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Metaphor as Myth and As Religion
Campbell opens this chapter with a characterisation of Myth:
“like dreams they are the revelations of the deeper desires, hopes, fears, potentialities and conflicts of the human will moved by the organs of the body operating variously against each other and in concert.”
The mythological view of the world is in fact, to some extent in accordance with Kant’s critical Philosophy which also claims that both life forms and inorganic physical objects are metaphysically grounded in a realm beyond phenomenal space, time, and matter: a realm that can only be reached by the mind. A temple, for example, is more than a building for worship, it is, as Campbell puts it, a concretisation of the noumenal world: a bearer of many symbolic properties that relate to the transcendental realm of the sacred.
There are many interesting relations between the mythological view of the world and the aesthetic views of the beautiful and sublime which bring us into contact with a repertoire of emotions that relate either to the form or the formlessness of the object we are confronting/contemplating. In Kant’s account of the dynamically sublime from his third Critique, the human will plays an important role and insofar as the appreciation of beautiful works of art are intentionally produced objects, the will is obviously involved in this experience too. One of the aims of the artist is to induce a feeling of pleasure in the audience of the work: a feeling that Kant argues is based on the harmony of the operation of the faculties of the imaginations and the understanding.
The task the artist sets for his audience is also one of passing judgement upon the work as a whole. This involves the application of some universal idea to the particulars of the object created. A transcendental principle is involved in this transaction: a principle Kant describes in terms of the “form of finality of the object”. The aesthetic judgement is characterised by Kant as one in which we demand agreement, on the basis of the fact that the feeling of pleasure experienced, is grounded in the harmony of the faculties. Even in this pure form, the mind, Kant argues is also prepared for moral feeling because Beauty “is the symbol of morality”. The feelings related to the experience of the sublime on the other hand relates to ideas of practical reason that are connected to our moral agency.
Mythological views of death, on the other hand, relate more closely to ideas we find in the various religions. Freud, we know, in his later writings was influenced by Greek mythology and its view of Thanatos but Freud, the scientist also grounds the phenomenon of death in Science. In his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud claims:
“The attributes of life were at some time evolved in inanimate matter by the action of a force of whose nature we can frm no conception. The tension which then arose in what had hitherto been inanimate substance endeavoured to cancel itself out. In this way the first drive came into being, the drive to return to the inanimate state.” ( Beyond the pleasure Principle in Metapsychological papers, P.38)
This is the beginning stage of Freuds so called “Mythology of the instincts”. Life emerged at some point in the history of the earth and just as its origin is a mystery, so is its end, because in the case of every living individual, the dead body no longer displays any signs of consciousness or life. Life as such will continue when these individuals die but only until that point at which their “time has come”, as we say. In human psuché the understanding and acknowledgment of these facts is part of the function of the Ego, which is carried out in accordance with the Reality Principle. It is the ego which is the dynamic agency responsible for the protection and preservation of the body and the self. As an agency it is situated topographically in all three zones of the unconscious, the preconscious and consciousness. The pleasure ego is the most primitive aspect of the undeveloped ego, which also has an intimate connection with the biological energy regulation principle that basically aims for the homeostasis of the body whilst still keeping some energy in reserve for some special or emergency actions. The Ego, that is, learns to postpone gratification, tolerating the painful tension involved in the postponement of desired actions. Freud appeals to Fechner’s connection of the feeling of pleasure to topographical consciousness:
“In so far as conscious impulses always have some relation to pleasure or unpleasure, pleasure and unpleasure too can be regarded as having a psycho-physical relation to conditions of stability and unstability….every psycho-physical motion rising above the threshold of consciousness is attended by pleasure in proportion, as beyond a certain limit,it approximates to complete stability, and is attended by unpleasure in proportion as, beyond a certain limit, it deviates from complete stability; while between the limits which may be described as qualitative thresholds of pleasure and unpleasure, there is a certain margin of aesthetic indifference.”( Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (226-7)
