Passion of the Western Mind Page 2

  R. T.

  The world is deep:

  deeper than day can comprehend.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  Introduction

  A book that explores the evolution of the Western mind places special demands on both reader and writer, for it asks us to enter into frames of reference that are sometimes radically different from our own. Such a book invites a certain intellectual flexibility—a sympathetic metaphysical imagination, a capacity for viewing the world through the eyes of men and women from other times. One must in a sense wipe the slate clean, attempt to see things without the benefit or burden of a preconceived outlook. Of course such a pristine, malleable state of mind can only be striven for, never achieved. Yet to aspire to that ideal is perhaps the single most important prerequisite for an enterprise such as this. Unless we are able to perceive and articulate, on their own terms and without condescension, certain powerful beliefs and assumptions that we no longer consider valid or defensible—for example, the once universal conviction that the Earth is the stationary center of the cosmos, or the even more enduring tendency among Western thinkers to conceive of and personify the human species in predominantly masculine terms—then we will fail to understand the intellectual and cultural foundations of our own thought. Our constant challenge is to remain faithful to the historical material, allowing our present perspective to enrich, but not distort, the various ideas and world views we examine. While that challenge should not be underestimated, I believe that today, for reasons that will become clear in the later chapters of the book, we are in a better position to engage this task with the necessary intellectual and imaginative flexibility than at perhaps any time in the past.

  The following narrative is organized chronologically according to the three world views associated with the three major eras that have traditionally been distinguished in Western cultural history—the classical, the medieval, and the modern. Needless to say, any division of history into “eras” and “world views” cannot in itself do justice to the actual complexity and diversity of Western thought during these centuries. Yet to discuss such an immense mass of material fruitfully, one must first introduce some provisional principles of organization. Within these overarching generalities, we may then better address the complications and ambiguities, the internal conflicts and unanticipated changes that have never ceased to mark the history of the Western mind.

  We begin with the Greeks. It was some twenty-five centuries ago that the Hellenic world brought forth that extraordinary flowering of culture that marked the dawn of Western civilization. Endowed with seemingly primeval clarity and creativity, the ancient Greeks provided the Western mind with what has proved to be a perennial source of insight, inspiration, and renewal. Modern science, medieval theology, classical humanism—all stand deeply in their debt. Greek thought was as fundamental for Copernicus and Kepler, and Augustine and Aquinas, as for Cicero and Petrarch. Our way of thinking is still profoundly Greek in its underlying logic, so much so that before we can begin to grasp the character of our own thought, we must first look closely at that of the Greeks. They remain fundamental for us in other ways as well: Curious, innovative, critical, intensely engaged with life and with death, searching for order and meaning yet skeptical of conventional verities, the Greeks were originators of intellectual values as relevant today as they were in the fifth century B.C. Let us recall, then, these first protagonists of the Western intellectual tradition.

  Note: A detailed chronology for the events discussed in this book appears at the end of the text (this page), while dates of birth and death for each historical figure cited can be found next to the individual’s name in the Index. A discussion of gender and language in the text appears at the beginning of the Notes (this page).

  I

  The Greek World View

  To approach what was distinctive in a vision as complex and protean as that of the Greeks, let us begin by examining one of its most striking characteristics—a sustained, highly diversified tendency to interpret the world in terms of archetypal principles. This tendency was in evidence throughout Greek culture from the Homeric epics onward, though it first emerged in philosophically elaborate form in the intellectual crucible of Athens between the latter part of the fifth century B.C. and the middle of the fourth. Associated with the figure of Socrates, it there received its foundational and in some respects definitive formulation in the dialogues of Plato. At its basis was a view of the cosmos as an ordered expression of certain primordial essences or transcendent first principles, variously conceived as Forms, Ideas, universals, changeless absolutes, immortal deities, divine archai, and archetypes. Although this perspective took on a number of distinct inflections, and although there were important countercurrents to this view, it would appear that not only Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and Pythagoras before them and Plotinus after, but indeed Homer and Hesiod, Aeschylus and Sophocles all expressed something like a common vision, reflecting a typically Greek propensity to see clarifying universals in the chaos of life.

  Speaking in these broad terms, and mindful of the inexactness of such generalities, we may say that the Greek universe was ordered by a plurality of timeless essences which underlay concrete reality, giving it form and meaning. These archetypal principles included the mathematical forms of geometry and arithmetic; cosmic opposites such as light and dark, male and female, love and hate, unity and multiplicity; the forms of man (anthrōpos) and other living creatures; and the Ideas of the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, and other absolute moral and aesthetic values. In the pre-philosophical Greek mind, these archetypal principles took the form of mythic personifications such as Eros, Chaos, Heaven and Earth (Ouranos and Gaia), as well as more fully personified figures such as Zeus, Prometheus, and Aphrodite. In this perspective, every aspect of existence was patterned and permeated by such fundamentals. Despite the continuous flux of phenomena in both the outer world and inner experience, there could yet be distinguished specific immutable structures or essences, so definite and enduring they were believed to possess an independent reality of their own. It was upon this apparent immutability and independence that Plato based both his metaphysics and his theory of knowledge.

