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The Delphic Podcasts Review of Campbells Essays Myths to Live By. 1. ”The Impact of Science”
In many respects Campbells view of science is a popular view, undervaluing the role of institutions such as schools, universities, and institutions related to the law: institutions based on ideas and principles that have in the course of a History beginning with the Ancient Greeks, contributed to the building of civilisations. Such institutions were strengthened during the Enlightenment period, especially in relation to the Philosophy of Kant, which defended Newtonian science, as well as the many meanings of Science. Given this state of affairs, it is also not surprising to find Campbell underestimating the role and power of the above institutions in the shaping process of cultural forces. Kants view of History, referred in the context of this discussion, to the “hidden plan for humanity”, namely a Kingdom of Ends, that lies one hundred thousand years in the future. International institutions such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice were in fact conceived of by Kant already toward the end of the 18th century.
Science has a history of being subjected to metaphysical criticism, beginning with Aristotles hylomorphism and its assumption of “The Many Meanings of Being”. This criticism is embedded in a Theory of Change which established Philosophy as a methodical, critical discipline, concerned with human thought, action, understanding, judgement and reason. The matrix of this concern was expressed in terms of four kinds of change, three media of change (space, time, and matter) three principles and four causes, all of which constituted a number of sciences, categorised into three domains of theoretical, practical and productive. This matrix also included basic constitutive concepts such as areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) epistemé (knowledge) diké (order, justice) arché ( principles) psuché (forms of life), logos, phronesis and eudaimonia (good spirited flourishing life). Aristotle’s Hylomorphism was built on foundations provided by both Socrates and Plato, and a number of pre-Socratic Philosophers. Socrates left no writings of his own, but Plato, his pupil, portrayed a reliable picture of Socrates’ Philosophical activity in the agora of Athens confronting those that thought they knew about important matters such as the nature of holiness.
Plato’s dialogues and lectures were also important insofar as they extended the Socratic method of elenchus with more theoretical applications of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Given the political concerns of both Socrates and Plato, the pre-Socratic figure of Solon, and the contemporary figure of Thucydides were also important influences upon Aristotle’s Political and ethical views. Solon was called upon, for example, during a period of crisis and chaos in Athens, to stabilise the polis in various ways, including a legislative agenda which proclaimed the importance of equality before the law as well as the participation of citizens in both the passing of laws and their enforcement and appeal procedures. Practical Reasoning and Sound Judgement were, in Solons view important elements of his reform program.
Thucydides, the Historian, outlined the threats to the polis if Practical Reason and Sound Judgement were compromised by careless and dangerous rhetoric which, in his view changed the meaning of the everyday expressions used in the polis. Such careless talk, it was argued, risked undermining the spirit of the law as well as the everyday trust for institutions of law, especially if the rhetoric of the day attempted to “make the worse argument seem the better” (in the spirit of Sophism). Thucydides was acutely aware of the possibility that dangerous rhetoric could invert or subvert the course of justice unless institutions possessed a sound understanding of the law and the practical reasoning and sound judgement that was needed to sustain its credibility. In many senses Socratic demonstrated these ideals of reasoning and judgement, and it is indeed ironic to note that the accusations levelled at Socrates by his indicters were accusations that were normally levelled at the Sophists of the era.
The Aristotelian Canon of the Practical Sciences included Ethics, Politics and household management, and their major focus was upon the Form of the Good rather than Knowledge, which is one of the primary concerns of the Theoretical Sciences (Physics, Maths, Theology/Metaphysics). The interesting outlier of the Sciences is the discipline of Rhetoric which, during the time of Aristotle, was closely allied to the Practical Science of Politics, but later degenerated into a mere technique (techné) of the Productive Sciences. Paradoxically, in spite of Socrates’ brilliant defence-speech during his trial, rhetoric became associated with attempts to “make the worse argument sound the better”. During Aristotle’s time the enthymemes of Rhetoric obviously aimed at the Truth in the name of the Good, probably because it was an activity, and all activities aimed at the Good against the background of the claim in the Metaphysics that all men desire to know.
