Of Emmaus and Enlightenment

     Writing in separate Wall Street Journal articles during the past month, George Weigel and Yoram Hazony discussed the roads through Emmaus (4/1/18) and through the Enlightenment (4/8/18), respectively.  The initiation of a gradual legalizing of Christian belief and practice from the time of Constantine I to Theodosius I (300’s A.D.) is typically attributed to Constantine’s perception of a divine mandate for, or at least of an administrative convenience accruing to, such legalization.  On this account, this legalization began shortly after Constantine’s victory over his western competitor at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312 A.D.  Weigel finds that the revolutionary effect of Jesus of Nazareth on his disciples on the road to Emmaus and elsewhere nearly three centuries earlier had galvanized the first Christians to become “a dominant force” within the Roman Empire.

     In contrast, defining the time, place, and content of Enlightenment thought may be more contentious.  The first roots of the Enlightenment seem to extend to the early modern period of Western philosophy, when Descartes (1596 – 1650) issued his clarion call for systematic doubt before accepting absolutely certain, true beliefs into a foundation for knowledge in all areas of inquiry.  Locke (1632 – 1704) reduced the foundational requirements from certainty to probability in empirical areas of inquiry.  Synthesizing both rational and empirical outlooks, Kant (1724 – 1804) famously became a transcendental idealist in order to remain an empirical realist.  We assume here that the full flowering of the Enlightenment occurred from 1715 (death of the French “Sun King”) to 1789 (start of the French Revolution).  

     The supposedly irrefutable, cutting-edge arguments promulgated by the French Enlightenment philosophes included statements to the effect that “man is a machine” (Julien de La Mettrie) and that “the brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile” (Pierre Cabanis).  Following up on a remark by the philosophical historian Frederick Copleston, one observes that Cabanis must have found a truly remarkable bile-analog if it could serve as a “litmus test” for truth!  Hazony finds that contemporary advocates of the Enlightenment oversell the benefits of unfettered reason (because beneficial trends in science, medicine, and politics had already started before the Enlightenment) and underestimate the contributions of tradition, religion, and national identity (because any arrangements that could have prevented the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the Russian Revolution would have been highly desirable).  How could things have gone so wrong?

     Regarding politics, in 1784 Kant authored the highly regarded essay, Was ist Aufklärung? (What is Enlightenment?), in which Kant self-servingly praised Frederick the Great (1712 - 1786): It turns out that true Enlightenment freedom pertains to the public speech that Frederick granted to academics such as Kant, even while all others might appropriately be required to espouse the party line of the institutions employing them. 

     Regarding religion, in 1793 Kant wrote the book, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloβen Vernunft (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone), in which he predicted that that the Enlightenment would lead people to cast aside dogma, authority, and tradition in favor of the rational principles that he believed formed the basis of all religions.  According to Kant, for example, it is not ritual or doctrinal profession that makes one pleasing to God, but rather having a rigorously disinterested moral attitude.  Such an approach to religion, however, entails a comprehensive demythologization in which Jesus’ presence on the road to Emmaus is symbolic at best, and the “dominant force” seen by Weigel is nowhere to be found.  Although Kant sees that historical faith has served as a vehicle for spreading elements of the rational faith, he seems to have hoped for a time when mankind can finally dispense with such vehicles.

     Ultimately, Kant never managed to cancel at least one contradiction in his thought: Frederick, Kant had enthused in 1784, was the only ruler “who is himself enlightened … [and] who likewise has at hand a well-disciplined and numerous army to guarantee public security.”  So far from boldly discarding all authority, Kant relied on princely heroes who would encourage Kantian academic debate, establish increasingly liberal parliaments and state churches, and enforce obedience to the state - - all by virtue of their princely authority.  But if authority is allowed to temporal sovereigns in the 1784 analysis, why should it be denied to historical religions in the 1793 book?  As Hazony concludes, “national and religious institutions may not fit with the Enlightenment, but they may have important things to teach us nevertheless.”

