal itself (74d-e).
5. Since this knowledge does not come from sense-perception, we must have acquired it before we acquired sense-perception, that is, before we were born (75b ff.).
6. Therefore, our souls must have existed before we were born. (76d-e)
With regard to premise (1), in what respect are this-worldly instances of equality deficient? Socrates mentions that two apparently equal sticks, for example, “fall short” of true equality and are thus “inferior” to it (74e). Why? His reasoning at 74b8-9—that the sticks “sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal and another to be unequal”—is notoriously ambiguous, and has been the subject of much scrutiny. He could mean that the sticks may appear as equal or unequal to different observers, or perhaps they appear as equal when measured against one thing but not another. In any case, the notion that the sensible world is imperfect is a standard view of the middle dialogues (see Republic 479b-c for a similar example), and is emphasized further in his next argument.
By “true equality” and “the Equal itself” in premises (2)-(4), Socrates is referring to the Form of Equality. It is this entity with respect to which the sensible instances of equality fall short—and indeed, Socrates says that the Form is “something else beyond all these.” His brief argument at 74a-c that true equality is something altogether distinct from any visible instances of equality is of considerable interest, since it is one of few places in the middle dialogues where he makes an explicit argument for why there must be Forms. The conclusion of the second argument for the soul’s immortality extends what has been said about equality to other Forms as well: “If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering that it existed before and is ours, and we compare these things with it, then, just as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are born” (76d-e). The process of recollection is initiated not just when we see imperfectly equal things, then, but when we see things that appear to be beautiful or good as well; experience of all such things inspires us to recollect the relevant Forms. Moreover, if these Forms are never available to us in our sensory experience, we must have learned them even before we were capable of having such experience.
Simmias agrees with the argument so far, but says that this still does not prove that our souls exist after death, but only before birth. This difficulty, Socrates suggests, can be resolved by combining the present argument with the one from opposites: the soul comes to life from out of death, so it cannot avoid existing after death as well. He does not elaborate on this suggestion, however, and instead proceeds to offer a third argument.
iii. The Affinity Argument (78b-84b)
The third argument for the soul’s immortality is referred to by commentators as the “affinity argument,” since it turns on the idea that the soul has a likeness to a higher level of reality:
1. There are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that we perceive with our senses, which is human, mortal, composite, unintelligible, and always changing, and (b) the invisible world of Forms that we can access solely with our minds, which is divine, deathless, intelligible, non-composite, and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).
2. The soul is more like world (b), whereas the body is more like world (a) (79b-e).
3. Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily influence through philosophical training, the soul is most likely to make its way to world (b) when the body dies (80d-81a). (If, however, the soul is polluted by bodily influence, it likely will stay bound to world (a) upon death (81b-82b).)
Note that this argument is intended to establish only the probability of the soul’s continued existence after the death of the body—“what kind of thing,” Socrates asks at the outset, “is likely to be scattered [after the death of the body]?” (78b; my italics) Further, premise (2) appears to rest on an analogy between the soul and body and the two kinds of realities mentioned in (1), a style of argument that Simmias will criticize later (85e ff.). Indeed, since Plato himself appends several pages of objections by Socrates’ interlocutors to this argument, one might wonder how authoritative he takes it to be.
Yet Socrates’ reasoning about the soul at 78c-79a states an important feature of Plato’s middle period metaphysics, sometimes referred to as his “two-world theory.” In this picture of reality, the world perceived by the senses is set against the world of Forms, with each world being populated by fundamentally different kinds of entities:
| The World of the Senses | The World of Forms |
| Composites (that is, things with parts) | Non-composites |
| Things that never remain the same from one moment to the next | Things that always remain the same and don’t tolerate any change |
| Any particular thing that is equal, beautiful, and so forth | The Equal, the Beautiful, and what each thing is in itself |
| That which is visible | That which is grasped by the mind and invisible |
Since the body is like one world and the soul like the other, it would be strange to think that even though the body lasts for some time after a person’s death, the soul immediately dissolves and exists no further. Given the respective affinities of the body and soul, Socrates spends the rest of the argument (roughly 80d-84b) expanding on the earlier point (from his “defense”) that philosophers should focus on the latter. This section has some similarities to the myth about the afterlife, which he narrates near the dialogue’s end; note that some of the details of the account here of what happens after death are characterized as merely “likely.” A soul which is purified of bodily things, Socrates says, will make its way to the divine when the body dies, whereas an impure soul retains its share in the visible after death, becoming a wandering phantom. Of the impure souls, those who have been immoderate will later become donkeys or similar animals, the unjust will become wolves or hawks, those with only ordinary non-philosophical virtue will become social creatures such as bees or ants.
The philosopher, on the other hand, will join the company of the gods. For philosophy brings deliverance from bodily imprisonment, persuading the soul “to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing by itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true whatever it examines by other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and indivisible” (83a6-b4). The philosopher thus avoids the “greatest and most extreme evil” that comes from the senses: that of violent pleasures and pains which deceive one into thinking that what causes them is genuine. Hence, after death, his soul will join with that to which it is akin, namely, the divine.
c. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates’ Response (84c-107b)
After a long silence, Socrates tells Simmias and Cebes not to worry about objecting to any of what he has just said. For he, like the swan that sings beautifully before it dies, is dedicated to the service of Apollo, and thus filled with a gift of prophecy that makes him hopeful for what death will bring.
i. The Objections (85c-88c)
Simmias prefaces his objection by making a remark about methodology. While certainty, he says, is either impossible or difficult, it would show a weak spirit not to make a complete investigation. If at the end of this investigation one fails to find the truth, one should adopt the best theory and cling to it like a raft, either until one dies or comes upon something sturdier.
This being said, he proceeds to challenge Socrates’ third argument. For one might put forth a similar argument which claims that the soul is like a harmony and the body is like a lyre and its strings. In fact, Simmias claims that “we really do suppose the soul to be something of this kind,” that is, a harmony or proper mixture of bodily elements like the hot and cold or dry and moist (86b-c). (Some commentators think the “we” here refers to followers of Pythagoras.) But even though a musical harmony is invisible and akin to the divine, it will cease to exist when the lyre is destroyed. Following the soul-as-harmony thesis, the same would be true of the soul when the body dies.
Next Socrates asks if Cebes has any objections. The latter says that he is convinced by Socrates’ argument that the soul exists before birth, but still doubts whether it continues to exist after death. In support of his doubt, he invokes a metaphor of his own. Suppose someone were to say that since a man lasts longer than his cloak, it follows that if the cloak is still there the man must be there too. We would certainly think this statement was nonsense. (He appears to be refering to Socrates’ argument at 80c-e here.) Just as a man might wear out many cloaks before he dies, the soul might use up many bodies before it dies. So even supposing everything else is granted, if “one does not further agree that the soul is not damaged by its many births and is not, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths, he might say that no one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this” (88a-b). In light of this uncertainty, one should always face death with fear.
ii. Interlude on Misology (89b-91c)
After a short exchange in the meta-dialogue in which Phaedo and Echecrates praise Socrates’ pleasant attitude throughout this discussion, Socrates begins his response with a warning that they not become misologues. Misology, he says, arises in much the same way that misanthropy does: when someone with little experience puts his trust in another person, but later finds him to be unreliable, his first reaction is to blame this on the depraved nature of people in general. If he had more knowledge and experience, however, he would not be so quick to make this leap, for he would realize that most people fall somewhere in between the extremes of good and bad, and he merely happened to encounter someone at one end of the spectrum. A similar caution applies to arguments. If someone thinks a particular argument is sound, but later finds out that it is not, his first inclination will be to think that all arguments are unsound; yet instead of blaming arguments in general and coming to hate reasonable discussion, we should blame our own lack of skill and experience.
iii. Response to Simmias (91e-95a)
Socrates then puts forth three counter-arguments to Simmias’ objection. To begin, he gets both Simmias and Cebes to agree that the theory of recollection is true. But if this is so, then Simmias is not able to “harmonize” his view that the soul is a harmony dependent on the body with the recollection view that the soul exists before birth. Simmias admits this inconsistency, and says that he in fact prefers the theory of recollection to the other view. Nonetheless, Socrates proceeds to make two additional points. First, if the soul is a harmony, he contends, it can have no share in the disharmony of wickedness. But this implies that all souls are equally good. Second, if the soul is never out of tune with its component parts (as shown at 93a), then it seems like it could never oppose these parts. But in fact it does the opposite, “ruling over all the elements of which one says it is composed, opposing nearly all of them throughout life, directing all their ways, inflicting harsh and painful punishment on them, . . . holding converse with desires and passions and fears, as if it were one thing talking to a different one . . .” (94c9-d5). A passage in Homer, wherein Odysseus beats his breast and orders his heart to endure, strengthens this picture of the opposition between soul and bodily emotions. Given these counter-arguments, Simmias agrees that the soul-as-harmony thesis cannot be correct.
iv. Response to Cebes (95a-107b)
1. Socrates’ Intellectual History (96a-102a)
After summarizing Cebes’ objection that the soul may outlast the body yet not be immortal, Socrates says that this problem requires “a thorough investigation of the cause of generation and destruction” (96a; the Greek word aitia, translated as “cause,” has the more general meaning of “explanation”). He now proceeds to relate his own examinations into this subject, recalling in turn his youthful puzzlement about the topic, his initial attraction to a solution given by the philosopher Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.), and finally his development of his own method of explanation involving Forms. It is debated whether this account is meant to describe Socrates’ intellectual autobiography or Plato’s own, since the theory of Forms generally is described as the latter’s distinctive contribution. (Some commentators have suggested that it may be neither, but instead just good storytelling on Plato’s part.)
When Socrates was young, he says, he was excited by natural science, and wanted to know the explanation of everything from how living things are nourished to how things occur in the heavens and on earth. But then he realized that he had no ability for such investigations, since they caused him to unlearn many of the things he thought he had previously known. He used to think, for instance, that people grew larger by various kinds of external nourishment combining with the appropriate parts of our bodies, for example, by food adding flesh to flesh. But what is it which makes one person larger than another? Or for that matter, which makes one and one add up to two? It seems like it can’t be simply the two things coming near one another. Because of puzzles like these, Socrates is now forced to admit his ignorance: “I do not any longer persuade myself that I know why a unit or anything else comes to be, or perishes or exists by the old method of investigation, and I do not accept it, but I have a confused method of my own” (97b).
This method came about as follows. One day after his initial setbacks Socrates happened to hear of Anaxagoras’ view that Mind directs and causes all things. He took this to mean that everything was arranged for the best. Therefore, if one wanted to know the explanation of something, one only had to know what was best for that thing. Suppose, for instance, that Socrates wanted to know why the heavenly bodies move the way they do. Anaxagoras would show him how this was the best possible way for each of them to be. And once he had taught Socrates what the best was for each thing individually, he then would explain the overall good that they all share in common. Yet upon studying Anaxagoras further, Socrates found these expectations disappointed. It turned out that Anaxagoras did not talk about Mind as cause at all, but rather about air and ether and other mechanistic explanations. For Socrates, however, this sort of explanation was simply unacceptable:
To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. (99a-b)
Frustrated at finding a teacher who would provide a teleological explanation of these phenomena, Socrates settled for what he refers to as his “second voyage” (99d). This new method consists in taking what seems to him to be the most convincing theory—the theory of Forms—as his basic hypothesis, and judging everything else in accordance with it. In other words, he assumes the existence of the Beautiful, the Good, and so on, and employs them as explanations for all the other things. If something is beautiful, for instance, the “safe answer” he now offers for what makes it such is “the presence of,” or “sharing in,” the Beautiful (100d). Socrates does not go into any detail here about the relationship between the Form and object that shares in it, but only claims that “all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful” (100d). In regard to the phenomena that puzzled him as a young man, he offers the same answer. What makes a big thing big, or a bigger thing bigger, is the Form Bigness. Similarly, if one and one are said to be two, it is because they share in Twoness, whereas previously each shared in Oneness.
2. The Final Argument (102b-107b)
When Socrates has finished describing this method, both Simmias and Cebes agree that what he has said is true. Their accord with his view is echoed in another brief interlude by Echecrates and Phaedo, in which the former says that Socrates has “made these things wonderfully clear to anyone of even the smallest intelligence,” and Phaedo adds that all those present agreed with Socrates as well. Returning again to the prison scene, Socrates now uses this as the basis of a fourth argument that the soul is immortal. One may reconstruct this argument as follows:
1. Nothing can become its opposite while still being itself: it either flees away or is destroyed at the approach of its opposite. (For example, “tallness” cannot become “shortness” while still being “tall.”) (102d-103a)
2. This is true not only of opposites, but in a similar way of things that contain opposites. (For example, “fire” and “snow” are not themselves opposites, but “fire” always brings “hot” with it, and “snow” always brings “cold” with it. So “fire” will not become “cold” without ceasing to be “fire,” nor will “snow” become “hot” without ceasing to be “snow.”) (103c-105b)
3. The “soul” always brings “life” with it. (105c-d)
4. Therefore “soul” will never admit the opposite of “life,” that is, “death,” without ceasing to be “soul.” (105d-e)
5. But what does not admit death is also indestructible. (105e-106d)
6. Therefore, the soul is indestructible. (106e-107a)
When someone objects that premise (1) contradicts his earlier statement (at 70d-71a) about opposites arising from one another, Socrates responds that then he was speaking of things with opposite properties, whereas here is talking about the opposites themselves. Careful readers will distinguish three different ontological items at issue in this passage:
(a) the thing (for example, Simmias) that participates in a Form (for example, that of Tallness), but can come to participate in the opposite Form (of Shortness) without thereby changing that which it is (namely, Simmias)
(b) the Form (for example, of Tallness), which cannot admit its opposite (Shortness)
(c) the Form-in-the-thing (for example, the tallness in Simmias), which cannot admit its opposite (shortness) without fleeing away of being destroyed
Premise (2) introduces another item:
(d) a kind of entity (for example, fire) that, even though it does not share the same name as a Form, always participates in that Form (for example, Hotness), and therefore always excludes the opposite Form (Coldness) wherever it (fire) exists
This new kind of entity puts Socrates beyond the “safe answer” given before (at 100d) about how a thing participates in a Form. His new, “more sophisticated answer” is to say that what makes a body hot is not heat—the safe answer—but rather an entity such as fire. In like manner, what makes a body sick is not sickness but fever, and what makes a number odd is not oddness but oneness (105b-c). Premise (3) then states that the soul is this sort of entity with respect to the Form of Life. And just as fire always brings the Form of Hotness and excludes that of Coldness, the soul will always bring the Form of Life with it and exclude its opposite.
However, one might wonder about premise (5). Even though fire, to return to Socrates’ example, does not admit Coldness, it still may be destroyed in the presence of something cold—indeed, this was one of the alternatives mentioned in premise (1). Similarly, might not the soul, while not admitting death, nonetheless be destroyed by its presence? Socrates tries to block this possibility by appealing to what he takes to be a widely shared assumption, namely, that what is deathless is also indestructible: “All would agree . . . that the god, and the Form of Life itself, and anything that is deathless, are never destroyed” (107d). For readers who do not agree that such items are deathless in the first place, however, this sort of appeal is unlikely to be acceptable.
Simmias, for his part, says he agrees with Socrates’ line of reasoning, although he admits that he may have misgivings about it later on. Socrates says that this is only because their hypotheses need clearer examination—but upon examination they will be found convincing.
d. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)
The issue of the immortality of the soul, Socrates says, has considerable implications for morality. If the soul is immortal, then we must worry about our souls not just in this life but for all time; if it is not, then there are no lasting consequences for those who are wicked. But in fact, the soul is immortal, as the previous arguments have shown, and Socrates now begins to describe what happens when it journeys to the underworld after the death of the body. The ensuing tale tells us of
(1) the judgment of the dead souls and their subsequent journey to the underworld (107d-108c)
(2) the shape of the earth and its regions (108c-113c)
(3) the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the pious philosophers (113d-114c)
Commentators commonly refer to this story as a “myth,” and Socrates himself describes it this way (using the Greek word muthos at 110b, which earlier on in the dialogue (61b) he has contrasted with logos, or “argument.”). Readers should be aware that for the Greeks myth did not have the negative connotations it often carries today, as when we say, for instance, that something is “just a myth” or when we distinguish myth from fact. While Plato’s relation to traditional Greek mythology is a complex one—see his critique of Homer and Hesiod in Republic Book II, for instance—he himself uses myths to bolster his doctrines not only in the Phaedo, but in dialogues such as the Gorgias, Republic, and Phaedrus as well.
At the end of his tale, Socrates says that what is important about his story is not its literal details, but rather that we “risk the belief” that “this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places,” and repeat such a tale to ourselves as though it were an “incantation” (114d). Doing so will keep us in good spirits as we work to improve our souls in this life. The myth thus reinforces the dialogue’s recommendation of the practice of philosophy as care for one’s soul.
e. Socrates’ Death (115a-118a)
The depiction of Socrates’ death that closes the Phaedo is rich in dramatic detail. It also is complicated by a couple of difficult interpretative questions.
After Socrates has finished his tale about the afterlife, he says that it is time for him to prepare to take the hemlock poison required by his death sentence. When Crito asks him what his final instructions are for his burial, Socrates reminds him that what will remain with them after death is not Socrates himself, but rather just his body, and tells him that they can bury it however they want. Next he takes a bath—so that his corpse will not have to be cleaned post-mortem—and says farewell to his wife and three sons. Even the officer sent to carry out Socrates’ punishment is moved to tears at this point, and describes Socrates as “the noblest, the gentlest and the best man” who has ever been at the prison.
Crito tells Socrates that some condemned men put off taking the poison for as long as possible, in order to enjoy their last moments in feasting or sex. Socrates, however, asks for the poison to be brought immediately. He drinks it calmly and in good cheer, and chastises his friends for their weeping. When his legs begin to feel heavy, he lies down; the numbness in his body travels upward until eventually it reaches his heart.
Some contemporary scholars have challenged Plato’s description of hemlock-poisoning, arguing that in fact the symptoms would have been much more violent than the relatively gentle death he depicts. If these scholars are right, why does Plato depict the death scene the way he does? There is also a dispute about Socrates’ last words, which invoke a sacrificial offering made by the sick to the god of medicine: “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget.” Did Socrates view life as a kind of sickness?
Reference: Plato: Phaedo | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu)
Introduction to Plato's Symposium
Introduction to Plato's Symposium
Plato's Symposium stands out as a masterpiece that surpasses even its most astute commentators. Although Plato was not a mystic nor influenced by Eastern philosophies, his pursuit of truth is vividly present. This work exhibits a distinct Greek elegance and harmony, setting it apart from Plato's other dialogues, like the more irregular Phaedrus. In the Symposium, Plato merges Greek art with philosophy, blending poetic and philosophical reasoning in a way that breaks free from earlier philosophical traditions.
The dialogue begins with an unnamed inquirer seeking an account of the speeches on love delivered at Agathon's banquet. This account is provided by Apollodorus, a passionate Socratic follower. Though Apollodorus wasn't at the banquet, he recounts the details from Aristodemus, who was present.
The narrative unfolds as Aristodemus, dressed for a holiday, joins Socrates for a banquet at Agathon's house, celebrating Agathon's recent theatrical victory. Socrates arrives late, lost in thought, and engages in light banter with Agathon. The guests decide against heavy drinking and opt instead for a series of speeches praising Love. Phaedrus starts, lauding love's ancient origins and its role in inspiring honor and bravery. He suggests that an army of lovers would be unbeatable, citing examples like Alcestis and Achilles to illustrate the virtue and sacrifice associated with love.
Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love: heavenly and earthly. The heavenly love, associated with the goddess Aphrodite Urania, is pure and focused on the mind, while the earthly love, linked to Aphrodite Pandemos, is more physical. Pausanias argues that love driven by the pursuit of virtue is noble, whereas physical love is fleeting and less honorable. He emphasizes the importance of love motivated by the quest for wisdom and virtue.
Eryximachus, a physician, extends the concept of love to universal principles, relating it to harmony and balance in all things, from the natural world to human relationships. He draws on Heraclitus’s ideas of harmony and balance and argues that love, when moderated, is fundamental to happiness and well-being.
Aristophanes presents a comedic yet profound view of human nature. He describes humans as originally androgynous beings who were split in half by Zeus, leading them to seek their other halves. This myth suggests that love is the pursuit of unity and completeness, reflecting a deep desire for wholeness.
Agathon, the tragic poet, praises Love as the youngest and most beautiful of the gods, embodying virtues such as justice, temperance, and wisdom. His portrayal of Love contrasts with the more complex and nuanced views of the previous speakers.
Socrates, in his turn, critiques the earlier speeches and presents a philosophical view of Love, drawing from Diotima’s teachings. According to Diotima, Love is not a god but an intermediary force between beauty and ugliness, and it embodies a desire for the eternal possession of goodness. Socrates discusses the progression from physical love to the love of higher ideals, culminating in the pursuit of the universal and eternal beauty.
Alcibiades, arriving drunk, disrupts the feast with his praise of Socrates. He recounts his personal experiences and admiration for Socrates, highlighting Socrates's influence on him and the challenges he has faced.
The Symposium is a complex dialogue that interweaves mythology, rhetoric, and philosophy, offering diverse perspectives on love. It blends serious philosophical inquiry with playful elements and personal anecdotes, reflecting both ancient and modern concerns. The dialogue explores love as a cosmic principle, suggesting that the highest form of love transcends physical desire and reaches toward the eternal and the divine.
The Symposium reflects Plato’s mature philosophical views and shares thematic connections with other dialogues like the Phaedrus and Phaedo. The work explores the progression from sensory experiences to abstract ideals, culminating in a vision of eternal beauty. The dating of the Symposium is complex, but it is generally placed between 384 and 369 BCE, situating it as a mature work within Plato’s oeuvre. The dialogue’s blend of poetic and philosophical elements invites readers to engage with its multifaceted exploration of love.
References:
- Plato, Symposium. Authored by: Plato. Provided by: Project Gutenberg. Located at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1600/1600-h/1600-h.htm. Project: ENG 101. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
- Edited for length by OpenAI 2024; checked for clarity and content by Adriel Slaughter
Symposium
Plato, Symposium
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
SYMPOSIUM
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who repeats to his companion the dialogue which he had heard from Aristodemus, and had already once narrated to Glaucon. Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers.
SCENE: The House of Agathon.
Concerning the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that I am not ill-prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out playfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian (Probably a play of words on (Greek), ‘bald-headed.’) man, halt! So I did as I was bid; and then he said, I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now, that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which were delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon’s supper. Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them; his narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I wish that you would give me an account of them. Who, if not you, should be the reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me, he said, were you present at this meeting?
Your informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very indistinct indeed, if you imagine that the occasion was recent; or that I could have been of the party.
Why, yes, he replied, I thought so.
Impossible: I said. Are you ignorant that for many years Agathon has not resided at Athens; and not three have elapsed since I became acquainted with Socrates, and have made it my daily business to know all that he says and does. There was a time when I was running about the world, fancying myself to be well employed, but I was really a most wretched being, no better than you are now. I thought that I ought to do anything rather than be a philosopher.
Well, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting occurred.
In our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy, on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the sacrifice of victory.
Then it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who told you—did Socrates?
No indeed, I replied, but the same person who told Phoenix;—he was a little fellow, who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of Cydathenaeum. He had been at Agathon’s feast; and I think that in those days there was no one who was a more devoted admirer of Socrates. Moreover, I have asked Socrates about the truth of some parts of his narrative, and he confirmed them. Then, said Glaucon, let us have the tale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for conversation? And so we walked, and talked of the discourses on love; and therefore, as I said at first, I am not ill-prepared to comply with your request, and will have another rehearsal of them if you like. For to speak or to hear others speak of philosophy always gives me the greatest pleasure, to say nothing of the profit. But when I hear another strain, especially that of you rich men and traders, such conversation displeases me; and I pity you who are my companions, because you think that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing. And I dare say that you pity me in return, whom you regard as an unhappy creature, and very probably you are right. But I certainly know of you what you only think of me—there is the difference.
COMPANION: I see, Apollodorus, that you are just the same—always speaking evil of yourself, and of others; and I do believe that you pity all mankind, with the exception of Socrates, yourself first of all, true in this to your old name, which, however deserved, I know not how you acquired, of Apollodorus the madman; for you are always raging against yourself and everybody but Socrates.
APOLLODORUS: Yes, friend, and the reason why I am said to be mad, and out of my wits, is just because I have these notions of myself and you; no other evidence is required.
COMPANION: No more of that, Apollodorus; but let me renew my request that you would repeat the conversation.
APOLLODORUS: Well, the tale of love was on this wise:—But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning, and endeavour to give you the exact words of Aristodemus:
He said that he met Socrates fresh from the bath and sandalled; and as the sight of the sandals was unusual, he asked him whither he was going that he had been converted into such a beau:—
To a banquet at Agathon’s, he replied, whose invitation to his sacrifice of victory I refused yesterday, fearing a crowd, but promising that I would come to-day instead; and so I have put on my finery, because he is such a fine man. What say you to going with me unasked?
I will do as you bid me, I replied.
Follow then, he said, and let us demolish the proverb:—
‘To the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go;’
instead of which our proverb will run:—
‘To the feasts of the good the good unbidden go;’
and this alteration may be supported by the authority of Homer himself, who not only demolishes but literally outrages the proverb. For, after picturing Agamemnon as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who is but a fainthearted warrior, come unbidden (Iliad) to the banquet of Agamemnon, who is feasting and offering sacrifices, not the better to the worse, but the worse to the better.
I rather fear, Socrates, said Aristodemus, lest this may still be my case; and that, like Menelaus in Homer, I shall be the inferior person, who
‘To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.’
But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will have to make an excuse.
‘Two going together,’
he replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them may invent an excuse by the way (Iliad).
This was the style of their conversation as they went along. Socrates dropped behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who was waiting, to go on before him. When he reached the house of Agathon he found the doors wide open, and a comical thing happened. A servant coming out met him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin. Welcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon, as soon as he appeared—you are just in time to sup with us; if you come on any other matter put it off, and make one of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant to have asked you, if I could have found you. But what have you done with Socrates?
I turned round, but Socrates was nowhere to be seen; and I had to explain that he had been with me a moment before, and that I came by his invitation to the supper.
You were quite right in coming, said Agathon; but where is he himself?
He was behind me just now, as I entered, he said, and I cannot think what has become of him.
Go and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring him in; and do you, Aristodemus, meanwhile take the place by Eryximachus.
The servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay down, and presently another servant came in and reported that our friend Socrates had retired into the portico of the neighbouring house. ‘There he is fixed,’ said he, ‘and when I call to him he will not stir.’
How strange, said Agathon; then you must call him again, and keep calling him.
Let him alone, said my informant; he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear; do not therefore disturb him.
Well, if you think so, I will leave him, said Agathon. And then, turning to the servants, he added, ‘Let us have supper without waiting for him. Serve up whatever you please, for there is no one to give you orders; hitherto I have never left you to yourselves. But on this occasion imagine that you are our hosts, and that I and the company are your guests; treat us well, and then we shall commend you.’ After this, supper was served, but still no Socrates; and during the meal Agathon several times expressed a wish to send for him, but Aristodemus objected; and at last when the feast was about half over—for the fit, as usual, was not of long duration—Socrates entered. Agathon, who was reclining alone at the end of the table, begged that he would take the place next to him; that ‘I may touch you,’ he said, ‘and have the benefit of that wise thought which came into your mind in the portico, and is now in your possession; for I am certain that you would not have come away until you had found what you sought.’
How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that wisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller into the emptier man, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one; if that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining at your side! For you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom plenteous and fair; whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream. But yours is bright and full of promise, and was manifested forth in all the splendour of youth the day before yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.
You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom—of this Dionysus shall be the judge; but at present you are better occupied with supper.
Socrates took his place on the couch, and supped with the rest; and then libations were offered, and after a hymn had been sung to the god, and there had been the usual ceremonies, they were about to commence drinking, when Pausanias said, And now, my friends, how can we drink with least injury to ourselves? I can assure you that I feel severely the effect of yesterday’s potations, and must have time to recover; and I suspect that most of you are in the same predicament, for you were of the party yesterday. Consider then: How can the drinking be made easiest?
I entirely agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, avoid hard drinking, for I was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned in drink.
I think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus; but I should still like to hear one other person speak: Is Agathon able to drink hard?
I am not equal to it, said Agathon.
Then, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus, Phaedrus, and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding that the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood. (I do not include Socrates, who is able either to drink or to abstain, and will not mind, whichever we do.) Well, as of none of the company seem disposed to drink much, I may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep is a bad practice, which I never follow, if I can help, and certainly do not recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the effects of yesterday’s carouse.
I always do what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a physician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the company, if they are wise, will do the same.
It was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but that they were all to drink only so much as they pleased.
Then, said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next place, that the flute-girl, who has just made her appearance, be told to go away and play to herself, or, if she likes, to the women who are within (compare Prot.). To-day let us have conversation instead; and, if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation. This proposal having been accepted, Eryximachus proceeded as follows:—
I will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in Euripides,
‘Not mine the word’
which I am about to speak, but that of Phaedrus. For often he says to me in an indignant tone:—’What a strange thing it is, Eryximachus, that, whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honour, the great and glorious god, Love, has no encomiast among all the poets who are so many. There are the worthy sophists too—the excellent Prodicus for example, who have descanted in prose on the virtues of Heracles and other heroes; and, what is still more extraordinary, I have met with a philosophical work in which the utility of salt has been made the theme of an eloquent discourse; and many other like things have had a like honour bestowed upon them. And only to think that there should have been an eager interest created about them, and yet that to this day no one has ever dared worthily to hymn Love’s praises! So entirely has this great deity been neglected.’ Now in this Phaedrus seems to me to be quite right, and therefore I want to offer him a contribution; also I think that at the present moment we who are here assembled cannot do better than honour the god Love. If you agree with me, there will be no lack of conversation; for I mean to propose that each of us in turn, going from left to right, shall make a speech in honour of Love. Let him give us the best which he can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting first on the left hand, and because he is the father of the thought, shall begin.
No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates. How can I oppose your motion, who profess to understand nothing but matters of love; nor, I presume, will Agathon and Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor will any one disagree of those whom I see around me. The proposal, as I am aware, may seem rather hard upon us whose place is last; but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first. Let Phaedrus begin the praise of Love, and good luck to him. All the company expressed their assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade him.
Aristodemus did not recollect all that was said, nor do I recollect all that he related to me; but I will tell you what I thought most worthy of remembrance, and what the chief speakers said.
Phaedrus began by affirming that Love is a mighty god, and wonderful among gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth. For he is the eldest of the gods, which is an honour to him; and a proof of his claim to this honour is, that of his parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor prose-writer has ever affirmed that he had any. As Hesiod says:—
‘First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth, The everlasting seat of all that is, And Love.’
In other words, after Chaos, the Earth and Love, these two, came into being. Also Parmenides sings of Generation:
‘First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love.’
And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live—that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any one else. The beloved too, when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves (compare Rep.), they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved—love alone; and women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would, although he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their own son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of hers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom, in admiration of her noble action, they have granted the privilege of returning alive to earth; such exceeding honour is paid by the gods to the devotion and virtue of love. But Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus, the harper, they sent empty away, and presented to him an apparition only of her whom he sought, but herself they would not give up, because he showed no spirit; he was only a harp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis to die for love, but was contriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the punishment of his cowardliness. Very different was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus—his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far). And greatly as the gods honour the virtue of love, still the return of love on the part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them, for the lover is more divine; because he is inspired by God. Now Achilles was quite aware, for he had been told by his mother, that he might avoid death and return home, and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector. Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared to die, not only in his defence, but after he was dead. Wherefore the gods honoured him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest. These are my reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest and noblest and mightiest of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life, and of happiness after death.
