Logic: Greek Skepticism

HERACLITUS

He gives us the concept of the LOGOS, from which we get LOGIC.
This could be influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism, though this is controversial.

Heraclitus is in the very beginning of Greek thinking, in modern day Turkey (the Eastern half of the area we denote as ancient Greece, the half that is not today called ‘Greece’ or on the European mainland). The presocratics were active before Socrates (hence ‘pre-Socratic), about 500s and 400s BCE. We have no writings of Socrates and only fragments of the pre-Socratics. It was in the 1800s, the time of Hegel that the pre-Socratics were given attention and study. Schleiermacher, the most famous protestant theologian, was a big fan of Heraclitus, a major translator of Plato, and his theology is somewhat similar to Heraclitus and Plato: all down here is watery chaos, so we must exalt above all this to realize the Great all or One, symbolized by the sun, which is eternal above all of the species of being it produces.

Heraclitus was born in Ephesus supposedly just before 500 BCE. Ephesus is quite close to Miletus, the home of most of the pre-Socratic philosopher/scientists, but there is no record of Heraclitus interacting with any of them. Both cities were satraps or provinces of the Persian empire, and so it was under the influence of Zoroastrianism (developed about 1000 BCE) and the cultures of the Persian empire. Indeed, though Heraclitus’ thought can be compared to Egyptian and Indian thought to give it a wider context, it is clear that Heraclitus closely resembles Zoroastrianism, while giving it a very Indian like skepticism about the watery impermanent nature of any particular being or perception of being. Heraclitus’ most famous idea is a memorable image: you can never step in the same river twice. Just as a river is always flowing and changing, so is reality always flowing and changing, such that nothing stays exactly the same for any two moments. You step in a river, then step out, then step back in the same river, but it is no longer ‘the same river’.

According to one source, Heraclitus was a king who abandoned the title to become a philosopher. This has been identified as a close resemblance to Indian Buddhism and the story of the Buddha. Both thinkers were ‘mythologized’ as a king who left powerful king position and became a sage, and both believe in the enlightening sun rising above the watery chaos of reality and human perception. Was Heraclitus getting Indian thought through Zoroastrian Persia?

Another reason why famous: Heraclitus vs. his predecessors. He calls the poets (Hesiod and Homer) and the Pythagoreans frauds, and says that there are no permanent truths or laws other than the constant formation of watery chaos by the sun and cosmic fire. Notice that this does not question the set up of the cosmos as we have studied it everywhere (and what the Persians gave to the Eastern Greek city states). This is a psychological skepticism that is criticizing the human ability to know particular things as permanent that are able to be separated from the One and All (the cosmic fire). Only the All is permanent. All the other things are wandering temporal forms. All that we know is that things arise from the energy of the cosmic fire, and then they fall back into the fire and disappear.

Heraclitus even ascribed to the Fire-air-earth-water cosmology, but believed that the particular forms, the species of being that are produced by the cosmos, are chaotic and thus simply forms of life that cannot be boiled down to knowable essences or types. The doctrine can be stated famously, though these are not Heraclitus’ words, “Everything is in flux”.

The cosmos resembles the chaos yet order of the human community centered on authority by spoken word. The LOGOS, the word/plan/order/command, is the formative force in the cosmos, the force of fire and light in the watery chaotic world. The cosmic fire speaks with its ever-present Logos (fire over air) and this brings about the firmament in the chaos (the earth rising out of the water). This process, however, does not bring about eternal or stable beings, but chains of beings that are in flux and interdependent. The whole and the operation of the cosmos has an eternal shape to it, but the shapes that arise out of the cosmos are only temporary. This goes for laws, which Heraclitus have to be defended as if they were city laws. This is sometimes read that Heraclitus thought human law was important and had to be defended, but in fact he is showing that human laws are impermanent like city walls. They may seem eternal and permanent, but as any satrap of the Persian empire knows, empires fall and impressive city states are overthrown and change hands. The eternal word of the fire forever forms the cosmos, but human speech and walls are temporary, and therefore take force and effort to maintain.

Heraclitus is important to the Christian tradition. If a primal speaking of Logos sounds familiar, Heraclitus was a central influence on the Greek and Roman stoics, and the author of the Gospel of John was almost certainly a Greek stoic writing in Roman times. John reads: and the Logos/word was with God (Fire/Cosmos), and God spoke and light was separated from darkness. Speech and intention here are dividing or burning the cosmos into opposites by fire. Our minds do this on a smaller level in an imperfect way, explaining how the cosmos created our minds.


PYRRHO AND SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Sextus is a mystery. He is supposed to have lived towards 200 CE, 700 years after Heraclitus.
He is thought by scholars to have been from Alexandria Egypt. He might be Libyan, thus African, but it has been assumed that he was Greek living in Egypt or Rome. It is thought that he is a doctor because he mentions medical cases to show how sometimes things are good but then surprisingly bad in other cases or vice versa, but there is nothing that proves this.

Sextus is the first Pyrrhoian Skeptic, quite similar to the Jains. Agnosticism of all judgment and plurality of perspective and truth are staples for both. When Alexander fought his way to the border of India, to try to conquer the rich and fertile area, he brought the philosopher Pyrrho with him around 300 BCE. Pyrrho met with some ‘gymnosophists’ in the historian’s texts, and scholars argue whether these were Buddhists, Jains or if either existed yet at the time. Pyrrho witnessed the yoga and extreme penances of the sages, had discussions, then came home and refused to write anything or live in society. People would come to visit him on the edges of town, where he would argue that everything is true and not true, that every perspective is true but also false. His thinking sprouted a school in Alexandria Egypt, a great center of Greek, early Christian and later Muslim thought. We know of this exclusively through the writings of Sextus.

For ex: Sextus calls upon the ‘where there is smoke, there is fire’ example used by Gautama and Aristotle, and then brings up many cases where one would be mistaken to draw the inference. The point is not that it can’t be drawn, but it can never be certain in a particular situation.

The Issue: IS has a temporary and eternal meaning, back and forth, like IS has a whole-part back and forth meaning. (Clinton, Rumsfeld vs. dealing with the real issue)

Pyrrho and Sextus, just like Heraclitus, DO believe in saying things (maybe not writing for Pyrrho), but they do not like saying or judging in the long run, just for short term situations.
Thus, they all believe in a ONE LOGOS, but are skeptical of judgment to FINALLY and COMPLETELY judge the actions and parts of the One.

Logic: Aristotle Assignment

BCC Logic Class NAME:____________________________
Instructor: Eric Gerlach
3/01/2010

ARISTOTLE ASSIGNMENT

1) Recreate the Square of Opposition below. For each corner, label each with X and Y (such as All X is Y), and then below that give an example (such as “All cars have wheels”). Make sure to draw the three arrows between corners that contradict, and put ‘can’t both be true’ and ‘can’t both be false’ on the two appropriate sides.










2) Describe the difference between inclusive and exclusive uses of OR.









3) Give examples (complete sentences) of a Barbara (All, All, All), Celarent (All, None, None), Darii (Some, All, Some) and Ferio (Some, None, Some Not) Syllogism.
Use new examples, not the examples from class or Aristotle. You can use the back of this sheet.

Ethics: Perspective, Heraclitus, Zhuan Zi, and Hegel

Perspective is not simply individual, but social. We share reality in so far as we share perspective. This means that we should not only try to see as many perspectives or as much perspective as we can, but also resisting the tendency to accept one’s own perspective as reality or the whole truth. Truth is in each and every perspective, but it is also always beyond and outside of each and every perspective. Focusing on the concept of perspective forces us to affirm our views as truths but also deny our views as the Truth (with a capital T).

Two of the greatest ancient thinkers on perspective are Heraclitus from ancient Greece and Zhuang Zi from ancient China. To consider perspective as an ethical concept we will be looking at the strikingly similar things that these two ancient thinkers say and then end with some insights of the German philosopher Hegel and discoveries of modern psychology.


HERACLITUS:

Heraclitus’ most famous idea is a memorable image: you can never step in the same river twice. Just as a river is always flowing and changing, so is reality always flowing and changing, such that nothing stays exactly the same for any two moments. You step in a river, then step out, then step back in the same river, but it is no longer ‘the same river’. Heraclitus says this is also true of himself.

According to one source, Heraclitus was a king who abandoned the title to become a philosopher. This has been identified as a close resemblance to the story of the Buddha in India, and some scholars have argued that Heraclitus was in fact the Buddha from India while others have argued that the Buddha was in fact Heraclitus from Greece. Both thinkers were mythologized as a king who left powerful king position and became a sage, and both believe in the enlightening sun rising above the watery chaos of reality and human perception, but it is quite likely the two were not the same individual.

Heraclitus is a very skeptical thinker. This does not mean he saw all things as negative. He was convinced that wisdom and inquiring within show us that all is one big cosmic fire, and things that unify the community and the individual bring wholeness and true happiness. However, he believed that humans are often foolish and let their minds divide themselves from the whole and from each other such that their understandings are disjointed and ignorant.

This is very typical thinking of skeptics the world over. A positivist would say that there are specific truths that are certain and must be separated from the uncertain, specific goods that must be separated from the evil. A skeptic would say, like Heraclitus and the Daoists from China, that the truth and the good is the whole and the great One, and the tendency of the mind to divide the good and the true from the rest is the opposite of true understanding and wisdom.

Heraclitus was not a fan of experts and specialists, and he ridiculed the cultural leaders of his time. He says that the common people are completely asleep, but far more dangerous are the experts who have a small piece of the puzzle and say that they know the entire truth. He calls the poets (Hesiod and Homer) and the Pythagoreans frauds, and says that there are no permanent truths or laws other than the constant formation of watery chaos by the sun and cosmic fire.

