As the title of his essay ['Is Technological Civilization Decadent, and Why?'] indicates, Patočka asks why technological civilization is in decline. The answer seems clear: this fall into inauthenticity indicates a return of the orgiastic or demonic. Contrary to what is normally thought, technological modernity doesn't neutralize anything; it causes a certain form of the demonic to re-emerge. Of course, it does neutralize also, through indifference and boredom, but because of that, and precisely to the same extent, it allows the return of the demonic. There is an affinity, or at least a synchrony, between a culture of boredom and an orgiastic one. The domination of technology encourages demonic irresponsibility, and the sexual force of the latter does not need to be emphasized. All that occurs against the background of this boredom, that acts in concert with a technological leveling effect. Technological civilization produces a heightening of mobilization of the orgiastic, with the familiar accompanying effects of aestheticism and individualism, but only to the extent that it also produces boredom, for it "levels" or neutralizes the mysterious or irreplaceable uniqueness of the responsible self. The individualism of technological civilization relies precisely on a misunderstanding of the unique self. It is the individualism of a role and not of a person. In other words it might be called the individualism of a masque or persona, a character [personnage] and not a person. Patočka reminds us of interpretations—especially that of Burckhardt—according to which modern individualism, as it has developed since the Renaissance, concerns itself with the role that is played rather than with this unique person whose secret remains hidden behind the social mask.
  The alternatives are confused: individualism becomes socialism or collectivism, it simulates an ethics or politics of singularity, liberalism joins socialism, democracy joins totalitarianism, and all these figures share the same indifference concerning anything but the objectivity of the role. Equality for all, the slogan of bourgeois revolution, becomes the objective or quantifiable equality of roles, not of persons.
  This critique of the mask clearly harks back to a tradition, especially when it is part of a denunciation of technology in the name of an originary authenticity. Patočka is doubtless somewhat insensitive to how consistent a tradition it is, its logic seeming to continue unperturbed from Plato to Heidegger. And just as the role played hides the authenticity of the irreplaceable self behind a social mask, so the civilization of boredom produced by a techno-scientific objectivity hides mystery: "The most sophisticated inventions are boring if they do not lead to an exacerbation of the Mystery concealed by what we discover, what is revealed to us."
  Let us outline the logic of this discourse. It criticizes an inauthentic dissimulation (that is the sense common to technology, role-playing, individualism, and boredom) not in the name of a revelation or truth as unveiling, but in the name of another dissimulation that, in what it holds back, keeps the mystery veiled. Inauthentic dissimulation, that of the masked role, bores to the extent that it claims to unveil, show, expose, exhibit, and excite curiosity. By unveiling everything, it hides that whose essence resides in its remaining hidden, namely the authentic mystery of the person. Authentic mystery must remain mysterious, and we should approach it only by letting it be what it is in truth, namely veiled, withdrawn, dissimulated. Authentic dissimulation is inauthentically dissimulated by the violence of unveiling. The words "mystery" or "fundamental mystery" appear a number of times in the final pages of the article, and their logic and intonation, at least, seem more and more Heideggerian.
  Yet another concept could well represent the most decisive recourse here, that of force. Everything Patočka tends to discredit—inauthenticity, technology, boredom, individualism, masks, roles—derives from a "metaphysics of force." Force has become the modern figure of being. Being has allowed itself to be determined as a calculable force; and man, instead of relating to the being that is hidden under this figure of force, represents himself as quantifiable power. Patočka describes this definition of being as force by means of a schema that is analogous to that employed by Heidegger in his texts on technology:
Humans have ceased to be a relation to Being and have become a force, a mighty one, one of the mightiest [This superlative (jednou z nejmocnějších) indeed signifies that man has placed himself in a homogeneous relation with the forces of the world, but simply as the strongest among those forces.] Especially in their social being, they became a gigantic transformer, releasing cosmic forces accumulated and bound over the eons. It seems as if humans have become a grand energy accumulator in a world of sheer forces, on the one hand making use of those forces to exist and multiply, yet on the other hand themselves integrated into the same process, accumulated, calculated, utilized, and manipulated like any other state of energy.
This description might at first seem Heideggerian, as do a number of other formulations such as "Hidden within force there is Being" or "Thus force manifests itself as the highest concealment of Being." The same can be said for the interpretation of the dissimulation of being as force, and the dissimulation of being in the entity. One might say that Patočka doesn't shy away from such a reading even if the only explicit reference to Heidegger takes a strangely encrypted form. Heidegger is merely alluded to as though, for one reason or another, he is not to be named (whereas others like Hannah Arendt are named, in the same context and to make a similar point). For example: "A great contemporary thinker presented this vision of being absorbed in what is in his work without being trusted or noted." Heidegger is there, but he is not paid any attention. He is visible but not seen. Heidegger is there like a purloined letter, he seems to say, although not in so many words.
Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death (2008: 36-39)
18 June 2009
she fixed them hard
It was almost unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty and bravery and magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action: she held it must be detestable to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she should never do anything wrong. She had resented so strongly, after discovering them, her mere errors of feeling (the discovery always made her tremble as if she had escaped from a trap which might have caught her and smothered her) that the chance of inflicting a sensible injury upon another person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when she fixed them hard she recognized them. It was wrong to be mean, to be jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was the danger of inconsistency—the danger of keeping up the flag after the place had surrendered; a sort of behavior so crooked as to be almost a dishonour to the flag. But Isabel, who knew little of the sorts of artillery to which young women are exposed, flattered herself that such contradictions would never be noted in her own conduct. Her life should always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she would produce; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she was. Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she might find herself some day in a difficult position, so that she should have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1976: 40-41)
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1976: 40-41)
his hour was in sight
A secret hoard of indifference—like a thick cake a fond old nurse might have slipped into his first school outfit—came to his aid and helped to reconcile him to sacrifice; since at the best he was too ill for aught but that arduous game. As he said to himself, there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the field of valour. At present, however, the fragrance of forbidden fruit seemed occasionally to float past him and remind him that the finest of pleasures is the rush of action. Living as he now lived was like reading a good book in a poor translation—a meagre entertainment for a young man who felt that he might have been an excellent linguist. He had good winters and poor winters, and while the former lasted he was sometimes the sport of a vision of virtual recovery. But this vision was dispelled some three years before the occurrence of the incidents with which this history opens: he had on that occasion remained later than usual in England and had been overtaken by bad weather before reaching Algiers. He arrived more dead than alive and lay there for several weeks between life and death. His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happened but once. He said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation. With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. His friends at present judged him more cheerful, and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their heads knowingly, that he would recover his health. His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1976: 40-41)
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1976: 40-41)
16 June 2009
in short
This literary Folly is an attraction, but hardly a fascination. It governs all that is facile, joyous or light-hearted in the world. It is a madness that causes men to make merry and rejoice, just as it gave the classical gods 'Spirit and Youthfulness, Bacchus, Silenus and that quiet guardian of gardens.' Madness was a shiny, reflective surface, with no dark secrets lurking below.
Undoubtedly, it did have links with some of the darker byways of knowledge. The first canto of Brant's Narrenschiff tells of books and bookmen, and in the engraving that illustrates the passage in the Latin edition of 1497, perched on his throne and surrounded by books, a Master with his doctoral bonnet can be seen, and behind his hat is a fool's cap sown with bells. In his great dance of the mad, Erasmus reserved pride of place for the learned. After the grammarians come the poets, the rhetoricians and the writers; then the lawyers and the philosophers 'venerable with their beards and robes', followed at last by a hurried multitude of theologians. But if knowledge is important for madness, it is not because madness might hold some vital secrets: on the contrary, it is the punishment for useless, unregulated knowledge. If it is the truth about knowledge, then all it reveals is that knowledge is derisory, and that rather than addressing the great book of experience, learning has become lost in the dust of books and in sterile discussions, knowledge made mad by an excess of false science.