This, or something like this, was the speech of Phaedrus; and some other speeches followed which Aristodemus did not remember; the next which he repeated was that of Pausanias. Phaedrus, he said, the argument has not been set before us, I think, quite in the right form;—we should not be called upon to praise Love in such an indiscriminate manner. If there were only one Love, then what you said would be well enough; but since there are more Loves than one,—should have begun by determining which of them was to be the theme of our praises. I will amend this defect; and first of all I will tell you which Love is deserving of praise, and then try to hymn the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him. For we all know that Love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite there would be only one Love; but as there are two goddesses there must be two Loves. And am I not right in asserting that there are two goddesses? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite—she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione—her we call common; and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly. All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but not without distinction of their natures; and therefore I must try to distinguish the characters of the two Loves. Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking—these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul—the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately. The goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and female, and partakes of both. But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part,—she is from the male only; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being older, there is nothing of wantonness in her. Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their whole life in company with them, not to take them in their inexperience, and deceive them, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to another of them. But the love of young boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain; they may turn out good or bad, either in body or soul, and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them; in this matter the good are a law to themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force; as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth. These are the persons who bring a reproach on love; and some have been led to deny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and evil of them; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done can justly be censured. Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about love are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily intelligible; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of eloquence, they are very straightforward; the law is simply in favour of these connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say to their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are men of few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading their suit. In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and gymnastics are held, because they are inimical to tyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit (compare Arist. Politics), and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power. And, therefore, the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be ill-reputed; that is to say, to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed; on the other hand, the indiscriminate honour which is given to them in some countries is attributable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion of them. In our own country a far better principle prevails, but, as I was saying, the explanation of it is rather perplexing. For, observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable. Consider, too, how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed. And in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things, which philosophy would bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power. He may pray, and entreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and endure a slavery worse than that of any slave—in any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is strangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover’s oath. Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world. From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing. But when parents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a tutor’s care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke them—any one who reflects on all this will, on the contrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful. But, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether such practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not a simple question; they are honourable to him who follows them honourably, dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably. There is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner. Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting. The custom of our country would have both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue, and others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials, until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong. And this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty attachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true test of this as of most other things; and secondly there is a dishonour in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political power, whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them, or, having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption, is unable to rise above the seductions of them. For none of these things are of a permanent or lasting nature; not to mention that no generous friendship ever sprang from them. There remains, then, only one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is the way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.
For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom, or in some other particular of virtue—such a voluntary service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one; and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one—then, and then only, may the beloved yield with honour to the lover. Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one’s ‘uses base’ for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is the love of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore.
Pausanias came to a pause—this is the balanced way in which I have been taught by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus said that the turn of Aristophanes was next, but either he had eaten too much, or from some other cause he had the hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with Eryximachus the physician, who was reclining on the couch below him. Eryximachus, he said, you ought either to stop my hiccough, or to speak in my turn until I have left off.
I will do both, said Eryximachus: I will speak in your turn, and do you speak in mine; and while I am speaking let me recommend you to hold your breath, and if after you have done so for some time the hiccough is no better, then gargle with a little water; and if it still continues, tickle your nose with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or twice, even the most violent hiccough is sure to go. I will do as you prescribe, said Aristophanes, and now get on.
Eryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his deficiency. I think that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love. But my art further informs me that the double love is not merely an affection of the soul of man towards the fair, or towards anything, but is to be found in the bodies of all animals and in productions of the earth, and I may say in all that is; such is the conclusion which I seem to have gathered from my own art of medicine, whence I learn how great and wonderful and universal is the deity of love, whose empire extends over all things, divine as well as human. And from medicine I will begin that I may do honour to my art. There are in the human body these two kinds of love, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being unlike, they have loves and desires which are unlike; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the desire of the diseased is another; and as Pausanias was just now saying that to indulge good men is honourable, and bad men dishonourable:—so too in the body the good and healthy elements are to be indulged, and the bad elements and the elements of disease are not to be indulged, but discouraged. And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful practitioner. Now the most hostile are the most opposite, such as hot and cold, bitter and sweet, moist and dry, and the like. And my ancestor, Asclepius, knowing how to implant friendship and accord in these elements, was the creator of our art, as our friends the poets here tell us, and I believe them; and not only medicine in every branch but the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are under his dominion. Any one who pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he says that The One is united by disunion, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre. Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord. But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could be no harmony,—clearly not. For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. In like manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long, once differing and now in accord; which accordance, as in the former instance, medicine, so in all these other cases, music implants, making love and unison to grow up among them; and thus music, too, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm. Again, in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm there is no difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become double. But when you want to use them in actual life, either in the composition of songs or in the correct performance of airs or metres composed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty begins, and the good artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and heavenly love—the love of Urania the fair and heavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of preserving their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate licentiousness; just as in my own art it is a great matter so to regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes without the attendant evil of disease. Whence I infer that in music, in medicine, in all other things human as well as divine, both loves ought to be noted as far as may be, for they are both present.
The course of the seasons is also full of both these principles; and when, as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry, attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and do them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and affecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious, being the source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of diseases on animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and blight spring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of love, which to know in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the seasons of the year is termed astronomy. Furthermore all sacrifices and the whole province of divination, which is the art of communion between gods and men—these, I say, are concerned only with the preservation of the good and the cure of the evil love. For all manner of impiety is likely to ensue if, instead of accepting and honouring and reverencing the harmonious love in all his actions, a man honours the other love, whether in his feelings towards gods or parents, towards the living or the dead. Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves and to heal them, and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men, working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves. Such is the great and mighty, or rather omnipotent force of love in general. And the love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another. I dare say that I too have omitted several things which might be said in praise of Love, but this was not intentional, and you, Aristophanes, may now supply the omission or take some other line of commendation; for I perceive that you are rid of the hiccough.
Yes, said Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough is gone; not, however, until I applied the sneezing; and I wonder whether the harmony of the body has a love of such noises and ticklings, for I no sooner applied the sneezing than I was cured.
Eryximachus said: Beware, friend Aristophanes, although you are going to speak, you are making fun of me; and I shall have to watch and see whether I cannot have a laugh at your expense, when you might speak in peace.
You are right, said Aristophanes, laughing. I will unsay my words; but do you please not to watch me, as I fear that in the speech which I am about to make, instead of others laughing with me, which is to the manner born of our muse and would be all the better, I shall only be laughed at by them.
Do you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes? Well, perhaps if you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to account, I may be induced to let you off.
Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word ‘Androgynous’ is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’ He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them,—being the sections of entire men or women,—and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,—if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, ‘What do you people want of one another?’ they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: ‘Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another’s company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two—I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?’—there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need (compare Arist. Pol.). And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians (compare Arist. Pol.). And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him—he is the enemy of the gods who opposes him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider application—they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.
Indeed, I am not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for I thought your speech charming, and did I not know that Agathon and Socrates are masters in the art of love, I should be really afraid that they would have nothing to say, after the world of things which have been said already. But, for all that, I am not without hopes.
Socrates said: You played your part well, Eryximachus; but if you were as I am now, or rather as I shall be when Agathon has spoken, you would, indeed, be in a great strait.
You want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, in the hope that I may be disconcerted at the expectation raised among the audience that I shall speak well.
I should be strangely forgetful, Agathon replied Socrates, of the courage and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the actors and faced the vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could be fluttered at a small party of friends.
Do you think, Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so full of the theatre as not to know how much more formidable to a man of sense a few good judges are than many fools?
Nay, replied Socrates, I should be very wrong in attributing to you, Agathon, that or any other want of refinement. And I am quite aware that if you happened to meet with any whom you thought wise, you would care for their opinion much more than for that of the many. But then we, having been a part of the foolish many in the theatre, cannot be regarded as the select wise; though I know that if you chanced to be in the presence, not of one of ourselves, but of some really wise man, you would be ashamed of disgracing yourself before him—would you not?
Yes, said Agathon.
But before the many you would not be ashamed, if you thought that you were doing something disgraceful in their presence?
Here Phaedrus interrupted them, saying: not answer him, my dear Agathon; for if he can only get a partner with whom he can talk, especially a good-looking one, he will no longer care about the completion of our plan. Now I love to hear him talk; but just at present I must not forget the encomium on Love which I ought to receive from him and from every one. When you and he have paid your tribute to the god, then you may talk.
Very good, Phaedrus, said Agathon; I see no reason why I should not proceed with my speech, as I shall have many other opportunities of conversing with Socrates. Let me say first how I ought to speak, and then speak:—
The previous speakers, instead of praising the god Love, or unfolding his nature, appear to have congratulated mankind on the benefits which he confers upon them. But I would rather praise the god first, and then speak of his gifts; this is always the right way of praising everything. May I say without impiety or offence, that of all the blessed gods he is the most blessed because he is the fairest and best? And he is the fairest: for, in the first place, he is the youngest, and of his youth he is himself the witness, fleeing out of the way of age, who is swift enough, swifter truly than most of us like:—Love hates him and will not come near him; but youth and love live and move together—like to like, as the proverb says. Many things were said by Phaedrus about Love in which I agree with him; but I cannot agree that he is older than Iapetus and Kronos:—not so; I maintain him to be the youngest of the gods, and youthful ever. The ancient doings among the gods of which Hesiod and Parmenides spoke, if the tradition of them be true, were done of Necessity and not of Love; had Love been in those days, there would have been no chaining or mutilation of the gods, or other violence, but peace and sweetness, as there is now in heaven, since the rule of Love began. Love is young and also tender; he ought to have a poet like Homer to describe his tenderness, as Homer says of Ate, that she is a goddess and tender:—
‘Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps, Not on the ground but on the heads of men:’
herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness,—that she walks not upon the hard but upon the soft. Let us adduce a similar proof of the tenderness of Love; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon the skulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of both gods and men, which are of all things the softest: in them he walks and dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without exception, for where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he dwells; and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in the softest of soft places, how can he be other than the softest of all things? Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest, and also he is of flexile form; for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and out of every soul of man undiscovered. And a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be in an especial manner the attribute of Love; ungrace and love are always at war with one another. The fairness of his complexion is revealed by his habitation among the flowers; for he dwells not amid bloomless or fading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught else, but in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides. Concerning the beauty of the god I have said enough; and yet there remains much more which I might say. Of his virtue I have now to speak: his greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man; for he suffers not by force if he suffers; force comes not near him, neither when he acts does he act by force. For all men in all things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice. And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and no pleasure ever masters Love; he is their master and they are his servants; and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed. As to courage, even the God of War is no match for him; he is the captive and Love is the lord, for love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the tale runs; and the master is stronger than the servant. And if he conquers the bravest of all others, he must be himself the bravest. Of his courage and justice and temperance I have spoken, but I have yet to speak of his wisdom; and according to the measure of my ability I must try to do my best. In the first place he is a poet (and here, like Eryximachus, I magnify my art), and he is also the source of poesy in others, which he could not be if he were not himself a poet. And at the touch of him every one becomes a poet, even though he had no music in him before (A fragment of the Sthenoaoea of Euripides.); this also is a proof that Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing? Are they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him? And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?—he whom Love touches not walks in darkness. The arts of medicine and archery and divination were discovered by Apollo, under the guidance of love and desire; so that he too is a disciple of Love. Also the melody of the Muses, the metallurgy of Hephaestus, the weaving of Athene, the empire of Zeus over gods and men, are all due to Love, who was the inventor of them. And so Love set in order the empire of the gods—the love of beauty, as is evident, for with deformity Love has no concern. In the days of old, as I began by saying, dreadful deeds were done among the gods, for they were ruled by Necessity; but now since the birth of Love, and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprung every good in heaven and earth. Therefore, Phaedrus, I say of Love that he is the fairest and best in himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in all other things. And there comes into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god who
‘Gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep, Who stills the winds and bids the sufferer sleep.’
This is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection, who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these: in sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord—who sends courtesy and sends away discourtesy, who gives kindness ever and never gives unkindness; the friend of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; regardful of the good, regardless of the evil: in every word, work, wish, fear—saviour, pilot, comrade, helper; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honour and joining in that sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men. Such is the speech, Phaedrus, half-playful, yet having a certain measure of seriousness, which, according to my ability, I dedicate to the god.
When Agathon had done speaking, Aristodemus said that there was a general cheer; the young man was thought to have spoken in a manner worthy of himself, and of the god. And Socrates, looking at Eryximachus, said: Tell me, son of Acumenus, was there not reason in my fears? and was I not a true prophet when I said that Agathon would make a wonderful oration, and that I should be in a strait?
The part of the prophecy which concerns Agathon, replied Eryximachus, appears to me to be true; but not the other part—that you will be in a strait.
Why, my dear friend, said Socrates, must not I or any one be in a strait who has to speak after he has heard such a rich and varied discourse? I am especially struck with the beauty of the concluding words—who could listen to them without amazement? When I reflected on the immeasurable inferiority of my own powers, I was ready to run away for shame, if there had been a possibility of escape. For I was reminded of Gorgias, and at the end of his speech I fancied that Agathon was shaking at me the Gorginian or Gorgonian head of the great master of rhetoric, which was simply to turn me and my speech into stone, as Homer says (Odyssey), and strike me dumb. And then I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention was to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or falsehood—that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say that ‘he is all this,’ and ‘the cause of all that,’ making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot impose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say (Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind. Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no, indeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable to you?
Aristodemus said that Phaedrus and the company bid him speak in any manner which he thought best. Then, he added, let me have your permission first to ask Agathon a few more questions, in order that I may take his admissions as the premisses of my discourse.
I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions. Socrates then proceeded as follows:—
In the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you were right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of Love first and afterwards of his works—that is a way of beginning which I very much approve. And as you have spoken so eloquently of his nature, may I ask you further, Whether love is the love of something or of nothing? And here I must explain myself: I do not want you to say that love is the love of a father or the love of a mother—that would be ridiculous; but to answer as you would, if I asked is a father a father of something? to which you would find no difficulty in replying, of a son or daughter: and the answer would be right.
Very true, said Agathon.
And you would say the same of a mother?
He assented.
Yet let me ask you one more question in order to illustrate my meaning: Is not a brother to be regarded essentially as a brother of something?
Certainly, he replied.
That is, of a brother or sister?
Yes, he said.
And now, said Socrates, I will ask about Love:—Is Love of something or of nothing?
Of something, surely, he replied.
Keep in mind what this is, and tell me what I want to know—whether Love desires that of which love is.
Yes, surely.
And does he possess, or does he not possess, that which he loves and desires?
Probably not, I should say.
Nay, replied Socrates, I would have you consider whether ‘necessarily’ is not rather the word. The inference that he who desires something is in want of something, and that he who desires nothing is in want of nothing, is in my judgment, Agathon, absolutely and necessarily true. What do you think?
I agree with you, said Agathon.
Very good. Would he who is great, desire to be great, or he who is strong, desire to be strong?
That would be inconsistent with our previous admissions.
True. For he who is anything cannot want to be that which he is?
Very true.
And yet, added Socrates, if a man being strong desired to be strong, or being swift desired to be swift, or being healthy desired to be healthy, in that case he might be thought to desire something which he already has or is. I give the example in order that we may avoid misconception. For the possessors of these qualities, Agathon, must be supposed to have their respective advantages at the time, whether they choose or not; and who can desire that which he has? Therefore, when a person says, I am well and wish to be well, or I am rich and wish to be rich, and I desire simply to have what I have—to him we shall reply: ‘You, my friend, having wealth and health and strength, want to have the continuance of them; for at this moment, whether you choose or no, you have them. And when you say, I desire that which I have and nothing else, is not your meaning that you want to have what you now have in the future?’ He must agree with us—must he not?
He must, replied Agathon.
Then, said Socrates, he desires that what he has at present may be preserved to him in the future, which is equivalent to saying that he desires something which is non-existent to him, and which as yet he has not got:
Very true, he said.
Then he and every one who desires, desires that which he has not already, and which is future and not present, and which he has not, and is not, and of which he is in want;—these are the sort of things which love and desire seek?
Very true, he said.
Then now, said Socrates, let us recapitulate the argument. First, is not love of something, and of something too which is wanting to a man?
Yes, he replied.
Remember further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember I will remind you: you said that the love of the beautiful set in order the empire of the gods, for that of deformed things there is no love—did you not say something of that kind?
Yes, said Agathon.
Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is true, Love is the love of beauty and not of deformity?
He assented.
And the admission has been already made that Love is of something which a man wants and has not?
True, he said.
Then Love wants and has not beauty?
Certainly, he replied.
And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess beauty?
Certainly not.
Then would you still say that love is beautiful?
Agathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.
You made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is yet one small question which I would fain ask:—Is not the good also the beautiful?
Yes.
Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?
I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:—Let us assume that what you say is true.
Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for Socrates is easily refuted.
And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia (compare 1 Alcibiades), a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me: I think that this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can (compare Gorgias). As you, Agathon, suggested (supra), I must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works. First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair; and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good. ‘What do you mean, Diotima,’ I said, ‘is love then evil and foul?’ ‘Hush,’ she cried; ‘must that be foul which is not fair?’ ‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘And is that which is not wise, ignorant? do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?’ ‘And what may that be?’ I said. ‘Right opinion,’ she replied; ‘which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason? nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom.’ ‘Quite true,’ I replied. ‘Do not then insist,’ she said, ‘that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god.’ ‘By those who know or by those who do not know?’ ‘By all.’ ‘And how, Socrates,’ she said with a smile, ‘can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?’ ‘And who are they?’ I said. ‘You and I are two of them,’ she replied. ‘How can that be?’ I said. ‘It is quite intelligible,’ she replied; ‘for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair—of course you would—would you dare to say that any god was not?’ ‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?’ ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love.’
‘What then is Love?’ I asked; ‘Is he mortal?’ ‘No.’ ‘What then?’ ‘As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two.’ ‘What is he, Diotima?’ ‘He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.’ ‘And what,’ I said, ‘is his power?’ ‘He interprets,’ she replied, ‘between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse and converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.’ ‘And who,’ I said, ‘was his father, and who his mother?’ ‘The tale,’ she said, ‘will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father’s nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.’ ‘But who then, Diotima,’ I said, ‘are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?’ ‘A child may answer that question,’ she replied; ‘they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love. The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described.’
I said, ‘O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to men?’ ‘That, Socrates,’ she replied, ‘I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?—or rather let me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?’ I answered her ‘That the beautiful may be his.’ ‘Still,’ she said, ‘the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?’ ‘To what you have asked,’ I replied, ‘I have no answer ready.’ ‘Then,’ she said, ‘let me put the word “good” in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves loves the good, what is it then that he loves?’ ‘The possession of the good,’ I said. ‘And what does he gain who possesses the good?’ ‘Happiness,’ I replied; ‘there is less difficulty in answering that question.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final.’ ‘You are right.’ I said. ‘And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?—what say you?’ ‘All men,’ I replied; ‘the desire is common to all.’ ‘Why, then,’ she rejoined, ‘are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some of them? whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things.’ ‘I myself wonder,’ I said, ‘why this is.’ ‘There is nothing to wonder at,’ she replied; ‘the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names.’ ‘Give an illustration,’ I said. She answered me as follows: ‘There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers.’ ‘Very true.’ ‘Still,’ she said, ‘you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets.’ ‘Very true,’ I said. ‘And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers—the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only—they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.’ ‘I dare say,’ I replied, ‘that you are right.’ ‘Yes,’ she added, ‘and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?’ ‘Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.’ ‘Then,’ she said, ‘the simple truth is, that men love the good.’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?’ ‘Yes, that must be added.’ ‘And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?’ ‘That must be added too.’ ‘Then love,’ she said, ‘may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?’ ‘That is most true.’
‘Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,’ she said, ‘what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object which they have in view? Answer me.’ ‘Nay, Diotima,’ I replied, ‘if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I will teach you:—The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or soul.’ ‘I do not understand you,’ I said; ‘the oracle requires an explanation.’ ‘I will make my meaning clearer,’ she replied. ‘I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation—procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit: at the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.’ ‘What then?’ ‘The love of generation and of birth in beauty.’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied. ‘But why of generation?’ ‘Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,’ she replied; ‘and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.’
All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love. And I remember her once saying to me, ‘What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire? See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love, which begins with the desire of union; whereto is added the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young. Man may be supposed to act thus from reason; but why should animals have these passionate feelings? Can you tell me why?’ Again I replied that I did not know. She said to me: ‘And do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know this?’ ‘But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the reason why I come to you; for I am conscious that I want a teacher; tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.’ ‘Marvel not,’ she said, ‘if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old. Nay even in the life of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation—hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing. Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them individually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the word “recollection,” but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind—unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.’
I was astonished at her words, and said: ‘Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?’ And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: ‘Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;—think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal? Nay,’ she said, ‘I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.
‘Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children—this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant—for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies—conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?—wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring—for in deformity he will beget nothing—and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.
‘These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only—out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:
‘He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,’ said the stranger of Mantineia, ‘is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible—you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?’
Such, Phaedrus—and I speak not only to you, but to all of you—were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.
The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of love, or anything else which you please.
When Socrates had done speaking, the company applauded, and Aristophanes was beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates had made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl was heard. Agathon told the attendants to go and see who were the intruders. ‘If they are friends of ours,’ he said, ‘invite them in, but if not, say that the drinking is over.’ A little while afterwards they heard the voice of Alcibiades resounding in the court; he was in a great state of intoxication, and kept roaring and shouting ‘Where is Agathon? Lead me to Agathon,’ and at length, supported by the flute-girl and some of his attendants, he found his way to them. ‘Hail, friends,’ he said, appearing at the door crowned with a massive garland of ivy and violets, his head flowing with ribands. ‘Will you have a very drunken man as a companion of your revels? Or shall I crown Agathon, which was my intention in coming, and go away? For I was unable to come yesterday, and therefore I am here to-day, carrying on my head these ribands, that taking them from my own head, I may crown the head of this fairest and wisest of men, as I may be allowed to call him. Will you laugh at me because I am drunk? Yet I know very well that I am speaking the truth, although you may laugh. But first tell me; if I come in shall we have the understanding of which I spoke (supra Will you have a very drunken man? etc.)? Will you drink with me or not?’
The company were vociferous in begging that he would take his place among them, and Agathon specially invited him. Thereupon he was led in by the people who were with him; and as he was being led, intending to crown Agathon, he took the ribands from his own head and held them in front of his eyes; he was thus prevented from seeing Socrates, who made way for him, and Alcibiades took the vacant place between Agathon and Socrates, and in taking the place he embraced Agathon and crowned him. Take off his sandals, said Agathon, and let him make a third on the same couch.
By all means; but who makes the third partner in our revels? said Alcibiades, turning round and starting up as he caught sight of Socrates. By Heracles, he said, what is this? here is Socrates always lying in wait for me, and always, as his way is, coming out at all sorts of unsuspected places: and now, what have you to say for yourself, and why are you lying here, where I perceive that you have contrived to find a place, not by a joker or lover of jokes, like Aristophanes, but by the fairest of the company?
Socrates turned to Agathon and said: I must ask you to protect me, Agathon; for the passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to me. Since I became his admirer I have never been allowed to speak to any other fair one, or so much as to look at them. If I do, he goes wild with envy and jealousy, and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his hands off me, and at this moment he may do me some harm. Please to see to this, and either reconcile me to him, or, if he attempts violence, protect me, as I am in bodily fear of his mad and passionate attempts.
There can never be reconciliation between you and me, said Alcibiades; but for the present I will defer your chastisement. And I must beg you, Agathon, to give me back some of the ribands that I may crown the marvellous head of this universal despot—I would not have him complain of me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the conqueror of all mankind; and this not only once, as you were the day before yesterday, but always. Whereupon, taking some of the ribands, he crowned Socrates, and again reclined.
Then he said: You seem, my friends, to be sober, which is a thing not to be endured; you must drink—for that was the agreement under which I was admitted—and I elect myself master of the feast until you are well drunk. Let us have a large goblet, Agathon, or rather, he said, addressing the attendant, bring me that wine-cooler. The wine-cooler which had caught his eye was a vessel holding more than two quarts—this he filled and emptied, and bade the attendant fill it again for Socrates. Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk. Socrates drank the cup which the attendant filled for him.
Eryximachus said: What is this, Alcibiades? Are we to have neither conversation nor singing over our cups; but simply to drink as if we were thirsty?
Alcibiades replied: Hail, worthy son of a most wise and worthy sire!
The same to you, said Eryximachus; but what shall we do?
That I leave to you, said Alcibiades.
‘The wise physician skilled our wounds to heal (from Pope’s Homer, Il.)’
shall prescribe and we will obey. What do you want?
Well, said Eryximachus, before you appeared we had passed a resolution that each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love, and as good a one as he could: the turn was passed round from left to right; and as all of us have spoken, and you have not spoken but have well drunken, you ought to speak, and then impose upon Socrates any task which you please, and he on his right hand neighbour, and so on.
That is good, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades; and yet the comparison of a drunken man’s speech with those of sober men is hardly fair; and I should like to know, sweet friend, whether you really believe what Socrates was just now saying; for I can assure you that the very reverse is the fact, and that if I praise any one but himself in his presence, whether God or man, he will hardly keep his hands off me.
For shame, said Socrates.
Hold your tongue, said Alcibiades, for by Poseidon, there is no one else whom I will praise when you are of the company.
Well then, said Eryximachus, if you like praise Socrates.
What do you think, Eryximachus? said Alcibiades: shall I attack him and inflict the punishment before you all?
What are you about? said Socrates; are you going to raise a laugh at my expense? Is that the meaning of your praise?
I am going to speak the truth, if you will permit me.
I not only permit, but exhort you to speak the truth.
Then I will begin at once, said Alcibiades, and if I say anything which is not true, you may interrupt me if you will, and say ‘that is a lie,’ though my intention is to speak the truth. But you must not wonder if I speak any how as things come into my mind; for the fluent and orderly enumeration of all your singularities is not a task which is easy to a man in my condition.
And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I speak, not to make fun of him, but only for the truth’s sake. I say, that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set up in the statuaries’ shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them. I say also that he is like Marsyas the satyr. You yourself will not deny, Socrates, that your face is like that of a satyr. Aye, and there is a resemblance in other points too. For example, you are a bully, as I can prove by witnesses, if you will not confess. And are you not a flute-player? That you are, and a performer far more wonderful than Marsyas. He indeed with instruments used to charm the souls of men by the power of his breath, and the players of his music do so still: for the melodies of Olympus (compare Arist. Pol.) are derived from Marsyas who taught them, and these, whether they are played by a great master or by a miserable flute-girl, have a power which no others have; they alone possess the soul and reveal the wants of those who have need of gods and mysteries, because they are divine. But you produce the same effect with your words only, and do not require the flute: that is the difference between you and him. When we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you and your words, even at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of them. And if I were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have over me. For my heart leaps within me more than that of any Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain tears when I hear them. And I observe that many others are affected in the same manner. I have heard Pericles and other great orators, and I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them, nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state. But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life which I am leading (this, Socrates, you will admit); and I am conscious that if I did not shut my ears against him, and fly as from the voice of the siren, my fate would be like that of others,—he would transfix me, and I should grow old sitting at his feet. For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns of the Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away from him. And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same. For I know that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to do as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me. And therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I see him I am ashamed of what I have confessed to him. Many a time have I wished that he were dead, and yet I know that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die: so that I am at my wit’s end.
And this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing of this satyr. Yet hear me once more while I show you how exact the image is, and how marvellous his power. For let me tell you; none of you know him; but I will reveal him to you; having begun, I must go on. See you how fond he is of the fair? He is always with them and is always being smitten by them, and then again he knows nothing and is ignorant of all things—such is the appearance which he puts on. Is he not like a Silenus in this? To be sure he is: his outer mask is the carved head of the Silenus; but, O my companions in drink, when he is opened, what temperance there is residing within! Know you that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him, and are utterly despised by him: he regards not at all the persons who are gifted with them; mankind are nothing to him; all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them. But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded: they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them. Now I fancied that he was seriously enamoured of my beauty, and I thought that I should therefore have a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew, for I had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth. In the prosecution of this design, when I next went to him, I sent away the attendant who usually accompanied me (I will confess the whole truth, and beg you to listen; and if I speak falsely, do you, Socrates, expose the falsehood). Well, he and I were alone together, and I thought that when there was nobody with us, I should hear him speak the language which lovers use to their loves when they are by themselves, and I was delighted. Nothing of the sort; he conversed as usual, and spent the day with me and then went away. Afterwards I challenged him to the palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several times when there was no one present; I fancied that I might succeed in this manner. Not a bit; I made no way with him. Lastly, as I had failed hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood between him and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a fair youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come; he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I had not the face to detain him. The second time, still in pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I pretended that the hour was late and that he had much better remain. So he lay down on the couch next to me, the same on which he had supped, and there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the apartment. All this may be told without shame to any one. But what follows I could hardly tell you if I were sober. Yet as the proverb says, ‘In vino veritas,’ whether with boys, or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.); and therefore I must speak. Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing the lofty actions of Socrates when I come to praise him. Moreover I have felt the serpent’s sting; and he who has suffered, as they say, is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a more than viper’s tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent’s tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man say or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and Agathon and Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes, all of you, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of the same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom. Therefore listen and excuse my doings then and my sayings now. But let the attendants and other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears.
When the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away, I thought that I must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity. So I gave him a shake, and I said: ‘Socrates, are you asleep?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Do you know what I am meditating? ‘What are you meditating?’ he said. ‘I think,’ I replied, ‘that of all the lovers whom I have ever had you are the only one who is worthy of me, and you appear to be too modest to speak. Now I feel that I should be a fool to refuse you this or any other favour, and therefore I come to lay at your feet all that I have and all that my friends have, in the hope that you will assist me in the way of virtue, which I desire above all things, and in which I believe that you can help me better than any one else. And I should certainly have more reason to be ashamed of what wise men would say if I were to refuse a favour to such as you, than of what the world, who are mostly fools, would say of me if I granted it.’ To these words he replied in the ironical manner which is so characteristic of him:—’Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you. And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me; you will gain true beauty in return for appearance—like Diomede, gold in exchange for brass. But look again, sweet friend, and see whether you are not deceived in me. The mind begins to grow critical when the bodily eye fails, and it will be a long time before you get old.’ Hearing this, I said: ‘I have told you my purpose, which is quite serious, and do you consider what you think best for you and me.’ ‘That is good,’ he said; ‘at some other time then we will consider and act as seems best about this and about other matters.’ Whereupon, I fancied that he was smitten, and that the words which I had uttered like arrows had wounded him, and so without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat about him crept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was winter, and there I lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in my arms. This again, Socrates, will not be denied by you. And yet, notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations, so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty—which really, as I fancied, had some attractions—hear, O judges; for judges you shall be of the haughty virtue of Socrates—nothing more happened, but in the morning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses) I arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother.
What do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at the thought of my own dishonour? And yet I could not help wondering at his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness. I never imagined that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance. And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his company, any more than I could hope to win him. For I well knew that if Ajax could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed. So I was at my wit’s end; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another. All this happened before he and I went on the expedition to Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue. His endurance was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were compelled to go without food—on such occasions, which often happen in time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody; there was no one to be compared to him. Yet at a festival he was the only person who had any real powers of enjoyment; though not willing to drink, he could if compelled beat us all at that,—wonderful to relate! no human being had ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am not mistaken, will be tested before long. His fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising. There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod, and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this, Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them.
I have told you one tale, and now I must tell you another, which is worth hearing,
‘Of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man’
while he was on the expedition. One morning he was thinking about something which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but continued thinking from early dawn until noon—there he stood fixed in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all night. There he stood until the following morning; and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way (compare supra). I will also tell, if you please—and indeed I am bound to tell—of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life? Now this was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I was wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms; and he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so, (this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager than the generals that I and not he should have the prize. There was another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable—in the flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the heavy-armed,—I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and promised to remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as you describe (Aristoph. Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout resistance; and in this way he and his companion escaped—for this is the sort of man who is never touched in war; those only are pursued who are running away headlong. I particularly observed how superior he was to Laches in presence of mind. Many are the marvels which I might narrate in praise of Socrates; most of his ways might perhaps be paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness to any human being that is or ever has been is perfectly astonishing. You may imagine Brasidas and others to have been like Achilles; or you may imagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like Pericles; and the same may be said of other famous men, but of this strange being you will never be able to find any likeness, however remote, either among men who now are or who ever have been—other than that which I have already suggested of Silenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not only himself, but his words. For, although I forgot to mention this to you before, his words are like the images of Silenus which open; they are ridiculous when you first hear them; he clothes himself in language that is like the skin of the wanton satyr—for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths and cobblers and curriers, and he is always repeating the same things in the same words (compare Gorg.), so that any ignorant or inexperienced person might feel disposed to laugh at him; but he who opens the bust and sees what is within will find that they are the only words which have a meaning in them, and also the most divine, abounding in fair images of virtue, and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending to the whole duty of a good and honourable man.
This, friends, is my praise of Socrates. I have added my blame of him for his ill-treatment of me; and he has ill-treated not only me, but Charmides the son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and many others in the same way—beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their addresses to him. Wherefore I say to you, Agathon, ‘Be not deceived by him; learn from me and take warning, and do not be a fool and learn by experience, as the proverb says.’
When Alcibiades had finished, there was a laugh at his outspokenness; for he seemed to be still in love with Socrates. You are sober, Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about to hide the purpose of your satyr’s praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon. But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us; but he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the couch next to you.
Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch below me.
Alas, said Alcibiades, how I am fooled by this man; he is determined to get the better of me at every turn. I do beseech you, allow Agathon to lie between us.
Certainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I in turn ought to praise my neighbour on the right, he will be out of order in praising me again when he ought rather to be praised by me, and I must entreat you to consent to this, and not be jealous, for I have a great desire to praise the youth.
Hurrah! cried Agathon, I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by Socrates.
The usual way, said Alcibiades; where Socrates is, no one else has any chance with the fair; and now how readily has he invented a specious reason for attracting Agathon to himself.
