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The Philosophy of Death: Socrates, Aristotle, Fingarette, Kant, Wittgenstein

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In the photo above we have a graveyard of paid debts if it is true that we all owe nature a death. Mass graveyards like this, however, do not conjure up the picture of the occupants going quietly to their deaths. Socrates went relatively quietly to his death in spite of the fact that Athens, in retrospect was doing him an injustice. His speech in the Phaedo however, left no-one in any doubt that whatever the circumstances he believed death to be a Good. Either it was a peaceful dreamless sleep or there was a seemingly contradictory afterlife in which Socrates would be consorting with the great oracles, poets, lawmakers and intellectuals of the past. Perhaps the core strength of Socrates was his faith: the faith that nothing bad could happen to a good man.

Fingarette in his work, entitled “Death: Philosophical Soundings” begins with a narrative by Tolstoy entitled “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Ivan experiences a pain and visits his doctor but the doctor cannot help. His suffering continues until he at lasts confronts himself with the possible reality of nonexistence which in turn leads to reevaluation of the life he has been leading, arriving finally at the “truth” about his life. He also finally realises there is no death because there is no experience of death and his fears have been groundless. There is no “meaning” to death since it is an event that lies outside of our experience. This too was the position of Wittgenstein on this issue. Here we encounter not the battle of the giants of civilisation Freud pointed to, namely Eros v Thanatos, but rather the battle of two civilisation-building principles, namely the pleasure principle and the reality principle. On Freuds account, because the unconscious, where our instincts reside, do not acknowledge contradictions, there is no possible awareness of “the possibility” of that contradictory event–death– but only an awareness of what life means or is. Many commentators are willing to describe such a state of affairs as an awareness of our immortality but that is not an appropriate description. The unconscious is also timeless and this means that it is not aware of any time spans least all that of eternity or living forever. In the unconscious there is the desire for life to continue but not because of an awareness of eternity or the possibility of death. Fingarette puts the matter somewhat misleadingly:

“I think it is fair to put things this way:There are two absolutely certain facts about this existence.From the objective point of view I am mortal–it is certain that I will die. From the subjective point of view I am immortal–it is certain that I will never die. Or to put it differently: Never in my life will I experience death.”(P 7 Open Court, Chicago, 1996)

Putting it differently is certainly putting the matter more correctly but it is not true that I am “certain” that I will never die. Certainty as Wittgenstein put the matter is linked to doubt. Only consciousness has the conceptual capacity to doubt something. Doubting is a reality principle activity. My wishing to continue living is an activity of the life instinct regulated by the pleasure principle. Wishing in this context is tied to emotion and the imagination and doubting to a conscious conceptual use of the imagination and Understanding. The problem with the above false description relating to life is that a hylomorphic Aristotelian understanding of psuché makes no specific reference to consciousness because the assumption is that psuché is the first actuality of the human for of psuché(possessing as it does a human organ and limb configuration-system which is defining for our species). Aristotle, that is, does not separate consciousness from the realms of the preconscious or unconscious, operating on the pleasure-pain principle and the energy regulation principle. Consciousness, has, of course, a variety of defence mechanisms to protect itself from high anxiety levels including the deflection of energy into cultural activities such as the sciences but also sublimation which transforms energy into works of imagination.

Fingarette claims that we cannot experience the possibility of death but we can imagine it. He means here that we cannot imagine in first person mode the experience of death but we can imagine the consequences for those left behind after of our death. Here the pleasure-pain principle is clearly operating and this accounts for our ability to describe what is happening here in terms of the emotion of loss.But it is other peoples loss that I am imagining. My loved ones have lost me and need to continue all our mutually valued projects without me. This is the only way in which I can be “conscious” of my death. Returning to real life and realising our mutually valued projects are still actual and ongoing, contributes, Fingarette argues, to an increased pleasure being attached to these projects and perhaps to everything one experiences which was imagined as “lost”. This is the natural reaction to what he calls the “post-mortem future”. This is of course different to my imagining historical events which have no direct connection with my life. I have never personally engaged with the people i Imagine nor the projects they are involved with. Here my imagination must be working in close cooperation with the understanding and reason and the reality principle reigns for what is being imagined is then legitimised by written documentation and evidence. There is no feeling of loss attached to these events and/or the people that populate these imaginings. Any pleasure connected to these imaginings will be related to a correlation of what is imagined with some good the imaginer embraces in their life(in accordance with the Aristotelian major premise that all activity aims at the good and a minor premise that there are many meanings of good).

Fingarette further claims that when I imagine the response of my loved ones to my death I am engaging in a form of self deception because if one is dead there is no imagining activity going on–I am imagining a world in which I am still alive. Fingarette asks the insightful question whether it is phenomena such as this that lies behind the myth that the psuché or soul can detach itself from the body. Hence the fundamental importance of describing these phenomena correctly. These imaginings are always subject to some form of correction by the reality principle. A dream of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is discussed in which the author attends his own funeral with some friends and at the end of the funeral he prepares to leave with his friends who correct him saying “No, you, cant leave!”

This myth of separation from ones body in relation to death may well have motivated the many forms of mind-body dualism that have dogged the footsteps of Philosophy throughout the ages. Aristotle sought to neutralise Platonic dualism with his hylomorphic theory and Kant sought to neutralise Cartesian dualism with his Critical theory but dualism reappeared after Hegelian attacks on Kant and it was Wittgenstein in the 20th century that restored some form of sanity in Philosophy with his anti-Hegelian investigations that recalled many of the hylomorphic and critical arguments against both dualism and materialism.

Fingarette reawakens the ancient Socratic comparison of death with sleep when he claims that :

“We have no word to describe the inner experience of falling asleep. I anticipate “falling asleep” while still awake; and on reawakening I discover what happened. I do experience getting drowsy as the preliminary to falling asleep. Nevertheless we are never aware of the actual happening, the moment of falling asleep. What is it like, that transition from being awake to being asleep? There is only one correct answer: nothing. What is it like, subjectively, being in dreamless sleep? Nothing.”(P.19)

The event happens but is not experienced Fingarette argues and the two events, death and falling asleep are similar yet different in that I can realise upon awakening from sleep that I must have fallen asleep. In the case of the event of death happening to me, on the other hand, there can be no such realisation, no such awakening.

Fingarette declares his anti dualist position by maintaining that the idea of non-bodily consciousness is an incoherent idea(P.21). He then discusses the idea of selflessness and how it may lead to the self deceptive idea that the self is some kind of illusion which must be surmounted if one is not to experience the loss of self in imagining ones death. Many Eastern religions such as buddhism preach the idea of the selfishness of the self and its consequences for life: the freeing of “ones spirit” (P.23) Now whether Hegel “borrowed his idea of “Spirit” from this source or not is an open question and perhaps such an idea is not all that different from the Kantian idea of freedom where the unselfish person chooses to act in accordance with a universal imperative and treat everyone including themselves as “end-in-themselves”, an ancient idea that goes back to the challenge Glaucon, in the Republic, laid down for Socrates, that he had to prove that Good was not just Good in its consequences but Good-in-itself. It can be argued, however good Plato’s answer to this question was, that it was left to Aristotle and Kant to give a fully satisfactory answer. An answer moreover that did not “turn Kant on his head” as Hegel wished to do but one rather that respected the traditions and customs of the past as long as they could be defended in terms of preserving freedom and treating people as “ends-in-themselves”. Action became the centre of ethical theory for Kant and dutiful action its lodestar. There is no denial of the self in Kants account only a perfect acknowledgement of its scope and limitations in accordance with rational principles such as noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Principles that Hegel questions. The Eastern view of a life striving to deny the appetites of the self would be in accord with both Aristotle and Kant but would not entail the absence of the “I”, which is a mortal entity that can die and never come back to life. That is, the Kantian “I think”(a manifestation of the act of apperception) is not immortal but is a time-bound phenomenon that pronounces “Nows” and arrange them in the framework of “befores” and “afters” until it dies and its “time” comes to an end. Time, of course, does not end, at least not until there is an absence of life on earth and maybe not even then. If the Kantian agent has done his duty he can look forward to his death without the feeling of trepidation without the feeling that he has not led a life of eudaimonia( a good spirited flourishing life). One dies in such circumstances without the fear of lost opportunities because ones value has been actualised during ones life and does not need another life to make another attempt to establish ones value. Going to meet ones death in the process of dying, in such circumstances, is the same as going to meet the occurrence of any event that one is anticipating. On Freudian terms the wish to live forever through successive resurrections would be delusional but the wish to live without the knowledge of death would be the kind of life that most animals lead. With the knowledge of death comes the fear of death and that in turn requires an overcoming of the fear in order to meet ones death stoically.

Fingarette points out that we are acquainted with ourselves uniquely and immediately via something resembling Kantian intuition. If I am in pain I know this non-observationally but thankfully, Fingarette does not use the word one normally uses in this context, namely “Introspection” which smuggles in a kind of imaginative observation that does not meet the criteria of knowing something non-observationally. He also points out that I am the only person in the world that can move my arm simply by intending to move it. Such movement expresses my intention. This is the realm where Wittgensteins claim that “I am my World” makes sense, and I know what I am doing non-observationally, because I am my world, I am my body, and my body is in the world in the form of an “I”. This was criticised as an expression of solipsism but it is clear that this is not what Wittgenstein meant. The “I” referred to is not a particular I bearing a particular name, but rather a universal I that has a universally unique form of existence. Here there is a limit to what I can do. I cannot decide/intend to fall asleep in the way in which I decide/intend to reach for an orange. As Merleau-Ponty suggests in the “Phenomenology of Perception”:

“I lie down in bed, on my left side, with my knees drawn up; I close my eyes and breathe slowly, putting my plans out of my mind. But the power of my will or consciousness stops there. As the faithful, in the Dionysian mysteries, invoke the god by miming scenes fro his life, I call up the visitation of sleep by imitating the breathing and posture of the sleeper….There is a moment when sleep “comes” , settling on this imitation of itself.”(P.189 Trans Smith, C., Routledge, London(1958) P.189

Another limit of the imagination, Fingarette argues, is that we cannot imagine the end of world because to do so would be to imagine nothing. Now because I can imagine a world I presumably can imagine a world existing before I was born, This, indeed is a crucial possibility if we are understand history. So there is a space-time continuity which is a condition of our existence, a continuity that exists after my death and before my birth. I did not regret my having been born earlier at the dawn of living existence and the question is whether trying to imagine a beginning of the world is also an attempt to imagine nothing Heidegger once wrote an essay entitled “Introduction to Metaphysics”(Trans Manheim, R, London Yale University Press, 1959) and asked the fundamental question “Why are there essents rather than nothing?” This question is asked of course only by man for whom questioning is the essence of his Being-in-the World. Man is a Being for whom his own Being is in question.

Aristotle registers this interrogative nature of man by claiming that we are not just interested in the “What” question which facts give us the answer to, but we feel a further need to proceed to ask why the facts are the way they are, and thus we enter into the Kingdom of Principles(arché) which insofar as human beings are concerned begins with a hylomorphic account of psuché. In such an investigation imagining a beginning of the world requires a belief in an infinite continuum which has no beginning and no end. Heidegger, like Wittgenstein sees language as a critical constituent in our understanding of Being and the translator of Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics” has the following to say:

” It is in words and language that things first come into being and are”(P.13)

Psuché and Phusis(physis) are intimately connected because the latter according to Heidegger means “the power to emerge and endure”(P.15). This over the millennia has been transformed into the more modern idea of nature where the concept of the “physical” is contrasted with the vague idea of the “psychological”. Heideggers concepts of Being-there(Dasein) and Being-in-the world” are attempts to avoid the difficulties of the above forced opposition . The original meaning of “Phusis”, Heidegger argues, “has determined the essence and history of metaphysics”(P.17). The Greek term “aletheia” is also a key Greek term for Heidegger but Psuché is not related to this discussion in this work.

