The Approach to Philosophy Part 17

ABSOLUTE REALISM[306:1]

[Sidenote: The Philosopher's Task, and the Philosopher's Object, or the Absolute.]

- 148. No one has understood better than the philosopher himself that he cannot hope to be popular with men of practical common-sense. Indeed, it has commonly been a matter of pride with him. The cla.s.sic representation of the philosopher's faith in himself is to be found in Plato's "Republic." The philosopher is there portrayed in the famous cave simile as one who having seen the light itself can no longer distinguish the shadows which are apparent to those who sit perpetually in the twilight.

Within the cave of shadows he is indeed less at his ease than those who have never seen the sun. But since he knows the source of the shadows, his knowledge surrounds that of the shadow connoisseurs. And his equanimity need not suffer from the contempt of those whom he understands better than they understand themselves. The history of philosophy is due to the dogged persistence with which the philosopher has taken himself seriously and endured the poor opinion of the world.

But the pride of the philosopher has done more than perpetuate the philosophical outlook and problem; it has led to the formulation of a definite philosophical conception, and of two great philosophical doctrines. The conception is that of the _absolute_; and the doctrines are that of the _absolute being_, and that of the _absolute self_ or _mind_. The former of these doctrines is the topic of the present chapter.

Among the early Greeks the role of the philosopher was one of superlative dignity. In point of knowledge he was less easily satisfied than other men. He thought beyond immediate practical problems, devoting himself to a profounder reflection, that could not but induce in him a sense of superior intellectual worth. The familiar was not binding upon him, for his thought was emanc.i.p.ated from routine and superficiality.

Furthermore his intellectual courage and resolution did not permit him to indulge in triviality, doubt, or paradox. He sought his own with a faith that could not be denied. Even Herac.l.i.tus the Dark, who was also called "the Weeping Philosopher," because he found at the very heart of nature that transiency which the philosophical mind seeks to escape, felt himself to be exalted as well as isolated by that insight. But this sentiment of personal aloofness led at once to a division of experience.

He who knows truly belongs to another and more abiding world. As there is a philosophical way of thought, there is a philosophical way of life, and _a philosophical object_. Since the philosopher and the common man do not see alike, the terms of their experience are incommensurable. In Parmenides the Eleatic this motive is most strikingly exhibited. There is a _Way of Truth_ which diverges from the _Way of Opinion_. The philosopher walks the former way alone. And there is an object of truth, accessible only to one who takes this way of truth. Parmenides finds this object to be the content of pure affirmation.

"One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that _It is_. In it are very many tokens that what is, is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end.

Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now _it is_, all at once, a continuous one."[308:2]

The philosophy of Parmenides, commonly called the Eleatic Philosophy, is notable for this emergence of the pure concept of _absolute being_ as the final object of knowledge. The philosopher aims to discover that which is, and so turns away from that which is not or that which ceases to be. The negative and transient aspects of experience only hinder him in his search for the eternal. It was the great Eleatic insight to realize that the outcome of thought is thus predetermined; that the answer to philosophy is contained in the question of philosophy. The philosopher, in that he resolutely avoids all partiality, relativity, and superficiality, must affirm a complete, universal, and ultimate being as the very object of that perfect knowledge which he means to possess. This object is known in the history of these philosophies as the _infinite_ or _absolute_.[309:3]

[Sidenote: The Eleatic Conception of Being.]

- 149. The Eleatic reasons somewhat as follows. The philosopher seeks to know what is. The object of his knowledge will then contain as its primary and essential predicate, that of being. It is a step further to _define_ being in terms of this essential predicate.

Parmenides thinks of being as a power or strength, a positive self-maintenance to which all affirmations refer. The remainder of the Eleatic philosophy is the a.n.a.lysis of this concept and the proof of its implications. Being must persist through all change, and span all chasms. Before being there can be only nothing, which is the same as to say that so far as being is concerned there is no before. Similarly there can be no after or beyond. There can be no motion, change, or division of being, because being will be in all parts of every division, and in all stages of every process. Hence being is "uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end."

The argument turns upon the application to being as a whole of the meaning and the implications of _only being_. Being is the affirmative or positive. From that _alone_, one can derive only such properties as eternity or unity. For generation and decay and plurality may belong to that which is _also_ affirmative and positive, but not to that which is affirmative and positive _only_. The Eleatic philosophy is due, then, to the determination to derive the whole of reality from the bare necessity of being, to cut down reality to what flows entirely from the a.s.sertion of its only known necessary aspect, that of being. We meet here in its simplest form a persistent rationalistic motive, the attempt to derive the universe from the isolation and a.n.a.lysis of its most universal character. As in the case of every well-defined philosophy, this motive is always attended by a "besetting" problem. Here it is the accounting for what, empirically at least, is alien to that universal character.