Oh ye men of science, who bear great names,
Look back at the ancient fathers, learned in law.
They did not weigh dogmas in shining white books,
But fed their thirsty hearts with natural skill.
As in the theme so long familiar in popular satire, madness appears here as the comic punishment of knowledge and its ignorant presumption.
For in a general manner madness here is not linked to the world and its subterranean forms, but rather to man and his frailties, his dreams and illusions. The dark cosmic forces at work in madness that are so apparent in the work of Bosch are absent in Erasmus. Madness no longer lies in wait for man at every crossroads; rather, it slips into him, or is in fact a subtle relationship that man has with himself. In Erasmus, the mythological personification of Madness is no more than literary artifice. Here, rather than madness, there are only follies, human forms of madness: 'I considered that as many statues have been set up for me as there men who display, sometimes unwillingly, a living image of me.' When he turns his attention to even the wisest and best-governed cities, 'wherever you look they abound in so many forms of folly, and they think up so many new ones from day to day, a thousand Democritus's would not be enough to laugh at them.' Madness is only in each man, as it lies in the attachments that men have to themselves, and the illusions that they entertain about themselves. Philautia or self-love is the first among the figures that Folly leads on its dance, but that is because these two forms are linked to each other above all others; an attachment to oneself is the first sign of madness, and it is through that attachment to oneself that man takes error for truth, lies for reality, violence and ugliness for beauty and justice. ... In this imaginary adhesion to the self, madness is born like a mirage. From now on, the symbol of madness was to be a mirror, which reflected nothing real, but secretly showed the presumptuous dreams of all who gazed into it to contemplate themselves. Madness here was not about truth or the world, but rather about man and the truth about himself that he can perceive. ...
In the domain of literature and philosophy, the experience of madness in the fifteenth century takes on above all the appearance of a moral satire. There is little there to recall the overwhelming threat of invasion that haunted the imagination of the painters. On the contrary, care was taken to neutralise that threat: literature and philosophy are quite simply talking of a different experience. Erasmus turns attention away from that madness 'sent up from the underworld by the avenging Furies whenever they dart forth their serpents', for the Folly that he set out to praise was of a different order. ... A world of calm, without secret, that is easily mastered and fully displays its naive reductions to the eyes of the wise, who keep their distance easily through laughter. Whereas Bosch, Brueghel and Durer were earthly spectators pulled into the madness that they saw seething around them, Erasmus observes it from a distance that ensures that he is never drawn in. Like an Olympian God he observes it from on high, and if he sings its praises, it is because his laughter is the inexhaustible good humour of the gods themselves. For the madness of man is a sight for divine eyes:
In brief, if you could look down from the moon, as Menippus once did, and see the innumerable broils of mortals, you would think you were looking at a great cloud of flies or gnats quarrelling among themselves, warring, plotting, plundering, playing, frisking, being born, declining, dying. It is downright incredible what tumults, what tragedies can be stirred up by such a tiny creature, so frail and short-lived.
Madness is no longer the familiar strangeness of the world, but a spectacle well known to the observer from outside; not a figure of the cosmos, but merely of the order of the aevum.
... Conversely, many figures of moral rhetoric are illustrated in a direct manner in the cosmic images of madness: Bosch's famous doctor is far more insane than the patient he is attempting to cure, and his false knowledge does nothing more than reveal the worst excesses of a madness immediately apparent to all but himself. For his contemporaries and for the generations that followed, Bosch was above all a moralist, and his work was a series of moral lessons. His figures were born of this world, but they demonstrated the monstrous contents of the human heart. 'The difference between the paintings of this man and those of others is that others usually portray man as he appears from the outside: Bosch alone dares paint them as they are within.'
... By contrast, in Brant, Erasmus and the whole humanist tradition, madness is confined to the universe of discourse. There it becomes ever more refined, more subtle, and is slowly disarmed. It changes scale: born in the hearts of men, it rules and disrupts their conduct; when it rules cities, the calm truth of things and nature herself are unaware of its existence. It disappears fast when essential issues like life and death or justice and truth appear. It may hold every man in its control, but its reign is narrow and relative as its mediocre truth is constantly unmasked by the penetrating gaze of the savant. For such men of science, it becomes a mere object, and in the worst possible manner, as it often winds up an object of ridicule: they tamed it by the act of praising it. Even if madness was wiser than science, it would still find itself obliged to bow down before wisdom itself, the condition of its being. Now and then it might have the last word, but it never was the last word about the truth of the world, for its self-justificatory discourse is bound up with a critical consciousness of man.
This conflict between critical consciousness and tragic experience underlies all that was felt and formulated on the theme of madness at the beginning of the Renaissance. But it was short-lived ... it is a question of the ever-increasing importance that the Renaissance accorded to one of the elements in the system—the vision of madness as an experience within the domain of language, where man was confronted with his moral truth, the laws of human nature and human truth. In short, the critical consciousness of madness was increasingly brought out into the light, while its more tragic components retreated ever further into the shadows, soon to almost vanish entirely.
Michel Foucault, History of Madness (2006:22-27)
Undoubtedly, it did have links with some of the darker byways of knowledge. The first canto of Brant's Narrenschiff tells of books and bookmen, and in the engraving that illustrates the passage in the Latin edition of 1497, perched on his throne and surrounded by books, a Master with his doctoral bonnet can be seen, and behind his hat is a fool's cap sown with bells. In his great dance of the mad, Erasmus reserved pride of place for the learned. After the grammarians come the poets, the rhetoricians and the writers; then the lawyers and the philosophers 'venerable with their beards and robes', followed at last by a hurried multitude of theologians. But if knowledge is important for madness, it is not because madness might hold some vital secrets: on the contrary, it is the punishment for useless, unregulated knowledge. If it is the truth about knowledge, then all it reveals is that knowledge is derisory, and that rather than addressing the great book of experience, learning has become lost in the dust of books and in sterile discussions, knowledge made mad by an excess of false science.
Oh ye men of science, who bear great names,
Look back at the ancient fathers, learned in law.
They did not weigh dogmas in shining white books,
But fed their thirsty hearts with natural skill.
As in the theme so long familiar in popular satire, madness appears here as the comic punishment of knowledge and its ignorant presumption.
For in a general manner madness here is not linked to the world and its subterranean forms, but rather to man and his frailties, his dreams and illusions. The dark cosmic forces at work in madness that are so apparent in the work of Bosch are absent in Erasmus. Madness no longer lies in wait for man at every crossroads; rather, it slips into him, or is in fact a subtle relationship that man has with himself. In Erasmus, the mythological personification of Madness is no more than literary artifice. Here, rather than madness, there are only follies, human forms of madness: 'I considered that as many statues have been set up for me as there men who display, sometimes unwillingly, a living image of me.' When he turns his attention to even the wisest and best-governed cities, 'wherever you look they abound in so many forms of folly, and they think up so many new ones from day to day, a thousand Democritus's would not be enough to laugh at them.' Madness is only in each man, as it lies in the attachments that men have to themselves, and the illusions that they entertain about themselves. Philautia or self-love is the first among the figures that Folly leads on its dance, but that is because these two forms are linked to each other above all others; an attachment to oneself is the first sign of madness, and it is through that attachment to oneself that man takes error for truth, lies for reality, violence and ugliness for beauty and justice. ... In this imaginary adhesion to the self, madness is born like a mirage. From now on, the symbol of madness was to be a mirror, which reflected nothing real, but secretly showed the presumptuous dreams of all who gazed into it to contemplate themselves. Madness here was not about truth or the world, but rather about man and the truth about himself that he can perceive. ...