There is, then, in Freud’s work complex relations between the biological energy regulation principle and the psychological pleasure-unpleasure and reality principles. We should recall in the context of this discussion the theory of pleasure presented by Plato via Socrates in the dialogue “The Republic”. In this dialogue Plato argues for an important distinction between the pleasures of the body which are transitory and mixed with pain and the pleasures of the soul which are more aligned with the fulfilment of our more spiritual needs, e.g. our need for knowledge, reason and virtue. We note that neither in Plato’s view nor in Freud’s view are these accounts contaminated with a theory of Consciousness which insists that I cannot be mistaken about my experience of pleasure. There are, of course, affections of the body which cease before they are registered in consciousness, and the energy regulation principle will explain such phenomena adequately by reference to the telos of body/organ functioning, namely, homeostasis. Obviously homeostatic functioning of the organs is an important condition for both short term survival but also long term quality of life. There is a complex overlaying and integration of biological/psychological and mental powers which may make it difficult for the individual to categorically know what kind of pleasure that they are experiencing. Indeed Socrates in Plato’s Republic points to the relativity of pleasure/happiness when he notes that healthy people may not relate their happiness specifically to their health. If, however, they become ill they may well upon returning to a healthy state be happy about such a change in their state. If such an individual is, moreover, poverty stricken they may experience unpleasure until their toil and work takes them out of such a state. They might temporarily feel as if they could not feel happier until ,as was the case with the character Cephalus in the Republic, they have their money unjustly taken away by the state. The politicians responsible for taking the money of Cephalus may well temporarily feel pleasure until other politicians take their money away, or perhaps even conspire to have them murdered. Such a sequence of cases is of course the reason why Socrates and Aristotle recommended leading the examined/contemplative life, which according to both philosophers knows all the different kinds of pleasure and knows the pleasure of leading an examined/contemplative life is the most reliable and best. What we have described are Plato’s objective criteria for leading a life of virtue determined by the form of the Good. The subjective account of the wealthy mans transitory happiness and the politicians transitory happiness are based on subjective perceptions of pleasure. Plato even describes the life of the powerful ruling tyrant: a bloodthirsty life that ends in premature death because of the lack of understanding of the importance of the virtuous life. What gives the tyrant pleasure or makes him happy are giving in to the temptations of both unnecessary and unlawful desires.
Plato’s theoretical account of pleasure and pain maintains that they are not as common sense would have it, contraries. There is in fact a middle ground between these two types of experience. In other words, not all experience is either pleasurable or painful—some experiences are neutral. The reason we believe that the “neutral ground” belongs in the territory of these so-called contraries is that if either pleasure or pain are immediately adjacent to a neutral experience there is a tendency to give the neutral ground the name of what one has experienced immediately prior to the neutral experience. Alternatively, there is a tendency upon feeling relief from bodily pain to name the absence of pain as “Pleasing”.
Now whilst knowledge of the good must be related to desire, knowledge of the true need not be. For example, on thinking through the sequence of premises, “All men are mortal”, Socrates is a man”, “Socrates is mortal”, I know all these premises to be true irrespective of any feelings: I may have, e.g. regret at the death of Socrates. The interesting question to raise in this context is whether in knowing the truth that I am mortal, I can grasp this truth in a desire-free state. According to both Spinoza and Freud the desire to continue existing is one of the strongest of the animal desires. Yet we find Socrates in his death cell claiming that death is good . Is this because he lived the examined life as part of his his three score years and ten? The religious individuals acceptance of their death is perhaps not quite in the same spirit, believing as they do in a life after death which has no philosophical support. True acceptance of death would seem to entail being cleansed of all fear and desire, and this might not be true of religious individuals with false beliefs firstly, about their God being the only God and secondly, about a life after death.
Freud’s view of stability is certainly connected to the Greek idea of eudaimonia (the good spirited flourishing life) which requires the overlaying and integration of a number of different powers energised by eros or the life instinct. For Freud it is the secondary process of the mind which sublimates the primary process where the death instinct or Thanatos may be playing a larger role in the life of the individual. The primary process of the mind is the process in which the most primitive instinctive drives of the mind strive for uninhibited gratification. The secondary process seeks to postpone all such gratification in favour of less dangerous and more lasting , secure gratifications. Both Socrates and Aristotle agree that secondary process gratifications were part of the structure of leading the examined-contemplative life. Freud elaborates upon this theme:
“We know that the pleasure principle is proper to a primary method of working on the part of the mental apparatus, but that from the point of view of the self-preservation of the organism among the difficulties of the external world, it is from the very outset inefficient and even highly dangerous….the pleasure principle long persists however as the method of working employed by the sexual instincts which are so hard to “educate”, and starting from these instincts, or in the ego itself, it often succeeds in overcoming the reality principle, to the detriment of the organism as a whole.” (P.278)
This entails, Freud argues, that two defences are used by the ego against the primary process pleasure principle, namely splitting and repression. In the former case those instincts that are difficult to educate are split off from consciousness and they are then repressed allowing the ego to compensate for this loss of energy by using another defence mechanism, namely sublimation to produce creations of works of art.