Agathon arose in order that he might take his place on the couch by Socrates, when suddenly a band of revellers entered, and spoiled the order of the banquet. Some one who was going out having left the door open, they had found their way in, and made themselves at home; great confusion ensued, and every one was compelled to drink large quantities of wine. Aristodemus said that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went away—he himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke, the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing to them. Aristodemus was only half awake, and he did not hear the beginning of the discourse; the chief thing which he remembered was Socrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy was an artist in comedy also. To this they were constrained to assent, being drowsy, and not quite following the argument. And first of all Aristophanes dropped off, then, when the day was already dawning, Agathon. Socrates, having laid them to sleep, rose to depart; Aristodemus, as his manner was, following him. At the Lyceum he took a bath, and passed the day as usual. In the evening he retired to rest at his own home.
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Teachings from Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha
Teachings from Buddhism
“A few years ago, journalist Pankaj Mishra pursued the social relevance of the Buddha’s thought across India and Europe, Afghanistan and America. He emerged with a startling critique of Western political economy that is even more resonant today as he pursued the social relevance of the Buddha’s core questions: Do desiring and acquiring make us happy? Does large-scale political change really address human suffering?”
These are the questions addressed in this interview with Pankaj Mishra[1] in
Quote from the Pali Canon :
- The non-doing of any evil, the performance of what’s skillful, the cleansing of one’s own mind: This is the teaching of the Awakened.
Four Noble Truths
- Life is suffering
- The cause of suffering is attachment and craving
- The end of suffering is possible
- The path to the end of suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path
In order to eliminate suffering from one’s life, and to achieve nirvana, one should use the teachings of the Eightfold Path. If one walks through these steps, one will cease craving, cease attachment, and find oneself able to move toward bliss. Following are the eight things that one must work through in order to move in that direction.
A simple introduction to this is found in:
The Eightfold Path from Princeton University.
The Noble Eightfold Path
- Right Understanding
- Right Resolve
- Right Speech
- Right Conduct
- Right Livelihood
- Right Effort
- Right Mindfulness
- Right Concentration
- Indian journalist and author of several books, including An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and the British newspaper The Guardian. ↵
License
Words of Wisdom: Intro to Philosophy Copyright © 2018 by Jody L Ondich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
DHAMMA: WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT
DHAMMA: WHAT THE BUDDHA TAUGHT
Douglas Sjoquist
Introduction
Many people think of Buddhism as a religion rather than a philosophy and so one might wonder why there is a chapter on Buddhism in an introduction to philosophy textbook. However, metaphysical and epistemological ideas have always been a feature of religious thinking in India (and Asia more generally). Religion and philosophy were never thought of as separate and distinct disciplines. The Buddha’s teachings (called “Dhamma”) addressed fundamental questions about the self, the human condition, and the nature of existence—all of which are recognized philosophical questions within the Western tradition. At the same time, the Buddha emphasized an adherence to moral practice. It might be said that intellectual philosophy and religious practice are intrinsic to the Buddha’s teachings.
This chapter begins by placing the Buddha in the context of Indian history and Asian history. What were the prevailing ideas and practices in India that gave rise to Buddhism? Which philosophical/religious systems of his day did the Buddha embrace or reject? The chapter will also discuss some of the many misconceptions and misrepresentations of the Buddha’s teachings. By examining these misconceptions and misrepresentations, students will gain insights into what the Buddha actually taught in contrast to what people think he taught. Tackling these mistaken views on karma, for example, serves as a useful introduction to Dhamma.
The story of Malunkyaputta and the parable of the poisoned arrow can function as a preface to the Dhamma and will provide students with an orientation to both what is important to and irrelevant in the Buddha’s teachings. Inherent in the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Three Marks of Existence is a rational investigation of self and existence – both features of philosophical inquiry throughout human history.
The Buddha never expected his followers to blindly accept the truth of his teachings. Instead, he encouraged his followers to verify the truth of Dhamma by making their own honest observations about self and existence. This chapter lends itself to a comparative analysis between what the Buddha taught and the wisdom and methodologies of philosophers presented elsewhere in this textbook. How do the three pillars of Dhamma (wisdom, mental discipline and ethical conduct), for instance, compare with other philosophical traditions such as Roman Stoicism, American Pragmatism, or the teachings of Pythagoras? How would the Buddha view our contemporary relationship with the environment? It is hoped this chapter will stimulate these kinds of questions and contribute to a greater sensitivity to and appreciation for Buddhist thought and practice. Some of these issues will be discussed in the “philosophical afterward” at the end of the chapter.
Pali: The Original Language of Buddhism
The original written language of Buddhism is Pali. This ancient language has its origins in India and is for all practical purposes a simplified version of Sanskrit, an ancient language also from India and the original written language of Hinduism.It might be said that the relationship between Pali and Sanskrit is analogous to the relationship between Italian and Latin. That the Buddha spoke Pali is more difficult to ascertain but scholars think he probably spoke something very similar to it.Whatever the case may be, the Buddha never heard the word “Buddhism” nor did he ever see the word in writing.
It should also be noted that the teachings of the Buddha were not written down until the first century BCE. That is to say, Buddhism existed in oral form for at least four hundred years. During that time monks trained in memorization techniques memorized the Buddha’s teachings. Ananda, a disciple of the Buddha, is said to have recited from memory all of the Buddha’s sermons at the first Buddhist council in Rajagaha, India and Upali, another disciple of the Buddha, recited for the council all of the Buddha’s 227 rules. This council was held shortly after the Buddha’s death in 483 BCE. Memorization of large quantities of doctrinal information was common in India at the time of the Buddha and this was how the Buddha’s teachings were passed on from generation to generation. Tradition says that at the fourth Buddhist council, convened by King Vattagamani (88-77 BCE) in Sri Lanka, the Buddha’s teachings and rules were written down for the first time. In addition to the sermons and rules of the Buddha, commentaries on the Buddha’s sermons by various disciples were gradually added over the years and these, too, came to be written down. In Buddhism, these written teachings, rules, and commentaries are known as the Tipitaka (“three baskets”) and constitute what’s called the Pali Canon. Historians believe that the teachings, rules, and commentaries were initially written at this council on palm leaves and then appropriately placed into three baskets. This is the origin of the word “tipitaka.” As a written language Pali died out probably around the 14th-c. Still, scholars study this language to gain access to the original teachings of the Buddha.
Historical Context
The traditional dates for the Buddha’s birth and death are 563-483 BCE, respectively. This makes him a contemporary of Mahavira (599-527 BCE), K’ung Fu-tzu (551-479 BCE), and Lao Tzu (570-517 BCE). Jainism, Confucianism, and Taoism, therefore, all came into existence in Asia about the same time as Buddhism. The area where the Buddha was born is actually now in modern-day Nepal. His mother gave birth to him in the Nepalese village of Lumbini. (Tragically, she died seven days later). Since his father was a king, he was a prince and brought up in a luxurious palace in the city of Kapilavatthu – also in Nepal. The Buddha’s given name is Siddhattha Gotama (in Sanskrit, “Siddhartha Gautama”). He was born into the Sakya clan and many scholars simply refer to him by the name “Sakyamuni” (meaning “sage of the Sakya clan”).
His family belonged to the nobility class. In India, this class was called the Khatiya (in Sanskrit, “Kshatriya”) class. Also, the Buddha’s family was Hindu. Hinduism was the dominant religion in India at the time but there was great diversity in philosophical thought among Hindus. World-views such as theism, materialism, agnosticism, determinism, nihilism, etc. all fell under the Hindu umbrella. The philosophical abstractness and the great variety in views made Hinduism virtually impossible for commoners to understand. Furthermore, many Hindu priests (called “brahmins”) taught that salvation was only available to brahmins. That is, one had to be born as a brahmin (and as a male) to attain freedom from the miseries of the world and from death. Brahmins also promoted the idea that rituals were the most effective means for securing assistance from the various deities that dominated the Hindu pantheon and the only people competent to perform these rituals were the brahmins themselves. It might be said that the priests had a spiritual stranglehold on the commoner. To complicate matters even further most commoners were uneducated and could not speak, read, or write Sanskrit – the language of the brahmins. It’s well-known that the priestly class had corrupted Hinduism by the time the Buddha entered the picture in India’s history. India was ripe for a new world- view. The Buddha experimented with the various practices and theories associated with the Hinduism of his day and he came to the conclusion that practices such as extreme austerities and solitude were harmful and that the dominant philosophical views were erroneous. He rejected, for example, the ideas of savior beings, divine assistance, sacrifices and rituals, a creator god, and the exclusivist views of priests as means to attain salvation. (It’s important to mention, perhaps, that during the time of the Buddha, the Hindu teachings represented by Upanishads had yet to reach fruition. These Upanishad teachings ushered in a Hindu reformation after the Buddha’s passing).
This chapter on Buddhism will examine the central teachings of the Buddha. It is vital that students note at the onset that a distinction should be made between what the Buddha taught and what is called Buddhism. Buddhism is a religion that represents an evolution of practices and thinking that evolved over a long period of time as it migrated from one geographical area to another and split into three traditions: the Theravada, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana.
There’s great diversity in Buddhism just as there is great diversity in the various traditions of Christianity or Islam. Ronald Eyre (1929-1992), a British theater director and narrator of the television documentary series called, The Long Search, proposed a thoughtful question: “If the Buddha of Sri Lanka or India and the Buddha of Japan were to meet would they recognize each other?” The question is apropos since what the Buddha taught is quite different from what some Mahayana schools (for example, the Pure Land sects in China or Japan) taught, for example. Buddhist scholars like to distinguish what the Buddha actually taught (that is, the Dhamma) and what came to be known as Buddhism. This chapter embraces the above scholarly position and will inspect only what the Buddha taught.
The Story of Malunkyaputta
An appropriate place to begin a discussion about Dhamma is to tell the story of an exchange between a monk named Malunkyaputta and the Buddha. The scene takes place at a monastery in Savatthi, India. Malunkyaputta had been bothered by many questions that he wanted the Buddha to answer. He felt the Buddha ignored the kinds of questions that for him were important. In essence, Malunkyaputta wanted answers to questions that would be considered central issues in metaphysics or other areas of philosophy as well as dominant topics in some religions like Hinduism, Christianity, or Islam. “Is the world eternal or not eternal? Is the world finite or infinite? Is the soul the same as the body or is the soul one thing and the body another thing? After death does a Buddha exist or not exist?” He went to the Buddha and demanded that the Buddha answer these questions once and for all. Malunkyaputta declared to the Buddha that he would abandon his training and return to a normal life if these questions were not answered. The Buddha quietly listened to Malunkyaputta and then told the following parable:
“Suppose, Malunkyaputta, a man were wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison and his friends and family brought a surgeon to treat him. The man would say: ‘I will not let the surgeon pull out this arrow that wounded me until I know if the man who wounded me was tall, short, or middle height, dark or brown or golden-skinned, whether the man lived in a village or town or city; . . . until I know whether the bow that wounded me was a long bow or a crossbow, whether the bowstring was made of fiber, reed, sinew, hemp or bark; . . . until I know with what kind of feathers the shaft that wounded me was fitted – whether those of a vulture, a heron, a stork, a hawk, or a peacock.’“ The Buddha went on in great detail and ended by saying that all these questions would still be unknown to that man and meanwhile he would die. He continued and said, “So, too, Malunkyaputta, if anyone comes to the Buddha and says he will not follow the Buddha until these questions are answered he, too, will die” (Majjhima Nikaya 63).[1]
The orientation of the Buddha’s teachings is clearly illustrated in this story. The above tale shows readers that the focus of the Buddha’s teachings was on the elimination of suffering and not on theory or beliefs.In other words, we as humans should concentrate our energies on removing the “arrow of suffering” rather than wasting our time on useless doctrinal speculations. Whether the universe is finite or infinite, created or non-created, etc. matters very little with regard to the realities of one’s suffering. The issue of one’s liberation from suffering is more important, for example, than knowing the nature of God or knowing whether the world was created or not created. The Buddha’s teachings emphasize realistic solutions to human problems.
The Four Noble Truths
The Buddha was like a doctor/scientist who observed the problem with the human condition and presented a cure or solution. More precisely, he analyzed, investigated, and then offered a course of action. After his enlightenment he gave a sermon to five monks in a place called Deer Park. This sermon (“sutta”) is called “The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Teaching.” At the beginning of this first sermon was the idea that we should avoid the extremes of self- indulgence on one hand and self-denial on the other. He said, “There are two extremes, monks, which must be avoided. What are these extremes? A life given to pleasures, dedicated to pleasures and lusts – this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, unworthy, and useless. And, a life given to self-torture – this is painful, unworthy, and useless.” We must, said the Buddha, follow the Middle Path “which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which produces calm, knowledge, enlightenment, and nibbana” (Samyutta Nikaya 56).[2] The Buddha’s teaching is often called the “middle path” because he taught that one should shun all extremes and instead live a life of moderation.
He then presented in this sermon what are called the Four Noble Truths:
- There is suffering (“dukkha”)
- Suffering has a cause
- Suffering can be eliminated
- There is a way to eliminate suffering
These Four Noble Truths might be considered the essence of the Buddha’s teachings on the human condition. Summarizing the Buddha’s own words he said, “I teach suffering, its causes, its cessation, and the way to end suffering.”
Regarding the First Noble Truth the Buddha said this: “Birth is suffering, decay is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, to be united with the unpleasant is suffering, to be separated from the pleasant is suffering, not to get what one desires is suffering” (Samyutta Nikaya 56). The First Noble Truth implies that life is defective. Suffering is inevitable. To be born into the world means to experience suffering (mental, physical). To paraphrase from his book, Being and Nothingness, the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, would say “if we are born in the world we are condemned to be free.” The Buddha would say, “if we are born in the world we are condemned to suffer.”
The Second Noble Truth says that suffering has a cause: “It is craving (tanha) which renews being, and is accompanied by desire and lust, desire for this and that. In other words, craving for sensual pleasures, craving to be, craving not to be” (Samyutta Nikaya 56). The Second Noble Truth identifies the cause of suffering as craving. It should be noted here that some scholars translate the Pali word tanha as “desire” but this is misleading because it implies that the Buddha taught that all desires must be eliminated to end suffering. This is simply inaccurate. Desires can be wholesome (for example, the desire to help others, the desire to be a kind person, the desire to end suffering for one’s self and for others, etc.). Desires can be neutral like the desire to ride your bike or go swimming or eat when you’re hungry. Other desires are unwholesome ones and these are better translated as “cravings.” This translation of tanha better captures the essence of the Second Noble Truth. These unwholesome desires would include craving sensual pleasure, wealth, notoriety, and so forth.It might also include craving life and good health in the face of death or sickness, respectively. What gives rise to this craving in the first place is ignorance. We fail to see, for example, how our craving for those things, people, and activities that brings us pleasure leads to suffering.
Consider this. An object can fulfill a craving, or a person can fulfill a craving, or an activity can fulfill a craving. The fulfillment of that craving, however, brings with it attachment. In other words, we become attached to the things, the people, and the activities that brings us pleasure. This attachment is a human characteristic. It is natural. This attachment, however, gives rise to separation anxiety. We become anxious about losing the things, the people, and the activities that bring us pleasure. This anxiety is one example of suffering. It’s a complicated cycle that, in Buddhism, eventually leads to rebirth. The root cause of suffering, then, is craving, which arises out of ignorance and leads to attachment that leads to suffering.
The Third Noble Truth says, “It is the complete stopping of this craving, the elimination of passions so that craving can be laid aside, given up, harbored no longer, and gotten free from” (Samyutta Nikaya 56). If the cause of suffering lies in craving, ignorance, and attachment then the elimination of suffering involves abandoning them. We don’t rid ourselves of the objects, the people, or the activities; we rid ourselves of the craving and attachment to them. To eliminate suffering is to get rid of the craving and attachment and ignorance that underlie it and the Fourth Noble Truth prescribes a way to do this.
The Fourth Noble Truth says, “There is a path that leads to the cessation of suffering: it is, indeed, the Noble Eightfold Path: right views, right intentions, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration” (Samyutta Nikaya 56).
The Noble Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path (Magga) is considered the path in Buddhism. The book called the Dhammapada (literally the “teaching path”) is a collection of sayings from the Buddha. It says in the book, “Of all the paths the Eightfold is the best; of truths the Four Noble are best; of mental states, detachment is best; of human beings the illuminated one is best” (Dhammapada, 273).[3] The Noble Eightfold Path represents the middle course one must tread in life. It’s the Buddhist prescription for ending suffering. That is, it is the path we must adhere to in order to avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification and attain the awakened state like the Buddha. The NEP consists of eight principles that are usually categorized under the headings of wisdom (panna), ethics (sila), and mental discipline (samadhi). Let’s look at each.
Right View simply means knowing through personal investigation and experience what suffering is, its causes, that it can be eliminated, and the way to eliminate it. It implies a correct understanding of the law of kamma, for example, and a commitment to abandoning wrong views.
Right Intention is, perhaps, the most important feature of the NEP. The Buddha asked us to consider the intent behind thought, action, and speech. In other words, whenever we act, think, or speak we should be mindful of our intent behind those thoughts, actions, and speech. Is the intent to foster harm and ill will or is the intent meant to bring about good will and harmlessness to those around you and the environment? Before you act, think, or speak ask yourself, “What is my intent?” This is important to remember since the intent of an action creates kamma.
Right Speech requires that we refrain from lying, false accusations, idle gossip, and harsh or loud talk. We should not use speech to inflame passions or incite hatred, divisiveness, or violence. Instead, speech should be quiet, compassionate, and used to create harmony in one’s surroundings. Has you mother ever said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it”? If yes, she was probably a Buddhist and you didn’t know it.
Right Action constitutes five principles that all Buddhists should observe. They are 1) to avoid killing, and/or harming, 2) to avoid taking that which is not given to you (that is, no stealing), 3) to avoid false speech (see above), 4) to avoid sexual misconduct (such as adultery), and finally 5) to avoid intoxication by using drugs or alcohol. It is, of course, expected of Buddhist laypeople that these precepts be observed. For Buddhist monks, these precepts and many others are more strictly prescribed. For instance, monks must remain celibate. “Having thus gone forth and possessing the monk’s training and way of life, he abstains from killing living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, he extends compassion to all living beings. Abandoning the taking of what’s not given, taking only what is given and expecting only what is given. He observes celibacy, living apart from the practice of sexual intercourse.” (Mijjhima Nikaya 272)
Not surprisingly, students typically ask many questions about these precepts associated with right action as it relates to them – especially to avoid killing, to avoid sexual misconduct, and to avoid intoxication. “What if a mosquito lands on my arm? Can I kill it?” “What if someone comes to my house who intends to steal or murder? Can I kill that person?” “Can my girlfriend and I have sex and still be Buddhist?” “Can my boyfriend and I have a beer before or after dinner?” One way to answer these questions is to first ask, “What is the intent of my action? Will my action bring harm to another person, the environment, or myself?” Secondly, another way to address these kinds of issues for laypeople is to assess whether they conform to the practice of moderation. The Buddha warned against self-indulgence. Notice, for example, that the prohibition is against intoxication – not drinking. The prohibition is against sexual misconduct not sex.
Right Livelihood is an extension of right speech and right action into one’s profession or livelihood. One must avoid deceptive practices, exploitation, violence, etc. Any occupation that brings harm to others, the environment, or oneself should be avoided. Clear examples of this would be occupations that harm or deceive others, such as engaging in human trafficking or working for an company that deploys deceptive sales tactics. One’s profession should carry with it a sense of service to others or to the environment.
Right Effort means one must be resolved to cultivating wisdom, right views, right actions, etc. One cannot simply expect that things will get better or automatically improve. Suffering will not go away like magic. There must be a mental resolve to expel evil thoughts and nourish wholesome ones. There must be a mental resolve to cultivate compassion, wisdom, and generosity. Nurturing spiritual ideals requires mental discipline.
Right Mindfulness is an important feature of training the mind.It goes beyond simply having a global awareness of your surroundings at all times. It means paying attention to how one’s actions, thoughts, and speech affect the environment and other people. It means paying attention to how a certain feeling or emotion has arisen in the mind. It means paying attention to how your current situation or circumstance (good or bad) has ties to past actions, words, and deeds. Right mindfulness means paying attention! Right mindfulness can mean “alertness” or “recollection” or “presence of mind,” too. In the Buddha’s teaching it refers to “egoless observing.” One approaches the present without mental prejudice or preconception.
Right Concentration simply refers to meditation practice. Meditation practice trains the mind to focus and develop the ability to sustain a one-pointedness. It involves unifying the mind for one purpose: enlightenment or awakening.
These eight principles known as the Noble Eightfold Path are practiced concurrently and in accordance with the practice of moderation. As one can see the NEP does not represent a belief system. The eight principles represent a process, a practical guide to end suffering. These eight principles are linked and can be thought of in three categories as mentioned above: panna (Right Views and Right Intentions), sila (Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood), and samadhi (Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration). The categories and their respective principles are intended to be practiced together. They are mutually supportive or interdependent. One cannot expect to conduct oneself ethically without mental discipline and mental discipline has no foundation without ethical conduct. And, both ethical conduct and mental discipline are connected with wisdom and wisdom is developed through mental discipline and ethical conduct.
The Three Marks of Existence
It’s important to supplement the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path in this chapter with a short discussion on the Buddha’s three marks of existence (tilakkhana). These characteristics do not appear as a separate and distinct sutta but they are mentioned so often in many suttas that scholars consider them essential elements in the Buddha’s teachings. They should be viewed as complementary teachings to the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Dhammapada says this regarding these marks of existence: “All created things are transitory; those who realize this are freed from suffering. All created beings are involved in sorrow; those who realize this are freed from suffering.
All states are without self; all those who realize this are freed from suffering” (Dhammapada 277-279). In the Anguttara Nikaya (meaning “gradual sayings”) the Buddha said, “Whether Tathagatas (Buddhas) arise in the world or not, it still remains a fact, a firm and necessary condition of existence, that all formations are impermanent . . . that all formations are subject to suffering . . . that all things are non-self.”[4]
The first mark of existence is impermanence (anicca). That is, existence is characterized by constant change. There is no permanence in anything. There is no permanence in our thoughts, in our emotions, or in our bodies. There is no permanence in the objects of our world. All is in a constant state of change.
Ask yourself this: can I hold one particular thought or do my thoughts constantly change? Do my feelings stay the same or do they constantly change? Does my body stay the same or does it constantly change? Do the things that come to me in my experience of the world have any permanence? Clearly the answer is, “no!”All that is created is transitory. This is an existential condition.
The second mark of existence is that all beings (including animals) are subject to dissatisfaction or suffering (dukkha). We saw in the First Noble Truth that to be born in the world is to experience suffering. Part of the reason for this is that everything is subject to impermanence. Everything that changes brings with it unhappiness or distress.This is also an existential condition.
The third characteristic is, perhaps, one of the most complex and difficult principles in Buddhism to grasp for Westerners brought up in a Judeo-Christian- Islamic environment. It has even generated controversy. It’s the concept called “no-self” (anatta). Normally, we think of ourselves as being the “owner” of certain features that would constitute a human being such as bodily processes, sensations, perceptions, consciousness, etc. In the Buddha’s teachings, however, there is no “owner” or “self” attached to these features. The Buddhist monk, teacher, and author, Ajahn Khemansanto, posed this thought: “Long ago Descartes justified the existence of self by saying ‘I think, therefore I am’ (cogito ergo sum). From the Buddhist point of view he almost had it correct but it should be, ‘I think, therefore I think I am’. What is this thinker? Is this one who is aware separate from the thoughts, actions, feelings, or perceptions of the one who has them?” (Even Against the Wind, p.219).[5]
We utilize the word “self” for linguistic convenience to refer to the collection of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and body but it is not a “thing” separate from those same perceptions, etc. Furthermore, those perceptions, feelings, etc. are always changing or impermanent. Simply, there is no self (that is, there is no permanent and separate entity acting as an owner of sensations, consciousness, thoughts, etc.). “Suffering exists, but not the sufferer. The act is done, but there is no doer. Peace exists, but not the one who is at peace. There is a path, but no one walks it” – Buddhaghosa (Visuddhimagga 513).[6]
Related to this third mark of existence is that Buddhists do not have a concept of a soul. Sometimes the Buddhist term anatta is interpreted as “no-soul.” In Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions it is assumed that humans have a soul that is separate from our bodies and when we die this soul continues to exist and goes to either Heaven or Hell. The Buddha put forward no such idea. There is no evidence that anything exists over and above our transitory bodies and minds that can be identified as a separate eternal entity or a ”soul.” This idea of no- self/no-soul is a core principle in the Buddhist ontology.
Common Misconceptions
One common misconception is that the Buddha preached a pessimistic world- view that devalues life. This wrong interpretation stems from the Buddha’s principal position that if one is born into the world one can expect to experience suffering.What some critics of the Buddha’s teachings ignore, however, is that he taught that suffering has causes and suffering can be eliminated.
Additionally, the Buddha taught a way to eliminate suffering! The Dhamma is not pessimistic; it’s realistic. Look at any image of the Buddha. Does he have the face of a pessimist?
A second misconception is that the Buddha was a god. The Buddha never presented himself as a god nor did his disciples think of him as one. He was a human being – albeit a very unique one – who became enlightened or “awakened” to the realities of life and then taught people how to discover their own awakening and overcome suffering associated with these realities. What are the realities of human life? According to the Buddha it is, first and foremost, that although we all want lasting happiness and pleasure, we find only frustration, disappointment, and impermanence in that which brings us pleasure and happiness. The word “Buddha” means “one who is awake” (to the nature, causes, and elimination of suffering).
A third misconception is that the Buddha taught reincarnation. There is no notion of reincarnation in the Buddha’s teachings like there is in Hinduism. There is no soul that migrates from one lifetime to the next. What the Buddha taught was the notion of rebirth. Life does indeed continue after death but it is kammic/karmic tendencies rather a soul that migrates from one life to another.
It seems there is great misunderstanding of the notion of kamma (“karma” in Sanskrit), as well. The Buddhist interpretation of kamma is distinguishable from the Hindu notion of karma. In Hinduism, karma can mean “action” or the consequences of a physical or mental action. It can also mean the sum of all consequences of actions. Furthermore, Hindus think of karma as a cause-and- effect relationship operative in human behavior. Buddhism generally accepts these ideas about karma found in Hinduism. However, in Buddhism the link holding the universal law of cause-and-effect together is intention. Actions only produce results under certain circumstances. In other words, the effect of an action is not primarily determined by the act itself but rather by the intent of the action. It is the conscious intention of actions that causes kammic/karmic effects to arise. For example, if you unintentionally run over a squirrel with your car on the way to school it does not necessarily mean that you’ll accumulate “bad karma” as a result. There has to be some conscious intent behind the action.
In today’s “New Age” thinking people often embrace the idea that a person who suffers from a certain fate (for example, someone who has cancer, someone who was murdered, someone with a birth defect, etc.) deserved that fate due to their actions in the past – perhaps even lifetimes ago. The Buddha warned his monks not to fall into that wrong thinking. Humans are conditioned not only by their kamma but also by genetics, their environment, physical laws, and the mind, as well. Most importantly, it is the intention of an action that causes a certain effect in the future.
This brings up two other points regarding the Buddhist notion of kamma/karma. John Lennon sang a song called “Instant Karma.” This idea of kamma/karma is also erroneous. The effect of an action is not instantaneous! In other words, an action and the effect of an action cannot happen simultaneously. The consequence of an action may not manifest until several days, years, or even lifetimes later. Secondly, the effect of an action is not necessarily an effect in kind. In some religions you find phrases like “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” or “as you sow, so shall you reap.” This, too, is erroneous thinking from the perspective of Buddhism. For example, if you cheat on your girlfriend the consequence of that action might be that she leaves you forever instead of reciprocating by cheating on you while in the relationship. For every intentive action there is a reaction but not necessarily a reaction in kind or in proximity to the action itself.
There are many misrepresentations and misinterpretations regarding Buddhist concepts. This applies to Buddhist art, as well. Many people have seen the imagery below. This is not the Buddha. This is an image of Pu-tai, a Chinese Buddhist monk associated with Ch’an Buddhism. He is associated with prosperity and longevity and is a well-known figure in Chinese popular culture. This imagery dates back to about the 10th-c. The image is commonly referred to as the “laughing Buddha” or the “fat Buddha.” This is not, however, the historical Buddha.
(Image: Douglas Sjoquist)
There are other misconceptions about Buddhism and what the Buddha taught (for example, all Buddhists are vegetarians, most Buddhists live in India, all Buddhists practice meditation) but the above represent the most commonly held ones.
Concluding Remarks
The Buddha did not create a theology, a cosmology, a cosmogony, or eschatology. There are no divinely revealed scriptures regarding what he taught. He did not develop a liturgy or prescribe any rituals. In other words, the Dhamma is not a religion in the way that many of think about religion. Rather, it is a path – a path that suggests mental discipline, living a life of moderation, being mindful of our intent behind thoughts, words, and actions, and practicing generosity and kindness will lead to insights on the human condition and eventually an awakened state. This awakened state in Buddhism is referred to as “enlightenment” (bodhi). What exactly is one awakened to? One is awakened to the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering, the realization that suffering can be eliminated, and the complete understanding that there is a way to eliminate it. Ultimately, the goal is nibbana (literally, “to be extinguished”) – the highest kind of enlightenment.It says in the “Udana” (the third subdivision of the Khuddaka Nikaya): “There is, monks, that state where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air; no base consisting of the infinity of space, no base consisting of the infinity of consciousness, no base consisting of nothingness, no base consisting of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world nor the next nor both; neither sun nor moon. Here, monks, I say there is no coming, no going, no staying, no decreasing, no uprising, no fixed, no moveable, it has no support. Just this is the end of dukkha” (Udana 8.1).[7]
Additional Resources
- Pankaj Mishra — The Buddha in the World | The On Being Project
- 4.4 Buddhism – Intercultural Communication (okstate.edu)
- Buddhism – World Religions: the Spirit Searching (pressbooks.pub)
Video
- The Buddha (PBS Documentary; 2:40)
- Buddhism through its scriptures (5:37)
- The Buddha and sacred texts (9:10)
- The spread of Buddhism (3:14)
Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Kant
Introduction
We all have many things going on in our minds, such as beliefs, desires, hopes, dreams, imaginary figures, knowledge, love, and hatred—to name a handful. Have you ever considered their source? How do they come to be part of the thinking process? How do they become ideas in our minds? Some philosophers attribute the source of our ideas to the senses, including the inward senses (such as emotions) and the five outward senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch). We might sense the world directly or indirectly through the thoughts of others. Some philosophers even claim that all our ideas must come from our senses. This claim holds that each of us is born with a mind that is like a tabula rasa (Latin for a “blank slate” or “blank tablet”) on which nothing is written and to which we add contents through experience as we become exposed to the world. Knowledge that is dependent on experience, or which arises after experience, is called a posteriori (Latin for “from the latter”). Since a posteriori knowledge is empirical (based on observation or experience), this view is called empiricism.
Opposed to empiricism is rationalism, the view that reason is the primary source of knowledge. Rationalists promote mathematical or logical knowledge as paradigm examples. Such knowledge can be grasped, they claim, through reason alone, without involving the senses directly. They argue that knowledge accessed through reasoning is eternal (i.e., it exists unchanged throughout the past, present, and future). For instance, two plus three remains five. Rationalists are impressed by the certainty and clarity of knowledge that reasoning provides, and they argue that this method should be applied to gaining knowledge of the world also. The evidence of the senses should be in conformity with the truths of reason, but it is not a prerequisite for the acquisition of these truths.
Knowledge that is independent of (or prior to) observation and experience is called a priori (Latin for “from the former”). Rationalists maintain that reason is the basis of a priori knowledge. But where do we ultimately get the ideas on which reason is based, if not from observation or experience? Rationalists tend to favor innatism, the belief that we are born with certain ideas already in our minds. That is, they are “innate” in us. Potential examples include mathematical or logical principles, moral sense, and the concept of God. While innatists claim that such ideas are present in us from birth, this does not guarantee our immediate awareness of their presence. Reason is the faculty that enables us to realize or access them. In what follows, innate ideas thus serve as the foundation of a model for rationalism. [1]
Rationalism’s Emphasis on a priori knowledge
Portrait of René Descartes by Frans Hals via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) and German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), two important rationalist thinkers, support the existence of innate ideas and their realization through reason. They argue that the truths revealed by such ideas are eternal, necessary, and universal.
For Descartes, there are different modes through which we acquire knowledge: some ideas are innate, some are externally sourced, and others are constructed by us. Descartes gives the example of the idea of God as innate in us, as well as the idea of one’s own existence ([1641] 1985, Third Meditation). According to Descartes, innate ideas like truths of geometry and laws of logic are known through reason independently of experience, because experience gives us only particular instances from which the mind discovers the universal ideas contained in them. Therefore, they are a priori. Descartes’s innate ideas have been compared to the stored information in a book. The ideas are in us, though not always present to the mind. Once we start reading the book, the contents reveal themselves to us, just as reasoning reveals our innate ideas to us. In other words, it is only through careful “reading” (thinking) that we come to understand which ideas are innate and which come to us from elsewhere.