Fingarette continues on this theme and points out how an individual death will cause but a ripple in “the great ocean of existence”(P.36). The link here is clear to the Eastern/Stoical understanding of the limitations of the human power to affect such an ocean. This he contrasts to the Western egotistical view of being the centre of the world and spending ones life feeding ones appetites. The transactions of this speck of physical material in a physical universe are of course inconsequential. Fingarette touches upon the truth of solipsism which is a universal truth about all individuals who are their world(as Wittgenstein puts the matter) He points out that the uniqueness of being the centre of my world cannot be shared but that does not strictly follow from his argument because although my life is mine someone else who is human is in exactly the same situation. So we may be isolated with our feeling of being alone but insofar as we know that everyone human is in the same boat that knowledge is exactly what puts us in the same boat. This kind of knowledge may well have been what the oracle of Delphi was referring to in her challenge to “Know thyself”.

We are rational animals capable of discourse as Aristotle claimed and part of the capacity for discourse includes the vitally important activity of story-telling. In the story the narrator is the centre of the story-world if it is a third person narration otherwise the narrator is an inhabiter of the imagined world we the readers are presented with. Fingarette points out insightfully that if the narration is in first-person mode the narrator cannot die at the end of the story. This has the consequence that a story narrated in the first person cannot reach a definitive end:

“It simply stops at a certain point and no more is told. This is exactly analogous to real life”(P.40)

This allows Fingarette to conclude that my story is my world: a sequence of events in which characters are acting and being acted upon, all striving for ends with more or less success. The attractiveness of a story, Fingarette argues is due to it being a richer catalogue of meaningful events neatly crafted into an artistic whole. Religions use narratives to communicate a philosophy of life to a wider population than any genre of literature can reach and Fingarette provides us with a theory of how the different religions approach the theme or , as he puts the matter, “raw fact”(P.52), of suffering, and claims that given the great differences of approach there can be no “objective description”. It is not clear that it is the intention of these narratives to provide such an objective description: their intention may be more related to prescribing how to deal with suffering and live well. Fingarette then declares this to be a reason why he cannot believe in reason in the way the Enlightenment prescribes. This is indeed a curious reason to give for not believing in reason: suggesting that the “spirit” of Hegel may be haunting this discussion. This distinction between what is subjective and what is objective has become hard currency since the time of Hegel and the retreat from his form of idealism to analytical Philosophy and its belief in the scientific method.

Fingarette, after abandoning reason, aligns himself with a form of relativism in which:

“The facts in such cases rarely suffice to settle the matter. Instead, we settle matters in the light of the general perspectives we favour….”(p 87)

There are many different perspectives for Fingarette and he hails the book of Job as a navigational star in this discussion, supposedly teaching us the fact that there is no Justice in the world and we do not get what we deserve as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Kant would claim. The question, however, is more complex than whether a particular man at a particular point in his life feels he is not getting what he deserves and therefor begins to question his faith. In Ancient Greek Philosophy, the discussion was far more complex, relating diké to areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and arché(principle):- not just over a period of ones life(one swallow does not make a summer) but over a significant portion of ones life. If the relation between these elements are rational then we can reasonably expect eudaimonia–(a good spirited flourishing life(psuche)).

Fingarette then offers us a selection of authors writings defending various aspects of his position, beginning with Tolstoy “My Confession”:

“Thus I had lost my way in the forest of human knowledge, in the light of the mathematical and experimental sciences which opened out for me clear horizons where there could be no home, and in the darkness of Philosophy, plunging me into a greater gloom with every step I took, until I was at last persuaded that there was, and could be, no way out” (p.102)

Tolstoy then turns to life for the answer and ultimately to Christianity which replaces reason with faith. Freud is also invoked in two of his lesser known essays and the result is a very different one to that Fingarette or Tolstoy propose.For Freud there is a form of self knowledge which seeks to know unambiguously our relation to life and to death, not via a blind faith but via the Reality Principle that regulates our appetites, desires and hopes for a future in the work we do to maintain and improve our civilisation. In this account the Greek spirit lives on in the form of arché and the Enlightenment lives on in the motto Sapere Audi!. A fellow Citizen of Vienna, Ludvig Wittgenstein, would embrace all three strands of influence and reawaken the slumbering spirit of Freedom and Progress in Europe. A spirit that has the patience to wait one hundred thousand years for the “kingdom” of ends” to come. A kingdom that will actualise not in the lifetime of many generations but which will shine like a beacon in the forest and enable us to see our way “home”.

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Philosophy and AI: Review of Weizenbaums “Computer Power and Human Reason” Part 5: Kant, Science, and the fallacy of anthromorphization

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Apollo Data Tape by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

The author wishes to rely on a truncated definition of “information” that is disconnected from truth and knowledge and resembles something that relates more to human intuition than to the human conceptualisation of intuitions:

“Thus, however informal a notion of what information is we may appeal to, we must agree that the symbols we mean to discuss here are capable of carrying information.”(P.74).

Chat GPT defines a symbol in a way which is difficult to reconcile with Weizbaums use of the term:

“A symbol is a representation of an idea, concept, or object that carries meaning beyond its literal form. It is a visual, verbal, or abstract representation that stands for something else, often with cultural or contextual significance. Symbols are used in various forms of communication, such as language, art, literature, religion, and culture.Symbols can take many forms, including words, images, gestures, sounds, or objects. For example, a red traffic light is a symbol that represents the instruction to stop, even though it is simply a colored light. Similarly, a national flag represents a country and its values, serving as a symbol of national identity.Symbols can be conventional, where they are widely recognized and agreed upon within a particular culture or community. For instance, a heart shape is commonly understood to symbolize love or affection. Symbols can also be personal or subjective, where they hold specific meaning to an individual or a smaller group.One of the defining characteristics of symbols is that they are arbitrary, meaning there is no inherent or logical connection between the symbol and what it represents. The association between a symbol and its meaning is established through cultural, social, or contextual conventions. These conventions may change over time, leading to variations in the interpretation and significance of symbols across different cultures or periods.Symbols play a crucial role in human communication by condensing complex ideas or concepts into a concise and recognizable form. They provide a powerful means of conveying meaning, evoking emotions, and transmitting cultural values.”

This use of the term “symbol” as a matter of fact is closer to Ricouer’s use, and is also closer to the world of human experience and action than the quantitative idea proposed by the author, namely that of a symbol that carries information about the state of a machine. Ricouer, of course is concerned with the great cosmic, poetic and religious symbols such as the sun, love, and evil which are fundamentally related to Being and the human form of life.

Wiezenbaum has throughout this work referred to Turing machines but has not taken up the matter of the so-called Turing Test, which states that when we can no longer tell the difference between the responses a computer leaves to a stimulus and the responses a human leaves, then we will be forced to agree that the computer is capable of thinking like a human mind and can therefore be said to have a mind. This is the so-called computer theory of thought, and John Searle has provided us with a decisive philosophical argument refuting this claim. Searle urges us to construct a thought experiment in which a human behaves exactly as a computer does in relation to a task such as translating a Chinese sentence into English. The human is given a set of instruction manuals that simulate the information a computer has and manipulates in this task. Let us imagine the human uses these manuals and correctly translates a Chinese sentence into an English sentence. Here the responses of the machine are identical but we are not entitled to say, Searle argues, that the human translator understands Chinese. He is merely doing as the computer does, namely, following instructions. Understanding is an important power of thought This argument can be used in modified form with respect to speaking, reasoning, remembering and a whole repertoire of human mental powers.

Weizenbaum, to some extent, acknowledges the force of these arguments when he claims:

“A computers successful performance is often taken as evidence that it or its programmer understand a theory of its performance. Such an inference is unnecessary and, more often than not, is quite mistaken. “(P.110)

When, however, it comes to imagining particular events and scenarios such as is involved in the design and creation of computer games we are in the world of , as Kant would put the matter, of sensibility and intuition, and the conceptually based law of cause and effect largely determines what is going on in the creation of the game. If the game involves shooting and killing there will also be an instinctive component relating to the vicarious experience which the game represents for the player. What are the consequences for the programmer of living in this world of the imagination, particulars and vicarious experiences? Weizenbaum claims the following:

“Wherever computer centres have become established, that is to say, in countless places in the US, as well as in virtually all other industrial regions of the world, bright young men of dishevelled appearance, often with sunken glowing eyes, can be sitting at computer consoles, their arms tensed, waiting to fire their fingers, already poised to strike at the buttons and keys on which their attention seems to be as riveted as a gambler’s on the rolling dice. When not so transfixed, they often sit at tables strewn with computer printouts over which they pore like possessed students of a cabalistic text. They work until they nearly drop, twenty, thirty hours at a time. Their food, if they arrange it, is brought to them: coffee, Cokes, sandwiches. If possible they sleep on cots near the computer. But only for a few hours-then back to the console or the printouts. Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed shaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. They exist, at least when so engaged, only through and for the computers. These are computer bums, compulsive programmers. They are an international phenomenon.”

This could be an anthropological study of a generation of the “new men” who have abandoned the form of life of generations in favour of the vicarious “form of life” described above. The description is presumably a result of observations over a long period of time. The author uses the term “compulsive” in relation to people featured in the above account and this is an insightful diagnosis given the usual association of obsessive compulsiveness with aggression. Otherwise this could also be a scene from one of the rings of Dante’s hell. Weizenbaum uses the word “hacking” to describe the “work” of these obsessed compulsive programmers, and points out the meaning of the term “hacker” as being to cut irregularly without skill or purpose. Yet, paradoxically, the author wishes to insist that these “hackers” are superb technicians who wish to master their machines. The author continues by comparing the pathological profile of the programmer he has provided with that of the compulsive gambler who uses the knowledge of statistics and “psychology”(?) to engage in his activities. The compulsive gambler leads a more organised form of life than the hacker, it is argued, because for the hacker the game(being at the gambling table) is everything and winning or losing the game is not that important. The compulsive programmer, the author argues is the mad scientist who has been provided with a theatre, his computer, and who then orchestrates his fantasies.

