Shamanism: “One who knows”, common world culture of early tribal society, forms that appear in world religions, ecstatic experience as ‘standing outside’, initiation rites and ‘rebirth’, investigating problems and seeking visions of solutions, the All-Tree, the problem of the One and the Many, the problem of destiny after death, stories as transmission of knowledge
City State Priests & Egypt: Societies gather into larger societies and settle, authorities become traditional, specialization of experts and scholars, eternal stars of fire as order above, water as chaos below, air as ordering breath or communication, Egyptian wisdom texts show criticism of society and human behaviors, heart centered individual, warring state periods good for thought, polytheism to monotheism to abstract solar monotheism
Hinduism, Jainism & Buddhism: Three paths of worship (Bhakti devotion, Raja asceticism, Jnana scholarship), trinity of Brahma, Vishnu (salvation) and Shiva (destruction), multitude of gods who are yet are not these three, two types of afterlife (reincarnation and release of Nirvana), Vedas as multiple origin stories, Upanishads as philosophical ‘that is you’ inner meaning, Jain influence on Buddhism and Hinduism, Mahavira and the Tirthankaras, two principles of skepticism (non-one-endedness and postulation), practice of asceticism and austerities (fasting, postures, meditation), Jain all karma as negative and total release as joining the order of the cosmos, the Jain metaphor of the leaky boat (plugging and bailing), Buddhism concepts of Four Noble Truths, Doctrine of the Mean, Codependent Arising
Heraclitus: All is One/Fire/Cosmic Mind, all particular things are impermanent (even gods/planets), experts do not know much more than the common people, we are all apes to the gods, can’t step in the same river twice, perspective changing how things are
Plato: Parmenides over Heraclitus, Forms/Ideas as eternal models of things, the three parts of the soul (appetite, spirit and reason) corresponding to the three classes of the city (workers, police and philosophers), allegory of the cave
Confucianism: Mandate of Heaven as abstract monotheism, social order and rites (Li) as strength of society, study and civil service over meditation and nature of Daoism, criticism of the individual and equating others with oneself, right mind/intention over right body/action, love (Ren) as center of human and system, recognition of the lowest as oneself and self criticism, Neo-Confucianism as blend with Daoism and Buddhism
Daoism: Return to nature and stillness, seeing both sides of judgment, Yin and Yang symbol, influence on Chinese Buddhism and Zen, the great One/Way as nameless above all named 10,000 things, water-like in fluidity and getting everywhere, the wheel as both solid and empty together, Zhuan Zi and perspective, Cook Ting, all humans are ugly to minnows and deer, the Peng bird vs. dove and cicada
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Logic: Chinese Paradox
In China, we find Daoists, Logicians and Chan/Zen Buddhists showing the skeptical side of logic and human thought that we have already seen in India (Jainism & Buddhism) and Greece (Heraclitus, Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus).
DAOISM: LAO ZI & ZHUANG ZI
The Dao De Jing (formerly the Tao Te Ching) is the book by the fist Daoist patriarch Lao Zi (600 BCE) according to tradition. This book and the book of the second Daoist Patriarch Zhuang Zi (370-300 BCE) have many excellent examples of paradox and contradiction. We will consider some of these before the paradoxes of the Chinese logicians Hui Shih and Kung-Sun Lung.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is one of my favorites. It tells us that a wheel is only useful because of the hole in the center. The same is true of a jar made of clay, and the space in a room as well as the doors and windows. We naturally think of things as positives, as beings, but non-being, the holes and emptiness, goes hand in hand with the being. These things (as well as everything else, the text suggests) are and are not in very specific ways. The wheel is both solid and empty at the same time, but not in all of its parts equally. Positive and negative, being and non-being, work together to make things what they are.
If positivism tries for black and white judgments, all yes or all no, and skepticism tries for relative judgments, some yes and some no, this teaching on the wheel and the jar tells us that the solid objects that surround us, the things about which we are most certain, are somewhat and are not somewhat!
There is a Buddhist koan that says at first we see a thing as a thing, then after practice and contemplation we see the thing as a non-thing (a concept, or illusion), and then after further practice and contemplation we again see the thing as a thing (but also, in this third stage, as also a non-thing, our conception). Hegel, whose logic we will learn later, sees this same three-fold process in every stage of individual thought and history of philosophy. At first, if asked, the wheel is a thing, not a nothing or non-thing. Then, we see the hole when it is pointed out to us. Finally, we can see that the solidity and the emptiness of the wheel are both necessary and essential to the wheel being what it is together.
In the Zhuang Zi there are many excellent passages that back up this two-sided view. There are many parts of the text that are almost identical to fragments of Heraclitus. Both Zhuang Zi and Heraclitus say that things can be good to some and bad to others at the same time, dependent on the perspective of the viewer. Heraclitus says that salt water is poisonous for us to drink, but not for the fish who require it to live and breathe. Heraclitus also says that pigs like to bathe in filth. Zhuang Zi asks us which animal knows what tastes good if each eats something different? He says that birds like to sleep in trees, but humans certainly do not. Both thinkers say that humans are ugly to non-humans. Zhuang Zi says that the beautiful women of legend frightened minnows, deer and birds. Clearly, human beauty is of no matter to animals who find us frightening and ugly.
One passage I love asks if words say something or nothing and compares them to the peeps of baby birds. It goes on to say that a sage has a this and a that, but a sage’s this also has a that, and a sage’s that also has a this. Speaking of the Confucians and the Moists (two competing schools of Chinese thought at the time the text is being written) it says that what one calls right the other calls wrong, but we should right their wrongs and wrong their rights. Notice how similar this is to chapter 11 of the Dao. It suggests that a sage would see the wrong to a right and the right to a wrong, would see how something said is both meaningful and meaningless.
Another passage asks if the one who wins an argument is necessarily right, or if there must be one who is right and one who is wrong (remember the Nyaya form of debate and Gotama and Aristotle teaching tactics of debate).
Another passage which is important for the logicians to follow says that among the 10,000 things (the number signifies all, like “a billion” today) there are none that are not big, small, right, wrong, useful and useless. If we consider relativity, any particular thing must be bigger that some other thing and smaller than some other thing. If right and wrong, useful and useless are similarly relative, then the sage should see the back and forth, the some and some not to each of these in considering each individual thing.
