Navigation

Tag Archives | Jove’s Witnesses

Reflections on Reflection

By on March 26, 2008 2

Here’s one of those cases where I’m reading two seemingly unrelated works at the same time and they end up invoking the same idea:

Magritte painting of a mirror Plato characteristically describes particulars as copying or imitating Forms, and this seems to imply that particulars resemble Forms. … But does Plato’s metaphor commit him even to this? The answer, surely, is No. … The very being of a reflection is relational, wholly dependent upon what is other than itself …. It is for this reason that, though you may call the reflection of a red scarf red if you so please, you cannot mean the same thing you mean when you call its original red. … The reflection does not resemble the original; rather, it is a resemblance of the original. This is its nature, and the whole of its nature. … It will be objected that Plato compares particulars with reflections and pictures indiscriminately; that pictures are not merely resemblances of, but stand in the relation of resemblance to, their originals; and that, therefore, the above interpretation cannot be attributed to Plato. But this objection overlooks the nature of his theory of art. The analogy is drawn, not to the picture as a picture, but to the art object … [I]t is essential to apprehending a picture as an art object that we may take it to be, not a resemblance, but the very thing it resembles, as we may mistake a reflection in a mirror for the thing reflected. Viewed as an art object, the picture no longer retains its independent character; it is assimilated to that of a reflection, which is to say that its full meaning is relational, dependent upon the nature of its original. … [Resemblances] stand to their originals as the dependent to the independent …. Plato’s metaphor of imitation brilliantly expresses a community between different orders of objects, different levels of reality; it does not, as his recent critics have maintained, collapse that order.
(Reginald E. Allen, “Participation and Predication in Plato’s Middle Dialogues.”)

Man is not something that reflects something else. He is reflection itself. … An idea or knowing is not something besides God which reflects or echoes God. … The knowing is the divine idea or reflection. Man is not a reflector; he is reflection. … Oftentimes erroneous inferences are drawn from the old theological terms, “image” and “likeness.” [“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …. So God created man in his own image ….” – Genesis 1:26-27.] To some, image suggests picture, and likeness a duplicate, so that they find it impossible to dissociate the word “reflection” from parallelism. … The word “manifestation” is not open to as many interpretations …. To illustrate this essential oneness or inseparability of Principle and idea, let us say that your friend visits you and you acknowledge his presence. Is not your friend manifested to you? When he departs, you would not expect him to leave his manifestation with you – for his manifestation is your friend manifest. Likewise, thought cannot be detached even figuratively from Mind, for it itself is Mind thinking. … The consciousness of God is not something that I have, but something that I am. … Man is not aware of something; he is the awareness – God’s awareness of His own infinite selfhood, or active reflection. … Understanding belongs to God, and while it is true that man reflects God’s qualities, it cannot be said that effect ever becomes cause or that understanding ever becomes the understander. … Man does not have understanding; he is understanding. He is not somebody doing something; he is the doing. You do not have ideas; you are idea, or God’s knowledge of His own infinite individuality.
(Arthur Corey, Christian Science Class Instruction, ch. 5.)

But there is an important difference between Allen and Corey as well:

The very being of a reflection is relational, wholly dependent upon what is other than itself: the original, and the reflecting medium. … The mirror of the Forms is of course three-dimensional: the Receptacle. … [F]or Plato extended entities are reflections, images; space, the medium of reflection, is a precondition of their existence, the receptacle in which Forms are mirrored. It is therefore absolute, not a consequence of the mirroring.
(Allen)

Mind, of course, is consciousness; but, in order to be that, it must be conscious of something, and since there can be nothing beyond Mind’s infinity, it is conscious necessarily of itself and of nothing else. Omniscient Mind knows itself perfectly, has a perfect concept of itself, and this is the infinite, divine idea called “man” or “manifestation.” It is the divine self-consciousness, or Mind looking back at itself, seeing itself as itself. … There is no component, factor or element involved in spiritual reflection which corresponds in any manner to a mirror, mentally or otherwise. … Mind taking cognizance of itself is its own reflector and its own reflection.
(Corey)

And this disagreement connects in turn to the philosophical question of whether the “third realm” or “space of reasons” is something beyond the familiar realm of ordinary mind and matter or is just that familiar realm viewed aright, as per McDowell’s distinction between “rampant” and “naturalized” versions of Platonism.