Weizenbaum, in the chapter entitled “Science and the compulsive Programmer”, proceeds to outline a philosophical view of science which believes that it has a methodical right to distort the reality it observes and experiments upon, and furthermore proclaim this distortion to be a “complete and exhaustive” explanation/justification of reality. Part of this picture is seeing an equivalence between animal and human behaviour, with the only difference between them, being accounted for by the complexity of the environments they live in. What the author calls the inner life of man has disappeared in such stimulus-response scenarios, and there is nothing in the behaviour of the scientist to suggest that he might have missed something of importance. The author then suggests that we view man as an “information processor” as part of a theory of human nature which is defined in terms of:

“…any grammatically correct text that uses a set of terms somehow symbolically related to reality.”(P.141)

This is then amended to include laws and their systematic relation to each other. We use our theories, it is argued, to build models which ought to contain the most essential elements of what it is they are “modelling”. Models are then tested against reality suggesting that the theories which they were based on were hypotheses and not laws regulating concepts and objects. The context being referred to here is a context of discovery in which it is reasonable to suppose that the premises are inductive hypotheses awaiting confirmation or falsification. Such a context must rely heavily on the perceptive powers of observation and the active powers of experimenting with the relationships between variables. Theories that belong to the context of explanation/justification, on the other hand, are used very differently: they are used, namely, to justify and explain how particulars are related in reality via concepts, principles and laws which serve as major premises in arguments leading to secure conclusions.The postulate of man being an information-processing creature, then, is not a principle by which we can judge much of his behaviour, but rather an attempt to illegitimately generalise one narrow aspect of his activity beyond the information given.

Memory is a cognitive function that enables us to “go beyond the information given” but given the fact that the basic elements of human memory are sensations and thought-elements that represent reality, these terms can only be metaphorically applied to the activity of machines. Now characterising humans as information processors is clearly a thinly disguised attempt to place machines and humans in the same category, and thereby try to give substance to the myriad of metaphorical terms we use to describe machine activity. The differences between being powered electrically and neurophysiologically are differences that relate to these two systems being different kinds of system with different kinds of activities. The author appears to defend his position on the grounds that we do not, as he claims, have a theory of how humans understand language, and until we do we cannot justify any claims that machines are fundamentally and essentially different entities to human being.

Putting the accounts of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Freud and Wittgenstein and their followers together would seem at the very least to be approaching what Wittgenstein characterised as a “perspicuous representation” of psuché(in particular the human form of life) as determined philosophically by the logical principles of identity, noncontradiction, sufficient reason and grammatical statements revelatory of the essence of what is being discussed. Whether or not calling such a perspicuous representation a “theory”, is of importance, depends of course upon whether one conceives of a theory to be hypotheses related to a model in a context of exploration/discovery or, alternatively, whether it is better to conceive of a theory as a perspicuous representation in a context of explanation/justification. In the case of this latter context we are more concerned with questions relating to the right we have to use a particular statement or concept rather than whether we can relate that concept or statement to some observed aspect of reality in an attempt to verify or confirm a hypothesis.

In the chapter entitled “Artificial Intelligence”, the author proposes the task of building a computer that can learn as a child does. The idea is that this robot that is neither alive nor conscious, will not be able to perceive as we do, but will be able nevertheless to “learn” as we do. The designer of course will use the “model” of man as an “information-processor” which is a hypothesis about the nature of man that ignores almost the entire thousands of year old philosophical tradition of reflecting upon our nature and form of life. The claim is that we will thereby have a language-understanding machine: a highly questionable claim. The author is aware of the difficulties associated with making claims such as this and agrees that even if man is an information-processor he does not process information in the way in which machines do.

A red-herring discussion of intelligence quotient is then introduced resulting in the position that we can not calculate an upper limit for machine intelligence and furthermore that the artificial intelligentsia argue that there is no realm of human thought over which the computer cannot range. This ignores the arguments that Searle produced relating to the differences that exist between human and machine activity. There are periodic admissions of the limitations of machine intelligence to comprehend the kind of knowledge humans have of their bodies, but this is characterised merely in terms of “information lost” which may not be important if one does not possess a human body.

Knowledge of the lessons that are learned via the treatment of human beings by other human beings is also not possible for machine learning. Language is obviously involved in such interaction, because the functionality of human language differs fundamentally from the functionality of machine language. In the latter case remembered information concerns “stored” information, which can only be metaphorically referred to as “memory”. But the discussion spirals out of control when it is maintained that because of the complexity of the computer it is possible to talk about it as an “organism”. Now, returning to Edelmans discussion of the brain, there are many very complex formations of the elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen sulphur phosphate and a few trace metals, but the way in which a complex object such as a computer is constituted of these elements is very different from the way in which an object such as a brain is constituted, and it would of course be as absurd to say that merely because of the complexity of each of these systems, we can call a computer a brain or a brain a computer: and the fundamental reason may in the end be, that this is so because the constitution of organic tissues and structures obeys very different principles, and this in itself is sufficient reason to refuse to call a computer an organism.

When the programmer reconstructs the world imaginatively in the creation of his game, he is not working conceptually with the understanding at every juncture but only at those points where he “imagines” one particular cause to give rise to another very particular effect. The principle/law of cause and effect is being used here, but otherwise he is assembling a configuration of particular events which are simulations of perception. The author then suggests that a computer can learn to protect its parts before protecting other parts of the world with which it is associated, and it is further argued that this might amount to some form of self-consciousness. This, of course, is absurd, principally because a computer cannot possess life and death instincts which are essential elements of the living organism, however we program it to react to threats. The chemistry and biology of fear cannot be simulated by electrical circuits. The author reiterates that he is prepared to think of the complex computer as a “kind of animal”, which is clearly a category mistake involving the fallacy of anthropomorphising non-living parts of the world. A computer is not born and does not die, and this is part of the reason why we do not consider it to possess life. It cannot breathe or cry or laugh or do any of the myriad things that constitute the human form of life. We do not register its birth or its death in archives, and computers do not get married and reproduce. The list of differences just goes on and on. One of the motivations for these absurd discussions is the fact that the author claims that we can never have any final understanding of any theoretical term. Now “life” is a theoretical term which we all understood until a group of “new men” came along and claimed that we do not understand life, and because of this fact we might as well say that a machine is alive, Neither of these claims are true. Metaphor is essentially a relation between something we do understand and something we are searching for an explanation for(a linguistic form operating in a context of exploration/discovery). Logically there has to be something that we fully understand before we can claim that something else is like this thing. “Man is a wolf” is a metaphor that means to focus on the likeness between animal species. Here there is a fundamental truth expressed in Aristotle’s “Man is a rational animal capable of discourse” and this definition focuses on three essential elements of human nature which are related non metaphorically. The knowledge of this essence specifying definition is presupposed in the above metaphorical assertion. There is, on the contrary, no basis for the assertion that man is machine-like unless one commits the fallacy of anthropomorphisation.

The author then claims that information is “stored” in the muscles and joints of the human being. One question that can, and should be asked is, whether this information is electrical, chemical or sensation-like. This claim is then associated with a further claim that a computer can, in principle, simulate “the entire network of cells that constitutes the human body”. This qualification, “in principle”, is then related to the assertion that we do not possess the neurophysiological knowledge to design such a computer and wont do so for hundreds of years. The fact of the matter is, that we do possess enough philosophical knowledge to know that such an impossibility is not a scientific problem but rather a philosophical problem, that is resolved by invoking the fallacy of anthropomorphisation. In other words this “possibility, in principle”, is in fact not conceptually possible. The counterargument against this position is attributed to the artificial intelligentsia who assert that the difference between human and computer thought is “unproven”. One could only accept such a position if one believed that the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are not “proof”. This of course is the position of the “new men”.

The author, in this chapter entitled “Artificial Intelligence”, engages in a discussion of the intuitive nature of the right hemisphere of the brain and the conceptual/logical nature of the left hemisphere. The author does not recognise the historical footprint of the Philosopher, Kant, who sees intuition to be something we are in immediate contact with, and conceptual understanding to be something mediated by the concepts of the understanding/judgement. Intuitions without concepts are blind and concepts without intuitions are empty, Kant claimed on the basis of very little knowledge of the brain, but in accordance with hylomorphic principles. The anti-rationalism of the artificial intelligentsia has been evident in several chapters and is again confirmed here when it is asserted that the artificial intelligentsia believe that

“every attempt to solve lifes problems by entirely rational means always fails.”(P.221)

A false choice of contrary alternatives is presented as evidence for the above, namely that the left hemisphere can operate alone independently of experience. Without any knowledge of the structures and functions of the brain, philosophers since Socrates have urged that we transcend unnecessary appetites and emotions by examining them conceptually and rationally in the light of their place in our conception of what we believe a life ought to be like(areté, diké,arché, eudaimonia). Weizenbaum rejects the above account, not via an appeal to philosophical recourse to a rational world-view, but rather by an appeal to calculating reason which somehow mysteriously acknowledges the awe we feel in the presence of the “spectacle of the whole man”(P.221). Such a spectacle would, of course, need to be conceptually mediated and explained/justified by means of rational principles and grammatical remarks.

A discussion of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle ensues and we then witness a frontal attack on the Philosopher Leibniz and his claim that if we knew the position and velocity of every elementary particle in the universe we would be able to predict the entire future of the universe. Heisenberg, according to Weisenbaum, proved that we can never know the velocity and position of every particle, because of the micro-size of the instruments needed which would themselves be subjected to the random Brownian motion discovered by Einstein. This is a dispute between those that concentrate their theories on the quantitative aspects of nature with calculating reason, and it is not clear how this kind of reasoning has any relevance to the conditions of the possibility of other types of judgement such as substantial and qualitative judgements which would be used, for example, to characterise the essence-specifying of man as a rational animal capable of discourse. Wittgenstein, in turn, would object to the generalisation of the language games being used in calculative reasoning, beyond the scope of their proper application. The follower of Kant would acknowledge that the prediction of the particular physical states of the universe in the future, is an uncertain venture if these states will be decided on the grounds of microcosmic elements. and we ought to recall in this context that Kant was a formidable scientific presence during the Enlightenment.

For Kant the quantitative, qualitative, and substantial aspects of scientific activity were seamlessly integrated in his metaphysical account of Natural Science. We encounter this “perspicuous representation”in an essay entitled “The Unity of Kant’s Thought in his Philosophy of Corporeal Nature”. The essay begins with an account of what Kant called the transcendental unity of apperception which, it is claimed, is the same as consciousness–an active state of mind intimately connected with thought in the form of “I think”. This is a very different state of mind to that of sensibility, which is a passive form of experience that essentially merely “receives” intuitions from various sources. This act of apperception has the function of taking up a manifold of intuitive representations:

“synthesizing the manifold of sensible intuition is exactly what is meant by saying that apperception is an act of spontaneity. For the moment, let us say that such synthesizing activity of the mind means that unity can be bestowed upon a manifold of perceptions by the mind’s going through that manifold, taking it up, and connecting it according to a concept which serves as a rule. For example the concept of cause and effect can serve as a rule for synthesizing a manifold, e.g. the perceptions involved in observing a stove heating a room.”(Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, translated by Ellngton, J, Hacket Publishing, Indiana,1985)

The complex relation of the sensible part of the mind to the conceptually mediated understanding which is responsible for thought, is outlined here. The imagination is involved in this process of connecting the sensible representations to the conceptual representation of an object. This is part of an account that explains or justifies the role of knowledge in our lives, a role that cannot be reduced to calculation or the activity of the imagination. A computer has no biologically based chemical sensory system which lays at the foundation of all our experience. Programmers might attempt to simulate the consequences of such a system, but such a simulation could never become aware of itself in the form of self consciousness that only higher forms of life possess. The embodiment of humans with a system of organs connected to a configuration of limbs, is the hylomorphic philosophical foundation for the essence specifying definition of man as a rational animal capable of discourse.