THE LOGICIANS: HUI SHIH & KUNG-SUN LUNG
Hui Shih (380-305 BCE) is very similar to the Greek thinker Zeno. Both consider paradoxes of relativity in size, motion and other basic properties of things. When he says that heaven or the sky is as low as the earth, he is pointing out that the two meet in the middle, and so low and high are in a particular place equally low and high. When he says one goes to the state of Yueh today and arrives there yesterday, this is a famous puzzle that is quite like the wisdom tales we read in the beginning of the semester: if one crosses the border of Yueh at the stroke of midnight, then one was in Yueh and not in Yueh both today and yesterday, so one could say that one was going there today and arrived yesterday.
The paradox that is most impressive is the Lesser and Greater Similarity and Difference which many have said is similar to observations made in fractal geometry and chaos theory. He says that a great similarity is different from a small similarity, the lesser similarity and difference, but at the same time all things are similar to one another and different from one another, the greater similarity and difference. Consider a bowl with two apples and two oranges. An apple is quite similar to an orange in many ways but it is also different in many ways (the lesser). Anyone can tell that two apples are more alike than an apple and an orange, just as two oranges are more alike than an orange and an apple (this is the lesser similarity and difference). However, on the other hand, it is also true that any two apples are alike and yet different as any two oranges are alike and yet different (this is the greater similarity and difference). Notice that this means the first apple is similar and different to the second apple as well as to an orange. Viewed in a black or white way, the apples are the same and the apple and orange are different, but it is also true to say that the apples are different and the apple and orange are similar.
Kung-sun Lung (325-250 BCE) gives us the famous A White Horse Is Not A Horse argument. Many say that this argument is faulty, but if we follow the thinking of the Daoists and Hui Shih we can see what Kung-Sun is trying to say. He does not mean that a white horse is not in any way a horse, but that in one particular way “a white horse” is not the same thing as “a horse”. He argues that if one brings us a yellow horse, it would not fit the description “a white horse” but it would do fine for the description “a horse”. The two are thus different sets and are not identical though one set is a subset of the other. This means that “a white horse” is and is not “a horse” (in one way “is” and in another way “is not”), and so he can truly say that “a white horse is not a horse”.
Consider that your finger is you but also is not you. If we use “is” in terms of strict identity (like Clark Kent is Superman) then your finger is not you because you are much more than a finger. However, if we use “is” to mean a part incorporated within a thing (like a tree is green) then your finger is oneself because it is part of you. Bill Clinton famously tried explaining this with his “that depends what your definition of ‘is’ is”. Being an individual human, you are and are not humanity. In fact, you are only one human out of quadrillions so far, so you are very much NOT humanity, but what are you more than a human, thus of humanity?
CHAN (ZEN) BUDDHISM: HUI-NENG & JOSHU
Hui-Neng (683-713 CE) became one of the central patriarchs of the Chan (Zen in Japanese) Buddhist tradition by outdoing his fellow student in a poetry competition to see who had the superior understanding and would succeed the master. The student who everyone expected to be the next master wrote:
The body is the tree of enlightenment, The mind is like a clear mirror-stand.
Polish it diligently time and again, Not letting it gather dust.
Hui-Neng was illiterate as well as a southerner who was considered different and inferior by the other students. After having a boy read the first submitted verse to him, he composed his reply:
Enlightenment originally has no tree, And a clear mirror is not a stand.
Originally there is not a single thing, Where can dust gather?
The master called Hui-Neng and said that this verse showed the superior understanding. Consider the similarity of this exchange to chapter 11 of the Dao and the Zhuang Zi.
Joshu (780 CE) is my favorite Chan/Zen thinker. Many of his short quotes became focal koans for study by students of Zen. I will read passages in class.
(69, 77, 79, 177, 182, 222, 232, 291, 352, 370, 431, 470)
DAOISM: LAO ZI & ZHUANG ZI
The Dao De Jing (formerly the Tao Te Ching) is the book by the fist Daoist patriarch Lao Zi (600 BCE) according to tradition. This book and the book of the second Daoist Patriarch Zhuang Zi (370-300 BCE) have many excellent examples of paradox and contradiction. We will consider some of these before the paradoxes of the Chinese logicians Hui Shih and Kung-Sun Lung.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is one of my favorites. It tells us that a wheel is only useful because of the hole in the center. The same is true of a jar made of clay, and the space in a room as well as the doors and windows. We naturally think of things as positives, as beings, but non-being, the holes and emptiness, goes hand in hand with the being. These things (as well as everything else, the text suggests) are and are not in very specific ways. The wheel is both solid and empty at the same time, but not in all of its parts equally. Positive and negative, being and non-being, work together to make things what they are.
If positivism tries for black and white judgments, all yes or all no, and skepticism tries for relative judgments, some yes and some no, this teaching on the wheel and the jar tells us that the solid objects that surround us, the things about which we are most certain, are somewhat and are not somewhat!
There is a Buddhist koan that says at first we see a thing as a thing, then after practice and contemplation we see the thing as a non-thing (a concept, or illusion), and then after further practice and contemplation we again see the thing as a thing (but also, in this third stage, as also a non-thing, our conception). Hegel, whose logic we will learn later, sees this same three-fold process in every stage of individual thought and history of philosophy. At first, if asked, the wheel is a thing, not a nothing or non-thing. Then, we see the hole when it is pointed out to us. Finally, we can see that the solidity and the emptiness of the wheel are both necessary and essential to the wheel being what it is together.
In the Zhuang Zi there are many excellent passages that back up this two-sided view. There are many parts of the text that are almost identical to fragments of Heraclitus. Both Zhuang Zi and Heraclitus say that things can be good to some and bad to others at the same time, dependent on the perspective of the viewer. Heraclitus says that salt water is poisonous for us to drink, but not for the fish who require it to live and breathe. Heraclitus also says that pigs like to bathe in filth. Zhuang Zi asks us which animal knows what tastes good if each eats something different? He says that birds like to sleep in trees, but humans certainly do not. Both thinkers say that humans are ugly to non-humans. Zhuang Zi says that the beautiful women of legend frightened minnows, deer and birds. Clearly, human beauty is of no matter to animals who find us frightening and ugly.
One passage I love asks if words say something or nothing and compares them to the peeps of baby birds. It goes on to say that a sage has a this and a that, but a sage’s this also has a that, and a sage’s that also has a this. Speaking of the Confucians and the Moists (two competing schools of Chinese thought at the time the text is being written) it says that what one calls right the other calls wrong, but we should right their wrongs and wrong their rights. Notice how similar this is to chapter 11 of the Dao. It suggests that a sage would see the wrong to a right and the right to a wrong, would see how something said is both meaningful and meaningless.