Notice that this does not question the set up of the cosmos as we have studied it everywhere (and what the Persians gave to the Eastern Greek city states). Many often ask, “Why, then, should I listen to Heraclitus, since he is simply an expert?”. Heraclitus replies as most skeptics do: don’t take my word for it, but look into the world and within yourself and you will find that it is true.
This is a psychological skepticism that is criticizing the human ability to know particular things as permanent that are able to be separated from the One and All (the cosmic fire). Only the All is permanent. All the other things are wandering temporal forms. The many beings arise from the energy of Being, and then they fall back into the fire and disappear. The cosmos resembles the chaos yet order of the human community centered on authority by spoken word. The LOGOS, the word/plan/order/command, is the formative force in the cosmos, the force of fire and light in the watery chaotic world. The cosmic fire speaks with its ever-present Logos (fire over air) and this brings about the firmament in the chaos (the earth rising out of the water). This process, however, does not bring about eternal or stable beings, but chains of beings that are in flux and interdependent.

This goes also for laws, which Heraclitus says have to be defended as if they were city walls. This is sometimes read that Heraclitus thought human law was important and had to be defended, which he did, but in fact he is also telling us that human laws are impermanent like walls made out of earth. They may seem eternal and permanent, but as any former citizen or city of the Persian empire knows, empires fall and impressive city states are overthrown and change hands. The eternal word of the fire forever forms the cosmos, but human speech and walls are temporary, and therefore take force and effort to maintain. As a skeptic, Heraclitus believes that the divisions made by the mind are mortal, not eternal, like the human body. Our knowledge and laws are impermanent like mounds of dirt.

Heraclitus was one of the most famous thinkers of the Greek and Roman world. He was a big influence on Plato, though Plato is very much opposed to his thinking as we will see next week. Both Heraclitus and Plato were big influences on Christianity which initially flourished not in Israel but in Greece and Syria. If a primal speaking of the Word or Logos sounds familiar, Heraclitus was a central influence on the Greek and Roman stoics, and the author of the Gospel of John was almost certainly a Greek stoic writing in Roman times. The opening of the Gospel of John famously reads: the Logos/Word/Order was with God (Fire/Cosmos), and God spoke (“let there be light”) and light was separated from darkness.

It was only in the late 1700s and 1800s that German scholars rediscovered the presocratics and gave them attention and study. Before this time, Greek Philosophy was considered to have originated with Socrates (hence, “presocratics”) and most scholars were only versed in the surviving writings of Plato and Aristotle. Schleiermacher, one of the most famous and central protestant theologians and an opponent of Hegel, was a major force in bringing popularity to Heraclitus and a major translator of Plato. The philosopher Hegel, who we will study later, saw Heraclitus as a skeptic who is put in balance with Plato and other positivists by the course of history itself. Nietzsche, the great skeptical philosopher who we will also study, wrote that he felt closer to Heraclitus than any other thinker. Nietzsche believed, like Heraclitus, that we are proud of our learning and achievement but we are in fact little better than apes.

We are going to go through the fragments according to themes, that show how Heraclitus sees the individual within the cosmos.

(1): The word from which all things follow (Fire-air(spirits)-earth(firm) in water.
Criticism of the experts and knowledge holders, who try for separate essences.
(92, 97, 98, 119, 121, 125)
Criticism of the commoners, asleep and isolated in otherness, (94)
(2): Listen to the great word and all is one, beyond experts and common
(5, 6) Many say they know (certain) but can’t speak and listen (give and take)
(7) Seek the unknown- Knowledge is a blockage (18,19- wisdom beyond- wisdom lit)
(10) Things keep their secrets- unknown in all things
Fire as all things (20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28)
(25) Air-Fire, Water-Earth (with fragment of souls smell- smoke by both)
Contending tensions/powers set all things (24, 25, 29, 31)
Hot cold and wet dry (39, 40)
Dry soul good, Wet soul pleasured, bad (72)
War is father of all, thus harmonies (46, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61)
(41) River twice, (81) I am and am not like the river (unknown)
(52, 53) Everything has qualities by perspective (relativity)
(71) No depth to soul- explored forever, (80) inquire within
(130) Silence- Healing (Note the parallels with Buddhism out of Jainism)


ZHUANG ZI

Zhuang Zi, the second patriarch of Daoism, lived from 370 to 301 BCE and worked as a manager in a lacquer warehouse, a large ‘factory’ for making vases, bowls and general wood products (like bento boxes). Other than this, we know little of his life other than his work. Daoist tradition holds that Zhuang Zi wrote the ‘inner chapters’ of his work, and that the anecdotes about him and other stories were added by his disciples, the early proto-Daoists.

In several places, we see the idea of perspective which we encountered in Heraclitus. Mao Quiang and Lady Li were famous beautiful women, but fish, birds and deer were frightened by them. Heraclitus said that all human beauty and achievement is nothing but apes to the gods as apes are only apes to us. Who knows what is beautiful, humans, birds, fish, or deer? Which of them knows what tastes good?

Another great passage is the Peng bird who migrates for the Winter, an act which the dove and the cicada (a large insect) find ridiculous. They have no frame of reference to understand such an act. This suggests that the wisdom of Daoism will sound ridiculous and foolish to those who are not experienced and wise. We read in the text "Truth sounds like its opposite!", just as Heraclitus said "The way forward is the way back".

In the Chapter, The Secret of Caring for Life, we meet Cook Ting and his famous butcher’s knife. Cook Ting tells his master that his blade never goes dull, for he can always find the hidden spaces in things, and then his blade goes right through. This is very much like the reasoning of the wise mind, that can use reason to chop anything up easily and naturally, without striking up against anything in opposition.

Notice that Confucius appears many times in the Zhuang Zi, used to argue AGAINST his own position and in favor of a Daoist position. Many times Confucius says that his own way is inferior to the Daoist way. Clearly, these are texts written by Daoists who appreciate the good in Confucianism but think their own school to be superior. For example, page 65, in the chapter ‘The Sign of Virtue Complete’, Confucius says of Wang T’ai, “If you look at them from the point of view of their differences, then there is liver and gall, Ch’u and Yueh (two warring kingdoms in China). But if you look at them from the point of view of their sameness, then the ten thousand things are all one.” I still use this contradiction of one and many to this day. It shows you much about how people make judgments and arguments.


HEGEL AND THE MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONSHIP

Hegel, a German philosopher who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s, believed that the history of the world and the process of thought in history and the individual was an evolution of perspective that works from opposite sides to bring itself to greater completion. One of the most famous parts of his Phenomenology of Spirit, a history of the evolution of thought, is the Master/Slave dialectic. This concept became very important for anti-sexism (like the feminist De Beauvoir), anti-racism (like Franz Fanon and Angela Davis) and anti-class thinkers (like Hegel’s student Karl Marx). These will be the last three topics for this class, the “Big Three” in universities since the sixties.

Hegel argues that as the self or identity (like a nation) comes into the world, it cannot understand how there can be others like itself that are not itself and so it tries to fight and kill its others. Then the self figures out that it does not have to kill its others and that it is more productive to enslave them (consider that the most selfish individual would tell everyone else “You are wrong” but the slightly smarter but still selfish individual would tell everyone else “That is just what I have been saying”, neither capable of tolerating opinions other than their own).

At first, the master is in the superior position. However, over time, the slave comes to do everything for the master and thus learns through experience while the master grows lazy and ignorant. The slave comes to realize that he can do things he never thought of for someone or something else, comes to grasp subjectivity and perspective, and thus overturns the master and becomes the greater and more highly developed master.

INSIGHTS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY:
INTERNAL/EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION & THE HOSTILE MEDIA EFFECT

Modern Psychology has learned much from experiments in recent years about how individuals tend to interpret reality. This teaches us many things about perspective that extend and develop what Heraclitus, Zhuang Zi and Hegel had to say.

Internal vs. External Attribution:
Many experiments have confirmed what is often called the actor/observer bias or internal vs. external attribution. If an individual succeeds at a task, they often attribute the success to themselves or the group to which they belong (internal attribution – “I/We are really good at that”). If an individual fails at a task, they often attribute the failure to the situation (external attribution – “It was because of that thing”). However, if the same individual watches another (especially someone disliked or ‘other’ to the individual) succeed at a task, they often attribute the success to the situation (external attribution – “They just got lucky”, or “It was easier that time”), and when they watch another fail at a task, they often attribute the failure to the other person or the group to which they belong (internal attribution – “That shows they are stupid”).

Notice the complete reversal and the contradiction of opposite perspectives given the same evidence. The attribution and perspective is one way or the complete opposite depending on who does the task and whether or not they succeed.


The Hostile Media Effect:
Other experiments have confirmed that both sides of an issue view media coverage and moderation (judges, referees) as hostile to their side. For example, liberals are angry that the media is conservative, and conservatives are angry that the media is liberal. One study at Stanford showed American media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pro-Israeli students and pro-Palestinian students, and both sides said the coverage was clearly biased in favor of the other side. Another study had students from Princeton and Dartmouth (a big East Coast rivalry) view a Princeton vs. Dartmouth football game, and each group saw more illegal moves on the other side and each said that the referees missed more of these for the other side.

If we consider perspective, anyone in the middle of an issue is to the opposite side of anyone on the edges. I have a card I like that shows children on a see-saw with one standing on the middle, and it reads “I know I am being fair when both sides accuse me of unfairness”. Unfortunately, this is often true in the world of competing and opposite perspectives.