In a long section of this essay (Beyond the Pleasure Principle), Freud discusses what we know about life at the cellular level, and in so doing admits that we know as little about the origins of the sexual instinct as we know about the origins of life. After postulating and abandoning various hypotheses he finally settles upon what he calls a “mythological” account” that originates in both Plato’s symposium and the Indian Upanishads. In these latter writings Atman:
“felt no delight. Therefore a man that is lonely feels no delight. He wished for a second. He was so large as man and wife together. He then made his self fall into two and then arose husband and wife.” (ftnt. P.331)
Freud, however, remains hesitant and treats his final position on this issue as a speculative hypothesis, naming this position as his “Mythology of the Instincts”. On this final account sexuality’s function is to reconcile the two halves of split man, each desiring the other not romantically but out of biological/psychological necessity (Platonic love?). On this account hate belongs to that other. school of instincts, death, construed as “the destroyer of worlds” (Bhagavad Gita). After a protracted hylomorphic discussion which included Schopehauers claim that the purpose of life is death, Freud finally placed his hope in future Biological Science. If Schopenhauer is correct in his characterisation of the relation of these two different groups of instincts, then this kind of account would allow us to understand more fully that Socratic moment in the Phaedo where Socrates claims that whatever death is in its nature, it must be good. Perhaps such an interpretation would also allow a more complete understanding of the oracular proclamation that:
“Everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction.”
The above interpretations perhaps would lead man to appreciate more fully the life he is currently leading as well as the reason why it is important to strive for the examined/contemplative life. Aristotelian hylomorphism, seems, then, to make even more sense in the context of a discussion in which life is portrayed as an irritation/excitation of inorganic matter that is temporarily displaced whist life continues to exist. Aristotle postulated the idea of prime matter, and whatever that is in its nature, we can, Aristotle argues, only know of it in some form (shape). Life for this hylomorphic view is an energetic organisation of matter, and death occurs either when this energy dissipates or the organs necessary for the distribution and transformation of energy are no longer able to maintain the minimum requirements of homeostasis.
A stone is formed matter as is a, a star and a galaxy. The kingdom of Minerals have their forms and functions as do the Kingdom of Plants and Animals. We, according to Aristotle have the potentiality to become both the worst and the best of animals, suggesting that the constellation of the powers of the human psuché may well be a mixed blessing. The question to raise here is whether the study of Mythology can lead to a greater understanding of the origins and telos of the three kingdoms proposed by Linnaeus.
Campbell claims that Mythology can release us from fixation upon false ideas which, if true, indicates an important kinship with both Ancient Greek and Enlightenment Philosophy. He initiates a discussion of Kantian Critical Philosophy, one of whose aims was certainly to neutralise the power of false claims by analysing the logical properties of judgements based on a trifold characterisation of the faculties of human psuché (sensibility, understanding and reason) Kant draws a major distinction between aposteriori judgements based upon experience, and apriori judgements which are known via the analysis of concepts. It is interesting in such a context to pose the question whether the judgement, “All men are mortal” is an example of an analytic or synthetic judgement (based on experience). The concept of mortality would appear to have a necessary relation to the concept of man because man belongs primarily to the kingdom of living things and the final cause or condition for the existence of living things is that they will inevitably die and return their inorganic elements to the earth. Freud pointed this out and claimed that this process was operating even during life in the form of a drive.
Kant’s idea of death is that it is the end of life and further that since life is the condition of all possible experience, including the experience of the soul as an object, death is the end of all experience.(Prolegomena P.76, §48). All men are mortal cannot, then, be known by experience because the species of man stretches far into the future beyond our current experience, and whether or not all men are going to die, cannot be verified at any present moment. This does not mean that this statement is either false or meaningless, but rather that it has to be supported by judgements relating to the totality of conditions constituting life and its ultimate end in death. It must therefore be a contradiction to claim that men are not mortal given all the facts that can be produced in support of this judgement., e.g. hylomorphic facts about the nature of cells, tissues organs, etc .The question that remains hanging in the air is whether All men are mortal is an analytic or synthetic a priori judgement since both are related in different ways to the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason.
Kant claims that Metaphysics rests upon a base of synthetic apriori judgements which connect concepts necessarily but not analytically, i.e. mortality may not be “contained ” in the concept of man, because it is science that classifies man as an entity within a much larger class of animals, and all living things. Now whilst the origin of life may be a mystery, its natural manifestations in accordance with principles governing such manifestations are not. It is therefore the task of the Aristotelian essence-specifying-definition of man to locate him in the animal kingdom, and at the same time to differentiate him from other members of this class, via his unique powers of discourse and rationality. All animals may be mortal, but not all animals can speak and reason. Knowledge of biology is the science we rely upon to provide us with the essence-specifying-definitions of all living things. The human psuché, on the other hand, requires not just the knowledge of Biology but knowledge of many disciplines if we are going to be able to understand the full range and limitations of its powers.