Portrait of Gottfried Leibniz by Christoph Bernhard Francke via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
Leibniz calls innate ideas “principles.” Like Descartes, Leibniz maintains that principles are accessed by reason. The universal nature of mathematical truths, for example, is not revealed by the senses. It is the faculty of reason that acquires universal truths from individual instances. Leibniz argues that a collection of instances based on the senses cannot lead us to necessary truths. At the same time, it is also clear that we can grasp many necessary truths, such as mathematics. Therefore, the mind is the source, which means these truths are there innately. However, innate ideas are not full-fledged thoughts for Leibniz: he holds that our minds are structured so that certain ideas or principles will occur to us once prompted by the senses, although they are not derived from the senses. Ideas and truths are innate in us initially as dispositions or tendencies rather than as actual conscious thoughts ([1705] 2017, Preface).
License
Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis by K. S. Sangeetha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Cogito - Rene Descartes
Cogito
René Descartes
Editor’s Note: Below are Meditations I and II from Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (1641 CE), where Descartes (1596-1650 CE) employs radical doubt to inquiry what we may know for certain.
Meditation I
OF THE THINGS OF WHICH WE MAY DOUBT.
SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences. But as this enterprise appeared to me to be one of great magnitude, I waited until I had attained an age so mature as to leave me no hope that at any stage of life more advanced I should be better able to execute my design. On this account, I have delayed so long that I should henceforth consider I was doing wrong were I still to consume in deliberation any of the time that now remains for action. To-day, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares [and am happily disturbed by no passions], and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions.
But, to this end, it will not be necessary for me to show that the whole of these are false—a point, perhaps, which I shall never reach; but as even now my reason convinces me that I ought not the less carefully to withhold belief from what is not entirely certain and indubitable, than from what is manifestly false, it will be sufficient to justify the rejection of the whole if I shall find in each some ground for doubt. Nor for this purpose will it be necessary even to deal with each belief individually, which would be truly an endless labor; but, as the removal from below of the foundation necessarily involves the downfall of the whole edifice, I will at once approach the criticism of the principles on which all my former beliefs rested.
All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
But it may be said, perhaps, that, although the senses occasionally mislead us respecting minute objects, and such as are so far removed from us as to be beyond the reach of close observation, there are yet many other of their informations (presentations), of the truth of which it is manifestly impossible to doubt; as for example, that I am in this place, seated by the fire, clothed in a winter dressing gown, that I hold in my hands this piece of paper, with other intimations of the same nature. But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors as to cause them pertinaciously to assert that they are monarchs when they are in the greatest poverty; or clothed [in gold] and purple when destitute of any covering; or that their head is made of clay, their body of glass, or that they are gourds? I should certainly be not less insane than they, were I to regulate my procedure according to examples so extravagant.
Though this be true, I must nevertheless here consider that I am a man, and that, consequently, I am in the habit of sleeping, and representing to myself in dreams those same things, or even sometimes others less probable, which the insane think are presented to them in their waking moments. How often have I dreamt that I was in these familiar circumstances, that I was dressed, and occupied this place by the fire, when I was lying undressed in bed? At the present moment, however, I certainly look upon this paper with eyes wide awake; the head which I now move is not asleep; I extend this hand consciously and with express purpose, and I perceive it; the occurrences in sleep are not so distinct as all this. But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.
Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars—namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth-putting of the hands—are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at all events, namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire body, are not simply imaginary, but really existent. For, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real. And on the same principle, although these general objects, viz. [a body], eyes, a head, hands, and the like, be imaginary, we are nevertheless absolutely necessitated to admit the reality at least of some other objects still more simple and universal than these, of which, just as of certain real colors, all those images of things, whether true and real, or false and fantastic, that are found in our consciousness (cogitatio), are formed.
To this class of objects seem to belong corporeal nature in general and its extension; the figure of extended things, their quantity or magnitude, and their number, as also the place in, and the time during, which they exist, and other things of the same sort.
We will not, therefore, perhaps reason illegitimately if we conclude from this that Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, and all the other sciences that have for their end the consideration of composite objects, are indeed of a doubtful character; but that Arithmetic, Geometry, and the other sciences of the same class, which regard merely the simplest and most general objects, and scarcely inquire whether or not these are really existent, contain somewhat that is certain and indubitable: for whether I am awake or dreaming, it remains true that two and three make five, and that a square has but four sides; nor does it seem possible that truths so apparent can ever fall under a suspicion of falsity [or incertitude].
Nevertheless, the belief that there is a God who is all powerful, and who created me, such as I am, has, for a long time, obtained steady possession of my mind. How, then, do I know that he has not arranged that there should be neither earth, nor sky, nor any extended thing, nor figure, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at the same time, however, for [the rise in me of the perceptions of all these objects, and] the persuasion that these do not exist otherwise than as I perceive them ? And further, as I sometimes think that others are in error respecting matters of which they believe themselves to possess a perfect knowledge, how do I know that I am not also deceived each time I add together two and three, or number the sides of a square, or form some judgment still more simple, if more simple indeed can be imagined? But perhaps Deity has not been willing that I should be thus deceived, for he is said to be supremely good. If, however, it were repugnant to the goodness of Deity to have created me subject to constant deception, it would seem likewise to be contrary to his goodness to allow me to be occasionally deceived; and yet it is clear that this is permitted.
Some, indeed, might perhaps be found who would be disposed rather to deny the existence of a Being so powerful than to believe that there is nothing certain. But let us for the present refrain from opposing this opinion, and grant that all which is here said of a Deity is fabulous: nevertheless, in whatever way it be supposed that I reach the state in which I exist, whether by fate, or chance, or by an endless series of antecedents and consequents, or by any other means, it is clear (since to be deceived and to err is a certain defect) that the probability of my being so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception, will be increased exactly in proportion as the power possessed by the cause, to which they assign my origin, is lessened. To these reasonings I have assuredly nothing to reply, but am constrained at last to avow that there is nothing of all that I formerly believed to be true of which it is impossible to doubt, and that not through thoughtlessness or levity, but from cogent and maturely considered reasons; so that henceforward, if I desire to discover anything certain, I ought not the less carefully to refrain from assenting to those same opinions than to what might be shown to be manifestly false.
But it is not sufficient to have made these observations; care must be taken likewise to keep them in remembrance. For those old and customary opinions perpetually recur—long and familiar usage giving them the right of occupying my mind, even almost against my will, and subduing my belief; nor will I lose the habit of deferring to them and confiding in them so long as I shall consider them to be what in truth they are, viz, opinions to some extent doubtful, as I have already shown, but still highly probable, and such as it is much more reasonable to believe than deny. It is for this reason I am persuaded that I shall not be doing wrong, if, taking an opposite judgment of deliberate design, I become my own deceiver, by supposing, for a time, that all those opinions are entirely false and imaginary, until at length, having thus balanced my old by my new prejudices, my judgment shall no longer be turned aside by perverted usage from the path that may conduct to the perception of truth. For I am assured that, meanwhile, there will arise neither peril nor error from this course, and that I cannot for the present yield too much to distrust, since the end I now seek is not action but knowledge.
I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz., [suspend my judgment], and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised.
Meditation II
OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY.
The Meditation of yesterday has filled my mind with so many doubts, that it is no longer in my power to forget them. Nor do I see, meanwhile, any principle on which they can be resolved; and, just as if I had fallen all of a sudden into very deep water, I am so greatly disconcerted as to be unable either to plant my feet firmly on the bottom or sustain myself by swimming on the surface. I will, nevertheless, make an effort, and try anew the same path on which I had entered yesterday, that is, proceed by casting aside all that admits of the slightest doubt, not less than if I had discovered it to be absolutely false; and I will continue always in this track until I shall find something that is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing more, until I shall know with certainty that there is nothing certain. Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe from the place it occupied to another, demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so, also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable.
I suppose, accordingly, that all the things which I see are false (fictitious); I believe that none of those objects which my fallacious memory represents ever existed; I suppose that I possess no senses; I believe that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are merely fictions of my mind. What is there, then, that can be esteemed true ? Perhaps this only, that there is absolutely nothing certain.
But how do I know that there is not something different altogether from the objects I have now enumerated, of which it is impossible to entertain the slightest doubt? Is there not a God, or some being, by whatever name I may designate him, who causes these thoughts to arise in my mind ? But why suppose such a being, for it may be I myself am capable of producing them? Am I, then, at least not something? But I before denied that I possessed senses or a body; I hesitate, however, for what follows from that? Am I so dependent on the body and the senses that without these I cannot exist? But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds nor bodies; was I not, therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exist? Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded. But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.
But I do not yet know with sufficient clearness what I am, though assured that I am; and hence, in the next place, I must take care, lest perchance I inconsiderately substitute some other object in room of what is properly myself, and thus wander from truth, even in that knowledge (cognition) which I hold to be of all others the most certain and evident. For this reason, I will now consider anew what I formerly believed myself to be, before I entered on the present train of thought; and of my previous opinion I will retrench all that can in the least be invalidated by the grounds of doubt I have adduced, in order that there may at length remain nothing but what is certain and indubitable.
What then did I formerly think I was ? Undoubtedly I judged that I was a man. But what is a man ? Shall I say a rational animal ? Assuredly not; for it would be necessary forthwith to inquire into what is meant by animal, and what by rational, and thus, from a single question, I should insensibly glide into others, and these more difficult than the first; nor do I now possess enough of leisure to warrant me in wasting my time amid subtleties of this sort. I prefer here to attend to the thoughts that sprung up of themselves in my mind, and were inspired by my own nature alone, when I applied myself to the consideration of what I was. In the first place, then, I thought that I possessed a countenance, hands, arms, and all the fabric of members that appears in a corpse, and which I called by the name of body. It further occurred to me that I was nourished, that I walked, perceived, and thought, and all those actions I referred to the soul; but what the soul itself was I either did not stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts. As regarded the body, I did not even doubt of its nature, but thought I distinctly knew it, and if I had wished to describe it according to the notions I then entertained, I should have explained myself in this manner: By body I understand all that can be terminated by a certain figure; that can be comprised in a certain place, and so fill a certain space as therefrom to exclude every other body; that can be perceived either by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell; that can be moved in different ways, not indeed of itself, but by something foreign to it by which it is touched [and from which it receives the impression]; for the power of self-motion, as likewise that of perceiving and thinking, I held as by no means pertaining to the nature of body; on the contrary, I was somewhat astonished to find such faculties existing in some bodies.
But [as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since I suppose there exists an extremely powerful, and, if I may so speak, malignant being, whose whole endeavors are directed toward deceiving me ? Can I affirm that I possess any one of all those attributes of which I have lately spoken as belonging to the nature of body ? After attentively considering them in my own mind, I find none of them that can properly be said to belong to myself. To recount them were idle and tedious. Let us pass, then, to the attributes of the soul. The first mentioned were the powers of nutrition and walking; but, if it be true that I have no body, it is true likewise that I am capable neither of walking nor of being nourished. Perception is another attribute of the soul; but perception too is impossible without the body; besides, I have frequently, during sleep, believed that I perceived objects which I afterward observed I did not in reality perceive. Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am—I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind (mens sive animus), understanding, or reason, terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.
The question now arises, am I aught besides ? I will stimulate my imagination with a view to discover whether I am not still something more than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not the assemblage of members called the human body; I am not a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these members, or wind, or flame, or vapor, or breath, or any of all the things I can imagine; for I supposed that all these were not, and, without changing the supposition, I find that I still feel assured of my existence. But it is true, perhaps, that those very things which I suppose to be non-existent, because they are unknown to me, are not in truth different from myself whom I know. This is a point I cannot determine, and do not now enter into any dispute regarding it. I can only judge of things that are known to me: I am conscious that I exist, and I who know that I exist inquire into what I am. It is, however, perfectly certain that the knowledge of my existence, thus precisely taken, is not dependent on things, the existence of which is as yet unknown to me: and consequently it is not dependent on any of the things I can feign in imagination. Moreover, the phrase itself, I frame an image (effingo), reminds me of my error; for I should in truth frame one if I were to imagine myself to be anything, since to imagine is nothing more than to contemplate the figure or image of a corporeal thing; but I already know that I exist, and that it is possible at the same time that all those images, and in general all that relates to the nature of body, are merely dreams [or chimeras]. From this I discover that it is not more reasonable to say, I will excite my imagination that I may know more distinctly what I am, than to express myself as follows: I am now awake, and perceive something real; but because my perception is not sufficiently clear, I will of express purpose go to sleep that my dreams may represent to me the object of my perception with more truth and clearness. And, therefore, I know that nothing of all that I can embrace in imagination belongs to the knowledge which I have of myself, and that there is need to recall with the utmost care the mind from this mode of thinking, that it may be able to know its own nature with perfect distinctness.
But what, then, am I ? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives.
Assuredly it is not little, if all these properties belong to my nature. But why should they not belong to it ? Am I not that very being who now doubts of almost everything; who, for all that, understands and conceives certain things; who affirms one alone as true, and denies the others; who desires to know more of them, and does not wish to be deceived; who imagines many things, sometimes even despite his will; and is likewise percipient of many, as if through the medium of the senses. Is there nothing of all this as true as that I am, even although I should be always dreaming, and although he who gave me being employed all his ingenuity to deceive me ? Is there also any one of these attributes that can be properly distinguished from my thought, or that can be said to be separate from myself ? For it is of itself so evident that it is I who doubt, I who understand, and I who desire, that it is here unnecessary to add anything by way of rendering it more clear. And I am as certainly the same being who imagines; for although it may be (as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is true, still the power of imagination does not cease really to exist in me and to form part of my thought. In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and feel heat. But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking.
From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore. But, nevertheless, it still seems to me, and I cannot help believing, that corporeal things, whose images are formed by thought [which fall under the senses], and are examined by the same, are known with much greater distinctness than that I know not what part of myself which is not imaginable; although, in truth, it may seem strange to say that I know and comprehend with greater distinctness things whose existence appears to me doubtful, that are unknown, and do not belong to me, than others of whose reality I am persuaded, that are known to me, and appertain to my proper nature; in a word, than myself. But I see clearly what is the state of the case. My mind is apt to wander, and will not yet submit to be restrained within the limits of truth. Let us therefore leave the mind to itself once more, and, according to it every kind of liberty [permit it to consider the objects that appear to it from without], in order that, having afterward withdrawn it from these gently and opportunely [and fixed it on the consideration of its being and the properties it finds in itself], it may then be the more easily controlled.
Let us now accordingly consider the objects that are commonly thought to be [the most easily, and likewise] the most distinctly known, viz, the bodies we touch and see; not, indeed, bodies in general, for these general notions are usually somewhat more confused, but one body in particular. Take, for example, this piece of wax; it is quite fresh, having been but recently taken from the beehive; it has not yet lost the sweetness of the honey it contained; it still retains somewhat of the odor of the flowers from which it was gathered; its color, figure, size, are apparent (to the sight); it is hard, cold, easily handled; and sounds when struck upon with the finger. In fine, all that contributes to make a body as distinctly known as possible, is found in the one before us. But, while I am speaking, let it be placed near the fire—what remained of the taste exhales, the smell evaporates, the color changes, its figure is destroyed, its size increases, it becomes liquid, it grows hot, it can hardly be handled, and, although struck upon, it emits no sound. Does the same wax still remain after this change ? It must be admitted that it does remain; no one doubts it, or judges otherwise. What, then, was it I knew with so much distinctness in the piece of wax? Assuredly, it could be nothing of all that I observed by means of the senses, since all the things that fell under taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing are changed, and yet the same wax remains.
It was perhaps what I now think, viz, that this wax was neither the sweetness of honey, the pleasant odor of flowers, the whiteness, the figure, nor the sound, but only a body that a little before appeared to me conspicuous under these forms, and which is now perceived under others. But, to speak precisely, what is it that I imagine when I think of it in this way? Let it be attentively considered, and, retrenching all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. There certainly remains nothing, except something extended, flexible, and movable. But what is meant by flexible and movable ? Is it not that I imagine that the piece of wax, being round, is capable of becoming square, or of passing from a square into a triangular figure ? Assuredly such is not the case, because I conceive that it admits of an infinity of similar changes; and I am, moreover, unable to compass this infinity by imagination, and consequently this conception which I have of the wax is not the product of the faculty of imagination. But what now is this extension ? Is it not also unknown ? for it becomes greater when the wax is melted, greater when it is boiled, and greater still when the heat increases; and I should not conceive [clearly and] according to truth, the wax as it is, if I did not suppose that the piece we are considering admitted even of a wider variety of extension than I ever imagined, I must, therefore, admit that I cannot even comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is, and that it is the mind alone (mens, Lat., entendement, F.) which perceives it. I speak of one piece in particular; for as to wax in general, this is still more evident. But what is the piece of wax that can be perceived only by the [understanding or] mind? It is certainly the same which I see, touch, imagine; and, in fine, it is the same which, from the beginning, I believed it to be. But (and this it is of moment to observe) the perception of it is neither an act of sight, of touch, nor of imagination, and never was either of these, though it might formerly seem so, but is simply an intuition (inspectio) of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused, as it formerly was, or very clear and distinct, as it is at present, according as the attention is more or less directed to the elements which it contains, and of which it is composed.
But, meanwhile, I feel greatly astonished when I observe [the weakness of my mind, and] its proneness to error. For although, without at all giving expression to what I think, I consider all this in my own mind, words yet occasionally impede my progress, and I am almost led into error by the terms of ordinary language. We say, for example, that we see the same wax when it is before us, and not that we judge it to be the same from its retaining the same color and figure: whence I should forthwith be disposed to conclude that the wax is known by the act of sight, and not by the intuition of the mind alone, were it not for the analogous instance of human beings passing on in the street below, as observed from a window. In this case I do not fail to say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; and yet what do I see from the window beyond hats and cloaks that might cover artificial machines, whose motions might be determined by springs ? But I judge that there are human beings from these appearances, and thus I comprehend, by the faculty of judgment alone which is in the mind, what I believed I saw with my eyes.
The man who makes it his aim to rise to knowledge superior to the common, ought to be ashamed to seek occasions of doubting from the vulgar forms of speech: instead, therefore, of doing this, I shall proceed with the matter in hand, and inquire whether I had a clearer and more perfect perception of the piece of wax when I first saw it, and when I thought I knew it by means of the external sense itself, or, at all events, by the common sense (sensus communis), as it is called, that is, by the imaginative faculty; or whether I rather apprehend it more clearly at present, after having examined with greater care, both what it is, and in what way it can be known. It would certainly be ridiculous to entertain any doubt on this point. For what, in that first perception, was there distinct ? What did I perceive which any animal might not have perceived ? But when I distinguish the wax from its exterior forms, and when, as if I had stripped it of its vestments, I consider it quite naked, it is certain, although some error may still be found in my judgment, that I cannot, nevertheless, thus apprehend it without possessing a human mind.
But finally, what shall I say of the mind itself, that is, of myself ? for as yet I do not admit that I am anything but mind. What, then! I who seem to possess so distinct an apprehension of the piece of wax, do I not know myself, both with greater truth and certitude, and also much more distinctly and clearly? For if I judge that the wax exists because I see it, it assuredly follows, much more evidently, that I myself am or exist, for the same reason: for it is possible that what I see may not in truth be wax, and that I do not even possess eyes with which to see anything; but it cannot be that when I see, or, which comes to the same thing, when I think I see, I myself who think am nothing. So likewise, if I judge that the wax exists because I touch it, it will still also follow that I am; and if I determine that my imagination, or any other cause, whatever it be, persuades me of the existence of the wax, I will still draw the same conclusion. And what is here remarked of the piece of wax, is applicable to all the other things that are external to me. And further, if the [notion or] perception of wax appeared to me more precise and distinct, after that not only sight and touch, but many other causes besides, rendered it manifest to my apprehension, with how much greater distinctness must I now know myself, since all the reasons that contribute to the knowledge of the nature of wax, or of any body whatever, manifest still better the nature of my mind ? And there are besides so many other things in the mind itself that contribute to the illustration of its nature, that those dependent on the body, to which I have here referred, scarcely merit to be taken into account.
But, in conclusion, I find I have insensibly reverted to the point I desired; for, since it is now manifest to me that bodies themselves are not properly perceived by the senses nor by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone; and since they are not perceived because they are seen and touched, but only because they are understood [or rightly comprehended by thought], I readily discover that there is nothing more easily or clearly apprehended than my own mind. But because it is difficult to rid one’s self so promptly of an opinion to which one has been long accustomed, it will be desirable to tarry for some time at this stage, that, by long continued meditation, I may more deeply impress upon my memory this new knowledge.
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The text was taken from the following work.
René Descartes, The Method, Meditations and Philosophy of Descartes, trans. John Veitch (Washington and London: M. Walter Dunne, 1901).
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Sources of Knowledge: Locke
Opposing a priori knowledge by rejecting innate ideas
The empiricist claim that all our knowledge comes from experience is in stark contrast to the concept of innate ideas. For empiricists, all knowledge is a posteriori, meaning acquired through or after experience. John Locke (1632–1704), a British empiricist philosopher, adopts two approaches to question innate ideas as the basis of a priori knowledge. Firstly, he shows that innate ideas are based on dubious claims; secondly, along with Scottish empiricist David Hume (1711–1776), Locke shows how empiricism is able to offer a better theory of knowledge through the a posteriori.
Portrait of John Locke by Godfrey Kneller via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
Locke starts by questioning the “universal nature” of innate ideas. He opposes the claim that innate ideas are present in all of us by noting that sufficiently young children, and adults without the requisite education, lack a concept of God or knowledge of logical or mathematical principles. Therefore, it is baseless to say that innate ideas are universal. It is through experience and observation that we acquire such ideas. That is, they are a posteriori ([1690] 2017, Book I).
Here Leibniz defends the innatist view from Locke’s objection by showing how children and those without the requisite education are capable of employing logical and mathematical principles in their everyday lives without understanding what they are or being able to articulate them in words ([1705] 2017, Book I). A child, to use an example of my own, knows without any confusion that she cannot be sitting in both parents’ laps at the same time. Similarly, those without formal mathematical training could still know that two adjacent triangular cornfields separated by a fence on their longest side can make a square cornfield by removing the fence that divides them. Evidently, as Leibniz argues, general principles of logic and mathematics are innate. But this does not mean that all innate ideas are universally held. It is possible that we all have innate ideas yet some of us are unaware of them.
Locke further argues, however, that there can be nothing in the mind of which it is unaware ([1690] 2017, Book II). Having innate ideas without being aware of them is not a viable position for Locke. An idea first has to be experienced or thought. How else could it be “in” the mind? On this point Leibniz disagrees with Locke: it is possible to have a plethora of ideas in our minds without being aware of them ([1705] 2017, Preface). For instance, suppose you absorb a “tune” playing in the marketplace without being consciously aware of it. The tune is not readily accessible or transparent to your mind, in that you cannot recall it; however, it may be recognizable upon hearing it again. So, it must have been “in” you somewhere in some sense. Similarly, an innate idea could be in your mind, without you yet being aware of it. We are born with the facility to realize innate ideas when favorable conditions obtain later in life, such as the ideas of beauty, justice, and mathematical truths.
Locke’s reply is that the realization of ideas or capacities in the right circumstances is applicable to all ideas—not just those which are purportedly innate ([1690] 2017, Book I). He challenges innatists to produce a criterion to distinguish innate from non-innate ideas. Leibniz responds with such a criterion: innate ideas are necessary (they must be true, cannot be false), whereas non-innate ideas are merely contingent (possibly true, possibly false). We can distinguish truths that are necessary (and therefore eternal on Leibniz’s view) from contingent truths dependent on varying matters of fact ([1705] 2017, Preface).
Empiricism’s emphasis on a priori knowledge
Locke claims to show how the mind, which is like a tabula rasa at birth, acquires knowledge. For empiricists, experience alone furnishes our mind with simple ideas, which are the basic elements of knowledge. Once shown that all ideas can come from experience, it would be redundant to additionally posit innate ideas. So, does a posteriori knowledge lead us to reject a priori knowledge? Let us find out.
For Locke, knowledge based on experience is easy to understand. He asks us to suppose that we have innate ideas of colors and that we can also see colors with our eyes. In this case, since we don’t need to rely upon both, we go with our senses, because it is easier and simpler to understand knowledge derived from sense experience than from knowledge derived from some source of which we are unaware ([1690] 2017, Book I, Chapter ii, Para. 1). Here Locke applies the principle of Ockham's razor, which suggests that as far as possible we should adopt simple explanations rather than complicated ones. [2] Simple explanations have the advantage of being less prone to error and more friendly to testing than complicated ones that do not add explanatory value.
The next question is whether a posteriori knowledge alone gives us adequate knowledge of the world. Let us take an instance of experiencing and thereby knowing a flower, such as a rose. As we experience the rose, its particular color, texture, and fragrance are the ideas through which we become aware of the object. But when we are not experiencing or sensing the rose, we can still think about it. We can also recognize it the next time we see the flower and retain the belief that it is sweet smelling, beautiful to look at, and soft to the touch. This shows that, in addition to sensing, the ability to form concepts about the objects we encounter is crucial for knowing the world. Experience also makes it possible for us to imagine what we have not directly experienced, such as a mermaid ([1690] 2017, Book III, Chapter iii, Para. 19). Such imaginings are made possible because we have directly experienced different parts of this imagined object separately. Conjoining these experiences in the mind in an ordered manner yields the imagined object ([1690] 2017, Book II, Chapter iii, Para. 5). Had we not experienced and thereby formed the concepts of a fish and a woman separately before, we would not be able to imagine a mermaid at present.
These considerations lead Locke to categorize all our sense experiences into simple and complex ideas. Simple ideas are basic and indivisible, such as the idea of red. Complex ideas are formed by the mind, either from more than one simple idea or from complex impressions ([1690] 2017, Book II, Chapters ii & xii). Complex ideas are divisible because they have parts. Examples include golden streets, an army, and the universe. My idea or concept of an object, whether simple or complex, can be ultimately traced back to its corresponding sense impressions.
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Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis by K. S. Sangeetha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Of Identity and Diversity (Ch xxvii)
Sources of Knowledge: Hume
Portrait of David Hume by Allan Ramsay via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
Hume, another important empiricist philosopher, writes of ideas as the “copies” of “impressions.” Impressions are “vivid” and “lively” as received directly from sense experience. Hume also allows inward impressions, including jealousy, indignation, and so on. Ideas are mental copies of inward or outward impressions, rendering them “faint” or “feeble” (try comparing a perceptual experience with recalling it from memory) ([1748] 2017, Sections 1 & 2). Hume argues that where there are no impressions, there can be no ideas. A blind man can have no notion of color, according to Hume. One cannot be born with ideas that are not derived from any impressions. So, there are no innate ideas for Hume. However, he agrees that our tendencies to avoid pain, or to seek many of our passions and desires, are innate. Here I would argue that even these tendencies are based on our sense impressions and the corresponding ideas we form from those impressions. The mental inclination to repeatedly seek pleasure or avoid pain comes to us only after the first incident of exposure to either sensation.
In contrast to Descartes, even the idea of God falls under the a posteriori for Hume. Since none of us has experienced God directly, Hume argues, there is no impression of God available to us from which to form the corresponding idea. In Hume’s view, our imagination forms this idea by lavishly extending our experience of the good qualities possessed by people around us ([1748] 2017, Sections 1 & 11). Given that even the idea of God can be derived from sense impressions, this lends further support to the empiricist claim that all our ideas are a posteriori. Therefore, according to Hume, the rationalist claims for the existence of innate ideas and a priori knowledge are mistaken.
The inadequacy of the tabula rasa theory
A weakness of the empiricist’s tabula rasa theory can be exposed if we can show that not all our ideas are derived from corresponding impressions. However, this would not mean we must return to the rationalist’s theory of innate ideas, as we shall see. The plan is to explore a third alternative.
The presence of general concepts in our minds shows there is not always a one-to-one relation between ideas and corresponding sense impressions. For example, we see different instances of the color blue around us, and from these instances we form a general concept of blue. This general concept is not copied from one particular impression of blue, nor even from a particular shade of blue. We also have abstract concepts (such as justice, kindness, and courage), which are not traceable to corresponding sense impressions. In such cases, we experience different acts or instances of justice, kindness, and courage. But if these abstract concepts are copied from their particular impressions, then only these instances—and not the concepts themselves—would be in our minds. It follows that concepts are formed or understood rather than copied. Similarly, relational concepts (such as “on”-ness, betweenness, sameness, and the like) are realized not by copying the impressions involved. In fact, there are no impressions at all corresponding to these relational concepts. We instead receive impressions of particulars standing in such relations—the cat sitting on the mat, the English Channel flowing between the United Kingdom and Europe, one minus one equaling zero, and so forth.
In sum, the formation of general, abstract, and relational concepts in our minds shows that an uninterrupted flow of impressions would not constitute all the ideas we have. Instead, it requires that from birth the mind is at least partially equipped with a structure or architecture that enables it to make sense of the raw impressions it receives and to form concepts where there is no one-to-one correspondence between impressions and ideas. It challenges the authenticity of a tabula rasa. This takes us to a stage where we need to figure out the indispensable third alternative, which can facilitate a more complete knowledge of the world. This necessitates a crossover between the a priori and the a posteriori, or a reconciliation of the two.
Percepts-Concepts Combination
The immediacy and direct nature of sensations, impressions, and perceptions make them certain.[3] Let us briefly unpack this idea. Consider whether we can ever be wrong about our sensations. It is commonly thought that while we can be wrong about what the world is like, we cannot be wrong about the fact that we are having particular sensations. Even if you are dreaming this very second, and there is no actual book before your eyes, you cannot deny that you are having certain sensations resembling a white page and black font in the shape of words. Therefore, our sensations are certain and we cannot doubt that they exist. However, it is possible that sometimes we are unsure how to characterize a particular sensation. For instance, you may see a flashy car and be unsure whether the color is metallic green or gray. So, you might get into confusion in describing your sensation, but that does not affect the certainty and indubitability of the sensation itself, of what is here and now for you.
German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argues that for our perceptions to make sense to us, they should be received into concepts that exist within our minds. These structures of understanding allow our minds to process the impressions that we experience. Unless the manifold raw sensations we receive from experience are classified into different categories of understanding, we cannot make sense of them.
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Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis by K. S. Sangeetha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Bundle Theory of the Self
Bundle Theory of the Self
David Hume
From A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I: Of the understanding, Part IV: Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy Section VI: Of Personal Identity by David Hume.
1. There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or pleasure. To attempt a farther proof of this were to weaken its evidence; since no proof can be deriv’d from any fact, of which we are so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing, of which we can be certain, if we doubt of this.
2. Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explain’d. For from what impression cou’d this idea be deriv’d? This question is impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet ’tis a question, which must necessarily be answer’d, if we wou’d have the idea of self pass for clear and intelligible.It must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are suppos’d to have a reference.If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, thro’ the whole course of our lives, since self is suppos’d to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is deriv'd, and consequently there is no such idea.
3. But farther, what must become of all our particular perceptions upon this hypothesis? All these are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately consider’d, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing to support their existence. After what manner, therefore, do they belong to self; and how are they connected with it? For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov’d for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov’d by death, and cou’d I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou’d be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic’d reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu’d, which he calls himself; tho’ I am certain there is no such principle in me.
4. But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change; nor is there any single power of the soul, which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these scenes are represented, or of the materials, of which it is compos’d.
5. What then gives us so great a propension to ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions, and to suppose ourselves possest of an invariable and uninterrupted existence thro’ the whole course of our lives? In order to answer this question, we must distinguish betwixt personal identity, as it regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves. The first is our present subject; and to explain it perfectly we must take the matter pretty deep, and account for that identity, which we attribute to plants and animals; there being a great analogy betwixt it, and the identity of a self or person.
6. We have a distinct idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterrupted thro’ a suppos’d variation of time; and this idea we call that of identity or sameness. We have also a distinct idea of several different objects existing in succession, and connected together by a close relation; and this to an accurate view affords as perfect a notion of diversity, as if there was no manner of relation among the objects. But tho’ these two ideas of identity, and a succession of related objects be in themselves perfectly distinct, and even contrary, yet ’tis certain, that in our common way of thinking they are generally confounded with each other. That action of the imagination, by which we consider the uninterrupted and invariable object, and that by which we reflect on the succession of related objects, are almost the same to the feeling, nor is there much more effort of thought requir’d in the latter case than in the former. The relation facilitates the transition of the mind from one object to another, and renders its passage as smooth as if it contemplated one continu’d object. This resemblance is the cause of the confusion and mistake, and makes us substitute the notion of identity, instead of that of related objects. However at one instant we may consider the related succession as variable or interrupted, we are sure the next to ascribe to it a perfect identity, and regard it as enviable and uninterrupted. Our propensity to this mistake is so great from the resemblance above-mention’d, that we fall into it before we are aware; and tho’ we incessantly correct ourselves by reflection, and return to a more accurate method of thinking, yet we cannot long sustain our philosophy, or take off this biass from the imagination. Our last resource is to yield to it, and boldly assert that these different related objects are in effect the same, however interrupted and variable. In order to justify to ourselves this absurdity, we often feign some new and unintelligible principle, that connects the objects together, and prevents their interruption or variation. Thus we feign the continu’d existence of the perceptions of our senses, to remove the interruption: and run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, to disguise the variation. But we may farther observe, that where we do not give rise to such a fiction, our propension to confound identity with relation is so great, that we are apt to imagine[1] something unknown and mysterious, connecting the parts, beside their relation; and this I take to be the case with regard to the identity we ascribe to plants and vegetables. And even when this does not take place, we still feel a propensity to confound these ideas, tho’ we are not able fully to satisfy ourselves in that particular, nor find any thing invariable and uninterrupted to justify our notion of identity.