Intro Philosophy: Lecture on Confucius

As we have seen in the course so far, systems of thought are not simply dogmatic answers, but also cultures of questioning. We saw that Shamans go on vision quests to learn the sources of problems, and that in Egyptian wisdom proverbs there is questioning of social status, consumption (over eating and drinking), and everything else that becomes easy to see when you gather many nomadic tribes into settled city states.

Now, we move to China and examine one of the foremost ethical geniuses of world history: Grand Master Kung, or as he is known to us, Confucius (Kong Fu Tsu, or Grand Master Kong). Confucius was dedicated to the idea that the individual can obtain fullness and happiness by placing others before oneself, by recognizing the desires of others as equal to the desires one has for oneself.


Chinese Philosophy and The Period of the Hundred Philosophers/Schools:

One would like to think that times of peace and prosperity are good for systems of thought, but in fact we find that times of war and disintegration of empires is best for thinkers and systems of thought. Human beings only rethink problems when they are faced with them, and so in Confucius’ China there were great problems in the ‘Warring States period’ as many kings came and went, each calling themselves ‘mandated by heaven’. If heaven speaks for a king, it was thought the king would prosper. If the king does not follow the way of heaven, heaven or the All Lord stops speaking for the king, and someone else comes along. Each new king then claims that the old king was ‘no longer spoken for’, so the populations of Greece, India etc. find themselves wondering: who exactly does Heaven (the heavens) speak for, and why? Confucius and the Daoists we will examine next week proposed different solutions to this problem. The Daoists believed that going off into nature and rejecting human ways was best for cultivating the individual, while Confucius believed that the city, morality and study were best for cultivating human virtues. Thus, while Confucius and the Daoists were both questioners of individual desires and judgment, Confucius believed we should turn to society to realize our true nature and the Daoists believed we should turn away from society to realize our true nature.

The Period of the Hundred Philosophers or Hundred Schools, as it is called, came with the Warring States Period and ended during the Han dynasty which supported the studies of many of the schools that had their origins during the Warring States Period. This included the teachings of Confucius and the early Confucians such as Mencius and Hsun Zi as well as the Daoists including Lao Zi and Zuan Zi. It also included the legalists, the followers of Mo Zi and many other schools.

An interesting point to make about the evolution of systems of thought here is that Confucius, the Daoists and others speak of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. In India, Greece, China, and many other places, we can see that first many tribes and their gods were drawn into polytheistic (many gods) systems (as we focused on last week), and then after this these were drawn into monotheistic (one god) systems. We can see that many gods with human like desires become one god with human like desires, and then this one god becomes more and more abstract. We see the same pattern in India and China, where polytheism grew into a monotheistic ‘Way’ or ‘Mandate’. Essentially, the All Lord becomes simply the mind of the universe or the ‘way’ or ‘order’ of things. Greek philosophers were individuals who were progressive, pushing beyond the polytheism of ancient Greece toward an All Intelligence that is order, goodness, and life in the world. Confucius follows this sort of pattern in using the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. Confucius does not speak of the Lord of Heaven, but the Mandate is the speech or order from the mouth of the All Lord.


Confucius and his System of Thought

Just like we had with Egypt last week, Confucius (550-480 BCE) believes that the heart is the center of the human being. Notice that this ‘center’ is both mental and physical, fitting with cosmology, psychology and medical practices (these, of course, not being separated in ancient times and cultures). Confucius is often understood as a champion of order and ritual, as he is a proponent of society against the Daoists. However, it is clear from the Analects that Confucius believed it was more important to have right intentions than right actions, i.e. ‘one’s heart is in the right place’. Confucius believed that ritual was the strength of a society and so one should perform the rituals to the ancestors, but he also believed that the worst thing was not to simply avoid ritual but to do ritual without the proper intention. We could say that Confucius would say to a churchgoer today: it is more important to enjoy your church than to attend your church, for if you do not enjoy it whole heartedly you should not go. Empty ritual, ritual simply for the motions rather than authentic love for and continuity with one’s society, is the worst thing, and thus it would be better in such a case to avoid false ritual and simply not perform the ritual at all. This point is often lost when people focus on Confucius’ great love of ritual and city culture. A good example of this point is Analects 5.5 (and yes, these are standardized so no matter the translation, ‘5.5’ is always the fifth aphorism of the fifth chapter or book, just like the Bible and Koran are standardized with numbers): Confucius says that Ran Yong does not need eloquence (civilized speech) if he is not good. Another good example is 11.10, where Confucius is grieving ‘inappropriately’ for his favorite student, and tells us that genuine love is more important than being polite or pleasant (right intention trumps right outer form). However, the best example is clearly 3.26, “Authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate”.

Also like we had with Egypt last week, Confucius was a great champion of scholarship. Confucius believed that scholarship was necessary for developing the heart, and the ‘gentleman’, Confucius’ word for the great person, developed love for others and knowledge through study of the classic texts. Needless to say, Confucius’ Analects became just such an object for devoted study in Chinese society, and Confucius became an ancestor revered by devotees with ritual. Confucius is credited as the father of China’s civil service system, a system in which anyone who tested well, regardless of their position in society, was given a government position. This is similar to the development of types of scribes in Egypt. It is just such a development that we call ‘the middle class’, the individuals who through study and work can rise or fall in position to fit the many niches required to run large cities and systems. In combination with the last point, this means that Confucius hates scholarship for show without genuine love of learning and discovery of human nature. A good example is 4.9, ‘if a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to’.

The last and central point that I want to make about Confucius as you read the Analects is this: Confucius was a genius at seeing himself as equal to everyone, and he encouraged this attitude as the path to Goodness itself. Most of us have likely heard the ‘Golden Rule’, which is paraphrased from Confucius: ‘treat others the way you want to be treated’. My favorite example is 7.22: Confucius says that if you put him with any two people at random, he can take their strengths as a model to follow and their faults as a warning. Clearly, Confucius believed that we all share the same set of strengths and faults, no matter how talented (or horrible) we happen to individually be or where our talents are. I love this point, and I believe it is central for examining other cultures with an open mind, a mind beyond the simplistic idea that ‘the West is rational’ or ‘scientific’. Confucius teaches us that NO ONE is perfect, not even himself, but there is good in everyone and everything, and we had best remember that we will never loose any of our connection to our fellow human beings if we only remember to look hard enough for it.
Again, an example: “When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him…When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself”.


Confucius’ Followers and Neo-Confucianism

Confucius had two followers who became the famous two poles of interpretation of the Analects. Mencius (370-290 BCE) or Men Zi, the second in command of Confucianism by popular consent in the tradition, believed that Confucius taught that the human being is basically good and develops the heart, growing and developing the virtues through love. He argued that because the human individual is essentially good, we need ritual to guide our growth but love is the true essence. Hsun Zi, the third in command of Confucianism, a cynic and conservative, argued that the human being is essentially evil and without the rituals and tradition to hold our nature back we would be selfish and uncivilized. This remains the major split in Confucian thought.

About 1100 CE, Confucianism merged with Daoist and Buddhist ideas to form a Confucian revival called Neo-Confucianism by scholars. Buddhist metaphors such as the pearl at the bottom of the muddy lake and the sun emerging from behind the clouds were reinterpreted in light of Confucianism and Daoism. The major figure of this revival was Chu His (1130-1200 CE), who believed that all three traditions were teaching the same truth but that Confucius was the superior and primary teacher.


Confucius’ Analects

Confucius shows us a brilliant development of the skepticism of individual and state that we have already seen develop elsewhere. When people gather, they can see each other and see groups, and are questioning and skeptical of themselves, other individuals, and group organizations.

First we look at the criticism of the individual, clearing the individual heart and putting oneself in tune with the Way. Then we look at criticism of the state, and see that the same shape applies.
Second, notice the passages where Confucius is criticizing sages who go to nature and do not study. Pay attention to this for next week, as these are early Daoists who have different opinions than Confucius about the cultivation of the human individual.


Criticism of the Individual:
Confucius puts the Good and the Heart over all else, including pride, whether the pride and judgment is for the state or for the individual.
Right act/conduct is important, but it is empty without intention
Heart over ritual/act, both important
Intention and Action, Mind and Body, the worst is the lower empty of the upper.
(4.12) He who acts out of self interest arouses much resentment.
(5.5) ‘Ran Yong is good but not eloquent’- I don’t know if he is good, but he certainly does not need eloquence if he isn’t.

(11.10) Yan Hui died. ‘Master, this grief isn’t right’ C; ‘What sort of grief for such a man is right?

Luxury:
(5.18) Master said: Zang Sunchen built a house for his tortoise, with pillars in the shape of mountains and rafters decorated with duckweed. Has he lost his mind?

(7.16) Even if you have only coarse grain, water and your arm for a pillow, you may still be happy. Riches and honors without justice are to me as fleeting clouds.

Ritual without Virtue:
(3.26) authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate.

(4.13) If one cannot govern by observing ritual and showing compassion, what is the use of ritual?

Scholarship without greed or want of career:
(4.9) If a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to.

Haven’t seen someone who studies without any thought of career.

Good is at Hand (7.30) but no one is perfect (7.26)

Says again and again that he is not perfect, nor has he met perfection…
(7.33) My seal is as strong as anyone’s, but I have not succeeded in living nobly.
yet: ‘Is goodness out of reach? As soon as I long for goodness, goodness is at hand.’

(7.34) I make no claims to wisdom or to human perfection- how would I dare? Yet my aim never flags and I never tire of teaching people.
Disciple: ‘This is what we fail to follow.’

The amazing insight for continuous becoming:
(And a major lesson of this class)

Whatever one’s position, you always share the faults and talents of everyone.
Thus, you have to work to compare self with others, as not intuitive.