Mythology like many other disciplines , if it is to continue occupying an important role in our lives, must acknowledge the above biological, philosophical and psychological accounts of the being of human being which includes knowledge of life, death, space, time, and matter. Paul Ricoeur summarises the function of myth well in his work “Symbolism of Evil”:
“”Myths will be here taken to mean what the history of religions now finds in it: not a false explanation by means of images and fables, but a traditional narration which relates to events that happened at the beginning of time, and which has the purpose of providing grounds for the ritual actions of men today, and, in a general manner, establishing all the forms of action and thought by which man understands himself in his world.. For us moderns a myth is only a myth because one no longer connects mythical places with our geographical space. This is why myth can no longer be an explanation… But in losing its explanatory pretensions the myth reveals its exploratory significance and its contribution to understanding which we shall later call its symbolic function–that is to say its power of discovering and revealing the bond between man and what he considers sacred.” (P.5)
One recalls in this context the insistence by many “scientists” that for example the City of Troy was a fabled location until in the 19th century when it was actually discovered to have existed. Nevertheless it can be argued that mythological thinking even of the literate societies has its limitations. In a review of Paul Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative, Vol 1 , the following is claimed:
“The limitations of myth may well have given birth to Philosophy, when it came to providing explanations demanded by aporetic questions, and raising issues relating to the infinite media of change, namely, space, time and matter. It no longer seemed efficacious to personify Time by the figure or image of Chronos, engaging in the curious activity of eating his children. and being castrated by the most powerful of his children. Such images just did not seem to respond appropriately to the awe and wonder of a newly awoken consciousness in the face of the sublimity of life in a world of such complexity. These images did not possess the required universality and necessity of the philosophical principle of sufficient reason.”(http://michaelrdjames.org)
Some commentators, however have been carried away by the desire to criticise the limitations of myth, e.g. Ernst Cassirer in his work “Language and Myth” (trans Langer, S. K., New York, Dover, 1946). Cassirer points to the Socratic complaint from the dialogue the Phaedrus.: e.g. to explain death by an image of a god-like wind whisking the soul away is to misunderstand the phenomenon of death. Neither Gods nor monsters, Socrates argued, meet the criteria of sufficient reason demanded by Philosophical explanation.
We know that Plato, too, was not averse to using allegories and analogies to explain enigmatic phenomena when philosophical arguments could not be provided. The Myth of the Cave obviously relied heavily on the analogous relations between the warmth and light of our sun and the form of the good (the virtuous life). We remember too that it was in the Republic that Socrates rebuked Homer for his poetic representation of the gods as deceitful, unjust, and prone to immoral behaviour. These gods for Socrates were not manifestations of the form of the Good proposed by Plato in his Theory of Forms, but many interpretations of the intentions of Homer are possible including the possibility that he favoured certain elements of the previous pantheon of impersonal deities/forces such as the demiurge, the erinyes/euminedes etc over the “new pantheon”. The last act of Socrates was a request to a friend to make a sacrifice to Asclepius, the god of medicine, presumably as thanks for the relatively painless experience of being poisoned to death. This indicates that some of the gods, especially those connected with knowledge and leading a good spirited flourishing life, were admired by Socrates. We also ought to recall in this context that the early career of Socrates was spent as a so called “natural Philosopher”, investigating the physical world and its elements. Socrates himself attributes to Anaximander’s claim that “All is mind (noos)”, the inspiration for the turn away from this kind of physical investigation and toward the investigation of the human psuché (its powers of virtue and vice). This Socratic turn at least mitigated the accusations directed at Socrates for being an atheist, a rumour that may have aided in his unpopularity with a large part of the jury that considered the accusation levelled against him of denying the value of the gods of the polis and corrupting the minds of the youth. Anaximander claimed, as we now that the moon is made of stone, and perhaps Socrates believed this proposition to be true whilst also believing in the demiurge and noos. As far as mythology was concerned Socrates was prepared to consider myths symbolically but he refrained from interpreting Orphic and other mythological images literally ,and as we have mentioned, objected to the Homeric images of the Greek gods behaving immorally. There was probably no clear distinction in the minds of the Ancient Greeks between Religion and Mythology as there is for the modern understanding, e.g. Freud.