7. Thus the controversy concerning identity is not merely a dispute of words. For when we attribute identity, in an improper sense, to variable or interrupted objects, our mistake is not confin’d to the expression, but is commonly attended with a fiction, either of something invariable and uninterrupted, or of something mysterious and inexplicable, or at least with a propensity to such fictions. What will suffice to prove this hypothesis to the satisfaction of every fair enquirer, is to shew from daily experience and observation, that the objects, which are variable or interrupted, and yet are suppos’d to continue the same, are such only as consist of a succession of parts, connected together by resemblance, contiguity, or causation. For as such a succession answers evidently to our notion of diversity, it can only be by mistake we ascribe to it an identity; and as the relation of parts, which leads us into this mistake, is really nothing but a quality, which produces an association of ideas, and an easy transition of the imagination from one to another, it can only be from the resemblance, which this act of the mind bears to that, by which we contemplate one continu’d object, that the error arises. Our chief business, then, must be to prove, that all objects, to which we ascribe identity, without observing their invariableness and uninterruptedness, are such as consist of a succession of related objects.
8. In order to this, suppose any mass of matter, of which the parts are contiguous and connected, to be plac’d before us; ’tis plain we must attribute a perfect identity to this mass, provided all the parts continue uninterruptedly and invariably the same, whatever motion or change of place we may observe either in the whole or in any of the parts. But supposing some very small or inconsiderable part to be added to the mass, or subtracted from it; tho’ this absolutely destroys the identity of the whole, strictly speaking; yet as we seldom think so accurately, we scruple not to pronounce a mass of matter the same, where we find so trivial an alteration. The passage of the thought from the object before the change to the object after it, is so smooth and easy, that we scarce perceive the transition, and are apt to imagine, that ’tis nothing but a continu’d survey of the same object.
9. There is a very remarkable circumstance, that attends this experiment; which is, that tho’ the change of any considerable part in a mass of matter destroys the identity of the whole, let we must measure the greatness of the part, not absolutely, but by its proportion to the whole. The addition or diminution of a mountain wou’d not be sufficient to produce a diversity in a planet: tho’ the change of a very few inches wou’d be able to destroy the identity of some bodies. ‘Twill be impossible to account for this, but by reflecting that objects operate upon the mind, and break or interrupt the continuity of its actions not according to their real greatness, but according to their proportion to each other: And therefore, since this interruption makes an object cease to appear the same, it must be the uninterrupted progress o the thought, which constitutes the imperfect identity.
10. This may be confirm’d by another phenomenon. A change in any considerable part of a body destroys its identity; but ’tis remarkable, that where the change is produc’d gradually and insensibly we are less apt to ascribe to it the same effect. The reason can plainly be no other, than that the mind, in following the successive changes of the body, feels an easy passage from the surveying its condition in one moment to the viewing of it in another, and at no particular time perceives any interruption in its actions. From which continu’d perception, it ascribes a continu’d existence and identity to the object.
11. But whatever precaution we may use in introducing the changes gradually, and making them proportionable to the whole, ’tis certain, that where the changes are at last observ’d to become considerable, we make a scruple of ascribing identity to such different objects. There is, however, another artifice, by which we may induce the imagination to advance a step farther; and that is, by producing a reference of the parts to each other, and a combination to some common end or purpose. A ship, of which a considerable part has been chang’d by frequent reparations, is still considered as the same; nor does the difference of the materials hinder us from ascribing an identity to it. The common end, in which the parts conspire, is the same under all their variations, and affords an easy transition of the imagination from one situation of the body to another.
12. But this is still more remarkable, when we add a sympathy of parts to their common end, and suppose that they bear to each other, the reciprocal relation of cause and effect in all their actions and operations. This is the case with all animals and vegetables; where not only the several parts have a reference to some general purpose, but also a mutual dependence on, and connexion with each other. The effect of so strong a relation is, that tho’ every one must allow, that in a very few years both vegetables and animals endure a total change, yet we still attribute identity to them, while their form, size, and substance are entirely alter’d. An oak, that grows from a small plant to a large tree, is still the same oak; tho’ there be not one particle of matter, or figure of its parts the same. An infant becomes a man, and is sometimes fat, sometimes lean, without any change in his identity.
13. We may also consider the two following phaenomena, which are remarkable in their kind. The first is, that tho’ we commonly be able to distinguish pretty exactly betwixt numerical and specific identity, yet it sometimes happens, that we confound them, and in our thinking and reasoning employ the one for the other. Thus a man, who hears a noise, that is frequently interrupted and renew’d, says, it is still the same noise; tho’ ’tis evident the sounds have only a specific identity or resemblance, and there is nothing numerically the same, but the cause, which produc’d them. In like manner it may be said without breach of the propriety of language, that such a church, which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-stone, and according to modern architecture. Here neither the form nor materials are the same, nor is there any thing common to the two objects, but their relation to the inhabitants of the parish; and yet this alone is sufficient to make us denominate them the same. But we must observe, that in these cases the first object is in a manner annihilated before the second comes into existence; by which means, we are never presented in any one point of time with the idea of difference and multiplicity: and for that reason are less scrupulous in calling them the same.
14. Secondly, We may remark, that tho’ in a succession of related objects, it be in a manner requisite, that the change of parts be not sudden nor entire, in order to preserve the identity, yet where the objects are in their nature changeable and inconstant, we admit of a more sudden transition, than wou’d otherwise be consistent with that relation. Thus as the nature of a river consists in the motion and change of parts; tho’ in less than four and twenty hours these be totally alter’d; this hinders not the river from continuing the same during several ages. What is natural and essential to any thing is, in a manner, expected; and what is expected makes less impression, and appears of less moment, than what is unusual and extraordinary. A considerable change of the former kind seems really less to the imagination, than the most trivial alteration of the latter; and by breaking less the continuity of the thought, has less influence in destroying the identity.
15. We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England, where all the abstruser sciences are study’d with a peculiar ardour and application. And here ’tis evident, the same method of reasoning must be continu’d. which has so successfully explain’d the identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies. It cannot, therefore, have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects.
16. But lest this argument shou’d not convince the reader; tho’ in my opinion perfectly decisive; let him weigh the following reasoning, which is still closer and more immediate. ‘Tis evident, that the identity, which we attribute to the human mind, however perfect we may imagine it to be, is not able to run the several different perceptions into one, and make them lose their characters of distinction and difference, which are essential to them. ‘Tis still true, that every distinct perception, which enters into the composition of the mind, is a distinct existence, and is different, and distinguishable, and separable from every other perception, either contemporary or successive. But, as, notwithstanding this distinction and separability, we suppose the whole train of perceptions to be united by identity, a question naturally arises concerning this relation of identity; whether it be something that really binds our several perceptions together, or only associates their ideas in the imagination. That is, in other words, whether in pronouncing concerning the identity of a person, we observe some real bond among his perceptions, or only feel one among the ideas we form of them. This question we might easily decide, if we wou’d recollect what has been already prov’d at large, that the understanding never observes any real connexion among objects, and that even the union of cause and effect, when strictly examin’d, resolves itself into a customary association of ideas. For from thence it evidently follows, that identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions, and uniting them together; but is merely a quality, which we attribute to them, because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we reflect upon them. Now the only qualities, which can give ideas an union in the imagination, are these three relations above-mention’d. These are the uniting principles in the ideal world, and without them every distinct object is separable by the mind, and may be separately considered, and appears not to have any more connexion with any other object, than if disjoin’d by the greatest difference and remoteness. ‘Tis, therefore, on some of these three relations of resemblance, contiguity and causation, that identity depends; and as the very essence of these relations consists in their producing an easy transition of ideas; it follows, that our notions of personal identity, proceed entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along a train of connected ideas, according to the principles above-explain’d.
17. The only question, therefore, which remains, is, by what relations this uninterrupted progress of our thought is produc’d, when we consider the successive existence of a mind or thinking person. And here ’tis evident we must confine ourselves to resemblance and causation, and must drop contiguity, which has little or no influence in the present case.
18. To begin with resemblance; suppose we cou’d see clearly into the breast of another, and observe that succession of perceptions, which constitutes his mind or thinking principle, and suppose that he always preserves the memory of a considerable part of past perceptions; ’tis evident that nothing cou’d more contribute to the bestowing a relation on this succession amidst all its variations. For what is the memory but a faculty, by which we raise up the images of past perceptions? And as an image necessarily resembles its object, must not the frequent placing of these resembling perceptions in the chain of thought, convey the imagination more easily from one link to another, and make the whole seem like the continuance of one object? In this particular, then, the memory not only discovers the identity, but also contributes to its production, by producing the relation of resemblance among the perceptions. The case is the same whether we consider ourselves or others.
19. As to causation; we may observe, that the true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are link’d together by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other. Our impressions give rise to their correspondent ideas; and these ideas in their turn produce other impressions. One thought chaces another, and draws after it a third, by which it is expell’d in its turn. In this respect, I cannot compare the soul more properly to any thing than to a republic or commonwealth, in which the several members are united by the reciprocal ties of government and subordination, and give rise to other persons, who propagate the same republic in the incessant changes of its parts. And as the same individual republic may not only change its members, but also its laws and constitutions; in like manner the same person may vary his character and disposition, as well as his impressions and ideas, without losing his identity. Whatever changes he endures, his several parts are still connected by the relation of causation. And in this view our identity with regard to the passions serves to corroborate that with regard to the imagination, by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures.
20. As a memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, ’tis to be considered, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity. Had we no memory, we never shou’d have any notion of causation, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects, which constitute our self or person. But having once acquir’d this notion of causation from the memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, and consequently the identity of our persons beyond our memory, and can comprehend times, and circumstances, and actions, which we have entirely forgot, but suppose in general to have existed. For how few of our past actions are there, of which we have any memory? Who can tell me, for instance, what were his thoughts and actions on the 1st of January 1715, the 11th of March 1719, and the 3rd of August 1733? Or will he affirm, because he has entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time; and by that means overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. ‘Twill be incumbent on those, who affirm that memory produces entirely our personal identity, to give a reason why we can thus extend our identity beyond our memory.
21. The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion, which is of great importance in the present affair, viz. that all the nice and subtile questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties. Identity depends on the relations of ideas; and these relations produce identity, by means of that easy transition they occasion. But as the relations, and the easiness of the transition may diminish by insensible degrees, we have no just standard, by which we can decide any dispute concerning the time, when they acquire or lose a title to the name of identity. All the disputes concerning the identity of connected objects are merely verbal, except so far as the relation of parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary principle of union, as we have already observed.
22. What I have said concerning the first origin and uncertainty of our notion of identity, as apply’d to the human mind, may be extended with little or no variation to that of simplicity. An object, whose different co-existent parts are bound together by a close relation, operates upon the imagination after much the same manner as one perfectly simple and indivisible and requires not a much greater stretch of thought in order to its conception. From this similarity of operation we attribute a simplicity to it, and feign a principle of union as the support of this simplicity, and the center of all the different parts and qualities of the object.
Thus we have finish’d our examination of the several systems of philosophy, both of the intellectual and natural world; and in our miscellaneous way of reasoning have been led into several topics; which will either illustrate and confirm some preceding part of this discourse, or prepare the way for our following opinions. ‘Tis now time to return to a more close examination of our subject, and to proceed in the accurate anatomy of human nature, having fully explain’d the nature of our judgment and understandings.
Citation and Use.
Hume, David. “Of Personal Identity.” In A Treatise of Human Nature. Project Gutenberg, 1739. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm#link2H_4_0043.
This work is in the Public Domain.
Notes
- If the reader is desirous to see how a great genius may be influenc'd by these seemingly trivial principles of the imagination, as well as the mere vulgar, let him read my Lord Shaftsbury's reasonings concerning the uniting principle of the universe, and the identity of plants and animals. See his Moralists or Philosophical Rhapsody. ↵
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Sources of Knowledge: Kant
Immanuel Kant by Johann Gottlieb Becker via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
For instance, the mind should have the ability to recognize whether two sensations are similar or different, to say the least. Without this ability, we cannot make sense of experience. Or consider that we also perceive that objects are in space and time, stand in cause-effect relations, and belong to the categories of unity-plurality, assertion-negation, particular-universal, and the like. Here again, we are incapable of understanding any experience that is not processed through these categories. Kant argues, therefore, that space, time, causation, quantity, quality, and the like are represented to us in innate structures or concepts that our minds are fitted with prior to experience.
According to Kant, these categories are transcendental in the sense that they bridge the gap between mind and world. They are hidden structures, bridges, or concepts that occupy the otherwise blank slate and mold our way of thinking and experiencing the world. Of course, these concepts also require inputs, or percepts (the immediate objects of awareness delivered directly to us in perceptual experience through the senses). As Kant’s view is famously expressed, “Percepts without concepts are blind and concepts without percepts are empty” ([1781] 1998, 209).
So far, we have seen through various stages that rationalism and empiricism are incomplete. Kant’s transcendental idealism (as his view is called) strikes a balance, reconciling the two accounts. He combines sensory input and inborn concepts into a unified account of how we understand the world. Before we conclude the chapter with the final step in Kant’s approach, let us return to Descartes and Hume once again, the two philosophers who most influenced Kant.
Synthetic a priori knowledge
Descartes thinks that reason alone can provide certainty to all human knowledge. Intuition and deduction are tools through which the faculty of reason operates. Intuition is the capacity to look inward and comprehend intellectual objects and basic truths. Being a geometrician, Descartes thinks that deduction (the type of reasoning whereby the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises) should be used for gaining knowledge of the world, starting with the input of “clear and distinct” ideas. [4] Since intuition is dissociated from the evidence of the senses, the truths it unfurls can be known a priori. The result is that substantial knowledge of the world can be acquired a priori ([1701] 1985).
According to Hume, there are two ways in which reasoning aims to gain knowledge of the world: through “relations of ideas” and through “matters of fact” ([1748] 2017, Section 4). Hume thinks that the method of deduction establishes relations between the ideas we have already acquired through experience (e.g., that a mother is a woman parent). These relations of ideas are the kind of truths that we find in logic and mathematics (for instance, the proposition that a circle is round). They are true by definition. Such truths are necessary or certain (their denials lead to contradiction). They are also known a priori, since they do not rely on how the world is. For this reason, relations of ideas and deduction do not yield substantive new knowledge of the world; the knowledge they impart is already understood by us (as the above examples show), even if our understanding is merely implicit within the premises of a deductive argument whose conclusion makes it explicit.
Matters of fact, for Hume, are based on observation and experience. Some of them are generalizations arrived at by induction from particular instances. Inductive truths are uncertain. They are at best probable, since they are dependent on how the world is. For instance, we have the experience of heat from fire so far; but we cannot be certain that this will be the case tomorrow also (maybe we will unexpectedly feel some other sensation like cold from fire). We expect that the future will resemble the past, but we cannot be certain about it. [5] Matters of fact provide us with a posteriori truths, which are contingently true (their denials can be conceived without contradiction). Since matters of fact are not true by definition, they add substantive new information to our existing knowledge, unlike relations of ideas ([1748] 2017, Section 4).
A rationalist initially, Kant was influenced by the division in knowledge made by Hume. Only a combination of reason and experience can give us adequate knowledge, according to Kant. He begins by providing an account of relations of ideas, which he terms analytic truths. In sentences that express analytic truths, the predicate term is already “contained” in, or is the meaning of, the subject term. For example, in the sentence, “a circle is round,” the predicate “round” is contained in the subject, “circle.” To take another standard example, in “a bachelor is an unmarried man,” the predicate “unmarried man” is the meaning of the subject term, “bachelor.” We cannot deny such truths without contradiction. They are necessarily true, which means that they’re true regardless of how the world is. Since we do no need to examine the world to tell whether they’re true, analytic truths are knowable a priori ([1781] 1998, 146, 157). [6]
Kant terms matters of fact synthetic truths: the predicate term is neither contained within nor is the meaning of the subject term. Synthetic truths are not true by definition. As such, it stands to reason that they are based on observation, and therefore must be a posteriori (although, as we will soon see, Kant argues that this is not the case for all synthetic truths). For instance, consider the proposition, “George the bachelor is a writer.” We have new information here about a particular person named “George” being a bachelor and writer, and experience is required to find this out. Since the opposites of synthetic truths are not contradictory, they are contingent ([1781] 1998, 147, 157). [7]
Kant maintains that only synthetic truths are capable of providing substantive new information about the world. That said, our sense experiences do not passively enter our minds, but do conform to our innate mental structures to facilitate knowledge. Since these structures work independently of experience, they are a priori. These innate a priori structures of our minds—our concepts—are actively engaged in making sense of our experiences ([1781] 1998). They do so by discriminating and organizing the information received in experience. But again, the ability to perform this activity presupposes that the world which furnishes both the information and our concepts is itself structured in a way that enables intelligibility. The particular ways in which the world must be structured—its space-time and cause-effect relations, for example—yield substantive truths about reality. These truths hold not merely because of the meanings of words or the logical forms of sentences. They are synthetic. And since we arrived at this result by way of a priori reflection, Kant argues that we possess “synthetic a priori” knowledge of the world—a previously unrecognized category of knowledge, now to be added to the standard categories of synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori knowledge. (See Table 1 below for a summary of these categories.)
Table 1 – Categories of Knowledge
Combining the epistemological distinction (a priori vs. a posteriori) with the semantic/modal distinction (analytic/necessary vs. synthetic/contingent) yields four possible categories.
Category of knowledge: analytic a priori
Significance: Emphasized by rationalists.
Examples: The deliverance of pure logic; statements that are true by definition (known by grasping their meanings).
Category of knowledge: synthetic a priori
Significance: Controversial category posited by the Kantian synthesis. While truths in this category are contingent in the strict logical sense (their denial is not logically contradictory), Kant claimed for them a kind of metaphysical necessity (in that they hold universally and are eternal).
Kant’s candidates: Euclid’s axioms of geometry, basic features of space/time, metaphysical truths, and moral truths.
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There remains the question of how our concepts discriminate and organize the information received from the senses. These goals are achieved through acts of synthesis. By “synthesis,” Kant means “the act of putting different representations [elements of cognition] together, and grasping what is manifold in them in one cognition” ([1781] 1998, 77).
Kant explains three types of synthesis: the process starts with “synthesis of apprehension in perception,” passes through “synthesis of reproduction in imagination,” and ends with “synthesis of recognition in a concept” ([1781] 1998, 228–34). For Kant, apprehension in perception involves locating an object in space and time. The synthesis of reproduction in imagination consists in connecting different elements in our minds to form an image. And synthesis of recognition in a concept requires memory of a past experience as well as recognizing its relation to present experience. By recognizing that the past and present experience both refer to the same object, we form a concept of it. To recognize something as a unified object under a concept is to attach meaning to percepts. This attachment of meaning is what Kant calls apperception (Guyer 1987).
Apperception is the point where the self and the world come together. For Kant, the possibility of apperception requires two kinds of unity. First, the various data received in experience must themselves represent a common subject, allowing the data to be combined and held together. Second, the data must be combined and held together by a unified self or what Kant calls a “unity of consciousness” or “unity of apperception.” Kant concludes that because of such unity, all of us are equally capable of making sense of the same public object in a uniform manner based on our individual, private experiences. That is, we are in an unspoken agreement regarding the mind-independent world in which we live, facilitated by our subjective experiences but regulated by the innate mental structures given to us by the world. In sum, Kant’s theory makes possible shared synthetic knowledge of objective reality. [8] In conclusion, by considering the debate between rationalists and empiricists culminating in Kant’s synthesis, this chapter has shed light on the issue of how we achieve substantive knowledge.
Box 1 – Kant’s Copernican Revolution in Epistemology
Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, painting ca. 1872 by Jan Matejko via Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain.
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant sums up his epistemology by drawing an analogy to the Copernican Revolution (the shift in astronomy from a geocentric to a heliocentric model of the universe, named after Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the sixteenth-century Polish mathematician and astronomer):
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility to myself. Yet because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as their object and determine this object through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which I bring about this determination also conform to the objects, and then I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given objects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is given to me, hence a priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree. ([1781] 1998, B xvi–B xviii)
Additional Resources
References
- Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Random House.
- Critchley, Simon. 2001. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Descartes, René. (1641) 1985. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 1–62. Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ———. (1701) 1985. “Rules for the Direction of the Mind.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 7–77. Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ellis, Addison. 2014a. “Idealism Pt. 1: Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/07/07/berkeley/ .
- ———. 2014b. “Idealism Pt. 2: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/08/11/idealism-pt-2-kants-transcendental-idealism .
- Guyer, Paul. 1987. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hume, David. (1748) 2017. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/hume1748.pdf .
- Kant, Immanuel. (1781) 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Leibniz, G. W. (1705) 2017. New Essays on Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett. http://earlymoderntexts.com/authors/leibniz .
- Locke, John. (1690) 2017. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke .
- Plato. (ca. 380 BCE) 2009. Meno. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html .
- Quine, W. V. 1951. “Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” Philosophical Review 60 (1): 20–43.
- Vernon, Kenneth Blake. 2014. “The Problem of Induction.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/05/26/the-problem-of-induction/ .
License
Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis by K. S. Sangeetha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Summary of Mary Wollstonecraft's On the Rights of Women
Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women should have equal rights and opportunities as men, especially in education. She believes that society unfairly limits women's potential by focusing too much on their appearance and "feminine" qualities rather than developing their minds and character.
Key points (look for these as you read the original text):
1. Women are often kept ignorant and taught to focus only on pleasing men, which Wollstonecraft sees as degrading.
2. She criticizes other writers who claim women are naturally inferior to men or should be submissive.
3. Wollstonecraft believes that both men and women should aim for the same virtues and moral standards.
4. She argues that women need better education to become independent thinkers and equal partners in society.
5. The author claims that treating women as weak or childlike harms both women and society as a whole.
6. Wollstonecraft challenges the idea that women's main purpose is to be wives and mothers, arguing they should have broader roles in life.
7. She suggests that truly loving relationships between men and women can only exist when women are educated and seen as equals.
8. The essay criticizes the emphasis on physical beauty and shallow accomplishments for women instead of developing their minds and characters.
9. Wollstonecraft argues that improving women's status and education will benefit all of society, not just women.
This work was groundbreaking for its time (1792) and is considered an early feminist text that influenced later movements for women's rights and equality.
Mary Wollstonecraft - On the Rights of Women
Mary Wollstonecraft - On the Rights of Women
A Vindication of the Rights or Woman: With Stricture on Political and Moral Subjects
To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness.
If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence? Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex, when they do not keenly satirize our head- strong passions and groveling vices. Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of ignorance! The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force. Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness or temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.
Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace[1], I cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar on the wing of contemplation.
How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes! For instance, the winning softness so warmly, and frequently, recommended, that governs by obeying. What childish expression, and how insignificant is the being – can it be an immortal one? who will condescend to govern by such sinister methods! ‘Certainly,’ says Lord Bacon, ‘man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature!'[2] Men, indeed, appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood. Rousseau was more consistent when he wished to stop the progress of reason in both sexes, for if men eat of the tree of knowledge, women will come in for a taste; but, from the imperfect cultivation which their understandings now receive, they only attain a knowledge of evil.
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness. For if it be allowed that women were destined by Providence to acquire human virtues, and by the exercise of their understandings, that stability of character which is the firmest ground to rest our future hopes upon, they must be permitted to turn to the fountain of light, and not forced to shape their course by the twinkling of a mere satellite. Milton, I grant, was of a very different opinion; for he only bends to the indefeasible right of beauty, though it would be difficult to render two passages which I now mean to contrast, consistent. But into similar inconsistencies are great men often led by their senses.
‘To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorn’d. My Author and Disposer, what thou bidst Unargued I obey; so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is Woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise.'[3]
These are exactly the arguments that I have used to children; but I have added, your reason is now gaining strength, and, till it arrives at some degree of maturity, you must look up to me for advice – then you ought to think, and only rely on God.
Yet in the following lines Milton seems to coincide with me; when he makes Adam thus expostulate with his Maker.
Hast thou not made me here thy substitute,
And these inferior far beneath me set? Among unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony or true delight? Which must be mutual, in proportion due Giv’n and receiv’d; but in disparity
The one intense, the other still remiss Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove Tedious alike: of fellowship I speak
Such as I seek, fit to participate All rational delight –'[4]
In treating, therefore, of the manners of women, let us, disregarding sensual arguments, trace what we should endeavour to make them in order to co-operate, if the expression be not too bold, with the supreme Being.
By individual education, I mean, for the sense of the word is not precisely defined, such an attention to a child as will slowly sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they begin to ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body arrives at maturity; so that the man may only have to proceed, not to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason.
To prevent any misconstruction, I must add, that I do not believe that a private education can work the wonders which some sanguine writers have attributed to it. Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education. It is, however, sufficient for my present purpose to assert, that, whatever effect circumstances have on the abilities, every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason; for if but one being was created with vicious inclinations, that is positively bad, what can save us from atheism? or if we worship a God, is not that God a devil?
Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. This was Rousseau’s opinion respecting men: I extend it to women, and confidently assert that they have been drawn out of their sphere by false refinement, and not by an endeavour to acquire masculine qualities. Still the regal homage which they receive is so intoxicating, that till the manners of the times are changed, and formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain, by degrading themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to nature and equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart. But for this epoch we must wait – wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason, and, preferring the real dignity of man to childish state, throw off their gaudy hereditary trappings: and if then women do not resign the arbitrary power of beauty – they will prove that they have less mind than man.
I may be accused of arrogance; still I must declare what I firmly believe, that all the writers who have written on the subject of female education and manners from Rousseau to Dr Gregory[5], have contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters, than they would otherwise have been; and, consequently, more useless members of society. I might have expressed this conviction in a lower key; but I am afraid it would have been the whine of affectation, and not the faithful expression of my feelings, of the clear result, which experience and reflection have led me to draw. When I come to that division of the subject, I shall advert to the passages that I more particularly disapprove of, in the works of the authors I have just alluded to; but it is first necessary to observe, that my objection extends to the whole purport of those books, which tend, in my opinion, to degrade one half of the human species, and render women pleasing at the expence of every solid virtue.
Though, to reason on Rousseau’s ground, if man did attain a degree of perfection of mind when his body arrived at maturity, it might be proper, in order to make a man and his wife one, that she should rely entirely on his understanding; and the graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous. But, alas! husbands, as well as their helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks to early debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form – and if the blind lead the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the consequence.
Many are the causes that, in the present corrupt state of society, contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and sharpening their senses. One, perhaps, that silently does more mischief than all the rest, is their disregard of order.
To do every thing in an orderly manner, is a most important precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men, who from their infancy are broken into method, observe. This negligent kind of guesswork, for what other epithet can be used to point out the random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense, never brought to the test of reason? prevents their generalizing matters of fact – so they do to- day, what they did yesterday, merely because they did it yesterday.
This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful consequences than is commonly supposed; for the little knowledge which women of strong minds attain, is, from various circumstances, of a more desultory kind than the knowledge of men, and it is acquired more by sheer observations on real life, than from comparing what has been individually observed with the results of experience generalized by speculation. Led by their dependent situation and domestic employments more into society, what they learn is rather by snatches; and as learning is with them, in general, only a secondary thing, they do not pursue any one branch with that persevering ardour necessary to give vigour to the faculties, and clearness to the judgment. In the present state of society, a little learning is required to support the character of a gentleman; and boys are obliged to submit to a few years of discipline. But in the education of women, the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment; even while enervated by confinement and false notions of modesty, the body is prevented from attaining that grace and beauty which relaxed half-formed limbs never exhibit. Besides, in youth their faculties are not brought forward by emulation; and having no serious scientific study, if they have natural sagacity it is turned too soon on life and manners. They dwell on effects, and modifications, without tracing them back to causes; and complicated rules to adjust behaviour are a weak substitute for simple principles.
As a proof that education gives this appearance of weakness to females, we may instance the example of military men, who are, like them, sent into the world before their minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified by principles. The consequences are similar, soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the muddy current of conversation, and, from continually mixing with society, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the world, and this acquaintance with manners and customs has frequently been confounded with a knowledge of the human heart. But can the crude fruit of casual observation, never brough to the test of judgment, formed by comparing speculation and experience, deserve such a distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practise the minor virtues with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when the education has been the same? All the difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty, which enables the former to see more of life.
It is wandering from my present subject, perhaps, to make a political remark; but, as it was produced naturally by the train of my reflections, I shall not pass it silently over.
Standing armies can never consist of resolute, robust men; they may be well disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties. And as for any depth of understanding, I will venture to affirm, that it is as rarely to be found in the army as amongst women; and the cause, I maintain, is the same. It may be further observed, that officers are also particularly attentive to their persons, fond of dancing, crowded rooms, adventures, and ridicule.[6] Like the fair sex, the business of their lives is gallantry. – They were taught to please, and they only live to please. Yet they do not lose their rank in the distinction of sexes, for they are still reckoned superior to women, though in what their superiority consists, beyond what I have just mentioned, it is difficult to discover.
The great misfortune is this, that they both acquire manners before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have, from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credity, they blindly submit to authority. So that if they have any sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance, that catches proportions, and decides with respect to manners; but fails when arguments are to be pursued below the surface, or opinions analyzed.
May not the same remark be applied to women? Nay, the argument may be carried still further, for they are both thrown out of a useful station by the unnatural distinctions established in civilized life. Riches and hereditary honours have made cyphers of women to give consequence to the numerical figure; and idleness has produced a mixture of gallantry and despotism into society, which leads the very men who are the slaves of their mistresses to tyrannize over their sisters, wives, and daughters. This is only keeping them in rank and file, it is true. Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing. The sensualist, indeed, has been the most dangerous of tyrants, and women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers, whilst dreaming that they reigned over them.
I now principally allude to Rousseau, for his character of Sophia is, undoubtedly, a captivating one, though it appears to me grossly unnatural; however it is not the superstructure, but the foundation of her character, the principles on which her education was built, that I mean to attack; nay, warmly as I admire the genius of that able writer, whose opinions I shall often have occasion to cite, indignation always takes place of admiration, and the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency, which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries. Is this the man, who, in his ardour for virtue, would banish all the soft arts of peace, and almost carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this the man who delights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of good dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry the glowing soul out of itself? – How are these mighty sentiments lowered when he describes the pretty foot and enticing airs of his little favourite! But, for the present, I wave the subject, and, instead of severely reprehending the transient effusions of overweening sensibility, I shall only observe, that whoever has cast a benevolent eye on society, must often have been gratified by the sight of humble mutual love, not dignified by sentiment, or strengthened by a union in intellectual pursuits. The domestic trifles of the day have afforded matters for cheerful converse, and innocent caresses have softened toils which did not require great exercise of mind or stretch of thought: yet, has not the sight of this moderate felicity excited more tenderness than respect? An emotion similar to what we feel when children are playing, or animals sporting,[7] whilst the contemplation of the noble struggles of suffering merit has raised admiration, and carried our thoughts to that world where sensation will give place to reason.
Women are, therefore, to be considered either as moral beings, or so weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior faculties of men.
Let us examine this question. Rousseau declares that a woman should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquetish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself. He carries the arguments, which he pretends to draw from the indications of nature, still further, and insinuates that truth and fortitude, the corner stones of all human virtue, should be cultivated with certain restrictions, because, with respect to the female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought to be impressed with unrelenting rigour.
What nonsense! when will a great man arise with sufficient strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality have thus spread over the subject! If women are by nature inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.
Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should be to unfold their own faculties and acquire the dignity of conscious virtue. They may try to render their road pleasant; but ought never to forget, in common with man, that life yields not the felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul. I do not mean to insinuate, that either sex should be so lost in abstract reflections or distant views, as to forget the affections and duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed to produce the fruit of life; on the contrary, I would warmly recommend them, even while I assert, that they afford most satisfaction when they are considered in their true, sober light.
Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man, may have taken its rise from Moses’s poetical story; yet, as very few, it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of Adam’s ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground; or, only be so far admitted as it proves that man, from the remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert his strength to subjugate his companion, and his invention to shew that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke, because the whole creation was only created for his convenience or pleasure.
Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things; I have already granted, that, from the constitution of their bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of virtue. I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God.
It follows then that cunning should not be opposed to wisdom, little cares to great exertions, or insipid softness, varnished over with the name of gentleness, to that fortitude which grand views alone can inspire.
I shall be told that woman would then lose many of her peculiar graces, and the opinion of a well known poet might be quoted to refute my unqualified assertion. For Pope has said, in the name of the whole male sex,
‘Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create,
As when she touch’d the brink of all we hate.'[8]
In what light this sally places men and women, I shall leave to the judicious to determine; meanwhile I shall content myself with observing, that I cannot discover why, unless they are mortal, females should always be degraded by being made subservient to love or lust.
To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple language of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart. To endeavour to reason love out of the world, would be to out Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense; but an endeavour to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever cooly wield, appears less wild.
Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation. But Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed his steps, have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of female education ought to be directed to one point: – to render them pleasing.
Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion who have any knowledge of human nature, do they imagine that marriage can eradicate the habitude of life? The woman who has only been taught to please will soon find that her charms are oblique sunbeams, and that they cannot have much effect on her husband’s heart when they are seen every day, when the summer is passed and gone. Will she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more rational to expect that she will try to please other men; and, in the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband ceases to be a lover – and the time will inevitably come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.
I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice; such women, though they would shrink from an intrigue with real abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of gallantry that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands; or, days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by congenial souls till their health is undermined and their spirits broken by discontent. How then can the great art of pleasing be such a necessary study; it is only useful to a mistress; the chaste wife, and serious mother, should only consider her power to please as the polish of her virtues, and the affection of her husband as one of the comforts that render her task less difficult and her life happier. – But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make herself respectable, and not to rely for all her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities with herself.
The worthy Dr Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect his heart; but entirely disapprove of his celebrated Legacy to his Daughters.
He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently use this indefinite term. If they told us that in a pre- existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance. – But if he only meant to say that the exercise of the faculties will produce this fondness – I deny it. It is not natural; but arises, like false ambition in men, from a love of power.
Dr Gregory goes much further; he actually recommends dissimulation, and advises an innocent girl to give the lie to her feelings, and not dance with spirit, when gaiety of heart would make her feet eloquent without making her gestures immodest. In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why, to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of? – Let the libertine draw what inference he pleases; but, I hope, that no sensible mother will restrain the natural frankness of youth by instilling such indecent cautions. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh[9]; and a wiser than Solomon hath said, that the heart should be made clean, and not trivial ceremonies observed, which it is not very difficult to fulfil with scrupulous exactness when vice reigns in the heart.
Women ought to endeavour to purify their heart; but can they do so when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely dependent on their senses for employment and amusement, when no noble pursuit sets them above the little vanities of the day, or enables them to curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed over which every passing breeze has power? To gain the affections of a virtuous man is affectation necessary? Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man; but, to ensure her husband’s affections, must a wife, who by the exercise of her mind and body whilst she was discharging the duties of a daughter, wife, and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain its natural strength, and her nerves a healthy tone, is she, I say, to condescend to use art and feign a sickly delicacy in order to secure her husband’s affection? Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!
In a seraglio, I grant, that all these arts are necessary; the epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apathy; but have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure, or the languor of weariness, rather than assert their claim to pursue reasonable pleasures and render themselves conspicuous by practising the virtues which dignify mankind? Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid hours, and soften the cares of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks, when the serious business of life is over.
Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practising various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband; and if she, by possessing such substantial qualities, merit his regard, she will not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend to an unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband’s passions. In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.
Nature, or, to speak with strict propriety, God, has made all things right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work. I now allude to that part of Dr Gregory’s treatise, where he advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution, and as ineffectual as absurd. – Love, from its very nature, must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant, would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone, or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious, to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, ‘that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer.'[10]
This is an obvious truth, and the cause not lying deep, will not elude a slight glance of inquiry.
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is, in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration, and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature – friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love. – And this constitution seems perfectly to harmonize with the system of government which prevails in the moral world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband, the dotard, a prey to childish caprices, and fond jealousies, neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should excite confidence in his children are lavished on the overgrown child, his wife.
In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to pursue with vigour the various employments which form the moral character, a master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love each other with passion. I mean to say, that they ought not to indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind that has never been engrossed by one object wants vigour – if it can long be so, it is weak.
A mistaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many sexual prejudices, tend to make women more constant than men; but, for the present, I shall not touch on this branch of the subject. I will go still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother. And this would almost always be the consequence if the female mind were more enlarged: for, it seems to be the common dispensation of Providence, that what we gain in present enjoyment should be deducted from the treasure of life, experience; and that when we are gathering the flowers of the day and revelling in pleasure, the solid fruit of toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same time. The way lies before us, we must turn to the right or left; and he who will pass life away in bounding from one pleasure to another, must not complain if he acquire neither wisdom nor respectability of character.
Supposing, for a moment, that the soul is not immortal, and that man was only created for the present scene, – I think we should have reason to complain that love, infantine fondness, ever grew insipid and palled upon the sense. Let us eat, drink, and love, for to-morrow we die, would be, in fact, the language of reason, the morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting shadow? But, if awed by observing the improbable powers of the mind, we disdain to confine our wishes or thoughts to such a comparatively mean field of action; that only appears grand and important, as it is connected with a boundless prospect and sublime hopes, what necessity is there for falsehood in conduct, and why must the sacred majesty of truth be violated to detain a deceitful good that saps the very foundation of virtue? Why must the female mind be tainted by coquetish arts to gratify the sensualist, and prevent love from subsiding into friendship, or compassionate tenderness, when there are not qualities on which friendship can be built? Let the honest heart shew itself, and reason teach passion to submit to necessity; or, let the dignified pursuit of virtue and knowledge raise the mind above those emotions which rather imbitter than sweeten the cup of life, when they are not restrained within due bounds.
I do not mean to allude to the romantic passion, which is the concomitant of genius. – Who can clip its wing? But that grand passion not proportioned to the puny enjoyments of life, is only true to the sentiment, and feeds on itself. The passions which have been celebrated for their durability have always been unfortunate. They have acquired strength by absence and constitutional melancholy. – The fancy has hovered round a form of beauty dimly seen – but familiarity might have turned admiration into disgust; or, at least, into indifference, and allowed the imagination leisure to start fresh game. With perfect propriety, according to this view of things, does Rousseau make the mistress of his soul, Eloisa, love St Preux, when life was fading before her; but this is no proof of the immortality of the passion.
Of the same complexion is Dr Gregory’s advice respecting delicacy of sentiment, which he advises a woman not to acquire, if she have determined to marry. This determination, however, perfectly consistent with his former advice, he calls indelicate, and earnestly persuades his daughters to conceal it, though it may govern their conduct: – as if it were indelicate to have the common appetites of human nature.
Noble morality! and consistent with the cautious prudence of a little soul that cannot extend its views beyond the present minute division of existence. If all the faculties of woman’s mind are only to be cultivated as they respect her dependence on man; if, when a husband be obtained, she have arrived at her goal, and meanly proud rests satisfied with such a paltry crown, let her grovel contentedly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal kingdom; but, if, struggling for the prize of her high calling, she looks beyond the present scene, let her cultivate her understanding without stopping to consider what character the husband may have whom she is destined to marry. Let her only determine, without being too anxious about present happiness, to acquire the qualities that ennoble a rational being, and a rough inelegant husband may shock her taste without destroying her peace of mind. She will not model her soul to suit the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them: his character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue.
If Dr Gregory confined his remark to romantic expectations of constant love and congenial feelings, he should have recollected that experience will banish what advice can never make us cease to wish for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expence of reason.
I own it frequently happens that women who have fostered a romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste their[11] lives in imagining how happy they should have been with a husband who could love them with a fervid increasing affection every day, and all day. But they might as well pine married as single – and would not be a jot more unhappy with a bad husband than longing for a good one. That a proper education; or, to speak with more precision, a well stored mind, would enable a woman to support a single life with dignity, I grant; but that she should avoid cultivating her taste, lest her husband should occasionally shock it, is quitting a substance for a shadow. To say the truth, I do not know of what use is an improved taste, if the individual be not rendered more independent of the casualties of life; if new sources of enjoyment, only dependent on the solitary operations of the mind, are not opened. People of taste, married or single, without distinction, will ever be disgusted by various things that touch not less observing minds. On this conclusion the argument must not be allowed to hinge; but in the whole sum of enjoyment is taste to be denominated a blessing?
The question is, whether it procures most pain or pleasure? The answer will decide the propriety of Dr Gregory’s advice, and shew how absurd and tyrannic it is thus to lay down a system of slavery; or to attempt to educate moral beings by any other rules than those deduced from pure reason, which apply to the whole species.
Gentleness of manners, forbearance and long-suffering, are such amiable Godlike qualities, that in sublime poetic strains the Deity has been invested with them; and, perhaps, no representation of his goodness so strongly fastens on the human affections as those that represent him abundant in mercy and willing to pardon. Gentleness, considered in this point of view, bears on its front all the characteristics of grandeur, combined with the winning graces of condescension; but what a different aspect it assumes when it is the submissive demeanour of dependence, the support of weakness that loves, because it wants protection; and is forbearing, because it must silently endure injuries; smiling under the lash at which it dare not snarl. Abject as this picture appears, it is the portrait of an accomplished woman, according to the received opinion of female excellence, separated by specious reasoners from human excellence. Or, they[12] kindly restore the rib, and make one moral being of a man and woman; not forgetting to give her all the ‘submissive charms.'[13]
How woman are to exist in that state where there is to be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, we are not told. For though moralists have agreed that the tenor of life seems to prove that man is prepared by various circumstances for a future state, they constantly concur in advising woman only to provide for the present. Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.
To recommend gentleness, indeed, on a broad basis is strictly philosophical. A frail being should labour to be gentle. But when forbearance confounds right and wrong, it ceases to be a virtue; and, however convenient it may be found in a companion – that companion will ever be considered as an inferior, and only inspire a vapid tenderness, which easily degenerates into contempt. Still, if advice could really make a being gentle, whose natural disposition admitted not of such a fine polish, something towards the advancement of order would be attained; but if, as might quickly be demonstrated, only affectation be produced by this indiscriminate counsel, which throws a stumbling-block in the way of gradual improvement, and true melioration of temper, the sex is not much benefited by sacrificing solid virtues to the attainment of superficial graces, though for a few years they may procure the individuals regal sway.
As a philosopher, I read with indignation the plausible epithets which men use to soften their insults; and, as a moralist, I ask what is meant by such heterogeneous associations, as fair defects, amiable weaknesses, etc.? If there be but one criterion of morals, but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny, according to the vulgar tale of Mahomet’s coffin; they have neither the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of reason on a perfect model. They were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine.
But to view the subject in another point of view. Do passive indolent women make the best wives? Confining our discussion to the present moment of existence, let us see how such weak creatures perform their part? Do the women who, by the attainment of a few superficial accomplishments, have strengthened the prevailing prejudice, merely contribute to the happiness of their husbands? Do they display their charms merely to amuse them? And have women, who have early imbibed notions of passive obedience, sufficient character to manage a family or educate children? So far from it, that, after surveying the history of woman, I cannot help, agreeing with the severest satirist, considering the sex as the weakest as well as the most oppressed half of the species. What does history disclose but marks of inferiority, and how few women have emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of sovereign man? – So few, that the exceptions remind me of an ingenious conjecture respecting Newton: that he was probably a being of a superior order, accidently caged in a human body. Following the same train of thinking, I have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary women who have rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit prescribed to their sex, were male spirits, confined by mistake in female frames. But if it be not philosophical to think of sex when the soul is mentioned, the inferiority must depend on the organs; or the heavenly fire, which is to ferment the clay, is not given in equal portions.
But avoiding, as I have hitherto done, any direct comparison of the two sexes collectively, or frankly acknowledging the inferiority of woman, according to the present appearance of things, I shall only insist that men have increased that inferiority till women are almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures. Let their faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale. Yet let it be remembered, that for a small number of distinguished women I do not ask a place.
It is difficult for us purblind mortals to say to what height human discoveries and improvements may arrive when the gloom of despotism subsides, which makes us stumble at every step; but, when morality shall be settled on a more solid basis, then, without being gifted with a prophetic spirit, I will venture to predict that woman will be either the friend or slave of man. We shall not, as at present, doubt whether she is a moral agent, or the link which unites man with brutes. But, should it then appear, that like the brutes they were principally created for the use of man, he will let them patiently bite the bridle, and not mock them with empty praise; or, should their rationality be proved, he will not impede their improvement merely to gratify his sensual appetites. He will not, with all the graces of rhetoric, advise them to submit implicitly their understanding to the guidance of man. He will not, when he treats of the education of women, assert that they ought never to have the free use of reason, nor would he recommend cunning and dissimulation to beings who are acquiring, in like manner as himself, the virtues of humanity.
Surely there can be but one rule of right, if morality has an eternal foundation, and whoever sacrifices virtue, strictly so called, to present convenience, or whose duty it is to act in such a manner, lives only for the passing day, and cannot be an accountable creature.
The poet then should have dropped his sneer when he says, ‘If weak women go astray,
The stars are more in fault than they’ [15]
For that they are bound by the adamantine chain of destiny is most certain, if it be proved that they are never to exercise their own reason, never to be independent, never to rise above opinion, or to feel the dignity of a rational will that only bows to God, and often forgets that the universe contains any being but itself and the model of perfection to which its ardent gaze is turned, to adore attributes that, softened into virtues, may be imitated in kind, though the degree overwhelms the enraptured mind.
If, I say, for I would not impress by declamation when Reason offers her sober light, if they be really capable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man, when they associate with him; but cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals.
Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same degree of strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude, let their virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which admits of no modification, would be common to both. Nay, the order of society as it is at present regulated would not be inverted, for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be practised to bring the balance even, much less to turn it.
These may be termed utopian dreams. – Thanks to that Being who impressed them on my soul, and gave me sufficient strength of mind to dare to exert my own reason, till, becoming dependent only on him for the support of my virtue, I view, with indignation, the mistaken notions that enslave my sex.
I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man. In fact, the conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason; or on what foundation rests the throne of God?
It appears to me necessary to dwell on these obvious truths, because females have been insulated, as it were; and, while they have been stripped of the virtues that should clothe humanity, they have been decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived tyranny. Love, in their bosoms, taking place of every nobler passion, their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of character. Liberty is the mother of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature.
As to the argument respecting the subjection in which the sex has ever been held, it retorts on man. The many have always been enthralled by the few; and monsters, who scarcely have shewn any discernment of human excellence, have tyrannized over thousands of their fellow-creatures. Why have men of superior endowments submitted to such degradation? For, is it not universally acknowledged that kings, viewed collectively, have ever been inferior, in abilities and virtue, to the same number of men taken from the common mass of mankind – yet, have they not, and are they not still treated with a degree of reverence that is an insult to reason; China is not the only country where a living man has been made a God. Men have submitted to superior strength to enjoy with impunity the pleasure of the moment – women have only done the same, and therefore till it is proved that the courtier, who servilely resigns the birthright of a man, is not a moral agent, it cannot be demonstrated that woman is essentially inferior to man because she has always been subjugated.
Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the science of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers scrupling to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate distinction.
I shall not pursue this argument any further than to establish an obvious inference, that as sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind, including woman, will become more wise and virtuous.
Notes
- Paradise Lost,Book IV, 298.
- From Bacon’s “Of Atheism” essay.
- Paradise Lost,Book IV, 634-8.
- Paradise Lost,Book VIII, 381-91.
- Dr. John Gregory (1724-1773), author of A Father’s Legacy To His Daughters (1774).
- Why should women be censured with petulant acrimony, because they seem to have a passion for a scarlet coat? Has not education placed them more on a level with soldiers than any other class of men?
- Similar feelings has Milton’s pleasing picture of paradisiacal happiness ever raised in my mind; yet, instead of envying the lovely pair, I have, with conscious dignity, or Satanic pride, turned to hell for sublimer objects. In the same style, when viewing some noble monument of human art, I have traced the emanation of the Deity in the order I admired, till, descending from that giddy height, I have caught myself contemplating the grandest of all human sights, – for fancy quickly placed, in some solitary recess, an outcast of fortune, rising superior to passion and discontent.
- Epistles to Several Persons (also known as the Moral Essays), Epistle II, “To a Lady: Of the Characters of Women”, 51-52.
- Matthew 12:34.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims, 473.
- For example, the herd of Novelists.
- Vide Rousseau, and Swedenborg.
- Paradise Lost, Book IV, 498.
- Matthew Prior, “Hans Carvel” (1700).
License:
The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy by Dr. Jeff McLaughlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism is a Humanism (1946)
Introduction to Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism
The Existentialist ideal begins with the idea that humans should stop wasting time puzzling over the curiosity of their own existence and begin instead by accepting it as a fact, the first and most necessary fact; “existence precedes essence”. Existentialism is Philosophy for the straightforward. You and me are real people, operating in a real world. We are not figments of each other’s imagination. I am the architect of my own self, my own character and destiny. It is no use whining about what I might have been, I am the things I have done and nothing more. We are all free, completely free. We can each do any damn thing we want. Which is more than most of us dare to imagine. All this talk of freedom has its dark side. Doesn’t it give license to do anything you want? Doesn’t it promote the evil and uncaring side of humanity? Jean Paul presented the lecture ‘L’existentialisme est un humanisme’ in Paris in 1946 as a response to such criticisms.
GLOSSARY
Existentialism: “Belief from existence”; the philosophy that declares ‘Existence precedes Essence’.
Essence: The fundamental nature, the immaterial basic characteristic.
Quietism: The worthless attitude of ‘let others do it’.
Subjective: Relating to, or arising from, the mind alone.
En-Soi: “In itself”- existence defined by the nature of the (inanimate) thing.
Pour-Soi: “For itself”- existence chosen by the (human) thing. Pour les Autres: For the others- existence with for and defining others.
Authenticity: Being honest to your own essence
Mauvaise foi: “bad faith” (sometimes interpreted as “self-deception”); our failure to follow our essence. Gide, André: French writer, whose novels often refer to utterly random (acte gratuit) behaviour-To Sartre we can’t do things without purpose.
Zola, émile (1840-1902): French writer of ‘naturalistic’ novels in which characters find themselves in roles dictated, not by choice, but by their pre-existing inherited predispositions, especially for drink and sex. Kierkegaard, Søren (1813-1855): Danish Christian philosopher, who held that each person must decide for themselves. Considered the founder of existentialism.
Jaspers, Karl (1883-1969): German academic philosopher and psychologist who, curiously, thought apes to be degenerate humans.
Existentialism is a Humanism
Jean-Paul Sartre
Squashed version edited by Glyn Hughes © 2011
A lecture by Jean-Paul Sartre given at The Club Maintenant in Paris, on October 29, 1945.
My purpose here is to defend existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it. Existentialism has been criticised for inviting people to remain in a quietism of despair, to fall back into a the middle-class luxury of a merely contemplative philosophy. We are reproached for underlining human nastiness, and forgetting, as the Catholic Mme. Mercier has it, the smile of the child. All and sundry reproach us for treating men as isolated beings, largely because we begin with the ‘I think’ of Descartes. Christians especially reproach us for denying the reality and seriousness of human society, since, if we ignore God’s eternal values, no-one is able to condemn anyone else. Existentialism is being seen as ugliness; our appeal to nature as scandalous, our writings sickening. Yet what could be more disillusioning than repeating those mottoes like ‘don’t fight against tradition’, or ‘know your station’? They say that man is base and doomed to fall, he needs fixed rules to keep him from anarchy. In the end, is not what makes our doctrine so fearful to some merely the fact that it leaves all possibility of choice with man? It has become fashionable to call this painter, or musician or columnist an “existentialist” – a term so loosely applied that it no longer means anything at all. However, it can be defined easily. Existentialists are either Christian, such as the Catholics Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, or atheists like Heidegger and myself. What they have in common is to believe that existence comes before essence, that we always begin from the subjective. What does this mean? If one considers a manufactured object, say a book or a paper-knife, one sees that it has been made to serve a definite purpose. It has an essence, the sum of its purpose and qualities, which precedes its existence. The concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper-knife in the mind of the artisan. My atheist existentialism is rather more coherent. It declares that God does not exist, yet there is still a being in whom existence precedes essence, a being which exists before being defined by any concept, and this being is man or, as Heidegger puts it, human reality. That means that man first exists, encounters himself and emerges in the world, to be defined afterwards. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. It is man who conceives himself, who propels himself towards existence. Man becomes nothing other than what is actually done, not what he will want to be. And when we say that man takes responsibility for himself, we say more than that – he is in his choices responsible for all men. All our acts of creating ourselves create at the same time an image of man such as we believe he must be. Thus, our personal responsibility is vast, because it engages all humanity. If I want, say, to marry and have children, such choice may depend on my situation, my passion, my desire, but by it I engage not only myself, but all humanity in the way of the monogamy. In fashioning myself, I fashion man. This helps us to understand some rather grandiloquent words like anguish, abandonment, despair. The existentialist declares that man is in anguish, meaning that he who chooses cannot escape a deep responsibility for all humanity. Admittedly, few people appear to be anxious; but we claim that they mask their anguish, that they flee it. This is what Kierkegaard called the anguish of Abraham. You know the old story: An angel commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. But anyone in such a case would wonder straight away, is this an angel? am I the Abraham? If we hear voices from the sky, what proves that they come not from hell, or the subconscious, or some pathological state? Who proves that they are addressed to me? Each man must say to himself: am I right to set the standard for all humanity? To deny that is to mask the anguish. When, for example, a military leader sends men to their deaths, he may have his orders, but at the bottom it is he alone who chooses. And when we speak about ‘abandonment’, we want to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to follow this conclusion to its end. The existentialist is strongly against that sloppy morality which tries to remove God without ethical expense, like the French professors of the 1880’s who saw God as a useless and expensive assumption but still wanted definitive rules like ‘do not lie’ to exist a priori. The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it rather embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with him any possibility of finding values in a heaven. Dostoevsky wrote “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; that is the starting point of existentialism. We are alone, without excuses. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. There is no power of ‘beautiful passions’ which propel men to their actions, we think, rather, that man is responsible for his own passions. The existentialist cannot accept that man can be helped by any sign on earth, for he will interpret the sign as he chooses. As Ponge has truly written “Man is the future of man”. To give you an example of this ‘abandonment’, I will quote the case of one of my pupils who came to me. He lived alone with his mother, his father having gone off as a collaborator and his brother killed in 1940. He had a choice – to go and fight with the Free French to avenge his brother and protect his nation, or to stay and be his mother’s only consolation. So he was confronted by two modes of action; one concrete and immediate but directed only towards one single individual; the other addressed to an infinitely greater end but very ambiguous. What would help him choose? Christian doctrine? Accepted morals? Kant? I said to him, “In the end, it is your feelings which count”. But how can we put a value on a feeling? At least, you may say, he sought the counsel of a professor. But, if you seek advice, from a priest for example, in choosing which priest you know already, more or less, what they would advise. When I was imprisoned, I met a rather remarkable man, a Jesuit who had joined that order in the following way: As a child, his father had died leaving him in poverty. At school he was made to feel that he was accepted only for charity’s sake and denied the usual pleasures. At eighteen he came to grief in a sentimental affair and then failed his military examinations. He could regard himself as a total failure, but, cleverly, took it as a sign that the religious life was the way for him. He saw the word of God there, but who can doubt that the decision was his and his alone? He could as easily have chosen to be a carpenter or a revolutionary. As for ‘despair’, this simply means that we will restrict ourselves to relying only on our own will, or on the probabilities which make our action possible. If I am counting on the arrival of a friend, I presuppose that their train will be on time. But I am still among possibilities, outside my own field of action. No God, no intention, is going to alter the world to my will. In the end, Descartes meant the same, that we must act without hope. Marxists have answered “Your action is limited by your death, but you can rely on others to later take up your deeds and carry them forward to the revolution”. To this I rejoin that I cannot know where the revolution will lead. Others may come and establish Fascism. Does that mean that I must give up myself to quietism? No! Quietism is the attitude of people who say: “let others do what I cannot do”. The doctrine that I present is precisely the opposite: there is reality only in the action; and more, man is nothing other than his own project and exists only in as far as he carries it out. From this we see why our ideas so often cause horror. Many people have but one resource to sustain them in their misery; to think, “circumstances were against me, I was worthy of better. I had no great love because I never met anyone worthy of me. I wrote no great book because I had no time. I am filled with a crowd of possibilities greater than anyone could guess from my few achievements.” But in reality, for the existentialist, there is no love other than that which is built, no artistic genius other than in works of art. The genius of Proust is the works of Proust. A man engages in his own life, draws his own portrait, there is nothing more. This is hard for somebody who has not made a success of life. But it is only reality that counts, not dreams, expectations or hopes. What people reproach us for here is not our pessimism, but the sternness of our optimism. If people reproach our writings, it is not because we describe humanity as frail and sometimes frankly bad, but because, unlike Zola whose characters are shown to be products of heredity or environment, you cannot say of ours “That is what we are like, no one can do anything about it”. The existentialist portrays a coward as one who makes himself a coward by his actions, a hero who makes himself heroic. Some still reproach us for confining man within his individual subjectivity. But there is no other startingpoint than the “I think, I am” – the absolute truth of consciousness, a simple truth within reach of everyone and the only theory which gives man the dignity of not being a mere object. All materialisms treat men as objects, no different in their being bundles of determined reactions than a table or a chair or a stone. We want to constitute a human kingdom of values distinct from the material world. Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to the philosophy of Kant, we are discovering in the cogito not just ourselves but all others. We discover an intersubjective world where each man has to decide what he is and what others are. It is not possible to find in each man the universal essence called human nature, but there is a human universality of condition. Any purpose, even that of the Chinese, or the idiot or the child can be understood by a European, given enough information. In this sense, there is a universality of man; but it is not a given, it is something perpetually re-built. That does not entirely refute the charge of subjectivism. People tax us with anarchy; they say that “you cannot judge others, because you have no reason to prefer one project to another. You give with one hand what you pretend to receive from the other.” Let us say that moral choice is comparable to a work of art. Do we reproach the artist who makes a painting without starting from laid-down rules? Did we tell him what he must paint? There is no predefined picture, and no-none can say what the painting of tomorrow should be; one can judge only one at a time. Amongst morals, the creative situation is the same, and just as the works of, say, Picasso, have consequences, so do our moral judgements. That student who came to me could not appeal to any system for guidance; he was obliged to invent the law for himself. We define man only through his engagement, so it is absurd to reproach us for the consequences of a choice. But it is not entirely true that we cannot judge others. We can judge whether choices are founded on truth or error, and we can judge a man’s sincerity. The man who hides behind the excuse of his passions or of some deterministic doctrine, is a selfdeceiver. “And what if I wish to deceive myself?” – there is no reason why you should not, but I declare publicly that you are doing so. We will freedom for the sake of freedom. And through it we discover that our freedom depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that their freedom depends on ours. Those who hide their freedom behind deterministic excuses, I will call cowards. Those who pretend that their own existence was necessary, I will call scum. To the objection that “You receive with one hand what you give with the other”, that is, your values are not serious, since you choose them, I answer that, I am sorry, but having removed God the Father, one needs somebody to invent values. Things have to be taken as they are. One has reproached me ridiculing a type of humanism in Nausea, and now suggesting that existentialism is a form of humanism. The absurd type of humanism is to glory in “Man the magnificent” ascribing to all men the value of the deeds of the most distinguished men. Only a dog or a horse would be in a position to declare such a judgement. But there is another humanism, the acceptance that there is only one universe, the universe of human subjectivity. Existentialism is not despair. It declares rather that even if God did exist, it would make no difference.
Philosophy-A Short History3 Copyright © by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Jan 9, 1908 - April 14, 1986
Often seen in the same sentence as Sartre, i.e. as an echo of rather than a unique thinker in her own right. However, de Beauvoir offered her unique perspective on a variety of issues, particularly that of what it means to be a woman. Woman is, according to de Beauvoir, defined by Other-ness. Our capacity for agency and meaning-making, whether or not we are identified as agents and meaning-makers, is constrained, though never determined, by our situation. This is a profoundly existential idea shared with thinkers like Sartre and Camus: existence precedes essence, as Sartre expressed it. Our lives are simply what we are born into - no one asks for it and no one gets to choose who or where we come into being. We are constrained by this. However, we are free to make of it what we will - life and existence are not imbued with meaning; it’s up to us to create that.
Like Sartre, de Beauvoir lived through the Nazi occupation of France, which profoundly influenced her thinking. Consider your existence and everything that you have found to have meaning: what if tomorrow you woke up to find that it was decimated, both metaphorically and perhaps even literally. While it’s not likely you or I will live through another war like WWII, we can share with the existentialist thinkers the desolation and uncertainty they felt about existence. All of us will live through events that are unpredictable and those events will give rise to our own uncertainty about life and meaning.
For de Beauvoir, this led her to the question of what it means to be a Woman. In her seminal work, The Second Sex, she begins the work by telling her readers that “the term “female” is derogatory not because it emphasizes woman animality, but because it imprisons her in her sex” (de Beauvoir, 1). The very thing that separates men from women is a constraint, a prison.
What does it mean to be a woman? For de Beauvoir, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (249). What does it mean that one becomes rather than is born into? True to existential thought, we are defined by the choices that we make. Does one simply choose to become a woman? Consider this:
Woman can be defined by her consciousness of her own femininity no more
satisfactorily than by saying that she is a female, for she acquires this consciousness
under circumstances dependent upon the society of which she is a member. . . . But
a life is a relation to the world, and the individual defines himself by making his own
choices through the world about him (44).
When we are born, we are not aware, conscious, of our man or woman. It’s not until we are much older that these things are told to us, again, constraining us to act or be a certain way in accordance to what the world around us has told us it means to be Woman (or Man). In an inherently meaningless world, the quest for value is one that is determined by the economic and social structure around us (47).
De Beauvoir argues that woman has the power to choose her being,
I shall place woman in a world of values and give her behavior a dimension of
liberty. I believe that she has the power to choose between the assertion of her
transcendence and her alienation as object; she is not the plaything of contradictory
drives; she devises solutions of diverse ranking in the ethical scale (45).
However, woman in de Beauvoir’s work is termed Other. This is not in opposition to another group, like the Southern Racist or German Antisemite. It’s Other in the sense of beyond, “To say that woman was the Other is to say that there did not exist between the sexes a reciprocal relation: Earth, Mother, Goddess — she was no fellow creature in mans eyes; it was beyond the human realm that her power was affirmed, and she was therefore outside of that realm (64-65). As societies developed, there was a distinction between jobs. Traditionally we think of hunter / gatherer societies in this respect, where the males of the group are those who are off searching for and collecting food while the woman are left to complete domestic chores and raise children. This sets off a determination that is not inherent but is determined from outside. This determination supports existential thought in that what we are is determined in many ways by what we do; in this case, Woman was not given the choice to stay home with the children, however:
The female, to a greater extent than the male, is the prey of the species; and the human race
has always sought to escape its specific destiny. The support of life became for man an
activity and a project through the invention of the tool; but in maternity woman remained
closely bound to her body, like an animal. It is because humanity calls itself in question in
the matter of the living — that is to say, values the reasons for living above mere life — that,
confronting woman, man assumes mastery. Man’s design is not to repeat himself in time: it is
to take control of the instant and mold the future. It is male activity that in creating values
has made of existence itself a value; this activity has prevailed over the confused forces of
life; it has subdued Nature and Woman. We must now see how this situation has been
perpetuated and how it has evolved through the ages. What place has humanity made of this
portion of itself which, while included within it, is defined as the Other? What rights have
been conceded to it? How have men defined it? (60).
What is the result of this? We see how it continues, even in the present day. Woman are treated as inferior, less than, and this continues to resonate in how we frame the conversation. In addition, we see that Woman is an opposition but this means there must be something Woman is opposing. As de Beauvoir expresses it, Woman as the Other is, “passivity confronting activity, diversity that destroys unity, matter as opposed to form, disorder against order” (74). You’ll notice a negativity here: woman is dedicated to Evil (74) which means that there must be good; evil is simply a privation of good. I don’t take this to mean that woman is evil and more than a left handed person is sinister, but rather, woman is forced to accept the position imposed on her by society - in this case, by Man. Only then is she free.
However, this entire story was written by men; it’s man-made (118). As already established men set the values, mores, and religion - woman never disputed this. However, this led to a disruption in which men were allowed to determine the lot of woman, not thinking of her interests but instead as woman relates to the projects, fears, and needs of man (118). Perhaps this is an antiqued way of thinking about Woman and Man - we know now there is more than a simple binary distinction. So, to frame this in terms more applicable to 21st century understanding: there is always a dominant force behind any action; we know this from any freshman science class. In the case of the history of the sexes, man was that dominant force who established the “rules” of society and woman simply went along. Perhaps this is because the rules were beneficial or did not seem worth fighting. However, as evidenced by the suffrage movement of the early 20th century or the later fight for equal rights, de Beauvoir reminds us that, “. . . . Feminism itself was never an autonomous movement: it was in part an instrument in the hands of politicians, in part an epiphenomenon reflection a deeper social drama” (119). As Other, woman was forced again into the position, constrained by the role society imposed it has been with the consent of Man.