And this difficulty is emphasized rather than resolved by Parmenides in his designation of a limbo of opinion, "in which is no true belief at all," to which the manifold of common experience with all its irrelevancies can be relegated.

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Conception of Substance.]

- 150. The Eleatic philosophy, enriched and supplemented, appears many centuries later in the rigorous rationalism of Spinoza.[311:4] With Spinoza philosophy is a demonstration of necessities after the manner of geometry. Reality is to be set forth in theorems derived from fundamental axioms and definitions. As in the case of Parmenides, these necessities are the implications of the very problem of being. The philosopher's problem is made to solve itself. But for Spinoza that problem is more definite and more pregnant. The problematic being must not only be, but must be _sufficient to itself_. What the philosopher seeks to know is primarily an intrinsic ent.i.ty. Its nature must be independent of other natures, and my knowledge of it independent of my knowledge of anything else. Reality is something which need not be sought further. So construed, being is in Spinoza's philosophy termed _substance_. It will be seen that to define substance is to affirm the existence of it, for substance is so defined as to embody the very qualification for existence. Whatever exists exists under the form of substance, as that "which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception."[312:5]

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Proof of G.o.d, the Infinite Substance. The Modes and the Attributes.]

- 151. There remains but one further fundamental thesis for the establishment of the Spinozistic philosophy, the thesis which maintains the exclusive existence of the one "absolutely infinite being," or G.o.d.

The exclusive existence of G.o.d follows from his existence, because of the exhaustiveness of his nature. His is the nature "consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality." He will contain all meaning, and all possible meaning, within his fixed and necessary const.i.tution. It is evident that if such a G.o.d exist, nothing can fall outside of him. One such substance must be the only substance. But upon what grounds are we to a.s.sert G.o.d's existence?

To proceed further with Spinoza's philosophy we must introduce two terms which are scarcely less fundamental in his system than that of substance. The one of these is "attribute," by which he means _kind_ or general property; the other is "mode," by which he means _case_ or individual thing. Spinoza's proof of G.o.d consists in showing that no single mode, single attribute, or finite group of modes or attributes, can be a substance; but only an infinite system of all modes of all attributes. Translated into common speech this means that neither kinds nor cases, nor special groups of either, can stand alone and be of themselves, but only the unity of all possible cases of all possible kinds.

The argument concerning the possible substantiality of the case or individual thing is relatively simple. Suppose an attribute or kind, _A_, of which there are cases _am_{1}, _am_{2}, _am_{3}, etc. The number of cases is never involved in the nature of the kind, as is seen for example in the fact that the definition of triangle prescribes no special number of individual triangles. Hence _am_{1}, _am_{2}, _am_{3}, etc., must be explained by something outside of their nature.

Their being cases of _A_ does not account for their existing severally.

This is Spinoza's statement of the argument that individual events, such as motions or sensations, are not self-dependent, but belong to a context of like events which are mutually dependent.

The question of the attribute is more difficult. Why may not an attribute as a complete domain of interdependent events, itself be independent or substantial? Spinoza's predecessor, Descartes, had maintained precisely that thesis in behalf of the domain of thought and the domain of s.p.a.ce. Spinoza's answer rests upon the famous ontological argument, inherited from scholasticism and generally accepted in the first period of modern philosophy. The evidence of existence, he declares, is clear and distinct conceivability.

"For a person to say that he has a clear and distinct--that is, a true--idea of a substance, but that he is not sure whether such substance exists, would be the same as if he said that he had a true idea, but was not sure whether or no it was false."[314:6]

Now we can form a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely infinite being that shall have all possible attributes. This idea is a well-recognized standard and object of reference for thought. But it is a conception which is highly qualified, not only through its clearness and distinctness, but also through its abundance of content. It affirms itself therefore with a certainty that surpa.s.ses any other certainty, because it is supported by each and every other certainty, and even by the residuum of possibility. If any intelligible meaning be permitted to affirm itself, so much the more irresistible is the claim of this infinitely rich meaning. Since every attribute contributes to its validity, the being with infinite attributes is infinitely or absolutely valid. The conclusion of the argument is now obvious. If the being const.i.tuted by the infinite attributes exists, it swallows up all possibilities and exists exclusively.