Freud would in his later works produce a theory with implications for both mythology and religion, in which he cautioned against embracing pathologically originated images of figures related to, for example, the Oedipus Complex. We ought, however, in this context, to recall his positive references to Greek literature and Mythology(Oedipus Rex, Eros, Thanatos, Ananke). Freud was also familiar with Ancient Greek Philosophy which he actively referred to in his later work using his “God” logos to illuminate the many meanings of “Being” referred to by the terms, areté, arché, diké, phronesis, and eudaimonia. Part of the logos of the transcendent involved the use of allegory and analogy which Campbell uses Kantian Critical Philosophy to explain:
“A is to B what C is to X points to a resemblance not between two things but between two relationships between quite dissimilar things. The relation of A to B perfectly resembles that of C to X and what X represents is a quantity that is not only unknown but absolutely unknowable, which is to say metaphysical.”
Campbell then produces examples of two Kantian analogies in order to illustrate how we can via discourse and reasoning (logos) illuminate aspects of metaphysical “quantities” or entities:
- “as the promotion of the happiness of children(A) is related to the parents love(B) so is the welfare of the human race (C) to that unknown which is God’s love(X)
- “The causality of the Highest Cause (X) is precisely in respect to the world (C) what Human Reason (B) is in respect to the work of human art.(A)”
This form of reasoning by analogy to “reveal” something about the unknowable X, is the Kantian equivalent of the Platonic strategy of using allegory or analogy whenever logos or argumentation failed to “reveal” the full nature of what one was attempting to explain or justify. Aristotle’s Hylomorphic Metaphysics could situate God on his pure-matter—pure form continuum, characterising God as pure form but confounding his readers when he tried to attach concrete content to his characterisation: content such as God is thinking about thinking and in doing so is thinking about himself. We are, of course, finite beings and can only think something about something, a power which originates in our experience of the world. Thinking about thinking is clearly a higher power which we might expect of a being of infinite power. If Gods thinking were in any respect related to the world, he would have to be situated somewhere in that world, and that would immediately compromise the status of his infinitude. Indeed it is this relation of infinite Being to the temporal which myth attempts to “show” in its images, metaphors, allegories and analogies. Such images immediately bring with them “the affect” connected to awe and wonder which appears to be occur more readily once we are prepared to discard our own selfish desires and fears. Campbell points out that insofar as we can speak meaningfully about this highest or first cause, it can only be done in the metaphorical mode of “as if”. This is best done he argues via:
“a psychologically affective image transparent to transcendence”
Campbell further elaborates upon this position by claiming that the Lord’s Prayer which begins “Our father..” is a metaphorical invocation, given the fact that we know we are not addressing a parent of ours, any male parent, or indeed any specific human being. Therefore, Campbell argues, this prayer’s impact is primarily psychological, especially given the fact that it is not embedded in any network of concepts and judgements, but at best inheres in a system of parent-child sentiments. The prayer, of course, also contains a confession of our sins and a request for forgiveness which Freud may well have claimed has a cathartic value in relation to the fear we all feel for the consequences of our actions. The reference to “heaven” in the prayer is of course not a real location-designation, but rather a term which designates a metaphorically constituted “morphogenetic field”, to use Campbells expression.
Campbell insightfully hypothesises that there might have been a Lord’s Prayer that began “Our Mother:::”. We ought to recall in the context of this discussion that the Greek oracles were predominantly female. It would not stretch the powers of the imagination too far to conceive of a prayer to these oracles, who thought that everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction ,and every human, therefore, had a responsibility to “know thyself!”
Campbell also notes the fact that ferocious wars have been fought over what he calls “tribal literal interpretations of the meaning of their own locally conceived deities”. The local deity was taken to be a fact of universal significance which, if ignored, proved that we are dealing with fundamentally irrational beings. Whereas, what in fact was occurring, was combat over different metaphorical interpretations of one and the same transcendental X.
Aristotle’s “First Philosophy”, “Metaphysics”, was groundbreaking in that it provided us with the first panoramic view of the world that was based on pure reason and science but was also in accord with the knowledge we possessed of diké, arché, epistemé. As we have seen God was interpreted in terms of this Aristotelian hylomorphic framework, and the thought that men might fight over different secular philosophical interpretations of “being” would have caused amusement amongst the followers of Aristotle. For hylomorphism and critical Philosophy, claiming that the tentative characterisations of the transcendental X that is an in- itself is absolutely unknowable, are facts, would merely reveal that one did not know what epistemé, (knowledge or science), was. Unfortunately Europe in particular has been at various points in its history transformed into “killing fields” because of a lack of knowledge of political science and ethics. Secular wars such as we have witnessed seem to have been provoked for more secular reasons, relating to national boundaries and ideologies rather than whose God was the true God.
