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Plato, Aristotle and William James
Before continuing to examine the ideas of William James lets look at the origins of metaphysical dualisms in Western thought by comparing the two big thinkers of ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle.
Plato was in some ways the original metaphysical dualist in Western thinking. His philosophy was based on the fundamentals conception of ideal form and as such he can be seen as one of the earliest thoughts in a conversation about the ideal reality that abides behind the reality of appearance known as Idealism Plato’s reasoning was simple. The only way we could know anything is if there already existed in the mind some notion of the ideal form of that thing. How do we know that a tree is a tree when we see it? We only recognize it as a tree because it matches our inner image of ideal “tree-ness.”
Plato was a student of Socrates and that is where this fundamental notion came from. Socrates believed that the mind already contained all knowledge and so his “Socratic” method of inquiry was designed to ask questions that would draw out the knowledge that was already in the mind. Truth, Beauty and Goodness were some of the big ideal forms that the mind contained, as was the idea of justice. How do we know what is true, what is beautiful, what is good or what is just? Some might say that we are taught these ideas from our society and certainly that is true and both Plato and Socrates recognized that. They also recognized that your society might teach you one thing and you might believe something else. Your society might tell you that going to war is just and you might believe it is unjust. How were you able to do that? In Plato’s thinking you can only do that because you have some innate ideal sense of justice already in your mind to appeal to that exists outside of what you have been taught.
Plato was a dualist in that he believed that the reality that we saw with our senses was an imperfect expression of a hidden world of ideal form. This hidden world of ideal form existed as the deep wisdom of the mind. This kind of dualism is reflected in the later ideas of Descartes, Kant, Hegel and other Idealist philosophers.
Aristotle challenged Plato’s dualism in some ways and his came with a different sense of what was ultimately real. Plato felt that what was ultimately real was the ideal form of things. Everything had an ideal form that existed behind the thing itself. Aristotle had a different sense of the ideal because he believed that the most fundamental aspect of reality had to do with the dynamics of change. Aristotle was captivated by the process of becoming. Things change and so the ideal of a thing, a thing’s nature, is not some hidden form behind it, but the force of change that can take it to its ultimate form in time. The nature of an apple seed rests in its potential to become an apple. What would a thing become if the natural process of change were allowed to progress to its ultimate end? That is the question that gives us a thing’s ideal form. The ideal form of a thing, its nature, is whatever it is destined to become through the process of natural change. In this sense then the ideal form of a thing is not something that exists in some separate realm, it is an innate part of the thing itself. In this sense Aristotle did away with Plato’s duality.
Aristotle’s thinking has a love/hate relationship with the modern conception of science that we have spent some time discussing already. On the one had Aristotle in his belief that change was most fundamental in reality was always motivated to observe how things changed, how they developed, grew and evolved. The question that naturally arises from this investigation is “what is the cause of change?” Why causes change? This was the question at the heart of Aristotle’s science and we still see the dominance of this question in science today. At the same time Aristotle attributed change to an innate nature of things. He believed in animism – the idea that all things are animated from within. This led him to believe for instance that objects fall because it makes them happier to be closer to the earth. So Aristotle’s thinking would tend to attribute animal qualities to Aquinasinanimate things. And it was in reaction against this idea that modern science would eventually be born.
Aristotle also became central to Christianity during the middle ages. The question of ultimate cause was picked up by the Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas while he was attempting to rectify Aristotle’s thinking with Christian doctrine. This synthesis of thinking would become the dominant intellectual paradigm throughout the Western middle ages. And Aquinas would eventual come to define God in Aristotlilian terms as the “first cause” or the “uncaused cause.”
Let’s link Aristotle more directly to William James. Aristotle’s investigation into the nature of causes led him to realize that there was a hierarchy of being. The lowest level of the chain was inanimate things and in examining the causes of change in these types of objects it is clear that they only change when acted upon. So a rock for instance if thrown into the air would stop and come back down, but it would never throw itself into the air. The next level of the chain was plants because these would act when acted upon like non-living things, but they would also grow all on their own. You plant a seed and it contained the cause for it to grow into a flower. Animals were next in the chain because not only could they be acted upon like rocks, and grow like plants, but they could also choose to do things, walk, run, sleep, eat, etc.