  Because the archetypal perspective outlined here provides a useful point of departure for entering into the Greek world view, and because Plato was that perspective’s preeminent theoretician and apologist, whose thought would become the single most important foundation for the evolution of the Western mind, we shall begin by discussing the Platonic doctrine of Forms. In subsequent chapters, we shall pursue the historical development of the Greek vision as a whole, and thereby attend to the complex dialectic that led to Plato’s thought, and to the equally complex consequences that followed from it.

  Yet to approach Plato, we must bear in mind his unsystematic, often tentative, and even ironic style of presenting his philosophy. We should bear in mind too the inevitable and no doubt often deliberate ambiguities inherent in his chosen literary mode, the dramatic dialogue. Finally, we must recall the range, variability, and growth of his thought over a period of some fifty years. With these qualifications, then, we may make a provisional attempt to set forth certain prominent ideas and principles suggested by his writings. Our tacit guide in this interpretive effort will be the Platonic tradition itself, which preserved and developed a specific philosophical perspective it regarded as originating with Plato.

  Having established that pivotal position within the Greek mind, we can then move backward and forward—retrospectively to the early mythological and Presocratic traditions, and then onward to Aristotle.

  The Archetypal Forms

  What has been commonly understood as Platonism revolves around its cardinal doctrine, the asserted existence of the archetypal Ideas or Forms. That assertion demands a partial shift, though a profound one, from what has come to be our usual approach to reality. To understand this shift, we must first ask, “What is the precise relat
ion between the Platonic Forms or Ideas and the empirical world of everyday reality?” Upon this question turns the entire conception. (Plato used the Greek words idea and eidos interchangeably. Idea was taken over into Latin and English, while eidos was translated into Latin as forma and into English as “form.”)

  It is crucial to the Platonic understanding that these Forms are primary, while the visible objects of conventional reality are their direct derivatives. Platonic Forms are not conceptual abstractions that the human mind creates by generalizing from a class of particulars. Rather, they possess a quality of being, a degree of reality, that is superior to that of the concrete world. Platonic archetypes form the world and also stand beyond it. They manifest themselves within time and yet are timeless. They constitute the veiled essence of things.

  Plato taught that what is perceived as a particular object in the world can best be understood as a concrete expression of a more fundamental Idea, an archetype which gives that object its special structure and condition. A particular thing is what it is by virtue of the Idea informing it. Something is “beautiful” to the exact extent that the archetype of Beauty is present in it. When one falls in love, it is Beauty (or Aphrodite) that one recognizes and surrenders to, the beloved object being Beauty’s instrument or vessel. The essential factor in the event is the archetype, and it is this level that carries the deepest meaning.

  It could be objected that this is not the way one experiences an event of this sort. What actually attracts one is not an archetype but a specific person, or a concrete work of art, or some other beautiful object. Beauty is only an attribute of the particular, not its essence. The Platonist argues, however, that this objection rests on a limited perception of the event. It is true, he answers, that the ordinary person is not directly aware of an archetypal level, despite its reality. But Plato described how a philosopher who has observed many objects of beauty, and who has long reflected on the matter, may suddenly glimpse absolute beauty—Beauty itself, supreme, pure, eternal, and not relative to any specific person or thing. The philosopher thereby recognizes the Form or Idea that underlies all beautiful phenomena. He unveils the authentic reality behind the appearance. If something is beautiful, it is so because it “participates” in the absolute Form of Beauty.

  Plato’s mentor, Socrates, had sought to know what was common to all virtuous acts, so that he could evaluate how one should govern one’s conduct in life. He reasoned that if one wishes to choose actions that are good, one must know what “good” is, apart from any specific circumstances. To evaluate one thing as “better” than another assumes the existence of an absolute good with which the two relative goods can be compared. Otherwise the word “good” would be only a word whose meaning had no stable basis in reality, and human morality would lack a secure foundation. Similarly, unless there was some absolute basis for evaluating acts as just or unjust, then every act called “just” would be a relative matter of uncertain virtue. When those who engaged in dialogue with Socrates espoused popular notions of justice and injustice, or of good and evil, he subjected these to careful analysis and showed them to be arbitrary, full of internal contradictions and without any substantial basis. Because Socrates and Plato believed that knowledge of virtue was necessary for a person to live a life of virtue, objective universal concepts of justice and goodness seemed imperative for a genuine ethics. Without such changeless constants that transcended the vagaries of human conventions and political institutions, human beings would possess no firm foundation for ascertaining true values, and would thus be subject to the dangers of an amoral relativism.