You should compare yourself to others, reflect yourself through others no matter how you judge them to be, and work to get over selfishness and become compassionate and balanced (the way of heaven, opposed to selfish desire for lower).
Confucius values joining all of humanity, not being selfish.

(7.22) Put me with any two people at random- they will invariably have something to teach me. I can take their qualities as a model and their defects as a warning.

(9.8) Am I knowledgeable? No. A Bumpkin asked me a question, and my mind went blank. Still, I hammered at his problem from all sides, till I worked out something.

(1.16) Don’t worry if you don’t recognize other’s merits: worry that you may not
recognize theirs.

(2.13) Practice what you preach.

(4.17) When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself.

(5.12) Zigong ‘I do not want to do to others…’ C: you’re not that far yet…

(11.4) Yan Hui is of no help to me: whatever I say pleases him.

(9.28) It is in the cold of winter that you see how green the pines and cypresses are.

(15.23) A gentleman does not approve of a person because he expresses a certain opinion, nor does he reject an opinion because it is expressed by a particular person.

(15.24) ‘Single word to guide one’s life?’ C- Reciprocity: do not do to others…

(19.21) A gentleman’s mistake is like an eclipse of the sun or moon.
When happens, everyone notices, and when corrected everyone looks up in admiration.


Good as Unknown, Beyond Judgment and Opinion
(5.19, and one cut off before 5.9) Openness, Being without Arrogance or Prejudice. Clear Heart as without blockage, Light without shade, Consciousness without judgment.

(9.17) The master stood by a river and said: ‘Everything flows like this, without ceasing’
(note Heraclitus)

(2.17) Master said: Knowledge is to take the known as known and unknown as unknown.

(pre 3.14) (quoted by Wittgenstein) About what we don’t know we must keep silent.

(5.13) Our master’s views on culture can be gathered, but you can’t hear his views on the nature of things or the Way of Heaven.

(7.21) The master never talked of miracles, violence, disorders, spirits.

(7.35) Confucius is ill, student: ‘pray to spirits above & spirits below’
Con: In that case, I have been praying for a long time already.
(note not a rejection of the spiritual, but a knowing unknowing)

(11.12) Asked how to serve spirits, says: You have not yet learned how to serve man, how could you learn to serve the spirits?
Death: You do not yet know life, how can you learn about death?


Middle Way: (Buddha, Heraclitus)
(6.17) Who would leave a house without using the door? Why do people seek to walk outside the way?

(6.29) The power of the middle way is supreme, and yet it is not found among the people anymore. (notice restore the golden age)


Reform the old, bring in the new:
(2.11) He who by revising the old knows the new is fit to be a teacher.

(2.12) A gentleman is not a pot.

(Pre 3.4 cut off) each generation has added and dropped from the ritual, so we know what people will look like 100 generations from now (they will add and drop)

In pursuit of virtue, do not be afraid to outpace your teacher (15.36)


Criticism of the State:
Confucius is not a compliant sheep when it comes to the state.
His criticism of individual judgment and pride is matched by criticism of the state.

(11.17) Rich student tyrant: C- attach him: you have my permission.
Sees private interest trapped in the state (nobles disunifying Zhou court, into warring states). (passage?)

A tyrant must work for the good of all people

(13.15) asked by Duke: Is there a single maxim/rule that could ruin a country?
C- The prince should never suffer contradiction. When in error, prince should be told.

(13.24) ‘What if everyone likes a man?’ C- Not enough
‘What if everyone hates him?’ C- Not enough: Good should love, bad should hate.

(13.20) ‘present politicians?’ Those puny creatures are not even worth mentioning.

Free will of all:
(9.26) One cannot deny the humblest man his free will.


Criticism of Daoism and its sages retreat into Nature:
Just as Confucius appears in Daoist texts as an ally but inferior rival, so do proto-Daoist sages in the Analects.

This is very much like Buddha vs. the Jains, in that other group isn’t mentioned by name, but found not to be in balance but extremists. Daoists wanted to escape into nature, while Confucians believe in the value of the city and embracing not escaping humankind.
Believe in balance, like Daoists, but seek to balance the city, not escape into the perfect balance of nature from the city. Daoists are more skeptical of society.
(Similar to hippie communes in remote areas all over country- rejection of society)

Criticism of Escape from Humanity as opposed to transforming/reforming Humanity.
(vs. the sages of 18.6, 18.7 and 18.8)

(18.16) One cannot associate with birds and beasts. If the world were following the way, I would not have to reform it.

It is not right to be a hermit, and discard human relationships to preserve one’s purity.

(18.18) (Shaolain is the Daoist who had a monastery that became famous taken over by martial arts Buddhists)
C- I do things differently. I follow no rigid prescriptions on what should or should not be done.

(4.1) It is beautiful to live amidst humanity. It is hardly wise to live in a place destitute of people (don’t be a Daoist hermit).

Criticism of Meditation (D and later B), to Confucians not as good as study
(15.31) I once to meditate went without food for a day and a night without sleep.
It was no use. It is better to study.

Numerous criticisms of inactivity, inferior to activity, study and effort.

(2.1): At 15, I set my mind upon learning. At 30, I took my stand. At 40 I had no doubts. At 50, I knew the will (mandate) of heaven. At 60, my ear was attuned. At 70, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule.

(4.2) A good man rests in his humanity. A wise man profits from his humanity.

Logic: Aristotle

Aristotle (380-320 BCE) was not originally from Athens, but he traveled there to study with the great Athenian philosopher Plato. After Plato’s death (350 BCE) Aristotle left Athens, and then was offered the position of tutor to Alexander the Great. As Alexander went on his campaigns of conquest, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded a school like the Academy of his teacher Plato named the Lyceum. Upon Alexander’s death, Aristotle found himself unwanted in Athens and fled, as he was not Athenian and the Athenians were not too pleased to have been conquered by Alexander in the first place.

Aristotle is often praised as the father of Logic, but as we have seen with the Indian logicians it is far more reasonable (and logical) to say that Aristotle developed theories of debate and seeking truth just as earlier thinkers from many different cultures had done. He is also called the father of the scientific method, but this is quite unobservant of the similarities his theories have with the cosmology shared by much of the ancient world (including Egypt, India and Persia). He was not, in fact, primarily interested in logic or debate, but rather in cosmology, particularly what we would call today psychology, physics and biology. The book he was most famous for up through the middle ages in Islamic lands and Christian Europe was his On The Soul (a psychology and biology text), but this book is hard to find in print today.

There are four of his texts that concern logic and debate: the Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics. This first lecture will cover the Categories and On Interpretation, and the second lecture will cover the Prior and Posterior Analytics.

The Categories:

Starting with the Categories we notice that Aristotle believes in the power of speech. This lines up with the Zoroastrian and Abrahamic traditions. Order is spoken downward, from the eternal mind into the particular beings or substances of changing matter the same way that a leader issues orders to subordinates and the mind issues orders to the body and the limbs. Thus, ‘predicated’, something being said of a subject, is a central concept. Aristotle assumes that things have purposes according to their natures, and these purposes correspond to concepts that can be put into words.

Aristotle believes that we must observe nature and say what can be said of things, based on their similarities and differences (the same method of his teacher Plato and others). He believes that what can be said that is necessary of the thing must be what truly is. Thus, as example, he says that ‘animal’ can be said, can be predicated, of both man and ox, just as ‘man’ and ‘animal’ can be predicated of any human individual (male, that is).

A Genera or Genus is the family to which a thing belongs. Today, we think of this as the concept. This is paired with Species, the sub group of the family. He says (80) that if you are giving an account of a particular tree, you would say more with the species of tree than you would of the genus ‘plant’.

Aristotle gives us 10 categories, which he claims are in no way composite, meaning they are completely separate categories from each other, ‘categorically separate’: Substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection. Note that we saw several of these in Kanada, and that ‘relation, place, time, position, state, and affection’ are all quite confusingly interrelated, even though Aristotle says that they are all categorically separate.

Substances ‘underlie’ everything else. This has led some to call Aristotle a materialist, but this is not so. He thought there were motions above (mover) , immobile matter (the moved) below, so the substances are material, the receiver of motions (like Plato’s forms). Aristotle argues that substances simply are, while ‘white’ or ‘beautiful’ or ‘warm’ can be more or less so in a thing.

(81) “The distinctive mark of substance is that it can admit contrary qualities. Thus, a color cannot be both white and black, nor can the same act be good and bad: this is true for any non substance, but substances can at different times be white and black…The same individual person is at one time white, at another black, at one time warm, at another cold, at one time good, at another bad.” (Note that by “white person” Aristotle means a pale or elderly person and nothing more, certainly not race).

Thus ‘he is sitting’ can be true, then false, then true of a person. Aristotle denies that things can possess contrary qualities (be both white and black) or be in contrary states (good and evil) at the same time. This is a major positivist point that any skeptic, before and after Aristotle, would deny. Heraclitus, a major opponent that Aristotle argues against, thought that things were good and bad by perspective and positioning and so things can have contrary qualities and be in contrary states at the same time. Aristotle completely denies the possibility of this: “If, then, someone says that statements and opinions are capable of admitting contrary qualities, his contention is unsound”. For Aristotle, a person cannot be healthy and sick at the same time, but it can be one at one time, then another at another time. (What if you have a healthy liver, but an eye infection? What if you then get a liver problem?)


On Interpretation:

Aristotle says that we must limit our discussion to propositions, sentences true OR false exclusively. He argues that prayers and other requests are neither true nor false because they do not guarantee whether they will be fulfilled or not. An affirmation is a positive statement of something, a denial a negative statement. Thus, ‘I exist’ is positive, whereas ‘I do not exist’ or ‘I doubt that I exist’ are negative.