Campbell in explaining the contrast between metaphor ,allegory, and fact, points to “symbols”: e.g. the moon as the power of life and the sun as the transcendental eternal energy/light of knowledge and consciousness. The moon symbolises life because of the allegory with the life of a man waxing and waning until a new moon/life begins the process all over again. On the 15th night of the new moon, Campbell claims, when the moon is full, the waning process begins. The denotation of this symbolism is that of a life as measured by the Biblical, namely, three score years and ten, which reaches its zenith at 35 years before the life-waning processes begin to take effect. It is at this point in mans maturity that the light/energy of his consciousness/knowledge is at its peak, and identification with the transcendental X in our lives can occur. Once this occurs, Campbell argues we can regard a part of ourselves (noos?) as consubstantial with this transcendental X which does not belong to the space and time our bodies inhabit because this part of ourselves appears to be beyond death. Campbell sums up this discussion by referring to a key thought of the Upanishads:
“Thou art that!”
Metaphysical ends transcend death. but can also be represented in the “virgin births” so common in some mythologies. The divine being is anthropomorphised, and embodied, and thereby enabled to act in our space-time continuum whilst partaking of the realm of the sacred. Poetry can also be concerned with this transcendental X. The best Ancient Greek source we have in the field of aesthetics is of course the work of Aristotle. He begins with the position that “Being has many meanings” and goes on to analyse the meaning of tragic/poetical narratives. Three of the primary meanings of Being are connected to the ideas of reason, the good, the true, and the beautiful/sublime, and it is important to understand that we can study these ideas via the three kinds of sciences , theoretical science, practical science, and productive science. The narratives of tragedy may be literally true or only partly true as is the case with Shakespeares tragedy of Macbeth who was not a fictional character, being a real historical king, but many of his actions would have been characterised by Aristotle as mimesis Praxeus whilst at the same time embodying artistic intentions to relate to the transcendental X ‘s of ethics/politics and the beautiful/sublime. Aristotles views of the function of poetic/tragic narrative are summarised below:
“Aristotles poetics give us an account of the function of the narrative that ties the beginning, middle and end of the attempt to represent or imitate action into a composite whole. This composition or plot refuses a reduction into episodic point-like events, because the creator is concerned to connect events/actions in a universal manner. The theme of this universality is more concerned with areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and diké (justice) than it is with the divine form of logos. The spectator of the drama learns from what he witnesses the possibilities related to a tragic reversal of fortune from the good to the bad. Involved in this learning process is a recognition that we all get what we deserve in the spirit of diké…… This change of focus from Homers Gods living on Olympus to an inner controlling voice was also linked to the Socratic account about Homer and the depiction of the Gods as engaging in unethical actions” (Essay 2 in Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative” Vol.1–Aristotle’s Poetics and Muthos (http://michaelrdjames.org)
Mythology, Philosophy and Art all deal with Time in different but related ways. Tragedy, Ricoeur argues in “Time and Narrative” attempts to articulate the relations between time as opaquely lived in our everyday life-worlds, and time as transfigured in the tragic mimesis.In the constructed time of the narrative whose telos is to reveal the true denotation of tragedy, we encounter the death we all owe to nature. The scientist, fixated upon the methodology and strategies of theoretical science mistakenly universalises this agenda to all the sciences, at best sees in tragedy an experimental laboratory in which hypotheses are being tested, and at worst sees a cauldron of “subjective” emotions. Such scientists cannot see the relation of our life-world to the transcendental X Kant highlights in his “Metaphysics of Morals” and “Prolegomena” (cited by Campbell):
“The peculiar features of a science may consist of a simple difference of object, or the sources of cognition, or the kind of cognition, or perhaps of all three conjointly. On these features therefore depends the idea of a possible science and its territory.” (Prolegomena to an future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as a science, Translated Ellington, J., W., (Indianapolis, Hacket Publishing, 1977)
The transcendental X’s of nature are different kinds of Object to the transcendental X’s of a human psuché engaged in the projects of the ethical life-world. In terms of Time, the Practical Scientist is not looking into the past for the causes of a present phenomenon in order to project the future, but is rather engaged in seeing how a future telos of a project is going to determine what is to be done in the present. Indeed, it might even be claimed that the theoretical scientist, in doing what he is doing, is atomising time in a similar fashion to St Augustine’s division of time into the past-present- and future. Aristotle, on the other hand presents us with a definition of time which whilst dividing time, preserves its holistic character:
“The measurement of motion in terms of before and after”
Time, on Aristotle’s account, measures objects of motion in a space-time continuum by dividing the time-continuum into before-now-after with a view to establishing principles of motion that are embedded in a network of causes and effects discoverable by observation in either natural or laboratory conditions. The concern of the practical and productive scientist (ethics and arts) does not measure out time in coffee-spoons but seeks its phenomenal meaning in, for example, tragedies and myths. The framework of cause and effect is used in Tragedy, Myth, and History, but in these contexts we are not concerned with observation-based measurements but rather with the validation of judgements relating to The Good which are in turn related to categorical-ends-in-themselves. In other words, the “objects” we are concerned with in such contexts are “ideal objects” and “ideal causes”connected to our actions and strivings.