  Beginning with the Socratic discussion of ethical terms and the search for absolute definitions, Plato ended with a comprehensive theory of reality. Just as man as moral agent requires the Ideas of justice and goodness to conduct his life well, so man as scientist requires other absolute Ideas to understand the world, other universals by which the chaos, flux, and variety of sensible things can be unified and made intelligible. The philosopher’s task encompasses both the moral and the scientific dimensions, and the Ideas provide a foundation for both.

  It seemed evident to Plato that when many objects share a common property—as all human beings share “humanness” or as all white stones share “whiteness”—that property is not limited to a specific material instance in space and time. It is immaterial, beyond spatiotemporal limitation, and transcendent to its many instances. A particular thing may cease to be, but not the universal property that the particular thing embodied. The universal is a separate entity from the particular and, because it is beyond change and never passes away, is superior in its reality.

  One of Plato’s critics once stated, “I see particular horses, but not horseness.” Plato answered, “That is because you have eyes but no intelligence.” The archetypal Horse, which gives form to all horses, is to Plato a more fundamental reality than the particular horses, which are merely specific instances of the Horse, embodiments of that Form. As such, the archetype is apparent not so much to the limited physical senses, though these can suggest and lead the way, as to the more penetrating eye of the soul, the illuminated intellect. Archetypes reveal themselves more to the inner perception than to the outer.

  The Platonic perspective thus asks the philosopher to go through the particular to the universal, and beyond the appearance to the essence. It assumes not only that such insight is possible, but that it is mandatory for the attainment of true knowledge. Plato directs the philosopher’s attention away from the external and concrete, from taking things at face value, and points “deeper” and “inward,” so that one may “awaken” to a more profound level of reality. He asserts that the objects one perceives with one’s senses are actually crystallizations of more primary essences, which can be apprehended only by the active, intuitive mind.

  Plato maintained a strong distrust of knowledge gained by sense perceptions, since such knowledge is constantly changing, relative, and private to each individual. A wind is pleasantly cool for one person but uncomfortably cold for another. A wine is sweet to a person who is well but sour to the same person when ill. Knowledge based on the senses is therefore a subjective judgment, an ever-varying opinion without any absolute foundation. True knowledge, by contrast, is possible only from a direct apprehension of the transcendent Forms, which are eternal and beyond the shifting confusion and imperfection of the physical plane. Knowledge derived from the senses is merely opinion and is fallible by any nonrelative standard. Only knowledge derived directly from the Ideas is infallible and can be justifiably called real knowledge.

  For example, the senses never experience true or absolute equality, since no two things in this world are ever exactly equal to each other in every respect. Rather, they are always only more or less equal. Yet because of the transcendent Idea of equality, the human intellect can comprehend absolute equality (which it has never known concretely) independently of the senses, and can therefore employ the term “equality” and recognize approximations of equality in the empirical world. Similarly, there are no perfect circles in nature, but all approximate circles in nature derive their “circleness” from the perfect archetypal Circle, and it is on this latter reality that the human intelligence depends to recognize any empirical circles. So too with perfect goodness or perfect beauty. For when one speaks of something as “more beautiful” or “more good” than something else, this comparison can be made only against an invisible standard of absolute beauty or goodness—Beauty itself and the Good itself. Everything in the sensible world is imperfect, relative, and constantly shifting, but human knowledge needs and seeks absolutes, which exist only on the transcendent level of pure Ideas.

  Implicit in Plato’s conception of the Ideas is his distinction between being and becoming. All phenomena are in a never-ending process of transformation from one thing into another, becoming this or that and then perishing, changing in relation to one person and another, or to the same person at different times. Nothing in this world is, b
ecause everything is always in a state of becoming something else. But one thing does enjoy real being, as distinguished from merely becoming, and this is the Idea—the only stable reality, that which underlies, motivates, and orders the flux of phenomena. Any particular thing in the world is actually a complexly determined appearance. The perceived object is a meeting place of many Forms which at different times express themselves in varying combinations and with varying degrees of intensity. Plato’s world, therefore, is dynamic only in that all phenomenal reality is in a state of constant becoming and perishing, a movement governed by the shifting participation of Ideas. But the ultimate reality, the world of Ideas wherein resides true being, not just becoming, is in itself changeless and eternal, and is therefore static. The relation of being to becoming for Plato was directly parallel to the relation of truth to opinion—what is apprehensible by the illuminated reason in contrast to what is apprehensible by the physical senses.

  Since the Forms endure, while their concrete expressions come and go, the Forms can be said to be immortal, and therefore similar to gods. Though a particular incarnation of the moment may die, the Form that was temporarily embodied within that particular continues to manifest itself in other concrete things. A person’s beauty passes, but Aphrodite lives on—archetypal Beauty is eternal, neither vulnerable to the passing of time nor touched by the transience of its particular manifestations. The individual trees of the natural world eventually fall and rot away, but the archetypal Tree continues to express itself in and through other trees. A good person may fall and perform evil acts, but the Idea of the Good stands forever. The archetypal Idea comes into and out of being in a multiplicity of concrete forms, yet simultaneously remains transcendent as a unitary essence.