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The Outer reaches of inner powers: Aristotelian and Kantian Critique of Mythology
Intro cut out from version 1
Mythology played an important role in Ancient Greece prior to the “Philosophical Revolution” (initiated by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), where its influence was perhaps at an all-time high. Philosophy introduced a methodical way of reflecting about the world and the soul: a method that saw mythology as manifesting one mental power(imagination) at the expense of many others. A Religious interlude between Ancient Greek Times and the Enlightenment saw a resurgence of mythical thinking coupled to religious belief underpinned by biblical writings.
Kant’s Enlightened Philosophical view of Religion restored the Ancient Greek scepticism in relation to incomplete accounts of the repertoire of powers that human psuché possesses. Kants account of the roles of the faculties of sensibility, understanding/judgement and reason and the mental powers associated with them, was basically hylomorphic, but there was an innovative elaboration upon this position which was founded on Philosophical Psychology and the freedom of the will. The era of the Enlightenment was a “scientific era” in which Newton was a major figure whom Kant, as we know, defended in his correspondence. Kant, we also know found space for faith in his moral theology, a form of faith related to practical rationality based on a metaphysics of morals which he thought was perfectly compatible with a theoretical rationality based on a metaphysics of Nature.
Kants science aimed to neutralise the sceptical Humean criticism of metaphysics which might have played some role in the success of Hegelian Phenomenology’s criticism of Kantian Critical Philosophy. This in turn may well have enabled the increased influence of materialistic science, which reduced the influence of dualistic religions based on various forms of spiritual metaphysics. Both Aristotle and Kant, we ought to recall in the context of this debate, formulated decisive arguments against materialism and dualism as well as the bipolar antinomies that arose in the attempts to navigate in such a chaotic environment. Insofar as Religion was concerned, the work of Kant in the arena of Religion left us with a theoretical idea of God which could not prove existence, and a practical idea of God which appeared to be merely an idea in man’s mind: an idea moreover, which was at best only subjectively valid (it was argued). It can also be argued that this was the first of the nails in Gods coffin. The second nail in his coffin was a result of the Darwins Theory of Evolution which definitely provided arguments against much of the creation argument in the Bible. The third argument came from Freud (the self-proclaimed Kantian Psychologist) who argued that the idea of God that we encounter in popular religion was a pathological idea based on various defence mechanisms designed to cope with desires and anxieties that have been displaced. Freud was probably referring to popular responses to religion and not the Kantian Philosophical Religion within the bounds of Reason.
Freuds work “The Future of an Illusion” claims that wishes and fears are the sources of many religious ideas and that as the authority of science increases its hold, religious ideas will wane in influence. Whether or not Freud believed that Religion within the bounds of Reason would continue to be an important cultural idea is an open question. We know Nietzsche and his followers dramatized this situation with the slogan “God is dead”, but it ought to be pointed out that Julian Jaynes referred to early signs at the beginning of our Culture that the idea of God was diminishing in influence. He refers for example, to stone etchings where a King is approaching an empty throne, and he names this phenomenon “Deus Absconditis”. For Jaynes this etching was a response to the difficulty of “hearing” the voice of God because of the changing organisation of the brain, as language changed from being bilaterally represented in the brain to being located in the left hemisphere. This hypothesis needs to be supported by brain research in the future, e.g. investigation into the function of the anterior commissure, the structure that links Wernickes area to what Jaynes referred to as a hallucinatory area on the right side of the brain. Jaynes’ theory of the emergence of Consciousness from an earlier organisation of the brain that he terms “The Bicameral Brain”, builds upon a fascinating view of the essence of Language which he maintains was in origin metaphorical:
“The most fascinating property of language is its capacity for making metaphors. But what an understatement! For metaphor is not a mere extra trick of language….it is the very constitutive ground of language. I am using metaphor here in its most general sense: the use of a term for one thing to describe another because of some kind of similarity between them or between their relations to other things….This is the major way in which the vocabulary of language is formed. The grand and vigorous function of metaphor is the generation of new language as it is needed, as human culture becomes more complex.” (The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1976, 48-9)
Jaynes points out in the context of this discussion how the human body is the source of this creation of meaning, e.g. the arms and legs and feet of a chair. Our language, Jaynes argues is not a stable concrete structure but rather:
“ a rampant restless sea of metaphor” (Page 51)
Indeed Jaynes argues that the theories of science are merely extended metaphors in which “models” are like the experienced reality they are supposed to “explain”.
The most startling implication of this reasoning comes in the form of the claim that the “function” of Consciousness is not a thing located in space but rather :
“an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behaviour in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics…Like mathematics it is an operator rather than a thing or repository. And it is intimately bound up with volition and decision.”(Page 55)
This is an interesting position suggestive of the importance of the Kantian idea of the will. Metaphors create what Jaynes call a “mind-space”. Consciousness is, Jaynes argues constituted by the work of these lexical metaphors/meanings.
One of the most important aspects of this aspect of metaphor is what Jaynes refers to as the Analog “I”, which is: “the metaphor we have of ourselves..which can “move about” vicariously in our “imagination”, “doing things that we are not actually doing”. This is connected also to a metaphorical “me” which is connected to, for example, the autoscopic images of myself swimming in a lake where it appears as if we are observing ourselves. These phenomena then have first and third person cases, as is the case with language. Jaynes further argues in the process of narrating, the central character may well be our imagined vicarial selves (our analogue “I”) and the narrative performs the function of building up a picture of myself and a “model” of my world. In this process the power of the imagination is central, and it is this power that is being used and appealed to in religious narratives. The idea of God can, as Kant pointed out, be an idea of theoretical reason and sensibility in the form of the imagination obviously plays some role in this process of attempting to articulate the meaning of this transcendental super sensible “idea”. As the significance of key Biblical narratives relating to this being diminish in importance, we experience the metaphorical “absence” of this idea and the analogical world of the future suggested in these narratives. Jaynes summarizes his view of Consciousness thus:
“Conscious mind is a spatial analogue of the world and mental acts are analogues of bodily acts” (Page 66)
The narratives of the Bible (The Old and the New Testaments), contain interpretations of the world tied to a kerygma or proclamation related to leading the life of eudaimonia (the good spirited flourishing life). They are, in the words of Paul Ricouer, “symbolic”, manifestations of what he calls “double meaning”, in which a manifest meaning “reveals” a latent meaning that comes from the “realm of the sacred”. The Bible is a complex text in which the New Testament builds upon a kerygma or proclamation from the Old Testament via a story about the life of the prophet Jesus, who it is claimed is the son of God,( perhaps in the same spirit as the Socratic claim at his trial that Philosophy was one of the children of the Gods).
Ricoeur’s “hermeneutical method” responds to the enigmatic nature of these texts with a view of Language which is like that we find in Julian Jaynes’ account. The New Testament is unique in that it contains several accounts of the life of Jesus given by witnesses to the events of his life and his teachings. Hermeneutics, Ricoeur argues, is partly a process of demythologisation which is a legacy of Ancient Greek Philosophy (Aletheia=unconcealment). In this process the world of angels and souls ascending and descending into different realms is clearly not literal in intent and would for Freud be an example of fantasy-laden wish-fulfilment, a pathological product of the imagination. We moderns do not believe in such miraculous “happenings” because we prize knowledge (episteme) and reason above the powers of the imagination coupled with emotion. For us, as was the case with Kant, our faith in the objects of religion must be within the bounds of our Reason and Understanding insofar as both our knowledge of the world and ourselves are concerned. The demythologisation process does not merely provide us with the mythological picture of the world but also the mythological picture of ourselves as a creature of desire going forth in disguise armed with the power of imagination. Of course, one of the central messages of Moses was to cast aside false images in favour of faith in the God of the OT. The advantage we moderns have of course is that although we are not witnesses to the events of the NT we are not immersed in the hysteria of the times and its cult-like fascination. The reverse side of this state of affairs is that the idea of God has absented itself from modern consciousness and requires a considerable work of restoration if we are to once again believe in a God within the bounds of Reason. Perhaps such a work of restoration is no longer possible given that perhaps the language of myth as well as the language of faith has been tainted as “metaphysical”.
Understanding of the way in which transcendental Analogy, as presented by Kant, works may assist any possible work of restoration, along with the metaphorical function of language we find in Jaynes’s account. Yet it is not out of the question that the absence of myth and faith are merely symptoms of a larger issue, namely what Heidegger referred to as the “forgetfulness of Being”. Ricoeur has less faith in Heideggers method, and prefers the longer hermeneutic route in which the cultural objects testifying to our works and desires are “interpreted” in the light of a view of language in which the saying of Being, its many meanings, and Being, are intimately related.
In this sense the religion of Being is more connected to logos or the “name” than to any concrete anthropomorphic “image”. Here we can invoke the identification of Logos with Deus and Yahweh’s claim that “I am who I am”. Kants reference to the Temple of Isis and the inscription which claims that no mortal has ever lifted the veil from the face of the divine testifies to this mystery of the divine supersensible “presence”.