[Sidenote: The Limits of Spinoza's Argument for G.o.d.]

- 152. The vulnerable point in Spinoza's argument can thus be expressed: that which is important is questionable, and that which is unquestionable is of doubtful importance. Have I indeed a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely infinite being? The answer turns upon the meaning of the phrase "idea of." It is true I can add to such meaning as I apprehend the thought of possible other meaning, and suppose the whole to have a definiteness and systematic unity like that of the triangle. But such an idea is problematic. I am compelled to use the term "possible," and so to confess the failure of definite content to measure up to my idea. My idea of an absolutely infinite being is like my idea of a universal language: I can think _of_ it, but I cannot _think it out_, for lack of data or because of the conflicting testimony of other data. If I mean the infinity of my being to be a term of inclusiveness, and to insist that the all must be, and that there can be nothing not included in the all, I can scarcely be denied. But it is reasonable to doubt the importance of such a truth. If, on the other hand, I mean that my infinite being shall have the compactness and organic unity of a triangle, I must admit that such a being is indeed problematic. The degree to which the meaning of the part is dependent upon the meaning of the whole, or the degree to which the geometrical a.n.a.logy is to be preferred to the a.n.a.logy of aggregates, like the events within a year, is a problem that falls quite outside Spinoza's fundamental arguments.

[Sidenote: Spinoza's Provision for the Finite.]

- 153. But the advance of Spinoza over the Eleatics must not be lost sight of. The modern philosopher has so conceived being as to provide for parts within an individual unity. The geometrical a.n.a.logy is a most illuminating one, for it enables us to understand how manyness may be indispensable to a being that is essentially unitary. The triangle as triangle is one. But it could not be such without sides and angles. The unity is equally necessary to the parts, for sides and angles of a triangle could not be such without an arrangement governed by the nature triangle. The whole of nature may be similarly conceived: as the reciprocal necessity of _natura naturans_, or nature defined in respect of its unity, and _natura naturata_, or nature specified in detail.

There is some promise here of a reconciliation of the _Way of Opinion_ with the _Way of Truth_. Opinion would be a gathering of detail, truth a comprehension of the intelligible unity. Both would be provided for through the consideration that whatever is complete and necessary must be made up of incompletenesses that are necessary to it.

[Sidenote: Transition to Teleological Conceptions.]

- 154. This consideration, however, does not receive its most effective formulation in Spinoza. The isolation of the parts, the actual severalty and irrelevance of the modes, still presents a grave problem.

Is there a kind of whole to which not only parts but fragments, or parts in their very incompleteness, are indispensable? This would seem to be true of a _progression_ or _development_, since that would require both perfection as its end, and degrees of imperfection as its stages.

Spinoza was prevented from making much of this idea by his rejection of the principle of _teleology_. He regarded appreciation or valuation as a projection of personal bias. "Nature has no particular goal in view,"

and "final causes are mere human figments." "The perfection of things is to be reckoned only from their own nature and power."[318:7] The philosophical method which Spinoza here repudiates, the interpretation of the world in moral terms, is _Platonism_, an independent and profoundly important movement, belonging to the same general realistic type with Eleaticism and Spinozism. Absolute being is again the fundamental conception. Here, however, it is conceived that being is primarily not affirmation or self-sufficiency, but the _good_ or _ideal_. There are few great metaphysical systems that have not been deeply influenced by Platonism; hence the importance of understanding it in its purity. To this end we must return again to the early Greek conception of the philosopher; for Platonism, like Eleaticism, is a sequel to the philosopher's self-consciousness.

[Sidenote: Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical.]

- 155. Although the first Greek philosophers, such men as Thales, Herac.l.i.tus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, were clearly aware of their distinction and high calling, it by no means follows that they were good judges of themselves. Their sense of intellectual power was unsuspecting; and they praised philosophy without definitely raising the question of its meaning. They were like unskilled players who try all the stops and scales of an organ, and know that somehow they can make a music that exceeds the noises, monotones or simple melodies of those who play upon lesser instruments. They knew their power rather than their instrument or their art. The first philosophers, in short, were self-conscious but not self-critical.

[Sidenote: Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the Sophists.]

