The Highest Human Science: IV. The Sophists and Socrates

Amphitheater at Epidauros

This is a post from the series, "The Highest Human Science". Click here for a complete list of all posts in the series.

Although our previous post in ancient Greek philosophy in this series was of a bunch of guys with some pretty crazy ideas, at least they were using their brains. Unfortunately, Greece was plagued by a rampant intellectual disease known as sophistry.

The Sophists, as they were called, were the primary communicants of this sickness of the rational soul. Many of them were accomplished individuals in various fields of study. However, their aim was not towards the discovering of truth; rather, it was because intellectual prowess brought benefits. Their "expertise" gave them power and influence over others. Their opinions were highly respected by the like-minded, and they were praised and held in high esteem. Ultimately, the sophists practiced their art for the recognition it won them and the pleasure that their intellectual vanity afforded them

One of the primary teachings of the sophists was relativism or, more specifically, moral relativism. The arguments for their teachings were mostly attempts to rationally pick apart the established order without making any honest attempt at putting something back in its place. Relativism, or the theory that all laws are arbitrarily set by man and that man is his own judge of what is true, was the latest in intellectual pessimism and indeterminism. This was their primary doctrine and would have destroyed intellectual progress if it were not for one man.

A bust of Socrates by Lysippos

Socrates. Yes, though present culture has bestowed upon Albert Einstein the bizarre distinction of using his name as an intellectual insult (e.g. "way to go, Einstein"), Socrates, in my humble opinion, should be the runner-up. He taught for free to anyone who would listen and preferred to ask questions of others to illustrate his philosophy. That is to say, he did not put forth a specific "philosophy" for men the consider; rather, he required them to think about the topics of greatest importance.

One such encouragement was his focus on essence. Socrates taught that in our rational discussion and thought, we must always seek to separate accidental qualities (might also be referred to as secondary or unnecessary qualities of that being's nature) from those essential qualities (qualities that are primary and necessary to that being's nature). For example, a being is not a "human being" unless it has the capacity for rational thought. Or a being is not a "plant" if it does not have the ability to grow, nourish itself, and reproduce. These things are essential to the constitution of that being, because you would not call a being "human" unless it had the capacity to think, or a "plant" unless it had to capacity to grow. Furthermore, accidental qualities are things such as having blue eyes (which is not essential to constituting a human; if it were, all people with green eyes wouldn't be "human") or having a stem or stalk (many plants do not have these either).

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David

Socrates also laid the ground-work for rational discussion, known as the Socratic method. The method counter-acted the flourishing wordplay of the Sophists and gave rational discussion the means to achieve its goal of truth. It aimed at creating a coherent structure of logic and reasoning that would explain reality for all to understand. This essentially set rules for rational discussions and served as an excellent guide for those wishing to understand the truth for themselves.

However, Socrates' biggest contribution to philosophy, by far, is that he redirected the Sophists' aimless intellectual wanderings and set rational thought upon its purpose: the truth. He sought to reform the human intellect, which had been poisoned and misled by sophistry. He did not teach men what to think by writing down specific doctrines; instead, he taught them how to think in the middle of a world where the novelty of an idea was more important than its agreement with the truth.

The Highest Human Science: III. The Pre-Socratics

This is a post from the series, "The Highest Human Science". Click here for a complete list of all posts in the series.

 Finally! The Greeks figure it out that rational thought is the proper exercise for Man's reason. It's no surprise, actually, that the nation that would sire one of the worlds most delicious entrees would also produce such intellectual superiority (I am, of course, speaking of the gyro which is pictured below on a soft pita with tzatziki sauce and garnishment). The Greeks shed the burden of the ritualistic imposition created by religion, just as the shed all their clothes before competing in the Olympic games (which they also created). Truly, this was a nation of intellectual giants.

