Digressions&Impressions

Plato on Dangerous Truths

“When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models.”...“There is, first of all,” I said, “the greatest lie about the things of greatest concernment, which was no pretty invention of him who told how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did to Cronos, and how Cronos in turn took his revenge; and then there are the doings and sufferings of Cronos at the hands of his son. Even if they were true I should not think that they ought to be thus lightly told to thoughtless young persons. But the best way would be to bury them in silence, and if there were some necessity for relating them, that only a very small audience should be admitted under pledge of secrecy and after sacrificing, not a pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim, to the end that as few as possible should have heard these tales. “Yes, and they are not to be told, Adeimantus, in our city, nor is it to be said in the hearing of a young man, that in doing the utmost wrong he would do nothing to surprise anybody, nor again in punishing his father's wrong-doings to the limit, but would only be following the example of the first and greatest of the gods.” ”--Plato Republic 377e-378a, translated by Paul Shorey [emphases added]

It is only natural, I suppose, that the noble lie (414c-415e, and anticipated at 382a-d) told by Socrates near the end of Book 3 is more attention grabbing than what we may call the doctrine of dangerous truths mentioned, really in passing, in 378ab.

In context, Socrates is articulating the best education of the guardians of the luxurious city. And he uses this as an occasion to both offer a critique of the standard stories told about the Gods by great variety of poets and to propose a kind of purification (even moralization) of public religion or theology (that is, the most important things). Hesiod's stories about Uranus, Cronos, and Zeus (the "son" of Cronos) involve castration, forced abortion, cannibalism of children, and parricide among the gods.

Hesiod's depiction is not just about the gods acting viciously with each other. It also involve a failure of orderly political succession. And so, while it is not unnatural to think that by 'the things of greatest concernment,' -- Shorey may be over-translating τὸ μέγιστον, but given the repeated 'greatest' with 'lies,' it's not silly -- Socrates means here talk of the gods (especially if one is all in on Socrates' piety), it is not impossible that what he really means here is talk about the nature of (properly ordered) political life. Is theology or political philosophy the most important  topic? My more cheeky Thomist readers will quickly say, that's an unnecessary or false choice.

I mention the political reading of this material because -- and now I get to the heart of today's digression, I find it startling that at the start of 378b, Socrates is explicit that in the kallipolis that he and Adeimantus are founding, there will be no dangerous truths. And because of this remark, I read the doctrine of dangerous truths mention in 378a as confined to second (or n-th best) cities. 

Now, it's true that I think this -- that the doctrine of dangerous truths is confined to second-best cities -- because it seems to anticipate elements of the nocturnal council at 961B in Plato's Laws (a book that was important to me in graduate school). And part of the point of the nocturnal council is to try to help reform those of who have violated the laws on impiety in Magnesia. (Magnesia is a nth-best city.) Of course, I accept the tradition that suggests Laws was written well after the Republic, so I don't think this would settle the matter. 

However, it is important to recall that Socrates had articulated the idea of a dangerous truth in his initial exchange with Cephalus at 331D (recall here). There, it was used to undermine Cephalus' definition of justice (speak truth and repay one's debts), which (to speak anthropologically) we may call the definition of justice apt for commercial society. And Socrates had explained that there are circumstances where, if one takes consequences seriously (as one is wont to do in commercial society) then one is not always obliged to repay one's debts or always to speak the truth.

Alex Douglas has treated the debt case brilliantly in his book (and recall), so I won't elaborate here. At 331D Socrates expects Cephalus to agree to the claim one should not always speak the truth to the mad. They are (to foreshadow Hobbes, Foucault, and Deleuze) to be placed not just outside the realm of valid contracts, but also outside the realm of (possible) persuasion (and so political life). I do not mean to suggest that Socrates himself agrees with Cephalus about any of this. I think it is really unclear to what degree Socrates has to affirm anything when he is engaged in immanent criticism.

While the doctrine of dangerous truth is explicitly rejected in the best city, the exchange with Cephalus shows that is part of the common sense or a natural extension of it of a commercial polity. So, given that, it is not so strange that in 2nd-Nth best cities Socrates permits some such doctrine. 

An impatient reader may well think, 'sure, Socrates used the doctrine of dangerous truths in his refutation of Cephalus, but there is no evidence here that he is thinking about anything other than the Kallipolis.' I have to admit that I don't have a knockdown argument against this. But notice that the select few who are allowed to be in on the dangerous secret, have to be not just among the aged, but also fabulously wealthy because they have to be capable of sacrificing something great and very scarce.*

Now, shortly after 378a, it becomes clear that there will be wealthy folk among the non-guardians in Kallipolis (419ff). But also that this should be clearly delimited (422a). So, that in 378a Socrates cannot be speaking of his own city, but only be referring about places where great riches are permitted and also where possession of such dangerous truth would not corrupt the person holding it because they are already corrupt in some non-trivial sense (and, hence, a nth-best city).**

I do not mean to suggest Socrates' position here is very attractive: that in an oligarchic context, only Jeff Bezos is, if he is willing to forfeit a non-trivial amount of his fortune, allowed access to dangerous, secret knowledge about the truth about the lack of morality or ethical grounding governing divine rule.  The very wealthy, who benefit from the status quo in n-th best cities, are not inclined to encourage a revolution in religious or political manners and so promote corrupting stories that threaten their influence. 

Why does this matter? I think it's one of the places in the Republic (recall 351-352) -- well before Book 8 -- where Socrates shows an interest in the permissible mechanisms or functioning of non-optimal states (which are governed by the interests of their ruling elements). These are by definition unstable. In such places there will, thus, be always some truths dangerous to their functioning. And so 378a articulates its corollary: the circulation of dangerous truths must be restricted to those with an interest not to act on, or share, them. We may call this doctrine (with a wink): Straussianism for those that benefit most from status quo.

 

Newton and Passivity of Matter

In an unpublished manuscript sheet, which was part of Newton’s preparations for the second edition of the Principia, Newton recorded that the most wise order of things could not have arisen “from matter alone and motion or from the nature of things [a materia sola et motu aut a rerum Natura].”102 Newton argued that God regulates the natural world by means of certain “active Principles,” which cause—inter alia—gravitation, fermentation, and cohesion.103 Correspondingly, in an unpublished draft version of what was to become Query 31, he wrote,

Whence it seems to have been an ancient opinion that matter depends upon a Deity for its ↓laws of↓ motion as well as for its existence. The Cartesians make God the author of all motion & its as reasonable to make him the author of the laws of motion. Matter is a passive principle & cannot move it self. It continues in its state of moving or resting unless disturbed. It receives motion proportional to the force impressing it. And resists as much as it is resisted. These are passive laws & to affirm that there are no other is to speak against experience. For we find in or selves a power of moving our bodies by or thought ↓Life & thinking ↓will↓ are active Principles by wch we move our bodies, & thence arise other laws of motion unknown to us↓==Newton [CUL Add. Ms. 3970, 619r [drafts prepared for Opticks (1717)].]

The above remarks square nicely with Newton’s denial that motion results from qualities that are inherent to matter itself and with his belief that for their motions bodies require divinely governed secondary causes, which serve as the immaterial sources of activity and motion. Steffen Ducheyne, "Newton on Action at a Distance." Journal of the History of Philosophy 52.4 (2014): 691-692

As I noted yesterday, inspired by, and partially correcting, Howard Stein, according to my interpretation of Newton, as Newton developed the ideas of the Principia in the 1680s, Newton came to the following position: a body has (at least) two dispositions: (i) a “passive” disposition to respond to impressed forces which is codified in the second law of motion; (ii) whereas an “active” disposition to produce gravitational force is treated as a distinct interaction codified in the third law of motion. And the “cause” of the action is “the conspiring nature of both” bodies. For the “conspiring” to occur, the bodies must share a “nature.” (For the full defense of these ideas see here and here.) And I argue that for Newton the disposition to gravitate is a universal, albeit contingent, relational quality of matter.  Despite grounding my views in a textial analysis Treatise of the System of the World (a work that appeared shortly after Newton died), my view has not generated consensus.