In the domain of literature and philosophy, the experience of madness in the fifteenth century takes on above all the appearance of a moral satire. There is little there to recall the overwhelming threat of invasion that haunted the imagination of the painters. On the contrary, care was taken to neutralise that threat: literature and philosophy are quite simply talking of a different experience. Erasmus turns attention away from that madness 'sent up from the underworld by the avenging Furies whenever they dart forth their serpents', for the Folly that he set out to praise was of a different order. ... A world of calm, without secret, that is easily mastered and fully displays its naive reductions to the eyes of the wise, who keep their distance easily through laughter. Whereas Bosch, Brueghel and Durer were earthly spectators pulled into the madness that they saw seething around them, Erasmus observes it from a distance that ensures that he is never drawn in. Like an Olympian God he observes it from on high, and if he sings its praises, it is because his laughter is the inexhaustible good humour of the gods themselves. For the madness of man is a sight for divine eyes:
In brief, if you could look down from the moon, as Menippus once did, and see the innumerable broils of mortals, you would think you were looking at a great cloud of flies or gnats quarrelling among themselves, warring, plotting, plundering, playing, frisking, being born, declining, dying. It is downright incredible what tumults, what tragedies can be stirred up by such a tiny creature, so frail and short-lived.
Madness is no longer the familiar strangeness of the world, but a spectacle well known to the observer from outside; not a figure of the cosmos, but merely of the order of the aevum.
... Conversely, many figures of moral rhetoric are illustrated in a direct manner in the cosmic images of madness: Bosch's famous doctor is far more insane than the patient he is attempting to cure, and his false knowledge does nothing more than reveal the worst excesses of a madness immediately apparent to all but himself. For his contemporaries and for the generations that followed, Bosch was above all a moralist, and his work was a series of moral lessons. His figures were born of this world, but they demonstrated the monstrous contents of the human heart. 'The difference between the paintings of this man and those of others is that others usually portray man as he appears from the outside: Bosch alone dares paint them as they are within.'
... By contrast, in Brant, Erasmus and the whole humanist tradition, madness is confined to the universe of discourse. There it becomes ever more refined, more subtle, and is slowly disarmed. It changes scale: born in the hearts of men, it rules and disrupts their conduct; when it rules cities, the calm truth of things and nature herself are unaware of its existence. It disappears fast when essential issues like life and death or justice and truth appear. It may hold every man in its control, but its reign is narrow and relative as its mediocre truth is constantly unmasked by the penetrating gaze of the savant. For such men of science, it becomes a mere object, and in the worst possible manner, as it often winds up an object of ridicule: they tamed it by the act of praising it. Even if madness was wiser than science, it would still find itself obliged to bow down before wisdom itself, the condition of its being. Now and then it might have the last word, but it never was the last word about the truth of the world, for its self-justificatory discourse is bound up with a critical consciousness of man.
This conflict between critical consciousness and tragic experience underlies all that was felt and formulated on the theme of madness at the beginning of the Renaissance. But it was short-lived ... it is a question of the ever-increasing importance that the Renaissance accorded to one of the elements in the system—the vision of madness as an experience within the domain of language, where man was confronted with his moral truth, the laws of human nature and human truth. In short, the critical consciousness of madness was increasingly brought out into the light, while its more tragic components retreated ever further into the shadows, soon to almost vanish entirely.
Michel Foucault, History of Madness (2006:22-27)
an odd thing
On entering we found Socrates, just released, and Xanthippe—you know her—holding his little boy and sitting beside him. When she saw us, Xanthippe broke out and said just the kinds of thing that women are given to saying: 'So this is the very last time, Socrates, that your good friends will speak to you and you to them.' At which Socrates looked at Crito and said: 'Crito, someone had better take her home.'
So she was taken away by some of Crito's people, calling out and lamenting; Socrates, meanwhile, sat up on the bed, bent his leg, and rubbed it down with his hand. As he rubbed it, he said: 'What an odd thing it seems, friends, this state that people call "pleasant"; and how curiously it's related to its supposed opposite, "painful": to think that the pair of them refuse to visit a person together, yet if anybody pursues one of them and catches it, he's always pretty well bound to catch the other as well, as if the two of them were attached to a single head. I do believe that if Aesop had thought of them, he'd have made up a story telling how God wanted to reconcile them in their quarrelling, but when he couldn't he fastened their heads together, and that's why anybody visited by one of them is later attended by the other as well. That is just what seems to be happening in my own case: there was discomfort in my leg because of the fetter, and now the pleasant seems to have come to succeed it.'
Plato, Phaedo (1993: 4)
So she was taken away by some of Crito's people, calling out and lamenting; Socrates, meanwhile, sat up on the bed, bent his leg, and rubbed it down with his hand. As he rubbed it, he said: 'What an odd thing it seems, friends, this state that people call "pleasant"; and how curiously it's related to its supposed opposite, "painful": to think that the pair of them refuse to visit a person together, yet if anybody pursues one of them and catches it, he's always pretty well bound to catch the other as well, as if the two of them were attached to a single head. I do believe that if Aesop had thought of them, he'd have made up a story telling how God wanted to reconcile them in their quarrelling, but when he couldn't he fastened their heads together, and that's why anybody visited by one of them is later attended by the other as well. That is just what seems to be happening in my own case: there was discomfort in my leg because of the fetter, and now the pleasant seems to have come to succeed it.'
Plato, Phaedo (1993: 4)
not at all hard
"Then look at it this way, Cebes, and you'll see, I think, that our admissions were not mistaken. If there were not perpetual reciprocity in coming to be, between one set of things and another, revolving in a circle, as it were—if, instead, genesis were a linear process from one thing into its opposite only, without any bending back in the other direction or reversal, do you realize that all things would ultimately have the same form: the same fate would overtake them, and they would cease from coming to be?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's not at all hard to understand what I mean. If, for example, there were such a thing as going to sleep, but from sleeping there were no reverse process of waking up, you realize that everything would ultimately make Endymion seem a mere trifle: he'd be nowhere, because the same fate as his, sleeping, would have overtaken everything else. Again, if everything were combined, but not separated, then Anaxagoras' notion of "all things together" would soon be realized. And similarly, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake in life were to die, but when they'd died, the dead remained in that form, and didn't come back to life, wouldn't it be quite inevitable that everything would ultimately be dead, and nothing would live? Because if the living things came to be from the other things, but the living things were to die, what could possibly prevent everything from being completely spent in being dead?"
Plato, Phaedo (1993:20)
"What do you mean?"
"It's not at all hard to understand what I mean. If, for example, there were such a thing as going to sleep, but from sleeping there were no reverse process of waking up, you realize that everything would ultimately make Endymion seem a mere trifle: he'd be nowhere, because the same fate as his, sleeping, would have overtaken everything else. Again, if everything were combined, but not separated, then Anaxagoras' notion of "all things together" would soon be realized. And similarly, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake in life were to die, but when they'd died, the dead remained in that form, and didn't come back to life, wouldn't it be quite inevitable that everything would ultimately be dead, and nothing would live? Because if the living things came to be from the other things, but the living things were to die, what could possibly prevent everything from being completely spent in being dead?"