The Square of Opposition is a central concept for the ideas that follow. In fact, Aristotle does not mention the concept himself but medieval Europeans created the square as a way of organizing his ideas. In the same way, Aristotle did not use algebraic notation but his syllogisms which we will focus on in the next lecture were put in symbolic forms by Muslims and Christians in the middle ages to make them simpler to digest.

A says there are universals and individuals. This corresponds to the eternal sphere and the temporal sphere. Universals are the forces and motions of the stars and planets above, individuals are the particular substances acted upon on and in the earth below. We saw this before in Kanada and Gotama’s texts. Cows is the universal group of all cows, while a particular cow is an individual. Thus, ‘All people are pale’ and ‘No people are pale’ is a universal proposition, whereas ‘Some people are pale’ and ‘Some people are not pale’ are particular propositions.

Notice that ‘men are white’ becomes the central example used, and how this can be misperceived by later cultures. Muslims and Christians mistook this to be speaking about themselves equally, and unfortunately Aquinas in the 1200s uses “Socrates was a white man” as a central example for teaching Aristotle’s On Interpretation. Yes, Aquinas is thinking that he and Aristotle are “white men”, and that this refers to the European race. Muslim logicians assumed that Aristotle was a “white” Asiatic man like themselves earlier, and Aquinas is getting his Aristotle from Persians like Al Farabi and Al Ghazali.

To come back to the subject, Aristotle tells us (and this is critical for understanding the Square of Opposition) that particular propositions can contradict each other but both be true, whereas universal propositions can not contradict each other and both be true.

Consider the four propositions, “I like all cows”, “I dislike all cows”, “I like some cows”, and “I dislike some cows”. The first two are universal propositions, as they refer to the group of all cows, while the second two are particular propositions, as they only refer to some individual cows. These propositions correspond to the four corners of a square. The top is universal (All and None), the bottom is particular (Some and Some Not), the left is positive (All and Some), and the right is negative (None and Some Not). If we want to put the four corners in an algebraic form with X and Y, they would be: All X is Y, No X is Y, Some X is Y, Some X is not Y.

Aristotle notes that the cross corners cannot both be true, and neither can the top two corners (ALL and NONE). Also, he argues that one or the other of the bottom must be true, but there are counter examples to this (like we saw with Nagarjuna’s neither Y or not Y).

At end of the reading, Aristotle gets himself into another problem given what he has said. He argues that he has a problem with things that are neither y nor not y, with the example of neither good nor bad person. Is ‘x is good’ the contradiction of ‘x is bad’ or ‘x is not good’? If x is neither good nor bad, the first is false, the second false, but the third is true. This is an interesting problem, as it shows two sets of contraries. Good and bad are contraries, but they are BOTH contrary to neither good nor bad (neutral, like Swiss). Aristotle says, strangely, that ‘not good’ is MORE REALLY FALSE than ‘bad’, the contrary quality. This seems to reverse his position from before, where he was saying that if something is good, it can be bad at some other time, but cannot be bad, because he is now saying that it is more that it cannot be good. He says, ‘it SEEMS more contrary’. Aristotle has already said that prayers (also commands) are neither true nor false, as are statements about the future (‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’). Are these, then, more the contradiction of truths? Or are false statements more? Now Aristotle seems to be saying that True means not not true, and not false is simply a byproduct, an accident, even though the duality of true and false is central to his system.

Aristotle has founded everything on two things, what is later called the PRINCIPLE OF BIVALENCE (a proposition must be either true or false, not neither true nor false) and the PRINCIPLE OF NONCONTRADICTION (a proposition must be true or false, not both). We will see with later European thinkers that positivism tends to support these principles while skepticism denies them.


INCLUSIVE OR VS. EXCLUSIVE OR:

The last time, we talked about the Square of Opposition. The top and bottom of the square are a good way of introducing the concept of Exclusive OR and Inclusive OR which will become important for understanding how truth tables function for the second half of the course after the midterm.

There are two different ways that the conjunction OR can function: inclusively and exclusively. Let us say you are at a buffet, and the sign says, “You can have eggs, toast, bacon, soup, or salad”. At a buffet, you can have as much of any number of things as you want, so the OR in the sign is being used INCLUSIVELY here. Now let us say someone is buying you a car, and says “You can have an A, a B or a C”. Since you only get to have one item, the OR is being used EXCLUSIVELY by the generous person who is buying you a (single) car. When you can have your choice of more than one, OR is used inclusively. When you can have ONLY one choice, not more, OR is used exclusively.

Notice that the top of the Square of Opposition, the Universal and General side, functions like an exclusive OR because both “All X is Y” and “All X is not Y” cannot both be true. If all trees are green, then it can’t be that all trees are not green and vice versa. The bottom of the Square of Opposition, the particular and individual side, functions like an inclusive OR because both “Some X is Y” and “Some X is not Y” can’t both be false but one, the other or both can be true. If some trees are green, it is possible that some trees are not green.

Notice also that positivist and categorical thinking (black & white) functions like the top of the square, and skeptical and relative thinking (grey between black & white) functions like the bottom of the square of opposition. Aristotle, a positivist thinker, wants universal all or nothing truths to have necessary and certain knowledge, while skeptical thinkers (like Heraclitus from Greece who we will examine after Aristotle) want relative some and some not truths to have perspective and wisdom.


SWITCHING TERMS:

Aristotle notes that SOME and NONE can have terms switched, but not ALL. If some X is Y, then some Y is X (ex: if some trees are green things, then some green things are trees, and if some people are secret agents, then some secret agents are people). Likewise, if no X is Y then no Y is X (if no trees are happy, then no happy things are trees, and if no planets are friendly, then no friendly things are planets). However, if all X is Y it is not necessarily the case that all Y is X (ex: if all humans are animals, it does not mean that all animals are humans, and if all trees can scream it does not follow that all things that can scream are trees).


DEMONSTRATION VS. DIALECTIC

Aristotle says that true science or knowledge starts from starts from first principles to deduce necessary conclusions, and he says that this originated in ancient Babylon (modern day Iraq). While he includes consideration of some and some not, notice that nothing is known certainly about X if we only know that some X is Y or not Y. To know something certain about X, we would have to know that all X is Y or no X is Y.

Aristotle describes the difference between DEMONSTRATION, which starts from certain principles to deduce and conclude additional certain principles (If A, B, and C, therefore D) and DIALECTIC, which argues back and forth about a thing to see which side is more certain (Is A B or not B, just like the Nyaya Form of Debate). While his teacher Plato thought dialectic was the ultimate device for achieving certain knowledge (like Hegel, whose dialectics we will learn about in the second half of the course) Aristotle believed that demonstration is superior to dialectic even though he uses both throughout his texts. While some have said this makes Aristotle the first scientist, he himself believes that it originated in Babylon and it is also true that scientific study and daily reasoning make constant use of both forms.


THE FOUR PERFECT FORMS OF SYLLOGISM:

Aristotle presents us with many forms of argument that can be used in debate, but he only believes that the first four require no additional conditions, outside inferences or evidence. For this reason, Aristotle’s four “perfect” syllogisms were studied as the forms of logic up until Wittgenstein replaced them with truth tables. Aristotle does not put it in the easiest way, so we will reorder this like the Nyaya proof to make it easier to digest and recreate by keeping the order of A-B, B-C therefore A-C. Notice there is one for each of the four corners of the square.


BARBARA, the Positive Universal Syllogism:

If All A are B, and All B are C, then All A are C.
If all humans are animals, and all animals are alive, then all humans are alive.
In the Venn diagram form, if a circle A is entirely within a circle B, and this circle B is entirely in a third circle C, then circle A must be entirely inside circle C.


CELARENT, the Negative Universal Syllogism:

If All A are B, and No B are C, then No A are C.
If all humans are animals, and no animals are made of stone, then no humans are made of stone.
As a Venn diagram, if A is entirely within B, and no B is inside C, then no A can be inside C.


DARII, the Positive Particular Syllogism:

If Some A are B, and All B are C, then Some A are C.
If some animals are humans, and all humans are funny, then some animals are funny.
As a Venn diagram, if some A is inside B and all B is inside C then some A must be inside C.


FERIO, the Negative Particular Syllogism:

If Some A are B, and No B are C, then Some A are not C.
If some animals are humans, and no humans are reptiles, then some animals are not reptiles.
As a Venn diagram, if some A is in B and no B is in C then some of A is outside C.


Aristotle believed that you could derive pure knowledge from chaining these. He argues in the text that since the Scythians have no vines, thus no grapes, thus no intoxication, thus no flute players. He gives another example: If it is metal, then it will cut, Hatchets are made of metal, therefore hatchets will cut. He argues, just like Gotama, that the eternal is uncreated and the temporal is created, and, just like Kanada, that lightning is fire that passes down into water which then rises with the fire from sun up into the clouds until it falls as rain.

In the 1600s, Sir Francis Bacon rejected the syllogism as fallible, just as Islamic scholars and scientists had before. Aristotle’s forms thus became forms of logic but were too simple for science. Consider that all metal things do not cut, nor do all knives, the butter knife being an example of something metal and a knife that does not cut.

Aristotle sometimes goes back on his earlier statements and gives us examples when things that are normally universal and certain can be conditional, can be different in certain situations and circumstances. He says that it is never right to kill your father, but among the Triballi tribe, the gods sometimes demand it. Since the gods are one’s super-parents and one’s obligations to them supersedes one’s obligations to ones parents, he says that the Triballi rightly sacrifice their fathers. Notice that Aristotle believes that the polytheistic gods are real and that this is logical.