Facts, Values, and Myths

     In the website article, "The good guy / bad guy myth", Catherine Nichols remarks that contemporary popular culture is obsessed with the battle between good and evil, as witness the film series Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.  Contemporary heroes fight for what is right.  The reader is left to conclude that contemporary heroes do what is right with minimal prompting and some satisfaction, even if not always easily and with pleasure: In other words, they exhibit virtues.  These virtues embody values.  People portrayed on opposite sides of conflicts have different moral qualities and values.  Nichols remarks that she detects a historic shift in folklore, away from “Who gets Helen of Troy?“ and towards “Who (or whose group) gets to improve society’s values?”  Nichols maintains that good guy / bad guy narratives promote social stability but discourage deliberation and moral vision, thereby creating an Ersatz morality.  In this view, the Grimm brothers’ collection of Germanic folklore and legends was not just a listing of stories, but a narrative that could help create a sense of nationhood.  Nichols maintains that “like the original Grimm stories, [good-guy / bad guy narratives] are a political tool designed to bind nations together.”  The reader does struggle to envision Bismarck relying on literary output designed by the brothers Grimm as one more political tool for installing his policies of social security.  However, perhaps there was a “third factor” that has affected both folktale culture and political culture in recent centuries.

     Professor Arthur F. Holmes [Fact, Value, and God (1997)] maintained that Bacon and Hobbs introduced a strict separation between natural science and teleological notions of human flourishing that culminated in an unprecedented split between fact and value in Western philosophy.  The view of Bacon and Hobbs was that both scholasticism and sectarian systems of thought lacked “right reason” in that they used words without empirical definition.  The notion of right reason evolved from whatever the sovereign decrees to whatever counts as purely natural-scientific thinking.  Even if there are divinely promulgated laws, those laws are accessible only by right reason as defined by public intellectuals and codified by the state.  Ultimately, Nietzsche’s nihilism and emphasis on individual autonomy perfected the split between fact and value.  Perhaps this split between fact and value was the “third factor” that arrived in time to allow for parallel, albeit intrinsically disconnected, political and folktale cultures.

Post-Truths and Populism

     The following text comments on the Wall Street Journal articles by Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and William A. Galston on March 17, 2018.  This review seeks to explore whether “post-truth” ideology is to traditional assertion as contemporary populism is to liberal democracy.

     Goldstein argues that “post-truth” refers to “something radically screwy” in contemporary politics.  Disagreement between democrats and oligarchs goes back to Athenian times, but modern pseudo-assertions of post-truths are not endorsements of propositions but declarations of ideological loyalty.  This re-purposing of propositions confuses political discourse, because people tend to lose track of what kind of assertion they are dealing with as an argument progresses, or as an emotional encounter degenerates.  It seems that some political factions find it expedient to develop a series of quasi-Gnostic emanations: A purported relativity of truth leads to “post-modernism,” which leads in turn to “post-truth” declarations of tribal loyalties.  No matter what faction originates this scheme, all parties to political disputes can advance systems of “post-truths,” endangering political debate.  Thus, in Galston’s context, both the populists (e.g., Trump or Brexit supporters) who represent an ignored subpopulation, as well as the transnational elites who govern technocratic power structures do not engage in real dialog and solve real problems.  This leads to a more precarious existence for liberal democracy itself.  This instability is a truly novel development in politics, ultimately based on a pernicious language game.  Post-truths are untethered from traditional assertions.  Contemporary populism is disconnected from traditional liberal democracy.  Appeasing the purveyors of extravagant speech means losing site of the philosophical coastline of experience that Kant prescribed for the voyage of reason.  Appeasement is as problematic now as it was in the twentieth century; only the “post-truth” spin is new.

Intuition over the Centuries

     The following text reviews the Aeon website article, "Philosophical intuition: just what is a priori justification?" by Professor Bruce Russell. Professor Russell teaches at Wayne State University.  This review seeks to link one historical understanding of the term “intuition” to the contemporary usage outlined in Russell’s article.