Among my critics, Ducheyne is most inclined to draw on archival material. And the passage quoted above is especially important to his (2014) attempt to refute my position. He refers back to it twice more (on pp. 692-693). The reason why it is important to Ducheyne's argument is that it seems to give him the smoking gun he needs. It's one of the few places where Newton explicitly says that matter is passive.

Now, I had already (in 2011) responded to this passage, in a (2009) criticism of Hylarie Kochiras (who had criticized an early version of my argument). (Looking back, I am quite amazed by how polemical we all were!) I wrote (now quoting myself): "Yet, the published version of the Opticks, is agnostic on this matter. In Query 31 he contrasts the “passive principle by which the bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted” with “active principles, such as are the cause of gravity, by which planets and comets keep their motions in their orbits, and bodies acquire great motion in falling; and the cause of fermentation,” and so on. Shortly thereafter, he lists “gravity, and that which causes fermentation, and the cohesion of bodies” among the “active principles” (Newton, 1952, pp. 400–401)." 

My response to Kochiras clearly did not convince Ducheyne (who cites Kochiras' exchange with me, so he is aware of it). So, normally I would now throw up my hands and leave it to others to figure out who gets the better of the burden shifting. But two distinct new, additional arguments occur to me. The first argument would be to concede Ducheyne's (and Kochiras's!) reading of this passage, and fall back on the acknowledgment that Newton changed his mind and that after 1700 he was more inclined to accept the passivity of matter as the draft suggests. This response would be open to me because officially I am primarily committed to attributing to Newton the view sketched above to the mid 1680s (as he was drafting the Principia). In the Principia itself he is explicitly agnostic, after all--and this is agreed by everybody.

This (first) concessive response fits would also allow me to take on board some of Ducheyne's arguments about the theological significance of embracing the passivity of matter; or at least recognizing that Newton actively distanced himself from being taken to embrace active matter after the initial reception of the Principia. These theological issues and the question of the nature of mature are related to the challenge to Newton being taken as a kind of neo-Epicurean (and Kant and Adam Smith hint) or a(adherent of "blind fate") crypto-Spinozist (as Leibniz suggested at the start of his correspondence with Clarke). I have explored this connection in various places; see here & and forthcoming.

But as Ducheyne correctly notes in his paper, I have been greedy; I have also used other passages from different periods in Newton's life as converging evidence for my  interpretation of his view in the mid 1680s. And so I have kind of suggested that except for when Newton toys with ether theories, my reconstruction of his dispositional account of gravity is Newton's fall-back position. And so now I would have give up on that material.

However, another position, is not to be concessive at all. So, second, I can also simply deny that in the unpublished draft version of what was to become Query 31, Newton is presenting his own view about the passivity of matter at all. For it seems to me that one can read the italicized passage (the italics are Ducheyne's [here is an image of the manuscript; [here is a transcription] as Newton simply reporting or summarizing the Cartesian position on matter. Before I explain that let me quote a wider version of the passage (with a lot of editorial markings removed--Newton obsessively corrected his own texts): 

Qu. 23. By what means do bodies act on one another at a distance. The ancient Philosophers who held Atoms & Vacuum attributed gravity to Atoms without telling us the means unless perhaps in figures: as by calling God Harmony & representing him & matter by the God Pan & his Pipe, or by calling the Sun the prison of Jupiter because he keeps the Planets in their orbs. Whence it seems to have been an ancient opinion that matter depends upon a Deity for its laws of motion as well as for its existence. The Cartesians make God the author of all motion & its as reasonable to make him the author of the laws of motion. Matter is a passive principle & cannot move it self. It continues in its state of moving or resting unless disturbed. It receives motion proportional to the force impressing it. And resists as much as it is resisted. These are passive laws & to affirm that there are no other is to speak against experience. For we find in our selves a power of moving our bodies by our thought Life & will are active Principles by which we move our bodies, & thence arise other laws of motion unknown to us.

So, Newton here is taking on the question of action at a distance. And he first describes the innate gravity position of the ancient atomists. He also calls attention to the possibility that they used esoteric and figurative speech to explain the mechanism behind their position. (This sentence inspired one of the most famous papers by McGuire and Rattansi in contemporary Newton scholarship.) He sums up his treatment of the ancients by suggesting they thought God was needed to account for the laws of motion and the existence of matter.

As an aside, something of this view of the Ancients survives in the General Scholium added to the second (1713) edition of the Principia. Against the evidence of the Ancients, who freely speculated about to what degree God/Gods are dispensable to the Epicurean natural philosophy (and who claimed that the Gods were introduced to modify larger population), Newton reads them here as natural philosophical theists of a certain sort.  My own view is that he is doing this in order to try out saying that the a-typical epicureanism people are attributing to him need not be "Atheists" in character. (And he may have even sincerely thought that this was a solid reading of the Epicureans.) That fits a lot of other material in this manuscript (which offers a robust assertion, inter alia, for the reality of final causes in experience).

He then moves on to describing the cartesian position. Now on the reading advanced by Ducheyene (and Kochiras) the description of the cartesian position is a sentence: "The Cartesians make God the author of all motion." This would attribute to the Cartesians, in effect, Malebranche's interpretation of Descartes (or at least his own preferred position) being a kind of occasionalists such that God is the author of all motion. But there is an equally respectable Cartesian interpretation in which occasionalism is not the proper Cartesian position, but rather that  God is responsible (or the author of) the laws of motion, that's the next half of the sentence ("its as reasonable to make him the author of the laws of motion.")

And on the reading advanced by Ducheyne and Kochiras, Newton then moves on to state his own view. But it is equally plausible, and in fact, I think more plausible (yes, really), that here Newton gives a summary of the Cartesian metaphysics of nature: "Matter is a passive principle & cannot move it self. It continues in its state of moving or resting unless disturbed." So, pace Ducheyne and Kochiras, I think the natural reading here is that what they take to be Newton's position is really just Newton giving a quick and dirty summary of the Cartesian natural philosophy he rejects! 

To be sure, I do not mean to deny that in this manuscript Newton does shift to explaining features of his own position--he regularly invokes the authority of experiments. And where exactly he does that is a matter of judgment. But at the same time he also keeps shifting toward describing alternative views he rejects. 

So, if we read the manuscript in the way proposed by Kochiras and Ducheyne then Newton draws a sharp contrast between entities with minds, who can be active, and passive entities that lack such power. In fact, Kochiras and Ducheyne end up treating Newton by implication as a property dualist (with living things being the only kind of entities that can be substances). 

But Newton himself is much more cautious than that in the manuscript quoted. He makes it clear that all living things are active. And it is, for Newton in this very document, an open question whether (as the Stoics thought) all of nature is alive in that relevant sense: "We find in our selves a power of moving our bodies by our thoughts ] & see the same power in other living creatures but how this is done & by what laws we do not know. We cannot say that all Nature is not alive. not know her laws or powers any further then we gather them from Phænomena." (Emphasis added.) Nobody has doubted that this is Newton's own position. And this suggests to me that Newton is  much more agnostic about the nature of matter in this document than Kochiras and Ducheyne have allowed. Because Newton allows (as Spinoza did) that there may be as of yet undiscovered principles and laws that can explain the materiality of living things. On my reading, these would also be laws and principles of matter.

What Newton does explicitly deny is that vis inertia can explain the generation of (new) motion: "vis inertiæ they continue in their state of moving or resting & receive motion proportional to the force impressing it & resiste as much as they are resisted, but they cannot move themselves; & without some other principle hen the vis inertiæ there could be no motion in the world." For reasons I do not fully understand Ducheyne thinks this shows that for Newton matter is passive. But that's not right. For even I assert -- and this also follows naturally from the second law of motion -- that vis inertiæ is a passive principle, but does not constitute the whole of Newton's matter theory in the Principia. 

 

 

 

 

Popper, Schmitt, and Friend & Foe

It cannot, of course, be denied that human individuals are, like all other things in our world, in very many respects very unequal. Nor can it be doubted that this inequality is of great importance and even in many respects highly desirable.12 (The fear that the development of mass production and collectivization may react upon men by destroying their inequality or individuality is one of the nightmares13 of our times.) But all this simply has no bearing upon the question whether or not we should decide to treat men, especially in political issues, as equals, or as much like equals as is possible; that is to say, as possessing equal rights, and equal claims to equal treatment; and it has no bearing upon the question whether we ought to construct political institutions accordingly. ‘Equality before the law’ is not a fact but a political demand based upon a moral decision; and it is quite independent of the theory—which is probably false—that ‘all men are born equal’. Now I do not intend to say that the adoption of this humanitarian attitude of impartiality is a direct consequence of a decision in favour of rationalism. But a tendency towards impartiality is closely related to rationalism, and can hardly be excluded from the rationalist creed. Again, I do not intend to say that an irrationalist could not consistently adopt an equalitarian or impartial attitude; and even if he could not do so consistently, he is not bound to be consistent. But I do wish to stress the fact that the irrationalist attitude can hardly avoid becoming entangled with the attitude that is opposed to equalitarianism. This fact is connected with its emphasis upon emotions and passions; for we cannot feel the same emotions towards everybody. Emotionally, we all divide men into those who are near to us, and those who are far from us. The division of mankind into friend and foe is a most obvious emotional division; and this division is even recognized in the Christian commandment, ‘Love thy enemies!’ Even the best Christian who really lives up to this commandment (there are not many, as is shown by the attitude of the average good Christian towards ‘materialists’ and ‘atheists’), even he cannot feel equal love for all men. We cannot really love ‘in the abstract’; we can love only those whom we know. Thus the appeal even to our best emotions, love and compassion, can only tend to divide mankind into different categories. And this will be more true if the appeal is made to lesser emotions and passions. Our ‘natural’ reaction will be to divide mankind into friend and foe; into those who belong to our tribe, to our emotional community, and those who stand outside it; into believers and unbelievers; into compatriots and aliens; into class comrades and class enemies; and into leaders and led.---Karl Popper The Open Society and its Enemies (one volume edition), 439-440 (emphasis in original)

Yesterday Jerry Gaus (1952-2020), who was the greatest theorist of the open society in our life-time, died. This post is an imperfect homage to his memory. 

Nearly every word in the passage quoted above is a response to Schmitt's Concept of the Political (perhaps mediated by Strauss' commentary). This is easy to miss because in a rare moment of self-command, Popper does not name the target nor attaches a lengthy discursive footnote.* My present interest is to discuss the significance of this, rather than to offer complete proof of the claims in the first sentence of the present paragraph. The quoted passage occurs in chapter 24 of The Open Society. And it helps clarify Popper's decision to call the critics and alternatives to liberalism/Open Society -- which he describes and criticizes with a mixture of polemics and admiration -- 'enemies.' 

In the Concept of the Political, Schmitt claims (recall) that "there is a specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.'" In German it is 'feind' which can be translated as 'enemy' and as 'foe.' There is some debate among readers of Schmitt, no doubt encouraged by writings by Schmitt after the war, that there is an important distinction between enemy and foe in Schmitt. But such a distinction is unavailable to Popper in 1943. 

In the quoted passage, Popper twice echoes Schmitt's distinction between friend and foe, and he treats the genesis of the distinction in our emotions ("the division of mankind into friend and foe is a most obvious emotional division.")  That he has Schmitt in mind is clear from the second use of 'friend and foe' which marks those recognized to "belong to our tribe" (compatriots) and not to those outside of it, or as Schmitt would put it, "the other, the stranger."

For Popper the embraces of the Schmittian distinction facilitates the emotional rejection of what Popper calls equalitarianism. Because from the vantage point of our emotions, our differences are highly salient. As Schmitt puts it, "emotionally the enemy is easily treated as being evil and ugly," (emphasis added).

That Popper is shadowing even trolling Schmitt is obvious from his next move -- which one can only describe as chutzpah -- in which he points out that the distinction is recognized by the Christian commandment. Schmitt by contrast had insisted that the Christian love in the commandment is not reserved for the "political enemy."+ 

It is important for Schmitt to make his distinction compatible with Christianity because for Schmitt his rejection of liberal universalism, ultimately rests on his submission to a providential (Christian) faith opposed to the liberal's "anthropological profession of faith."** Strikingly, and as a good Kantian, Popper grants Schmitt the claim that at bottom the choice, for or against liberalism, rests on a species of faith (this is crucial to Strauss' interpretation of Schmitt and Strauss subsequent  historiography).

As Popper puts it, "the choice with which we are confronted is between a faith in reason and in human individuals and a faith in the mystical faculties of man by which he is united to a collective." (450) The second option is the Schmittian outlook. The former option, the "right kind of faith" is Popper's liberalism, which "frankly admits its origin in an irrational decision." (437; emphasis added.) That Popper thinks that there is a faith in individuals as an alternative to a faith in the collective begs the question against Schmitt's insistence that always, a "collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity," (which begs the question, too). 

I do not mean to claim that for Popper, the choice between himself and Schmittian is reducible to such an existential Kierkegaardian leap (while rejecting any belief in providence). He also thinks the consequence of the Schmittian choice is that it "must lead to an appeal to violence and brutal force as the ultimate arbiter in any dispute." (440)*** That is to say, Popper claims (and here he echoes Strauss again) that Schmitt returns us to a kind of state of nature not worth having. 

Now, the significance of all of this is that it allows us to raise the question how the open society should treat its enemies? In fact, I already noted that Popper thinks a kind of defensive violence, even tyrannicide, is permitted (recall), even obliged, in order and only in order to restore democracy. But the more challenging question is, how should the open society treat its enemies before they have succeeded in overthrowing it? And part of Popper's answer is: make sure you can (conceptually) recognize that there are enemies. What follows from this recognition I explore before long. 

On the Epistemology of the Political; On Carl Schmitt, Disunity of the Virtues and Standpoint Epistemology (I)

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.'*' This provides a definition in the sense of a criterion and not as an exhaustive definition or one indicative of substantial content. Insofar as it is not derived from other criteria, the antithesis of friend and enemy corresponds to the relatively independent criteria of other antitheses: good and evil in the moral sphere, beautiful and ugly in the aesthetic sphere, and so on. In any event it is independent, not in the sense of a distinct new domain, but in that it can neither be based on anyone antithesis or any combination of other antitheses, nor can it be traced to these. If the antithesis of good and evil is not simply identical with that of beautiful and ugly, profitable and unprofitable, and cannot be directly reduced to the others, then the antithesis of friend and enemy must even less be confused with or mistaken for the others. The distinction of friend and enemy denotes the utmost degree of intensity of a union or separation, of an association or dissociation. It can exist theoretically and practically, without having simultaneously to draw upon all those moral, aesthetic, economic, or other distinctions. The political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party.
Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict. Each participant is in a position to judge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent's way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one's own form of existence. Emotionally the enemy is easily treated as being evil and ugly, because every distinction, most of all the political, as the strongest and most intense of the distinctions and categorizations, draws upon other distinctions for support. This does not alter the autonomy of such distinctions. Consequently, the reverse is also true: the morally evil, aesthetically ugly or economically damaging need not necessarily be the enemy; the morally good, aesthetically beautiful, and economically profitable need not necessarily become the friend in the specifically political sense of the word. Thereby the inherently objective nature and autonomy of the political becomes evident by virtue of its being able to treat, distinguish, and comprehend the friend-enemy antithesis independently of other antitheses. Carl Schmitt (1932) The Concept of the Political : Expanded Edition. Translated by George Schwab, 2007, 26-27

Today's post is part of a larger series in which I confront illiberal thought. Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that the collective friend-enemy distinction helps carves out a specific and objective sphere of action.* In this sphere  "conflicts" -- in which one can kill and be killed -- with the enemy "are possible." The symmetry is important. An ethno-nationalist police state that terrorizes a minority (and here) is not engaged in politics so understood. Challenging and changing its practice through non-violent, collective action would also not count as Schmittian politics. In fact,  most of what we might commonly treat as 'political' is not part of the Schmittian conception of politics. 