One interesting feature of tragedies as we enter the modern world via the tragedies of Shakespeare is the concentration on “losing ones mind” or “losing the balance of ones mind”. Macbeth, first sees a dagger freely hanging in the air when the balance of his mind is disturbed and as the play progresses he loses more and more control until in the final sections he hallucinates Banquo’s ghost at a feast taunting him for his crimes. This, then, is a “modern” tragic concern, although Plato did alert us to this kind of phenomenon with his account of the fate of the tyrant in his dialogue “The Republic”. Both Macbeth and the Platonic tyrant bring about their own deaths by actions rooted in unnecessary and unlawful desires.
Mythology, Poetry, and Philosophy are all concerned with finding answers to aporetic questions formulated by Kant in relation to the 4 questions he claims defines the territory of Philosophy, namely, “What is man?”, What can I know?”, “What ought I to do?” ans “What can we hope for?”. All three questions are related to the Delphic concern with both
“Everything created by humans is destined for ruin and destruction” and
“Know thyself!”
Some sceptically-inclined doomsday commentators claim that all hope is lost and that we are culturally experiencing, “the last days of terror”, before an apocalyptic end. In these last days it will appear that our entire value system has been upended. This of course is tragedy dramatically universalised, but it is not clear that these commentators do not have adequate grounds for their prognosis.
Kant’s Critical Philosophy claimed that we could in fact use both the concepts and principles of both theoretical and practical reasoning to characterise the History of man and his civilisations. We can, that is, attempt to describe ad explain all phenomena we encounter in terms of cause and effect using the methodology of observation, measurement and manipulation of variables in designed experiments. We can also, however, “interpret” the events or actions we witness as being regulated by categorical laws and principles, ending the process with a judgement on the value of what we have witnessed in relation to these principles and laws.
Morality and Law are twins from the same mother, diké. The moral consequences of a legal judgement that one is guilty of a crime are considerable. During such a process if we discover that the moral character of a witness is unworthy, they will not be counted on to tell the truth and their testimony can be ignored.
Conceiving of the world as a totality of facts as some theoretical scientists do and conceiving of any search after a transcendental X as irrelevant is an anti-metaphysical stance that has been very popular in certain scientific circles. Such scientists have come to regard all metaphysics as “idealism” and as anathema to the scientific project, categorising Kantian Critical Philosophy in these terms, thereby denying the dual-aspect account of explanation/justification we find in Kantian theory.
According to Kant History uses both types of reasoning in its descriptions and explanations of the facts that belong to a particular region of the world and a particular period. Yet it is criticism from this discipline that has so tarnished the reputation of traditional myths and legends, especially when it could not be immediately shown that Agamemnon or the City of Troy actually existed. There does not appear to be any obvious search for a transcendental X in historical texts, even if such an X is clearly referenced in both ethical and religious texts. We have previously argued in earlier essays (reviewing Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative”) that History is “trans-scientific”(concerned with at least two types of science) and also connected intimately with the major thesis of Aristotles “Metaphysics” which is:
“All men desire to know”
and the major thesis of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, namely:
“All human activity strives for the Good”
We know that in spite of the Aristotelian essence-specifying-definition of man being “rational animal capable of discourse”, rationality per se, was only a potentiality for man. History, therefore ,would have as its major theme the attempt of the human species to collectively become rational in a hylomorphic actualisation process. History up to this point therefore has been principally a history of our desires and fears, an important aspect of the project “know thyself!” set for man by the Delphic oracle. It is difficult sometimes to disentangle the mythical from the historical content of the Bible, which Campbell claims is charting the fall of man from the Grace of God . This is a complicated agenda:
“”Mythologically, the fall is related to the separation of Heaven and Earth where the consciousness of an eternal presence is represented as lost and the mind and spirit of mankind is trapped in the phenomenal realm.”
He refers to the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas in which God claims that he is everywhere “spread upon the earth and man does not see it”. We dwell, Campbell claims, in two worlds simultaneously which are symbolised by the illuminated temporal moon and the eternally burning sun. This abyss between the world of the divine and man, was the reason, it is argued, that the Christian God sent his son to earth to save mankind–an embodied presence in the phenomenal realm that both originates from and returns to the realm of the transcendental X–the sacred eternal realm of forms.