Kant sees the categories of the understanding to be judgement-functions which are both constitutive of thought and regulate it, yet are necessarily related in various ways, not just to the sensations that are part of sensible intuition, but also to the apriori forms of intuition, namely space and time. The computer may be a part of the space time continuum but it is neither aware of the space it is in, nor is it aware of the passage of time, (the present, the past, and the future). This awareness of space and time may well be achieved principally through measurement and therefore is constitutive of the quantitative judgements we make, judgements which are intimately related to mathematics and every judgement might be made on the foundations of our intuitive awareness of space and time:– but both substantial judgements(essence specifying judgements) and qualitative judgements are conceptually mediated. Even quantitative judgements, if they are going to become part of the canon of knowledge, may need to relate to the concept of cause-effect, and knowledge claims must be conceptually mediated and related to principles of reason.

Kant has the following account of the different levels of the activity of science, which Ellington refers to as the architectonic structure of the Kantian account:

“When a rock is thrown in a direction parallel to the ground, we know by experience that its path is a curvilinear line ending on the ground some yards away: how many yards away depends on how strong the pitcher is. The exact nature of the curvilinear path depends on the mass of the rock, the velocity it attains by means of the force the pitcher imparts when he throws it, the resistance of the air through which it passes and the pull of gravity upon it. When these things are known, we can plot the exact path by laws of physics, which are generalisations from many experiments. But we are also told that if the air exerted no resistance and if gravity exerted no pull, then the rock would keep on going forever in a straight line…This is Newtons first law of motion…Thus Newtons law seems to be of a character different from that of the aforementioned laws of determining the paths of projectiles. Furthermore there are Philosophers who tell us that every change has a cause. This law is even more general than Newtons first law of motion, for this one covers not only the case of material bodies that stay put or else keep going in a straight line with uniform velocity unless some external cause acts on them, but also the case of living things that act according to an internal cause…( a lion rushes after an antelope not because a big puff of wind propels him but because he has a desire to eat.)”(P X1)

Now Weizenbaum has pointed out in his description of the life compulsive programmers or hackers lead, that they prefer food to be brought to them and the desire for food seems to be overwhelmed by their compulsive activity—making them more like the computers they use than they perhaps imagine. What we see above is an architectonic of activity that is constituted and regulated by laws(arché) ranging from the experiential to the transcendental to the metaphysical . Here we can clearly see how seamlessly the world of thought is connected to the world of sensibility, and that the most important aspect of this process is organised by the categories of the understanding/judgement and the principles of reason embedded in a context of explanation/justification. Quantitative judgements play their role as does mathematical calculative reasoning, but there s no confusion or attempt to reduce different forms of judgement to one quantitative form.

Gödels incompleteness theorem is then used to call into question even the major premises of Mathematical and logical thinking on the grounds that they cannot be proved, thus confusing the logical difference between grounds which are conditions and what these conditions are conditions of. One ground or major premise often contains assumptions relating to other “hidden” premises, or are related to other grounds in ways which one may fail to appreciate.

The author notes that Cultures differ from each other, but fails to note that the kind of civilisation building activities that build the infrastructure of such civilisations/cultures are generic, e.g. the use of tools to build and make artifacts and the use of language( and the grammar of that language). The Greek norms of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time) and diké(getting what one deserves) are also essential parts of enduring cultures ruled by law and principles. Concentrating on the empirical -experiential differences one can find when comparing civilisations and cultures is not a ground for impeaching the validity of essence defining activities. The way in which Japanese relate to each other in certain social contexts does not change the fact that when they lose something of great value to them they will be sad(or pathologically angry), and when they achieve a goal after a long period of attempting to achieve that goal they will be happy(or manifest a limited repertoire of pathological responses). There may be cultural differences in expressing these emotions or pathologies but neither emotions nor pathologies can be reduced to the behaviour expressing them: their circumstances and accompanying physiology are just as important factors as is the grammar of the language related to these emotions and pathologies(the way in which they are related to language-games).

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Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture: Unity of European Culture

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Europe and Africa From the International Space Station
Europe and Africa From the International Space Station by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.0

The series of talks recorded in this chapter were addressed to a German audience. Eliot, the poet and editor of a famous literary journal, the Criterion, was invited to speak on the theme of European unity, and he begins his talk, somewhat provocatively with the claim that English is the language that is:

“the richest for the purposes of writing poetry”(P.110)

Eliot then proceeds to outline the myriad of European influences upon the structure of the language: its German foundation, a Scandinavian element, a Norman/French element, a succession of later French elements, a Celtic element, and elements of Latin. Eliot also notes:

“the influence of generations of study of Latin and Greek”(P.111)

Eliot himself, we know, insofar as his poetry was concerned was influenced by poetry from the East, classical literature from Greece and Rome, and various translations of the Bible.

He again takes up the issue of the relation between politics and culture, and regrets the tendency to confuse these two areas of concern. He points to two examples: firstly nationalism, and secondly a dogmatic idealist view of a future world-culture. He also takes the opportunity to criticise Hitlers Germany for assuming:

“that every other culture than that of Germany was either decadent or barbaric.”(P.118)

Eliot elaborates upon his objection to the idealistic vision of a possible future world-organisation by claiming that the project is reminiscent of many social engineering products, all of which fail to acknowledge the importance of the organic nature of culture. Social engineering suggests, of course, that there is a materialistic mechanistic aspect of organising society in the spirit of techné, which operates on different principles to those related to epistemé(knowledge) and diké(justice). Eliot formulates his interesting mixed position on this issue in the following way:

“But culture is something that must grow: you cannot build a tree, you can only plant it, and care for it, and want for it to mature in its due time, and when it is grown you must not complain if you find that from an acorn has come an oak and not an elm-tree. And a political structure is partly construction, and partly growth; partly machinery, and the same machinery, if good, is equally good for all peoples.”(P.119)

Eliot attempts a definition of the use of the word “culture” and begins this account with a distinction between “the material organisation” of Europe and “the spiritual organism” of Europe:

“If the latter dies then what you organise will not be Europe, but merely a mass of human beings speaking several different languages”(P.119)

Post WWII judgements of the developments in Europe during the first half of the 20th century, ranged from the extreme claim that Europe had committed suicide by unleashing two world wars upon the world, to the less extreme view that the world wars were in fact cathartic moments necessary for the defence of freedom and democracy for the whole world. Seen from the vantage point of 2022 both the EU and the UN can be seen, at least in the long term perspective, as institutions embodying the spirit of European freedom and democracy but there are nevertheless short term concerns that the spirit is not exactly flourishing. It would not be true to claim, however, that this spirit is dead. It would also not be true to claim, that the spirit of totalitarianism and autocracy is dead or even dying. Some commentators view the situation much as Freud did in 1929 as a life/death(eros, thanatos) struggle with the forces of darkness.

Eliot claims that European culture possesses a variety in unity, which is not mechanical, but organic and natural. He characterises this state of affairs in the following manner:

“By “Culture”, then, I mean first of all what the anthropologists mean: the way of life of a particular people living together in one place. That culture is made visible in their arts, in their social system, in their habits and customs, in their religion. But these things added together do not constitute the culture, though we often speak for convenience as if they did. These things are simply the parts into which a culture can be anatomised, as a human body can.”(P.120)

Gestalt Psychology might have been on Eliot’s mind when he wrote the above words. Atomism, associationism, and sensation-psychology were all “reductionist” positions rejected by the Gestalt school in favour of a thesis that “The whole is greater than the parts”. The school was composed of principally, scientists who were dissatisfied with the results of atomism and reductionism in the arena of Psychology. They focussed principally on problems of perception and interpreted the workings of this largely sensible function in terms of the workings of the brain and the “hypothesis” that “the parts of any whole are defined by the whole”. It is also of interest to note that almost the entire school were forced to leave Germany by 1935. Underlying these seemingly holistic theses, however, is a reliance upon the role of the brain that was regarded as a material source of psychic phenomena. This mechanistic view followed essentially mechanistic principles and promoted a physicalist-functionalist view of the relation between the brain and the mind.

Eliot elaborates upon this theme of the spirit of culture by claiming that this spirit is shared by artists, poets, philosophers, politicians and workers alike. Part of what is shared is the language the people speak and Eliot characterises this in the following way:

“Generally speaking, the same language means thinking and feeling, and having emotions rather differently from people who use a different language.” (P.120-121)

So, even if Europeans speak different languages, the different groups do influence one another. What, then, is the common feature that binds these groups together. Eliot argues that it is primarily religion( “a common tradition of Christianity” P.122) that is responsible for unifying these groups. This entails that the Culture of Europe would disintegrate with the disappearance of the Christian faith. Eliot does not specifically mention Ethics in this discussion, but surely Christian morality must also be a key feature of this unity. He does, however, refer to the unifying role of European Universities with their common system of academic standards embodying a respect for epistemé, arché, diké. A significant percentage of the population sojourn for a number of years behind the walls of these institutions. These institutions, in Eliot’s view, ought to be independent of government control, especially insofar as the academic standards relating to truth, knowledge and wisdom are concerned.

Eliot, speaking during the darkest hours for Europe, concludes this essay darkly with the warning that the spiritual possessions of cultural Europe are “in imminent peril”.

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Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” Education and Culture

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Jurgen Habermas in his work “Theory of Communicative Action” presents a modern primarily functionalist sociological account of action and discourse. He uses systems theory and an instrumental model of practical reasoning to describe/explain/justify human activities in a human life-world. Habermas differentiates the systems of Politics, Economics, the Socio-Cultural and Religion in terms of “steering mechanisms” of power, money, language, and belief in a transcendent form of being. Habermas argues furthermore that, insofar as our modern world is concerned, there is what he refers to as a colonisation and rationalisation of our life-world by these systems. By life-world Habermas means our face to face interactions in society and our personal sphere. His account has been accused of being dualistic and many criticisms have focussed on just this aspect of his theory, questioning, for example, the philosophical basis of the distinction between life-world and systems operating in accordance with pseudo-causal “mechanisms”.

Eliot, in his discussion of Education distinguishes between the definition of the term, and the “purpose” of education, implying that the purpose is not necessarily a part of the definition(as is the case with Aristotelian hylomorphic essence-specifying definitions). Eliot turns to the OED for his definition of the use of the word:

“The process of bringing up(young persons)”: “the systematic instruction, schooling, training given to the young(and by extension to adults) in preparation for the work of life: “culture or development of powers, formation of character.”

It does appear, however, as if the Purpose” of education(in the sense of the Greek “telos”), is a part of the above definition of the use of the word “education”. Eliot’s argument against “purpose” may stem from the way in which several of the authors he considers, conceive of the matter. He also refers to the thoughts from a religious conference held in Oxford(1937):

“Education is the process by which the community seeks to open its life to all the individuals within it and enable them to take their part in it. It attempts to pass on to them its culture, including the standards by which it would have them live. Where that culture is regarded as final, the attempt is made to impose it on younger minds. Where it is viewed as a stage in development, younger minds are trained both to receive it and to criticise and improve upon it. This culture is composed of various elements. It runs from rudimentary skill and knowledge up to the interpretation of the universe and of man by which the community lives.”(P.96 in Eliot, “Notes”)

There is a discernible ambiguity in the above quote, insofar as the connection between a work-process and its result is concerned, and this once again raises the issue of a hylomorphic account of what amounts to an actualisation of a form of life. In such a process, Aristotle maintains, there is no distinction between the process at work and its “potential” result, and this claim is connected to another assumption that, insofar as living organisms are concerned, there is no viable logical distinction between things which result in good consequences, and what is essentially good-in-itself. It is also important in this context to embrace the Aristotelian claim that society itself is an organic phenomenon that is actualising its potential over several stages, over a long period of time(in an analogous fashion to the actualisation processes of life-forms). This is one hylomorphic condition for human life in a human life-world.