Another passage asks if the one who wins an argument is necessarily right, or if there must be one who is right and one who is wrong (remember the Nyaya form of debate and Gotama and Aristotle teaching tactics of debate).
Another passage which is important for the logicians to follow says that among the 10,000 things (the number signifies all, like “a billion” today) there are none that are not big, small, right, wrong, useful and useless. If we consider relativity, any particular thing must be bigger that some other thing and smaller than some other thing. If right and wrong, useful and useless are similarly relative, then the sage should see the back and forth, the some and some not to each of these in considering each individual thing.
THE LOGICIANS: HUI SHIH & KUNG-SUN LUNG
Hui Shih (380-305 BCE) is very similar to the Greek thinker Zeno. Both consider paradoxes of relativity in size, motion and other basic properties of things. When he says that heaven or the sky is as low as the earth, he is pointing out that the two meet in the middle, and so low and high are in a particular place equally low and high. When he says one goes to the state of Yueh today and arrives there yesterday, this is a famous puzzle that is quite like the wisdom tales we read in the beginning of the semester: if one crosses the border of Yueh at the stroke of midnight, then one was in Yueh and not in Yueh both today and yesterday, so one could say that one was going there today and arrived yesterday.
The paradox that is most impressive is the Lesser and Greater Similarity and Difference which many have said is similar to observations made in fractal geometry and chaos theory. He says that a great similarity is different from a small similarity, the lesser similarity and difference, but at the same time all things are similar to one another and different from one another, the greater similarity and difference. Consider a bowl with two apples and two oranges. An apple is quite similar to an orange in many ways but it is also different in many ways (the lesser). Anyone can tell that two apples are more alike than an apple and an orange, just as two oranges are more alike than an orange and an apple (this is the lesser similarity and difference). However, on the other hand, it is also true that any two apples are alike and yet different as any two oranges are alike and yet different (this is the greater similarity and difference). Notice that this means the first apple is similar and different to the second apple as well as to an orange. Viewed in a black or white way, the apples are the same and the apple and orange are different, but it is also true to say that the apples are different and the apple and orange are similar.
Kung-sun Lung (325-250 BCE) gives us the famous A White Horse Is Not A Horse argument. Many say that this argument is faulty, but if we follow the thinking of the Daoists and Hui Shih we can see what Kung-Sun is trying to say. He does not mean that a white horse is not in any way a horse, but that in one particular way “a white horse” is not the same thing as “a horse”. He argues that if one brings us a yellow horse, it would not fit the description “a white horse” but it would do fine for the description “a horse”. The two are thus different sets and are not identical though one set is a subset of the other. This means that “a white horse” is and is not “a horse” (in one way “is” and in another way “is not”), and so he can truly say that “a white horse is not a horse”.
Consider that your finger is you but also is not you. If we use “is” in terms of strict identity (like Clark Kent is Superman) then your finger is not you because you are much more than a finger. However, if we use “is” to mean a part incorporated within a thing (like a tree is green) then your finger is oneself because it is part of you. Bill Clinton famously tried explaining this with his “that depends what your definition of ‘is’ is”. Being an individual human, you are and are not humanity. In fact, you are only one human out of quadrillions so far, so you are very much NOT humanity, but what are you more than a human, thus of humanity?
CHAN (ZEN) BUDDHISM: HUI-NENG & JOSHU
Hui-Neng (683-713 CE) became one of the central patriarchs of the Chan (Zen in Japanese) Buddhist tradition by outdoing his fellow student in a poetry competition to see who had the superior understanding and would succeed the master. The student who everyone expected to be the next master wrote:
The body is the tree of enlightenment, The mind is like a clear mirror-stand.
Polish it diligently time and again, Not letting it gather dust.
Hui-Neng was illiterate as well as a southerner who was considered different and inferior by the other students. After having a boy read the first submitted verse to him, he composed his reply:
Enlightenment originally has no tree, And a clear mirror is not a stand.
Originally there is not a single thing, Where can dust gather?
The master called Hui-Neng and said that this verse showed the superior understanding. Consider the similarity of this exchange to chapter 11 of the Dao and the Zhuang Zi.
Joshu (780 CE) is my favorite Chan/Zen thinker. Many of his short quotes became focal koans for study by students of Zen. I will read passages in class.
(69, 77, 79, 177, 182, 222, 232, 291, 352, 370, 431, 470)
Logic: Midterm Review
Form of the Midterm: First multiple choice questions about the lectures (ex: Aristotle thinks that skeptics like Heraclitus are no better than PLANTS, Kanada believes there are 6 categories, including KARMA/action, etc). Second short answers that demonstrate your knowledge of the forms that we have learned so far (ex: recreate the square of opposition, the forms of syllogisms, Nyaya proof). No essay.
Logic, Magic and Riddles: We read in Malinowski’s Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings that tribes use all of the grammatical forms and pieces of reasoning that we all use. We saw difference of practice and theory, constantly intertwined, in the difference between shallow water fishing and deep sea fishing. We saw in the next article that in baseball, the same sort of split occurs between hitting/pitching and fielding. In wisdom tales, understanding contradiction. Logic switched from the study of debate in early cultures to foundations of mathematics in modern times with the rise of algebra.
Kanada: Karma as action/energy. We saw the basic structure of IF-THEN hypothetical statements. The Modus Tollens transformation: (If p then q), means also (if not q then not p). Ex: If we know “If there are clouds then there is rain”, we know “If there is no rain then there are no clouds”.
Nyaya: We saw the Nyaya form of the two sided debate: (X is Y) vs. (X is not Y). We saw that there are four sources of knowledge: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony.
Inference shows us induction leading to deduction, gathering leading to rules/principles.
The Nyaya proof: Rule, Example, Reason, Conclusion
Wherever there is smoke, there is fire. As in a kitchen.
Because the hill is smoky, therefore the hill is on fire.
Whatever is produced is not eternal, as a pot. (If p, then n, pot is both)
Because it is produced, Sound is not eternal. (Because s is p, s is n)
Note the subtle attack on the older tradition of the Vedas in the last two examples.
While Nyaya scholars believe X is Y or not Y, exclusively, we see that Jains think it must be some Y and some not Y, neither ALL or None. Buddhists argue that X can sometimes and somewhere be Y but also sometimes and somewhere not be Y. Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti.