In the Gnostic tradition the Kingdom of Heaven is not only all around you but also within. It is in this context that we ought to understand the Hindu proclamation “Thou art that!”. Campbell argues that “Man has closed himself up in his cave” and this takes us back to the famous Platonic “Myth of the Cave” where it is required that man find his way out to the sacred light and warmth of the sun which is an allegory of that transcendental X–The Form of the Good. Campbell, however prefers the allegory that originates from the Upanishads:
“”So the light of the moon( A) is to the light of the sun (B) as is moral life (C) to the lives of all around me are to that Atman -Brahma (X) which is absilutely beyond all name, form, relatin, and definition.”
This example uses the metaphysics of Nature to “picture” the moral relation and thereby subsuming the physical world of nature under the moral world of the spirit. There is no doubt that there are aspects of both worlds that awaken awe and wonder in man but here Kant’s approach whereby the awe and wonder is directed at the power of a great waterfall or storm at sea appears more convincing and illuminating especially if one believes the experience of the sublime is a key experience insofar as access to the transcendental X is concerned. One can also in the context of this discussion draw attention to the folowing Kantian example of the sublime:
Calling upon Kant only to set his reasoning on this topic aside requires explanation which I cannot provide. It would seem that Philosophy is more committed to a holistic understanding of the world as a systematic whole than religion is. Our Jewish Christian relation to the transcendental X of the Godhead is one of submission and anxiety whereas the Kantian relation to the transcendental X builds upon the moral confidence of an agent who is worthy of our moral respect at least insofar as the experience of the sublime is concerned. Perhaps Campbell feels that the Upanishads convey a message of moral confidence and respect. In this context Campbell discusses “The Way of Art” (the heading of chapter 3) and the relationship between the way of art and the way of the mystic who has no craft and who recommends a disavowal of the body:
“I spit out the body”
Whether this is a realistic attitude toward the body is of course questionable, given that the human body is the origin and home of human life and consciousness. We recall in this context, the Cartesian sceptical claim, that we can imagine the “I” without a body, but also that this modern form of dualism was well-refuted by the critical Philosophy of Kant which accepts the hylomorphic view of pusché and many hylomorphic principles. Freud, too, would have been highly sceptical of this mystical disavowal of the body and its accompanying implication that disembodied thought could be the source or origin of life and consciousness . The artist works through his body ,with physical media such as , language, paint , stone, sound, etc, thus mobilising the life force and feelings of the body in the name of the search for the beautiful which Kant claims is the symbol of morality. This physical process for Freud is a non-sexual form of substitute satisfaction which he terms “sublimation” (an important vicissitude of the instincts).
Both the artist and the mystic are, of course concerned with the transcendental X in their different ways, but Freud would certainly have claimed that the way of the artist was the healthiest form of life, and more likely to maintain a harmony and balance of the mind conducive to eudaimonia (the good spirited flourishing life). Recall too, that the first principle of psuché maintained that the soul (psuché) was the first actuality of the body with its constellation of organs and limbs. In the context of Indian Religion we ought also to bear in mind that in the spiritual exercises of the yogi, it is recommended that we discard the external world toward the end of the meditating process. Whether it is possible to separate desire and its representations completely from a body and the external world is a question that Campbell does not raise. This would seem to be an important aspect to consider given the title of the work indicates that Campbell is exploring the inner reaches of outer space.
We conclude with Kants view of the sublime in relation to both art and religion given to us in his Analytic of the Sublime, contained in the third Critique of Judgement:
“Perhaps there has never been a more sublime utterance, or a thought more sublimely expressed than the well known inscription upon the Temple of Isis(Mother Nature): “I am all that is, and that was and that shall be, and no mortal hath raised the veil before my face” ( Kant’s Critique of Judgement, Translated Meredith, J., C., (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973), P.179
The inscription is on a statue of Isis located at the Temple. Plutarch’s Moralia characterises Isis thus:
“Moreover, many writers have held her to be the daughter of Hermes, and many others the daughter of Prometheus, because of the belief that Prometheus is the discoverer of wisdom and forethought, and Hermes the inventor of grammar and music. For this reason they call the first of the Muses at Hermopolis Isis as well as Justice: for she is wise, as I have said, and discloses the divine mysteries to those who truly and justly have the name of “bearers of the sacred vessels” and “wearers of the sacred robes.” (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/moralia/isis_and_osiris*/a.html)