Eliot notes that culture itself has not been defined, and rejects the identification of “culture” with the transmission of skills and knowledge. Knowledge(epistemé), on the Aristotelian and Kantian accounts, would certainly incorporate the above mentioned “interpretations of the universe and of man”. This definitively includes knowledge of the self that the Delphic oracle sought after, in the challenge thrown down to all mankind to “know thyself”. There is also obvious reference to the knowledge of the universe which, in accordance with Aristotelian metaphysics, requires learning and understanding of all the theoretical, practical, and productive sciences as well as the metaphysical framework for these sciences which consists of 4 kinds of change, three principles of change, 4 causes of change, in 3 different media(space, time and matter). If the purpose of education is to transmit culture and the above is an outline of what needs to be transmitted in the form of principles of reason, understanding, and judgement, then the task is one of immense magnitude and in accordance with the modern concept of “lifelong learning”.

Eliot takes up William Godwins utilitarian answer to the question “What is the purpose of education”, namely, happiness , which Eliot claims:

“is often associated with the full development of personality” (P.97)

In the context of this discussion one may be forgiven for asking the question “How is happiness related to the full development of the personality?”, especially in the light of the Kantian objection to the ethical use of the principle of happiness. Happiness, for Kant, is the principle of self-love in disguise, and because of its narcissistic character, it cannot respect the universal freedom and ethical rationality of man. The happiness of a man is a singular individual event, and the objects of, or reasons for, this state can vary for both the same individual at different times of his/her life, as well as vary from one individual to another.

The OED defines the use of the word personality in the following 3 ways:

The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individuals distinctive character

The qualities that make someone interesting or popular

A celebrity

The words “Individual” and “distinctive”, suggest that the function of the word, “personality”, is to distinguish or differentiate one individual from another, rather than the strategy of subsuming a number of individuals under one category, which is related to the work of conceptualisation functioning in accordance with the mental faculties of understanding and judgement. Kant’s notion of aesthetic judgement, we ought to recall, is to search for a generalisation that covers an individual case. The “characteristics” or “qualities”, referred to above will undoubtedly include the virtues(areté) that both Aristotle and Kant proposed in their respective ethical investigations. We should also recall that Aristotle was one of the first philosophers to argue for a widespread public educational system, and that he believed that the young should begin their education, firstly, by imitating the virtues of the elders, and secondly , by using the “golden mean” principle.

Kant, on the other hand, refers to the absolute of a good will regulated by the categorical imperative, which universally challenges everyone to treat every human being(including themselves) as ends-in-themselves: in other words, we ought to act toward each other and ourselves with dignity. Kant admittedly uses a technical term, namely, “moral personality” to characterise the ethical activity of the will and this probably rests on the idea of a “person” conceived generally as a human being.

Otherwise both the terms “personality” and “intelligence” are theoretical terms embedded in a diverse array of psychological theories. Personality mostly retains its qualitative character, but is “reduced” to a number of traits, the number of which differs with different theories. Intelligence is also reduced to “factors”(e.g. general and specific), which are embedded in an essentially quantitative framework. The personality theory of Freud is a hylomorphic exception to this rule, connecting as it does, instincts to stages of development actualising over time, agencies with responsibility for specific arenas of psychic function, and principles regulating such functioning. Freudian theory, however, focuses essentially upon pathological patterns of functioning, and is in search of a “medical” cure in the form of a “talking cure”. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Freud’s psychoanalytical approach was ” freeing” mental patents from restrictive psychiatric diagnoses and treatments, and became known as “the moral treatment” or the “talking cure”. The philosophical background of Freudian theory(connected to his claim that his Psychology was “Kantian”) is hylomorphic metaphysics, which is constituted of 4 kinds of change, 3 principles of change , 4 causes of change, in 3 different media(space, time, and matter). This metaphysics is expressed epistemologically, in three groups of sciences, namely, theoretical science, practical science, and productive science. Medicine obviously has connections to both theoretical science and productive science, and psychoanalysis shares this connection, but perhaps also requires the moral principles of practical science for the identification of non pathological patterns of behaviour. The metaphysical background of Freuds theory, perhaps explains the possibility of projecting many of the principles and concepts on patterns of community and cultural activity. Freud, in his later theorising, expressed these wider concerns in works such as “Group Psychology and the Ego”, “The Future of an Illusion”, “Civilisation and its discontents” and in several briefer articles on religion and art.

Eliot takes up the idea, raised by several authors that the “purpose” of education is democracy in the modern sense of the word, but this sense is not clearly characterised by these authors. One of the tasks of such an education, it is argued, is to prepare citizens to play a part in the democratic system they inhabit. Eliot, in this context, also discusses the economic principle of “equality of opportunity”, but there is no suggestion of, or reference to, the categorical Philosophical principle of equality implied by the categorical imperative or law that one ought to treat all people as ends-in-themselves. This broader principle will of course include equality of opportunity, but it will also include equality in the eyes of the law. This latter form of equality was qualified by Aristotle’s principle of formal justice in which people ought to be treated equally unless there was a good reason not to do so. What Aristotle meant here can be illustrated by activity in the economic system: if, for example, Jill carries more water up the hill than Jack there is absolutely no reason why she should not receive more renumeration for the task than Jack.

Equality, for Kant, also includes equal human rights for everybody living under any form of government, and this is both a legal and a moral imperative. On this kind of account, our elected political representatives are meant, not merely to represent the totality of these rights, but also have the task of defending these rights both morally and legally. Kant makes a distinction between active citizens, who have the right to vote, and passive citizens, who do not, but he insists otherwise upon everyone in the state being equal in terms of their humanity, and he also insists upon these citizens entitlement to the rights that will ensure that they are treated as ends-in-themselves. All men, Kant argues, are their own master, and thereby possess the innate right of freedom. Education, as a consequence, must respect these rights.

The problem with the more limited notion of equality of opportunity, Eliot argues, is the Milton dogma which argues that:

“superiority is always superiority of intellect that some infallible method can be designed for the detection of intellect, and that a system can be devised which will infallibly nourish it”(P.102)

It is not clear whether the form of elitism Eliot embraces, subscribes to this dogma, because he ends this discussion with the comment that Milton’s dogma can neither be proved nor disproved. Eliot also ends his discussion, on the issue of equality of opportunity, by claiming that this too is a dogma that can only be implemented if the family is no longer respected(P.103), and the state takes over responsibility for a universal public education. Eliot also notes in this discussion that the class system of society is disintegrating and this allows governments to exploit the ignorance and appetites of the masses. These factors give rise to the following problem:

“Education in the modern sense implies a disintegrated society, in which it has to come to be assumed that there must be one measure of education according to which everyone is educated simply more or less.Hence education has become an abstraction”(P.105)

It is no longer clear, Eliot argues, that education in the classical sense which he characterises as:

“everything that goes to form the good individual in the good society”(P.105-6)

is what is being provided by the Ministry of Education or indeed even if that is what they have in mind. Part of the responsibility for the transmission of culture in accordance with the above formula, must lie with the family, and the broader civic environment which includes media and sport. Politics, therefore, must remain a limited force embedded in a larger culture. According to Habermas, the steering mechanism of the system of politics is power. Power, of course, can be used in ignorance or with evil intent, and this too is an argument for the limitation of politics, which Habermas argues has “colonised” our life-world to the detriment of humanity. Both Eliot and Habermas believe that the greater the presumption that Politics is the cultural transformative force in our society, the greater the likelihood of culture suffering as a consequence of “colonisation”.

Education, as far as Eliot is concerned contributes to the malaise of a deteriorating culture in which standards are being systematically lowered over time(P.108)—-for example, subjects essential for the nurturing of culture are no longer being studied. For Eliot the barbarian is standing waiting at the gates of the city. The future looks bleak and the possibilities of changing our situation are minimal:

“I have maintained that we cannot directly set about to create or improve culture.”(P.108)

All we can do, Eliot argues, in utilitarian spirit, is to “will the means”(P.108) to change what we can. This cynicism is connected to Eliot’s theme that much of our culture is unconscious. Freud, too, was cynical about the possibility of bringing repressed material to the light of consciousness. Freud, writing in 1929, saw much pathology embedded in the unconscious of culture, as enormous aggressive forces were being prepared to be unleashed upon Europe and the world. Eliot, writing “Notes” in 1943 was experiencing the reality of these aggressive forces.Eliot’s “therapy” is a form of “talking cure” in which he proposes that we pause to examine what the word “culture” means, presumably in the light of his writings. Wittgenstein, too, would subscribe to the therapy of a systematic examination of “language-games” embedded in “forms of life”, if we are to avoid a collective bewitching of our intellectual powers. The power of language is obviously an important part of the processes involved in the transmission of culture. Being clear about its use in the agora would, on this account, seem to be an important element of our understanding of ourselves and our universe.

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Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes toward a definition of Culture: Politics and Culture

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The Political Philosophies of Aristotle and Kant are metaphysical, that is they have so-called “first-principles” operating in the political domain. Both Aristotle and Kant also have cultural commitments that provides us with a metaphysics of science(epistemé), Art(techné), Religion, and Ethics. Both Philosophers are rationalists and believe that the telos of areté is eudaimonia(the good-spirited flourishing life).

Eliot, in his analysis, does not, however, reflect on the problems of Culture or Politics in the above rationalist terms. He, like the OED, prioritises the arts in his discussions. The OED defines the use of the word “culture in the following way:

  1. The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively( a refined understanding or appreciation of this)
  2. The customs, institutions, and achievement of a particular nation, people, or group.

The followers of Aristotle and Kant would of course maintain that the metaphysical accounts of the sciences(theoretical, practical, and productive), together with their accounts of the higher mental powers of understanding, judgement and reasoning would cover all aspects of the OED definition.

Institutions that are “rational” are governed partly by a categorical imperative which helps to constitute the “refined understanding” referred to above. Art would, on this account, appear to be more related to customs, than official institutions, but we can argue that learning to become an artist to some extent can be regarded as a form of institutional activity. Schools of art, for example, run by a master might qualify as an institutional form of learning ones craft. The real test of a school, however, is that standard provided by the Platonic school of Athens where the achievement of the master Plato was in fact surpassed by his pupil Aristotle. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, forms the third party of this triumvirate of great philosophers within a relatively short span of time, a fact often attributed to the “Culture” of ancient Greece formed by areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis.

Eliot notes the curious practices of governments to establish bureaus to administrate “cultural” activities and he suggests that this fails to acknowledge the fact that one of the purposes of politics is to serve the larger concerns of culture. He also notes that not everybody takes an “active interest” (P.83) in public matters. This appears to be an elitist view confirmed by the following remark:

“The governing elite of the nation as a whole, would consist of those whose responsibility was inherited with their affluence and position, and whose forces were constantly increased, and often led, by rising individuals of exceptional talent.”(P.84)

This position leans more toward Platonic elitism where the philosopher-kings were the proposed elite, but subject to Platonic control-mechanisms which prevented the acquisition of wealth and the building of families. Aristotle, the pupil, did not embrace this form of elitism, proposing instead and enlightened middle class which is in fact more in line with modern political trends in Europe.