Aristotles account of metaphor categorises it as a linguistic expression but confines it to the domain of the name or the noun:
“Metaphor consists in giving the thing as name that belongs to something else; the transfer being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or on grounds of analogy.” (Poetics 1457 b 6-9)
Paul Ricoeur points out that logos must be a term that refers to both nouns and verbs (The Rule of Metaphor, London, Routledge, 1978) and the link to analogy becomes more apparent especially when we consider another of Aristotles claims from the Poetics, namely:
“Metaphor sets the scene before the eyes” ( 1410 b 33)
Muthos, the form or principle of organisation of a narrative text is then, the context of both logos and metaphor. Muthos can of course relate to both fictional and factual narrative and in the former case the plot is constructed by the medium of the narrative art and the genius of the narrator, and in the latter case, by the method ( techné) and episteme of History which aims not at mimesis but at particular Truths (facts) situated in the wider context of The Good or Value via reference to principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. The Greeks it has been claimed embraced muthos as a form of authoritative narrative that was refined into the disciplines/activities of History and Philosophy both of which took critical stances in relation to certain aspects of Muthos, especially its anthropomorphic characterisation of the Gods and its depiction of the archetype of a hero. This characterisation of the hero-archetype changed with the transformation of focus from warfare to civilisation building activities. Philosophy, Politics and History were the products of the intense activity of three generations of Philosophers during the Golden Age of Athens and Socrates(the wisest man of Athens) was the first of the genre of intellectual heroes. This shift was also marked by the gradual abandonment of metaphor, allegory and analogy in favour of the Scientific and Logical (Logos)/metaphysical investigations of Aristotle which in turn focussed on the paradigm of a “Good Argument” whilst simultaneously retaining a healthy respect for the arts, and the sublime , transcendental, and religious aspects of mans “Being-in-the-World”. This of course marked the transition from Spirit to Reason, from theism to humanism, and from submission to freedom.
Kant is the most interesting Philosopher to refer to in this context, because of his identification of the religious investigation with the question “What can we hope for?”. Deus may not be all that is or what has been, but rather refer to what is to come, an Aristotelian potentiality, a promise. This of course relates to the other three questions pertaining to the definition of the scope and limitations of Philosophy, namely “What can we know?”, “What ought we to do?” and “What is man?”. The Kantian “hidden plan” may well, then, have an eschatological dimension which will come to be upon the advent of the “kingdom of ends” that lies one hundred thousand years in the future.
Kant’s ethics of freedom and the advice to dare to use our reason must be tied to the Ancient Greek search for justice which is both a good-in-itself and something that is good-in-its-consequences. In the context of this discussion, the formal theoretical characterisation of the categorical imperative relating to willing that ones maxims become universal laws, is complemented by the principle that one treat everyone, including oneself as an ends-in-themselves. Such is the telos of the hidden plan which we can but hope for.
In Kants Prolegomena we encounter an account of “pure thought” or pure intellect, which illustrates a similarity of approach to that which we find Aristotles Hylomorphism. The idea of “form” in hylomorphic theory is related to the Ancient Greek arché (principle) especially insofar as the matter concerned is that of sensible phenomena. Newtons “Principles of Natural Philosophy” shares this sense of arché, but as we move forward in time to modern science this sense of “principle” is diminished in importance in favour of an approach that is less categorical and more hypothetical/instrumental. This modernist approach was also accompanied by the belief that given the complexities of nature we cannot achieve better than a high degree of probability insofar as the certainty of our hypotheses are concerned. Probability however, viewed through the prism of Bayes’ theorem rests on the twin notions of “observation” and “information” governed by the Theorem:
“The Probability of an event is determined by the information we have about that event.”
Given that Probability-theory is essentially tied to mathematical theory, there is inevitably a quantitative aspect tied to quantitative measurements of space and time, which in turn is connected to a quantitative manipulation of an environment conceived of in terms of variables. Kant, of course, preferred to view Space and Time in terms of a priori intuitions: intuitions which are transcendentally ideal in the sense that they are the conditions of all quantitative measurement in relation to the “matter” that is “observed”.
We know that Aristotle’s Theory of Change construed Space, Time and matter in terms of “media” of change embedded in a matrix of three principles, four causes and four kinds of change which we can find in different forms in the different kinds of sciences (theoretical, practical productive).