     In the website article Russell identifies his purpose as illuminating the notion of the justification of beliefs, whether that justification is due to introspection, sensation (or other empirical evidence, such as the reading of the output of technological devices), testimony, or memory.  Since all justification depends in part on concepts, all justification also depends on the understanding of those concepts; and this latter justification is referred to as a priori justification.  One of Russell’s examples of a priori justification is “2 + 2 = 4”.  If one understands the concepts of addition, equality, “2”, and “4”, then one has an a priori justification for the belief that “2 + 2 = 4”.  Some experience may be required for concept formation, but after that, no more experience is required for a priori justification.  If the concepts in a given case constitute a proposition, then a priori justification is philosophical intuition, i.e., is based solely on the understanding of propositions, as opposed to feelings or hunches.  Much time and effort may be required for the proper understanding of concepts and propositions that lead to philosophical intuition, but that time and effort is not expended in making complicated inferences.  Ultimately, one “sees” or “does not see” the concepts and propositions at issue. In questions of natural science, the justification of belief is typically based on the justification of the assumptions of the non-empirical principles of induction and of inference to the best explanation.  In questions of morality, the justification of belief is typically based an understanding of the concept of “wrong.” Thus, no matter how empirical a natural science might seem, and no matter how consequentialist a moral theory might appear, issues of a priori justification (philosophical intuition) inevitably occur.

     The present writer approves and endorses the modern view of philosophical intuition portrayed by Russell.  However, it may be of some historical interest to see how views of intuition have changed over time. Kant maintained in the Critique of Pure Reason (B15-16) that the proposition “7 + 5 = 12” is synthetic a priori, because the addition of 7 and 5 yields some number, but we know not which one unless we invoke the aid of mathematical intuition (a special case of philosophical intuition) in order to see that this number is 12.  Being synthetic, the Kantian judgment “7 + 5 = 12” goes beyond understanding by concepts alone, in this case by enlisting the aid of supplementary intuition.  Thus, Kantian mathematical (synthetic a priori) judgment starts with concepts, but also includes a second step of philosophical intuition in order to “see” that the sum in the example is 12.  In the modern view, mathematical (a priori) judgment is based solely on the understanding of concepts and propositions, is deemed eo ipso to be philosophical intuition, and is held thereby to explain the “seeing” that the sum in the example is 12.

A Sense of Purpose

     The website aeon.co proclaims itself to be “committed to the spreading of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview.”  This worthy Aurelian telos finds particular support in one of the website’s articles, entitled “How Schopenhauer’s thought can illuminate a midlife crisis,” by Professor Kieran Setiya of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  A Princeton Ph.D., Professor Setiya taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 2001 to 2014 and at MIT subsequently.  In the aeon.co article, he stated that his own midlife crisis occurred at about age 40.   Evidently, he was able to respond to this challenge by skillfully writing the book: “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide,” which appeared in 2017 and features a cover with a sketch of a glass half full (or empty).

     In the website article Setiya identifies his problem as a lack of meaning in a life of writing and teaching what he regards as mere quanta of rationality - projects such as teaching, testing, and grading his next set of students, or writing his next book.  Upon surveying his life, Setiya found that “the succession of activities, each one rational in itself, fell short [reviewer’s emphasis].”  Setiya turns to Schopenhauer and finds life described as a pendulum operating between one limit of suffering construed as the flawed attainment of goal-oriented activities and a second limit of boredom or ennui.  At the first limit there is suffering endured while perfecting the current quantum of rationality; at the second limit, there is suffering endured because all such quanta, being essentially identical and repetitious, provide no sense of convergence to anything interpretable as “meaning.”  Setiya finds that he can step twice into the same stream of activities and, not perceiving a current of meaning in that stream, deems the stepping to “fall short.”

     Setiya notes that Schopenhauer’s approach seems to be unduly bleak, because it does not distinguish between sources of value: Some activities, capable of completion, can fulfill a telos, while other activities seem to remain forever incomplete, limitless, or atelic.  If there are atelic activities, then they are not subject to the assembly-line production pressures that serve as Setiya’s bêtes noire.

     Before proceeding to Setiya’s examples of atelic activities, let us review some standard examples of telos. Aristotle famously asked, “Why did they go to war?” and answered, “So that they may rule.”  On the other hand, suppose that a second tribe, eschewing warfare, just wanted to create and enjoy some really artistic, spontaneously generated graffiti on their enemies’ walls.  Replacing martial arts with aesthetic pleasure still leaves one within the ambit of final causation; hence, introducing a notion of “atelic” in this case would seem to be problematic.  One is reminded of a German Romantic who remarked that man is never so much himself as when he is at play.  Nevertheless, “for the sake of play” specifies some sort of goal, albeit different from a goal for the production of widgets.  In these examples, one seems to be dealing with a hierarchy of teloi, not a fundamentally atelic domain.  The pinnacle of such a hierarchy may be thought of as an intrinsic value that rises above lower-ranking, merely pedestrian goals.