Interestingly Aristotle like the Nyaya provides us with defenses against syllogisms. He says that in order to avoid having a syllogism drawn against one’s own argument, one should not let the opponent give the same term twice over. This is an interesting place where arguing what is right blends with tactics and strategy for winning debates. If one’s opponent argues that A is B, and B is C, therefore A is C, one should attack the twice used middle term (B that links A and C in the syllogisms) to attack the syllogism. For example, if one’s opponent argues the war is American, what is American is good, therefore the war is good, one should argue that the war is only somewhat American or that only some of America is good because America is being used to link the war to the good. We naturally know to do this in arguing, just like using the forms.

Funny enough, this makes Aristotle look like a skeptic, a person who argues that absolute knowledge is only some and some relative, and he calls skeptics “destroyers” and “no better than plants” in the text. He says that we should conceal our syllogisms to prevent our opponent attacking our middle terms, which makes him sound like a sophist, someone who argues (like a lawyer) for a living and thus can’t be trusted with true science and knowledge above mere temporary, imperfect and uncertain opinions.

Ethics: Drive, Nietzsche & Rand

Last time talked about Mill, Utilitarianism and looking at the Ends of acts rather than beginnings.

So far, we have been concerned with collectivist, not individualist ethical concepts. This time we talk about drive, desire and self interest, reading Nietzsche but also looking at a thinker important in American thought who takes this sort of thinking in an entirely different direction, Ayn Rand. With modern times and increasing technology that enables the individual comes new individualistic thinking and criticism of more collectivist traditional thought.

While Nietzsche and Rand both believe the individual should try to create something in the name of the self, Nietzsche says this is because no one is simply right while Rand says that she and her school of thought, Objectivism, are simply right. Myself, love Nietzsche, hate Rand. Both are critical for looking at modernized society.

There are many positive and negative things about individualism over collectivism. When individualism is a problem we call it ‘selfish’ to label it bad, but our society sees more than just evils in individualism and self-centeredness. As society has become modernized, it is up to the individual to regulate themselves and keep themselves in line. Foucault is the big thinker on this point (who was very influenced by Nietzsche). This means that individualism is just as much praised, as ‘self-starting’, ‘self-reliant’, that one should have ‘self-esteem’ (this is the repackaged ideas of Rand by Brandon, as it is scorned as ‘selfish’. There are many ways today that individuals are more enabled to be individuals than ever before, and it is very bound up with America being both the best and the worst so far in many things that civilizations have been doing from the beginning.

While America is very individualistic as a culture, with positive and negative aspects, it is important to recognize that ‘Western’ white European people are not individualistic by culture starting with the Greeks. This is unfortunately how it is often presented, that Greece was a very ‘human’ and ‘individualist’ place, and that’s why the West is so the West vs. all other cultures. As you know, I am a big fan of saying that the West is a bunch of enabled, wealthy HUMAN BEINGS, and so when they get ‘humanist’ they are actually getting stuff and culture.
When we look at Japanese teenagers in Tokyo and Kyoto, we can see profound individualism (like in the rising ‘Street Culture’ and Art that is shared the world over today beyond cultural differences).

Good evidence for this can be seen in a recent experiment where rural African children were given laptops and the researchers were surprised when the results showed that there was no lag time of any length in the learning compared to American urban children. The researchers all assumed that individualistic-culture raised children would be able to master laptops faster.

Thus, the Greeks and the Renaissance were ‘humanism’ rising, but only because there were surges of wealth and culture, just like in Baghdad 1000 years ago and in China before that. One should expect to see rises, not simple ‘achievements’ of freedom of thought, diversity of opinions, inventions and innovations, etc whenever a city or area becomes enabled. Americans, because of the last 150 years and due to geographic positioning, have become far more enabled and innovating than other areas of the world but we should not fool ourselves in thinking that we are the good culture that owns this, either genetically (by ethnicity) or socially (by form of politics, religion, or science).

In the context of ancient cosmology, individualism and self interest are typically BAD.
Consider that the big ONE is more important and ranks all of the little branches. Many has been characterized as bad and One as good on both an individual and social level. With modern individualist thinking and development, diversity becomes a good thing, both for the individual (post modern conceptions and novels, movies etc) and for the social (multiculturalism, in America called “the melting pot”).

Consider a tree. The more the branches, the larger the trunk has to be to support them, and the larger the trunk, the more branches are needed to feed the tree. Individuality and community are mutually supportive. While traditional society favors the collective and modern society prizes the individual, both can help each other in balance.

While individualism can be too extreme (for me, Rand is just this in particular ways, such as calling her group ‘Objective’ with a capital ‘O’ for praising selfishness) we are now waking to new levels of seeing how the individual can support the group and the group support the individual. This makes individualism and emphasis on drive, the self, and survival forces of GOOD (regardless of what one thinks of Nietzsche or Rand) and thus important for our Ethics even though Ethics has largely ignored individualism to concentrate on the collectivists dueling back and forth (most famously Kant and Mill, both of whom Nietzsche hated).


NIETZSCHE (1844-1900)

Nietzsche is often called the first modern thinker. In fact, depending on whether you say we live in modern or post-modern times, he is called the first modern OR post-modern thinker. He is without doubt one of the most influential philosophers of modern Europe, and most skeptical thought is now deeply in his debt.

Nietzsche came from a long line of protestant Lutheran preachers. Unfortunately, Nietzsche’s father died when he was very little, and though his family sent the boy to school to become a preacher and theologian (like Hegel, Heidegger and many other German thinkers) Nietzsche rebelled and turned to philosophy.

German Pessimism and Schopenhauer:
Just before Nietzsche’s birth, Germany had been going through a great period of pessimism. Just like in China, Egypt, Greece and everywhere, human thought flourishes in the period after tragedy and warring states because people are forced to turn against old conceptions and institutions and ask hard questions that become very popular in these sorts of times.
German princes came together to crush the popular people’s movements for individual rights, and there was a great turning away from the German reason of Kant towards the German will of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Since reason failed in the world, the world is not a reasonable place but a tough place in which it is hard to push for what one sees as beautiful and true.
Marx wrote in this time, for this crowd.

Schopenhauer is deeply influenced by Buddhism and Indian thought, in a very pessimistic way.
He uses the image of a ship bobbing on the water, just hanging on in a watery, stormy ocean of a world. Rather than believe in a reason beyond, having the stomach to see the harsh reality of the situation became a value, a value that skeptical thought has retained.

German pessimism, including its famous thinkers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, flourished in two more recent periods of pessimism: WWI for Europe and Vietnam for America. In fact, Nietzsche was the original guy who said ‘my home country is stupid and think they are awesome’, bashing Germany and all things German quite openly, for which he has been honored as not only individualistic but incredibly courageous. Thus European thought following WWI and American culture following the 60’s (Berkeley a key player in this) found deep meaning in calling their society and ‘the system’ a bunch of chumps.

Nietzsche vs. Morality:
The text I gave you to read is ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, in which Nietzsche asks us to look at humanity critically and see that following the rules (like Kant) or ‘the greater good’ (like Mill) is for sheep. The individual rises above the masses and sees things in a new way. Nietzsche came up with these ideas reading Kant and Mill, reacting against their overall goods for everyone evenly. For Nietzsche, inequality are the beautiful mountain ranges to climb and conquer.

Nietzsche was a staunch individualist, believing that ANY group morality is a slave morality, and he called Christianity, Scientific ‘Objectivity’, German Nationalism and German Racism (very much centered in Anti-Semitism) out on this vocally. Again, he is seen as a hero by many for this. Consider: “When we create the master race, we will have to mix in a lot of Jews to get their good qualities”, a joke considering that Nietzsche would never advise creating a master race of equals but rather loves the individual who stands above the race as a herd.

It was a shame that Nietzsche was censored and used by the Nazis to support their ideas of the beautiful rising German will of the master race, taking Nietzsche’s individualism and twisting it into a racial and social doctrine. Nietzsche intended his words for individualists, as he says over and over again. In this, they famously used his concept of the Superman (and yes, Nietzsche is the first person on record to use this phrase, the UBERMENCH) to mean not the artist or visionary who creates but the German race.

Nietzsche vs. Nihilism:
While many would say ‘Nietzsche believes in nothing, then”, this would not be true. Nietzsche was just as vocal about believing in something as he was about not believing the herd mentality. Nietzsche saw himself as a new sort of thinker who would be followed and imitated by many. Because of this, he warns over and over again NOT to make his thought into a school or a system. However, he did not believe like Schopenhauer that one could believe or not and it makes little difference. Nietzsche believed that the whole worth of the individual is that, in the face of nothing being absolutely true, staring into the void of being, you create something and stand for something in a beautiful way, creating your own meaning in life. He was very critical of ‘Nihilism’, believing in nothing, thought this is just what his critics, religious and not, have called him.

Nietzsche believes in Heraclitus and Hegel’s Becoming between Being and Nothing. He avoids believing in eternal positives, but also believing in nothing whatsoever. It is the overturning of the old into the new by the true individual who wills something created beyond themselves and the world that stands in the face of Nihilism that Nietzsche sees as modernity’s greatest threat. He sees a world where everyone sits on their couch, believes in nothing but is afraid to contradict the state or church and do SOMETHING other than sit there.

Thus, Nietzsche relentlessly bashes reason and judgment in himself and in others, but he believes that you must have the courage to create as a contradictory and mortal being.