Eliot. does, however, propose a diverse elite in which people are selected from different realms of activity, e.g.

“the political, the scientific, the artistic, the philosophical, and the religious”(P.84)

Eliot also complains about the fact that the professional politician of his time does not seem to have the leisure-time for serious reading(P.86), nor is there time for the exchange of ideas and information with leaders from other regions of the culture. Eliot refers to Plato and Aristotle, claiming that they were not concerned with predicting the future. This fails to appreciate the fundamental intention of the good which for both philosophers must be good-in-itself and good in its consequences. Eliot’s remarks also fail to acknowledge 1. the role of the mechanism of the “golden mean” in developing the virtues of the citizens of the society, and 2. the role of the “middle class” in avoiding the prophesied ruin and destruction of all things created by humans(oracular “prediction”). Eliot clearly undervalues the metaphysics of politics and ethics that we find in the work of Aristotle: a metaphysics which presupposes the hylomorphic essence-specifying definition of human nature(namely, rational animal capable of discourse). Eliot argues, on the contrary, that modern politics does not have a theory of human nature, but rather blindly assumes that human beings are malleable entities that can be reshaped to fit any political form(P.88). Modern political theory, it is argued, does not concern itself with individuals, but only the masses and the impersonal forces that moves such masses. On such a view, culture becomes an irrelevant by-product of more serious political activity.

In this context, Eliot like many of his generation, speculates upon the meaning of the Russian Revolution and the Russian argument for the superiority of a non-European way of life and form of consciousness. Eliot claims further:

“Today we have become culture-conscious in a way which nourishes nazism, communism, and nationalism, all at once”(P.90)

Imperialism is also discussed and Eliot points out that the first British rulers spent long periods of time living in India and seriously attempting to understand the mentality of the Indian people. This, contrasted with the later rulers from Whitehall, who spent only short periods in India, and spent their time and efforts in attempting to establish certain British institutions such as the British educational system and British law. They did not, however, make any attempt to uproot the national culture, and there was no attempt to establish Christianity. There was instead, an abiding acknowledgement of the importance of the Indian religions. There was no corruption, brutality or maladministration present in the British form of colonialism. Indeed Eliot points out:

“the most relevant criticism, or abuse, of British imperialism often comes from representatives of society which practise a different form of imperialism.”(P.92)

Eliot, born in America adds the following striking observation:

“America has tended to impose its way of life chiefly in the course of doing business, and creating a taste for its commodities. Even the humblest material artefact which is the product and the symbol of a particular civilisation, is an emissary of the culture out of which it comes; to particularise only by mentioning that influential and inflammable article the celluloid film: and this American expansion may be also, in its way, the cause of disintegration of cultures which it touches.”(P.92)

Freud in his work from 1929, “Civilisation and its Discontents” shared similar views on both Russian and American culture. For Eliot, however, it is Russian imperialism that is the newest form, and best suited to the mentality of our modern era. It works, Eliot argues via the creation of satellite states which are given the impression of independence, but are in reality controlled by Moscow. Any sub-culture which threatens the Russian motherland culture is “eliminated”(P.93). Eliot ends this chapter with the Freudian observation that Culture can never be “wholly conscious”(P.94). Any conscious planning of culture therefore becomes either otiose or counter-productive, Eliot concludes.

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Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” Cults and Sects

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Eliot claims to be adopting a sociological view when he is engaged upon the discussion of the unity and diversity of religious movements, and this is somewhat surprising considering his philosophical training and background. Perhaps his reluctance to use hylomorphic or critical analyses is rooted in the marginalisation of Religion that occurred as a result of the anti-metaphysical movements of logical atomism and logical positivism. For many Analytical Philosophers, Religion became an epistemological problem, rather than an issue related to “Justification by Faith”. This particular approach failed to emphasise, (as was the case in Kantian Critical Philosophy), the intimate metaphysical relation between ethical laws and faith.

Eliot argues that the more primitive state of the civilisation concerned, the greater the “identity-relation” between Religion and Culture. His argument is epistemological:

“A higher religion is more difficult to believe. For the more conscious becomes the belief, so more conscious becomes the unbelief: indifference, doubt and scepticism appear…In the higher religion it is more difficult to make behaviour conform to the moral law of the religion. A higher religion imposes a conflict, a division, torment and struggle within the individual.”(P.67)

The claim that a higher religion is more difficult to believe, may not be an accurate representation of the state of affairs Eliot is referring to . The above quote reminds one of the Kantian diagnosis of the pathological destructive presence of scepticism, dogmatism and indifference in our Cultures. Kant’s diagnosis was then complemented with a prognostic treatment in the form of his critical philosophy. The relation of critical Philosophy to Aristotelian hylomorphic philosophy is also important in the understanding of Kant’s view of Culture, which is a variation on the themes of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis. We also note the presence of the term “consciousness”, and the Cartesian doubt expressed in the above quote indicates that, for Kant, we are dealing with the pathologies of indifference or scepticism when we are engaged upon the task of sociologically explaining and justifying the unity and diversity of religious movements.

The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches are obviously institutions grounded in History and Faith, in ways in which modern sects are not, but it is not clear that the existence of this phenomenon of the fragmentation of institutions can be “sociologically” explained. Curiously, the “explanation” of “consciousness”, Eliot provides, accords well with that provided by Jean-Paul Sartre the Existentialist. On Sartre’s account, consciousness is equated with “nothingness” or “negation”. This nothingness or negation, for Sartre, is a conscious response to a question. Negation, Sartre argues, is necessary for the process of differentiating objects from one another, and it is part of our awareness of reality: we say categorically, for example, that “Pierre is not in the café”, and this in the end rests on an explanation of the role of consciousness in our awareness of reality. That the “unbelief”, as Eliot puts the matter, should occur, because of the belief, is a complex claim, and it is difficult to fully understand the meaning of such a claim. Similarly, it is difficult to understand exactly what Eliot means when he maintains that it is difficult to correlate behaviour with moral law insofar as the higher religions are concerned. What is at issue for both Aristotle and Kant in the context of this discussion is primarily areté and diké, and the self control implied by both terms. In the case of Aristotle we can clearly see the operation of the methodology of the “golden mean”, and in the case of Kant, we are told that it is “self-love”, or narcissism that “tempts” the agent to make some excuse to exempt themselves from the reach of the moral law. We should note here that this temptation is a particular temptation, and not a general attempt to question the validity of the moral law as such. If, then, the two commandments of the New Testament can function as the basis for moral and religious laws, there is no obvious reason to question the justification and universality of the moral commandments on general sceptical grounds, e.g. “They may not be “good” . There is however good reason to “believe in” the validity of the moral commandments, given that they recommend a form of life that does appear rationally defensible. The “belief-in” the religious commandments, on the other hand, may be a more complex matter given the fact that they refer to a transcendent being. This reference requires characterising this being in terms of an essence specification. No easy task.

Clerical sects are less likely than clerical cults to promote the policy of abandoning moral commandments, and both are also more likely to recommend a simpler form of life which distances itself from contemporary society. Mystical sects and cults can, of course, reach further back in time toward pagan belief systems which may, for example, worship idols of animals. The paradox of such movements is that their intuition that, all is not well with society, may have some substance. The response of regression to a more primitive form of life, however, does not appear to be a useful response to the problem of modern discontentment. On these grounds, it is not clear that it would be correct to regard the Protestant split from the Roman Catholic faith as sectarian, simply because the grounds for the split were more to do with the way in which the Church abused its privileges in society, than any disagreement over the “form” of the moral and religious commandments. The Lutheran questioning of institutional practices such as the “monetisation of faith”, is, in fact, an implication of the Socratic/Christian attitude toward the colonisation by the values of ekonomos of human relations in general. We know, for example, that Jesus led a frugal life, and we also know what he thought about Judas and the thirty pieces of silver he received for betraying his leader. Socrates also led a relatively simple life, and although he never objected to the role of money as such , he did object to what he viewed as the reversal of values that can occur when what was of secondary importance in a human transaction becomes the primary focus. He took the example of a doctor who, as a part of Greek teaching and tradition, had an ethical responsibility to save the life of any patient whose life was in immediate danger. For Socrates, if the doctor refused treatment on the grounds that the patient could not afford to pay him, then this would be a reversal of values.

Protestantism, of course, itself suffered from the process of fragmentation into sects. Eliot sees this process as instantiating something positive, namely “diversification” which, from one point of view, can be seen to be a negative phenomenon compromising the value of unifying so many people as possible under one institutional umbrella. On Eliot’s account, too much unity, can be connected to “cultural decay”(P.70). This can also be the case, Eliot argues, with extreme diversification . This suggests the operation either of Hegelian dialectical thinking, or more realistically, the operation of the Aristotelian process of the “golden mean” in the name of areté.

Eliot mentions the thirty years war in which Catholics and Protestants fought over their religious differences, and he points out that Protestantism, in its more modern secular form, is not prone to take up arms to defend its version of the Christian faith. It is in this context that Eliot specifically claims that the sociologist ought to refrain from making “value-judgements”, because this runs the risk of succumbing to a theological form of thinking that cannot ultimately be defended. Given these comments, it becomes unclear how Eliot would view Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysically-laden justifications for value-judgements. In this context we need clarification about what the term “metaphysics” means. Both in Aristotle and Kant it merely refers to “first principles”—so the metaphysics of morals that Kant writes about, means nothing more nor less, than the “first principles” of morals.

Eliot discusses the possible unification of all Christians world-wide, and he judges that such a possibility is extremely unlikely. The reunion of, for example, of the Church of England with Presbyterians or Methodists in America, is certainly a possibility, Eliot argues. He also claims that political unions between two countries is unlikely. When a large body fragments, Eliot insists, a sub-culture is formed in the body that is splitting off, and this sub-culture tends to define the sect as different from the larger body and all other bodies that have split off from the whole. Eliot does, however refer to an important fact, namely:

“It is always the main religious body which is the guardian of more of the remains of the higher developments of culture preserved from a past time before the division took place. Not only is it the main religious body which has the more elaborated theology: it is the main religious body which is the least alienated from the best intellectual and artistic activity of the time.”(P.80)

Eliot’s intuitions are sound and can be seen to accord well with the Kantian philosophical position in relation to the two Christian commandments(Love God above all and love thy neighbour as thyself), which, put simply, maintains that there is a philosophical form to these commandments : a form that can be parsed as “Know that God is above all” and “Respect thy neighbour as thyself”. For Kant both of these imperatives form the conditions for the possibility of following the moral law(the categorical imperative), which in turn forms the condition, over a long period of time, of leading a good spirited flourishing life. For Kant, insofar as the main clerical bodies of religion embrace a belief in supernatural events, this would be rejected on the grounds of the validity and objectivity of the categories of the understanding/judgement and principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason). Kant would also reject any justification of barbaric events such as that of burning heretics at the stake. Such tyrannical behaviour would run counter to the practical idea of freedom for the individual to choose a reasonable belief system. There is nothing that can be said in the name of the uniformity of an irrational belief system that could motivate disrespect for the freedom of the individual to choose whatever form of life they wish to. This thesis lies at the root of human rights. In relation to this discussion Kant would be opposed to the wholesale rejection of a body of faith that has served mankind for almost 2000 years: a body of faith which, he would maintain, possessed some affinity with Ancient Greek Philosophy and its reliance on the themes of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis.

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Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” :”Regionalisation” and Satellite Cultures

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“It is the instinct of every living thing to persist in its own being”( “Notes” P.55)

This claim by Eliot is a variation of Spinoza’s claim that:

“Everything insofar as it is, endeavours to persist in its own being”(Ethics, Book 3 Prop 6)

Spinoza’s account may, however, be built on a more complex foundation than Eliot’s account. For Spinoza, the foundation stone of the mind, is the idea it has of its own body, and this is compatible with the hylomorphic claim made by Aristotle in which the material of a process always has a form determined by the principle of that form. We know that Aristotle in his work “De Anima” characterised the human soul in terms of potential and an actualisation process. The body, which for Aristotle, was a system of specific organs, has the potential to actualise into a soul which possesses three primary powers: firstly, the capacity for nutrition and reproduction, secondly, the capacity for locomotion and sensation, thirdly a capacity for discourse and reasoning. The essence-specifying definition of a human soul then, is, “rational animal capable of discourse”, indicating that these higher level powers build upon the lower level powers of sensibility and nutrition/reproduction. This does not, of course, mean that all human souls are actually capable of discourse and reasoning at high levels, but rather, that this is a potential that aims to be realised by the human form of life that we call the human soul. Here, it is a number of principles which decide what form the life-form is to take, as well as the complex relation of powers that are generated in this developmental actualisation process This process of actualisation will determine the level achieved by any human form of life. If this teleological process functions well, the result , insofar as Aristotle was concerned, was the ethical telos of leading a good spirited, flourishing life(eudaimonia). Such a life-form would be impossible in a state of nature (which is the condition of the animals) but rather requires a civilisation/culture that in turn requires cooperation amongst large numbers of humans if it is not to fall into a state of ruin and destroy itself. This cooperation often takes the form of “aiming at the good”, “aiming at the truth”, and aiming at the beautiful”: characteristics which Maslow claimed were very important cultural aims. Life, may have many meanings, argued Aristotle, but he also insisted that it was an end-in-itself, i.e. something that was both good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences. This theme of the human form of life being an end-in-itself, would later be taken up in Kantian Critical ethical Philosophy, in the form of a moral categorical imperative. One of the formulations is that people be treated as ends in themselves and this creates the foundational argument for a universal theory of human rights. Respect for human rights, in turn, has become a cultural demand in all civilised societies.

It was, however, left to Freud to investigate the nature of the relation of the powers of the soul, and he used three principles to do this: firstly, the energy regulation principle regulating the physiology of the individual (including nutrition and reproduction) but primarily the nervous activity of his brain, secondly, the pleasure pain principle regulating the sensible level of the human soul, and thirdly, the reality principle regulating discourse and rationality in its various forms. For Freud it is the actualisation of a strong Ego that is the telos of human being: a being that spends such a long time in a state of immaturity(childhood, adolescence, etc).

These diversions from the initial claims of Eliot and Spinoza, testify then, to the complexity of creating the conditions necessary for leading a good-spirited flourishing life. In the light of such complexity, it is obvious that all we can do is aim at the Good in our activities. The master Arts which enable us to do this are, for Aristotle, Philosophy and Politics. For Spinoza, however, human enlightenment begins with the possession of an adequate idea of the human body. This is a position shared by Freud who formulated a psycho-sexual theory to explain the course the human actualisation process takes. Both Spinoza and Freud are in agreement that the complexity of our psyche is such that its form of consciousness is aware of its endeavour to persist in its being, and this awareness is manifested in the correlation of both inadequate ideas and adequate ideas with the activity/endeavours of the organism. Consciousness, for Freud, will then, be steered by all three of his postulated principles in various ways, but insofar as the reality principle is concerned it will be present in areté (doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), arché (the use of principles in discourse and reasoning), epistemé (the use of knowledge in ones “endeavours) and diké (attention to the cause of justice). This leads us to the Aristotelian conviction that the phronomos, (that great-souled man), is a man whose mental powers of understanding, judgement, and reasoning are all in harmony, and working in accordance with the reality principle.

Eliot wishes to argue that the above human endeavour to persist in being human is a feature of what he calls “regionalisation”, which he insists is a necessary feature of the diversity that he maintains is a healthy characteristic of any culture. He calls this “regionalisation”, a satellite culture, and there is a lengthy discussion of the relation of Wales, Scotland and Ireland to England (in the name of identifying the mutually related cultural mechanisms that are operating in this realm of regional forces). The judgement of History is called upon to testify the extent to which a people culturally contribute to the culture of the peoples of the world. Eliot takes up the role of Language and he is sceptical about the possibility of a world-language unless it has poetic power. These discussions sometimes take on nationalistic tones in the name of loyalty. It appears from this discussion, that the size of the region can vary from a local village, to a large country. If, for example, we are dealing with a country village, it is not always obvious that the lower income peasants will identify their condition with the lower income workers of the city. It does, however, seem obvious that, in wars, (when citizens from both categories find themselves fighting side by side against a common enemy), some loyalty is shared: is this a cultural loyalty or something pathological and nationalistic?

An interesting “regional” institution such as the University is an interesting case to eaxmine in the context of this discussion. The university is a meritocracy, and does not care whether you are an aristocrat from the city, or a peasant from the countryside. The University demands loyalty to, and a general respect for, knowledge and justice. In both of the above cases it is clear that unity prevails over differences. Eliot, however, speaks sceptically of this unity of Culture, and refers to those zealots crying out for a world-government on humanitarian grounds. He incidentally praises the Russians for being especially aware of the irreconcilability between cultures(P.62). Eliot accuses the zealots of being as much of a menace to culture, as those who are committed to violence. The grounds given for this judgement are the empirical grounds of the irreconcilability of certain religions, and the pointless colonisation of one culture by another( where that results in conflict and culture clash).

Eliot concludes with the following claim:

“As I have said, the improvement and transmission of culture can never be the direct object of any of our practical activities: all we can do is to try to keep in mind that whatever we do will affect our own culture or that of some other people.”(P.65)

This is an insightful remark and reminds one of the Aristotelian opening of his Nichomachean Ethics:

“Evert art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good: and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”(NE Book 1, 1, 1-3)

This provides hylomorphic content to Eliot’s claim that the transmission of culture can not be “the direct object” of our cultural activities. Aristotle, interpreted in terms of modern linguistic Philosophy, my be alluding to the imperative use of language in claims such as “You ought to keep promises”. Promising is a practical activity and “keeping” them is more than a mere maxim expressing a personal intention. We appear here to be dealing with a principle(arché) which on Kant’s view can be justified by an appeal to the moral law as expressed in the various formulations of the categorical imperative. There is clearly an intended direct object in the above claim, namely that the promise must be kept. In the above quote there is also a clear link to the teleological relation of the intention to actions to be performed in the future.

Aristotle points to the transmission of three kinds of form which he claims is important to build and maintain a civilisation/culture. Firstly, there is the transmission of skills such as house-building, bridge-building, road building, and crafted artifacts that are in common use in households and businesses, villages and cities. Secondly, there is the personal transmission of ones family characteristics in the act of reproduction(thus creating the “material” for further transmission of other cultural values). Thirdly, there is the transmission of ideas such as occurs in teaching-learning contexts of all kinds, and this is perhaps the most important “form”of cultural activity for Aristotle.

Eliot also discusses India and its colonisation by the British, and he claims that the caste structure and the different forms of religion hindered the aims and process of unification. That fact, should not, of course, prevent agreement on the judgement that the unity of the country would be a good thing, as long as diversity was respected. Two other factors to take into consideration is the nature of mans inclination toward favouring his own interests over that of his neighbour, plus his proclivity for forming groups around such interests. Both of these have a tendency to produce internecine conflict. This is why a striving after The Good, and providing justifications for activities with such an aim, is of importance for both the phronomos and the Philosopher. Diversity and difference are facts that we need to take account of in this context, but the mere existence of such facts does not of itself justify the condemnation of all those “good” culture building activities, such as the passing of laws and education. The latter activity in particular requires a philosophical defence of the ideas upon which such activities are founded, e.g. diké(justice) and epistemé(knowledge).

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Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture” –Class and the Elite: The Aristocrat and Cosmopolitan man

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“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” is a slogan attributed to Marx and the communist programme of government. Yet we know that the early Christians led a form of life that could be described in such terms. The above slogan has also been connected to the Platonic Principle of Specialisation(used to define justice in the Republic) that was supposed, by Socrates, to be the mark of healthy cities before the wish for a commodious/luxurious form of life became an almost universal object of desire.

The “fevered city” that could not control the above desire became, in Socrates’ view, a divided city where the rich ruled and their disgruntled poor sons sat in the agora stirring up trouble for the city-state. Solon was forced to address this problem in the name of justice and via the mechanism of the passing of just laws. One of the aims of Solon was to ensure that everyone got what they deserved or what they were worthy of. The Socratic Principle of Specialisation was also supposed by Socrates to achieve the end Solon had in mind, even if it failed to address the issues of procedural justice which led to the conviction and death-sentence of Socrates himself. Aristotle’s principle of formal justice complemented this Socratic principle in an account which distinguished between distributive, retributive and restorative justice, and this principle might have saved the life of Socrates if the Socratic defence that Philosophy was one of the children of the Gods could have been formally entered as a plea in his trial.

“From each according to their ability” could well be a consequence of the principle of specialisation which required that people should only be asked to perform tasks that they have the ability or power to perform. Part of the Philosophical project of Socrates was to convince people, who thought they had knowledge of various kinds, that they were overestimating their ability or power to know certain things. Socrates was actually not insisting that everyone take up Philosophy and learn from him, but he was rather insisting on a civic spirit which the Greeks already understood to be important, a spirit best described in terms of the Greek ideas of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), arché(using principles to understand/justify), epistemé(using knowledge in ones judgements) and diké(justice).

It was Aristotle who fathomed the depths of the problem of political life in engaging with the problems of class and power, by asserting prophetically that the divided city will not become united until a large enlightened middle class has the power to decide the agenda of the state. Aristotle even outlines the mechanism by which this telos can be achieved: the principle of the Golden Mean. He gives an example of the operation of this principle(arché) in relation to the important virtue(areté) of courage, so important for the defence of the city against its enemies. Young citizens, put in warlike situations, actually or hypothetically, might respond with the extreme behaviour of foolhardiness or cowardliness, and will be steered toward the golden mean of areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time). This was part of the Greek “Culture”. The outcome of this process, the virtue of courage, is then, a synthesis of dialectical opposites—a synthesis aiming at “The Good”.

Eliot speaks against the above account when he invokes the idea of an elite or “higher class”, which will lead the society, and in exchange be given certain honours and emoluments. Plato avoided such a situation with his philosopher-class rulers being fed and housed by the state but being refused access to money or property. Honours, per se, for Socrates would be a direct breach of areté(self-control), encouraging a life-style that continually strives after satisfying the appetites of the thousand headed monster whose appetites increase exponentially over time, and thus contributing to the ruin of the healthy city and the construction of the “fevered city”.

Eliot does, however, see the limitations of a class-ridden society, but instead of embracing the Aristotelian idea of an enlightened middle class, he settles instead for the idea of a classless society which in Marxist theory is tied to a dissolution or “withering away” of the state. Yet, for Eliot, this classless society will require an elite of leaders who require honours and emoluments. This elite corps will be drawn from a number of cultural domains of society, e.g. politics, art, philosophy, and science and these leaders will, according to Eliot, somehow form a natural homogeneous unified group.