Aristotle: Genus and Species (ex: animal, human), substances can have contrary qualities but only at different times, “if someone admits contrary qualities, his contention is unsound”, skeptics are destroyers, plants.
Square of opposition, All X is Y, No X is Y, Some X is Y, Some X is not Y as four corners.
Top pair (universals) can’t both be true, bottom pair (particulars) can’t both be false.
If we know All X is Y is true, then we know two things are false: No X is Y & Some X is not Y.
If we know No X is Y, then we know All X is Y and Some X is Y are false.
If we know Some X is Y, then we know No X is Y is false.
If we know Some X is not Y, then we know All X is Y is false.
Exclusive and Inclusive OR:
Inclusive Or: X or Y and you can choose more than one.
Exclusive Or: X or Y but you can only choose one exclusively.
The Four Forms of the Perfect Syllogism:
First, the Positive Universal, ‘Barbara’:
All A are B, All B are C, therefore All A are C.
Example: If it’s a human, animal, living thing.
(Venn diagram of A within B, B within C, or partially/fully collapsed)
Second, the Negative Universal, ‘Celarent’
All A are B, No B are C, therefore No A are C.
Ex: All men are animals, No animals are stone, therefore No men are made of stone.
Third, the Positive Particular, ‘Darii’
Some A are B, All B are C, therefore Some A are C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, All humans are funny, therefore some animals are funny.
Fourth, the Negative Particular, ‘Ferio’:
Some A are B, No B are C, therefore Some A are not C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, No humans are reptiles, therefore Some H are not R.
Greek Skepticism: Heraclitus says do not trust experts, we are all a bunch of apes. Pyrrho argues anything against anybody, then the opposite. Sextus Empiricus says inference can be wrong.
Chinese Paradox: Lao Zi’s Wheel (positive, negative, both), Zhuang Zi’s perspective, sage’s this always has a that, Hui Shih’s left today arrived yesterday and greater and lesser similarity and difference, Kung-Sun Lung’s white horse is not a horse argument and two uses of “is”.
Logic, Magic and Riddles: We read in Malinowski’s Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings that tribes use all of the grammatical forms and pieces of reasoning that we all use. We saw difference of practice and theory, constantly intertwined, in the difference between shallow water fishing and deep sea fishing. We saw in the next article that in baseball, the same sort of split occurs between hitting/pitching and fielding. In wisdom tales, understanding contradiction. Logic switched from the study of debate in early cultures to foundations of mathematics in modern times with the rise of algebra.
Kanada: Karma as action/energy. We saw the basic structure of IF-THEN hypothetical statements. The Modus Tollens transformation: (If p then q), means also (if not q then not p). Ex: If we know “If there are clouds then there is rain”, we know “If there is no rain then there are no clouds”.
Nyaya: We saw the Nyaya form of the two sided debate: (X is Y) vs. (X is not Y). We saw that there are four sources of knowledge: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony.
Inference shows us induction leading to deduction, gathering leading to rules/principles.
The Nyaya proof: Rule, Example, Reason, Conclusion
Wherever there is smoke, there is fire. As in a kitchen.
Because the hill is smoky, therefore the hill is on fire.
Whatever is produced is not eternal, as a pot. (If p, then n, pot is both)
Because it is produced, Sound is not eternal. (Because s is p, s is n)
Note the subtle attack on the older tradition of the Vedas in the last two examples.
While Nyaya scholars believe X is Y or not Y, exclusively, we see that Jains think it must be some Y and some not Y, neither ALL or None. Buddhists argue that X can sometimes and somewhere be Y but also sometimes and somewhere not be Y. Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti.
Aristotle: Genus and Species (ex: animal, human), substances can have contrary qualities but only at different times, “if someone admits contrary qualities, his contention is unsound”, skeptics are destroyers, plants.
Square of opposition, All X is Y, No X is Y, Some X is Y, Some X is not Y as four corners.
Top pair (universals) can’t both be true, bottom pair (particulars) can’t both be false.
If we know All X is Y is true, then we know two things are false: No X is Y & Some X is not Y.
If we know No X is Y, then we know All X is Y and Some X is Y are false.
If we know Some X is Y, then we know No X is Y is false.
If we know Some X is not Y, then we know All X is Y is false.
Exclusive and Inclusive OR:
Inclusive Or: X or Y and you can choose more than one.
Exclusive Or: X or Y but you can only choose one exclusively.
The Four Forms of the Perfect Syllogism:
First, the Positive Universal, ‘Barbara’:
All A are B, All B are C, therefore All A are C.
Example: If it’s a human, animal, living thing.
(Venn diagram of A within B, B within C, or partially/fully collapsed)
Second, the Negative Universal, ‘Celarent’
All A are B, No B are C, therefore No A are C.
Ex: All men are animals, No animals are stone, therefore No men are made of stone.
Third, the Positive Particular, ‘Darii’
Some A are B, All B are C, therefore Some A are C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, All humans are funny, therefore some animals are funny.
Fourth, the Negative Particular, ‘Ferio’:
Some A are B, No B are C, therefore Some A are not C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, No humans are reptiles, therefore Some H are not R.
Greek Skepticism: Heraclitus says do not trust experts, we are all a bunch of apes. Pyrrho argues anything against anybody, then the opposite. Sextus Empiricus says inference can be wrong.
Chinese Paradox: Lao Zi’s Wheel (positive, negative, both), Zhuang Zi’s perspective, sage’s this always has a that, Hui Shih’s left today arrived yesterday and greater and lesser similarity and difference, Kung-Sun Lung’s white horse is not a horse argument and two uses of “is”.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Cucumber, Ox, Sign and Substitution
In copying an article for inter-library loan, I stumbled upon a hilarious article.
Here are the first two paragraphs:
* * * * * *
Ralf Norrman:
A Note on the Cucumber-Sacrifice among the Nuer
In Nuer Religion Evans-Pritchard relates in detail how the Nuer, who normally - or at least ideally - sacrifice an ox, will sometimes sacrifice a cucumber instead, if an ox is not available. When a cucumber is substituted for an ox the sacrificial ceremony is nevertheless carried out as if the cucumber were an ox, and the fruit is spoken of as "the ox" (or, strictly speaking, "the cow", yang, which is the standard term on such occasions).