Nietzsche’s bashing of women: An Interesting Example of Nietzsche’s Skeptical Individualism
One of the most beautiful and deep parts of Nietzsche’s writings is his turn in Human, All Too Human from bashing Kant and others for believing in objective truth to say ‘here are some of my truths’ and without warning start bashing women repeatedly including the famous “When you go to woman, do not forget your whip”. The beauty of this philosophical performance, what inspires Bataille and Derrida, is that Nietzsche here is showing you both sides of himself at once. Unlike Kant or Mill who are writing like they can be consistent and not contradict themselves in the building or seeing of the truth, Nietzsche knows the truth is psychological and complex, and that beauty comes from tension and pain. Thus, even in his bashing he knows he is a human being and flawed. This has had an amazing impact on Art and Literature (particularly since Bataille and his open obscenity in following Nietzsche).

Passages of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil:
N starts off with asking, why do we want or suppose we can simply get truth? Philosophy seems like it has barely even gotten started. Asking this question is perhaps the greatest risk: nihilism can result from q of ‘truth’.
Read BGE (2)
Faith in opposite values: categorical Ts and Fs, such that we can fully know.
Notice ‘frog perspective’, maybe same as frog in well of CT.
Read (3), selection. Instinct to simplify things in ‘truth’ but complex
Read (4), ending. “philosophy beyond good & evil”, this is first time title in the book.
Read (5) start and selection. Philosophers as naïve, trusting so far, critique of Kant. Why?
Read (6), middle. Naïve, because ALL DRIVES can pose as ‘truth’ or ‘good’.
Read (16) start: Notice beyond even Schopenhauer here. Thinking conceals itself such that we cannot be simply certain of it any way. (Notice lead to Freud here)
In 17, speaks more of the deceptive power of language to simplify things for us and shape our world. He mentions resemblance of Indian, Greek and German philosophy, says it is clearly explained by language- fits with growing German- our picture.
Why is language deceptive? How does grammar lie? Read (24), start and end.
Language, and science, have to simplify the world by making strict oppositions out of what is actually subtleties of gradation. Language, philosophy and science make things black and white, but things are actually shades of grey between ideals and extremes.
Nietzsche says that truth is alive, and doesn’t need such simple and artificial scaffolding as our beliefs or our knowing we are right. We should enjoy being wrong.
Read (25) start: Truth needs no protectors- or categorical certainties.

Says falsehood is the surest fact, continually in all truth and discovery.
Read (34), middle to end. Philosophers need to suspect the certainties they have taken for granted, and grammar plays a serious part in the simplifying deception, he says even poison against life. (Note: Hegel’s judgment is the one sided acid).
Also Great: (78), (94) (126)


AYN RAND (1905-1982)

As said, I like Nietzsche’s individualism much more than Rand. I believe Nietzsche takes his individualism too far, to the point that he values it above collective truth where I would rather have a balance of individual and collective goods, both being equally enjoyable and profitable for human beings. Ayn Rand, however, takes what is beautiful in Nietzsche and rams it straight into the ground like the head of an ostrich.

For starters, to give fair warning, Ayn Rand believes that all Philosophers have simply been too stupid to see that reality is right in front of our eyes, that we see real objects, and there are times (MOST of the time for her and her Objectivist followers) when we are just right and others are just wrong and we should simply say so. While this can come in a good form as ‘self esteem’, it is easy to see why philosophy people bash her writings, say that she has never read any philosophy and since she now proposes to simply answer all of the deepest questions correctly with simple and obvious answers she has no idea what philosophy actually is. It is pointed out that she is very popular with individualist people who have never studied philosophy but not with philosophy students. This charge can be quite elitist, but in my opinion it is somewhat justified. What would Nietzsche think of common American people who have not studied great works but come together as ‘Objectivists’ in groups to say over and over again that they are objectively right and everyone who disagrees is simply wrong? He would say that they are hardly enabled individuals, but rather a herd suffering herd delusions of objectivity, like Kant but far less educated.

On the other hand, Ayn Rand is very much a popular, common person’s American Realist philosopher. American Realists, who actually come from Scottish realism, believe in the positivist position (reality is real, self is real, we perceive real objects for real, and one can simply judge things to be true or false, for real) and believe that philosophy, even the positivists like Kant and Aristotle, have been led astray by skepticism and compromised their positions. The problem for philosophy professionals is that, unlike the realists, Rand believes that she is simply right and there are no problems and the rest of philosophy is meaningless, which is a position that even hardcore American realists cannot support.

Rand’s life and Pro-Capitalism, Objectivism Stance:
Ayn Rand is big in America because she defected from Soviet Russia and embraced America as Objectively right. This is why she has reading rooms dedicated to her in Marine academies and other hard core pro-American institutions. She is anti-collectivist like Nietzsche, but thinks that the Soviet Union is simply wrong and collectivist while America is simply right and individualist.

Ayn Rand believes in the value of Selfishness, termed better by Brandon as ‘self esteem’.
You may remember it: it has become a Neo-Con staple and artifact of the 80s.
Argue against Freedman’s (free market) argument that selflessness is an ideal never obtained, so we are based in the self and selfishness as anchor. Each is an extreme, and balance is best.

Think of how Nietzsche would weep at the end of Atlas Shrugged, after the collectivists have ruined society, Rand has her hero trace a dollar sign over the ruins. Praise of selfishness and the all-mighty dollar in a neo-con fashion are the truth that will lift society back up for Rand.
For Nietzsche, belief in the dollar or America is a sheep-like fiction for killing your individuality, not supporting it or lifting society up as a whole.

My Three Moments of Hating Ayn Rand:
End of her speech to Marine graduating class of 1975: ‘and that’s why my philosophy is the only true philosophy’…

Her ejection of Nathaniel Brandon, the ‘King of Self Esteem’, from her Objectivist school after she found out he was two timing her with a model (thought this seems selfish, just not for Rand).

Her attempted cover-up of her lung cancer (from which she died) because she had been very vocal about how doctors who said cigarettes cause cancer are simply wrong and she ‘knew it objectively’.

The Moral of the Story:
You should stand for yourself, and have self esteem, but do not let it blind you into going on and on about how you are right such that you are not critical of your views or the views of those who agree with you (in a school or otherwise). As Hegel says, it is fine that each individual believes themselves at first to be simply the positive truth, but it is important to be critical of oneself in order to develop the self. Doing things for the self and others should be mutually supportive, in balance.

There is decent evidence from biology that human beings are designed to balance self and other interest, and that selfishness kills the individual and isolates them from the supports of society. Angry and judgmental people naturally isolate themselves and have shorter life spans.
Having a pet increases your life span, so caring for others is good for your individual self.
As we will see in Violence week, Lt. Grossman tells us that people will stand up in fire for random strangers in particular situations entirely independent of personality.
Thus, self interest is important for ethics and balance, but not as the sole anchor in the way that Kant and Mill try to make principle or ends the sole point of action.

Intro Philosophy: Lecture on Socrates & Plato

Socrates (470-400 BCE) is a very famous yet very controversial and obscure figure. Like many great thinkers, he did not write his own thoughts down but rather Plato (430-350 BCE) and another student named Xenophon wrote about his teachings after his death. Plato was a playwright who wrote dialogues between Socrates and his students after failing at writing plays on other subjects. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (Plato’s student) are the three great Athenian thinkers, and before the rediscovery of the “presocratics” (like Heraclitus) they were considered to be the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece.

It is generally accepted by scholars today that Plato’s early dialogues are one of the best sources for understanding Socrates and his ideas, but in Plato’s later dialogues Socrates is a mouthpiece for Plato’s own ideas. We will consider Socrates and his thought first, then turn to two of Plato’s most important later dialogues, the Republic and the Timaeus, to study Plato’s thought. Socrates and Plato were both influenced by Heraclitus (our subject last week), and while Socrates seemed to have been quite similar to Heraclitus, Plato’s thought changed and he began putting quite different views into Socrates’ mouth.


The Dueling Views of Heraclitus and Parmenides

Consider that there are two polar opposite views one can have of reality and the world. In one view, everything changes constantly and permanence is an illusion. In the other opposite view, everything remains the same and change is the illusion. As we saw last week, Heraclitus was a famous champion of the first view. He argued that only Being, the One and All, the cosmic fire or energy, is eternal and all other beings are temporary in spite of what our judgments tell us. Another presocratic thinker named Parmenides (who lived sometime before 500 BCE) was a famous champion of the second and opposite view. He argued that there is one unchanging reality that is eternal and all change and temporary beings are the illusion in spite of what our judgments tell us.

Socrates and Plato were both influenced by Heraclitus, but in his later dialogues Plato has Socrates argue for views that sound much more like Parmenides. Originally, Socrates questioned everyone to show that we know very little and it is the job of the philosopher to show this to people. In Plato’s later dialogues, Socrates argues that there is one unchanging reality above the temporary perceivable world and it is the job of the philosopher to seek and understand this eternal reality.


Socrates and his Method of Questions

We know very little about Socrates’ early life other than the details supplied in Plato’s works. He mentions several influences, including two women: the witch/shaman Diotima who taught him about love (like Confucius, Socrates identified love with wisdom) and Aspasia, the mistress of the general Pericles, who taught him rhetoric. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived at a time when the glory days of Athens were in decline. Eventually, Alexander (Aristotle’s student) would conquer the city and the surrounding city-states. Socrates was a critic of Athenian society, called “the horsefly” because he believed in stinging Athens into action, and he was eventually condemned to commit suicide for corrupting the youth of the city.

Socrates’ career as a philosopher began when his friend Chaerephon went to the oracle of Delphi to ask if anyone was wiser than his friend Socrates. Socrates, with characteristic modesty, protests that this was a very crass question to ask of the great oracle. The oracle replied that no one was wiser than Socrates. This prompted Socrates to go out and seek someone wiser than himself to see if the words of the oracle were in fact true.