NOT Ancient Grease

Ok, well, maybe the guys we're going to talk about today weren't the most accurate in their theories, but credit must be given where it's due: these guys used their heads as best as they could and they paved the way for their countrymen to become some of the biggest intellectual giants of all time. It all began around the 6th or 7th century B.C. The Greeks were mostly concerned with public affairs and political matters, but around this period, Man's reason would soon be used for scientific purposes and asking the big questions about life, purpose, and meaning.

Beginnings were small, however, and the first question that came to mind was the one every child asks: what is this made of? And just as a child's answers are rather amusing, so were the answers proposed by the 'Pre-Socratic' philosophers. Thales, for example, believed that since moisture was the nourishment of all living bodies, water must be the substance of which everything consists. On the other hand, Anaximenes believed this substance was air. Further, Heraclitus believed it was fire, and still, Anaximander believed it was the "boundless" or indeterminate. Essentially, these brave intellectuals were trying to answer the question of material cause according to theories of materialistic monism, or the theory that everything is materially made up of one substance.

The Gyro

 Despite the apparent silliness of the pre-Socratics, three philosophers of the era distinguished themselves as great and innovative thinkers in the open ocean of rational thought. Heraclitus, also mentioned above, put forth the distinctly unique thought that reality is change or becoming. This is best explained by the notion that nothing is what it was a split-second before. The very fact that you have an interaction with an object, changes something about that object. However, the contradiction to this thought is in admitting that to some degree, things must stay the same in certain respects. A large rock doesn't change much under one gust of wind, though under by many years, it may change the entire appearance of the rock. So to some degree, a rational man must maintain that an object stays the same (I don't become a completely different person when I eat a gyro, which coincidentally, I would love to be doing right about now). Therefore, in the same instant, something is both changing constantly (the thing itself) and not changing at all (because through change, it isn't a "something"). Of course, this is blatantly contradictory and though an interesting thought, is now not worth any more discussion here.

The Material Monist Lineup, from left: Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Anaximander

The next thinker of note is Democritus. His philosophy can be characterized as looking for the one constant thing in the world of flux and change theorized by Heraclitus. The void was the solution to this riddle, and since it was indeed "nothing", it both existed and did not exist. The substance that did exist in the void, the plenum, was made of indivisible particles called "atoms" (though this is the origin of the name, these are very different from the the modern notion of atoms). Using this framework, he proceeded to explain that the organization of the universe was arrived at though a series of coincidental and lucky circumstances. This was built upon the notion that events are purely mechanical and determinant; therefore, the fact that a particle collides a certain way with another is due to laws of physics, whereas the reason why both particles were moving in those particular directions to begin with is purely random and dictated only by chance. This makes the fallacious assumption that just because we cannot see the first cause of a particle moving in a particular direction (just like we can see and predict the result of a collision, due to the laws of physics),

Anaxagoras however had probably one of the most uniquely insightful, though incorrect attempts at explaining the ever-changing world. His belief that something could not become something it did not possess within it already. For example, the physical qualities of a tree, such as hardness of back, greenness of leave, etc., must all be properties contained within the seed. Furthermore, the material causes of that tree (e.g. bark, leaves, wood, etc.) must all be contained within that see as well. How else was it possible that the seed should become a tree? Or, better yet, bread contains every element of bone, blood, and flesh that it will eventually dissolve into when it nourishes the human body (that'll make you think twice about eating out again). Granted, this idea is pretty silly; however, it was a step in the right direction of understanding and taking into account the natures of actuality and potentiality which are integral to understanding Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy.

The Highest Human Science: II. Pre-Philosophical Thought

This is a post from the series, "The Highest Human Science". Click here for a complete list of all posts in the series.

This flippin' bonkers scene from "The Matrix" is brought to you by: IDEALISM!

 One of the most popular action films of all time, "The Matrix" (1999) has been critically acclaimed for its original and captivating story. For those who haven't seen the film, it is about a world in which the "real world" you experience is not actually real. Instead, the entire human populations is plugged into one massive super computer via a prehistoric USB connection in the base of the neck, whilst being suspended in a vat of jelly. This is the general premise of the film and, yes, it makes for some exciting science fiction. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it enough because it truly revolutionized the way films are made (the sequels, I could do without).