Plato, Phaedo (1993:20)
10 June 2009
in love with Love
Now the soul's hunger is desire. Hence a soul that truly loves God is insatiable in love because God is love; whoever loves God is in love with Love. To love Love completes a circle so that love may never end.
frater Yvo, Epistola ad Severinum de caritate, 12th century
Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses (2003: 138)
frater Yvo, Epistola ad Severinum de caritate, 12th century
Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses (2003: 138)
09 June 2009
measuring it with its own extravagence
In the midst of the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates with the madman: on the one hand is the man of reason, who delegates madness to the doctor, thereby authorising no relation other than through the abstract universality of illness; and on the other is the man of madness, who only communicates with the other through the intermediary of a reason that is no less abstract, which is order, physical and moral constraint, the anonymous pressure of the group, the demand for conformity. There is no common language: or rather, it no longer exists; the constitution of madness as mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, bears witness to a rupture in a dialogue, gives the separation as already enacted, and expels from the memory all those imperfect words, of no fixed syntax, spoken falteringly, in which the exchange between madness and reason was carried out. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue by reason about madness, could only have come into existence in such a silence.
... The Greeks had a relation to a thing they called hubris. The relation was not solely one of condemnation: the existence of Thrasymachus [“Listen—I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger”] or that of Callicles, is proof enough of that, even if their discourse comes down to us already enveloped in the reassuring dialectics of Socrates. But the Greek Logos had no opposite.
European man, since the depths of the Middle Ages, has had a relation to a thing that is confusedly termed Madness, Dementia, or Unreason. It is perhaps to that obscure presence that Western Reason owes something of its depth, as with the threat of hubris [to] the sophrosyne of Socratic speechmakers. In any case, the Reason—Unreason relation constitutes for Western culture one of the dimensions of its originality: it accompanied it long before Hieronymous Bosch, and will follow it long after Nietzsche and Artaud.
But what then is this confrontation below the language of reason? Where might this interrogation lead, following not reason ... but seeking to retrace in time this constant verticality [ie. of madness], which, the length of Western culture, confronts it with what it is not, measuring it with its own extravagance? Towards what region might it take us, which was neither the history of knowledge nor history plain and simple, which was commanded neither by the teleology of truth nor the rational concatenation of causes, which only have value or meaning beyond the division? A region, no doubt, where it would be a question more of the limits than of the identity of a culture.
Michel Foucault, History of Madness (2006: xxviii-xxix)
... The Greeks had a relation to a thing they called hubris. The relation was not solely one of condemnation: the existence of Thrasymachus [“Listen—I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger”] or that of Callicles, is proof enough of that, even if their discourse comes down to us already enveloped in the reassuring dialectics of Socrates. But the Greek Logos had no opposite.
European man, since the depths of the Middle Ages, has had a relation to a thing that is confusedly termed Madness, Dementia, or Unreason. It is perhaps to that obscure presence that Western Reason owes something of its depth, as with the threat of hubris [to] the sophrosyne of Socratic speechmakers. In any case, the Reason—Unreason relation constitutes for Western culture one of the dimensions of its originality: it accompanied it long before Hieronymous Bosch, and will follow it long after Nietzsche and Artaud.
But what then is this confrontation below the language of reason? Where might this interrogation lead, following not reason ... but seeking to retrace in time this constant verticality [ie. of madness], which, the length of Western culture, confronts it with what it is not, measuring it with its own extravagance? Towards what region might it take us, which was neither the history of knowledge nor history plain and simple, which was commanded neither by the teleology of truth nor the rational concatenation of causes, which only have value or meaning beyond the division? A region, no doubt, where it would be a question more of the limits than of the identity of a culture.
Michel Foucault, History of Madness (2006: xxviii-xxix)
October 22
A connoisseur, an expert, someone who knows his field, knowledge, to be sure, that cannot be imparted but that fortunately no one seems to stand in need of.
Franz Kafka, Diaries 1914-1923 (1968: 197)
Franz Kafka, Diaries 1914-1923 (1968: 197)
07 June 2009
from within
All performance comes from within, not from the outside. The pieces breathe through their own lungs; they carry their own bloodstream—even without being labeled with concepts and names, as laymen would like, who demand: "Where is it written?"
Heinrich Schenker, Art of Performance (2000:6)
Heinrich Schenker, Art of Performance (2000:6)
04 June 2009
a basic pessimism about the majority of human beings
Christianity took from its great competitor a doctrine that may bring you to despair when you study the history of trinitarian and christological thought. The dogmatic development of Christianity cannot be understood without it.
Logos means "word". But it also refers to the meaning of a word, the reasonable structure which is indicated by a word. Therefore, Logos can also mean the universal law of reality. This is what Heraclitus meant by it ... The Logos for him was the law which determines the movements of all reality.
For the Stoics the Logos was the divine power which is present in everything that is. There are three aspects to it, all of which become extremely important in the later development. The first is the law of nature. The Logos is the principle according to which all natural things move. It is the divine seed, the creative power, which makes anything what it is. And it is the creative power of movement of all things. Secondly, Logos means the moral law. With Immanuel Kant we could call this the "practical reason", the law which is innate in every human being when he accepts himself as a personality, with the dignity and greatness of a person. When we see the term "natural law" in classical books, we should not think of physical laws, but of moral laws. For example, when we speak of the "rights of man" as embodied in the American Constitution, we are speaking of natural law.
Thirdly, Logos also means man's ability to recognize reality; we could call it "theoretical reason". It is man's ability to reason. Because man has the Logos in himself, he can discover it in nature and history. From this it follows for Stoicism that the man who is determined by the natural law, the Logos, is the logikos, the wise man. But the Stoics were not optimists. They did not believe that everybody was a wise man. Perhaps there were only a few who ever reached this ideal. All the others were either fools or stood somewhere between the wise and the foolish. So Stoicism held a basic pessimism about the majority of human beings.
Originally the Stoics were Greeks; later they were Romans. Some of the most famous Stoics were Roman emperors ... They applied the concept of the Logos to the political situation for which they were responsible. The meaning of the natural law was that every man participates in reason by virtue of the fact that he is a human being. From this basis they derived laws far superior to many that we find in the Christian Middle Ages. They gave universal citizenship to every human being because everyone potentially participates in reason. Of course, they did not believe that people were actually reasonable, but they presupposed that through education they could become so. Granting Roman citizenship to all citizens of the conquered nations was a tremendous equalizing step. Women, slaves, and children, who were regarded as inferior beings under the old Roman law, became equalized by the laws of the Roman emperors. This was not done by Christianity but by the Stoics, who derived this idea from their belief in the universal Logos in which everyone participates. (Of course, Christianity holds the same idea on a different basis: all human beings are the children of God the Father.) Thus the Stoics conceived of the idea of a state embracing the whole world, based on the common rationality of everybody. This was something which Christianity could take up and develop. The difference was that the Stoics did not have the concept of sin. They had the concept of foolishness, but not sin. Therefore, salvation in Stoicism is a salvation through reaching wisdom. In Christianity salvation is brought about by divine grace. These two approaches are in conflict with each other to the present day.
Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (1968: 7-8)
Logos means "word". But it also refers to the meaning of a word, the reasonable structure which is indicated by a word. Therefore, Logos can also mean the universal law of reality. This is what Heraclitus meant by it ... The Logos for him was the law which determines the movements of all reality.
For the Stoics the Logos was the divine power which is present in everything that is. There are three aspects to it, all of which become extremely important in the later development. The first is the law of nature. The Logos is the principle according to which all natural things move. It is the divine seed, the creative power, which makes anything what it is. And it is the creative power of movement of all things. Secondly, Logos means the moral law. With Immanuel Kant we could call this the "practical reason", the law which is innate in every human being when he accepts himself as a personality, with the dignity and greatness of a person. When we see the term "natural law" in classical books, we should not think of physical laws, but of moral laws. For example, when we speak of the "rights of man" as embodied in the American Constitution, we are speaking of natural law.
Thirdly, Logos also means man's ability to recognize reality; we could call it "theoretical reason". It is man's ability to reason. Because man has the Logos in himself, he can discover it in nature and history. From this it follows for Stoicism that the man who is determined by the natural law, the Logos, is the logikos, the wise man. But the Stoics were not optimists. They did not believe that everybody was a wise man. Perhaps there were only a few who ever reached this ideal. All the others were either fools or stood somewhere between the wise and the foolish. So Stoicism held a basic pessimism about the majority of human beings.
Originally the Stoics were Greeks; later they were Romans. Some of the most famous Stoics were Roman emperors ... They applied the concept of the Logos to the political situation for which they were responsible. The meaning of the natural law was that every man participates in reason by virtue of the fact that he is a human being. From this basis they derived laws far superior to many that we find in the Christian Middle Ages. They gave universal citizenship to every human being because everyone potentially participates in reason. Of course, they did not believe that people were actually reasonable, but they presupposed that through education they could become so. Granting Roman citizenship to all citizens of the conquered nations was a tremendous equalizing step. Women, slaves, and children, who were regarded as inferior beings under the old Roman law, became equalized by the laws of the Roman emperors. This was not done by Christianity but by the Stoics, who derived this idea from their belief in the universal Logos in which everyone participates. (Of course, Christianity holds the same idea on a different basis: all human beings are the children of God the Father.) Thus the Stoics conceived of the idea of a state embracing the whole world, based on the common rationality of everybody. This was something which Christianity could take up and develop. The difference was that the Stoics did not have the concept of sin. They had the concept of foolishness, but not sin. Therefore, salvation in Stoicism is a salvation through reaching wisdom. In Christianity salvation is brought about by divine grace. These two approaches are in conflict with each other to the present day.
Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (1968: 7-8)
29 May 2009
Damn your eyes
Minta, Andrew observed, was rather a good walker. She wore more sensible clothes than most women. She wore very short skirts and black knicker-bockers. She would jump straight into a stream and flounder across. He liked her rashness, but he saw that it would not do - she would kill herself in some idiotic way one of these days. She seemed to be afraid of nothing - except bulls. At the mere sight of a bull in a field she would throw up her arms and fly screaming, which was the very thing to enrage a bull of course. But she did not mind owning up to it in the least; one must admit that. She knew she was an awful coward about bulls, she said. She thought she must have been tossed in her perambulator when she was a baby. She didn't seem to mind what she said or did. Suddenly now she pitched down on the edge of the cliff and began to sing some song about
Damn your eyes, damn your eyes.
They all had to join in and sing the chorus, and shout out together:
Damn your eyes, damn your eyes.
but it would be fatal to let the tide come in and cover up all the good hunting-grounds before they got on to the beach.
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1973:86)
They all had to join in and sing the chorus, and shout out together:
but it would be fatal to let the tide come in and cover up all the good hunting-grounds before they got on to the beach.
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1973:86)
26 May 2009
homeliest varieties
Germany, split by civil strife and a complex, rumbling dispute between kings and popes over the appointment of bishops (dubbed the Investiture Crisis), sent fewer soldiers on the First Crusade than did France or England. Yet their departure still made an impact. The annals of the monastery of Disibodenberg ... record this exodus in violent detail:
Moreover the Gospel witness confirmed it, 'And Jerusalem,' said the Lord Jesus, 'shall be trod down by the nations until the time of the nations is fulfilled' [Luke 21.24]. Whereupon not only country people but even kings, dukes and other powerful ones of the world were stirred, and I shall go on to greater things: bishops, monks and the other orders of the Church were moved to make this journey. At length when all these mentioned were agreed in purpose, kingdoms were left empty by their rulers, cities by their pastors, villages by their inhabitants. Not only men and boys, but many women also partook of this journey. Indeed females went forth on this venture dressed as men and marched in armour ...
When all who had crossed themselves to make this journey had assembled, they entered into a scheme that wherever they found Jews, they would draw them in to Christianity, either willingly or forcibly ... Many, however, were killed and their wealth seized by the Christians. The distress was so dreadful that the Jews were driven to stab and kill each other with knives. The men did not spare their wives nor their relatives; they put to death their mothers, sons and daughters.
And so, pressing on with the journey to Jerusalem, [the Christians] reached a city of Pannonia which is called Mersberg, where a great part of them were killed. And deservedly! ...
In 1099 ... Jerusalem fell to the Christians. The Crusades were to remain a feature of life (if with dwindling force) for the next three centuries. Fighting was the great game of Europe and warriors were celebrated by name as the sporting icons of their day in epic verse such as the Chanson de Roland (written down c.1100). In other crucial respects the Europe of the late eleventh century, much of it still covered in forest, bore little resemblance to the continent we know today. The idea of a nation state hardly existed until the nineteenth century. Germany itself was united neither by a particular language nor a firm geographical identity. The only common tongue was Latin, which was still the official written language for science, diplomacy, the law and, underpinning all, the Church. The continent consisted of a network of feudal loyalties and ecclesiastical sees and a mosaic of ethnic groups. A change of monarch might almost go unnoticed: at one time Germany, Italy and Burgundy were all under one ruler; Aquitaine passed between France and England without undue trouble. Leadership stemmed from a web of jostling warlords and potentates, above whom were the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. Then came kingdoms, corporations, duchies and archbishoprics, traces of which survive as, for example, in arbitrary boundaries of English shires.
Cultural and economic horizons were not as narrow as might be assumed. Trade was thriving. Great mercantile routes criss-crossed Europe, bringing grain, wax, honey, wood and furs from the east; silk, damask, porcelain and ivory from the south. The Rhine linked the important commercial areas ... Trade companies and guilds emerged. Methods of travel and navigation were improving: maps grew more sophisticated; the compass, borrowed from the Chinese, came into use; technical refinements to sailing eased hazardous sea voyages. Merchants risked their lives when travelling long distances over sea and land ... exchanging sturdy wool and herring for rare luxuries, spices and incense. Salt was of vital importance, first brought by the Romans from the French coast, Lorraine and the Rhineland along the ancient Hellweg, the salt road through north and central Germany ...