Human beings were highest on the chain because human beings are not only acted upon, grow and act, they also choose what they should become. Human beings have the unique ability to be concerned about themselves and to make choices about how they should live and what they will become. The nature of being human rested in our ability to cause ourselves to be a particular kind of person. The fulfillment of human nature to Aristotle rested in become the person you are most supposed to be This ability to choose who you will be is absolutely central to James’ thinking, as it was to the Romantic American Transcendentalists whose shadow he was traveling in..
Thank you for this extremely clear explanation. It brought me back to the very important question what informs us in the process of going forward.
Some time ago I did some studying on Plato and Aristoteles, and later also Spinoza. So if people’s interest is awakend through your blog, it might be interesting to have a look, it is ALL about this question.
The interest in the progress of knowing, lead to studying the phenomena of knowledge. Heraclitus: How can concepts be sustainable, while the observable world changes all the time. “How can you say something today that still counts tomorrow? Opposite to that, Parmenides said: reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging, he explains the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful.
ETHICS: Socrates said we must obey God more than people; is the first one who systematically discussed ethics. Ethics is the theory of morals, it is an reflection about values, habits and virtues, to find guidelines for human behaviour. Important was control of passions (which he was an example of). A very well known story is about the choice between two roads: Heracles had to choose between going the one road where a beautiful woman called pleasure is waving and the other side where a woman called virtue is waiting, which in the end will lead to a more happy life. To chose virtue is not enough. Hardest part is to find out what virtue is. Another story is that someone asked the oracle if Socrates was a wise man, and the oracle answered confirming. Socrates did not believe this and investigated all kinds of people that he thought where wise. In the end he decided the oracle was real, because it showed that people who say they are wise are not, human wisdom cannot be more than be aware that one isn’t wise.
Socrates was mainly interested in what people where reaching for in their behaviour in their concrete lives; on an individual level and on a political level. Essence for him was understanding; he spend his time in open dialog with people. The young aristocracy in Athens did not have to work and spend most of their time with practicing mathematics, physics and philosophy; deduction (was new) lead to exciting new ideas; Socrates used induction: take concrete situations and clime up to general definitions. Socrates was called a hornet because he was famous for asking through and through, he never stopped. When someone said he was a democrat and at the same time was thinking that a person with weird ideas should not be allowed to vote, there was an in-consequence which would be attacked (logic’s). Socrates also attacked leaders and so called wise people and was at 70 condemned to death because for spoiling the morality of the young’. Also during his trial he used the same method of cross-examining his prosecutor claims and premises in order to draw out contradictions or inconsistencies. ‘Socrates’ ideas later also inspired also The Stoic (renouncing all emotions) and The Cynics.
Socrates and Plato both where convinced that knowledge and virtue are connected. In the discussion about truth, question was if something could be valued higher than something else. Socrates answered: something can be better, because the effects are better, that what comes out of it, will be better. In contrast with Christianity where a ‘pure heart’ is seen as basis for virtue. Socrates was convinced that if people know the truth, they will choose for the good. God created the good, and goodness can be re-found by analyzing the opposite, the not-good. Everything has an opponent, which helps defining the real good. Evil comes from not-knowing. Virtue comes from insight through dialectic exchange of arguments and counter-arguments (first used by Zeno). This was further developed by Plato and later by Kant, Hegel, Marx.
Plato’s Utopia is very well known. Plato started his own school, the Academy, where Aristotle (384-322 BC) participated for 20 years. Central was finding the essence of things and acts and to ground a new state with that knowledge. He was the first one who brought physics, logics and ethics in one philosophic system: logic to be sure the arguments are sound, to sustain philosophical truths and demolish philosophical mistakes. He connected insights in psychology, sociology, linguistics, history, mathematics, astronomy, theology and wanted to bring it all together. He worked on the basic question: is everything as it is and is change unreal, or is everything changing and is nothing permanent. According to Plato it is both, like the nature of light: being both wave and particle at the same time.