As Leo Strauss persuasively shows (104) for Schmitt this sphere is conceptually prior to and in an evaluative sense "authoritative" (44) or more fundamental than other spheres.* The quoted passage above focuses on the distinctiveness of the political which is taken to be an objective feature of it. But strikingly, this objectivity is affirmed by way of an existentialist denial of the unity of the virtues (recall here and here). It's part of the intelligibility of the political that it can fail to instantiate other virtues, including not the least (moral) virtue. 

That two collectives treat each other as enemies (or friends) is an objective fact available to and known by outsiders. But, (a) the reciprocal decision to treat another collective as an enemy can only be taken by the parties themselves, and (b) they alone can understand it. I have split (a) and (b) for the purposes of analysis (although it is not clear Schmitt would do so). Let me discuss them in turn.

It is pretty clear why Schmitt thinks (a) is true. On his view one can't farm out "kill and be killed" (48) to others. (Of course, once the mutual killing starts outsiders can tell that enmity exists.) It presupposes a form of autonomy or independence--one is not, for example, a vassal or protectorate (which depoliticized forms of life). It is notable -- especially in light of his quiet polemic against Kant throughout The Concept of the Political -- that he tacitly accepts here the Kantian injunction (contra Machiavelli) against the use of mercenaries. The political is co-extensive with a willingness to bear (collective) mortal uncertainty.** The summum malum is not death, but an unwillingness to face (such) existential choice.

I don't wish to disguise Schmitt's polemic against Kantian ideals: (i) as Strauss notes, Schmitt rejects Kant's federative ideal of perpetual peace of a striving toward the abolition of war ("in a realm which embraces the globe" (53)); for that is to affirm the abolition of the political in favor of (inter alia) a life of mere "entertainment." (53 And (ii) one way he does so -- and Strauss is silent on this -- is to quietly reject the Kantian argument that how we conduct ourselves in war can signalsour desire for peace, and thereby escape the state of nature. And the reason for this is that, to put it in Hobbesian terms, the Schmittian thinks the state of nature (that is that conflicts are always "possible") is inevitable and inescapable (if one dares it) from the perspective of political life. That is to say, Schmitt leaves the door wide open to wars of extermination. There is, for him, no possible limitation on the intensity of enmity. 

It is pretty clear why Schmitt wishes to adopt (b). For this rules out the possibility of subsuming and, as it were, domesticating the political under the rule of law or (global) public opinion ("norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party.") And, in particular, (b) entails one need not justify one's enmity to outsiders because there is a sense in which they won't be able to evaluate why one is enemies (or friends) with one's enemies or friends.

For, what grounds (b) is the claim that "Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict." That is to say, there are features of concrete political life that are epistemically inaccessible to outsiders. And one of these features is to the directedness of enmity, that is, the perception that an '"adversary intends to negate" one's "way of life."

So, on this view, outsiders are in a bad position to grasp that one's way of life is threatened. I think both parts are crucial: outsiders are in a bad position to grasp what is essential or intrinsic to one's way of life, one's identity (as a collectivity), and in virtue of that they are in a bad position to perceive the existential threats against it. (I return to this below.)

Schmitt's position has unmistakeable affinity with standpoint epistemology, which ordinarily is traced to marxists roots. I understand that comparison can be thought in poor taste. I want to pursue this affinity in order to clarify something about Schmitt's position (and perhaps the standpoint epistemologist). I don't mean to suggest Schmitt's position is identical to standpoint epistemology, which privileges the lived experience of marginalized groups within society. (Schmitt has no interest in that.) Nor do I mean to disqualify standpoint epistemology by noting the affinity with Schmitt's thought; or suggest that standpoint epistemology is irreconcilable with liberal values or must lead to open-ended conflict.++

But standpoint epistemology asserts that marginalized groups have special epistemic standing when it comes to topics that pertain to  their subordination (and so including threats to their identity and survival of the group). Often outsiders simply can't understand because their vantage-points are impoverished in the relevant sense.

Now, if you are an empiricist standpoint epistemologist, you will think that the special epistemic standing of the subordinated is a matter of degree, an "advantage," in Liam Kofi Bright's terms, to "be overcome in certain cases." And clearly Schmitt's position is not like such an empiricist. He thinks that when it comes to political decisions the outsider can never understand.

Schmitt need not appeal to something mysterious for why this is so. The outsider ipse facto does not face the question whether a circumstance or situation threatens one's identity and, crucially, so is worth dying for and risk killing another. In the parlance of the contemporary epistemologist, the outsider never faces the very high stakes of the insider. For, if she did face such existential stakes, she would de facto stop being an outsider. (There is nothing in Schmitt's treatment of the political that makes it impossible to join a collectivity as such. It is compatible with Schmitt's account that collective identity is porous even fluid.) For a willingness to experiencing killing and be killed with a collectivity just is to participate in its political life and so to have become an insider.+ So, for Schmitt the epistemic situation is not a matter of degree because killing and being killed is all or nothing. 

Now, one may claim that outsiders can know what it's like to make political decisions in Schmitt's sense because they themselves may have friends and enemies in the political sense. And Schmitt can grant this and still claim that outsiders can't judge the "extreme case" of this particular conflict because it is not theirs.

Clearly outsiders may well be tempted to judge by moral and legal norms. But this is precisely what Schmitt wishes to prevent conceptually. And one way he does this - in addition to claiming that the political is distinct from and prior to other spheres -- is by resting his case on the threat to "one's way of life." What counts as a way of life may well be, from the vantage point of the cosmos or equity/law, something accidental like birth or heritage/history or custom. Crucially, these essential features to one's identity will be precisely those things that from the perspective of reason are (even when functional in maintaining a way of life) irrational or without ground, or, in Schmitt's terms, a "profession of faith." (58)  That is to say, the development of mutual enmity may, while directed, be partially opaque to outsiders and, perhaps, even ultimately, the two collectivities until the fateful decision.

 

 