I believe that Evans-Pritchard's analysis of the mechanism of signification involved in the custom gives a valuable insight into this type of phenomenon. I wish to make a further contribution to the picture of Nuer sacrifice by considering briefly one specific detail in the sacrificial ceremony, namely the nature of the cucumber as a sign. My thesis is that the cucumber is an intrinsically appropriate symbol in the context; that it has natural suitability for its role as a sacrificial victim, specifically as a substitute for an ox - and ultimately, above all, as a substitute for the life (or lives) of the sacrificer(s).
* * * * * *
Consider the double substitution going on in these two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, the Nuer substitute a cucumber for an ox. In the second paragraph, a scholar substitutes a sign for a cucumber.
Which substitution is more deceptive? I imagine that the Nuer, a group of tribes from Ethiopia and Sudan, understand that the cucumber is not actually an ox much more than the scholar understands that the cucumber is not in fact an abstract academic conception of signs and signification.
Which substitution helps its own tribe more? The sentence, "I believe that Evans-Pritchard's analysis of the mechanism of signification involved in the custom gives a valuable insight into this type of phenomenon" speaks for itself. I propose that the Nuer have a more immediate grasp of substitution and signification than the scholar, at least in so far as the scholar believes he has offered us new insight while in fact he has translated the Nuer sacrifice into academic-speak and done little else. If everything is a sign (thanks a lot, Saussure) the author is not offering us much of a thesis, signification, or sacrifice.
Here are the first two paragraphs:
* * * * * *
Ralf Norrman:
A Note on the Cucumber-Sacrifice among the Nuer
In Nuer Religion Evans-Pritchard relates in detail how the Nuer, who normally - or at least ideally - sacrifice an ox, will sometimes sacrifice a cucumber instead, if an ox is not available. When a cucumber is substituted for an ox the sacrificial ceremony is nevertheless carried out as if the cucumber were an ox, and the fruit is spoken of as "the ox" (or, strictly speaking, "the cow", yang, which is the standard term on such occasions).
I believe that Evans-Pritchard's analysis of the mechanism of signification involved in the custom gives a valuable insight into this type of phenomenon. I wish to make a further contribution to the picture of Nuer sacrifice by considering briefly one specific detail in the sacrificial ceremony, namely the nature of the cucumber as a sign. My thesis is that the cucumber is an intrinsically appropriate symbol in the context; that it has natural suitability for its role as a sacrificial victim, specifically as a substitute for an ox - and ultimately, above all, as a substitute for the life (or lives) of the sacrificer(s).
* * * * * *
Consider the double substitution going on in these two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, the Nuer substitute a cucumber for an ox. In the second paragraph, a scholar substitutes a sign for a cucumber.
Which substitution is more deceptive? I imagine that the Nuer, a group of tribes from Ethiopia and Sudan, understand that the cucumber is not actually an ox much more than the scholar understands that the cucumber is not in fact an abstract academic conception of signs and signification.
Which substitution helps its own tribe more? The sentence, "I believe that Evans-Pritchard's analysis of the mechanism of signification involved in the custom gives a valuable insight into this type of phenomenon" speaks for itself. I propose that the Nuer have a more immediate grasp of substitution and signification than the scholar, at least in so far as the scholar believes he has offered us new insight while in fact he has translated the Nuer sacrifice into academic-speak and done little else. If everything is a sign (thanks a lot, Saussure) the author is not offering us much of a thesis, signification, or sacrifice.
Ethics: Midterm Review
The Midterm Exam will consist of 20 multiple choice questions, three short answer questions covering central concepts, and an essay.
Principle, Moral & Law: Kant
Kant is a positivist with regard to principle, morals and laws. Kant believes that reason should rule over desire (like the early cosmology above) and principles that are figured out by reason should always be followed regardless of the consequences (note that the opposite position can be found in the Utilitarian/consequentialist position below). Kant believes that one starts with good will (good in itself without question) and reasoned principles follow, and one should use this good beginning regardless of what consequences follow (though he says this naturally aims at and leads to good consequences even if this is secondary). Kant calls this “the categorical imperative” and “unconditional universal law”. The example of this is the guy with the knife who asks you “Where did your friend go?”, to whom one should not lie regardless of how easy a good end can come from lying. One must “Do one’s Duty” even if one goes down with the ship.
Virtue & Merit: Aristotle
Virtue is like principle in being a good beginning, but it is also a state or end to obtain. Also, virtue can be individual in a way that principle is collective and for the group. The idea is that one gains virtue, merit or “goodness”, and one can then use this ability/capacity to do good. A virtue-ethicist believes that becoming good or virtuous is more important than following principles or simply having good consequences. One should be virtuous even if it means breaking principles or bad results in a particular situation. The upside of this is a virtue centered ethic is not slave to principle or always seeking the best consequences. The downside is that one could believe that oneself or one’s group is “the virtuous” and ignore principles and consequences to the degree that it becomes a problem for oneself or others.
Consequence, Utility & End: Mill
Consequentialism or Utilitarianism argues that one should focus completely on the ends or results to determine if an act or person is good or bad. Specifically, one should try to maximize pleasure/happiness and minimize pain/suffering for everyone, taking a long view (not a short, 15 minute view). Epicurus was an early Greek consequentialist, and he is followed by the Utilitarian school of Bentham and Mill. While Bentham leaned towards the positive side of the ‘pleasure principle’, maximizing happiness, Mill leaned towards the negative, minimizing harm. Mill is the best known, and has had an important impact on modern thought and theory of law.
Mill’s Utilitarianism is opposite yet similar in many ways to Kant. Both see their side as fundamental and the other side as a secondary consequence. Kant says always follow principle and you will likely be happy, and Mill says always try for happiness and you will likely be principled. Both see their own primary focus as good in itself without the possibility of proof or question.
Attacks on Utilitarianism include: Paradox of the bad as good example, Marx’s guess who gets to use who for whose happiness (the rich and elite), Happiness as unobtainable ideal, Environmental challenge to using the world for human purposes.
Balance & The Mean: Egyptian Wisdom & Confucius
Meaning and value work through pairs of opposites (good/evil, open/closed, individual/collective). A reoccurring theme of the world’s wisdom is that seeking the mean or middle between opposites is better than clinging to either side of an opposition. We can see some beautiful examples of this thinking in the Egyptian wisdom and Confucius passages. In the Egyptian wisdom, moderation of eating and drinking, luxury, and balancing one’s own interest with others are the clearest examples. Confucius offers particularly insightful sayings that call for a balance of one’s self with others for the cultivation of self and society.