Existential thought shares with us a discontent with the seeming inherent nature of meaning. Aristotle believed that form determined function. In her thought, de Beauvoir explores the implications of this persistent belief and ultimately gives voice to an other that was long silenced.
References:
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1952.
Gillespie, Iseult. “The Meaning of Life According to Simone De Beauvoir.” Iseult Gillespie: The Meaning of Life According to Simone De Beauvoir | TED Talk, Ted-Ed, 2020, https://www.ted.com/talks/iseult_gillespie_the_meaning_of_life_according_to_simone_de_beauvoir.
Mussett, Shannon. “Simone De Beauvoir.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/
Frantz Fanon and His Influence
Frantz Fanon and His Influence
Conceptualizing Fanon
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a French psychiatrist and existentialist thinker who grew up under French colonial rule in Martinique and later lived in France, Algeria, and Sub-Saharan Africa. He troubled fundamental societal issues around race, gender, sexuality, and social formation. Some of Fanon’s most influential works, two of which will be discussed here, emerged as a result of his experience during the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962). During this period, Fanon began to recognize the internalization of racism and the impacts of colonialism first-hand, which prompted him to begin theorizing about the anti-colonial struggle and the process of decolonization.
Black Skin, White Masks (Originally Published in 1952)
Drawing on the influences such as his fellow French intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre, Fanon provided an existentialist-phenomenological interpretation of “otherness” in Black Skin, White Masks (1952/2008). Here, Fanon highlighted the internalization of the “symbolic order” wherein the colonizer’s worldview is imposed upon the colonized person, which as a result traps them in their own inferiority complex. Thus, Fanon recognized racism as a psychological reality for the colonized. He famously advocated for the “liberation of the man of color from himself” (Fanon, 1952/2008, p. 2). This suggests that as a consequence of colonialism, race traps both Black and white people in their own subjectivities and only serves to perpetuate the colonial system through the colonization of the mind. Therefore, we must first consider the ways in which we might go about decolonizing our thinking to ignite the decolonization process within larger societal structures.
Wretched of the Earth (Originally published in 1961)
Wretched of the Earth (1961/2004), cements Fanon as a post-colonial thinker as he imagined a world freed from the tight grasp of the colonial system. Within the work, Fanon raised questions about the necessity of violence in the anti-colonial struggle, addressed capitalism as a “necessary evil,” and troubled the notion that a broken system can be infiltrated and restructured from the inside.
Fanon asserted that “decolonization is always a violent event” (p. 1), taking on a Manichaean view as he described decolonization as the substitution of one “species” of humankind to another. Much like Foucault’s (1980) notion of how power shifts from one form to another, Fanon (2004) illustrated that decolonization must be violent because colonialism inherently is. Thus, colonialism cannot be dismantled through some sort of “mutual” agreement because language alone will not convince a colonialist power to change or make concessions for those they seek to oppress. It is essential to be wary of an oversimplification of his theories and ideas, including the role of violence. His promotion of the role of violence is sometimes reduced to promoting any and all violent acts. However, for Fanon, violence is only effective when it is aimed at the colonial system itself. Therefore, we need to consider the ways that political/national conscious-raising must work in conjunction with political violence to dismantle the colonial system.
Fanon (1961/2008) highlighted the harm in suggesting that the colonized could infiltrate the institutions and change them from within in his discussion of the colonized intellectual. Not only is changing a system from within not possible according to Fanon, but also it would work to perpetuate the system of colonialism as the colonized person becomes a “mimic man.” Chari (2004) called attention to this point when she argued that, for Fanon, the very idea of recognition within a colonial system can serve as a vehicle for perpetuating the injustices it purports to combat (p. 116). Therefore, recognition of the colonized intellectual is not justice or freedom but rather only serves to define and evaluate the colonized within the existing terms of colonial power.
Following this argument, we must attempt to imagine a world beyond colonialism. As such, identity is not the problem, but rather inaction is. Therefore, it is up to the colonized to “act” and liberate themselves from the white gaze of colonialism instead of attempting to compete with their oppressors or ask nicely to be granted freedom.
Implications for Education
There is arguably a great deal of concern within contemporary education circles regarding how colonialism shapes curriculum and pedagogy. Fanon’s proposal for violence and political consciousness-raising is largely a radical suggestion for a system so deeply entrenched in the tales of colonialism. However, Fanon ultimately argues that what is needed is not a new adaptation of the current system but rather a whole new system. Therefore, asking ourselves as educators and researchers to contemplate our current conceptualizations of education is a reasonable starting place. To this end, educators might adopt what Dei and Simmons (2010) cite as a “Critical Fanonian Approach.” They suggest that such a framework draws on a critical analysis of the institutional structures within which the delivery of “social services and goods” occurs (p. xvi). In this sense, we might begin to acknowledge that social institutions, such as schools, reproduce societal inequality, ultimately contributing to the colonial machine. Finally, Dei and Simmons (2010) further assert that the focus should be on the liberation of the learner (p. xvii), which indicates that through generative dialogue and critical discourse, unequal power structures that act to colonize the minds of nearly every human being today can be exposed and actively challenged.
References
- Chari, A. (2004). Exceeding recognition. Sartre Studies International, 10(2), 110-122.
- Dei, G. J. S., & Simmons, M. (2010). The pedagogy of Fanon: An introduction. Counterpoints, 368, xiii-xxv. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42980663
- Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks (Trans. C. L. Markmann). (Original work published 1952). Pluto.
- Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the Earth (Trans. R. Philcox) (pp. 1-62). Grove. (Original work published 1961)
- Foucault, M. (1980). The history of sexuality, vol. 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Vintage.
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- Fanon © Pacha J. Willka is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
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Intellectual Influences in Contemporary Curriculum Study by Jillian Kowalchuk and Rafael Pellizzer Soares is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
W.E.B. du Bois
W.E.B. DU BOIS (1868-1963)
Introduction
The Souls of Black Folk (1903), The Negro (1915), “The African Roots of War” (1915)
Born in Great Barrington, western Massachusetts, in 1868, William Edward Burghardt (W. E. B.) Du Bois lived for almost a century, which stretched from the post-U. S. Civil War period to the period of the beginning of the Cold War.
Although he had a tough childhood, brought up by his mother and her relatives after his father deserted the family, he grew up to be a voracious reader of books and graduated with honors from the local high school in 1885.
During the next few years, he, to put it in his own words, “went South” to ”the South of slavery, rebellion, and black folk,” spending four years at Nashville, Tennessee. Subsequently, he studied at Harvard, earning, in 1895, a Ph.D. degree following upon a B. A. and an M. A., and at the University of Berlin (1892 – 1895). In an age of severe lack of middle–class professional opportunities for black people in the United States, Du Bois was able to break the barrier of prejudice and obtain research and teaching assignments at several universities, including the Wilberforce University in Central Ohio, the University of Pennsylvania and the Atlanta University in Georgia.
Later in life, he assumed the role of a public intellectual, seeking to represent the cause of the American blacks and of black people of the world at large. In this capacity, he helped to found, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in which he served as the director of publications. In 1910 he took over as the editor of the NAACP’s monthly magazine, The Crisis, a position he held until 1934. He was also a key figure of the African – American cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, along with other African – American writers and artists such as Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston.
Politically, by the 1950s he had veered towards sympathy for the communist movement, inspired by events in the Soviet Union and in the People’s Republic of China. In 1961 he applied for membership in the Communist Party of the USA. Soon afterward, he renounced his U. S. citizenship and adopted Ghanaian residency. He died in Ghana in 1963.
Among the many books he produced were The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the United States of America 1638 – 1870 (1896), The Philadelphia Negro (1915), Black Reconstruction in America, 1860 –1880 (1935), Dusk of Dawn (1940) and Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945).
The Souls of Black Folk is generally recognized to be his magnum opus. In it, Du Bois critically analyses the history of slavery and segregation of black people in the United States and pronounces, with a prophetic air, that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line”. He projects the image of the “veil” to convey the logic of separation between black and white, and follows up on this argument by theorizing the “double consciousness” that defines the African in America.
… One ever feels his twoness
… an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts,
two unreconciled strivings;
two warning ideals in one
dark body, whose strength
alone keeps it from being
torn asunder…
A race radical, Du Bois, in one of the most stringent thematics of the book, takes on what he thinks is the accommodationist attitude of his African – American contemporary, Booker T Washington, on the issue of race relations. As against the so–called Atlanta Compromise position of Washington which prescribed education and entrepreneurship as a panacea for the ills afflicting African – Americans rather than them engaging in battle for civil rights, Du Bois staunchly advocated that they struggle “for the rights which the world accords to men,” abiding by the spirit of the U. S. Constitution.
The Negro, a much lesser known creation of Du Bois, his “little book,” as he called it, tracks the more than ten thousand year old record of the people of Africa, especially from the sub – Saharan region including Zimbabwe, Ghana and Songhai. Du Bois’ intention was to counter the racist belief, popular in the Jim Crow era, that the people of African origin had no civilization other that the one into which they were enculturated into by their slave owner masters and mistresses. Indeed, the Atlantic slave trade, it is emphasized by him, destroyed the rich cultural heritage of the African people.
Du Bois here offers to his readers in an easy–to–read, nonacademic narrative, one of the earliest accounts of life in Africa prior to its colonization by European nations and thereby, effectively, demolishes the myth of the white man’s burden.
Once again a lesser known publication by Du Bois, the essay “The African Roots of War” first appeared in the May 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. In it, Du Bois traces the cause of the First World War to the rivalry between the European nation – states: Germany’s attempt to catch up with annexation of land projects in the so – called Dark Continent which had already been embarked upon by Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Portugal. Ironically, the desire for conquest of territories far away from home led these countries into warfare with each other on their home ground. Although the thesis of the essay, in some ways, anticipated the argument put forward by V. I. Lenin in his famous tract, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which was published a year later, Du Bois does not go to the extent of developing a full–fledged theory of imperialism. He is clearly more interested in the large–scale translational consequences of racism than in studying the political economy of empire–building. Hence the all–important statement of the essay:
Nearly every human empire
that has arisen in the world,
material and spiritual, has
found some of its greatest
crises on the continent of
Africa…
Du Bois’ own African roots, no doubt, provide him his ideological apparatus for his critique of imperialism.
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Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature by Tapan Basu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Gloria Anzaldúa - Borderlands (excerpts)
Summary of Personal Identity article
The main question this chapter explores is called the "persistence question" of personal identity: What makes a person the same person over time? It's a fascinating puzzle that philosophers have debated for centuries.
The chapter starts with the famous Ship of Theseus thought experiment. Imagine a ship that has all its parts replaced over time. Is it still the same ship? This helps us think about what makes something stay the same despite changes.
One important view comes from John Locke, who said that psychological continuity is what matters for personal identity. This means you're the same person because of your memories and mental states. But this view has some problems. For example, what about when you're asleep or if you lose your memory?
Another view focuses on bodily continuity. This says you're the same person because of your physical body. Bernard Williams argued for this using thought experiments about fearing future pain. A related idea called animalism says that you're essentially an animal, and what keeps you the same is what keeps any organism alive.
The chapter also discusses a mind-bending sci-fi story by Daniel Dennett called "Where Am I?" This story challenges our ideas about where the self is located and suggests that maybe there's no single thing that makes us the same person over time.
Some philosophers propose a narrative view of self. This says your identity is the story you tell about yourself. This story connects different parts of your life and guides your choices. A similar idea called the character view focuses on your traits and dispositions rather than a complete life story.
The big takeaway is that there's no easy answer to what makes you the same person over time. Different theories have strengths and weaknesses, and philosophers continue to debate this question. This topic is important because it makes us think about who we are, how we change over time, and what really matters in our identity. It's a great introduction to how philosophers use thought experiments and logic to explore complex ideas about the nature of self and identity.
Reference: OpenAI 2024 and Adriel Slaughter
Personal Identity
Personal identity
Matthew Van Cleave
Introduction: the persistence question
Imagine a wooden ship called “TS” that was built 100 years ago and that has been in continual use up until today. As time has passed, parts of TS have decayed and have needed to be replaced. Eventually, none of TS’s parts are original; all of them have been replaced. Is TS the same boat as it was 100 years ago?[1] On the one hand, it seems that it cannot be since the physical object has undergone a radical change—it is literally a totally different physical object. One the other hand, we are inclined to still call it “TS” since it has been in continual use since it was first built and it has always been called “TS.” These two answers suggest two very different criteria about the identity conditions of objects. The first answer suggests that an object is the same object only if there is some intrinsic property of the object that stays the same through time (and that if there are no such properties then it follows that it is no longer the same ship as it was at the start). The second answer suggests that an object is the same object as long as it has some extrinsic property that remains such same. Being called the by the same name (or perceived by people to be the same object) over time is a good example of an extrinsic property since it is not something that the object itself contains but, rather, something that is “put onto” the objection from outside. On this criterion, TS is the same ship since people have always called it “TS.”
The question about the identity of the boat represents a very general metaphysical question about the identity of physical objects: what are the criteria by which objects remain numerically identical? Numerical identity is a term that philosophers use to describe an object being the very same object. It is contrasted with qualitative identity which simply means that an object has all the same properties or qualities. An object is only numerically identical to itself but can be qualitatively identical to other objects. For example, imagine two identical red Corvettes. The two red Corvettes are qualitatively identical (since if you closed your eyes could not tell whether one has been substituted for the other), but they are not numerically identical (because they are two different cars). The persistence question of identity is the question about the conditions under which an object remains numerically identical. For example, if the ship were disassembled and the wood used to build a house, it seems clear that it would no longer be the same object (even if its physical material were the same) since it is no longer a boat but a house. Likewise, if the red Corvette were melted down into metal and then fashioned into a boat, it would no longer be the same object.
Although we can ask the persistence question about objects in general, one kind of thing whose identity conditions philosophers have been very interested in is persons. The persistence question of personal identity is the question about the conditions under which a particular human being remains numerically the same.[2] The philosophical problem is that although it seems that that a person remains numerically identical throughout their life, it is very difficult to give a satisfying answer to what accounts for this numerical identity. More specifically, the problem is that although we are inclined to think that there is some intrinsic property that makes a person numerically the same throughout their life, it is very difficult to come up with what this intrinsic property is. Perhaps there is no intrinsic property; perhaps the only thing that makes me me is that others have always called me “Matt Van Cleave.” However, that answer also seems to lack the depth that we think our personal identity has. After all, it seems that there is a clear sense in which I would still be me even if all of a sudden people started calling me by a different name. Suppose I was kidnapped and taken to a different place where no one knew me but where I looked exactly like someone called Todd Quiring. The fact that everyone now calls me “Todd Quiring” doesn’t seem to change who I am in any deep way.
In this chapter we will consider a few different answers to the persistence question. John Locke’s psychological continuity account and Bernard Williams’s bodily continuity account both attempt to find an intrinsic property that grounds our personal identity. In contrast, Daniel Dennett’s short story “Where am I?” raises the question of whether there is any intrinsic property that grounds personal identity. In philosophy, this idea is famously linked to David Hume, but it also connects with the Buddhist concept of anattā (“no self”). Whereas the persistence question is a metaphysical question, in the last part of the chapter we will consider what I call the psychological question of personal identity: Where does my sense that that I am the same person throughout my life come from? Notice that even if it were to turn out that metaphysically there is no self that persists throughout our whole lives, it still makes sense to ask this psychological question about our sense of our identity. That is, even if there is no deep sense in which I am the same person I was 20 years ago, there can still be an account of what gives me the sense that I am (if indeed I have that sense).[3]
Personal identity as an unchanging, intrinsic property
Before considering Locke’s view of personal identity, let’s consider one idea about what kind of thing would answer the persistence question. It is commonly thought our personal identity should consist in some one thing that is unchanging and intrinsic. For example, within certain religious traditions, the idea of an immaterial soul is often seen as the thing that makes us the same person. Although our bodies, our beliefs, and our values may change radically throughout our lifetimes, our soul is thought to stay the same. However, if it is possible for our souls to leave our bodies and inhabit other bodies (such as in reincarnation) then it seems problematic for souls to ground my personal identity. If one soul can inhabit many different persons, then it cannot be the soul that distinguishes one person from another. In addition, positing a soul raises certain kinds of epistemological questions: How do we know that souls exist? Even if souls exist, how do we know they don’t themselves undergo change? How do I know that my soul is the same from one moment to the next? For these reasons and others, philosophers have tended to look elsewhere for an answer the persistence question of personal identity.
Is there some other thing about me that always stays the same? What about my body? Like the example of the ship, my body naturally regenerates all of its physical matter certain number of years (how long depends on which organs/cells we are talking about). Although neurons in our cerebral cortex do not regenerate, the connections between the neurons in our brain are continually changing (this is what happens when learning takes place). In any case, it seems implausible to maintain that some is some particular neuron or set of neurons in the cerebral cortex that account for why I am the same. What about DNA? The DNA within our bodily cells stays largely the same (except when uncorrected errors in replication occur, which is rare). But consider identical twins (which have the same DNA). Clearly identical twins are two different persons. But if DNA were the basis of personal identity, there would be only one person. How about fingerprints—don’t those stay the same throughout my lifetime? Yes, they do—unless I were to lose my hands. But in that case, am I really now a different person? It seems not. The other problem with DNA and fingerprints is that they don’t seem to have much to do with who we are as persons. Many philosophers since Locke have viewed the concept of a person as a forensic concept, meaning a concept that is essentially tied to our notions of moral and legal responsibility. Persons are individuals have have moral and legal rights and can be held responsible for their actions. The problem with DNA and fingerprints is that neither one has much to do with our personhood and agency and for this reason wouldn’t be able to explain much about personal identity. Thus it seems that there is no one physical thing that persists throughout our lifetime that could ground our personal identity. For this reason, philosophical accounts of personal identity have eschewed the idea that there is some one thing that stays same throughout my life. Instead, philosophers have tended to claim that what grounds identity is a kind of continuity between aspects of ourselves at different times.
Personal identity as psychological continuity
John Locke (1632-1704) claimed that I remain the same person through time because I am conscious of being the same person through time and that “as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person.”[4] Locke’s criterion is commonly interpreted as a memory criterion of personal identity: personal identity consists in one’s ability to remember things about their own past from a first-person perspective. For example, since I can remember things about being 20 years old (or even 10 years old) it follows that I am now numerically identical to the person as I was then. The fact that these memories are from the first-person perspective is crucial. It isn’t just that I can remember certain events taking place (since perhaps some of my friends remember those same events). Rather, it is that I remember those events from my first-person perspective. For Locke, what makes a person the same person must be essentially tied to what persons are and for Locke “person” is a forensic concept, meaning a concept that is essentially tied to the concept of agency and thus to our notions of moral and legal responsibility. Persons are individuals who have moral and legal rights and who can be held responsible for their actions. (For this reason, Locke would reject DNA and fingerprints as grounding personal identity since neither one has much to do with the capacities that underlie our lives as agents.)
The memory criterion has a broad appeal since it seems plausible that much of our sense of ourselves is due to our memories of our past. It does seem that without the ability to remember anything about my past (as in cases of severe amnesia or dissociative fugue states) I would not be the same person. Furthermore, the memory criterion of personal identity carries with it a criterion for moral responsibility: we cannot be held responsible for things of which we have no memory. The memory criterion is also appealing because it accounts for the commonly held idea that our minds are central to who we are as persons (since memory is a psychological attribute). Finally, since psychological properties are intrinsic properties of persons, Locke’s memory criterion accounts for the commonly held belief that our personal identities are real and deep. So far, so good. However, the memory criterion is not without its problems.
Suppose that Bob commits a heinous murder when he is 25 years old and is never caught for it. 50 years later he is finally apprehended but now Bob has late stage Alzheimer’s disease and cannot remember anything about his earlier life. What would Locke’s memory criterion say about whether Bob should be punished for the earlier murder? The memory criterion implies that Bob is literally not the same person now as he was then. If we assume that it is fair only to punish the person who committed the crime, it would not be fair to punish Bob today since he is a different person (according to the memory criterion). Think of it this way: it is no more fair to punish Bob for the murder than it is to punish his friend Bill, who had nothing to do with the murder. On Locke’s memory criterion, Bob at 75 years old is no more the same person than Bob at 25 years old than his friend Bill is. Neither one has the right kind of memory connection to Bob at 25 years old. In fact, since no existing person has the right kind of memory connection to 25 year old Bob, it follows that there is no existing person that committed the crime (and thus no one can be punished). Locke anticipated this problem and accepts that if Bob truly cannot remember his earlier life, then it is not fair to punish him (since he is not the same person who committed the murder). However, Locke also thinks that we should still punish people who have committed crimes even if they claim they can’t remember it since if we didn’t, then anyone found guilty of a crime could claim they didn’t remember the crime as a way of exculpating themselves. So Locke thinks that we have to hold people accountable. If we were omniscient like god, then we would know when someone really couldn’t remember (and thus wasn’t the same person) and when they were just lying to escape punishment. But since we aren’t, we are stuck with an inferior kind of justice that may sometimes punish those who don’t deserve it.
Another problem that arises for Locke’s memory criterion is what happens when we are in a state in which we cannot remember anything from our earlier lives— for example, when I am unconscious, such as I am when I sleep. Someone who is asleep does not have the ability to remember earlier events in one’s life and thus it seems to follow that when a person is asleep they are not the same person as when they are awake. Indeed, if personhood requires the ability to remember at all, then it seems that the unconscious person is not really a person at all. But this seems all wrong. It does not seem that when I am sleeping I cease to be numerically identical to the person I am when I am awake. One way of trying to solve this problem would be to broaden the memory criterion. For example, you could say that it is still possible for the sleeping person to remember earlier events in their life, whereas it isn’t possible for the severe Alzheimer’s patient to remember such events. If the sleeping person were simply woken up, they would be able to remember their earlier life. But there is no simple thing that could be done to restore the Alzheimer’s patient’s memory in this way.[5]
One of the most famous objections to the memory criterion turns on the idea that numerical identity is a transitive relationship. When we say that x is numerically identical to y, we mean that x and y are one and the same object. That is, if x is identical to y and y is identical to z, must be true that x is identical to z. Once we understand this, we can see that there is a problem with the memory criterion. Suppose that Roses at age 50 can remember things about Roses at age 25 and that Roses at age 75 can remember things about Roses at age 50. Does it follow that Roses at age 75 can remember things about Roses at age 25? It should be clear that it doesn’t follow and this shows that memory is not in general a transitive relationship. Now here is the problem. According to the memory criterion two persons are identical if the later one can first- personally remember things that happened to the earlier one. So Roses at 25 and Roses at 50 are identical. Likewise, Roses at 50 and Roses at 75 are identical. But as we saw above, numerical identity is transitive, so it must follow that Roses at 25 and Roses at 75 are numerically identical. But as we have just seen, it doesn’t follow because memory is not transitive in the way numerical identity is. Therefore, memory cannot be the same as numerical identity.
Therefore, the memory criterion cannot be correct.[6] How might Locke respond to this objection? On the one hand, Locke seems happy to admit that you have not always been the same person throughout your life (since you aren’t when you’re sleeping) and that you may become a wholly different person (as in the case of Bob, above). So Locke might be content to just allow that the lifetime of Roses consists of more than one different person. On the other hand, if we are looking for a sense of personal identity that lasts throughout a person’s lifetime, then in some cases (for example, cases where there are memory failures) we will have to say that there are multiple different persons that have existed in the course of one lifetime.
Philosophers continue to debate Locke’s memory criterion, but many philosophers influenced by Locke have tended to move to a broader psychological continuity account of personal identity. On these accounts, what makes us a person numerically identical through time is that there are causal connections between our psychological states. For example, at age 10 I had a certain set of beliefs, desires, and memories (all different kinds of psychological states). At age 11 I probably had a similar set of psychological states, although of course new ones had been added and some changed. But what makes me at 11 the same as me at age 10 is that the psychological states I had at age 10 were causally involved in bringing about the psychological states I had at age 11. It is these causal relationships between my psychological states that tie me back to these older versions of myself and thus account for my persistence through time.
Psychological continuity accounts of personal identity retain the Lockean identification of our persisting identities with our psychological states, but they reject the Lockean idea that these must be consciously accessible mental states. So, in a sense, I don’t have to be able to maintain the persistence of my identity through time (for example, by consciously connecting myself now to myself ten years ago). Rather, my identity is maintained by the causal relationships between my psychological states. The result of making this relationship causal is that my personal identity can persist despite my lack of memory. This solved several of the problems that were raised for the memory criterion. For example, if I am asleep or awake my persisting beliefs, desires, and values do not change. When I am asleep, I still believe that George Washington was the first U.S. president, that water contains hydrogen atoms, that I had a piñata at my tenth birthday party, and liberal democracies are in theory the least bad form of government. What makes me the same person while I am asleep is that my psychological states while asleep are caused by my previous psychological states while I was awake. It doesn’t matter, as it did for Locke’s memory criterion, that I cannot consciously access these psychological states while asleep. Likewise, making the continuity between our psychological states causal rather than conscious solves the transitivity problem explained above. It doesn’t matter that Roses at 75 cannot remember anything about Roses at 25. Rather, what matters is that Roses’s psychological states at 75 can be traced back in causal line to Roses’s psychological states at 25. Of course, her psychological states may have changed radically in that time, but that doesn’t matter. In this way, psychological continuity accounts allow for the possibility of persistence despite radical change. And in some sense this is exactly what our common sense intuitions suggest about the persistence of our identities through time: although we can change radically, nonetheless, there is still a sense in which we remain the same.
But how radical can the change be and the individual still persist? The most difficult problem for psychological continuity accounts is called the fission problem. Suppose we perform a hemispherectomy (splitting the brain in two at the corpus callosum and then removing one half) on “Lefty” and transplant the right half of his brain into another person (call him “Righty”). The psychological continuity view would seem to imply that Lefty and Righty are the same person since both are psychologically continuous with Lefty. But it seems there are now two people whereas the psychological continuity view implies that there is only one person. This is the fission problem. One thing the psychological continuity theorist could say in response to the fission problem is that since there is a radical, exogenous causal disruption of Lefty’s psychological states (“half” of them are removed and put into another person), that Lefty ceases to exist since the causal continuity of his psychological states is disrupted. In this case, one person ceases to exist and two different ones, Lefty2 and Righty come into existence. This seems a sensible way of responding to bizarre thought experiments like the one above. After all, it isn’t intuitively obvious that Lefty continues to exist after such a radical procedure. On the other hand, if we think that Lefty remains numerically identical even after the hemispherectomy, then the psychological continuity view would imply that Righty is also Lefty and that seems to be an absurdity.
Personal identity as bodily continuity
The bodily continuity account of personal identity, as I am using that term here, contrasts with psychological continuity accounts in that it claims that what accounts for our persistence through time is our bodily continuity, not our psychological continuity. A famous argument for the bodily continuity account comes from the philosopher Bernard Williams.[7] Williams has us imagine the following sci-fi thought experiment. Suppose that you are told that you will be painfully tortured tomorrow but that before you are a certain procedure will be performed on you: all of your psychological states (memories, beliefs, desires, and so on) will be wiped clean. That is, you will become complete amnesiac, remembering nothing of who you are or were. You will become essentially a blank slate. Psychological continuity accounts would seem to imply that in this state you have ceased to exist. Thus, the person that will be tortured tomorrow will not be you. However, it seems that this would be cold comfort to the person facing this prospect. That is, it seems we would still now fear the torture that will occur tomorrow, even if none of our psychological states remain when we are undergoing the torture. To Williams, the fact that we still fear the torture implies that we do not identity ourselves with our psychological states, but rather with our bodies. How else could you explain why we would fear the torture? It seems that the psychological continuity account of our identity would say that we shouldn’t fear the torture since the person being tortured tomorrow will not be us. Be since we do fear the torture, this implies that we do identify ourselves with that individual who will be tortured tomorrow.
Williams argues that this is so even if we imagine switching all of our psychological states with another person—that is, all of their psychological states are transferred to our brain/body and all of ours, to their brain/body. Again, the psychological continuity view would seem to imply that the personal identities of these two bodies have switched: the A-body person takes on B’s identity and the B-body person takes on A’s identity. Figure 1 below is a representation of this situation.
Suppose that you are A in the above scenario and suppose that you are reasoning purely in terms of self-interest (that is, you want to avoid being tortured). Who would you say should be tortured tomorrow: the A-body person or the B-body person? Williams think that we would say the B-body person should be tortured, even if the B-body person inherits all of our psychological states! Since psychological continuity accounts (including the Lockean memory criterion) imply that person A now exists in the B-body person, then such accounts imply that we should say that the A-body person should be tortured. The fact that we would say that the B-body person should be tortured is supposed to clearly refute psychological continuity theories, according to Williams (or at least to raise a serious problem for them). Again, what we seem to be doing in a case like this is identifying ourselves not with the continuity of our psychological states, but rather with the continuity of our bodies.
If you aren’t already convinced that if you were A, you would identity with the A- body person after the transfer of psychological states (and with the prospect of the impending doom of torture applied to the A-body person), Williams walks through a series of thought experiments, starting with the above amnesia scenario. Since he thinks we would clearly still fear torture (now) even if we were to be given total amnesia before the torture took place, he uses this to show that there is no difference between the amnesia scenario and the psychological transfer scenario, described above. Willliams walks us through the following permutations of the amnesiac scenario in order to arrive at the transfer scenario, claiming that none of the changes should make a difference to our answer of who should be tortured:
- Total amnesia
- Total amnesia + totally new memories created
- Total amnesia + totally new memories that come from some other existing person, call them “B-person”
- Total amnesia + totally new memories that come from some other existing person + your memories (that have been wiped clean) are given to that other B-person)
This last scenario is just the same transfer scenario described above. Williams claims that if you said that the B-body person should be tortured in the amnesia scenario then you should logically say the same thing in the transfer scenario, since there are no relevant changes in any of the scenarios through which the amnesia scenario is transformed into the transfer scenario.
One puzzling thing about Williams’s article is that he seems to equate transfer scenarios like the one above (where all psychological states are transferred) to brain transfer scenarios and it is not at all obvious that this is so.[8] Although it seems to me correct that we should identify with our bodies rather than our mental states in the psychological state transfer scenario, we should not identify our bodies in a brain transfer scenario. If you are A in the scenario and your brain will be transferred to B’s body, then it seems to me that you should choose the A-body person to be tortured. In this case, you won’t feel it because the seat of consciousness that underlies our experiences (whether of pleasure or pain) has now shifted, with the transfer of my brain, to B’s body. Therefore, you should choose the A-body person to be tortured. If this is right, then it seems like Williams’s scenario doesn’t really show that we identify with our bodies, as such. Rather, it shows that we identify with our brains—specifically with our first- person conscious experience that we think goes where our brain goes. (As we will see presently, Dennett’s sci-fi story will challenge this intuition.) The remains behind when we transfer all of our psychological states is the seat of conscious experience—that which is capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. The reason we would choose the B-body person to be tortured is that although they have all of our psychological states, they do not have our seat of consciousness—our first-person conscious experience. That remains behind with our brain, even if all of our psychological states are extracted from it and replace with B’s psychological states. In contrast, in the brain transfer scenario, not only all of our psychological states are being transferred, so also is our seat of conscious experience itself. But since the “seat of conscious experience” is as much a psychological property as it is a physical property (the brain), Williams’s argument doesn’t really show that we identify our persistence with some aspect of our bodies (brains) rather than some aspect of our minds (consciousness).[9]
Within contemporary philosophical debates about the persistence question, the view that aligns most closely with bodily accounts of personal identity is a view called animalism.[10] Contrary to Lockean accounts of the persistence of our personal identity in terms of our psychological properties, animalists claim that what accounts for our persistence through time is our animal properties. Yes, we are thinking animals, but we are first and foremost animals. According to animalists, our “animal properties” are the ones that account for our persistence through time as the same animal. For example, this could the biological properties that maintain the life of the organism over time—they are what keep the organism from dying and becoming, through decomposition, something else. This means that what accounts for the persistence of individual human beings through time is the same kind of thing that accounts for the persistent of individual dogs or cats or trees through time. A crucial argument that animalists make against Lockean accounts is that only animalism can make sense of the idea that I persist through time from birth to death. As we have seen, accounts which ground our personal identity in our psychological properties have to admit that my personal identity stops when there is a large enough discontinuity in my psychological states. Animalists admit that although I may cease to be a person under certain conditions (for example, if I become a complete amnesiac), I remain an animal and thus I continue to persist through time. Insofar as we think that the essence of who we are is extremely robust and persists through the kinds of radical changes that we can undergo throughout our lifetimes, animalism is an attractive alternative to Lockean answers to the persistence question.