He said there must be unchanging ideas, Forms to describe changing objects (archetypes give an idea of what Forms are). Theorizing is ‘seeing with the mind, not with the eyes’. Forms are associated with using the mind to reason -as opposite to relaying on the sense experience. Forms are accessible only to the enquiring mind. Form is described in the famous story of the cave (see also Wikipedia): it is about philosophical theorizing. It is when the philosopher detaches himself from the earthly world (the cave) and is at first blinded by the light of the sun that shines there. His eyes slowly adjust to the light and eventually he can gaze directly upon the beings in the metaphysical realm, including the Form of the Good. He now sees that the shadow figures in the cave where copies of the true beings in the realm, and that this region is the locus of true reality. Back in the cave, he is initially blinded by its darkness and the people say that the journey has destroyed his vision.
To go the path of a philosopher – to escape from the bondage of opinion and set out on a quest toward unknown truths – one must be exiled from one’s original ‘home’ and experience a profound sense of alienation. The soul has, both cognitively and existentially, left home, and thus suffers from disorientation. The ideal philosopher will not flee back into his cave, but undertake a journey that ends in contemplation of the Forms. Eros compels the philosophic soul to seek and find a path of truth (again and again). Intellect (mathematics) is seen as lower than wisdom, which is connected with ‘direct seeing’ the truth, The practice (to find) Form -i.e. beauty- is as follows: the philosopher moves from the ‘sight’ of a beautiful body, to all beautiful bodies, to the beauty of the soul and than ‘theorizes’ the Form of the beautiful.
Truth is (logics of) what is the essence of something: not the ‘experience of beauty’, but the idea of ‘beauty itself’. Or ‘when is a cat a cat: not a particular cat, but a cat in its uniqueness’.
Plato made a difference between opinion (=personal experience of a cat) and knowledge (the essence of a cat=truth) A philosopher is someone who loves finding / ‘seeing’ truth. It is not only wisdom, it is ‘love for truth’ (this is seen as connected to Spinoza’s intellectual love for God: the bond between thinking and feeling). Truth is perfect, timeless, and permanent; it is described as during work of creation: after effort, suddenly a moment of truth and beauty arise: there is absolute conviction, even if it is just for a moment.
In his ‘expertise model of knowledge’: one is able to grasp the relevant items in a way that relates them to one another and to the field as a whole and are able give a reasonable account of this. He created five basic ideas: existence, identity, differentiation, static or movement that would be the basis to communicate with each other about everything.
According to Plato the philosophic theorist will actively engage in worldly affairs. The contemplative wisdom -theoria (gazing with the eye of wisdom upon divine and eternal truths)- will (after inspection and questioning) be translated into practical and political activities.
With Aristotle, theoria is not brought into practical or political life; the wise should engage in education and theoretical activity since perfection of intellectual virtue is the highest purpose (telos) of the human being. Practical and political activities should serve the higher purpose of creating the conditions of philosophic theoria, which is the best form of human activity. The city-state will lead to full actualization of human capacities. Will be continued with philosophy of Aristotle.
I did find some interesting things: Aristotle’s theory of form and matter is about the division of potentiality and actuality. Actuality is the fulfillment of the end of the potentiality. The potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the same thing. Matter is potential form: what we would call ‘evolution’ is when matter takes more and more form (it happens either by chance or by cause, humans got hands because they can use tools). The more form something has, the more actual it is. God is pure form and actuality, no change is possible anymore. The universe, with everything in it develops towards better and better.
Russell says in his history of philosophy -when he is talking about Aristotle proving the existence of God- Aristotle: there must be something that causes movement: it must be in itself eternal, substance and actual; it is independent of any sensory perceptible things. ‘God is thinking about himself: God’s thinking is thinking about thinking.
Aristotle talks about the soul as our capacity to grasp the essence of reality. The soul uses the sense organs to acquire knowledge (like hands using tools). The highest virtue for a human being is contemplation. But because a human being cannot think of form without matter, it will never equal God even though through love for God (which is the cause of action) humans try to equal God. (higher and higher capacity to think). In his early days Aristotle talked about the rational soul as immortal (probably still influenced by Plato) but later, his vision is that the soul dies with the body. The soul is different from spirit (that which is able to understand mathematics and philosophy) that might be immortal.
There is much written about virtue: different from his predecessors Aristotle thinks that virtue is learned by doing it (so one does not become good by understanding, but by acting, it has to become a habit) Moral training (creating habits) during childhood is crucial. One should use pleasure and pain to encourage the child to act morally, later in life pleasure and pain will tell us if we have acted according to higher morals (=happiness).
Differences between Plato and Aristotle:
1. The core of the contradiction between Plato and Aristotle was that Plato ‘idealistic’ thought, and Aristotle’s realistic. Plato postulates eternal, unchanging Ideas or Forms as the true reality behind -and fundamental to- the changing world in which we live. Aristotle says that the first philosophy is about “the being as being; science after the physics is metaphysics.
2. Like Plato, Aristotle’s philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle, however, found the universal in particular things, which he called the essence of things, while Plato finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) to a contemplation of particular imitations of these.
3. Plato used dialectics, Aristotle logics/analytics (if humans are mortal and Socrates is a human: Socrates is mortal); something logically follows from that which is assumed (that which is assumed causes something else to follow).
• First principles are found by intuition: the source of scientific knowledge is intuition.
There are only three disciplines that have scientific knowledge: physics, metaphysics (first philosophy) and mathematics (theoretical disciplines).
Metaphysics
Deals with the most basic questions: the origin/first principles of existence: what really exists or what is substance: we have to find the first principles of substance itself (=metaphysics). We have to begin with what is obviously true and than to advance with what is more intelligible. We start with real things that we believe to be true: Aristotle uses Substance (only one: the sun, the moon) ; universal (many: a dog, a cat) . Form and Matter (form organizes matter); Essence: (is it’s definition. It’s what it is said to be in itself- I am not culture, I am my nature: a persona is still human when he is not cultured, but an object must be rational to be human); Having a form and an essence is what makes substance. The essence must be able to do what all the others do ánd be able to do it individually (a human has to be able to think rational as all the others do and has to be able to think rationally individually). That is why for example a hart is not a substance because it cannot perform its function without the other parts of the body.
Spinoza; one essay he wrote is called ‘introduction on how to evolve thinking’
1. He says the first thing do is to make a real decision on what one wants in his life! He describes how essential this first decision is! It takes time, seriousness and full attention. Only when the decision is made that one wants to be free from the slavery of ‘being lived trough conditioned thinking (he doesn’t call it this way, be describes it exactly) one can step further and
2. through understanding (ratio, it is clear that he is part of history in a time where one gives super importance to ratio) one is able to start taking responsibility not to act out of these conditionings (even though in this phase it is not yet completely possible). He says that people will only be able to take full responsibility for these conditionings when they have found absolute happiness (ecstasy) in higher /intuitive consciousness (which according to him can only be experienced in mathematics)
3. it is through getting to know oneself thoroughly (all emotions are fully analysed in the Ethica) and not being ashamed what there is (= seeing everything avoiding nothing); that one is able to see the whole scale
4. He absolutely describes the conditioned way of thinking absolutely as impersonal. He takes f.e. about the ‘state of anger’ in a completely impersonal way. We are not much more than animals when we live in the lowest phase, h doens’t see much possibly to influence any of this.
5. The first phase of thinking he describes as totally self-centred, but already in the second phase (ratio) people start to be aware of ‘you-we’. which is still out of self- interest (people learn that interest for us can be self-interest. The highest phase (intuitive thinking) is when we experience ourselves as part of an infinite God.
Spinoza is described as a man with the highest Integrity – he is describing Substance (God) not as static, timeless form, but as a dynamic unfolding power from which all things in nature imamate. Substance is One, consisting of an infinity of attributes of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence (existence, eternity, indivisibility, necessity). Everything exists because it has to exist. Knowledge of God is equivalent to understanding the necessity for why a thing exists. Core attributes are thought and extension.