- 156. The immediately succeeding phase in the history of Greek philosophy was a curtailment, but only in the most superficial sense a criticism, of the activity of the philosopher. In the Periclean Age philosophy suffered more from inattention than from refutation. The scepticism of the sophists, who were the knowing men of this age, was not so much conviction as indisposition. They failed to recognize the old philosophical problem; it did not _appeal_ to them as a genuine problem. The sophists were the intellectual men of an age of _humanism_, _individualism_, and _secularism_. These were years in which the circle of human society, the state with its inst.i.tutions, citizens.h.i.+p with its manifold activities and interests, bounded the horizon of thought. What need to look beyond? Life was not a problem, but an abundant opportunity and a sense of capacity. The world was not a mystery, but a place of entertainment and a sphere of action. Of this the sophists were faithful witnesses. In their love of novelty, irreverence, impressionism, elegance of speech, and above all in their praise of individual efficiency, they preached and pandered to their age. Their public, though it loved to abuse them, was the greatest sophist of them all--brilliant and capricious, incomparably rich in all but wisdom. The majority belonged to what Plato called "the sight-loving, art-loving, busy cla.s.s." This is an age, then, when the man of practical common-sense is preeminent, and the philosopher with his dark sayings has pa.s.sed away. The pride of wisdom has given way to the pride of power and the pride of cleverness. The many men pursue the many goods of life, and there is no spirit among them all who, sitting apart in contemplation, wonders at the meaning of the whole.

[Sidenote: Socrates and the Self-criticism of the Philosopher.]

- 157. But in their midst there moved a strange prophet, whom they mistook for one of themselves. Socrates was not one who prayed in the wilderness, but a man of the streets and the market-place, who talked rather more incessantly than the rest, and apparently with less right.

He did not testify to the truth, but pleaded ignorance in extenuation of an exasperating habit of asking questions. There was, however, a humor and a method in his innocence that arrested attention. He was a formidable adversary in discussion from his very irresponsibility; and he was especially successful with the more rhetorical sophists because he chose his own weapons, and subst.i.tuted critical a.n.a.lysis, question and answer, for the long speeches to which these teachers were habituated by their profession. He appeared to be governed by an insatiable inquisitiveness, and a somewhat malicious desire to discredit those who spoke with authority.

But to those who knew him better, and especially to Plato, who knew him best, Socrates was at once the sweetest and most compelling spirit of his age. There was a kind of truth in the quality of his character. He was perhaps _the first of all reverent men_. In the presence of conceit his self-depreciation was ironical, but in another presence it was most genuine, and his deepest spring of thought and action. This other presence was his own ideal. Socrates was sincerely humble because, expecting so much of philosophy, he saw his own deficiency. Unlike the unskilled player, he did not seek to _make_ music; but he loved music, and knew that such music as is indeed music was beyond his power. On the other hand he was well aware of his superiority to those in whom self-satisfaction was possible because they had no conception of the ideal. Of such he could say in truth that they did not know enough even to realize the extent of their ignorance. The world has long been familiar with the vivid portrayal of the Socratic consciousness which is contained in Plato's "Apology." Socrates had set out in life with the opinion that his was an age of exceptional enlightenment. But as he came to know men he found that after all no one of them really knew what he was about. Each "sight-loving, art-loving, busy" man was quite blind to the meaning of life. While he was capable of practical achievement, his judgments concerning the real virtue of his achievements were conventional and ungrounded, a mere reflection of tradition and opinion.

When asked concerning the meaning of life, or the ground of his opinions, he was thrown into confusion or aggravated to meaningless reiteration. Such men, Socrates reflected, were both unwise and confirmed in their folly through being unconscious of it. Because he knew that vanity is vanity, that opinion is indeed mere opinion, Socrates felt himself to be the wisest man in a generation of dogged unwisdom.

[Sidenote: Socrates's Self-criticism a Prophecy of Truth.]

- 158. It is scarcely necessary to point out that this insight, however negatively it be used, is a revelation of positive knowledge. Herac.l.i.tus and Parmenides claimed to know; Socrates disclaimed knowledge _for reasons_. Like all real criticism this is at once a confounding of error and a prophecy of truth. The truth so discovered is indeed not ordinary truth concerning historical or physical things, but not on that account less significant and necessary. This truth, it will also be admitted, is virtually rather than actually set forth by Socrates himself. He knew that life has some meaning which those who live with conviction desire at heart to realize, and that knowledge has principles with which those who speak with conviction intend to be consistent. There is, in short, a rational life and a rational discourse. Furthermore, a rational life will be a life wisely directed to the end of the good; and a rational discourse one constructed with reference to the real natures of things, and the necessities which flow from these natures. But Socrates did not conclusively define either the meaning of life or the form of perfect knowledge. He testified to the necessity of some such truths, and his testimony demonstrated both the blindness of his contemporaries and also his own deficiency.