Despite war, hardship and disease, Europe's population was on the increase. The climate of this period was moderate (temperatures were similar to those of the late twentieth century, though they were to drop sharply in the interim). Towns developed into conurbations, the drift from the land had begun. By the thirteenth century Mainz ... and Cologne ... were two of Europe's largest cities. Yet those people with trades—bakers, millers, goldsmiths—maintained their smallholdings and vineyards and grew much of their own food, fearful of renouncing all links with the land because of uncertainty about their urban future. The agrarian landscape, too, had changed. New crop systems and better tools led to improved harvests. Reclaimed land was used for growing cereals, pulses and root vegetables, a staple diet, supplemented by fifty kinds of fresh-water fish. Meat from livestock, mainly salted, was eaten in moderation, less frequently than game. Houses, usually made of timber, were dark, damp and cramped, with earthen floors and low, narrow doors. Homes of the gentry, to which Hildegard's family belonged, might have exotic textiles and wall hangings brought back from the Crusades, but most people relied on wool and linen of the homeliest varieties.
Fiona Maddocks, Hildegard of Bingen (2001: 10-12)
Moreover the Gospel witness confirmed it, 'And Jerusalem,' said the Lord Jesus, 'shall be trod down by the nations until the time of the nations is fulfilled' [Luke 21.24]. Whereupon not only country people but even kings, dukes and other powerful ones of the world were stirred, and I shall go on to greater things: bishops, monks and the other orders of the Church were moved to make this journey. At length when all these mentioned were agreed in purpose, kingdoms were left empty by their rulers, cities by their pastors, villages by their inhabitants. Not only men and boys, but many women also partook of this journey. Indeed females went forth on this venture dressed as men and marched in armour ...
When all who had crossed themselves to make this journey had assembled, they entered into a scheme that wherever they found Jews, they would draw them in to Christianity, either willingly or forcibly ... Many, however, were killed and their wealth seized by the Christians. The distress was so dreadful that the Jews were driven to stab and kill each other with knives. The men did not spare their wives nor their relatives; they put to death their mothers, sons and daughters.
And so, pressing on with the journey to Jerusalem, [the Christians] reached a city of Pannonia which is called Mersberg, where a great part of them were killed. And deservedly! ...
In 1099 ... Jerusalem fell to the Christians. The Crusades were to remain a feature of life (if with dwindling force) for the next three centuries. Fighting was the great game of Europe and warriors were celebrated by name as the sporting icons of their day in epic verse such as the Chanson de Roland (written down c.1100). In other crucial respects the Europe of the late eleventh century, much of it still covered in forest, bore little resemblance to the continent we know today. The idea of a nation state hardly existed until the nineteenth century. Germany itself was united neither by a particular language nor a firm geographical identity. The only common tongue was Latin, which was still the official written language for science, diplomacy, the law and, underpinning all, the Church. The continent consisted of a network of feudal loyalties and ecclesiastical sees and a mosaic of ethnic groups. A change of monarch might almost go unnoticed: at one time Germany, Italy and Burgundy were all under one ruler; Aquitaine passed between France and England without undue trouble. Leadership stemmed from a web of jostling warlords and potentates, above whom were the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. Then came kingdoms, corporations, duchies and archbishoprics, traces of which survive as, for example, in arbitrary boundaries of English shires.
Cultural and economic horizons were not as narrow as might be assumed. Trade was thriving. Great mercantile routes criss-crossed Europe, bringing grain, wax, honey, wood and furs from the east; silk, damask, porcelain and ivory from the south. The Rhine linked the important commercial areas ... Trade companies and guilds emerged. Methods of travel and navigation were improving: maps grew more sophisticated; the compass, borrowed from the Chinese, came into use; technical refinements to sailing eased hazardous sea voyages. Merchants risked their lives when travelling long distances over sea and land ... exchanging sturdy wool and herring for rare luxuries, spices and incense. Salt was of vital importance, first brought by the Romans from the French coast, Lorraine and the Rhineland along the ancient Hellweg, the salt road through north and central Germany ...
Despite war, hardship and disease, Europe's population was on the increase. The climate of this period was moderate (temperatures were similar to those of the late twentieth century, though they were to drop sharply in the interim). Towns developed into conurbations, the drift from the land had begun. By the thirteenth century Mainz ... and Cologne ... were two of Europe's largest cities. Yet those people with trades—bakers, millers, goldsmiths—maintained their smallholdings and vineyards and grew much of their own food, fearful of renouncing all links with the land because of uncertainty about their urban future. The agrarian landscape, too, had changed. New crop systems and better tools led to improved harvests. Reclaimed land was used for growing cereals, pulses and root vegetables, a staple diet, supplemented by fifty kinds of fresh-water fish. Meat from livestock, mainly salted, was eaten in moderation, less frequently than game. Houses, usually made of timber, were dark, damp and cramped, with earthen floors and low, narrow doors. Homes of the gentry, to which Hildegard's family belonged, might have exotic textiles and wall hangings brought back from the Crusades, but most people relied on wool and linen of the homeliest varieties.
Fiona Maddocks, Hildegard of Bingen (2001: 10-12)
23 May 2009
burning
may your eye see God, your intellect grasp His justice, and your heart burn brightly in the love of God, so that your spirit may not grow weak... Be a bright star shining in the darkness of the night of wicked men, and be a swift hart running to the fountain of the living water [cf. John 4.10]. Be alert, for many shepherds are blind and halt nowadays, and they are seizing the lucre of death [cf. Titus 1.11], choking out God's justice.
Hildegard von Bingen to the Archbishop of Bremen, Letters of Hildegard von Bingen, vol. 1 (1994: 48)
Hildegard von Bingen to the Archbishop of Bremen, Letters of Hildegard von Bingen, vol. 1 (1994: 48)
21 May 2009
warm stones
Where second-century pagans differed most profoundly from the views that had already begun to circulate in Christian circles was in their estimate of the horizons of the possible for the body itself. Potentially formless and eternal matter [to pagan civilians], the body was barely held together, for a short lifetime, by the vivid soul of the well-born man. Its solid matter could change as little as the crystalline marble of a sharply cut and exquisitely polished statue might blossom magically in its depths, into a more refined and malleable substance. Like society, the body was there to be administered, not to be changed. Others had begun to disagree with this view. Writing at the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria, a Christian who knew his pagan authors well, summed up with admirable clarity and fairness the essence of the expectations of the body [to those of the Roman Empire]. Pagan philosophers, he knew, subscribed to an austere image of the person: "The human ideal of continence, I mean that which is set forth by the Greek philosophers, teaches one to resist passion, so as not to be made subservient to it, and to train the instincts to pursue rational goals." But Christians, he added, went further: "our ideal is not to experience desire at all."
Moses had stood on Sinai for forty days, a man transfigured by the close presence of God. The needs of the body were stilled in him for all that time [cf. Stromateis 3.7.57]. Through the Incarnation of Christ, the Highest God had reached down to make even the body capable of transformation. In admitting this possibility, Clement implied that the stable environment posited by pagan thought, an intractable body and a social order adjusted to its unchanging needs, might burst from its ancient bounds. Sexual renunciation might lead the Christian to transform the body and, in transforming the body, to break with the discreet discipline [ie. the suppression] of the ancient city.
Clement was a moderate among Christians. He stood closer to Plutarch, Musonius Rufus, and the doctors of his age than he did to many of his fellow-believers. In little groups scattered throughout the eastern Mediterranean, other Christians had seized upon the body. They had set it up as a palpable blazon of the end of the "present age." They believed that the universe itself had shattered with the rising of Christ from the grave. By renouncing all sexual activity the human body could join in Christ's victory: it could turn back the inexorable. The body could wrench itself free from the grip of the animal world. By refusing to act upon the youthful stirrings of desire, Christians could bring marriage and childbirth to an end. With marriage at an end, the huge fabric of organized society would crumble like a sandcastle touched by the "ocean-flood of the Messiah." [cf. Acts of Judas Thomas]
These were the views of [the] exact contemporaries ... of Marcus Aurelius. Their implications could hardly have been more appalling to the pagan elites of Rome and the Aegean, and more calculated to upset the average married householder in any Mediterranean or Near Eastern community. In the century that followed the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the issue of sexual renunciation came to be elaborated in Christian circles as a drastic alternative to the moral and social order that seemed so secure, so prepared to expatiate upon its fundamental values in treatises, in works of medicine and on the warm stones of so many monuments in so many little cities.
Peter Brown, Body and Society (1988: 30-31)
Moses had stood on Sinai for forty days, a man transfigured by the close presence of God. The needs of the body were stilled in him for all that time [cf. Stromateis 3.7.57]. Through the Incarnation of Christ, the Highest God had reached down to make even the body capable of transformation. In admitting this possibility, Clement implied that the stable environment posited by pagan thought, an intractable body and a social order adjusted to its unchanging needs, might burst from its ancient bounds. Sexual renunciation might lead the Christian to transform the body and, in transforming the body, to break with the discreet discipline [ie. the suppression] of the ancient city.
Clement was a moderate among Christians. He stood closer to Plutarch, Musonius Rufus, and the doctors of his age than he did to many of his fellow-believers. In little groups scattered throughout the eastern Mediterranean, other Christians had seized upon the body. They had set it up as a palpable blazon of the end of the "present age." They believed that the universe itself had shattered with the rising of Christ from the grave. By renouncing all sexual activity the human body could join in Christ's victory: it could turn back the inexorable. The body could wrench itself free from the grip of the animal world. By refusing to act upon the youthful stirrings of desire, Christians could bring marriage and childbirth to an end. With marriage at an end, the huge fabric of organized society would crumble like a sandcastle touched by the "ocean-flood of the Messiah." [cf. Acts of Judas Thomas]
These were the views of [the] exact contemporaries ... of Marcus Aurelius. Their implications could hardly have been more appalling to the pagan elites of Rome and the Aegean, and more calculated to upset the average married householder in any Mediterranean or Near Eastern community. In the century that followed the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the issue of sexual renunciation came to be elaborated in Christian circles as a drastic alternative to the moral and social order that seemed so secure, so prepared to expatiate upon its fundamental values in treatises, in works of medicine and on the warm stones of so many monuments in so many little cities.
Peter Brown, Body and Society (1988: 30-31)
19 May 2009
What is the object of your wish?
A process accompanying our words which one might call "the process of meaning them" is the modulation of the voice in which we speak the words; or one of the processes similar to this, like the play of facial expressions. These accompany the spoken words in the way a German sentence [thought by a native German] might accompany an English sentence [spoken by the German], or writing a sentence accompany speaking a sentence; but in the sense in which the tune of a song accompanies its words. This tune corresponds to the 'feeling' with which we say the sentence. And I wish to point out that this feeling is the expression with which the sentence is said, or something similar to this expression.
... Another source of the idea of a shadow being the object of our thought is this: We imagine the shadow to be a picture the intention of which cannot be questioned, that is, a picture which we don't interpret in order to understand it, but which we understand without interpreting it. Now there are pictures of which we should say that we interpret them, that is, translate them into a different kind of picture, in order to understand them; and pictures of which we should say that we understand them immediately, without any further interpretation. If you see a telegram written in cipher, and you know the key to this cipher, you will, in general, not say that you understand the telegram before you have translated it into ordinary language. Of course you have only replaced one kind of symbols by another; and yet if now you read the telegram in your language no further process of interpretation will take place.—Or rather, you may now, in certain cases again translate this telegram, say into a picture; but then too you have only replaced one set of symbols by another.
... Our confusion could be described in this way: Quite in accordance with our usual form of expression we think of the fact which we wish for as a thing which is not yet here, and to which, therefore, we cannot point. Now in order to understand the grammar of our expression "object of our wish" let's just consider the answer which we give to the question: "What is the object of your wish?" The answer to this question of course is "I wish that so-and-so should happen." Now what would the answer be if we went on asking: "And what is the object of this wish?" It could only consist in a repetition of our previous expression of the wish, or else in a translation into some other form of expression. We might, e.g., state what we wished in other words or illustrate it by a picture, etc., etc.
... The fault which in all our reasoning about these matters we are inclined to make is to think that images and experiences of all sorts, which are in some sense closely connected with each other, must be present in our mind at the same time. If we sing a tune we know by heart, or say the alphabet, the notes or letters seem to hang together, and each seems to draw the next after it, as though they were a string of pearls in a box, and by pulling out one pearl I pulled out the one following it.
Now there is no doubt that, having the visual image of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, we should be inclined to say: "These beads must all have been together in the box before." But it is easy to see that this is making a hypothesis. I should have had the same image if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our every day language. The past tense "meant" in the sentence "I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz" is part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we express it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asks me "did you know how to go on?" I should answer "yes, I did." What sort of process is this knowing how to go on? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.
Ask yourself such as question as: "How long does it take to know how to go on?" Or is it an instantaneous process? Aren't we making a mistake like mixing up the existence of a gramophone record of a tune with the existence of a tune? And aren't we assuming that whenever a tune passes through existence there must be some sort of a gramophone record of it from which it is played?
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Prelimary Studies for the "Philosophical Investigations" (1969: 35-40)
... Another source of the idea of a shadow being the object of our thought is this: We imagine the shadow to be a picture the intention of which cannot be questioned, that is, a picture which we don't interpret in order to understand it, but which we understand without interpreting it. Now there are pictures of which we should say that we interpret them, that is, translate them into a different kind of picture, in order to understand them; and pictures of which we should say that we understand them immediately, without any further interpretation. If you see a telegram written in cipher, and you know the key to this cipher, you will, in general, not say that you understand the telegram before you have translated it into ordinary language. Of course you have only replaced one kind of symbols by another; and yet if now you read the telegram in your language no further process of interpretation will take place.—Or rather, you may now, in certain cases again translate this telegram, say into a picture; but then too you have only replaced one set of symbols by another.
... Our confusion could be described in this way: Quite in accordance with our usual form of expression we think of the fact which we wish for as a thing which is not yet here, and to which, therefore, we cannot point. Now in order to understand the grammar of our expression "object of our wish" let's just consider the answer which we give to the question: "What is the object of your wish?" The answer to this question of course is "I wish that so-and-so should happen." Now what would the answer be if we went on asking: "And what is the object of this wish?" It could only consist in a repetition of our previous expression of the wish, or else in a translation into some other form of expression. We might, e.g., state what we wished in other words or illustrate it by a picture, etc., etc.
... The fault which in all our reasoning about these matters we are inclined to make is to think that images and experiences of all sorts, which are in some sense closely connected with each other, must be present in our mind at the same time. If we sing a tune we know by heart, or say the alphabet, the notes or letters seem to hang together, and each seems to draw the next after it, as though they were a string of pearls in a box, and by pulling out one pearl I pulled out the one following it.
Now there is no doubt that, having the visual image of a string of beads being pulled out of a box through a hole in the lid, we should be inclined to say: "These beads must all have been together in the box before." But it is easy to see that this is making a hypothesis. I should have had the same image if the beads had gradually come into existence in the hole of the lid. We easily overlook the distinction between stating a conscious mental event, and making a hypothesis about what one might call the mechanism of the mind. All the more as such hypotheses or pictures of the working of our mind are embodied in many of the forms of expression of our every day language. The past tense "meant" in the sentence "I meant the man who won the battle of Austerlitz" is part of such a picture, the mind being conceived as a place in which what we remember is kept, stored, before we express it. If I whistle a tune I know well and am interrupted in the middle, if then someone asks me "did you know how to go on?" I should answer "yes, I did." What sort of process is this knowing how to go on? It might appear as though the whole continuation of the tune had to be present while I knew how to go on.
Ask yourself such as question as: "How long does it take to know how to go on?" Or is it an instantaneous process? Aren't we making a mistake like mixing up the existence of a gramophone record of a tune with the existence of a tune? And aren't we assuming that whenever a tune passes through existence there must be some sort of a gramophone record of it from which it is played?
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Prelimary Studies for the "Philosophical Investigations" (1969: 35-40)
18 May 2009
If animals had a religion
Schleiermacher emphasized the function of "feeling" in religion and Hegel emphasized "thought", giving rise to ... tension between them. Hegel said that even dogs have feeling, but man has thought. This was based on an unintentional misunderstanding of what Schleiermacher meant by "feeling", one that we often find repeated even today. Yet it expresses the truth that man cannot be without thought. He must think even if he is a most pious Christian without any theological education. Even in religion we give names to special objects; we distinguish acts of the divine; we relate symbols to each other and explain their meanings. There is language in every religion, and where there is language there are universals or concepts that one must use even at the most primitive level of thought. It is interesting that this conflict between Hegel and Schleiermacher was anticipated already in the third century by Clement of Alexandria who said that if animals had a religion, it would be mute, without words.
... if the system is taken as a final answer, it becomes even worse than a prison. If we understand the system, however, as an attempt to bring theological concepts to a consistent form of expression in which there are no contradictions, then we cannot avoid it. Even if you think in fragments, as some philosophers and theologians (and some great ones) have done, then each fragment implicitly contains a system... So a system cannot be avoided unless you choose to make nonsensical or self-contradictory statements. Of course, this is sometimes done.
The system has the danger not only of becoming a prison, but also of moving within itself. It may separate itself from reality and become something which is, so to speak, above the reality it is supposed to describe.
Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (1968: xxxvi-xxxvii)
... if the system is taken as a final answer, it becomes even worse than a prison. If we understand the system, however, as an attempt to bring theological concepts to a consistent form of expression in which there are no contradictions, then we cannot avoid it. Even if you think in fragments, as some philosophers and theologians (and some great ones) have done, then each fragment implicitly contains a system... So a system cannot be avoided unless you choose to make nonsensical or self-contradictory statements. Of course, this is sometimes done.
The system has the danger not only of becoming a prison, but also of moving within itself. It may separate itself from reality and become something which is, so to speak, above the reality it is supposed to describe.
Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (1968: xxxvi-xxxvii)
13 May 2009
Sartre's Orestes
You are right. No hatred; but no love, either. You, Electra, I might have loved. And yet—I wonder! Love or hatred calls for self-surrender. He cuts a fine figure, the warm-blooded, prosperous man, solidly entrenched in his well-being, who one fine day surrenders all to love—or to hatred; himself, his house, his land, his memories. But who am I, and what have I to surrender? I'm a mere shadow of a man; of all of the ghosts haunting this town to-day none is ghostlier than I. The only loves I've known were phantom loves, rare and vacillating as will-o'-the-wisps.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mouches (1969: 56)
Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mouches (1969: 56)
Oh humans
Yet God remained whole like a wheel ... Now this wheel is somewhere, and is full of something. For if the wheel had nothing but an outer rim, it would be empty. And if perchance an outsider came and wanted to work there, this cannot be, for two craftsmen cannot exercise their craft in one and the same wheel. Oh humans, look at the human being! For it contains heaven and earth and other creatures in itself, and is one form, and all things hide in it.
This is what fatherhood is like. In what way? The round of the wheel is fatherhood, the fullness of the wheel is divinity. All things are in it and all stem from it, and beyond it there is no creator. Lucifer, however, is not whole, but divided in dispersion, since he wanted to be what he should not. For when God made the world, he had in his age-old plan that he wanted to become human.
And he made the elements of the world, and they are in man, and man operates with them.
Hildegard von Bingen, quoted in Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (1984: 172)
This is what fatherhood is like. In what way? The round of the wheel is fatherhood, the fullness of the wheel is divinity. All things are in it and all stem from it, and beyond it there is no creator. Lucifer, however, is not whole, but divided in dispersion, since he wanted to be what he should not. For when God made the world, he had in his age-old plan that he wanted to become human.
And he made the elements of the world, and they are in man, and man operates with them.
Hildegard von Bingen, quoted in Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (1984: 172)
12 May 2009
you can live and die at peace
True, we men are assailed by grief in our lives, and we lament. But in the end lamentation must cease, giving way to peace and acceptance of our lot. Socrates sets the great example: where consuming sorrow seems in place, there springs the great, loving peace which opens the soul. Death has lost its meaning. It is not veiled over, but the authentic life is not a life toward death; it is a life toward the good.
While Socrates, in his last moments, already seems far away from life, still, he is lovingly aware of every little human reality, such as the jailer's kind attentiveness. He has a thought for the proprieties: "Perhaps it will be well to bathe before drinking the poison, and so spare the women the trouble of washing my body."
All pathos vanishes amid jests and such attention to practical matters. These betoken peace of mind. Democritus, who remained more on the surface of things, believed that to achieve peace of mind it sufficed to live with moderation and stick to the tasks that are within your capacities. He did not know the inner upheavals which once illuminated gave Socrates a deeper, wiser peace of mind. What made Socrates free was that in nonknowledge he had certainty of the goal toward which he had undertaken the venture of his whole life and now his death.
The Phaedo, along with the Apology and the Crito, is among the few irreplaceable documents of mankind...
The apparently cool equanimity of this attitude is, however, deceptive. Actually, we cannot read these dialogues without becoming engulfed by deep emotion which affects also our thinking. Here we find an imperative without fanaticism, the highest aspiration without ethical dogma. Keep yourself open for the one absolute. Until you achieve it, do not throw yourself away, for in it you can live and die at peace.
Karl Jaspers, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus (1962: 15)
While Socrates, in his last moments, already seems far away from life, still, he is lovingly aware of every little human reality, such as the jailer's kind attentiveness. He has a thought for the proprieties: "Perhaps it will be well to bathe before drinking the poison, and so spare the women the trouble of washing my body."
All pathos vanishes amid jests and such attention to practical matters. These betoken peace of mind. Democritus, who remained more on the surface of things, believed that to achieve peace of mind it sufficed to live with moderation and stick to the tasks that are within your capacities. He did not know the inner upheavals which once illuminated gave Socrates a deeper, wiser peace of mind. What made Socrates free was that in nonknowledge he had certainty of the goal toward which he had undertaken the venture of his whole life and now his death.
The Phaedo, along with the Apology and the Crito, is among the few irreplaceable documents of mankind...
The apparently cool equanimity of this attitude is, however, deceptive. Actually, we cannot read these dialogues without becoming engulfed by deep emotion which affects also our thinking. Here we find an imperative without fanaticism, the highest aspiration without ethical dogma. Keep yourself open for the one absolute. Until you achieve it, do not throw yourself away, for in it you can live and die at peace.
Karl Jaspers, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus (1962: 15)
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