Though if the version of Platonism that denies the existence of a material substratum turns out to be the less rampant and more naturalised form of Platonism, then clearly the application of these distinctions is trickier than one might have supposed.

Locke the Antichrist

By on February 25, 2008 0

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

I’ve been reading Craig Nelson’s new Thomas Paine bio. So far it’s pretty good on the whole – a bit superficial philosophically and a bit too eager to entertain, but filled with lots of fascinating info I hadn’t known before.

Unfortunately, I’ve come across a major howler. And I fear that where there’s one there’s probably more.

Here’s the howler, from p. 264:

John Locke, surrounded by England’s religious tumult, would come to believe that “truly the Christian religion is the worst of all religions, and ought neither to be embraced by any particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth.”

Did John Locke, the great defender of religious toleration and author of The Reasonableness of Christianity, really say that Christianity was unreasonable and shouldn’t be tolerated? If true, this would be a surprising, startling fact that ought to prompt any writer even minimally familiar with the thought of the era to look more closely. But Nelson is evidently neither surprised nor startled.

So what did Locke actually write? Here’s the passage in its original context; judge for yourself whether it says what Nelson thinks it does:

I answer: Is this the fault of the Christian religion? If it be so, truly the Christian religion is the worst John Lockeof all religions and ought neither to be embraced by any particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth. For if this be the genius, this the nature of the Christian religion, to be turbulent and destructive to the civil peace, that Church itself which the magistrate indulges will not always be innocent. But far be it from us to say any such thing of that religion which carries the greatest opposition to covetousness, ambition, discord, contention, and all manner of inordinate desires, and is the most modest and peaceable religion that ever was. We must, therefore, seek another cause of those evils that are charged upon religion.

So did Nelson read the lines he quotes in their original context? If so, how could he have misunderstood them so badly? Or did he read them already excerpted by somebody else? If so, why wasn’t he curious to check the context of such an unlikely quotation? (An endnote informs us that he read them in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. But the passage isn’t in the Two Treatises, it’s in the Essay on Toleration.)

Now if Nelson can make a mistake this big and this obvious, how likely is it that that’s the only one in the book? Not likely, alas; how many hard-to-catch errors are lurking behind this easy-to-catch one? In fact there’s another somewhat harder-to-catch error, albeit a more minor one, on the immediately following page, where Nelson conflates two different anecdotes about Alexander Hamilton. But are there other, less minor flubs I didn’t catch? That seems the way to bet.

How Not to Liberalise

By on February 23, 2008 6

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

About a decade ago, much-missed Randian philosopher George Walsh (who once gave a student an A for showing up to his exam naked) offered the following remarks on Islamic history:

The forces of Islam quickly conquered the southern and eastern Mediterranean basin. There they encountered the Hellenistic culture which was already absorbed into Christianity. Translations of Aristotle had been made into Syriac in the sixth century by Eastern Christians, and these translations were in turn translated into Arabic in the ninth century. Other writings in Greek philosophy also became available. The Greek viewpoint was at first admired in Islam, unaware of what they were getting into, and it was advocated up to a point by a party called the Mutazilites, the pro-reason party in Islam. Greek philosophy, however, especially Aristotle, contradicted the whole Islamic viewpoint. The points of conflict were the following:

Ibn Rushd The Greek point of view was based on reason, the Islamic on faith and revelation. Greek philosophy regarded all of reality as knowable – this was true even of divine beings like the Prime Mover – knowable by reason. Whereas Islam believed that God was transcendent and unknowable. That is the second conflict. First is reason versus faith, second is the knowability of divine beings. Third, the Greeks believed the universe was fundamentally orderly and subject to regular law, but the Muslims believed that each event was separately decided by God’s arbitrary predestination. Fourth, the Greeks believed in an ethics and politics based on reason. For the Muslims, ethics and politics were based on the Qur’an and sacred tradition.