Self Interest, Self Esteem and Drive: Nietzsche & Rand
Self is very much an end, though like Mill it can be phrased as a principle (focus on the ends).
While early ethics (in accord with ancient cosmology above) focused on the collective good, modern society has taken a turn towards the individual good. These two have always been complimentary, but devices and media have allowed us to be more enabled as individuals than ever before. Nietzsche and Rand both focus on individual achievement as the central end of life, but they are completely different as far as trusting judgment and truth. Nietzsche trusts no truth at all, calling all collectivism “slave morality” and performing his own misogyny as “Philosophy is always the personal confession of the author”. Rand believes her opinions to be objective, and calls her school the “Objectivists”. Rand’s idea of believing in yourself was repackaged as “self esteem” in the 1980s. While it is important to have self esteem, problems can arise when one trusts one’s own judgment and rejects all opposing judgments entirely.
Perspective & Intersubjectivity: Heraclitus & Chuang Tzu
A balance between thinking our views are completely right or wrong, truth or illusion, is the concept of perspective. The “objective” is very much the intersubjective, the similarity and difference of a group of subjective perspectives. Heraclitus and Chuang Tzu are both excellent thinkers to read to get good examples of this sort of thought. Both use perspectives of animals to show that collective human opinion is just that (pigs sleep in mud, birds sleep in trees). The concept of perspective is good for showing us that all views count, but they are also each limited and capable of progress and expansion.
Principle, Moral & Law: Kant
Kant is a positivist with regard to principle, morals and laws. Kant believes that reason should rule over desire (like the early cosmology above) and principles that are figured out by reason should always be followed regardless of the consequences (note that the opposite position can be found in the Utilitarian/consequentialist position below). Kant believes that one starts with good will (good in itself without question) and reasoned principles follow, and one should use this good beginning regardless of what consequences follow (though he says this naturally aims at and leads to good consequences even if this is secondary). Kant calls this “the categorical imperative” and “unconditional universal law”. The example of this is the guy with the knife who asks you “Where did your friend go?”, to whom one should not lie regardless of how easy a good end can come from lying. One must “Do one’s Duty” even if one goes down with the ship.
Virtue & Merit: Aristotle
Virtue is like principle in being a good beginning, but it is also a state or end to obtain. Also, virtue can be individual in a way that principle is collective and for the group. The idea is that one gains virtue, merit or “goodness”, and one can then use this ability/capacity to do good. A virtue-ethicist believes that becoming good or virtuous is more important than following principles or simply having good consequences. One should be virtuous even if it means breaking principles or bad results in a particular situation. The upside of this is a virtue centered ethic is not slave to principle or always seeking the best consequences. The downside is that one could believe that oneself or one’s group is “the virtuous” and ignore principles and consequences to the degree that it becomes a problem for oneself or others.
Consequence, Utility & End: Mill
Consequentialism or Utilitarianism argues that one should focus completely on the ends or results to determine if an act or person is good or bad. Specifically, one should try to maximize pleasure/happiness and minimize pain/suffering for everyone, taking a long view (not a short, 15 minute view). Epicurus was an early Greek consequentialist, and he is followed by the Utilitarian school of Bentham and Mill. While Bentham leaned towards the positive side of the ‘pleasure principle’, maximizing happiness, Mill leaned towards the negative, minimizing harm. Mill is the best known, and has had an important impact on modern thought and theory of law.
Mill’s Utilitarianism is opposite yet similar in many ways to Kant. Both see their side as fundamental and the other side as a secondary consequence. Kant says always follow principle and you will likely be happy, and Mill says always try for happiness and you will likely be principled. Both see their own primary focus as good in itself without the possibility of proof or question.
Attacks on Utilitarianism include: Paradox of the bad as good example, Marx’s guess who gets to use who for whose happiness (the rich and elite), Happiness as unobtainable ideal, Environmental challenge to using the world for human purposes.
Balance & The Mean: Egyptian Wisdom & Confucius
Meaning and value work through pairs of opposites (good/evil, open/closed, individual/collective). A reoccurring theme of the world’s wisdom is that seeking the mean or middle between opposites is better than clinging to either side of an opposition. We can see some beautiful examples of this thinking in the Egyptian wisdom and Confucius passages. In the Egyptian wisdom, moderation of eating and drinking, luxury, and balancing one’s own interest with others are the clearest examples. Confucius offers particularly insightful sayings that call for a balance of one’s self with others for the cultivation of self and society.
Self Interest, Self Esteem and Drive: Nietzsche & Rand
Self is very much an end, though like Mill it can be phrased as a principle (focus on the ends).
While early ethics (in accord with ancient cosmology above) focused on the collective good, modern society has taken a turn towards the individual good. These two have always been complimentary, but devices and media have allowed us to be more enabled as individuals than ever before. Nietzsche and Rand both focus on individual achievement as the central end of life, but they are completely different as far as trusting judgment and truth. Nietzsche trusts no truth at all, calling all collectivism “slave morality” and performing his own misogyny as “Philosophy is always the personal confession of the author”. Rand believes her opinions to be objective, and calls her school the “Objectivists”. Rand’s idea of believing in yourself was repackaged as “self esteem” in the 1980s. While it is important to have self esteem, problems can arise when one trusts one’s own judgment and rejects all opposing judgments entirely.
Perspective & Intersubjectivity: Heraclitus & Chuang Tzu
A balance between thinking our views are completely right or wrong, truth or illusion, is the concept of perspective. The “objective” is very much the intersubjective, the similarity and difference of a group of subjective perspectives. Heraclitus and Chuang Tzu are both excellent thinkers to read to get good examples of this sort of thought. Both use perspectives of animals to show that collective human opinion is just that (pigs sleep in mud, birds sleep in trees). The concept of perspective is good for showing us that all views count, but they are also each limited and capable of progress and expansion.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Intro Philosophy: Lecture on Daoism
This week, we will be studying the two most central texts of Chinese Daoism: the Dao De Jing (also ‘Tao’) of Lao Zi, and the book of the ‘second patriarch’ of Daoism, Zhuang Zi. “Zi” used to be “Tzu” until recently. It means “master”, the title added to most Chinese philosophers, and it is pronounced like a cross between “zih” and “tzuh”. Give “zih” a bit of a “t” on the front and change the “ih” a bit to an “uh”.