[Sidenote: The Historical Preparation for Plato.]

- 159. The character and method of Socrates have their best foil in the sophists, but their bearing on the earlier philosophers is for our purposes even more instructive. Unlike Socrates these philosophers had not made a study of the task of the philosopher. They _were_ philosophers--"spectators of all time and all existence"; but they were precritical or dogmatic philosophers, to whom it had not occurred to define the requirements of philosophy. They knew no perfect knowledge other than their own actual knowledge. They defined being and interpreted life without reflecting upon the quality of the knowledge whose object is being, or the quality of insight that would indeed be practical wisdom. But when through Socrates the whole philosophical prospect is again revealed after the period of humanistic concentration, it is as an ideal whose possibilities, whose necessities, are conceived before they are realized. Socrates celebrates the role of the philosopher without a.s.signing it to himself. The new philosophical object is the philosopher himself; and the new insight a knowledge of knowledge itself. These three types of intellectual procedure, dogmatic speculation concerning being, humanistic interest in life, and the self-criticism of thought, form the historical preparation for Plato, the philosopher who defined being as the ideal of thought, and upon this ground interpreted life.

There is no more striking case in history of the subtle continuity of thought than the relation between Plato and his master Socrates. The wonder of it is due to the absence of any formulation of doctrine on the part of Socrates himself. He only lived and talked; and yet Plato created a system of philosophy in which he is faithfully embodied. The form of embodiment is the dialogue, in which the talking of Socrates is perpetuated and conducted to profounder issues, and in which his life is both rendered and interpreted. But as the vehicle of Plato's thought preserves and makes perfect the Socratic method, so the thought itself begins with the Socratic motive and remains to the end an expression of it. The presentiment of perfect knowledge which distinguished Socrates from his contemporaries becomes in Plato the clear vision of a realm of ideal truth.

[Sidenote: Platonism: Reality as the Absolute Ideal or Good.]

- 160. Plato begins his philosophy with the philosopher and the philosopher's interest. The philosopher is a lover, who like all lovers longs for the beautiful. But he is the supreme lover, for he loves not the individual beautiful object but the Absolute Beauty itself. He is a lover too in that he does not possess, but somehow apprehends his object from afar. Though imperfect, he seeks perfection; though standing like all his fellows in the twilight of half-reality, he faces toward the sun. Now it is the fundamental proposition of the Platonic philosophy that reality is the sun itself, or the perfection whose possession every wise thinker covets, whose presence would satisfy every longing of experience. The real is that beloved object which is "truly beautiful, delicate, perfect, and blessed." There is both a serious ground for such an affirmation and an important truth in its meaning. The ground is the evident incompleteness of every special judgment concerning experience.

We understand only in part, and we know that we understand only in part.

What we discover is real enough for practical purposes, but even common-sense questions the true reality of its objects. Special judgments seem to terminate our thought abruptly and arbitrarily. We give "the best answer we can," but such answers do not come as the completion of our thinking. Our thought is in some sense surely a seeking, and it would appear that we are not permitted to rest and be satisfied at any stage of it. If we do so we are like the sophists--blind to our own ignorance. But it is equally true that our thought is straightforward and progressive. We are not permitted to return to earlier stages, but must push on to that which is not less, but more, than what we have as yet found. There is good hope, then, of understanding what the ideal may be from our knowledge of the direction which it impels us to follow.

But to understand Plato's conception of the progression of experience we must again catch up the Socratic strain which he weaves into every theme. For Socrates, student of life and mankind, all objects were objects of interest, and all interests practical interests. One is ignorant when one does not know the good of things; opinionative when one rates things by conventional standards; wise when one knows their real good. In Platonism this practical interpretation of experience appears in the principle that the object of perfect knowledge is _the good_. The nature of things which one seeks to know better is the good of things, the absolute being which is the goal of all thinking is the very good itself. Plato does not use the term good in any merely utilitarian sense. Indeed it is very significant that for Plato there is no cleavage between theoretical and practical interests. To be morally good is to know the good, to set one's heart on the true object of affection; and to be theoretically sound is to understand perfection.

The good itself is the end of every aim, that in which all interests converge. Hence it cannot be defined, as might a special good, in terms of the fulfilment of a set of concrete conditions, but only in terms of the sense or direction of all purposes. The following pa.s.sage occurs in the "Symposium":

"The true order of going or being led by others to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upward for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions 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."[329:8]