Campbell, on the other hand is a dedicated follower of science but his view of this discipline is a very different view to that which we encounter in Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical accounts of the Metaphysics of science. It is even doubtful whether Campbells view is in accord with the way in which Science is taught in the University Systems of the World, which we know has its roots in Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. The Medieval Christian academic tradition did much to weaken the status of both Science and Philosophy in the Schools (until closed in the 6th century) and Universities. Campbell expresses his view n the following:
“Copernicus published his paper on the heliocentric universe (1543) and some years after that Galileos little telescope brought tangible confirmation of this Copernican view….today of course we have much larger telescopes….so that not only is the sun now well established at the centre of our planetary system but we know it to be but one of some two hundred billion suns in a galaxy of such blazing spheres: a galaxy shaped like a prodigious lens many hundreds of quintillion miles in diameter. And not only that! But our telescopes are now disclosing to us among those shining suns, certain other points of light that are themselves not suns but whole galaxies, each as large and great and inconceivable as our own—of which already many thousands upon thousands have been seen.” ( Myths to live by, New York, Viking Press, 1972, Page 7 )
Campbell elaborates upon this by claiming that our prescientific communities could never have imagined such a “revelation”. The Ancient Greeks and Kant both refer to experiences of awe and wonder, whilst surveying what could be seen with the naked eye of the “starry heavens above”. Anaximander, the Pre Socratic thinker, believed the heavens originated in the apeiron (the unlimited) implying that the heavens were finite in their magnitude but still sufficiently extensive to inspire the experience of awe and wonder.
We know that Socrates began his career investigating the nature of physical phenomena but turned away from such investigations upon reading a work by Anaxagoras, which claimed that the mind played a large part in our representations of the physical world, referring to a part of the mind, noos, which Aristotle would later identify as the divine part of our human minds. Kant, the Enlightenment Critical Philosopher, also referred to this experience of awe and wonder in relation to our idea of the moral law which may be located in the so called divine part of the mind striving for the dignity associated with a good will. The History of Philosophy is in fact littered with examples of Philosophers who initially were attracted to scientific investigations of the physical external world but then turned toward more humanistically based investigations: investigations involving noos, practical reasoning and sound judgement, e.g.
- Kant whose early work attempted to reconcile Leibniz’s metaphysics with Newtonian Science, and whose elater work argued for a metaphysics of morals that provided us with the basis for a theory of human rights .
2. Wittgenstein whose early logical atomism inspired positivistic science made way for an Aristotelian based human science based in instinct, forms of life, and language-games.
3. Freud whose early neurologically based psychology brain psychology was literally burned by Freud and replaced by instincts (eros, Thanatos) and their psychological and mental vicissitudes embedded in human contexts of love and work: the civilisation building activities par excellence .
It appears as if Campell is not aware of the above key events in the History of Philosophy and the “pattern” they constitute: a pattern that has great respect for the various disciplines of the sciences (theoretical practical, and productive), but seeks to interrogate the necessary and sufficient conditions of these activities whilst simultaneously understanding the limitations involved in investigating phenomena in accordance with the categories of the understanding and principles of reason. Campbell also seems to have a perspectival view of the technology of science which is certainly not confined to the peaceful star-gazing telescopes, but includes weapons of mass destruction too. Indeed Campbell himself must have been aware of that moment in the History of Science where scientists actively collaborated with governments to produce an atomic bomb as part of the “final solution” to the Japanese problem.
Hannah Arendt referred to the 20th century as “this terrible century”, referring specifically not only to the holocaust but also to the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian populations of Japan. Indeed it is also relevant to point out that no one has been held accountable before the law for these actions, in spite of the existence of the International Court of Justice envisaged by Kant. The reason for this is partly because the US has refused to ratify the authority of this court. This state of affairs sets a terrible precedent for the future and the Kantian Project of the Rule of International Law.
War, for Philosophers is a highly questionable activity, which in most cases, has not been subjected to the criteria set forth in the Philosophical community by, for example, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud and Wittgenstein. Socrates claimed that we fear injustice more than death, implying that wars must be just wars which, in turn, implies that wars can never be just in that they cannot possibly meet the criteria of both being good in their consequences and good in themselves. Socrates also specified more specific criteria relating to the exercise f violence, e.g. that one must never respond to being wronged by doing something wrong oneself: a policy he applied in relation to the unjust Athenian death sentence which took his life. For Socrates obedience to the law, for example, was more important than life itself or victory in relation to any cause.
Plato elaborated further upon this position by referring to the parts of the soul and their life-functions of appetite and spirit, which can both produce disorder in the soul and the polis, if not regulated by the rational part of the soul and polis: an order which ensures harmony and eudaimonia (good spirited flourishing life). In Plato’s Republic the warriors are important representatives of the spirited part of the soul/polis but are nevertheless regulated by the Philosopher-rulers who know the Form of the Good and its relevance to eudaimonia. Aristotle would have accepted some of Plato’s points but probably not the recommendation that Philosophers ought to rule the polis (a position Plato himself seems to have abandoned by the time he wrote “The Laws” ). Indeed Aristotle would have complemented what Socrates and Plato postulated with the qualification that regulation must occur in terms of the Principle of the Golden Mean and War could only be justified if its particular goal was to bring about peace.