On Karl Pearson on Spinoza and Maimonides; On Jerusalem, Athens, and Eugenics

In the above remarks I have considered only the Yad Hachazakah, because hitherto attention seems to have been entirely directed to the More Nebuchim (cf. Joel, Sorley and others). It is not impossible that in the intervening ten years Maimonides somewhat altered his views. I should not be surprised to hear that the More was held more 'orthodox' than the Yad. The latter, despite much Talmudic verbiage and scriptural exegesis, notwithstanding many faults and inconsistencies, yet contains the germs of a truly grand philosophical system, quite capable of power- fully influencing the mind even of a Spinoza. Such a reader would, while rejecting the exegesis, recognise the elements of truth in the pure theosophy (cf. Joel, Zur Genesis, p. 9), and this is the point wherein the two philosophers approach most closely. In the second place, I have confined myself entirely to the influence of the Yad on the Ethica. Greater agreement would have been found with the Korte Verhandeling van God, &c., while Spinoza's views of Biblical criticism (especially his conceptions of prophets and prophecy as developed in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) owe undoubtedly much to the Yad. Yet I wished to show that the study of Maimonides was traceable even in Spinoza's most finished exposition of his philosophy. Those who assert that Spinoza was influenced by Hebrew thought have not seldom been treated as though they were accusing Spinoza of a crime. Yet no great work ever sprung from the head of its creator like Athena from the head of Zeus; it has slowly developed within him, influenced and moulded by all that has influenced and moulded its shaper's own character. Had we but knowledge and critical insight enough, every idea might be traced to the germ from which it has developed. While recognising many other influences at work forming Spinoza's method of thought, it is only scientific to allow a certain place to the Jewish predecessors with whom he was acquainted. Critical comparison must show how great that influence was. We naturally expect to find considerable divergences between any individual Jewish philosopher and Spinoza; these divergences have been carefully pointed out by Mr. Sorley, but they are insufficient to prove that Spinoza was not very greatly influenced by Hebrew thought. My aim has been to call in question the traditional view of Spinoza's relation to Jewish 'philosophy, i.e., that he learnt enough of it to throw it off entirely. I cannot help holding that, while Spinoza's form and language were a mixture of medieval scholasticism and the Cartesian philosophy, yet the ideas which they clothed were not seldom Hebrew in their origin. He might be cast out by his co-religionists, but that could not deprive him of the mental birthright of his people- those deep moral and theosophical truths which have raised the Hebrews to a place hardly second to the Greeks in the history of thought. Hebrew Philosophy seems to have a history and a development more or less unique and apart from that of other nations; once in the course of many centuries it will produce a giant-thinker; one who, not satisfied by the narrow limits of his own nation, strives for a freer wider field of action, and grafts on to his Hebrew ideas a catholic language and a broader mental horizon. He becomes a world prophet, but is rejected of his own folk. Such an one of a truth was Spinoza, and another perhaps, albeit in a lesser degree, Moses, the son of Maimon.1--Karl Pearson "Maimonides and Spinoza," Mind (8), No. 31 (Jul., 1883): 352-353 [HT: Jeffrey Bernstein]. 

Recently, I posted a picture of Karl Pearson's blue plaque in Hampstead on social media. In which he is presented as "pioneer statistician." By implication, I noted (recall here; and here) that Pearson's eugenic activities where, pardon my expression, white-washed. In subsequent discussion Prof. Bernstein asked whether this is "the Karl Pearson who also wrote some essays on Spinoza?" 

I had no idea! But the answer is: yes. 

I have quoted the conclusion of the essay above. As it happens, a few days before I presented a draft paper, "Spinoza's Emendation of the Hebrew Bible in the Ethics," at an online version of a department colloquium at Santa Cruz (recorded here). While I had removed Maimonides from the slides in the presentation because I had re-read parts of his Guide to the Perplexed in the weeks leading up to the presentation and had grown a bit skeptical of my earlier enthusiasm connecting the two thinkers. So, the timing of Bernstein's comment was perfect because the relationship between Spinoza and Maimonides had become a matter of urgency to me. 

Let me start with Pearson's paper. He offers excellent set of argument for the idea that Maimonides'  Yad Hachazakah (literally: strong hand) is, despite non-trivial differences of presentation and the manner of treating the subject matter, a major influence on Spinoza's Ethics. The Yad is generally known as The Mishneh Torah (מִשְׁנֵה תּוֹרָה‎, or "Repetition of the Torah"). Its main purpose is to articulate and codify Jewish written and oral law. Despite receiving a rocky reception -- parts of which were burned --, it has become an extremely influential work within the development of Jewish law and ritual. 

Some other time I return to the details of Pearson's paper. Here's the thing: I missed the angle between The Mishneh Torah and Spinoza Ethics entirely. And this made me wonder how this is possible. The first thing to note is that Pearson's paper -- despite, and perhaps (I return to this below) the fame of the author -- has had negligible impact on Spinoza reception since. It is cited in a well known paper "A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean," by Warren Harvey a significant figure in Spinoza scholarship. But the citation is totemic; Pearson's paper is not used at all. And the reason for this is that Harvey is interested in connecting Spinoza to Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed not The Mishneh Torah (which is barely mentioned by Harvey in his article.) 

Now, it is possible that Harvey considered Pearson's papers on its merits and simply rejected the argument. This is not impossible because Pearson cherrypicks favored passages, sometimes relies on a bad translation, and systematically ignores lots of ways in which Spinoza and Maimonides differ in approach. (He does mention a few doctrinal differences, but mostly in order to illuminate the agreements).

But it is more likely that for Harvey the connection that Pearson drew was simply far-fetched. And the reason for thinking this is that Harvey is working with an opposition between Athens (philosophy) and Jerusalem (faith) in which The Guide falls on one side and the Mishneh Torah on the other side. For, Harvey starts his paper with announcing, "I try to sketch a portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean, as the last major representative of a tradition that mightily dominated Jewish philosophy for almost five centuries following the appearance of the Guide of the Perplexed." Much of the paper constructs this very tradition of Jewish philosophy artfully and unobtrusively.  In this tradition there is no place for Mishneh Torah, except the accidental one that its author also happens to have been an exceptionally gifted philosophical author of the Guide. Because the Mishneh Torah does not even qualify as philosophy.** 

I do not mean to suggest that learned commentators on Spinoza's Ethics never mention the Mishneh Torah. (Carlos Fraenkel discusses a passage in Cogitata Metaphysica in light of Mishneh Torah). Or that all commentators would agree with the implicit contrast between Jerusalem and Athens. For many, Spinoza's Ethics is timeless philosophy unrooted from any historically situated tradition. If one comes to believe, as is increasingly common for good reason, that Spinoza is to quote Michael Della Rocca "an arch-rationalist," there would be no reason to connect Spinoza's thought with Maimonides' Yad that appears to take revelation for granted. 

Of course, even scholars doubtful of the significance of Jewish philosophy on Spinoza, will recognize that Spinoza discusses the Mishneh Torah in the Theological Political Treatise. But that book, while important to the founding of the radical Enlightenment, is itself generally treated as an application of his philosophy to practical problems (including the relationship between revelation and philosophy). And while political philosophy is now treated as philosophy again, by and large commentators do not read the TTP to find Spinoza's true metaphysics. And so while I do not want to claim that the TTP is itself treated as belonging to Jerusalem, even its fans think of it as less philosophical than the Ethics. This attitude is also visible in Pearson (who treats the Ethics as much more "finished" philosophically than the TTP.

As an aside, part of the argument I presented at Santa Cruz is that the Ethics is, on some crucial matters, far more pious and guarded than the TTP , and also, and even more surprising perhaps, directly engages with the Hebrew Bible.

So, I have suggested that Pearson's essay and the argument he presented have been ignored because they do not fit the preconceptions of what counts as philosophy even by those friendly to the suggestion that Maimonides is a significant influence on or important to understanding Spinoza. But one may think that the reliance on the category of Jewish philosophy should form no objection to treating the Mishneh Torah as a source of Spinoza's philosophy because, after all, Pearson also relies on the category.

But, as the quote above suggests, Pearson's idea of 'jewish philosophy' is more Herderian and relativistic: the contrast between Athens and Jerusalem here is not a contrast between truth and revelation, but rather a contrast between two competing traditions toward the truth. When people like Harvey speak of Jewish philosophy, they mean that the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition is articulated in a Jewish context and responsive to concerns mediated by jewish experience and history. But Pearson thinks of Jewish philosophy as an autonomous philosophical  tradition: "Hebrew Philosophy seems to have a history and a development more or less unique and apart from that of other nations." That is to say, Pearson's conception of Jewish philosophy is analogous to the way scholars in the period (recall here and here) think of Chinese and Indian philosophy, as belonging to a civilization distinct from western philosophy's home.  (Except that Hebrew philosophy occurred geographically within the West.)

At this point one can understand why some readers will have wanted to keep their distance from Pearson, whose later work shows more interest in racial and ethnic superiority. Pearson's fondness for ranking cultures is already visible in the quoted passage. Although it is not impossible that his contemporaries would have been more bothered by his philo-semitism than the fact that he was ranking intellectual/cultural tradition!