Socrates felt that he knew nothing, but as he questioned the experts of Athens he came upon a horrible discovery and paradox. The experts believed themselves to be wise and possess great knowledge, but when questioned it turned out they knew very little. Socrates knew that he himself knew nothing. Therefore, Socrates was wiser than the experts because he knew that he knew nothing, while the experts knew nothing but thought that they knew a great deal. Humble and modest Socrates was aware that mortal humans know nothing, but the politicians, artists and warriors were unaware of this great equality they shared with Socrates. The ignorance of Socrates was thus the greatest wisdom in all of Athens.

Notice the similarities between Socrates and Heraclitus, who argued that the experts believe themselves to know a great deal but do not understand that their knowledge and perspectives are mortal and we are all mere apes to the gods. Socrates argued, like Heraclitus, that the greatest wisdom is found in questioning oneself and others. Remember that great city-states and empires had risen along with increasingly specialized experts. Philosophy questions experts and the basis of our knowledge.

Socrates argued that the individual should accept their own ignorance and the guidance of the world through intuition. He believed that he had a spirit (a daemon in the Greek, a word which became “demon” as Christianity replaced the polytheism and spirits with monotheism and angels). This spirit was much like what we would call a conscience (a word which means “co-seeing”), an intuition that one should or should not do a particular thing. Socrates says that his daemon told him to stay out of politics. Not only did politics get Socrates killed in spite of this, but Plato has Socrates get increasingly political in his later dialogues, particularly in the Republic where Socrates debates the best form of the city. Socrates also praised the divinity of poetry, mysticism, love and getting drunk with friends (as he does at the Symposium, a dialogue about a drinking party that turns into a philosophical discussion about the nature of love).


Plato’s Thought, The Republic and The Timaeus

Plato was long assumed to be a student of Socrates simply because Plato writes as much in many of his dialogues. As Socrates is about to die, Plato has Socrates ask where the young Plato is, to which another student replies that Plato was sick and thus could not be there at the time. Scholars now are critical of this, and think that Plato had a habit of writing himself and his family into Socrates’ circle in his dialogues. Because they are our best sources on Socrates, it is difficult to tell whether or not Plato’s older cousin Critias or Plato himself were actual students of Socrates or whether they were simply influenced by this figure who became quite famous following his trial and death.

Plato’s actual name was Aristocles, but according to the story his wrestling instructor named him Platon or “Broad” because he had a wide figure. This may be merely a story, because Plato was known to have a wide “breadth” of knowledge covering all subjects of ancient thought. Plato’s father died when he was young, and his step-father became the Athenian ambassador to the Persian royal court (remember that Persia was a great source of ancient world cosmology at the time).

Long after his attempts to become an established playwright, after his dialogues about Socrates had gathered some fame, Plato founded his Academy in 385 BCE, an open area near a tree grove where he, his students and other lecturers would teach and debate matters of philosophy and cosmology. Academy in fact means “porch”, an open area in front of a building, a fact it took scholars long to understand for they believed that the Academy must have been a building itself. Scholars made a similar error looking for the famed Library of Alexandria (an Egyptian center of ancient world knowledge), when in fact the Library was a shelf that ran along a hall that connected two buildings.

To examine Plato’s thought (in its later and mature form) we will look at his two most influential dialogues which both come from his later period. By this point, Socrates was no longer sharing much of the conversation with other debaters, but dominates the texts with monologues that are now believed to be Plato’s own Parmenides-like views. Plato believed that Heraclitus was right about the world below, but Parmenides was right about the eternal world above, the unchanging model, form, order and cause of the ever-changing world below. Plato has Socrates argue that those who think they know the world below have mere opinions, but the one who knows the world above, the true eternal pattern of reality, has true knowledge.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates debates with others on justice and the Good. Socrates debunks several common views, then constructs an ideal model of the city. The well ordered city is compared to the well ordered soul (3 layers in their places). Thus, the Good is proper order of the elements (perfectly in accord with ancient cosmology). The Timaeus, which is supposed to be the discussion the day after the Republic, has a student of Socrates named Timaeus lecture on the cosmos, showing Plato’s particular views on cosmology. Just as the individual is a microcosm to the city, the city is a microcosm to the cosmos, and again the elements must be separated and put in their places. The cosmos is ordered in its unfolding, producing the ideal order of the soul and the city.
One should order the self and order the city the way the cosmos are ordered.
Both are supposed to have been written about 360 BCE.


The Republic:

Socrates talks to several “interlocutors” and argues against their concepts of justice. This is Socrates acting like the original Socrates.

Polemarchus argues that justice is paying debts, helping friends and harming enemies. Socrates argues that in some situations, helping friends and harming enemies are wrong.

Thrasymachus argues that justice is ‘the good of the stronger’.
Glaucon similarly argues that without threat of punishment, no one would do good. Socrates argues that the strong will corrupt themselves if they only act for their own interests and not for the good of the whole. (Remember the politics of the time- Many tyrants came and fell)

Starting with book 2, Socrates now turns into Plato, advocating an eternal form of the Good over the world of many temporary beings and desires. Socrates is challenged to give a positive account of justice, not just defeat opponents. Socrates argues that first they must construct the ideal or just city, and this will show how the ideal or just individual should be. Essentially, the just city is a caste system, with a three fold division. This division corresponds to the physical human being and the cosmic being.

Head is fire/reason/rulers,
Heart/chest is air/spirit/police,
Hands/Stomach is earth/desire/workers.

The individual, city and cosmos form a continuum, a set of Russian dolls.
Notice that authority and the good come from above, evil to be ordered from below.

Socrates argues (in reading) that each person is best suited to one thing, and should be assigned this one job. He argues that we will lie to the people and tell them a Phonecian story, which is that the classes are based on metals. The police and philosophers are made of silver and gold, so they are suited to be put above the others.(Why lie? Because the common will not understand philosophy, Plato’s system…this corresponds to the cave, where most will never leave, and need puppets to see anything).

All is sacrificed for the common good: no private property or partners or children, for any of the three classes. Socrates argues that the ruler who grabs for themselves will not be happy, filled with “horrid pains and pangs”, and will physically and mentally fall apart. This tyrant will never “taste true freedom or friendship”. Because this is not the order of the cosmos, it will not stick and will fall apart.

Socrates argues (and the interlocutors naively agree as simple yes men) that if they separate out the police and educate them as best as can be, and then take the philosophers out of the police and educate them as best as can be, no injustice will be possible. There is the simple belief that the order itself will generate justice throughout the whole. The police and philosophers will thus never be greedy or unjust to the people below. (Plato elsewhere argues that this is how the Egyptians in Thebes did it: elevating priests as a class- he also says to imitate Sparta as well separating out the warriors)

Plato also suggests banning all art (music, poetry and theatre) that is counterproductive, which pretty much means everything that isn’t impressing the highest good and order. The youth are to be taught that they must improve themselves for the good of the state, and that the gods never to injustice or desire. (Note move to solar monotheism, Heracl.)


The Allegory/Analogy/Story of the Cave:

This describes the masses and the assent of the philosopher beyond opinion of the earthly realm to knowledge of the heavenly and eternal realm, showing why the philosopher alone should have authority. Everyone is chained in a cave, watching shadows of puppets/models carried before a fire at the mouth of the cave. The people think that the shadows are reality, the real things. The one who escapes first sees that the shadows are shadows of puppets, and sees the fire that casts the shadows. Coming out of the cave and past the small fire, the seeker is at first blinded by the sunlight. The seeker first sees real things outside of the cave, and realizes that the puppet/models were just copies of the real things. Then the seeker can get adjusted and see that the sun is the cause of all these things, and that the world of the cave is a poor copy of the world outside the cave. This is the realization of the forms and then the all/light/reason/consciousness that produces the forms which are copied in the cave below. This is opinion to belief (cave) to knowledge to reason (outside). (Models and Puppet theatre and Theatre from Egypt into Greece)


The Timaeus:

(In America, this is almost forgotten: not published by itself, not in spell check- we seem to want to teach the Republic and Aristotle’s ‘science’ texts far more than the Timaeus or Aristotle’s On the Soul, central to Muslims and then Christians)

Socrates the day after says that he would like to talk more about the ideal state.
Then, Critas tells the story of Solon going to Egypt and that the Egyptians told him of the story of Atlantus (Plato made it up himself). The Egyptian Priest tells Solon that the Athenians repelled the Atlantians, who were threatening to take over the world (this today is seen as echo of Persia and Marathon). Notice (read quote) that the Egyptians have the Athenian forgotten history written down, that it is a priest who knows that Athens was the best ordered city.

Timaeus now speaks of the creation of the cosmos out of the all, showing the order already described of the elements and how the individual human was created as a microcosm of the macrocosm. This implies that you get in your proper order to be good, which is the order of the cosmos. The one sprouts the eternal order or model of things, which includes all eternal models or archetypes of things, and the demiurge, the sky father being that is the small fire at the mouth of the cave, then produces copies of the models in the ever changing world of earth below. The whole is a living creature, with the heavens as soul and the all as reason/intellect.

The demiurge fashions reason in soul, and soul in body in individuals. The demiurge then moves everything in a circle, bringing about the life and death in circles of earth beings from planetary orbits and starlight.

This is all done by sameness and difference. Sameness has the higher and encompassing role, difference being proportional downward. The 4 elements have certain shapes, which are then glued together by the fifth element, quintessence or ether. (Note Buddhist Stupa shows same shapes and order in India) This is the cosmology of Christianity and Europe well through the middle ages, up to Newton and Leibniz, who read Islamic scholar’s commentaries on the Timaeus. The Medieval Christians had to re-translate Plato, with central interest in the cosmology of the Timaeus, from Arabic into Latin.