Though I said this was an original story, it's true that many  philosophers, most notable Renee Descartes, suggested that our senses may not be entirely trustworthy. His philosophy's foundation was to doubt everything and rebuild our rational structure from the certain truths while leaving out the falsehoods, almost like overturning an apple cart of ripe and rotten apples, so as to pick up the good apples and leave the rotten ones on the ground and out of the cart. It was in this process that he wrote the now-famous (or infamous) phrase, Cogito ego sum ("I think, therefore I am") in which he claims to have proven his own existence after doubting it momentarily. (Descartes was pretty hardcore about this doubting thing) But what was truly revolutionary about the Matrix was that with the dawn of the digital age, it put forth a world in which there might be a very good reason to doubt what we see, taste, smell, touch, and hear.

Descartes upset the apple cart and this donkey

Too bad it's all a bunch of nonsense. Though entertaining for a science fiction film to speculate upon, it is purely fictional in its expression of ideas. This may sound harsh, but although philosophy specializes in the exercise of human reason, man is not always fully rational, so he is not always correct in the conclusions he draws. Unfortunately, rational thought has a spotty history, and along the way, many mistakes have been made, leading to the ruin of entire civilizations. Even today, despite our civilization's hyper-intensive focus on the supreme authority of the natural sciences, rational errors are rampant everywhere you look: in religions, in politics, and most certainly in ethics.

Early "pre-philosophical" thought was frequently confused as being rooted in religious beliefs and practices. The human wisdom studied in philosophy was mingled with sacred traditions and practices such that it was no longer rooted in human reason. Rather, it took its foundations in religious traditions of ancient cultures, and not in the exercise of human reason, independent of religion. Essentially, human reason had little or no part in informing the civilization's philosophy.

One such mistake is the concept of dualism, the idea that two eternal and uncreated principles of Good and Evil fight in a never-ending cosmic struggle. It is typically commonly used as an answer to the problem of evil, and was the core belief of the Persian culture, specifically in the beliefs of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. The hope was to explain why good and evil are able to coexist in the world; however, the erroneous implication of dualism is that evil is natural to the world, (as opposed to the Christian understanding in which evil is a privation of good). This leads to the conclusion that there are created beings that are evil by their very nature.

 

A musical summary of pantheism as taught/sung in Disney's Pocahontas

The concept of pantheism is another such confusion. Pantheism is the idea that God is comprised of everything in the universe: every being, every substance shares equally in the fullness of the divine being. Problem with this is that there leaves no distinction between creator and creation, and this completely contradicts the obvious multiplicity of distinct and seemingly independent beings. Brahmanism (or Hinduism) is one of the primary culprits of this error, though they go further and explain away the apparent multiplicity by saying that the world is actually an evil illusion (an idea known as idealism) and one must detach from it, striving always to lose one's role in the deceitful multiplicity. Buddhism, an off-shoot of Brahman philosophy in some respects, goes so far as to claim that not only the possession of individuality is an evil, but the very existence of the soul is an evil.

This short account of pre-philosophical errors is by no means exhaustive. We will examine many other errors in thought in future posts, but this will serve for now as a high-level overview of a few of the oldest intellectual errors. The main purpose of our dive into the weirdness of what the human mind can conceive was to prove that though these ideas may be worthy of science fiction, they're not worthy of much else...

Except for this...

 *Adapted from Jacques Maritain's book, "An Introduction to Philosophy" (trans. by E.I. Watkin)

The Highest Human Science: I. Introduction

Jacques Maritain

This is a post from the series, "The Highest Human Science". Click here for a complete list of all posts in the series.

In 1917, the French Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, wrote in his Elements de Philosophie (Introduction to Philosophy) that "philosophy... is the sovereign science. Therefore, it is competent to judge every other human science, rejecting as false every scientific hypothesis which contradicts its own results." By this, Maritain is claiming that every other human study which is governed by reason is ultimately subject to the study of reason itself, which is none other than philosophy.