As I read this account of what these philosophers thought, I wonder if many of the same characteristics might be true of some sea mammals. They have names (sounds) for one another, have collective activity and cooperation, and because they can refer to themselves and others as individuals, certainly seem to have the prerequisites of self-referential language for consciousness. Does it help our understanding of “consciousness” and evolution to think that other beings beside ourselves, on this planet, might have evolved with similar kinds of intelligence and self-referential behavior?
It is interesting that in the book ‘Deep Spirit’ De Quincey uses a dolphin (called ‘Darwin’) who teaches the scientistics (communication without words) about evolution of consciousness. It is an imaginative story of course, but they seem to be intelligent. I cannot imagine them to be aware of consciousness as we are; last weekend there was a virtual retreat with Andrew Cohen, it was a long time ago that I participated..somehow I could connect so many things that have been said in this blog, but I have much more questions now about the how, what, where etc. of consciousness, of knowing, of intelligence. I do not know if you know the poet Rumi, 13th century Sufi, he met another mystic and they went in retreat together for several months. it is all about shared consciousness. I still think that the explanation of Eckart Tolle is most clear: one day he woke up -after long days of heavy depression- and than suddenly he realized that he was able to ‘see’ the depression, so that the depression was not him. And than he dissolved in the freedom of limitless consciousness. And what I understood this weekend, is the huge difference between looking at life from for example the part of him that was in depression (what we call ‘me’) in contract with looking at life from that limitless awareness. Than there does not have to be a God who tells us what to do, there is so much space and interest to investigate what is true, there is no ‘I’ with fears and desires that influences the choices, there is just open awareness, interest in finding out where to go. And mistakes can be made, that is part of evolution.
Here’s a big shout-out for the Socratic method, an invaluable tool and technique for conducting dialogues and for teachers a way of eliciting from interlocutors info that cuts through to the chase. When one becomes skilled, using insightful questioning, even disputatious exchanges can be conducted in civil an thoughtful ways. I highly encourage those not familiar with the technique to become familiar with it. You’ll be amazed and gratified how much more rewarding your exchanges with others will become! All praise to the brilliant inventor of the method named for the worthy teacher Socrates!
do you have recommendations for where we can find out more…
Jeff, if you want to find out more about the Socratic Method, there’s probably a whole bunch of books and then online Wikipedia or Google. Check ’em out, you’ll be totally enlightened. Actually all you really need to know is
1) Ask your interlocutor(s) if you can ask a question. If affirmative, you can start with “What do you think? and present two points of view, one that is how you understand what they say and then one that presents a point of view you endorse. Ask them which seems more rational? If not satisfied, pursue it if you can. You may sometimes have to agree to disagree.
2) Your questions should attempt to manuever to clarify the issue and hopefully convince the other of your considered views. You may also learn something from their views.
3) Try to maintain your cool, no matter what. When you get stuck, ask again “Can I ask you what you think about …..”? Take a deep breath before you begin.
Best regards, aloha!
What’s with all the notices everytime I post saying it’s a duplicate post ???
It all seems ok on this end.
It’s said that a crisis is an opp that should not be wasted. In these challenging times, the overhauls being brougt up will hopefully lead to resolutions that will result in better ways of proceeding. What may have been working in the past gets worn down and unworkable and what gets offered now may work for a time and also meet the same fate. Times and circumstances change, if you may have noticed. Things may really go to pot if untended for too long but at the point where things become untenable, people with their brains still intact usually find ways to resolve things. We Americans are smart and resourceful people and usually find solutions to our problems. It’s kept us on top of the pile for awhile and hopefully we’ll continue so. Let us pray!
Re: “Socrates and Plato both where convinced that knowledge and virtue are connected” from the leader esssay:
Socrates and Plato and the Greek philosophers were all such idealists. Would that the statement were true. As we see, we humans are complicated and have come away from those beatiful idealistic ruminations on human behavior. Today we see that knowledge can subvert morals, esp. when money or ambition and power are at stake. We see education not guaranteeing moral behavior and that really smart people are just too smart (devious and immoral) by half. Think Wall street financiers, unscrupulous bankers, crooked politicians.