For Kant it is the moral law that grounds the more modern idea of human rights which can only be universally valid if there are institutions such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to enforce them. This conforms with the intuition that a right can only exist if there is some authority standing ready to defend it. These authorities or international institutions must take responsibility for preventing wars between nations and penalising warmongers for violating human rights in warfare. These institutions were part of the Kantian “hidden plan”, and seem indeed to confirm the existence of such a plan for the fate of humanity: a plan that will end in a Kingdom of Ends in which everyone will treat everyone else as ends-in-themselves.
Wittgenstein who, as a young man, fought in the first world war in the trenches, believed that war was not only difficult to justify but difficult to talk about because the use of language and reason in the course of life-threatening situations is very limited. War, for Freud, is an expression of the instinct Thanatos, which emerges if other vicissitudes fail to provide the community with the moral strength to settle disputes rationally according to moral principles (the moral law, the golden mean?).
Freud used the Reality Principle and its opposition to the Pleasure Pain Principle to explain what is occurring in such a state of affairs where fear and desire for victory may neutralise more rational solutions to disputes. In this context he argued for strong legal, political and educational institutions if the aggression emerging from the death instinct was to be sufficiently regulated. The Desire for Peace, for Freud, was a Project of Eros, but Eros was “at war” with Thanatos and the outcome was always uncertain given mans inherent narcissism. Without strong institutions, however, man’s discontent can reach disruptive levels and destroy the harmony and cohesion of the community.
One possible reason for the marginalisation of the History of Philosophy, Mythology, Religion within the bounds of Reason, the activity of Art, the enthymemes of Politicians, and Psychology, is the sceptical response of science to these enterprises. Certainly, it cannot be denied that when we focus on the activities of sciences such as archaeology and physical anthropology, and their discovery of the sites of ancient civilisations and the bones of our human ancestors, we are provided with important information at a descriptive level which can contradict other descriptions from other more speculative sources. Such findings could never, however, call into question the principles of noncontradiction, sufficient reason or the Golden Mean. It is even doubtful whether any such findings could ever shed light on ideas such as the Kantian “hidden plan”.
Similarly brain research, even in its infancy during the time of Freud, was refuting the hypotheses of Charcot, who claimed that all mental illness was related to lesions in the brain, but it could never prove the negative that there is no area of the brain associated with the unconscious. Indeed, if images such as dream images are products of the unconscious, brain research proves that dream activity is associated with activity in various parts of the brain. This is something that Freud specifically claimed, namely, that his reflections on mental illness would be proved by future brain research. This has also been the case for other aspects of his theory which have been confirmed by the Nobel Prize winning researchers Gerald Edelman and Eric Candel.
The Physical Sciences of Nature are also undoubtedly of significance in relation to issues such as climate change where both the diagnosis of a complex problem and solutions for clean energy are of the utmost importance over the coming decades.
Campbell points to remarkable similarities in content in the Myths that emanate from very different regions of the world where there is no evidence of dispersion of ideas. He also takes up the burning issue of the discontentment of modern man claiming that when belief in Myth and Religion dissipates, we witness a distinct deterioration of and disruption in our Being-in-the-World. Campbell describes this in startling terms which reminds us somewhat of the picture of the Freudian battling Giants, Eros and Thanatos:
“With our old mythologically founded taboos unsettled by our own modern sciences, there is everywhere in the civilised world a rapidly rising incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and dope addiction, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder, and despair. These are facts….they challenge too the modern educator with respect to his own faith and ultimate loyalty. Is the conscientious teacher—-concerned for the moral character as well as for the book learning of his student—to be loyal first to the supporting myths of our civilisation or to the “factualised “ truths of his science? Are the two, on every level at odds? Or is there not some point of wisdom beyond the conflicts of illusion and truth by which lives can be put back together again.?” (Page 11)
From the Philosophical perspective that believes in the “hidden plan”, the above is of course a false choice of the alternatives available. There is clearly a choice which embraces both factual truth and the validity of principles that are not illusory. The relation between these two aspects was given by Aristotle when he claimed the facts relate to the what-content of the claim and the principles relate to why the facts are as they are. Sciences of different kinds whether they relate to nature or to Psuché or to Psuché writ large in the polis, will manifest this relation in different ways. Whether lives will be put together again may well depend upon acknowledging these kinds of metaphysical matters with the help of the institutions of the polis. Some civilisations bear our Greek and Enlightenment heritage better than others, and in the context of such a discussion we ought to remind ourselves of the Freudian warning about the Soviet Union and the US where the rational part of our souls, according to Freud, are not “writ large”. It certainly seems as if for Freud Thanatos was winning the battle of the giants in these societies.