Those who subscribed to any Greek philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, were soon in deep trouble. This is especially evidenced by the fate of the largely pro-Greek party, the Mutazilites. The sect of the Mutazilites represented a strong pro-reason reaction against the traditional doctrine of Islam. The traditional doctrine about the Qur’an was that it was part of the mind of God and therefore co-eternal with God. The real meaning of this doctrine is that it is a blasphemy to raise the slightest question about the Qur’an. The Mutazilites rejected this doctrine, and they said that it is making the Qur’an into a second God to make it unquestionable. The Qur’an, they said, is a creature just like a beast of the field, therefore it does not necessarily express the essential nature of God any more than a cockroach does (they didn’t put it that way). The Qur’an must be subject to the interpretation of reason. If we find that a given thing is irrational and seems to be taught in the Qur’an, we conclude that God didn’t really mean it this way; he merely talked obscurely at that point. If anything in the Qur’an seems contrary to reason, we must then reinterpret it in accord with reason.

This had an influence on the Christian Middle Ages. In this Mutazilite doctrine, we do not erect a second God and, at the same time, reason is saved. This is called the doctrine of the unity of God; it is really the doctrine of the priority of reason. Secondly, we apply this immediately to sections of the Qur’an which seem to teach predestination. Now predestination takes away moral responsibility and man, the Mutazilites said, is morally responsible. A good God would not reward or punish eternally unless man were morally responsible. This the Mutazilites called the doctrine of the justice of God and they presented themselves as defenders of the justice of God. But of course it was really the assertion of man’s free will. These two pro-reason doctrines were accompanied by a strong emphasis on moral virtue and uprightness.

The Mutazilite position began to make some headway when, unfortunately, their own zeal proceeded to fanaticism, as does indeed happen sometimes with people advocating reason, as well as anything else. They sabotaged their own cause. They came into power and issued a requirement that all public officials swear that the Qur’an is created and not divine. Some who refused this doctrine were put to death. This is sometimes called the Muslim Inquisition, from 830 to 845 (ironic that the only real inquisition in Islam was initiated by the pro-reason faction). Of course there was a religious reaction and the Mutazilites were thrown out of power.

What strikes me as interesting about the final paragraph is the suggestion that the reason the liberal/secular/rationalist-leaning faction lost out is that they tried to impose these values by force and so created a backlash. A lesson, perhaps, for those today who think the way to liberalise/secularise the Islamic world is to force liberal/secular values down their throats?

The Radiance that Streams Immortally from the Door of the Law

By on January 28, 2008 0

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

$500 and change will buy you a copy of this massive treatise in which two of my articles on Greek philosophy of law appear.

DiogenesOr you can read them online for free here:

Socrates and Socratic Philosophers of Law

Hellenistic Philosophers of Law

Two caveats:

1. The first article is co-authored with R. F. Stalley, whose take on these matters is quite different from mine. He wrote essentially all the material on Socrates (with the exception of the paragraph beginning “A somewhat different solution,” which is mine) while I wrote essentially all the material on Xenophon, the Cynics, and the Cyrenaics. He’s not responsible for what I say about the Socratics, and I’m not responsible for what he says about Socrates.

2. I did not (to the best of my possibly imperfect recollection) sign any copyright agreement forbidding me to post these articles, so I’ll assume I’m free to do so unless I hear otherwise. But it’s always possible that the publisher will make me take them down; so read them now while you can.

Online: Molinari on Religion!

By on January 19, 2008 7

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Only two of Molinari’s books have been translated into English – The Society of Tomorrow (badly – the translation is quite incompetent) and Religion (incompletely – the editor explains that “it was found necessary to omit the recapitulatory chapter which commences M. de Molinari’s additional matter, and to indicate in footnotes the sources, rather than to quote at length the long catena of authorities published in the appendix to the French edition”). Both translations also mysteriously feature introductions (and in the case of Religion, intrusive footnotes) by authors fundamentally out of sympathy with Molinari’s viewpoint, who mostly take the opportunity to ride their own hobby horses. Still, these translations are far better than nothing.

Gustave de Molinari The Society of Tomorrow has been available online for a while. I’m pleased to see that the English version of Religion is now available as well, via Google Books.

Religion represents an interpretation of the history of religion from the point of view of libertarian economics and evolutionary social theory; the chief political moral that Molinari draws from his analysis is that attempts either to impose or to suppress religion by force of law are harmful to society (as are all interferences with free competition), and he accordingly calls for a complete exclusion of the state from matters involving religion.