Daoism has always been dear to my heart, as I have an old printing of the Dao (on the book, the ‘Tao Te Ching’, now typically and more accurately written ‘Dao De Jing’) which I loved when I was a kid. It was only, however, later in my studies that I was able to have a real love of the text, which at first seemed simply mysterious poetry.
Daoism is often opposed to Confucianism as a skeptical school of thought vs. Confucianism which is more a traditionalist or rationalist school. Indeed, Daoism is one of the most powerful skeptical schools of thought in history, and we continue to look to it as a champion of opening the mind. However it is also clear that Confucius was a skeptic of individual judgments and Daoism also became an orthodox religious system.
While Confucianism stands for city life, study, and the structure of the family and state, Daoism advocates returning to nature, meditation, and questioning relationships of power. Whereas Confucianism argues that we should cultivate and civilize ourselves, Daoism believes that we should return to our natural state and let nature run its course, thus reaching a state of completion.
The most important concept for Daoism (and, interestingly, the mystics of most religions) is the Great One, the All. Essentially, Daoism argues that one should remove one-sided judgments and desires from the mind such that harmony with the whole, with the One, is achieved. ‘Dao’ means ‘Way’, and thus ‘Daoism’ is the study of the Way of the All, the source of everything.
It is believed that Lao Zi lived sometime after 600 BCE, and Zhuang Zi, the second patriarch of Daoism, lived sometime about 370-300 BCE. Not much is known about either patriarch, but we do know that Chuang Tzu worked in a lacquer house (a place for mass-producing bento boxes and plates with glazes). The things said of Lao Tzu are considered entirely of legend. The most famous of these is the legend that Master Lao rode off on a water buffalo into the West (the direction of the setting sun, sacred and associated with death and the afterlife in many cultures including Egypt and China) at the end of his life, never heard from again. One tradition holds that he went to India to teach the Buddha, but this is clearly a tale told by Daoists to explain how Daoism is quite close to Buddhism in many ways. Daoism was blended with Buddhism in China, so Chinese Daoists would say this to trump the Chinese Buddhists.
The Dao De Jing of Lao Zi:
The first chapter, opening verse, of the Dao De Jing, famously reads: “The Dao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Dao. Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name. As the origin of heaven and earth, it is nameless.” The All, or the One, includes everything. Thus, there is no proper or particular name. The BIG ALL does not need a particular name, because there is nothing in particular that one can judge about the ALL. It is the source of all things, so it could be called ‘green’, ‘not green’, ‘both’ or ‘neither’, with equal meaning. The same, of course, goes for any adjective. Just as any particular thing has its opposite (hot and cold, good and evil), the One is the source of all opposites, and thus is in fact neither and both of each particular thing. Notice the duality of heaven and earth, of open sky and closed ground. Sometimes we think being solid is good, other times we feel that being free is good. In fact, the All is all solidity (order) and freedom (chaos), so the All is above and the source of all closure and openness. In the first three lines, we have much of Daoist thought already.
In chapter 8 of the Dao, we learn that the Dao is like water. This is a common metaphor that Daoism employs to describe how the way (Dao) of things is fluid, like water, getting down into the lowest and tightest cracks of things. Daoists are quick to point out: the Dao has no status or pride, and so like the Daoist sage the Way is down amongst the poor and the common, together as one with the things people despise as well as the things people desire.
Chapter 9 of the Dao is a classic example of Daoist reasoning by contradiction. All things have contradictory properties, but this is hard for our one sided judgments and views to see. Thus, we are told that if we continue to sharpen a sword it goes dull, and if we store up enough valuables they will surely attract thieves. ‘When you have done your work, retire’ here means: judge and do just enough for the present situation, but do not try to build up merit or riches, for it will only bring you trouble.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is my favorite. I find it very important for understanding the duality of positive and negative, the solid and empty we saw in heaven-and-earth of chapter 1. We are told that a wheel is only useful because of the emptiness at the center. When you first look at a wheel, you see it as a simply solid thing. Then, if you look again with a more skeptical mind, you will see that the emptiness, not just the substance, is important too. Imagine if a house was not mostly empty, but was solid through and through. You would not be able to get inside it! May as well build the house in outer space. Solid and empty get their meanings, their uses, from a mutual relationship, not from one being the only thing and the other merely false. I love this verse, as it is very close to Hegel’s idea of positive, negative, and synthesis. The synthesis here would be seeing not just the solid wheel, nor simply the emptiness, but both working together.
There is a Zen Buddhist Koan which says something very similar: “First practicing (Zen), I saw a rock as a rock…then, I saw it as not a rock…finally, I saw it as truly a rock.” This, like Hegel, refers to seeing the thing and the conception of the thing as one and two at the same time.
Chapter 13 tells us that getting a lowly state, a common position, is a gift, and so is losing it! How can both getting something and loosing something be good? Because there is good and bad in everything. If the sage finds the good in anything, turning the good to their advantage, then the sage can find the good in getting a thing, and then find the good in loosing that thing. Don’t assume that nothing else has changed in the mean time.
Chapter 22 has an ethical ring to it. The sage does not boast, and is admired by everyone. Clearly, this is because there is no end to boasting in human beings! Most people assume that they know what is simply good, and what is simply bad, and they are not afraid to tell you so. Only the sage, the wise person, knows not to boast about anything, and thus the sage is much less annoying than the average person. This takes practice and patience, something the average person does not have time for before making a certain judgment. The idea is that if you desire nothing, ‘everything will flock to you’, and you have whatever you need right at hand in any situation. This is opposite the common understanding, which says that you must want something to have it.
Notice at the end of chapter 42, ‘A man of violence will come to a violent end’. This is quite similar to Jesus saying, ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword’. Try to gain for yourself, and the great balance of all things will cut you down, doing to you what you do to others.
Chapter 71 reads ‘to realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness’. I love this wisdom. A good example of this is racism. Knowledge is always focusing on one thing. When you focus on one thing, you ignore everything else. This is crucial to seeing how our knowledge is always human perspective, and how it can always be improved.
The Book of Zhuang Zi:
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 Chuang Tzu, 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.
Notice on page 92 and 93 that Hu Tzu trumps a shaman, who tries to read him but Hu Tzu can change how he is read seemingly at will. This seems to suggest that the true sage can identify with everything and everybody, so there is no need to avoid any particular thing or to judge the presence or absence of anything for any situation. Anything desired is always immediately at hand when you have a fluid nature that is the source of all things.