Of course, Spinoza and to a lesser extent Maimonides are treated by Pearson as something more than Hebrew philosophers; they are world (philosophical) prophets. And one can discern in this Pearson's hope that, despite varied starting points (even Ohio will do), true philosophy transcends the culture that births or generates it.+ Pearson himself is clearly speaking from this superior to one's own intellectual culture's vantage-point. And, let me submit that it's this almost cosmopolitan perspective, much more than the sense of superiority toward other peoples, that is at the root of the science of eugenics.

 

 

 

 

 

Seneca's Letter 46: On Living in an Age of Lies

1. I received the book of yours which you promised me. I opened it hastily with the idea of glancing over it at leisure; for I meant only to taste the volume. But by its own charm the book coaxed me into traversing it more at length. You may understand from this fact how eloquent it was; for it seemed to be written in the smooth style, and yet did not resemble your handiwork or mine, but at first sight might have been ascribed to Titus Livius or to Epicurus. Moreover, I was so impressed and carried along by its charm that I finished it without any postponement. The sunlight called to me, hunger warned, and clouds were lowering; but I absorbed the book from beginning to end.

2. I was not merely pleased; I rejoiced. So full of wit and spirit it was! I should have added "what force [quid impetus!]," had the book contained moments of repose, or had it risen to energy only at intervals. But I found that there was no burst of force, but an even flow, a style that was vigorous and chaste. Nevertheless I noticed from time to time your sweetness, and here and there that mildness of yours. Your style is lofty and noble; I want you to keep to this manner and this direction. Your subject also contributed something; for this reason you should choose productive topics, which will lay hold of the mind and arouse it.

3. I shall discuss the book more fully after a second perusal; meantime, my judgment is somewhat unsettled, just as if I had heard it read aloud, and had not read it myself. You must allow me to examine it also. You need not be afraid; you shall hear the truth. Lucky fellow, to offer a man no opportunity to tell you lies at such long range! Unless perhaps, even now, when excuses for lying are taken away, custom serves as an excuse for our telling each other lies!--Letter 46, Translated by Richard Mott Gummere (with minor corrections).

We learn in the first sentence of this letter that Lucilius is not merely aspiring to wisdom, but also an author. It invites us, thus, to reflect on the transaction between Seneca and Lucilius, and the interest of the latter in Seneca.

In this brief letter, Seneca seems to distinguish among three kinds of reading-styles: (i) tasting a book, which is brief and impressionistic; (ii) immersive reading, which is hurried yet thorough; and (iii) regurgitative reading, which involves re-reading a book. (Seneca compares (ii) with hearing a text.) To over-read a bit: according to Seneca only regurgitative reading -- this reminded me of Nietzsche -- can generate a truth, or at least a truth that can be heard (verum audies).

The last sentence of the epistle alerts us to the larger socio-political context of the exchange. Seneca implies that they live in a duplicitous public culture where the habit of lying is deeply entrenched.* Whether Seneca thinks this is merely a function of Nero's particular rule or the collapse of the republic or politics as such is left obscure. 

Strikingly, Seneca explicitly presents himself as a regurgitative reader who will articulate truth, eventually. But the implicature is, I think, that to hear the truths he will say certain virtues (of the would be audience) must be present: patience, a willingness to re-read and examine carefully, and a certain free-spiritedness [freely reinterpreting, Non est quod verearis]. That is to say, in a letter to a proud author, Seneca is telling us how to be an attentive reader of (his) works. 

Seneca has already made clear that he is writing for posterity (recall Letter 21; Letter 29). But not the first time I note that the beneficiaries of his writings are supposed to be alert to the fact that he expects us to understand that his writings conceal his message from some certain kinds of readers. I mention this not to remind the reader of Seneca's interest in the art of esotericism. Rather, and in particular, he invites us to reflect on how our culture and, thus, our habitual dispositions distort our receptivity toward truth.  

 

Al-Ghazali on No-Platforming and Inductive Risk

62. I therefore collected and marshaled those utterances [of the Ta‘limites], combining thoroughness and accuracy, and answered them at great length. The result was that one of the Sunnites found fault with me for overstating their argument. He said: “This is an effort on their behalf. For they would have been unable to defend their doctrine by such specious arguments had it not been for your pinpointing and marshaling them.” This criticism is justified in a way. Long ago Ahmad ibn Hanbal found fault with  al-Harith al-Muhasibi — God have mercy on them both! — for his writing books in refutation of the Mu‘tazilites. Al-Harith said: “Refuting innovation is a duty.” Ahmad replied: “Yes, but you have first reported their specious argument and then answered it. What assurance have you that a man may not read the specious argument and it will stick in his mind, but he will pay no attention to the answer, or he will study the answer without understanding its real import?”

63. Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s remark is true. But it concerned a specious argument that had not become widespread and notorious. However, once such an argument becomes widespread, replying to it becomes imperative: and replying is possible only after setting the argument forth. To be sure, one should not burden oneself with a difficulty with which they have not bothered. Nor did I do that. On the contrary, I had heard such argument from one of my associates who frequented my company after he had affiliated himself with them and professed their doctrine. He told me they used to laugh at the works of those who wrote in refutation of them, since those writers had still not grasped their argument. He then cited that argument, relating it in their own words. So I could not personally be content with having it thought that I was unaware of their basic argument, and for that reason I presented it; nor did I want it thought of me that, even though I had heard the argument, I had not grasped it, and for that reason I reported it systematically. My aim was to give the fullest account possible of their specious argumentation and then to prove its error to the hilt.--Al-Ghazali Deliverance of Error", translated by Richard J. McCarthy.

My headline is a bit of click-bait, of course. But when I returned to Al-Ghazali after a year ((recall here; here), here), the quoted passage jumped out at me. (And the fact that he anticipates Pascal's wager, which i learned he develops more greatly in The Alchemy of Happiness, chap. 6, but there is a scholarly literature on that!) The passage is, in fact, part of a larger argument throughout the Deliverance on how to think about dangerous knowledge.

This argument Al-Ghazali sprinkles through the text. His favorite metaphor to treat the problem is in terms of snakes and their poison (sometimes he also uses money-changer). So for example, while he thinks the works of the philosophers need to be censored, he clearly also conveys thereby that an informed elite can read them in order  to draw profit from it or learn how to unmask philosophers: "a child must be prevented from handling a snake, not the skilled snake charmer." (par. 53) And a few paragraphs later, he makes the point more explicit "just as the snake charmer must not handle a snake in the presence of his little boy, since he knows that the boy will imitate him thinking he is like his father, but rather must caution his boy against that by being cautious himself in the boy’s presence, so also the man of deep learning must comport himself. Furthermore, when a skilled snake charmer takes a snake and separates the antidote from the poison and draws forth the antidote and renders the poison harmless, he is not free to withhold the antidote from anyone in need of it." (par. 59)*

As an aside, it is clear that Al-Ghazali, not unlike his philosophical targets, thinks the social hierarchy must reflect, in part, the cognitive hierarchy. And the political hierarchy, in turn, must take care of the people. In this instance, the people (the boy) must be protected from harm. These points are also hinted in his treatment of why the philosophers are to be taken as heretics. They (Al-Farabi and Ibn-Sinna) deny, "that men’s bodies will not be assembled on the Last Day, but only disembodied spirits will be rewarded and punished, and the rewards and punishments will be spiritual, not corporal." Now, let's grant Al-Ghazali that this is indeed heretical. It is noteworthy that the problem here is that Al-Ghazali clearly thinks that if ordinary people also come to believe that there are no "corporal rewards and punishments," (par. 47) they are more likely to be licentious and social/political life (and obedience) will become more difficult. But, and to speculate, this only makes sense if Al-Ghazali assumes that ordinary people don't really take talk of disembodied souls that seriously.

Okay, let's turn to the quoted passage above. Al-Ghazali reports that he was criticized for engaging carefully with misguided views and he was (unintentionally) thereby supporting their views. Here the objection is not [A] that in virtue of engaging with misguided views they are made more legitimate (something at the root of no-platforming.) Rather, the objection is that [B] that in virtue of engaging with misguided views these views are thereby strengthened. And while Al-Ghazali is not one of our charitable analytic philosophers, it's clear that in the process of criticizing misguided views, Al-Ghazali spent some time reconstructing them and providing the means by which they could be strengthened. Note that at precisely this moment Al-Ghazali (who undoubtedly takes some pride in his capacity to do a better job at presenting a misguided view than the person peddling the misguided view) acknowledges the reality of the inductive risk (the "criticism is justified in a way,") and in case you missed it, he attributes the point to one of the highest authorities in Islam (Ibn Hanbal, and says it is "true.")

If you engage with misguided and dangerous positions the risk of thereby strengthening those positions is enhanced. Al-Ghazali suggests in light of inductive risk that one should basically ignore misguided views that have little uptake, and should engage with views that are "widespread." He even operationalizes "widespread" in terms of, 'is the cognitive elite aware of the misguided view.' Presumably at that point, a misguided view runs the risk of becoming the norm and/or influence policy. He implies that ignoring the view at such a point becomes riskier than actually accidentally strengthening it. A form of  intellectual damage control is an obligation on the intellectual elite (recall this post on Manski's post-publication review of The Bell Curve.)

I have some sympathy for Al-Ghazali's argument here. (So some of you may wonder why I have not taken on Jordan Peterson yet--thankfully others have done so!) But it strikes me there are two clear concerns. First, as Hume implies in the first Enquiry (E 10.22, SBN 120) it would be better if misguided views would be challenged early in order to prevent uptake in the first place. Preventing the spread of misguided policies is less risky and may, in fact, be less costly and easier. Of course, there are huge opportunity costs involved if one is ever-vigilant against all misguided views. 

As an aside, I have presented Al-Ghazali in terms of a largely consequentialist argument. One may well argue that his own perspective is also deontic or virtue-theoretic; he clearly thinks that there is a duty for him to engage with misguided widespread views. But it is notable that he responds because of reputations costs: "I could not personally be content with having it thought that I was unaware of their basic argument, and for that reason I presented it." (And this form of vanity is also consequentialist.)

Second, Al-Ghazali's response to the objection does not generalize or is not really reassuring. He clearly thinks that because of his brilliance he will end up doing less harm than if he had remained silent. There is a good chance that he will be victorious in the battle of wits/arguments, etc. But this may be an expression of overconfidence. Al-Ghazali clearly thinks not everybody should try to engage with misguided views even if only to refute them. The whole point of the snake metaphor is that skilled snake charmers should be in charge of defanging snakes. But this pushes the problem, which knows no easy solution, back a step:  how does one decide that one is skilled snake charmer? The ones that die in the process of handling snakes may well put the kids in harms way.

On the God Within (Seneca, Spinoza, and the Bible/Vergil)

[I]t is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. 2. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel. In each good man

A god doth dwell, but what god know we not [quis deus incertum est] habitat deus].--Seneca, Letter 41. Translated by Richard Mott Gummere

To achieve a sound mind [ad bonam mentem] prayer [optare could also be mere wishing] won't do; there are not just opportunity costs involved, but our attention is misdirected outward. For, Seneca, as is familiar by now, self-cultivation is, simultaneously, a withdrawal from the world of the crowd and popular approval. He comes very close to suggesting here that public displays of religion is a participation in the worship of false idols (such as characterize the market-place, the political crowds, and the amphitheater).

Part of self-cultivation is the development of what we may call conscience, the observer and custodian [observator et custos] of the good and bad we perform. Interestingly Seneca presents the operation of conscience as a reciprocal, relationship between the agent and this hidden faculty. When we nurture conscience, we are, in turn, nurtured by it. This form of boot-strapping is the path toward overcoming the rule of chance [recall, inter alia, also letter 39 here], and to participate (as we have seen) in a life rule by necessity (recall the start of the Letters) and, thereby, become godlike (recall this post on self-reliance in letter 31). A good person is precisely the one that has justly come to rely on conscience.*

I don't mean to ignore how the people that exemplify such self-controlled god-likeness, exemplify a species of (almost Nietzschean) magnanimity, laughing at our fears and at our prayers and willing them over and over again, (Vis isto divina descendit; animum excellentem, moderatum, omnia tamquam minora transeuntem, quidquid timemus optamusque ridentem, caelestis potentia agitat.)

Now, Gummere helpfully notes that the last line of the quoted passage is itself a quote from Vergil's Aenid 8.352. Seneca here proves true to his principle that the origin of a truth is less important than the fact that (recall) there is no exclusive property right in wisdom and that it can be made available to all of mankind. Even so it is notable that he quotes a poet here and not (as he had done before) a member of a competing philosophical school. (In the previous letter (40), he made a similar point with Homer.)

There is a lot to be said about the context of 8.352 and how it relates to the political self-conception of Rome and its founding. But, at this point, and in virtue of a recent lecture by Steven Nadler that I attended, I am reminded of the epigram to Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise (hereafter TTP): Per hoc cognoscimus quod in Deo manemus,/et Deus manet in nobis/quod de Spiritu suo dedit nobis (1 John 4:13; in the King James, Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.) What's clever about this is that the first two parts of the verse, just express the Spinozism of the Ethics (we are in God and he in us). Later, in chapter 14 of the TTP, when he comments on the very verse, Spinoza explains that to have possession of the (holy) spirit just means exhibiting faith in works, that is obedience to God, that is showing one's charity (or 'lovingkindness' in Curley's translation).+

Now, Spinoza and Seneca agree that a holy spirit dwells within us and that being attentive to it guides our good behavior. They also agree on a structural feature: that to behave in accord with it, is to be guided by (an eternal property, that is,) reason, that is, necessity, that is, (one's second) nature. And that to do so is the path of salvation (see the rest of letter 41). I don't mean to suggest that they agree, exactly, on the contents of conscience or what the holy spirit demands from us. That's for another time.

Rather, I want to close with a final observation prompted by one of the most striking passages in the TTP (from Chapter 5):

So the narratives contained in the Old and New Testaments are better than the other, secular narratives, and among the [Scriptural narratives], some are better than others, in proportion as the opinions which follow from them are salutary. Hence if someone has read the stories of Holy Scripture, and has had faith in it in every respect, and has nevertheless not attended to the lesson Scrip­ture intends to teach with those stories, nor improved his life, it is just the same as if he had read the Koran, or the dramas of the Poets, or even the ordinary Chronicles, with the same attention as the multitude commonly give to these things. On the other hand, as we have said, someone who is com­pletely unfamiliar with these stories, and nevertheless has salutary opinions and a true manner of living, is absolutely blessed and really has the Spirit of Christ in him.**

There is a lot to say about this passage (recall), but the key point is that one has the Spirit of Christ if one exhibits the right kind of behavior and that one does not need exposure to Scripture nor philosophy to attain it. More subtly, and controversially, perhaps, any text, if read attentively, can be made to yield the salutary opinions needed to instruct others -- as Seneca instructs Lucillius -- in the art of living...if, and perhaps only if, one has a well-prepared mind, as Seneca shows with his use of Vergil.

 

Plato, Ibn Rushd, Eugenics, and Being an (Accidental) Straussian

Since for everything that has come into being destruction is appointed, not even such a fabric as this will abide for all time, but it shall surely be dissolved, and this is the manner of its dissolution. Not only for plants that grow from the earth but also for animals that live upon it there is a cycle of bearing and barrenness for soul and body as often as the revolutions of their orbs come full circle, in brief courses for the short-lived and oppositely for the opposite; but the laws of prosperous birth or infertility for your race, the men you have bred to be your rulers will not for all their wisdom ascertain by reasoning combined with sensation, but they will escape them, and there will be a time when they will beget children out of season. Republic, Book 8, 546ab, Translated by Paul Shorey.