Molinari is coy as to whether he himself accepts any religious belief. He defends religion to the extent of arguing, first, that its central claims (which he takes to be the existence of God and the immortality of the soul) are not contrary to science, and second, that religion is beneficial for society (this latter on the grounds that a belief in divine reward and punishment is necessary for ordinary people, though perhaps not for the wise few, to feel sufficient motivation to behave rightly). Yet his explanations of the historical development of religion and the triumph of one faith over another are purely economic and never make any reference to the truth or falsity of religious claims. (For example, he maintains that Christianity displaced paganism because it was cheaper.) Hence both believers and unbelievers will probably find themselves occasionally annoyed while reading it; still, it’s a fascinating book, whatever one may think of the details.

Interpreting Eden

By on January 15, 2008 3

Venus Cassandra quoted yesterday this passage from Bakunin’s God and the State:

Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

Mikhail Bakunin and Ayn Rand This reminded me of a passage from that other Russian radical, Ayn Rand:

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge – he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil – he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by labor – he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire – he acquired the capacity for sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy – all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man’s fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was – that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love – he was not man. (Atlas Shrugged, III.7)

Gnostic manuscript Incidentally, many Gnostic sects had a very similar view of the matter. Noticing the contrast between the Bible’s first creation narrative (Genesis 1:1-2:2, in which a god named Elohim creates a perfect universe) and its second creation narrative (Genesis 2:3-3:24, in which a god named Yahweh creates, in somewhat difference chronological sequence, a rather more flawed universe), the Gnostics concluded that Elohim was the true God while Yahweh was the devil – in which case the serpent, bringing the knowledge of their true divine nature to Adam and Eve, was a Christlike emissary of the true God and a Prometheus-like benefactor of humankind. (See, for example, the Nag Hammadi texts Testimony of Truth and Hypostasis of the Archons.)

The move is less odd than it seems, because the parallelism between Christ and the serpent is already present in mainstream Christianity – except that in mainstream Christianity it’s a negative parallelism, with Christ reversing the story of the fall by offering in reality what the serpent offered only a fake version of. If we consider the serpent’s offer – “Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5) – the similarity to Christ’s offer is apparent:

Adam and Eve get the flaming boot But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. (John 1:12)

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. (John 6:54)

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)

We are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:16-17)

When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (I John 3:2)

In short, Christ’s message is presented in the New Testament as similar to the serpent’s message except for being genuine. So in taking the connection one step further, the Gnostics weren’t wandering off as strangely as they might seem.

Within contemporary Christianity, the two most interesting takes on the Eden story seem to come from those two quintessentially American denominations, Christian Science and Mormonism. The Christian Science account of Eden strikes me as occupying a position halfway between the mainstream and Gnostic accounts. According to this view the Bible’s first creation narrative represents the “truth of the divine creation,” while the second creation narrative “contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded.”

Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, and Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian ScienceBut by contrast with both the Gnostic account (which identifies Elohim with God and Yahweh with Satan) and the mainstream account (which takes Elohim and Yahweh to be unproblematically identical), the Christian Science account treats Yahweh as a false or limited conception of Elohim, a “physical sense of God as finite and corporeal” – but still a conception of Elohim. Rather than simply representing a different point of view by a different author (which is what most Bible scholars infer), this second narrative, according to the C.S. interpretation, represents an “allegory … to depict the falsity of error and the effects of error.” So the serpent still represents evil rather than good – an erroneous belief that “God was not omnipotent and that there was another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God”; and hence the “knowledge of good and evil” offered by the serpent represents not genuine knowledge but a confused belief that within the divine creation truth and error are equal in reality and power. In short, Jehovah represents a false conception of the divine reality as flawed, while the serpent, together with the spurious knowledge it offers, represents the conception of the flaw itself.

The Mormon view of Eden, by contrast, seems interestingly close to the Randian view, in which physicality, joy, and knowledge of good and evil are benefits that humankind would have lacked had it not been for the fall:

And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.

And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5:10-11)

In this version, God apparently wants Adam and Eve to disobey him, and his instruction to them regarding the tree is thus curiously equivocal: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Which in turn reminds me irresistibly both of the proverb “God said: ‘Take what you want and pay for it’” (incidentally one of Rand’s favourite sayings) and of Kafka’s “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. And now, I am going to shut it.”

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes