Freedom and Doublethink

A Note

Athenian Voting Machine

Freedom is possibly the most important political value we have in contemporary Western society and by definition one would think that the opposite of “freedom” is “despotism” and “slavery”. Sadly that is not the case for it is possible to “Doublethink” “Freedom” into its opposite and in fact that was done long before George Orwell.  Just how that was done is the subject of this essay.1

The Philosopher as Tyrant

Critias of Athens

Critias

One of the most common conceits among intellectuals is the fantasy / longing by so many of them to rule and to get rid of the “idiots” who actually run the world and thus get stuff done. This fantasy goes back to Plato in his various dialogues in which he indulged in various fantasies about the “ideal” society, which would of course be run by philosophers. Thus Plato’s dialogues, The Republic, The Laws which were in large respects Mary Sue fantasies about how if we (Philosophers.), ran the world how much better things would be. Well we have an idea right at the birth of Platonic philosophizing what would happen if a Philosopher took over a state.

That Sinking Feeling

Atlantis Part I

Plato’s Purpose

Destruction of Atlantis

One of the most popular of myths has been Plato’s tale of Atlantis found in two of his dialogues. The dialogues are the Timaeus and the Critias. Both dialogues were written late in Plato’s career as a philosopher and writer. They represent a late development in Plato’s ideas.

The Death of Socrates

A Note

The Death of Socrates by David

One of the great tropes of the Western Tradition is the Death of Socrates. Mountains of philosophical literature have been written about and it can be argued that Plato’s entire philosophical system was based on it. In the end it boils down to a jury being convinced that the charges were true and convicting him.

Plato’s “Empathy”

Bust of Plato

In Plato’s dialogues there is sometimes the fact that the context, or set up, to his dialogue’s issues tells us more about Plato’s social attitudes than the overt statements of what the dialogue is about.

Stolen Fantasy

The Pyramids of Giza

The following is an old posting I did years ago in reply to a posting at the Website In the Hall of Maat concerning the Book Stolen Legacy by G. M. James.1 The posting can be fond at the In the Hall of Maat website.2 The posting is by Ra Hotep Amen and he posted in its entirety a review by Femi Akomolafe called Review of George G. M. James Stolen Legacy. All quotes from the review in italics.

I notice that the author, of the review posted, very carefully avoids mentioning that G. M. James in his book says that Aristotle stole Egyptian books from the Library of Alexandria. A truly remarkable feat given that the library did not exist until after his death.3 Has for the rest of the piece please find below some comments on selected excerpts.

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.- Ancient Egyptian saying, wrongly credited to the Christian bible.

Is it or is it not in the Bible and if it is how can it be "falsely" attributed to the Bible?

Question: To what country do we owe our Civilization, Philosophy, the Arts and the Sciences? Answer: Greece.

Who is this "We" and who the hell says this?

Question: Who is the wisest man the world has ever seen?

Answer: Aristotle

Says Who?

Question: Name the world three greatest thinker of all times?

Answer: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle?

Says Who? and what about Jesus, the Buddha and Confucius.

Question: Who is the world greatest mathematician of all times, the [person] who invented the theorem of the Square of the Hypotenuse?
Answer: Pythagoras

Says Who?

All in all a collection of Agitation Propaganda points and assertions designed to generate much heat and little light.

I have quoted from an encyclopedia, which is often defined as 'volumes containing collections of human knowledge.' You don't argue with an encyclopedia, do you?

Why Not? and I certainly do!

You will be adjudged CORRECT and RIGHT if you give the above answers in an examination. But actually, none of the answers are TRUE. Based on what we know of history, they are FALSE.

Pure Agitation propaganda.

The greatest crime Europe committed against the world is the intellectual theft of Africa's heritage. Empires could be stolen, whole countries snatched and named after pirates rapists and swindlers. Palaces and monumental edifices destroyed could be rebuild. But when you steal a people's cultural patrimony, and used it to enslaved and insult them, you have committed unforgivable acts that border on the sacrilege.

I can think a few things more serious than alleged "theft" of intellectual ideas like, the slave trade and colonialism. Of course how can intellectual property be the collective property of a group and that use of it, borrowing it or being influenced by it can be theft?

That Greece invented philosophy, the Arts and the Sciences is the only basis on which the arrogance of Europe stands.It is those things credited to the Greek that made every European believed himself superior to other peoples\races. Conversely, it is the awe with which the other races view these grand ancient achievements, which made them cringe at the altar of supposed European superiority.

Again more agitation propaganda, the belief in European superiority rested mainly on the rather unpleasant fact that Europeans were able too by force impose themselves on most of the world and this lead to the belief in European superiority. Not just the idea that the Greeks invented philosophy, but also the idea that since the Europeans had steamships, the telegraph, etc., etc., a great many foolish Europeans thought they were superior to everyone else. This argument that European belief in their superiority rests entirely on a set of beliefs about the Greek achievements is hopelessly simple-minded. Besides it ignores the European belief in some sort of superiority based on the Christian tradition.

What course would the history of the world had taken if the European scholars[?] had not FALSELY claim for the Greeks what is certainly not theirs? Would the arrogance of Europeans not have been diminished if the truth about the contribution of Africa to human civilization have been correctly stated and interpreted? Would Africans have held themselves in such self-contempt if they have tried sooner to uncover the truth about their past? Would Africans be cringing at the altar of westernism if they know that almost every idea Europeans are using today was brazenly stolen from us? Would we be supplicating to a supposed son of an imaginary god if we knew that we gave RELIGION to the world?

So you are openly stating that your purpose is political and not a disinterested search for the truth. Some more agitation propaganda about "brazenly Stolen" ideas, again with the notion that ideas are collective property of a group and no other group may use them. Guess what no one society or people invented "religion" it is a universal.

Every European hold 'Greek Civilization' as an inspiration.

More agitation propaganda and besides it is not true.

They go around the world with volumes upon volumes celebrating Greek this, Greek that. From their original abode in Europe to the real estate they stole from other people, they shouted on top-voice about how they single-handedly invented and sustained human civilization! Sororities are created at institutions of higher learning. 'Great thinkers' waxed lyrical and sentimental about 'Greek Civilization.'

More useless polemics, designed to create heat and not light.

"The term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence. The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation." That was the opening statement from Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy, by George G.M. James.

Some Greeks did "philosophy", since some Greeks did Philosophy there is Greek Philosophy. QED. But then this is a insult to the Greeks arguing that they contributed very little. G.M. James Mysteries are very strange in that he tells us very little about the mysteries except that they were secret but he is sure that the Greeks ripped them off even though they were secret and little can be said about them.4

George James began his book by informing us that the Egyptian Mystery System was the oldest in the world and was 'also a Secret Order, and membership was gained by initiation and a pledge to secrecy. The teaching was graded and delivered orally to the Neophyte; and under these circumstances of secrecy, the Egyptians developed secret systems of writing and teaching, and forbade their Initiates from writing what they had learn.' - p.1

Thus G.M. James can avoid telling us much about it because it was secret. It removes the need to supply evidence on the part of G.M. James. This does not prevent him from pontificating about theft. Needless to say the Greeks are given no credit for getting these ideas into the light of day rather than being secret knowledge available only to a few.

The Egyptians have developed their systems and taught same to Initiates around the world long before the Greeks were allowed into the temples. It was only after the invasion of Alexander the Destructor (called the Great by western mythorians) when the temples and the libraries were plundered, that the Greek gained access to all the ancient books, on which Aristotle built his own school and his reputation as the wisest man that ever lived!

Lots of assertions and nonsense. Aristotle had established his own school more than twenty years before the conquest of Egypt by Alexander. And regarding the ideas that Alexander "ripped off", How he could have gotten his Politics, (a discussion of overwhelmingly Greek political systems) or his The Athenian Constitution from Egypt is beyond me. Most of Aristotle's writing are prior to Alexander conquering Egypt and of course there is little to no evidence that Aristotle ever went to Egypt. (he died in 322 B.C.E.)5

In the first chapter of his book, James masterfully destroyed the myth of a Greek philosophy. Pythagoras, the oldest of the so-called Greek-thinkers was a student in Egypt for several years. He was exiled when he started to teach what he had learned. Socrates was executed for teaching 'foreign ideas.' Plato was sold into slavery. Aristotle was also exiled. What we are asked to believed by western scholars was that these ancient Greeks were persecuted in a society that is sufficiently advanced in philosophy.

It is possible that Pythagoras went to Egypt although not likely. Regarding Plato he was not sold into slavery. Also Pythagoras was not the oldest of Greek thinkers that honour was given to Thales of Militus. What does the Greek persecution of Philosophers have to do with where the Greeks got their philosophy. The comment about persecution is pure polemics what does that have to do with anything? The French Philosophers of the Enlightenment were often persecuted and harassed also.6

On what basis do western scholars claim philosophy for Greece? Because the literature were written in Greece. As is still in existence unto today, most Orders prohibit their members from writing down what they learn. This explains why Socrates, as even the Encyclopedia Britannica admitted, did not commit anything to writing! The Babylonians and the Chaldeans, who also studied under the Egyptian Masters, also refused to publish those teachings. It is usurpers like Plato and Aristotle that brought into book forms all the secret teachings of Egyptian and claim authorship!

Mere assertion. Evidence please. Note the polemical flourish of describing Plato and Aristotle has "usurpers". I note that the touch that it was all oral saves the need to provide evidence.

George James pointed out the absurdity of this stance. The Hebrew scriptures, called the Septuagint, the Gospels and the Epistles were also written in Greek, why are the Greek not claiming authorship of them? 'It is only the unwritten philosophy of the Egyptians translated into Greek that has met such an unhappy fate: a legacy stolen by the Greeks.'

Maybe because specific works were specifically claimed to be the work of Plato, Aristotle etc. And maybe they wrote them! I note that Plato wrote dialogues about conversations that various people he knew allegedly had. I note that since the Greeks did not claim to have written the Septuagint it was because they didn't write it so that if they claimed they wrote something (i.e., a Greek wrote it) maybe they did.

This is not the only absurdities James pointed out in the book. Another instance: The number of books whose authorship is credited to Aristotle is simply impossible to be the work of one single man, even in our age when word-processing software makes writing a lot easier.

We know that a lot of Aristotle's books were lecture notes and he had students help him with projects. I note that Isaac Asimov wrote over 500 books.7

We also have to keep in mind that Aristotle was purported to have been taught by Plato. Plato, as the books, show was a philosopher. Aristotle is still regarded as the greatest scientist of antiquity. The question thus beggared is how could Plato taught Aristotle what he didn't know himself?

Plato did teach Aristotle any evidence otherwise (i.e., that someone else taught him?) Excuse me but can't Aristotle have found things for himself?

The truth of the matter was that Aristotle, aided by Alexander the Destroyer (some called him the Great), secured the books from the Egyptian Royal Libraries and Temples. 'In spite however of such great intellectual treasure, the death of Aristotle marked the death of philosophy among the Greeks, who did not seem to possess the natural abilities to advance these sciences.' p. 3

Aside from if the Egyptian knowledge was oral how could Aristotle find it in written form, what evidence that Aristotle pillaged Royal libraries in Egypt. The statement about Greek philosophy ending with Aristotle is completely false. The purest form of drivel.8

'The aim of this book is to establish better race relations in the world, by revealing a fundamental truth concerning the contribution of the African Continent to civilization. It must be borne in mind that the first lesson in the Humanities is to make a people aware of their contribution to civilization; and the second lesson is to teach them about other civilizations. By this dissemination of the truth about the civilization of individual peoples, a better understanding among them, and a proper appraisal of each other should follow. This notion is based upon the notion of the Great Master Mind: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' Consequently, the book is an attempt to show that the true authors of Greek philosophy were not the Greeks; but the people of North Africa, commonly called the Egyptians; and the praise and honor falsely given to the Greeks for centuries belong to the people of North Africa, and therefore to the African Continent. Consequently this theft of the African legacy by the Greeks led to the erroneous world opinion that the African Continent has made no contribution to civilization, and that its people are naturally backward. This is the misrepresentation that has become the basis of race prejudice, which has affected all people of color.

How falsehoods and disparaging the Greeks will do this is beyond me.

To leave no one in doubt about the cogency of his impressive arguments, chapter one (Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy) opens with an examination of the stories of the so- called 'Greek Philosophers. Pythagoras, after receiving his training in Egypt, went back to his native Samos and established an Order as was the custom in those days. Anaximander and Anaximenes, native, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus were all native of Ionia and they taught nothing but Egyptian mysteries. Ditto, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus. What we have to remember here is that Ionia was a colony of Egypt (readers are directed to Martin Bernal's, Black Athena, published by Vintage, especially vol. I, ISBN 0 09 988780 0). At the apex of its glory, Egypt held sway over much of the known world. The Ionians would later become Persian subjects after the fall of Egypt, before they even became Greek citizens.

Lots of assertions backed by no evidence. Pythagoras went to Italy, not to Samos, to establish his school. Ionia was never a part of Egypt.9

All of these Ionians did not claim for themselves the glory of philosophy or the sciences. The Persians and the Chaldeans were also introduced to the Ancient Mystery Systems, yet they did not claim authorship. It was the Athenians - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who usurped this African legacy and thereby distorted the reality of human history. What is quite clear was that it was Athens that those who taught the mysteries were persecuted the most until Alexander's time. We know with certainty that these philosophers were roundly persecuted by the Athenian Government for teaching foreign doctrines.

Any evidence? of course not.10

What is incredible about these 'Great Philosopher' is the total lack of any knowledge about their early lives. The world is asked to believe that these men who possessed all the super-natural abilities attributed to them had no education, no training, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences just came to them!

Again mere polemical assertion and agit-prop. Who says that they had no education after all Plato was a disciple of Socrates and Aristotle was a student of Plato and besides they could read the Ionian philosophers.

The only evidence adduced for this fraud was that the books were written by the Orders founded by the Athenian impostors. But as James repeatedly reminded us, the ancient Egyptians forbade their pupils from writing, and this injunction was obeyed by all but the Athenians. We have to excuse Socrates, whom James believed to be the only properly trained Initiate. Instead of divulging the secrets he had learned, he drank a poison. Both Plato and Aristotle fled. Yet they came back and claim the credits!

"Athenian impostors", let the useless, polemical insults fly! Has for not allowing them to write how convenient for G.M. James but of course our impostors get no credit for saving knowledge from obliteration. The stuff about Socrates is nonsense Socrates drank poison because he was tried and convicted for corrupting the youth, not to avoid telling secrets.12

The crucial question of how Aristotle got all the books that bore his credit is easily answered by the simple historical fact that he went with his friend, Alexander, in the latter campaign and conquest. After Egypt was conquered and destroyed, the Royal Library and the Temples were looted by Aristotle. It was with these books that he established his own school and, aided by his pupils, Theophrastus, Andronicus of Rhodes and Eudemus, started to copy the books. These men were also credited with the authorship of several books, and it was them who formed the organization of 'The Learned study of Aristotle Writings.' 'It would certainly appear that the object of the Learned Association was to beat Aristotle's own drum and dance. It was Aristotle's idea to compile a history of philosophy, and it was Aristotle's school and its alumni that carried out the idea, we are told." (p.19)

A collection of assertions and insults about Aristotle. The "simple historical fact" is that there is NO evidence that Aristoltle was ever in Egypt or that he looted libraries (of written down information that was supposidly only past down oraly!?).13

Chapter II, 'So-Called Greek Philosophy was Alien to the Greeks And their Conditions of Life.' Here James drew for us the conditions under which the Greeks were living at this period in history. According to the western mythorians, the period of 'Greek Philosophy' was located 640-322 BC.

The statement Greek philosophy was confined to the period 640-322 B.C.E. is simply false.14

'The period of Greek philosophy (640-322 BC was a period of internal and external wars, and was therefore unsuitable for producing philosophers. History supports the fact that from the time of Thales to the time of Aristotle, The Greeks were victims of internal disunion, on the one hand, while on the other, they lived in constant fear of invasion from the Persians who were a common enemy to the city states.

This is mere assertion Philosophy seems to have flourished in Europer in the past few centuries despite constant wars. I could also give China in the Era of warring states (c. 600-221 B.C.E.)15

When Western mythorians roll out Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, they fail to tell their audience how these guys were persecuted by their own government.

The Death of Socrates is one of the Cliches of the western tradition.16

These 'philosophers' were persecuted for the exactly the same reason - 'introducing strange divinities.' Socrates charge sheet read, in part, 'Socrates commit a crime by not believing in the Gods of the city, and by introducing other new divinities. He also commit a crime by corrupting the youth.' He was further accused of 'busying himself with investigating things beneath the earth and in the sky,a nd who makes the worse appear the better reason, and who teaches others the same thing.' Whereas astronomy was part of the required study in the Egyptian schools, the Athenian government was persecuting its citizens for pursuing such studies. Who, now, is the father of what?

More Agit-prop and so what how does this prove that Greek scholars did not write the books or make the discoveries atributed to them? Also Socrates new god was his personal "daemon" not a Egyptian deity. Oh and the story of Athens presecuting philosophers seems to be seriously exagerated. After all Athens attracted thinkers from all over the Greek speaking world.

The conquest of Alexander and the destruction of the Lodges and the libraries plus the edicts of Theodosius and Justinian suppressed the Egyptian mystery systems and the Greek philosophy schools alike, paving the way for christianity which is nothing but a badly mis-understood Egyptian religion.

After insulting the Greeks lets insult Christians.

In Chapter five through chapter seven, George James analyzed the doctrines of the so-called Greek philosophers and convincingly show their Egyptian origin. From pre-Socratic 'Philosophers' like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Pythagoras to Eleatic 'philosophers' like Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus, to the Ionian school of Heraclitus, Anaxagoras and Democritus, he showed that what history has attributed to these impostors were nothing but what they copied from the Egyptians.

"Impostors", more insults. Besides perviously our Author had said the Ionians were good guys unlike the evil Athenian three (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). G.M. James shows no such thing except very vague alleged similarities.17

In these, the most important chapters, James concluded that the Greeks were guilty of plagiarism of the highest order.

Once again ideas are property of one particular group and of course the Greeks are guilty of "plagiarism", basically by mere assertion.

Chapter eight dealt with the Memphite Theology which 'is an inscription on a stone, now kept in the British Museum. It contains the theological, cosmological and philosophical views of the Egyptians. It has already been referred to in my treatment of Plato's doctrines; but it must be repeated here to show its full importance as the basis of the entire field of Greek philosophy.' p. 139. Here James show how portions of the philosophy of the Memphite Theology were assigned to the Greeks. This is a very important chapter as it throws enough light, not only on the whole argument of where the Greek got the ideas credited to them, but also about the true source of modern scientific knowledge.'

G.M. James chapter fails quite competly to show any influence on the Greeks of this theology or even that the Greeks were aware of it.

If the modern Nebular hypothesis credited to Laplace which holds that our present solar system was once a molten gaseous nebula is ever proven right, credit should go to the ancient Egyptians. Their cosmology is strikingly similar. They knew that the universe was created from fire. The Egyptian God Atum (Atom) together with his eight Created Gods that composed the Ennead or Godhead of nine, this correspond with our nine major planets. Atom, the sun God, was the Unmoved Mover, a doctrine which has been falsely attributed to Aristotle. Likewise, the injunction, 'Know Thyself,' was wrongly attributed to Socrates. As James pointed out, it was an inscription found on every Egyptian Temple. The Cardinal virtues, justice, wisdom, temperance and courage which was falsely credited to Plato owed their origin to the Egyptian Masters.

The idea that the world emerged out of swerling chaos is quite common. Again more vague similarities that G.M. James interprets as consistant with Greek thought, with little thought to providing a link to Greek thought. Oh and is our author asserting that the Egyptians knew of nine planets, (now eight since Pluto as been demoted)? If so our author as a serious case of woo.

In the concluding chapter nine, 'Social Reformation through the New Philosophy of African Redemption,' James wrote: 'Now that it has been shown that philosophy, and the arts and sciences were bequeathed to civilization by the people of North Africa and not by the people of Greece; the pendulum of praise and honor is due to shift from the people of Greece to the people of the African continent who are the rightful heirs of such praise and honor.

Open admission that this is designed to "steal the heritage" how revealing.

No one, IMO, should be allowed to teach African history who has not read Stolen Legacy. No one should call himself educated who has not read Stolen Legacy. The next time anyone brandishes a Ph.D in your face, your question should be, 'Have you read Stolen Legacy?'

Yes I have and it is very bad book full of distorions, falsehoods and insults all for a very clear political purpose to which honesty and accuracy and simple good scholarly etiquite are sacrificied.18

Aristotle

1. James, G. M., Stolen Legacy, Philosophical Library, New York, 1954.

2. In the Hall of Maat at Here.

3. Snowden, Frank M. Jr., Bernal’s “Blacks” and the Afrocentrists, in Black Athena Revisted, Ed. Lefkowitz, Mary R., & Rogers, Guy, Mclean, The University of Noth Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC, 1996, pp. 112-128, p. 121.

4. For early Greek philosophy see Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., & Schofield, M., The Presocratics, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, Waterfield, Robin, The First Philosophers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, Barnes, Jonathan, Early Greek Philosophers, Second Revised Edition, Penguin Books, 2001. The above books contain the surviving fragments of the pre-Socratics with commentary.

5. See Aristotle, The Politics, Penguin Books, London, 1962, and his The Athenian Constitution, Penguin Books, London, 1984.

6. See Footnote 4 for more detail on Pythagoras.

7. See Wikipedia Bibliography of Isaac Asimov Here

8. For Greek Philosophy after Aristotle see Long, A. A., & Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Philosophers, v. 1 & 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987. See also Walbank, F. W., The Hellenistic World, Fontana Press, London, 1992, pp. 176-199.

9. Footnote 9.

10. For an evaluation of the idea idea that Athens routinely prsecuted philosophers and how very dubious the whole idea is see Stone, I. F., The Trial of Socrates, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1988, pp. 231-247.

11. Footnote 3.

12. Footnote 10.

13. Footnote 3.

14. Footnote 8.

15. Nivison, David Shepherd, The Classical Philosophical Writings, in Loewe, Michael & Shaughnessy, Edward L., The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 745-789, Harper, Donald, Warring States, Natural Philosophy and Occult Thought, in Loewe, pp. 790-884.

16. Footnote 10.

17. For more about these Ionian Philosophers see Footnote 4.

18. For more about Afrocentrism see Howe, Stephen, Afrocentrism, Verso, London, 1999. See also the essays in Black Athena Revisted and Lefkowitz, Mary, Stolen Legacy ( or Mythical History): Did the Greeks Steal Philosophy From the Egyptians? In Skeptic, v. 2 No. 4, 1994, pp. 98-103, Appiah, Kwane Anthony, Beyond Race: Fallacies of Reactive Afrocentrism, in Skeptic, v. 2 No. 4, 1994, pp. 104-107. For Why people believe strange stuff see Shermer, Michael, Why People Believe Weird Things, W. H. Freeman and Co., New York, 1997.

Pierre Cloutier

St. Augustine
Predestined

Part of a Painting of Hell by Hieronymus Bosch 
One of most important, but also in my opinion dangerous and frankly stupid ideas, in the intellectual history of the west is the doctrine of Predestination. This essay will briefly explore both the intellectual origin of the doctrine and St. Augustine’s ideas concerning the doctrine, and why in my opinion the idea is both pernicious and yes intellectual idiocy of the highest order.

The idea of Predestination is the notion that events are predetermined and that choice or “free will” is illusionary. In the case of Christian doctrine this is the notion that right from the beginning of time God “determined” who would be “saved” and who was damned.

Further in Christian doctrine this came in two forms. In one version of the idea God by foreseeing future events predetermined them in the other God by predetermining events foresaw them.

Despite the ideas importance in Christian theology the idea is not derived from the Old Testament and is not in any sense a Judaic / Jewish idea. It arose from Greco-Roman concepts of the divine. Platonic Greco-Roman theology sought to define God, and did so in terms of absolutes that assimilated God to perfection and then sought to define that perfection. Thus God became omnipresent, omnipotent and all knowing. In such a conception of God any limitation on God’s power became a denial that God was in effect God. God in this conception had to be perfect and such perfection required that God be all powerful and any limitation on God simply inconceivable. This was combined with the notion that through “reasoned” analysis that one could talk about God and talk about in a concrete, intellectually rigorous manner using human reason.

Given the above Greco-Roman thinkers and the Christians influenced by them felt compelled to use their reason to the logical limits and thus find out the true nature of God. What they forgot was that the concept of God is not a “reasonable” or “rational” idea and that talking about God in a “rational” “reasonable” manner is basically a conceit that relies on unbridled faith in human “reason”.

To illustrate the idea that “reason” is a very poor tool to describe or even talk about God let us list some of God’s attributes as commonly believed.

1. God is all knowing.

2. God is all powerful.

3. God can be and do anything.

Given the above God can do anything. Let us assume the above are true. Then the following statements are absolutely true.

God can destroy him/herself utterly and then recreate him/herself.

God can choose not to be all powerful and all knowing.

God can choose not to be perfect.

God can be all powerful and powerless at the same time.

God can be perfect and completely imperfect at the same time.

Needless to say the Greco-Roman theologians and their Christian followers did not believe that God was all powerful because they explicitly and implicitly believed that God was bound by “reason” and thus denied the power of God.

What they missed was the idea that God, if he/she exists is an uncanny idea. An idea that is contradictory and basically inexplicable and inexpressible. In other words we can not talk about God in any real sense that is intelligible to us or in a way that is not a mass of contradictions, absurdities or koan like phrases. One might as well say God is the light given off by darkness.

In the Old Testament one of the most profound depictions of God is from the Book of Job. When Job’s friends spend practically all their time trying to justify God to Job and basically speaking over and over again those future feeble nostrums of “rational” theologians would utter in the ages to come. Job denies that God’s doings make any sense or that there is rationality in how the world operates. God when he finally speaks rebukes not Job but his friends for being idiots. God says to Job:

Can you fasten the harness of the Pleiades, or untie Orion’s bands? Can you guide the morning star season by season and show the Bear and its cubs which way to go?1

Thus rebukes him for whining about his plight when he can have utterly no conception of the nature of God. In that case whining serves no useful purpose at all. As for Job’s friends they are rebuked for trying to read God’s mind and declaring with incredible arrogance that they understand and know the purposes and mind of God.

All later Theologians are the friends of Job, full of conceit and arrogance. They know the purposes of God they know that God is bound by their conception of “reason”. God merely rebukes Job for whining about bad things happening to him when that is just the way of the world, it is like God weird and uncanny; don’t try to make it “reasonable” and “rational”. To the Theologian the world and God cannot be weird and uncanny both must be bound by rules. Their rules! That their conceit bounds God to their conception of “reason” and therefore denies God being all mighty seems to have escaped them.

By not accepting the Platonic notion that God is subordinated to “reason” Jewish thought largely escaped the conundrum of trying to make God and the world “reasonable”. Thus the paradoxes that bothered medieval and Greco-Roman philosophers and theologians did not particularly bother Jewish and later Muslim religious leaders, because they accepted the uncanny nature of God and the world.

Muslim theology for example accepted both the idea of predestination and the notion of full human responsibility. How did they reconcile these two ideas? Well in effect they did not. They accepted that both ideas were true and their contradictory nature due to the insufficiency of human reason to understand. Of course the result was that despite accepting predestination in theory in practice humans were responsible for their own salvation.

In Jewish theology the question never came up it was taken for granted that humans were responsible for their own salvation and that was that. Theological puzzles like how to reconcile God’s omnipotence with free will etc., never arose because it was simply assumed that human’s had free will because that is what everyday common sense tells us.

The result of this flirtation by Christian Theologians with trying to reason about God was a collection of absurdities and contradictions that simply in the end make no sense at all.

The origins of the doctrine of predestination are not in the Old Testament or in the development of Judaism but as I indicated above in Greco-Roman philosophical ideas. Certainly one would have a very hard time “proving” predestination from the Old Testament which is rather clear most of the time about how humans are responsible for themselves and if they act badly are responsible for the consequences. Jesus in the Gospels seems to be pretty clear about humans being responsible for their fate.

In fact the passages that are usually used to “prove” predestination are almost invariably passages about the power and glory of God. In fact the basic tenure of most of the Bible is that salvation is something humans can do something about.

The notion of predestination is of course allied to the idea that humankind is inherently sinful and wicked and damned by original sin. It is interesting that conventional Jewish Theology does not give much emphasis to original sin, and the idea of the essential depravity of the human race.

In the doctrine of original sin as elucidated by early Christian Theologians, man is inherently utterly depraved, that each child born is entirely and thoroughly deserving of eternal torture in hell, that no action by any human can remove the essential depravity of mankind or change what in all justice each and every human deserves eternal torture in the fires of hell. Actions speak only towards earning a mitigation of God’s justice so that despite what we deserve God out of mercy and grace forgives our innate sinful, and deserving of eternal torment, depravity and allows us to go to heaven.

Thus in the initial compromise concerning mans wickedness it was accepted that although man could not in justice earn salvation. Man’s efforts could in some sense “earn” God’s grace and mercy. To those immersed in Greco-Roman philosophy this was not logical, rational or reasonable enough. They decided to carry the logic to its conclusion.

Allied to this was the idea that no man could “earn” through works God’s approval. That the demands that God makes are incapable of being fulfilled in any realistic way.

This of course goes back to St. Paul in his various Letters where he sets up the dichotomy between the “Law” and “Grace”. Paul pictures the “Law” has a set of impossible demands that man could never satisfy, hence the need for “Grace” that God through Jesus Christ extends to man, because man out of weakness can never satisfy God.

This of course sets up the popular and largely false view of first century Judaism as a religion of stifling rules and one that damned everyone who could not fulfill everyone of the trivial, mind numbing Mosaic laws. To Paul those rules were a terrible burden that Jesus Christ freed mankind from having to fulfill. What Paul seems to have forgotten or simply suppressed was that it was not the opinion of first century Judaism or even of later Judaism that that exact, prefect observance of every one of the Mosaic laws was required for salvation. That was entirely Paul’s own idea.

Further while adhering to the notion that the “Law” was an impossible burden that weak, sinful man was incapable of fulfilling Paul remained largely oblivious to the fact that every single human being lives in a mesh of social rules and taboos that are in every respect at least as constraining as the Mosaic laws. So just why were those particular laws viewed as uniquely burdensome?

The answer is quite obvious Paul was engaged in a polemic against first century Judaism for the purpose of capturing souls for Christ so it suited his purpose to set up this caricature of the “Law” as unbearably burdensome and that in order to satisfy God all these trivial rules had to be performed exactly and perfectly and one slip up meant damnation. Paul found the burden of responsibility for salvation too much to bear.

Paul also developed in his letters certain notions about the power of God that seems to be if not predestination at least potentially so. What Paul seemed to want to escape from was the notion that humans have responsibility for their salvation. It seemed to him an intolerable burden that he wished to escape and so he brought in the notion of “grace”, the idea of man being damned by original sin, the “Law” being an impossible burden, and the notion of God in some sense predestining things. Paul also sometimes seems almost to wallow in his and other’s sinfulness.

Now Paul was not consistent in any of this and it is easy to find stuff in his letters which at least partially contradicts the above. But these ideas did exist at least in embryonic form in the writings of Paul. It is for example apparent that Paul despite what he often seemed to at least imply seemed to think that humans were still responsible for their salvation and his implicit notions of predestination are just that implicit.

The simple fact is that despite Paul’s massive influence on later Christianity his ideas, implicit and otherwise are not rooted in the sayings and doings of Jesus Christ but are in fact largely of Greco-Roman philosophical origin.

Of course later Christian Theologians, heavily immersed in Greco-Roman, especially Platonic philosophy would elaborate on Paul’s notions and create a vast intellectual apparatus to explain and “prove” these doctrines.

It is of interest that although the ideas of the essential depravity of man was largely accepted by the 4th century as a orthodox doctrine of Christianity, the idea of predestination implicit in some of Paul’s writings was not. It seemed to the great majority of the early Church Fathers that at a minimum man could “earn” God’s grace and mercy. But then as Christianity absorbed more and more Greco-Roman philosophy the notion of predestination slipped in full blown.

The doctrine probably owes a lot to St. Augustine a man whose unpleasant and repulsive theology has for reasons that will be explained below been popular.


Portrait of St. Augustine 
St. Augustine positively relished wallowing in the depraved, sinful nature of mankind. It seems to have given him almost joy. His absurd writhing about his “sins” is positively creepy and in fact a form of arrogance and pride. Augustine liked to relive his “wickedness” over and over again, liked to conjure the image of his “sins” in his mind again and again.

From this doctrine about the inherent sinfulness of mankind Augustine had no problems with the idea that young children, babies being tortured in hell forever and ever. Since all humans were utterly depraved it was only what they deserved.

To quote a writer on Augustine; Augustine had:

…the unfortunate massa damnata theory, which said the whole human race by original sin became a massa damnata et damnabilis: God could throw the whole damned race into hell for original sin alone, without waiting for any personal sin.2

It is probably from Augustine that there first emerged clearly the doctrine of predestination. In order to deflect the obvious arguments concerning the problems with Predestination Augustine peremptorily accuses those of doubting Predestination as arrogant:

Man, therefore, unwilling to resist such clear testimonies as these, and yet desiring himself to have the merit of believing, compounds as it were with God to claim a portion of faith for himself, and to leave a portion for Him; and, what is still more arrogant, he takes the first portion for himself, and gives the subsequent to Him; and so in that which he says belongs to both, he makes himself the first, and God the second!3

This serves a useful purpose in hiding the utter arrogance of the doctrine and its unbridled presumption. Augustine “knows” that God must fit his philosophical “reason” about Gods nature. It never occurs to him that God might, just might make man capable of “Free Will”. No Augustine “knows” by implication that God can do no such thing because it violates his conception of God.

Therefore mercy and judgment were manifested in the very wills themselves. Certainly such an election is of grace, not at all of merits. For he had before said, "So, therefore, even at this present time, the remnant has been saved by the election of grace. And if by grace, now it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace." [Rom. 11.5.] Therefore the election obtained what it obtained gratuitously; there preceded none of those things which they might first give, and it should be given to them again. He saved them for nothing. But to the rest who were blinded, as is there plainly declared, it was done in recompense. "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth." [Psalm 25.10.] But His ways are unsearchable. Therefore the mercy by which He freely delivers, and the truth by which He righteously judges, are equally unsearchable.4

Thus God’s grace is capricious and satanic, but Augustine asserts that this is all a mystery but we must rest content that God is still just because he/she is just. God out of his/her own good reason decides who can be saved by grace from the beginning of time. Its of interest that Augustine who denies emphatically, by implication, that God could give man ‘Free Will” and that “Free Will” is a denial of the power of God and his philosophical certainty about the nature of God never the less takes refugee in the notion that although God may appear unjust he is just and that is just a mystery. Why the conflict between God’s power and Mans “Free Will” could not be a similar mystery is not explained or even noticed.

Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God’s gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given. But why it is not given to all ought not to disturb the believer, who believes that from one all have gone into a condemnation, which undoubtedly is most righteous; so that even if none were delivered therefrom, there would be no just cause for finding fault with God. Whence it is plain that it is a great grace for many to be delivered, and to acknowledge in those that are not delivered what would be due to themselves; so that he that glorieth may glory not in his own merits, which he sees to be equalled in those that are condemned, but in the Lord.5

When someone asserts that a contentious doctrine is plainly etc., in the text we can rest assured it is not. Augustine can assert and puff himself up all he likes; the doctrine is not plainly in the Bible. In the Old Testament, the books of the Prophets seem to be pretty plain about man being responsible for himself and his salvation and certainly the doctrine of Predestination as virtually no basis in the sayings or conduct of Jesus. Certain of the parables, like the good Samaritan plainly indicate human responsibility and choice. Augustine must go to St. Paul for his Scriptural basis and thus with what can only be described as arrogance elevate Paul and Augustine’s own conception of the nature of God above that of Jesus of Nazareth that Augustine pays lip service too as the foundation of his faith when Jesus is not. It is also of interest that Jewish Rabbi’s and Theologians utterly rejected the doctrine of Predestination pronouncing it a heresy and unbiblical.

Augustine than makes in the above passage the argument that believers should not be disturbed by this doctrine because he asserts, with no argument, that it is righteous and in fact it does not matter if many are saved or none at all. But that the saved should not condemn God but rejoice that any are saved at all and that being saved is not in any sense the saved ones merits but Gods, and in fact the saved ones merits or lack of them are the same as the condemned.

So God in Augustine’s conception is a despotic, capricious tyrant who like Stalin is always right no matter who he tortures, and slays. Like a good toady Augustine licks the feet and other parts of his murderous Dictator and pronounces it very good indeed.

For these things are both commanded us, and are shown to be God's gifts, in order that we may understand both that we do them, and that God makes us to do them, as He most plainly says by the prophet Ezekiel. For what is plainer than when He says, "I will cause you to do"? [Ezek. 36.27.] Give heed to that passage of Scripture, and you will see that God promises that He will make them to do those things which He commands to be done. He truly is not silent as to the merits but as to the evil deeds, of those to whom He shows that He is returning good for evil, by the very fact that He causeth them thenceforth to have good works, in causing them to do the divine commands. 6

Aside from the distortion of Ezekiel, Augustine makes it plain that God is responsible for our good deeds that God out of capricious caprice decides to bestow on some people through grace for no discernable reason. He very carefully avoids stating that God is responsible for our evil acts. Why? If it’s a denial of God’s power to attribute our salvation in any sense to our own efforts then is it not a denial of God’s power to deny or evade the responsibility of God for evil? Ah but Augustine “knew” from his philosophical studies that God could not “really” be responsible for evil. Thus once again Augustine in his arrogance presumes to know God. Thus God is fully responsible for our salvation and our good deeds yet somehow God is not responsible in any sense for our wicked deeds. Now did it ever occur to Augustine that if men were responsible for our wicked deeds and acts a man must by necessity be, potentially at least, responsible for his good deeds?

Therefore God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinating us to the adoption of children, not because we were going to be of ourselves holy and immaculate, but He chose and predestinated us that we might be so. Moreover, He did this according to the good pleasure of His will, so that nobody might glory concerning his own will, but about God's will towards himself. He did this according to the riches of His grace, according to His good-will, which He purposed in His beloved Son, in whom we have obtained a share, being predestinated according to the purpose, not ours, but His, who worketh all things to such an extent as that He worketh in us to will also. Moreover, He worketh according to the counsel of His will, that we may be to the praise of His glory. [Phil. 2.13.] For this reason it is that we cry that no one should glory in man, and, thus, not in himself; but whoever glorieth let him glory in the Lord, that he may be for the praise of His glory.7

Augustine’s cosmic Dictator seems to be an egomaniacal sadist wanting desperately to glorify himself. Being such a dictator in Augustine’s eye Augustine than lays the flattery on with a trowel in the most disgusting sycophantic manner. One cannot see Augustine being like Abraham arguing with God or like Jacob wrestling with an angel.8 Instead one sees him grovelling before God in the most revolting manner. To quote Monty Python:


[God] Oh do stop grovelling!
I HATE grovelling!!9 
As to why Augustine and so many other’s have found this intellectually repellent argument / doctrine so attractive. The answer is fairly clear. They found the burden of responsibility for their own salvation and in fact their own right conduct to be unbearable. They refused to take responsibility for it and did a few things. First they pronounced God’s demands as impossible and unbearable. They then pronounced all of mankind irredeemably wicked and deserving of eternal torment and damnation. They then took refugee in a doctrine that said it is all done for you; you don’t have to do a thing it was settled a long time ago. You are not RESPONSIBLE!! In this particular mindset the believers could not accept responsibility for themselves and their acts. They then cloaked this belief in the false cloak of humility before God, while subjecting God to the dictates of their “rational” “reasonable” philosophical analysis with astounding arrogance. They further subjected reality to their love of self of their speculations, by ignoring the easy to establish fact that at the very least human’s have the appearance of “Free Will”. Further in their arrogance they concluded that God was bound by their conception of God’s nature and it never occurred to them that God could have given man “Free Will”.

Augustine like so many grovelled and writhed in his sinfulness, visiting it again and again with a perverse narcissistic pride. Augustine especially recalled his sexual sins over and over again showing his inordinate self love and hubris. I have little doubt that his repeated revisiting of his wicked sexual sins enabled him to enjoy “carnality” over and over again under the cloak of an ostentatious show of loathing that ill concealed the intense pleasure it gave him to recall them.

Since he Augustine could not, in his opinion, escape his sins he in his arrogance decided that no man could and so constructed the edifice, based in part on Paul’s writings, which may indicate to some extent a similar dynamic, of Predestination. It fed Augustine’s sense of importance that no man could earn salvation when in his own mind he, himself could clearly not do so. This was combined with an abject, sycophantic attitude towards God that reeks of cringing mindless fear. Finally it fed his own sense of intellectual superiority to bind God in his philosophical chains and then when things got philosophically difficult take refugee in the doctrine of “mystery”, ignoring that perhaps “Free Will” and “Predestination” were similar “mysteries” and God is not bound to fit his conceptions.

1. Job, ch. 38 v. 31-32, The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday & Co. Inc., Garden City NY, 1966.

2. Most, William, St. Augustine on Grace and Predestination, Here. Note Geocities where this webpage is located is closing at the end of the month, (October 2009).

3. Augustine, A Treatise On The Predestination of the Saints, Book 1, ch. 4., Here.

4. IBID, Book 1, ch. 11.

5. IBID, Book 1, ch. 16.

6. IBID, Book 1, ch. 22.

7. IBID, Book 1, ch. 37.

8. See Genesis, ch. 18, v.16-32, ch. 32, v. 22-30, The Jerusalem Bible.

9. From the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Other Books consulted.

MacCulloch, Diamaid, Reformation, Penguin Books, London, 2003.

Grant, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Annenberg School Press, London, 1976. See The Other World Against This World, pp. 291-308.

Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, SCM Press Ltd., London, 1985.

IBID. Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Fortress Press, Minneapolis MINN, 1977.

Vermes, Geza, Jesus the Jew, Fontana / Collins, London, 1973.

Plato, Timaeus and Critias, Penguin Books, London, 1977.

St. Augustine, The Confessions, at Project Gutenberg, Here.

Pierre Cloutier

A little Democritus

Democritus

The famed philosopher Democritus, who lived in the 5th century B.C.E., is best known to day for his theory of atoms. Hence he is called an atomist. Although many books talk about him in such a manner has to indicate that he was the originator of this idea of everything composed of atoms, i.e., amalgamations of very small particles he did not in fact originate the idea.1

It was in fact the philosopher Leucippus who originated the idea. Unfortunately Leucippus is a very shadowy figure and the tendency for later sources to talk about Leucippus and Democritus together does not make distinguishing them very easy. Further it appears that Leucippus wrote very little.2

Democritus seems to have been a little older than Socrates3, very little is known of his life,4 although he seems to have been a very prolific writer. The writer Diogenes Laertius supplies a very long list of Democritius’ works as follows:

Ethical Works

Pythagoras
On the Disposition of the Wiseman
On the things in Hades
On Manliness / On Virtues
The Horn of Amaltheia
On Contentment
Ethical Commentaries
Well-Being

Natural Science

The Great World-ordering [probably actually by Leucippus]
The Little World-ordering
Description of the World
On the Planets
On Nature
On the Nature of Man / On Flesh
On Thoughts
On the Senses / On the Soul?
On Flavours
On Colours
On Different Shapes
On Changing Shape
Buttresses
On Images / On Providence
On Logic / The Rule
Puzzles

Unordered works

Heavenly Causes
Atmospheric Causes
Terrestrial Causes
Causes Concerned with Fire and Things in Fire
Causes Concerned with Sounds
Causes Concerned with Seeds and Plants and-
Fruits
Causes Concerned with Animals
Miscellaneous Causes
On the Stone

Mathematical Works

On Different Angles / On Contact with Circles and- Spheres
On Geometry
Geometry
Numbers
On Irrational Lines and Solids
Planispheres
The Great Year / Astronomy [Calendar]
Contest of the Water clock
Description of the Heavens
Geography
Description of the Poles
Description of Rays of Light

Literary Works

On Rhythms and Harmony
On Poetry
On the Beauty of Verses
On Euphonious and Cacophonous Letters
On Homer / Correct Diction and Glosses
On Songs
On Verbs
Vocabularies

Technical Works

Prognosis
On Diet / Dietetics
Medical Judgment
Causes concerning Appropriate and Inappropriate- Occasions
On Farming / Farming Matters
On Painting
Tactics
The Use of Arms

Commentaries

On the Sacred Writings of Babylon
On Those in Meroe
Circumnavigation of the Ocean
On History
Chaldaean Account
Phrygian Account
On Fever and Coughing Sickness
Legal Causes
Chamber-pots / Problems5

A very interesting list which indicates the very wide ranging interests of Democritus. Unfortunately soon after Democritus’ death interest shifted from “Natural Philosophy” i.e., “Science” to Ethics and Metaphysics so that later Greek philosophers were far more interested in Democritus’ ethical works and what we now about Democritus’ atomic theory is from bare summaries and not from actual quotations. In fact the great majority of surviving direct quotations of Democritus’ works are in fact from his ethical works.6

In fact Democritus’ idea of atoms lead him to reject the idea of Gods or other supernatural forces controlling men’s lives and the behavior of the universe. Instead it was the material action of atoms that did so. Democritus apparently believed that such material action of atoms was discoverable through the use of human senses. Here was the possible foundations of something like modern “Science”. Alas it was premature and died being born.

So in this respect Democritus, although no Ionian was in fact the last of the Ionian Philosophers in that his main interest was in explaining the world around him. Subsequent generations of thinkers / philosophers were vastly less interested and instead shifted their interest to matters of metaphysics, ethics, the nature of virtue etc., so that Greek science was basically stillborn. Democritus’ skeptical approach was largely abandoned and so was his idea that the senses, although imperfect and sometimes deceiving, did tell us about the world.

In this particular essay I shall not examine Democritus’ “Science” but instead quote a few of his ethical statements and comment on them.

Medicine heals the diseases of the body, and wisdom takes away passions of the soul.7

This illustrates the traditional Greek attitude that passions are dangerous and need to be both understood and controlled. A wise man controls passions that uncontrolled lead to dangerous extreme behavior. Wisdom leads to moderation and that includes moderated passions.

Men enjoy scratching themselves – they get the same pleasure as those who are having sexual intercourse.8

This passage aside from its humorous aspects compares sex to scratching an itch and thus places it has something prosaic and hardly earth shaking. It also places sex as a type of physical pleasure and not has a sort of cosmic metaphor. Further by reducing sex to scratching an itch Democritus was perhaps implying that’s importance was vastly overrated and the wise man could do without.

Do not be eager to know everything lest you become ignorant of everything.9

Similar to the idea of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing or the idea of a dabbler of many trades is a master of none. In this case Democritus’ own prolific output in so many different fields just might indicate that this was a bit of self depreciation directed against himself.

Men fashioned an image of chance as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness; for chance rarely fights with wisdom, and a clear-sighted intelligence sets straight most things in life.10

A variation of God helps those that help themselves and that people make their own luck. This basically optimistic view of life was at variance with the then conventional Greek, and later Greco-Roman view, of fate. In this view men were nothing more than toys being tossed about by capricious “Fortune”. This pessimistic view of life went hand in hand with a depreciation of the virtue of knowledge of the outside world and the idea that anything could really change for the better. The turn inwards of Greek philosophy towards questions of ethics and self –understanding was also accompanied by an quietitude about accepting what happened to you as fate of which little could be done.

The world is a stage, life is our entrance: you came, you saw, you left.11

Yup that’s were Shakespeare got it! This thought goes with Democritus’ basically materialistic view of life. He seemed to think that the soul died with the body. And his vision of life as a play speaks to an awareness of the absurd / silly aspects of life and to the possible pointlessness of the whole enterprise. It also speaks to the idea that pointless or not life is worth living. Although I wonder if Democritus ever thought that if life was a play just who / what is the audience being performed for?

The world is change; life is opinion.12

Of interest in that it goes back to the ideas of the Ionian philosophers that change was continual and such notions as you never step into the same river twice.13 Further Democritus accepted the idea that many of the notions of how we order our lives are just opinion and not fact and we should relate to others through acceptance of that and exercise a measure of tolerance.

It is of interest that the idea of change being a basic property of the universe and essentially neutral was abandoned by later Greek Philosophy. Instead the idea arose that the seeking of permanent, eternal truths and facts was the point of philosophical inquiry. Instead of being a process of inquiry philosophy became a collection of “truthful” axioms. Thus life was no longer “opinion” and world was no longer “change”. Plato for example abominated change which to him meant degeneration. In his eyes what was to be sought was perfect unchanging “Forms”. Change of any description was bad and every effort had to be made to freeze things, to avoid dissention, conflict, disorder. Thus the search for the “perfect” state, “perfect” definitions, “perfect” laws. And the world was viewed as an inferior, decaying world of little real importance.

The cause of error is ignorance of what is better.14

This is similar to Plato’s idea that bad “evil” behavior is the result of ignorance of the “good” and not of innate evil. However in this case the moral attributes given by Plato are absent in that the here the neutral term error is used. This is probably related to philosophical stream of which Democritus was a part that concentrated on practicalities and not innate inward states. Plato was concerned with defining the “good” and could not conceive of men deliberately doing evil. Plato also was in search of absolute “good”. The earlier Ionian Philosophers with their notions of how things were frequently “relative” would have regarded such a search as potentially futile. Although they would have accepted the idea of certain attitudes and behaviors has “good”. Further Democritus seems to have viewed finding norms of behavior in a practical sense not in terms of searching for perfect definitions of concepts.

One should emulate the deeds and actions of virtue, not the words.15

A variation of deeds speak louder than words. Again a piece of practical advice. Rather than argue about what is virtue try to emulate virtue through action not through words. I strongly suspect Democritus would have found later Greek philosophy with its endless digressions about the nature of “virtue” etc., so many words that were nothing more than a substitute for action.

If you exceed the measure, what is most enjoyable will become least enjoyable.16

Similar to the idea of too much of a good thing. This goes with the Greek idea of things in moderation and that excess leads to corruption, satiation, boredom and a general lowering of the quality of life. The idea of indulgence leads to unhappiness is in general related to the notion that excess is a bad thing and that a life of measured moderation leads to happiness.

Men remember wrongs better than benefits. And that is just; for as those who repay their debts should not be praised, whereas those who do not should be blamed and suffer, so too it is with a ruler. For he was chosen not to do wrong but to do right.17

A very interesting point of view. What Democritus is saying is because rulers are expected to do what is right. When they are doing so they are doing nothing more than their jobs and what is expected and so should not expect praise. For by praising them you are saying what they are doing, i.e., doing the right thing is somehow unexpected hence praiseworthy. When it is merely what is expected. However bad acts are not expected and in fact violate the job description and so are worthy of loud denunciation. Democritus’ point is interesting but he seems to forget the all too human need for praise and ego boosting.

He who worthily administers the greatest offices has the greatest share of justice and virtue.18

Considering how Plato and many other Greek Philosophers viewed politics as somehow polluted and corrupting and saw little if any virtue in politicians or statesmen. Unless they were trying to create Plato’s ideal societies. In fact Plato thought Philosophers should avoid such entanglements and instead concentrate on navel gazing about being virtuous and avoiding the corrupt world of the senses. Here Democritus is advocating a connection with the world and the potential for good of political action. With the inward turn of Greek Philosophy this would largely fall by the wayside.

When those in power take it upon themselves to lend to the poor and to aid them and to favour them, then there is compassion and not isolation but companionship and mutual defence and concord among the citizens and other good things too many to catalogue.19.

A passage that illustrates the democratic sympathies of Democritus. I suspect Democritus had in mind the democratic city of Athens which was very successful in maintaining democracy and stability internally and avoiding the disastrous stasis or civil strife that pitted poor citizens against wealthy Aristocrats / Oligarchs in murderous mayhem for centuries. The Athenian democracy interestingly managed to do this and that the main leaders of the democracy were long established Athenian aristocratic families. Later Greek Philosophers including Plato generally abominated Athenian democracy and any attempt to give the poor a voice in government.

Justice is doing what should be done, injustice not doing what should be done but turning away from it.20

This makes a rather interesting contrast with Plato’s definition of “justice” in the Republic, where “justice” is defined as everyone doing what they are best fitted for. How you determine that is not explained except that the wise Philosopher Kings would somehow know through their philosophical speculations. It is interesting that whereas Plato defined “justice” as a property of a whole social system and took it away from the idea of “justice” as actions / omissions, i.e., the idea of “justice” being how people were treated and what was and was not done. Democritus keeps that common notion of “justice” here. Plato’s definition is part of the process by which Greek philosophy retreated from the practical world to the world of metaphysics and airy abstractions.

Democritus is again showing the spirit of the Ionian Philosophers with their emphasis of on practical action. It is also clear that Democritus did not view the idea of “justice” has a problematic concept but something fairly clear to everyone and not in need of obtuse analysis.

I could go on but that is a sample of some of the words of Democritus regarding ethics. For such a prolific writer it is remarkable that so little of what he wrote survived and even his ethical material, which had the most appeal to later Greco-Romans survives only in short quotes and pithy epigrams. It appears that even his ethical material was not that appealing and what generally circulated were collections of sayings. The full actual works were too out of touch with the otherworldly spirit of much Greco-Roman intellectual life after Plato. They lacked the inward focus of later intellectual life and so were little read in the original by later readers.

Democritus represents both the culmination of the Ionian Philosophers and the end. It appears that people preferred to read about his “scientific” books in summaries and amusing anecdotes. Very few seemed to have been interested in reading the originals. Very little work seems to have been done by the later atomist thinkers to build up from Democritus’ foundations. Instead they combined atomism with philosophical resignation and bootless speculation.

Ethically Democritus’ idea that action was both possible and desirable and his apparent rejection of philosophical resignation were ignored.

Thus did the Greco-Roman culture stagnate.

1. Jonathon Barnes Editor, Early Greek Philosophy, 2nd Revised Edition, Penguin Books, London, 2001, pp. 201-253, Waterfield, Robin, Editor, The First Philosophers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, pp. 164-171, Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., Schofield, M., Editors, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 402-433.

2. IBID.

3. IBID. Kirk et al, p. 404.

4. Barnes, p. 203.

5. IBID. pp. 204-205.

6. IBID. p. 227.

7. IBID. p. 228.

8. IBID. p. 229.

9. IBID. p. 230.

10. IBID. p. 230.

11. IBID. p. 253.

12. IBID. p. 253.

13. IBID. p. 70, Greek Philosopher Heraclitus.

14. IBID. p. 251.

15. IBID. p. 250.

16. IBID. p. 238

17. IBID. p. 243.

18. IBID. p. 243.

19. IBID. p. 242.

20. IBID. p. 242.

Pierre Cloutier

Lost in Plato's Cave

Plato's Cave

[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! Human beings living in an underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[Glaucon] I see.

[Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

[Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

[Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

[Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

[Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

[Glaucon] Yes, he said.

[Socrates] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

[Glaucon] Very true.

[Socrates] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

[Glaucon] No question, he replied.

[Socrates] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

[Glaucon] That is certain.

[Socrates] And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

[Glaucon] Far truer.

[Socrates] And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

[Glaucon] True, he now said.

[Socrates] And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he’s forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.

[Glaucon] Not all in a moment, he said.

[Socrates] He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the
water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?

[Glaucon] Certainly.

[Socrates] Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

[Glaucon] Certainly.

[Socrates] He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

[Glaucon] Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.

[Socrates] And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

[Glaucon] Certainly, he would.

[Socrates] And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,

Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,

and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?

[Glaucon] Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.

[Socrates] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

[Glaucon] To be sure, he said.

[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

[Glaucon] No question, he said.

[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

[Glaucon] I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.

[Socrates] Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.1

The above is the text of Plato’s allegory of the cave in which Plato argues that “reality” is nothing more than pale shadows on a wall seen by enchained, immobile prisoners.

 

Plato

What is truly remarkable is how many people are impressed by this "argument" when it is in fact nothing of the sort; it is frankly a bad "argument" that lulls reason too sleep and replaces it with a myth, in this case a thought provoking myth, but again a myth not a reason or argument.

An argument postulates reasons why something is so and if it starts with what are considered unarguable axioms at least that should be clear about them. The cave is not an argument of this or any other kind. It is instead an allegory; now an allegory is not an argument it is an explanation of something; it can be used to explain an argument or something but it is not an argument for or against something. Plato’s allegory however performs double duty it does not just explain the "argument" for Plato’s idea of forms it is the argument for Plato’s idea of forms in The Republic. This is pure deception because the beauty and evocative nature of the story are used has tools for convincing the reader that the idea is true because no reasons are given to accept the arguement.

Nowhere in Plato’s Republic is an argument put forth for Plato’s notion of forms; instead like a good propagandist Plato argues by appealing to the love of charming stories and to the reader’s vanity by making him / her one of those who could escape from the chains of being deluded into the wider brighter world. In other words to receive wisdom that only a chosen few will or can have.

Plato’s allegory proves nothing one way or the other for an allegory is not an argument it may help to elucidate an argument or point of view but it proves zero. But the lulling appeal of Plato’s pretty myth achieves its purpose by putting reason to sleep and making the reader accept an idea for which Plato does not put forward an argument but simply asserts.

Glaucon who is conversing here with Socrates is just a rather dull witted yes man. Glaucon's incredible dullness in this portion of the dialogue is annoying and he is basically there to mouth “Yes your always right”.

Now Plato was very fond of his myths and he liberally sprinkled his dialogues with these enchanting but reason killing stories. For example in the Timaeus he gave us his story of the creation of the world and gave us Atlantis, which he further developed in the Critias. And in the Republic Plato also gave us the myth of the three metals.

This love of mythological stories was due in part to their ability to get over any objections the reader may have by appealing to the irrational in the reader; who is gulled by the charm and artistry of the story. Plato quite simply did not advance a reason to accept his "argument" probably because there is none. For all his appeals to reason Plato was in many respects a highly irrational thinker much of whose continuing appeal is based on the irrational attraction that his ideas have. Especially the way that they sanctify and glorify Philosophy and the “Philosophical” way of life.

As to the allegory itself let us start with the beginning.

Aside from the base flattery involved in "enlightened" versus "unenlightened". The Philosopher and his students / readers are of course "enlightened" and superior, obviously, to the "unenlightened". What evidence does the Philosopher i.e., Plato give to show that the "unenlightened" are chained and bound in this way? The answer is of course none. Common sense would dictate that people are not bound in such a fashion. Certainly one would wish that Plato would provide evidence or at least an argument but he does not. The allegory also makes specious errors of logic. The inmates in Plato’s cave would of course have an extremely difficult time interacting with other people if they could at all. That is not something that is perceivable in the real world with real people. So on that basis the allegory begins to fall flat.

Neither are people enchained in any visible manner. Ah but the allegory means to say that we "enlightened" ones are really free and you who are not graced with our blessed sacred wisdom, comprehensible to only a favored few are enslaved, chained and unblessed.

And of course what these "unenlightened", enchained unfortunates perceive is nothing more than the perverse play of shadows on a wall. Again on what evidence does Plato base this allegory? On what basis does he argue that what the "unenlightened" perceive is mere shadows on a wall? The answer dear reader is obvious; no evidence at all.

This is of course the ultimate Platonic joke. That reality is nothing more than shadows on a wall. What Plato misses entirely is that if the prisoners were enchained the way he has them enchained, virtually unable to move, they would not perceive the shadows as shadows on a wall but has changing forms of light and dark. They would not and could not perceive them as shadows of something else but as purely changing patterns of light and dark. And in point of fact that is what they are simply changing patterns of light and dark.

Thus the prisoners in Plato’s cave would correctly perceive what they were seeing as simple changing patterns of light and dark with no more “meaning” than the changing shape of a burning flame.

Of course Plato does not bother to answer such questions has just how do the prisoner’s learn to speak to each other, to have any sort of interaction. How they are fed also gets by him. For frankly given how they are restrained they would have to be spoon fed. Here again the analogy with the real world breaks down for it is painfully obvious people are not constrained to this extent and in that manner.

Of course it can be said that I am being petty and fussing about non-essential details, but that is precisely the point. Plato expects the allegory to explain and justify his idea of forms and in fact it substitutes for an argument hence it is required to examine if the allegory holds up. And it does not.

Now what does Plato think is the shadows that the "unenlightened" see? Well guess what. It’s the world we live in! That’s right all that surrounds us is nothing more that shadows cast on a wall!

Now think of it. That gorgeous sunset you saw the other day is nothing but a shadow. That beautiful view that thrilled you is a pale shadow. In fact everything that you perceived or felt is in fact nothing but a pale shadow.

Lets face it such an opinion, if truly believed, is nothing if not lunatic. It goes right in with the idea that reality is all in your head nonsense. And on what does Plato base this idea why nothing rational it does however once again separate the "enlightened" from the "unenlightened".

The "enlightened" “know” that behind the defective object perceived is a real or ideal form that is more real than the object we perceive and that only the "enlightened" can discuss, talk about or comprehend this real object. Of course this real object cannot be perceived or even began to be perceived except through the tools of “reason” that only the "enlightened" have. How ego massaging.

You see only the blessed “know” that all this is just a pale shadow hiding the really important stuff and the "unenlightened" are deluded enough to think its “real”. No doubt when a sword pierces the "enlightened" heart he will know it is nothing but a pale shadow and ignore it.

Now let us be clear about what is going on here. Plato seems to be unaware that we do not directly perceive anything. I for example do not perceive directly the desk across the room what I perceive is the light reflecting off the desk through my sense of sight. So that if it was a shadow I would be perceiving it only in an indirect fashion through my senses.

Since perception is through the senses, it is only a limited perception of the object that I get. I cannot fully perceive / experience the object at all. I only perceive limited aspects of the object, i.e., colour, dimensions, etc. I could also touch, or taste the object, perhaps hear it. But my perception of the object remains limited. Now if Plato had meant this when he talked about his idea of forms it would be nothing but a statement of the obvious truth that our senses are limited and that information that give us about the outside world is limited.

But Plato does not mean that because if he did it would mean that our senses did tell us something meaningful about the outside world and that the problem is not that our senses are deceptive but that they are limited. Plato wishes to banish the senses from our understanding of reality and to replace it with reason. Our senses tell us little about reality in Plato’s world, for only reason without the distortions of the senses can tell us anything real.

It also serves the very useful purpose of removing the senses from testing whether or not reason is in fact telling us truth.

Now Plato’s idea of forms has many problems. It is for example a pretty story for which Plato gives zero evidence. It has a certain beguiling poetic appeal which is its main selling point because frankly there is no evidence for it and its appeal is irrational. Finally the idea for example that the chair I sit in is nothing more than a pale shadow of an ideal real chair that existed prior to and eternal to the chair I’m actually sitting in, faces the problem that what existed in chronological time before the chair was the various trees and plants from which the chair was created. The prior object was not the chair but something else. This world of ideal forms may exist in the sense that objects that are created by man are conceived in thought first but the idea that they exist and are more real than what I end up sitting in is nothing more than a conceit. One Greek philosopher by the name of Antiphon response to the idea of ideal forms was to state that if you buried a bed what you would get is not another bed but a tree. The idea being that the material that made up the bed was prior to the idea of the bed.2

Now what does all this mean? Well guess what Plato has it backwards it is not the real world that is a pale shadow of the real world that exists in a realm of rarified ideal types but the other way around.

The thought of a chair is nothing but the metaphysical shadow of the real chair that has to be created by a craftsman. I mentioned earlier that our senses can only incompletely perceive the objects around us; if that is case than our thoughts based upon our perceptions are if anything even more incomplete. Thus the thought of a chair is but a very incomplete rendition of even the chair that we perceive. Let alone the actual object in all its ramifications which our senses cannot completely perceive.

It goes like this; what we use to describe the world we perceive is language and language consits of arbitrary sound labels that we put upon a collection of sensations associated with particular objects. For example the word “chair” is a label we put on the sensations associated with the object we call “chair”. Words like “anger” are again labels that we put upon particular sensations that we have associated with anger. Now if has I said earlier our sensations are incomplete and do not fully capture the fullness of the object experienced / perceived than how can language, which because it has to be comprehensible to many, who may have slightly different perceptions of particular phenomena to say nothing of the fact that language is even more removed from the object described, capture the fullness of the object described. It cannot! It is if anything a true pale shadow of the reality described.

Here is where Plato gets in a mess. Plato elevates language to the high art of describing “reality”. Plato arbitrarily decided that reason and language could capture the reality of things. Thus the philosophers who can argue and have the tools of argument could find the reality of things through the ability to define things.

This is fascinating thus we get endless Platonic dialogues trying to define this or that and in the end the philosopher ends up not being able to define something. In fact an absolute and perfect definition of anything is quite beyond the prevue of philosophy. It is beyond the prevue of philosophy because of the limitations of language. Language is, to repeat, arbitrary labels on states of conscious perceptions of various objects, (objects here is not just physical objects), in the world and has such are incomplete even has labels of those conscious perceptions let alone the actual objects.

Thus we get such absurdities has Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus which as a discussion of shoemaking and the dialogue Phaedrus which discusses horse trading. To get to Plato and shoe making first In the dialogue Theaetetus Plato says:

[Socrates] In the first place, there would be an absurdity in assuming that he who asked the question would understand from our answer the nature of "clay," merely because we added "of the image-makers," or of any other workers. How can a man understand the name of anything, when he does not know the nature of it?

[Theaetetus] He cannot.

[Socrates] Then he who does not know what science or knowledge is, has no knowledge of the art or science of making shoes?

[Theaetetus] None.

[Socrates] Nor of any other science?

[Theaetetus] No.3

The entire dialogue is about trying to define what knowledge is and of course it ends up being unable to satisfactorily define it. But the reference to shoe making is fascinating because what Plato is saying is that in order to have knowledge of shoe making one must know what knowledge is. That is be able to define it. It is of interest that although Plato is unable to define what knowledge is a shoemaker although unable to define knowledge or what a shoe is can still make shoes!

This is of course Plato being an intellectual snob. For although a shoemaker can make a shoe he has no real knowledge of shoemaking! Of course the philosopher blessed with superior knowledge and wisdom really knows what shoemaking is about and as real knowledge unlike the shoemaker who really doesn’t know what he is doing!

He still, however, can make a shoe and meanwhile the philosopher can’t define something / anything to his satisfaction including a shoe!. What of course all this means is that the shoemaker simply can’t define and analyze things the way a philosopher can, but then he may not be able to use language the way a philosopher can but he can make a shoe.

The next dialogue, Phaedrus we have the following said about horses and horse trading:

[Socrates] Let us put the matter thus:-Suppose that I persuaded you to buy a horse and go to the wars. Neither of us knew what a horse was like, but I knew that you believed a horse to be of tame animals the one which has the longest ears.

[Phaedrus] That would be ridiculous.

[Socrates] There is something more ridiculous coming:-Suppose, further, that in sober earnest I, having persuaded you of this, went and composed a speech in honour of an ass, whom I entitled a horse beginning: "A noble animal and a most useful possession, especially in war, and you may get on his back and fight, and he will carry
baggage or anything."

[Phaedrus] How ridiculous!

[Socrates] Ridiculous! Yes; but is not even a ridiculous friend better than a cunning enemy?

[Phaedrus] Certainly.

[Socrates] And when the orator instead of putting an ass in the place of a horse puts good for evil being himself as ignorant of their true nature as the city on which he imposes is ignorant; and having studied the notions of the multitude, falsely persuades them not about "the shadow of an ass," which he confounds with a horse, but about good which he confounds with evil-what will be the harvest which rhetoric will be likely to gather after the sowing of that seed?

[Phaedrus] The reverse of good.4

What can one say except that people may have trouble defining what a horse is but people generally know what a horse is. The difficulty in defining something does not mean that something is misunderstood or not known. Plato seems to not understand that rather elementary notion. Obviously everyday in classical Athens horses were bought and sold so that the failure to be able to fully, absolutely define a horse did not mean any failure to understand what a horse was. Certainly enough understanding existed so that horses could be traded. Meanwhile the philosophers still could not define a horse completely and because of the limitations of language never will.

Basically what Plato is saying is that the definition of something is the essence or reality of that something in so far as it captures the ideal real form of the object of the philosopher’s attention. In other words the definition of something is the reality of something. This is stratospheric nonsense. Given what was said before about the nature of language; a definition is but a pale reflection of the sense perception of an object to say nothing of the actuality of the object in question.

The real purpose is of course the end when Plato has Socrates state that the multitude could be persuaded by oratory that an ass is a horse. Of course Plato then states that the multitude not endowed with superior wisdom like the blessed philosopher, could be persuaded that evil is good by a cunning orator. Thus once again the unenlightened are not gifted with real knowledge.

Plato has the philosopher gifted with true knowledge of the world and therefore free of his chains and able to see the light of the real world and if he returns to the prison house of the world of shadows is liable to be killed. A rather obvious reference to the death of Socrates by the hands of an Athenian jury. How people who are chained and cannot move are going to kill anyone is not explained.

Thus Plato’s elite philosophers see reality are blinded by it and find it hard to get used to the reality of real things. So that they suffer. Meanwhile those not similarly blessed remain trapped and enchained. Only a blessed few can possibly see this real world and the multitude remains trapped and blissfully unaware of reality.

Of course the philosopher having attained true knowledge of reality distains the concerns of the multitude especially that horrible thing called politics has polluting and a distraction from reality. Reality is contemplating the world of ideal forms and seeking perfect definitions.

In the end Plato’s allegory of the cave sanctifies the pretensions of an philosophical elite that can then congratulate its self about its superiority over the multitude. It can’t make shoes, chairs or trade horses but only this elite really knows about horses, chairs or shoes! The knowledge of the multitude, based on delusions and being mere shadows on a wall, can be dismissed as unimportant and thus the self satisfactions and pretensions of Plato’s elite are boosted.

Plato frankly hated Athenian democracy. He could not abide it. Not simply because an Athenian jury judicially murdered his teacher Socrates but because in his eyes how dare the multitude, shoemakers, carpenters, who in his eyes don’t really know what they are doing and sully themselves with interaction with the world, presume to take part in politics!

Thus his ridicule of the multitude. How dare they presume to engage in politics, determining the good for the city when they can not even define a shoe or a chair or really know what a horse is! Only an elite of philosophers can know for real about anything and their knowledge is not from contact with sordid reality which is after all nothing but shadows on a wall but through reason, i.e., the use of language, which must be unsullied by reference to the distorted, misleading world of the senses. Which are a chain and obstacle to true knowledge.

Thus only through endless dialectical dispute is true knowledge attained. Mere reality must give way to the “reasonable” but thoroughly un-testable insights of the philosophical elite.

In one particular dialogue Menexenus, Plato satirizes the Funeral oration of Pericles has given by Thucydides in his The Peloponnesian War. It is frankly a vicious parody. Part of the joke is given by Socrates quoting a supposed Funeral oration given by Aspasia, Pericles’ mistress. For example:

[Socrates] (Quoting Aspasia) And if a person desired to bring a deserved accusation against our city, he would find only one charge which he could justly urge—that she was too compassionate and too favorable to the weaker side.5

Plato’s hatred of democratic Athens informs so much of his philosophy. The philosopher distained politics because the great unwashed were involved; who had no knowledge of real virtue and wisdom and of course could never have such knowledge. But the truly Platonically "enlightened" philosopher could inwardly navel gaze and contemplate his superiority over the "unenlightened" unwashed who knew nothing worth while about anything.

Since allegories prove nothing one could with ease make an allegory in reverse.

The Platonically "enlightened" Philosopher living in the bright sunlight with his fellow beings. Experiencing, and enjoying all that the world has to offer, seeks out a cave.

He goes down the cave and finds it hard to adjust to the lack of light and wind, but eventually does. He finds a fire burning with a wall in front of it with men carrying shapes along the road next to the wall. Our Philosopher goes over the road and wall.

Our Philosopher then sits against the wall and sees the shadows made against the other side, across from the wall on a great rock face. The shadows are made by the shadows of the shapes of men walking in front of the fire. Our Philosopher takes the chains he finds and enchains himself and then ensures that his head is bound so he cannot move his head left or right and he gazes at the shadows flickering on the wall.

For our philosopher finds the big bright world too hard to deal with and seeks the gloom and quiet of the cave where his senses will not be bombarded with so much stimulations and he can contemplate shadows on a wall, which he mistakes for reality.

The pain and agony of the lack of stimulation, the abject boredom of looking at shadows, take time for him to get used too but eventually the Philosopher enjoys the monotonous boredom, the emptiness of his head of thought. Our Philosopher is convinced that this shadow world is real. So from time to time he goes into the world of sunshine and light and tries to convince others that the world they see around them is not real.

He takes back a few to his cave where he chains them up and they watch shadows on a wall. While he drones on about how this is reality and about how only they, the elect, perceive this reality. Gradually their reasoning falls asleep from boredom and their minds empty and they too enjoy the bliss of unthinking ecstasy has they contemplate how to bring more people into the cave in order to enchain and confine them and stultify their minds.

Those who live in the world of sunshine and experience regard them as insane.

While Plato was very skeptical about the power of poetry and in fact argued against them in both The Republic and Laws, Plato used poetry over and over again in his dialogues as a substitute for argumentation.

Plato was possessed by visions, beguiling visions, but visions none the less. Over and over again Plato abandons any form of reason for a poetic myth. His myths are presented as visions from on high to be accepted without argument as revelations of truth. To quote:

Neither the wrath of Achilles nor the suffering of Odysseus enslaves reason as Plato does when he compels us, from generation to generation to return to the cave of his imagination to view the world that even now surrounded us in splendor and bright beauty, as if it were mere shadows on a wall of rock, and as if even the greatest paintings and sculptures were shadows of shadows. The power of this vision transcends all arguments, and like a fiery speaker, is not deterred by objections. The image outlasts all reasons,…6

Plato’s cave is in the end a vision whose appeal is to the irrational and uncritical in men and it casts a spell that waves objections aside by the very appeal of the vision much like a magician. Its appeal is however to the human need for fantasy and illusion.

Its time to leave Plato’s cave.
 

A last look at Plato's cave

 

1. The History Guide, Here from the Benjamin Jowett translation of The Republic, Vintage, New York, 1991, pp. 253-261 from the beginning of book 7.

2. See Stone, I.F., The Trial of Socrates, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1988, p. 71.

3. The Classical Library, Here, Benjamin Jowett Translation of Theaetetus.

4. The Classical Library, Here, Benjamin Jowett Translation of Phaedrus.

5. University of Adelaide Library, Here, Benjamin Jowett Translation of Menexenus. There is a controversy about the authenticity of this dialogue but since Aristotle refers to it is probably indeed by Plato.

6. Kaufmann, Walter, From Shakespeare to Existentialism, Doubleday & Co. Inc., New York, 1960, p. 268.

Sources for this Essay and other reading

Popper, Karl R., The Open Society and Its Enemies, v. 1, The Spell of Plato, ch. 3, Plato’s Theory of Forms or Ideas, Fifth Edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1966, pp. 18-34.

Kaufman, Walter, From Shakespeare to Existentialism, ch. 14, Philosophy versus Poetry, Doubleday & Co. Inc., New York, 1960, pp. 263-282.

Stone, I.F., The Trial of Socrates, ch. 6, A Wild Goose Chase: The Socratic Search for Absolute Definitions, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1988, pp. 68-89.

Pierre Cloutier