Campbells answer to his aporetic question relating to putting our lives together again is to find a modern myth by which we can live. He gives us two different kinds of answer to this question, the first of which is as follows:
“It is my considered belief that the best answer to this critical problem will come from the findings of Psychology, and specifically those findings having to do with the source and nature of myth. For since it has always been in myths that the moral orders of societies have been founded, the myths canonised as religion, and since the impact of science on myths results—apparently inevitably—in moral disequilibration, we must now ask whether it is not possible to write scientifically on such an understanding of the life supporting nature of myths.” Pages 11-12
We have discussed in other reviews, this relation to Jungian theory which possesses a more truncated view of our psychological and mental powers than that which can be found in Freudian theory. It is our contention, then, that Freudian theory would indeed be a better candidate insofar as the principles of Psychology and their relation to mythology was concerned. This position furthermore has the advantage of not firstly marginalising major accounts of the psuché, like those that we find in the works of Aristotle and Kant, and secondly, the History of Philosophy.
The second solution Campbell presents us with is the concrete example of the film “Star Wars”, which he presents as a candidate of a myth to live by in our modern world. This is a fantastic picture of the life of the universe containing alien species of all shapes and sizes and this is certainly a major feat of the power of the imagination, but it is not supported by any facts. Questionable transportations of the body through space involved in beaming personnel down from and up to the spaceship “Enterprise”, are also counterintuitive given the knowledge we have of the body and the possible rearrangement of its fundamental particles, not to mention the ease with which the ship can travel across galaxies at fantastic speeds. As with all imaginative negatives it is of course impossible to prove that these phenomena are not possible.
Science can of course be conceived of in positivist terms of:
“The world is the totality of facts and not of things” (Proposition 1, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922)
This view of course was bot historically abandoned by many positivists and by Wittgenstein himself.
Is not science conceived of metaphysically or hylomorphically cognisant of concrete investigations into the ancient sites of civilisations, the bones of fossils, brain research and the historical development of the structures and functions of the brain as it increased in size and diversified itself in terms of its functions? This must be the case. Moreover conceiving of science thus, preserves Religion within the bounds of Reason, even if the idea of freedom becomes increasingly important as does the Metaphysics of Morals.
Campbell discusses Frazer’s work “The Golden Bough” and the role of magic and superstition in the History of Myth. He cites the “principle” of the “effect resembling the cause” and cites the example of a rattle (resembling the sound of falling rain) used in a ritual designed to “cause” real rainfall in the real world. He sees the need for an explanation of such phenomena and turns to the work of Charcot and Freud to assist in the process of ridding humanity of its rituals, superstitious thoughts and feelings. Campell, however, does not discuss the Freudian position in any detail and rests his case for Psychology on the work of Jung:
“What is required, states Jung, therefore is a dialogue… a dialogue by way of symbolic forms put forth from the unconscious mind and recognised by the conscious in continuous interaction. And so what happens to the children of a society that has refused to allow any such interplay to develop, but clinging to its inherited dream as to a fixture of absolute truth, rejects the novelties of consciousness, of reason, science, and new facts?” (Page 15)
Campbell notes in the context of the above discussion that there is a risk of remaining hostage of archaic rituals, thoughts and feelings, thereby alienating oneself from the ever-changing demands of the modern world and modern consciousness. Campbell repeats here the mantra of the modern scientist on the theme of the “absolute truth”, implying that both Aristotle and Kant have failed to provide us with this chimera of “absolute truth” which may not be a dispute about the facts, but rather a contradiction in terms. Neither Philosopher would have claimed that they have provided us with the illusion of “the absolute”. Both would, however, have claimed that their work provides us with a number of important principles and laws, whose logical implications remain to be worked out.
Kant specifically claimed that it is the task of reason to discover the totality of conditions of phenomena and he also provided us with a hylomorphic/critical framework containing arguments against rationalism/empiricism/dualism from both the Ancient Greek era, the Enlightenment era and the Modern era beginning at the end of the 19th century. This Kantian position argues for a Religion within the bounds of Critical Reason and rejects all forms of superstitious ritual, thoughts and feelings.
Campbell ends this essay by appealing to an example of Hindu myth and a tale of a war between gods and anti-gods, the “churning” of the Milky Ocean, the Cosmic Serpent, a great cloud of poisonous smoke which is drunk by Shiva. Th churning continues and an elephant with 8 trunks, the moon and the sun emerge together with a magnificent horse. Campbell ends the essay by paradoxically claiming that this myth is a myth for the modern world but his reason for this claim remains obscure.