In today's culture, philosophy is seen as boring, a joke, or as excellent screenplay material for the latest science fiction films, such as "The Matrix" and "Minority Report". In liberal arts universities, it's a core requirement, though the reason why it's a requirement is often forgotten. It appears, more often than not, that philosophy is included in these curriculums to simply make students aware of many different way to view the world, but without any guidance as to which ones should be taken seriously and which ones should be discarded into the dump heap of nonsense.

But this is to completely miss the point of philosophy, and Maritain demonstrates the correct understanding with the statement I just quoted above. In the modern desire for self-autonomy, each human study (he uses the term "science", but to distinguish from the strictly natural sciences, I will use "human study") has claimed sole authority over every aspect of its domain. In the case of fine arts, artists have defined their work as self-expressive and reflective of subjective passions or ideas. They no longer seek to inform themselves of what "good" art consists and instead determine that it must be anything and everything that comes from the artist, a classically self-absorbed notion that is typical of the vain. 

The Matrix: because the "bullet stop" trick just isn't possible without philosophy

In other cases, some studies not only claim complete dominion over their subject matter, but plot to overthrow the authority of other fields of study. The natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) assert that their studies directly nullify the authority that theology possesses over its subject matter, such as using scientific evidence to disprove the existence of God. Psychology and many other social sciences, have also been hijacked by this mentality, using wildly inappropriate extrapolative methods to reduce the immaterial, yet real human soul to nothing but determinate chemical interactions in the material organ of the brain.

Human studies need authority to guide them in the right direction. If they can be held accountable to no authority, then the study will contradict itself and break down into nonsense. Philosophy is primarily concerned with the study of human reason, therefore it establishes the infrastructure that makes every other study possible. For example, the scientific method is based on a form of logic (philosophy's domain) called "inductive reasoning". It's a very powerful short hand method of reasoning, but it remains fatally flawed in the sense that no matter how many times you verify your hypothesis, you cannot guarantee with 100% certainty that it is correct.

So why do we study philosophy? We study philosophy because it is solely devoted to the study of human reason, and since every human study is based on human reason, philosophy has it's "fingers in every pie", so to speak. Though it allows physics to judge its own study by principles of physics, it is responsible for wielding authority over the principles of philosophy on which physics and every other human study depends. It keeps the other studies "honest" in their intellectual endeavors and acts like referee in in interdisciplinary disputes.

Though knowing philosophy won't make a student an expert in any one field of human study (except maybe philosophy), it empowers the student to judge the validity of a study's conclusions. In conversation, the student of philosophy can participate in any study, and armed with the understanding of the very infrastructure of human reasoning, he can independently judge and remain intellectually critical of every other study. By "intellectual criticism" I'm not talking about snobbish remarks or obnoxious policing, but there are many fields of human study that are largely without a formal education in philosophical principles, so they make all kinds of logical errors in their study. The student needs to be able to actively discern the truth of a conclusion reached in a study and judge whether or not this agrees with reason.

That is why I have begun this series, entitled "The Highest Human Science". I will be drawing most of the source material from Maritain's "Introduction to Philosophy", which is an excellent guide to understanding the basics of philosophical study, but there will occasionally be other sources sprinkled here and there as we go. Stay tuned into the blog for upcoming posts in this series! I end this introduction post with one of the most crucially informative philosophy videos ever.

*Adapted from Jacques Maritain's book, "An Introduction to Philosophy" (trans. by E.I. Watkin)

You Are What You Hear...

Plato from "The School of Athens"

In Book III of Plato's Republic, Socrates and Glaucon discuss the role and content of musical compositions to be included in their fictional, utopian polis. The beginning of this topic involves them throwing out all bad or unhelpful forms of music in an effort to preserve those that will be good for the polis as a whole.

He correlates/compares particular modes of music with particular activities. For example, lamentations have a particular mode that imitates a sorrowful person. Other modes can be associated with drunkenness, idleness, and softness. Still others are associated with battle and courage. When confronting the question of why music selection is so important in the polis, Plato claims that "rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else," and that the music will inform the souls of the city's people as much as an academic education can.

Plato also believes that music is instrumental in aiding people to determine "goodness". People very familiar with good forms of music (and poetry) will be able to "sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing and when it hasn't been finely crafted or finely made by nature." Essentially, that person will be better equipped to discern right from wrong, simply by having an education in good music. A harmony of soul will allow the person to reject those things that jeopardize that harmony.

Ok, wait, seriously? Does this mean we have to listen to Christian rock all the time or classical music? While I, personally, am a strong advocate for tuning in to classical music regularly, I do not think that's what we should be taking away from this point.

It's practically scientific fact that certain types of music affect our moods, and this makes perfect reasonable sense because we all have our happy playlists and our angry playlists, right? So this shouldn't be too crazy.

James Hetfield of Metallica; Exhibit A of Musical PTSD

However, prolonged exposure to a particular kind of music can have lasting effects. Similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), listening to a single genre can influence your nervous system and hormones in such a way that they create semi-permanent conditions, just like constant shelling and gunfire. For example, listening to only grunge and other forms of hard rock can acclimate your body's hormones to stressful levels, regardless of if you are listening to music at that moment or not. The music conditions your body to release hormones that induce stress and adrenaline into your system. If the exposure to this music is regular, then the stress hormone release is also regular until it becomes the norm, whether you are listening to the music or not.

So, now the question I always want to know the answer to: what would the virtuous man do? What music would the virtuous man listen to? Well, the answer is not as easy as pointing to one particular artist/band or even one particular genre. And it certainly is not found in listening to the 10 hour version of Trololo (I think that if you can make it through 10 hours of this, you'll be a master in the virtue of fortitude, but I'm sure your prudence would be sharply called into question). So where is it?

To be a good person, one must do good things, eat good food, have good friends, etc. No good man will desire to surround himself with evil because he only delights in good things and everything less than that is abhorrent to him in varying degrees. So if goodness is to permeate the virtuous man's life, this must also apply to listening to good music. Therefore, our next inquiry is to discover of what things good music consists.

I am not necessarily referring to the gospel group, Virtue,
(above) when I refer to "virtuous music"

Just as food contributes to the goodness of our bodily health, music contributes to the health of our mind. The saying, "you are what you eat," applies just as much to music as it does to food. If certain kinds of food create unhealthiness in your body, then you will become unhealthy. If certain kinds
of music create unhealthiness of the mind, as described above, then the mind will become unhealthy. We care about the health of mind and body because it is integral to the soundness of one's soul. Our minds and bodies enable us to live virtuous or vicious lifestyles, and those lifestyles inform our character and, ultimately, our souls. Just as a hammer without a sufficient grip on the handle is unwieldy and inept at performing its task, we too will be inept at living a properly good life if our bodies are disordered.

So if music is so important to the health of the soul, we probably should pay a lot of attention to what good music is, so as to properly nourish our souls. Good music consists of that which brings us to realize our human good, namely virtue. After agreeing in the above paragraph that music does have an effect on the soul, it stands to reason that it must have either a positive or negative effect. And since "the good" is the aim for all of our actions, why would we ever desire to listen to "bad" music? (Note: by "bad", I am not referring to poorly performed or untalented music; I am referring to music that deteriorates the mind and corrupts the soul)

Music informs our minds and souls, just as the rhythm of a drum cadence informs a marching army to march in step. In the case of the human soul, good music is going to be that which inspires virtue in the individual. It lifts man's heart and mind to higher things and inspires him to perform heroic feats in everyday life. In times of struggle, it must comfort and console him, but always encouraging him to keep his goals of character firmly fixed. Music moves the human heart, and for the man who aspires to virtue, it must always move him towards his goal of being the virtuous man.

Therefore, good music inspires and directs man's desires, will, and actions to the achievement of virtue, and therefore, this is the best kind of music.

And now, here's a small sample of music that inspires me personally to virtue!