In the quoted passage, Socrates confronts (recall here, and here) the limits of his eugenic, breeding program. I tend to describe it (somewhat anachronistically) as his recognition that sexual desire among the carefully, artificially selected beautiful-of-mind-and-body-guardians cannot be controlled and falls outside scientific cognition. At one point, fairly recently, Eric Brown, a distinguished philosopher, who I have looked up to my whole academic career, objected to this characterization as Straussian. (It was not intended as a compliment.) Rather (and I summarize informally) Socrates claims that the cause of the decline of Kallipolis is the reliance on sensation/sense perception. Brown is not alone in this--in the summary to their translation of book 8, Grube/Reeve assert that kallipolis "will decline because the philosopher-kings have to rely on sense perception in putting their eugenics policy in practice." (213) Let's call this the standard reading. By contrast, the "Straussian" reading has an unhealthy interest in sexual desire.*

And, indeed, the standard reading is well grounded in the text. But the Straussian reading is not silly because what sense perception misses is  copulation by the guardians. And what this shows that even a state carefully organized around moderation and properly cultivated dispositions (by way of indoctrination, drilling, censorship, noble lies, and eugenics, etc.) and learning flounders on a mixture of natural drives and cognitive limitations. The standard reading emphasizes these cognitive limitations, whereas the Straussian reading emphasizes the former. The standard reading does justice to the plain meaning of the text. But the Straussian reading is on this point not based on some fancy esoteric numerology+ --  in fact, it's the Socratic eugenicist-philosopher-kings who have to deploy such fancy numerology --, but a fairly straightforward interpretation of why the cognitive limitations induced by sense perception matter.**

So, my objection to the standard reading is not that it is decidedly prudish (although I think that, too, of course), but that it kind of fails to do justice to the very grounds of rejecting the true/healthy city, and to embark on the Kallipolis which is, in part, (recall and more elaborately here) grounded in what's possible for beings like us (the true city assumes we're like pigs/animals). And in analyzing the causes for its decline, it turns out there are limited to improving our human nature (cognitive limitation, sexual desire)* when we are dealing with populations (and population improvement).

As it happens, this week, I am teaching Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic (translated from the Hebrew by Ralph Lerner; this Third Treatise 87.20ff.) Here is how he treats the issue in question:

Here the guardians are blamed for the failure of the eugenics problem in two ways: (i) they are not paying sufficient attention to the copulation (of their fellow guardians); (ii) they are not sufficiently ruthless enough in removing or -- to use a term from Al-Farabi -- weeding out the bad offspring that are the product from improper copulation. (Recall that he seems to suggest that Sharia is also offering a breeding program.)

Now, Ibn Rushd's commentary, which presents itself as an epitome that only presents the demonstrable parts of the Republic, here is offering, in one sense, a misleading summary. It's possible that this is due to the manuscript-translation of the Republic he had access to, or to a mistake in the Hebrew translator of Ibn Rushd. But I will assume that the change is deliberate. (There are other places in the commentary where the changes are evidently deliberate.) 

Ibn Rushd is frank about the significance of copulation as the proximate cause of decline (so that's like the Straussian). But what (i)-(ii) have in  common is that he puts much more emphasis on, we may say, a failure of policy, even a loss of nerve, among the guardians (who are in a sense not ruthless enough in spying and killing, that is, the kind of Straussianism associated, fairly or not, with the neocons). And the underlying sensibility is that, while the best regime is certainly not stable, it is in some sense both more attainable (recall) and also more enduring if one were willing to make one's hands dirty.

Ibn Rushd and Functional Explanation of Scriptures

Copulation ought not to be permitted them [the guardians] whenever they wish and with whomever they wish, since we wish that this activity be human among them and that their copulations not be of any chance character. The arrangement of their procreation will be the best possible with respect to their conditions of guardianship, but at fixed times an with determined individuals and characteristics. This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements. We ourselves will here briefly what Plato asserts about these things.---Ibn Rushd on Plato's Republic, the first treatise, 54.20-8, translated by Ralph Lerner.

At the start of the quoted passage, Ibn Rushd is referring to the breading program of the guardians of Socrates's Kallipolis (see Republic, 457-8). It is part of a larger passage, which is explicitly presented as a what "he said" (see 54.19).* But at the second to last sentence of the quoted passage he has slipped into his own voice, something he then calls attention to in the last sentence. The next paragraph then starts with a "we say,"and Ibn Rushd is officially speaking in his own voice. But what concerns me here is the second to last sentence {This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements.} This claim is not in the Republic, and it's Ibn Rushd's addition. 

But to see what's at stake we must first turn to the first sentences of Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic; these tell us that Ibn Rushd's "epitome" only presents the scientific, that is, demonstrative elements of the Republic. (Ibn Rushd claims to have  removed the dialectical arguments.) To be clear, Ibn Rushd does not present a summary of the Republic, but rather only conveys the bits that can be taken to be true,+ and useful (because it is a practical science).  So, this is an epitome in both senses: it's the best parts of the Republic and a synopsis.

As an aside, the most immediately striking omissions are that Book I of the Republic is skipped almost entirely (because as he says at the of the  third and final treatise, "it is entirely dialectical arguments") and the contents of Book 10 are barely conveyed. In addition, the dialogical structure of the Republic is entirely effaced. Socrates himself is only mentioned once, en passant, to remind the reader that Socrates chose death when he could not serve the polity anymore.** Ibn Rushd mentions this to convey accurately one of Socrates's claims (that physicians should not cure those who can't contribute in their functional role to society anymore), but this detail is absent in the Republic.

Okay, let me return to the main point. Two key claims of Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise are (a) that the hidden meaning of allegorical interpretation of Scriptures should not be shared with the masses, and (b) that (recall) such hidden knowledge can only put in texts that are demonstrative treatises, but these may only circulate among the cognitive elite. As I noted, the reason for (a) is that Ibn Rushd thinks this is the cause of (religious and political) faction; the reason for (b) is that the demonstrative sciences are recondite, and so ordinarily of little interest to the masses. (One can imagine him thinking that a text about Plato would be of even less interest!) Of course, the commentary on the Republic, does not advertise itself as offering evidence of the hidden meaning of Scriptures as revealed by allegorical interpretation. And, now we can return to the point at hand.

In the passage, Ibn Rushd is claiming that Kallipolis is not the only political constitution in which constraints on copulation serve an eugenic or domestic/artificial selective purpose. He says that this is also the point of other polities, including Islamic Sharia. And, in fact, the Quran and the Haddith, regulate, for example, when sex is and is not allowed. De facto, Ibn Rushd is offering a functional explanation of the meaning behind some of Scriptural practices.++ Another function of Sharia is to point (or to use the language of the Decisive Treatise, indicate) to the significance of good governance and good counsel (48.17).

A very important instance of Ibn Rushd's engaging with a kind of functional interpretation of Scripture occurs just after he has explained why woman ought not just be, in principle, guardians (as they are in Kallipolis), but that there is empirical evidence that they can be quite capable warriors (praising the Berber, female warriors of the dessert). And just before he goes on to explain (recall) that the institutions of his own time have the effect of dumbing down women (and causing economic hardship), he briefly pauses to note that Sharia has a tendency to prevent women from being part of the clerisy. He explains this fact as a consequence of an empirical regularity in which -- presumably in the time of revelation -- there are fewer capable women. But as the next page makes clear this regularity is itself a consequence of badly designed institutions. So, here, Ibn Rushd comes extremely close to saying that Scriptures didn't know any better based on the empirical evidence available; and that [the author(s) of] Scripture lacked the demonstrative understanding to correct for this. So, this is a case in which the hidden functionality of Scriptures reveals a defective understanding of nature.***