     If an example of intrinsic value were to be sought in the playing of sandlot baseball in preference to the professional rigors of the major leagues, then one could only agree and say, “Play ball!”  But even sandlot baseball has internal rules, which define a framework for the sequential acts of prowess that truly energize the game.  The reason that one returns repeatedly to the sandlot is to enjoy performing or observing feats of skill, or intra-game teloi.  Play has its own teloi, even if - - adapting baseball terminology to final causes - - the lurking danger of commercial teloi must be fouled off in order to look for a better pitch.

     Setiya’s examples of “activities that have no terminal point” (atelic activities) are listening to music, parenting, and spending time with friends.  At least one of these examples seems to be at odds with the Aristotelian conception of final cause: Listening to music is done for its own sake, but does this mean that the listening is done for the sake of the listening itself or for the sake of the music? In other words, is listening to music essentially a divertissement for the listener, or is listening done for the sake of music as final cause and transcendent value?  Of course, one could be referring to “elevator music” for the sake of the listener, but this seems out of place in a discussion of values, mid-life crises, and the ominous “falling short” of some activities previously thought to be of paramount importance.  

     For an Aristotelian analysis of the proposed atelic nature of listening to music, consider an analogy to Aristotle’s cosmic Intelligences: In desiring to possess the perfection of the Unmoved Mover, these Intelligences are motivated to execute the actions known as “making the world go around.”  The final cause (object of desire) is the Unmoved Mover, while the action (rotating the celestial spheres) is taken by the Intelligences in order to achieve that final cause.  Analogously, musicians and connoisseurs, desiring to experience the perfection of absolute beauty, are motivated to create and to attend works of musical art.  This is art for art’s sake (for the sake of absolute beauty), not for the listening’s sake, which is the musical equivalent of “making the world go around.”  Creating and listening are necessary for, but distinct from, the final cause.  The final cause is absolute beauty, or perhaps the transcendent value of absolute beauty.  

     For a Plotinian analysis of the proposed atelic nature of music, consider the musical or mystical experience of a person truly absorbed in his listening, reading, or meditating: At some point that person is no longer conscious of himself as a subject, having somehow fallen into the interior of his chosen activity or object, perhaps like a speck of matter falling into a black hole.  Far from being atelic, this absorption can only occur after a long period of self-discipline and training.  The final cause is the absolute beauty or the object of mystical contemplation.  

     In summary, neither Aristotle nor Plotinus would find a haven from telos while listening to serious music.  Furthermore, we have noted that even if baseball played for fun is deemed to be an atelic enterprise due to an intrinsic value, the game and its value rely on internal rules (teloi) for their integrity, quite apart from the threat of commercial teloi.  One suspects that there is a way to construe any apparently atelic enterprise as one possessing both value and telos.  

     Setiya writes, “When you pursue a goal, you exhaust your interaction with something that is good, as if you were to make friends for the sake of saying good-bye.”  The problem is one of transience.  In the Nicomachean Ethics (1157a 1-4) Aristotle says, “bad men will be friends for the sake of pleasure or of utility ... but good men will be friends for their own sake, i.e. in virtue of their goodness.  These, then, are friends without qualification.”  The Aristotelian choice for the final cause of friendship is drawn from among utility, pleasure, or goodness; but not, as Setiya affirms, from termination or “saying good-bye.”  True friendship is based on appreciation of character, which is something enduring, not transient.  Setiya’s problem of “falling short” is one of the transience, or at least the apparent transience, of things of value.  One thinks of the 1981 Academy-Award-winning film, Chariots of Fire, which is a flashback from a 1978 funeral to the camaraderie of some British athletes in the 1924 Olympics.  One is left wondering whether, and in what sense, the friendship among this group of Olympic athletes was really transient.  Surely the resources of theology are required for this further analysis, as well as a careful consideration of whether - - as Copleston has remarked - - philosophy is the handmaid of theology or the charwoman of science.     

     Setiya concludes that “It is hard to resist the tyranny of projects in midlife, to find a balance between the telic and atelic. But if we hope to overcome the midlife crisis, to escape the gloom of emptiness and self-defeat, that is what we have to do.”  The reviewer finds this task to be exceedingly difficult, because some of the activities proposed to be atelic turn out to be, upon closer examination, subject to telos after all.