Another argument that animalists have made is called the animal ancestors argument. Suppose, contrary to what animalism claims, we are not essentially animals. If we are not animals, then our parents are not animals either, nor are our grandparents, and so on. But this entails something that is false according to evolutionary theory: that nothing in our ancestry is an animal. But since we know this to be false, it follow that our original assumption must be false. That is, it follows that we must be, in essence, animals. This argument uses a famous form of argument called a reductio ad absurdum (this is Latin for “reduce to absurdity). The argument proceeds by assuming the falsity of a claim P that we is true and then show how if we assume the falsity of that claim P, it leads to an absurdity (strictly, a contradiction). But since absurdities like contradictions cannot be true, if follows that our original assumption (that P is false) must itself be false, which means that P is true.
One interesting objection to animalism is the case of dicephalic twins. The problem is that it looks there are two individuals in the case of dicephalic twins. However, it seems pretty clear that there is only one animal. Dicephalic twins thus constitute a counterexample to animalism’s claim that our identity consists in our animal properties.[11]
Dennett’s “Where Am I?”
Daniel Dennett’s, “Where Am I,” is a mind-bending sci-fi short story to read in order to problematize different accounts of personal identity.[12] Arguably, problematizing the concept of personal identity, as well as different accounts of it, is exactly what Dennett was trying to do in writing the story.[13] Regardless of Dennett’s goal, what I will try to do in this section is use the story to show that there is no one way of accounting for our personal identity that can withstand the radical ways in which individual human beings might persist through time. If Dennett is correct, then it is possible that I (my identity) could be spread over many different places at one time (omnipresence!) or even that there could be two individuals that share my numerically identity! I highly recommend that you simply read the story for yourself before reading my own synopsis of it.
“Where Am I?” begins with Dennett signing up for an expedition in which he must disarm a highly radioactive object underground. Because it is feared that the radioactivity will destroy his brain, an operation is performed in which his brain is removed and placed into a vat of liquid, keeping it vital. In addition, electrodes are implanted both in the neurons in his severed brain and in the brainstem in his body so that the brain can still communicate with the body electronically, at a distance. If you doubt this could be done, just consider that the brain’s neurons are sending many, many simple messages that could be, in theory, relayed through other mediums, like radio waves. As Dennett puts it, the doctors describe the operation procedure as essentially stretching his neurons so that they can communicate with his body from a long distance (wirelessly, by electronic signals like radio waves).
Whilst on the underground expedition, something goes wrong and Dennett’s body is crushed in an accident. Before the accident it seems to Dennett, from his first-person perspective, that he is underground. However, once his body is destroyed, his point of view reverts immediately back to lab, where his brain is in a vat of liquid—miles and miles away from where he just was underground before the accident. At this point, Dennett has no body, just a brain. This would be a frightening position to be in, if you think about it. There is no sensory input, no way of communicating with the outside world.[14] While in this state of extreme sensory deprivation, scientists figure out how to stream Dennett’s favorite classical music (Brahms) straight into his auditory nerve of his brain (thus bypassing the normal way of hearing via the mechanics of our ears).
Eventually, the scientists find a new body for Dennett and connect his original brain to the new body in the aforementioned way (via electrodes in the new body’s brainstem). The newly reimbodied Dennett emerges, now able to communicate with the rest of the world again. Immediately Dennett’s point of view switches from inside the vat (where his brain is) to outside the vat, where his new body is. He walks back into the lab to the applause of all the scientists working on the project and stares at his brain inside the vat of liquid. Earlier, scientists had shown him a switch which turned on/off the transmitter that sent the brain signals electronically to/from the body. Earlier, when he had turned that switch off, his body had collapsed to the floor (since it was no longer connected to the brain). Just for kicks, Dennett now tries this again and miraculously nothing happens. His conscious experience is exactly the same; his point of view is exactly the same; nothing seems to change at all.
Puzzled by this, he asks the scientists who explain that they had actually “cloned” his brain on a computer so that there was an exact replica of his brain that was running the exact same input/output signals to his body. What the new switch did was simply change which thing was connected to his body: the original brain or the clone of his brain on the computer. The putative reason that scientists had done this was just in case Dennett’s brain was destroyed, Dennett could still live on via his “brain” that the computer had cloned. As Dennett flips the switch back and forth, he can tell no difference at all in terms of his point of view and the nature of his conscious experience. It is as if nothing had happened at all.
The last part of the story concerns another upsetting circumstance (both emotionally for the character “Dennett” in the story and philosophically for Dennett, the author of the story). Dennett’s original brain and the computer brain come out of sync with each other—the inputs and outputs no longer match—so that when the switch is thrown to switch what is controlling Dennett’s body, a whole new persona emerges (in this case, from weeks of inability to control the body). In essence, there are now two people controlling Dennett’s (new) body, but only one can control the body at a time. They both receive sensory inputs to the body, but only one can send motor signals to move the body. If you were the person who couldn’t send motor signals to reach the body, you can imagine how distressing this would be.
Below is a diagram which shows each different stage of the story.
Notice what the story seems to entail. Those who say that bodily continuity accounts for our persistence would seem to be incorrect, since Dennett seems to himself in the story to persist even though his original body has been destroyed and replaced by someone else’s body. On the other hand, those who would see our persisting identities as tied to our brains also seem to be mistaken, since we can imagine a further stage of the story (before the computer and brain came out of sync) in which Dennett’s original brain (sitting in the vat of liquid in the lab) was destroyed in a different accident and yet Dennett’s point of view remained the same. So one’s identity is not bodily continuity nor is it, more specifically, the continuity of the brain. This seems to leave open the psychological continuity accounts of personal identity. However, consider one of the paradoxical implications that this story raises for psychological continuity accounts. In the last stage of the story, before the computer and Dennett’s brain have gotten out of sync, it appears that there are two, numerically identical Dennetts, since the information (memories, beliefs, desires) on the clone of Dennett’s brain on the computer is identical to Dennett’s brain. (This is just an instance of the fission problem, explained above.)But there cannot be two, numerically identical objects. Therefore, psychological continuity accounts cannot be correct.
One might take the upshot of Dennett’s story to be that there are no good answers to the persistence questions. That is, perhaps I do not really persist through time at all. The idea that I—my “self”—does not persist through time is an old idea that also arises in older philosophical traditions, both in the East and West. The Buddhist concept of anattā (“no self”) suggests the impermanence and everchanging nature of our personal identities.[15] In the West, David Hume famously claimed that:
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If anyone, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.[16]
Perhaps Hume and the Buddhists are correct. After all, we have seen that there are difficult problems that arise for the different answers to the persistence question. But even if there is no persisting self, it is nevertheless true that many people have the sense that there is. A separate question concerns how to best explain where our sense that we persist through time comes from. In the last couple of decades, an interdisciplinary view has become very influential: the narrative conception of the self. In the next section we will consider this view.
The narrative conception of the self
Why does it feel to me that there is a persisting self? According to the narrative conception of the self, what unifies our lives—that is, what makes it seem that me at 10 years old is the same as me at 43 years old—is the stories we tell about ourselves that connect the different parts of our lives. For example, I, Matthew Van Cleave, am the person who grew up in a small town, became a runner in high school and college, played in a rock band in college, and then after college decided to become a philosopher and so went back to graduate school to earn a PhD in Philosophy. Furthermore, narratives have a certain kind of structure to them: there is beginning, middle and end. Importantly, the end of the narrative is what enables us to make sense of and assess who we are at any point within the narrative. The end of the narrative is what provides guidance throughout the narrative: what counts a good or bad decision is relative to the end goal/purpose of the life whose narrative is being narrated. For example, if the end of my story concerns being a successful philosophy professor and having a profound impact on my students and colleagues, then this end is what my life is working towards and the parts of my life constitute my self insofar as they are a part of this narrative structure. According to the narrative view of the self, who we are is just the story that we tell about ourselves. Notice that the story we tell about the events is different than the events themselves. The narratives we construct of our lives are post-hoc (Latin for “after this”) in the sense that we construct them after the events have already happened. But as mentioned above, a narrative can also exert a normative influence over what we choose to do in the future. For example, I might choose not to take a much higher paying job in the business world because it doesn’t cohere with my narrative of myself as an influential and respected philosopher. Or I might decide to return the credit card I found on the sidewalk instead of trying to use it because using it would be inconsistent with my narrative of myself as an honest person.
The narrative conception of self is compatible with the idea that there is nothing metaphysically deep about the self. The narrative that I construct is just one of many different possible narratives that could be constructed from the same raw material of my life—my experiences, memories, interests, commitments, and so on. Whereas philosophers have traditionally tried to respond to the persistence problem by searching for something within those raw materials that unifies our self and explains our persistence, the narrative view sees the unity as something imposed from the outside—from a narrator. Thus, like the example of the ship in the beginning of this chapter, the narrative view views one’s identity as an extrinsic property (like the mere fact that the ship was always called “TS”) rather than as an intrinsic property. Perhaps a good analogy would be currency. Consider what makes a 100 dollar bill valuable. It certainly isn’t the paper an ink which constitutes the bill. Rather, it is the complex set of rules and institutions outside of the 100 dollar bill that gives it value. If you were to destroy that system (for example, if the government were overturned and all of the institutions like the Federal Reserve that bestow value on the 100 dollar bill ceased to exist), the 100 dollar bill would no longer have its value. It would simply be a piece of paper with some ink on it. Likewise, according to the narrative conception of the self, the fact that there is a persisting self depends on our ability to impose a story on our lives. If we lost that ability, there would be no persisting self although there would still be experiences, memories and thoughts. For the narrative view, the persisting self is an abstract entity that we construct from the raw materials of our lives and which, once constructed, exerts guidance on our lives.
One problem with the narrative view is that it defines the self too narrowly. If the existence of a persisting self requires a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, and end, then many individuals’ lives will lack this structure, for example, because their lives ended early. Such lives would seem lack any persisting self, if the narrative view is correct. Moreover, there are many people who have a sense of themselves as persisting through time although they don’t really have any grand narrative of their life. For this reason and others, some philosophers, such as Elisabeth Camp, have suggested thinking about our constructed identities not in the narrative, beginning-middle-end way, but rather thinking of ourselves as characters in an unfolding story whose end we don’t know yet. The main difference is that whereas the narrative conception holds one’s interpretation of their life hostage to the end of the story, the character conception doesn’t. Instead, what guides our interpretation of our lives is a “particular nexus of dispositions, memories, interests, and commitments.”[17] The interpretation that we create can also be constrained by information we glean about ourselves from other people, such as our friends.
- This thought experiment is quite old—going back to Ancient Greece at least—but the first record of it we have in writing is from Plutarch. He writes: “The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.” ↵
- I say “human being” rather than “person” here because as we will see below, different answers to the persistence question may or may not focus on the identity of persons. “Human being” is a broader term which leaves open the question of personhood. For example, I have always been a human being, but (depending on one’s view) I may not have always possessed personhood (for example, when I was an infant) and I may continue to persist as a human being even if I am no longer a person (for example, if I lose all of my brain functioning). ↵
- Some philosophers have claimed not to have the sense that they are the same person from one moment to the next. David Hume famously claimed (A Treatise of Human Nature, book 1, part IV, section VI). that we did not have any awareness of a persisting self. And the Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit came to see one’s sense of identity is a kind of illusion and that it doesn’t really matter that we do not persist as persons—in fact, that it can actually have salutary effects on one’s ethical stance towards the world. More on this idea in the last part of the chapter. ↵
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book 2, chapter 27. ↵
- Some philosophers would put this point in terms of “possible worlds.” You could say that there is a “nearby possible world” in which, say, Bill, who is merely asleep, could remember earlier episodes of his life (all you have to do is wake Bill up). In contrast, there is no nearby possible world in which Bob, who as severe Alzheimer’s, could be made to remember earlier episodes of his life. ↵
- This objection to the memory criterion of personal identity was originally raised by Thomas Reid in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (essay 3, chapter 6), which was published in 1785. Reid says: "Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general inadvanced life : suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that when made a general he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging. These things being supposed, it follows, from Mr. Locke's doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But the general's consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging therefore, according to Mr. Locke's doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, and at the same time is not, the same person with him who was flogged at school." ↵
- Williams, Bernard, 1970, “The Self and the Future,” The Philosophical Review, 79: 161-180. Reprinted numerous times/places. ↵
- Williams (1970), p. 162. ↵
- The question of the relationship between our brains and our consciousness is thorny philosophical question. Some philosophers think that consciousness reduces to brain processes while other thinks that consciousness cannot be strictly reduced to brain processes. For more on this topic, see the chapter in this textbook on the mind-body problem. ↵
- See the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/animalism/ ↵
- See McMahan, Jeff, 2002, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 32. ↵
- This was originally published in Dennett’s, Brainstorms (Bradford Books, 1978) and has been reprinted many times in different places. ↵
- That this was one of the things he was attempting to do in this piece was in fact confirmed to me by Dennett in personal correspondence (Snapchat—just kidding, email). ↵
- Aficionados of the heavy metal band Metallica will recognize this kind of situation as one portrayed in the song, “One.” ↵
- One excellent representation of the doctrine of anatta comes from the Buddhist text, The Questions of King Milinda (Book 2, chapter 1) in which the Buddhist sage, Nāgasena, explains to Milinda that just as a chariot is nothing in additions to all its parts, so the self is nothing in addition to all of its parts. ↵
- David Hume, 1739, A Treatise of Human Nature (book 1, part IV, section VI). ↵
- Elisabeth Camp, “Wordsworth’s Prelude, Poetic Autobiography, and Narrative Constructions of the Self.” ↵
License
Introduction to Philosophy Copyright © by Matthew Van Cleave is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
(1942-2024)
Daniel Dennett
Free Will an Illusion?
Two Reasons for FreeWill
FreeWill Worth Wanting
Free Will IS Moral Competence
While he himself is a confirmed compatibilist, even a determinist, in "On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want," Chapter 15 of his 1978 book Brainstorms, Daniel Dennett articulated the case for a two-stage model of free will better than any libertarian.
His "Valerian" model of decision making, named after the poet Paul Valéry, combines indeterminism to generate alternative possibilities, with (in our view, adequate) determinism to choose among the possibilities.
"The model of decision making I am proposing, has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent's final decision." (Brainstorms, p.295)
Dennett gives six excellent reasons why this is the kind of free will that libertarians say they want. He says,
- "First...The intelligent selection, rejection, and weighing of the considerations that do occur to the subject is a matter of intelligence making the difference."
- "Second, I think it installs indeterminism in the right place for the libertarian, if there is a right place at all."
- "Third...from the point of view of biological engineering, it is just more efficient and in the end more rational that decision making should occur in this way."
- "A fourth observation in favor of the model is that it permits moral education to make a difference, without making all of the difference."
- "Fifth - and I think this is perhaps the most important thing to be said in favor of this model - it provides some account of our important intuition that we are the authors of our moral decisions."
- "Finally, the model I propose points to the multiplicity of decisions that encircle our moral decisions and suggests that in many cases our ultimate decision as to which way to act is less important phenomenologically as a contributor to our sense of free will than the prior decisions affecting our deliberation process itself: the decision, for instance, not to consider any further, to terminate deliberation; or the decision to ignore certain lines of inquiry."
"These prior and subsidiary decisions contribute, I think, to our sense of ourselves as responsible free agents, roughly in the following way: I am faced with an important decision to make, and after a certain amount of deliberation, I say to myself: "That's enough. I've considered this matter enough and now I'm going to act," in the full knowledge that I could have considered further, in the full knowledge that the eventualities may prove that I decided in error, but with the acceptance of responsibility in any case." (p.295-7)
At times, Dennett seems pleased with his result.
"This result is not just what the libertarian is looking for, but it is a useful result nevertheless. It shows that we can indeed install indeterminism in the internal causal chains affecting human behavior at the macroscopic level while preserving the intelligibility of practical deliberation that the libertarian requires. We may have good reasons from other quarters for embracing determinism, but we need not fear that macroscopic indeterminism in human behavior would of necessity rob our lives of intelligibility by producing chaos." (p.292)"we need not fear that causal indeterminism would make our lives unintelligible." (p.298)
"Even if one embraces the sort of view I have outlined, the deterministic view of the unbranching and inexorable history of the universe can inspire terror or despair, and perhaps the libertarian is right that there is no way to allay these feelings short of a brute denial of determinism. Perhaps such a denial, and only such a denial, would permit us to make sense of the notion that our actual lives are created by us over time out of possibilities that exist in virtue of our earlier decisions; that we trace a path through a branching maze that both defines who we are, and why, to some extent (if we are fortunate enough to maintain against all vicissitudes the integrity of our deliberational machinery) we are responsible for being who we are." (p.299)
At other times, he is skeptical.
His model, he says, "installs indeterminism in the right place for the libertarian, if there is a right place at all." and "it seems that all we have done is install indeterminism in a harmlessplace by installing it in an irrelevant place." (p.295)
Dennett seems to be soliciting interest in the model - from libertarian quarters? It is unfortunate that libertarians did not accept and improve Dennett's two-stage model. See What if Libertarians Had Accepted What Dan Dennett Gave Them in 1978?
If they had, the history of the free will problem would have been markedly different for the last forty years, perhaps successfully reconciling indeterminism with free will, as the best two-stage models now do, just as Hume reconciled freedom with determinism.
"There may not be compelling grounds from this quarter for favoring an indeterministic vision of the springs of our action, but if considerations from other quarters favor indeterminism, we can at least be fairly sanguine about the prospects of incorporating indeterminism into our picture of deliberation, even if we cannot yet see what point such an incorporation would have." (p.299)
The point of incorporating indeterminism is, of course, to break the causal chain of pre-determinism, and to provide a source for novel ideas that were not already implicit in past events, thus explaining not only free will but creativity. This requires irreducible and ontological quantum indeterminacy.
But Dennett does not think that irreducible quantum randomness provides anything essential beyond the deterministic pseudo-random number generation of computer science.
"Isn't it the case that the new improved proposed model for human deliberation can do as well with a random-but-deterministic generation process as with a causally undetermined process? Suppose that to the extent that the considerations that occur to me are unpredictable, they are unpredictable simply because they are fortuitously determined by some arbitrary and irrelevant factors, such as the location of the planets or what I had for breakfast." (p.298)
With his strong background in computer science and artificial intelligence, it is no surprise that Dennett continues to seek a "computational" model of the mind. But man is not a machine and the mind is not a computer.
Dennett on Free Will Worth Wanting
Dennett accepts the results of modern physics and does not deny the existence of quantum randomness. He calls himself a "naturalist" who wants to reconcile free will with natural science.
But what is "natural" about a computer-generated pseudo-random number sequence? The algorithm that generates it is quintessentially artificial. In the course of evolution, quantum mechanical randomness (along with the incredible quantum stability of information structures, without which no structures at all would exist) is naturally available to generate alternative possibilities.
Why would evolution need to create an algorithmic computational capability to generate those possibilities, when genuine and irreducible quantum randomness already provides them?
And who, before human computer designers, would be the author or artificer of the algorithm? Gregory Chaitin tells us that the information in a random-number sequence is only as much as is in the algorithm that created the sequence. And note that the artificial algorithm author implicitly has the kind of knowledge attributed to Laplace's Demon.
Since Dennett is a confirmed atheist, it seems odd that he has the "antipathy to chance" described by William James that is characteristic of religious believers. Quantum randomness is far more atheistic than pseudo-randomness, with the latter's implicit author or artificer.
Despite his qualms, Dennett seems to have located randomness in exactly the right place, the random generation of alternative considerations for his adequately determined selection process. In this first stage of free will, genuine quantum randomness (though not pseudo-randomness) breaks the causal chain of Laplacian determinism, without making the decisions themselves random.
In his Brainstorms 40th Edition, Dennett finally accepted his (and my) two-stage model!
In his introduction to the 40th edition of Brainstorms, Dennett writes (most generously)...
Chapter 15, "On Giving Libertarians What They Want," contains a model of free will that I viewed as an instructive throwaway when I concocted it, but it has recently found champions who credit me with finding the only defensible path (the "Valerian model") to a libertarian position on free will! I have conceded this much to Bob Doyle (the "Information Philosopher"—see http://www.informationphilosopher.com): Thanks to his relentless questioning I can now conceive of a situation in which I, compatibilist that I am, would ardently wish for the truth of genuine indeterminism so that I could act with absolute freedom: if I were playing rock-paper-scissors with God for high stakes! An omniscient and antagonistic (I'm an atheist after all) God could foil me in this competition unless my choice was quantum indeterministic, not merely chaotic and practically unpredictable. Some version of the Valerian model—minus the [in?]determinism—is all we need for free will worth wanting in this Godless world.Brainstorms. 40th edition, pp.xv-xvi
And in perhaps Dennett's last video interview before his death, he concedes that my idea of quantum indeterminism in the first stage is needed (and criticizes Robert Sapolsky's new book Determined).
See Daniel Dennett: Consciousness, AI, Free Will, Evolution, & Religion
Dennett on Austin's Putt
In his 2003 book, Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett says that Austin's Putt clarifies the mistaken fear that determinism reduces possibilities. Considering that Dennett is an actualist, who believes there is only one possible future, this bears close examination.
First, don't miss the irony that Dennett is using "possible worlds" thinking, which makes the one world we are in only able to have one possible future, our actual world.
Dennett says
Now that we have a clearer understanding of possible worlds, we can expose three major confusions about possibility and causation that have bedeviled the quest for an account of free will. First is the fear that determinism reduces our possibilities. We can see why the claim seems to have merit by considering a famous example proposed many years ago by John Austin:Consider the case where I miss a very short putt and kick myself because I could have holed it. It is not that I should have holed it if I had tried: I did try, and missed. It is not that I should have holed it if conditions had been different: that might of course be so, but I am talking about conditions as they precisely were, and asserting that I could have holed it. There is the rub. Nor does "I can hole it this time" mean that I shall hole it this time if I try or if anything else; for I may try and miss, and yet not be convinced that I could not have done it; indeed, further experiments may confirm my belief that I could have done it that time, although I did not. (Austin 1961, p. 166)Austin didn't hole the putt. Could he have, if determinism is true? The possible-worlds interpretation exposes the misstep in Austin's thinking. First, suppose that determinism holds, and that Austin misses, and let H be the sentence "Austin holes the putt." We now need to choose the set X of relevant possible worlds that we need to canvass to see whether he could have made it. Suppose X is chosen to be the set of physically possible worlds that are identical to the actual world at some time t0 prior to the putt. Since determinism says that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future, this set of worlds has just one member, the actual world, the world in which Austin misses. So, choosing set X in this way, we get the result that H does not hold for any world in X. So it was not possible, on this reading, for Austin to hole the putt.
To include adjacent worlds seems to add alternative possibilities?
Of course, this method of choosing X (call it the narrow method) is only one among many. Suppose we were to admit into X worlds that differ in a few imperceptibly microscopic ways from actuality at t0; we might well find that we've now included worlds in which Austin holes the putt, even when determinism obtains. This is, after all, what recent work on chaos has shown: Many phenomena of interest to us can change radically if one minutely alters the initial conditions. So the question is: When people contend that events are possible, are they really thinking in terms of the narrow method?Suppose that Austin is an utterly incompetent golfer, and his partner in today's foursome is inclined to deny that he could have made the putt. If we let X range too widely, we may include worlds in which Austin, thanks to years of expensive lessons, winds up a championship player who holes the putt easily. That is not what Austin is claiming, presumably. Austin seems to endorse the narrow method of choosing X when he insists that he is "talking about conditions as they precisely were." Yet in the next sentence he seems to rescind this endorsement, observing that "further experiments may confirm my belief that I could have done it that time, although I did not." What further experiments might indeed confirm Austin's belief that he could have done it? Experiments on the putting green? Would his belief be shored up by his setting up and sinking near-duplicates of that short putt ten times in a row? If this is the sort of experiment he has in mind, then he is not as interested as he claims he is in conditions as they precisely were. To see this, suppose instead that Austin's "further experiments" consisted in taking out a box of matches and lighting ten in a row. "See," he says, "I could have made that very putt." We would rightly object that his experiments had absolutely no bearing on his claim. Sinking ten short putts would have no more bearing on his claim, understood in the narrow sense as a claim about "conditions as they precisely were." We suggest that Austin would be content to consider "Austin holes the putt" possible if, in situations very similar to the actual occasion in question, he holes the putt. We think that this is what he meant, and that he would be right to think about his putt this way. This is the familiar, reasonable, useful way to conduct "further experiments" whenever we are interested in understanding the causation involved in a phenomenon of interest. We vary the initial conditions slightly (and often systematically) to see what changes and what stays the same. This is the way to gather usefulinformation from the world to guide our further campaigns of avoidance and enhancement.
Curiously, this very point was made, at least obliquely, by G. E. Moore in the work Austin was criticizing in the passage quoted. Moore's examples were simple: Cats can climb trees and dogs can't, and a steamship that is now traveling at 25 knots can, of course, also steam at 20 knots (but not, of course, in precisely the circumstances it is now in, with the engine set at Full Speed Ahead). The sense of "can" invoked in these uncontroversial claims, the sense called "can (general)" by Honoré (1964) in an important but neglected article, is one that requires us to look not at "conditions as they precisely were" but at minor variations on those conditions.
So Austin equivocates when he discusses possibilities. In truth, the narrow method of choosing X does not have the significance that he and many others imagine. From this it follows that the truth or falsity of determinism should not affect our belief that certain unrealized events were nevertheless "possible," in an important everyday sense of the word. We can bolster this last claim by paying a visit to a narrow domain in which we know with certainty that determinism reigns: the realm of chess-playing computer programs.
(Freedom Evolves, pp. 75-77)
Evolution as an Algorithmic Process
Dennett maintains that biological evolution does not need quantum randomness, and says he was shocked by Jacques Monod's claim that random quantum processes are "essential" to evolution. Monod defines the importance of chance, or what he calls "absolute coincidence" as something like the intersection of causal chains that Aristotle calls an "accident." But, says Dennett, in his 1984 book Elbow Room,
when Monod comes to define the conditions under which such coincidences can occur, he apparently falls into the actualist trap. Accidents must happen if evolution is to take place, Monod says, and accidents can happen — "Unless of course we go back to Laplace's world, from which chance is excluded by definition and where Dr. Brown has been fated to die under Jones' hammer ever since the beginning of time." (Chance and Necessity, p. 115)If "Laplace's world" means just a deterministic world, then Monod is wrong. Natural selection does not need "absolute" coincidence. It does not need "essential" randomness or perfect independence; it needs practical independence — of the sort exhibited by Brown and Jones, and Jules and Jim, each on his own trajectory but "just happening" to intersect, like the cards being deterministically shuffled in a deck and just happening to fall into sequence. Would evolution occur in a deterministic world, a Laplacean world where mutation was caused by a nonrandom process? Yes, for what evolution requires is an unpatterned generator of raw material, not an uncaused generator of raw material. Quantum-level effects may indeed play a role in the generation of mutations, but such a role is not required by theory.
It is not clear that "genuine" or "objective" randomness of either the quantum-mechanical sort or of the mathematical, informationally incompressible sort is ever required by a process, or detectable by a process. (Chaitin (1976) presents a Gödelian proof that there is no decision procedure for determining whether a series is mathematically random.) Even in mathematics, where the concept of objective randomness can find critical application within proofs, there are cases of what might be called practical indistinguishability.
(Elbow Room, p.150)
Dennett's Challenge - Where Indeterminism Might Matter
Dennett has asked for cases where quantum indeterminism would make a substantive improvement over the pseudo-randomness that he thinks is enough for both biological evolution and free will. Dennett does not deny quantum indeterminacy. He just doubts that quantum randomness is necessary for free will. Information philosophy suggests that its great importance is that it breaks the causal chain of pre-determinism.
See the page Where, and When, is Randomness Located? for more details on where indeterminism is located, and for the positions of Bob Doyle, Bob Kane, and Al Mele compared to Dennett's Valerian Model of free will.
Quantum randomness has been available to evolving species for billions of years before pseudo-randomness emerges with humans. But Dennett does not think, as does Jacques Monod, for example, that quantum indeterminacy is necessary for biological evolution. The evolved virtual creatures of artificial life programs demonstrate for Dennett that biological evolution is an algorithmic process.
Here are five cases where quantum chance is critically important and better than pseudo-randomness. They all share a basic insight from information physics. Whenever a stable new information structure is created, two things must happen. The first is a collapse of the quantum wave function that allows one or more particles to combine in the new structure. The second is the transfer away from the structure to the cosmic background of the entropy required by the second law of thermodynamics to balance the local increase in negative entropy (information).
Laplace's Demon
Indeterministic events are unpredictable. Consequently, if any such probabilistic events occur, as Dennett admits, Laplace’s demon cannot predict the future. Information cosmologyprovides a second reason why such a demon is impossible. There was little or no information at the start of the universe. There is a great deal today, and more being created every day. There is not enough information in the past to determine the present, let alone completely determine the future. Creating future information requires quantum events, which are inherently indeterministic. The future is only probable, though it may be "adequately determined." Since there is not enough information available at any moment to comprehend all the information that will exist in the future, Laplace demons are impossible.
Intelligent Designers
Suppose that determinism is true, and that the chance driving spontaneous variation of the gene pool is merely epistemic (human ignorance), so that a deterministic algorithmic process is driving evolution. Gregory Chaitin has shown that the amount of information (and thus the true randomness) in a sequence of random numbers is no more than that in the algorithm that generates them.
This makes the process more comprehensible for a supernatural intelligent designer. And it makes the idea of an intelligent designer, deterministically controlling evolution with complete foreknowledge, more plausible. This is unfortunate.
An intelligent designer with a big enough computer could reverse engineer and alter the algorithm behind the pseudo-randomness driving evolution. This is just what genetic engineers do.
But cosmic rays, which are inherently indeterministic quantum events, damage the DNA to produce genetic mutations, variations in the gene pool. No intelligent designer could control such evolution.
So genetic engineers are intelligent designers, but they cannot control the whole of evolution.
Frankfurt Controllers
For almost fifty years, compatibilists have used Frankfurt-style Cases to show that alternative possibilities are not required for freedom of action and moral responsibility.
Bob Kane showed in 1985 that, if a choice is undetermined, the Frankfurt controller cannot tell until the choice is made whether the agent will do A or do otherwise. Compatibilists were begging the question by assuming a deterministic connection between a “prior sign” of a decision and the decision itself.
More fundamentally, information philosophy tells us that because chance (quantum randomness) helps generate the alternate possibilities, information about the choice does not come into the universe until the choice has been made.
Either way, the controller would have to intervene before the choice, in which case it is the controller that is responsible for the decision. Frankfurt controllers do not exist.
Dennett's Eavesdropper
We can call this Dennett's Eavesdropper because, in a discussion of quantum cryptography, Dennett agrees there is a strong reason to prefer quantum randomness to pseudo-randomness for encrypting secure messages. He sees that if a pseudo-random number sequence were used, a clever eavesdropper might discover the algorithm behind it and thus be able to decode the message.
Quantum cryptography and quantum computing use the non-local properties of entangled quantum particles. Non-locality shows up when the wave-function of a two-particle system collapses and new information comes into the universe. See the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment.
Creating New Memes
Richard Dawkin’s unit of cultural information has the same limits as purely physical information. Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of the communication of information says that information is not new without probabilistic surprises. Quantum physics is the ultimate source of that probability and the possibilities that surprise us. If the result were not truly unpredictable, it would be implicitly present in the information we already have. A new meme, like Dennett’s intuition pumps, skyhooks, and cranes, would have been already predictable there in the past and not his very original creations.
See the Information Philosopher contributions to Dennett's Fall 2010 seminar on Free Will at Tufts University.
References
References: https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/dennett/
Additional Resources
Epictetus (50-135 BCE): Stoicism
Epictetus (50-135 BCE): Stoicism
- Even though he was born a slave in Hierapolis and endured a permanent physical disability, Epictetus held that all human beings are perfectly free to control their lives and to live in harmony with nature. After intense study of the traditional Stoic curriculum (established by Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus) of logic, physics, and ethics, Epictetus spent his entire career teaching philosophy and promoting a daily regime of rigorous self-examination. He eventually gained his freedom, but was exiled from Rome by Domitian in 89. Epictetus’s pupil Arrianus later collected lecture notes from the master and published them as the DISCOURSES.
The more epigrammatic ENCHEIRIDION, or MANUAL represents an even later distillation of the same material. From a fundamental distinction between our ability to think or feel freely and our lack of control over external events or circumstances, Epictetus derived the description of a calm and disciplined life. We can never fail to be happy, he argued, if we learn to desire that things should be exactly as they are. That the same approach to human life may work for others as well as for a slave is suggested by the persuasive oratory of the Roman statesman Seneca. The MEDITATIONS of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius illustrate the practical value of a Stoic approach even in the best of circumstances.
Recommended Reading: Primary sources:
Secondary sources:
Additional on-line information about Epictetus includes:
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