Daoism has always been dear to my heart, as I have an old printing of the Dao (on the book, the ‘Tao Te Ching’, now typically and more accurately written ‘Dao De Jing’) which I loved when I was a kid. It was only, however, later in my studies that I was able to have a real love of the text, which at first seemed simply mysterious poetry.
Daoism is often opposed to Confucianism as a skeptical school of thought vs. Confucianism which is more a traditionalist or rationalist school. Indeed, Daoism is one of the most powerful skeptical schools of thought in history, and we continue to look to it as a champion of opening the mind. However it is also clear that Confucius was a skeptic of individual judgments and Daoism also became an orthodox religious system.
While Confucianism stands for city life, study, and the structure of the family and state, Daoism advocates returning to nature, meditation, and questioning relationships of power. Whereas Confucianism argues that we should cultivate and civilize ourselves, Daoism believes that we should return to our natural state and let nature run its course, thus reaching a state of completion.
The most important concept for Daoism (and, interestingly, the mystics of most religions) is the Great One, the All. Essentially, Daoism argues that one should remove one-sided judgments and desires from the mind such that harmony with the whole, with the One, is achieved. ‘Dao’ means ‘Way’, and thus ‘Daoism’ is the study of the Way of the All, the source of everything.
It is believed that Lao Zi lived sometime after 600 BCE, and Zhuang Zi, the second patriarch of Daoism, lived sometime about 370-300 BCE. Not much is known about either patriarch, but we do know that Chuang Tzu worked in a lacquer house (a place for mass-producing bento boxes and plates with glazes). The things said of Lao Tzu are considered entirely of legend. The most famous of these is the legend that Master Lao rode off on a water buffalo into the West (the direction of the setting sun, sacred and associated with death and the afterlife in many cultures including Egypt and China) at the end of his life, never heard from again. One tradition holds that he went to India to teach the Buddha, but this is clearly a tale told by Daoists to explain how Daoism is quite close to Buddhism in many ways. Daoism was blended with Buddhism in China, so Chinese Daoists would say this to trump the Chinese Buddhists.
The Dao De Jing of Lao Zi:
The first chapter, opening verse, of the Dao De Jing, famously reads: “The Dao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Dao. Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name. As the origin of heaven and earth, it is nameless.” The All, or the One, includes everything. Thus, there is no proper or particular name. The BIG ALL does not need a particular name, because there is nothing in particular that one can judge about the ALL. It is the source of all things, so it could be called ‘green’, ‘not green’, ‘both’ or ‘neither’, with equal meaning. The same, of course, goes for any adjective. Just as any particular thing has its opposite (hot and cold, good and evil), the One is the source of all opposites, and thus is in fact neither and both of each particular thing. Notice the duality of heaven and earth, of open sky and closed ground. Sometimes we think being solid is good, other times we feel that being free is good. In fact, the All is all solidity (order) and freedom (chaos), so the All is above and the source of all closure and openness. In the first three lines, we have much of Daoist thought already.
In chapter 8 of the Dao, we learn that the Dao is like water. This is a common metaphor that Daoism employs to describe how the way (Dao) of things is fluid, like water, getting down into the lowest and tightest cracks of things. Daoists are quick to point out: the Dao has no status or pride, and so like the Daoist sage the Way is down amongst the poor and the common, together as one with the things people despise as well as the things people desire.
Chapter 9 of the Dao is a classic example of Daoist reasoning by contradiction. All things have contradictory properties, but this is hard for our one sided judgments and views to see. Thus, we are told that if we continue to sharpen a sword it goes dull, and if we store up enough valuables they will surely attract thieves. ‘When you have done your work, retire’ here means: judge and do just enough for the present situation, but do not try to build up merit or riches, for it will only bring you trouble.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is my favorite. I find it very important for understanding the duality of positive and negative, the solid and empty we saw in heaven-and-earth of chapter 1. We are told that a wheel is only useful because of the emptiness at the center. When you first look at a wheel, you see it as a simply solid thing. Then, if you look again with a more skeptical mind, you will see that the emptiness, not just the substance, is important too. Imagine if a house was not mostly empty, but was solid through and through. You would not be able to get inside it! May as well build the house in outer space. Solid and empty get their meanings, their uses, from a mutual relationship, not from one being the only thing and the other merely false. I love this verse, as it is very close to Hegel’s idea of positive, negative, and synthesis. The synthesis here would be seeing not just the solid wheel, nor simply the emptiness, but both working together.
There is a Zen Buddhist Koan which says something very similar: “First practicing (Zen), I saw a rock as a rock…then, I saw it as not a rock…finally, I saw it as truly a rock.” This, like Hegel, refers to seeing the thing and the conception of the thing as one and two at the same time.
Chapter 13 tells us that getting a lowly state, a common position, is a gift, and so is losing it! How can both getting something and loosing something be good? Because there is good and bad in everything. If the sage finds the good in anything, turning the good to their advantage, then the sage can find the good in getting a thing, and then find the good in loosing that thing. Don’t assume that nothing else has changed in the mean time.
Chapter 22 has an ethical ring to it. The sage does not boast, and is admired by everyone. Clearly, this is because there is no end to boasting in human beings! Most people assume that they know what is simply good, and what is simply bad, and they are not afraid to tell you so. Only the sage, the wise person, knows not to boast about anything, and thus the sage is much less annoying than the average person. This takes practice and patience, something the average person does not have time for before making a certain judgment. The idea is that if you desire nothing, ‘everything will flock to you’, and you have whatever you need right at hand in any situation. This is opposite the common understanding, which says that you must want something to have it.
Notice at the end of chapter 42, ‘A man of violence will come to a violent end’. This is quite similar to Jesus saying, ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword’. Try to gain for yourself, and the great balance of all things will cut you down, doing to you what you do to others.
Chapter 71 reads ‘to realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness’. I love this wisdom. A good example of this is racism. Knowledge is always focusing on one thing. When you focus on one thing, you ignore everything else. This is crucial to seeing how our knowledge is always human perspective, and how it can always be improved.
The Book of Zhuang Zi:
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 Chuang Tzu, 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.
Notice on page 92 and 93 that Hu Tzu trumps a shaman, who tries to read him but Hu Tzu can change how he is read seemingly at will. This seems to suggest that the true sage can identify with everything and everybody, so there is no need to avoid any particular thing or to judge the presence or absence of anything for any situation. Anything desired is always immediately at hand when you have a fluid nature that is the source of all things.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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.
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.
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