Eliot was writing at a time when two political leaders, Hitler and Stalin had succeeded in mobilising the masses against the elites of their society in the name of perverted ideas of justice and morality. Freud, writing during the same period, used psychoanalysis to analyse both the behaviour of the masses and their leaders in his work “Group Psychology and the Ego”. Freud pointed to the operation of certain pathological processes and mechanisms such as projection, reversal, narcissistic behaviour and identification with the aggressor. Freud’s account pointed to an end for tyrants (obsessed with power and honour), which had in fact been predicted for all tyrants in the last books of Plato’s Republic. The context for this account was the failure of understanding, judgement and reason, and the consequent telos for such a failure, namely justice(getting what one deserves). Tyrants create such a culture of death and hate around themselves that it does not require any advanced form of reasoning to understand the connection between the cause of the culture they have created and the effect of their fate.

Eliot discusses Russia and regrets the removal of the Russian elite class which he believes will eventually prove disastrous for the country. There is also an interesting discussion of the role of the family in the task of the transmission of culture, which is surprising, given the qualified scepticism of both Plato and Aristotle insofar as this issue was concerned. We know Aristotle called for a more formal education of the public, perhaps because of the limitations of the resources of all families to provide all the elements necessary for the transmission of an entire culture. For Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, education and the transmission of knowledge, especially knowledge of “The Good”, was decisive for the well-being of the state. For Eliot, it appears as if Public Education can not bear the burden of transmission, and he believes more in his leaders and the family. Indeed towards the end of this chapter of his work , it is the aristocratic family that emerges as the best transmitter of Culture to the next generation.

Aristotles view of the city differs in many respects to the accounts given by both Socrates(who was in favour of a healthy city that would require neither a military force not philosophers to thrive) and Plato. For Aristotle, the city state was a complex creation building upon several prior structures, the first of which is the structure of the family(which is not self-sufficient), and the second of which is the large group of families constituting a village(which is more sufficient than the family but still not self sufficient). The potentially self-sufficient structure of the city-state is constituted of a number of villages unified by a legal constitution. For Aristotle, this final structure contains the possibility of neutralising the forces of oligarchy and democracy(constituted by the disgruntled sons of the oligarchs) with the powers of areté, arché, epistemé and diké. These powers help to create the leader or leaders the city needs. Such a leader or leaders he calls a phronomos, a great-souled man. Some might arrive at the conclusion that the phronomos is an aristocratic man but if this is an appropriate term for this great souled man, he is surely a very different kind of being to that imagined by Eliot. Aristotle’s aristocrat would not require the instrumental benefits of honours and emoluments to deliberate and perform the duties necessary to serve the city-state. The good-spirited flourishing life(eudaimonia) he leads would be sufficient reward for his work.

Kantian political philosophy does not specifically take issue with the idea of class(this being a phenomenon of more modern political philosophy) but, like Aristotle, he sees the threat of ruin and destruction the oracle warned of, and his account sees this threat to be best met by the cultural work of enlightened men who use their freedom and responsibility to create and maintain enlightened institutions of government. Kant, even sees a role for the ecclesiastical church in this process which he claims is destined to end in a kingdom of ends in which the idea of the Good-in-itself plays a key role supporting a culture constituted by areté(doing the right thing in the right way at the right time), epistemé(knowledge), arché(principles) and diké(justice. Whether or not the state will dissolve or wither away when the kingdom of ends is upon us is not discussed by Kant but he does present us with an image of a cosmopolitan man, emerging from this healthy, global state of affairs.

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Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes Toward a Definition of Culture”: Part Two Culture and its Meaning

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Plate 7: Joseph Making Himself Known to his Brothers, from Genesis 45, after a lost fresco in the basamento of Bay 7 of the Vatican Loggia
Plate 7: Joseph Making Himself Known to his Brothers, from Genesis 45, after a lost fresco in the basamento of Bay 7 of the Vatican Loggia by Pietro Santi Bartoli is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Socrates, in Plato’s work “The Republic”, as part of his search for an acceptable account of Justice (in terms of both the individual and in the activities of the city-state), claimed that it would be easier to look at the activities of the state because that is where the soul is writ large.

This is an important strategic recommendation for the more general philosophical search for the “meaning” of Culture. Involved in this search is recognising the differentiation between firstly, a physical artifactual reality, secondly, psuche( any form of life),and thirdly, the human psuche. This is an important matter because there is a modern materialistic view of human creation which views our civilisation as a totality of facts that have an essentially artifactual character. Viewing civilisation in this way is obviously a part of an inward-looking process connected to an instrumental enjoyment of life which contrasts with the more classical view that appeals to the worthiness and dignity of the human form of life.

Eliot wishes to distinguish between the culture of an individual, the culture of a class or group and the culture of the whole society. He prioritises the whole and he speaks of conducting his search in:

“the pattern of society as a whole”(P.23)”

Socrates, in the later books of the Republic, responds to Glaucon’s challenge to provide us with a justification of the term “justice” that meets the criteria of being both good-in-itself and good-in-its-consequences. We can see in the argumentation an appeal to the Platonic Theory of Forms in which the Form of the Good was the primary most important form or principle for the organisation of Society. Eliot makes no mention of the importance of justice in the constitution of the culture of a society. No mention is made either of the Kantian ideas of freedom and human rights as constitutive elements. Instead Eliot refers to:

  1. The refinement of manners(civility and politeness)
  2. Learning
  3. Philosophy in the broadest sense of the term
  4. The arts

Eliot claims in relation to these elements of the pattern of society as a whole that, insofar as the individual is concerned, perfection in relation to one element does not suffice to attribute to that individual the term “cultured”. Eliot also adds that we can not realistically expect anyone to be fully accomplished in all the above areas. This, in turn, leads Eliot to embrace a Wittgensteinian principle which claims that when we wish to determine whether a rule is being followed, we do not focus upon what one individual is doing at any particular moment, but rather upon what a community is doing over a period of time. Wittgenstein has the following to say on this topic:

” 567. How could human behaviour be described? Surely only be sketching the actions of a variety of humans, as they are all mixed up together. What determines our judgement, our concepts and reactions, is not what one man is doing now, an individual action, but the whole hurly-burly of human actions, the background against which we see any action.

568. Seeng life as a weave, this pattern(pretence, say) is not always complete and is varied in a multiplicity of ways. But we, in our conceptual worlds, keep on seeing the same, recurring with variations. That is how our concepts take it. For concepts are not for use on a single occasion.”(Zettel, 99e)

Eliot evokes the whole but does not conceive of the whole in exactly the same terms as Wittgenstein. Eliot also points to how, in a late phase of the development of Culture, a process of specialisation occurs occupationally, but also in the case of the differentiation of art, politics, science and religion. He describes this process of specialisation in terms of two ideas that in fact are not compatible with each other, namely, autonomy and dominance. There is no question that, insofar as science, in its technological aspect, is concerned, there is what might be described as a colonising effect on other domains of investigation. However, Science conceived of broadly, by both Aristotle and Kant, is indeed “autonomous” in the sense of defining the scope of its own activity(and also in the sense of justifying that scope in cultural terms). This claim is congruent with the metaphysical accounts of all forms of the sciences we encounter in both Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysics. The word “autonomous”, insofar as Kant is concerned, carries the meaning of “self-determining”, or “self-causing”, implying a respect for all other forms of thought whose concern is not confined to the hypothetical determining of cause-effect relations in contexts of exploration/discovery, but rather with, for example, actions and reasons in a context of explanation/justification. All cultural activities involve these two kinds of contexts, and there are different kinds of explanation/justification that manifest themselves, for example, in the different forms of account appealing to either hypothetical cause-effect accounts, or rational logical explanations, appealing to the logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Eliot does not, of course, subscribe to the kind of rational account provided above, and prefers to confine his speculations to the observation of differences, rather than the more difficult categorical task of explaining why all the different forms of culture have some kind of essential feature in common (which may reveal itself in future investigations). Speculating in a “spirit” of exploration/discovery might well “discover” a decline in cultural levels as manifested, for example, in the amount of knowledge people possess now, as compared with previous eras. Eliot, however, ventures to suggest something more than this, and claims that the decline of culture is “total”. He does reason his way toward the idea of a worthwhile civilisation, but he is not in a position to give either Aristotelian or Kantian grounds for his judgement.

Eliot notes, for example, that a culture can tolerate a number of different religions, but stands firmly by his previous conviction that a culture is unable to exist without some form of religion. The Kantian response to the questions posed by Eliot would be in terms of the 4 questions he claimed defined the scope of Philosophy , namely, “What can we know?” “What ought we to do?” “What can we hope for?” and “What is man?”. In the account given to us by Kantian critical philosophy, there is a complex relation between all 4 questions which trace the extent to which knowledge(justified true belief), morality( freedom, the categorical imperative, human rights) and religion contribute to the leading of a Socratic examined life, an Aristotelian contemplative good spirited flourishing life or a Kantian Enlightened life. Kant, in his critical Philosophy has created a logical space for faith which can be both explained and justified, and whilst there may be long periods of decline, Kant has faith that, in the very long term (one hundred thousand years), “All things will be well and all manner of things will be well.”(Little Gidding, Four Quartets).

Eliot continues his account of the decline in Culture by insisting that Culture and Religion are:

“different aspects of the same thing” (P.29, Notes)

He also insists that aesthetic sensibility and taste must also find a place in the above “sphere of the spirit”(P.31). His reasoning, however, ends in a paradoxical judgement, namely:

“To judge a work of art by artistic or by religious standards, to judge a religion by religious or artistic standards should come in the end to the same thing: though it is an end at which no individual can arrive.”(P.30)

There is, of course, a problem with the comparison, given that we are dealing with a defined object on the one hand, and the family of activities that constitute a religion on the other, but that aside, one can nevertheless ask the question “What sense of the “same thing” is being referred to here?” This question has a relatively clear answer in the works of Aristotle and Kant, but the question is whether Eliot has the argumentative resources to satisfactorily answer this question. It would seem that a philosophical view of art and religion is required for this task. For Kant, the three faculties of mind, namely sensibility, understanding and reason, function autonomously, but are also integrated into a larger whole in accordance with autonomous principles. Sensibility. for example, puts us in an immediate non-conceptual relation to our objects, whilst the understanding requires a categorically determined representation of the object–a representation that aims at the truth when combined with other representations. Sensibility, functions in accordance with the infinite media of space, time, and matter whilst understanding, on the other hand, functions in accordance with internal finite categories and rules that are schematised by sensible schemata via the medium of language. This difference in the function of faculties, according to Kant, suggests one difficulty with identifying artistic and religious judgements. In the case of sensibility we are dealing with a direct connection of the representation with the object, and in the case of the understanding , the conceptual representation has an indirect connection to the object which has to do with the Wittgensteinian requirement that concepts must be generally used and can be used to say the same thing about spatio-temporally different events.

Eliot also wishes Culture to include:

“all the characteristic activities and interests of people.”(P.31)

Eliot includes a list of activities that includes gambling activities(Derby Day, the dog races), games, and even foodstuffs prepared in certain unique ways. He then draws the obvious conclusion that cultural activities lack unity, and this puzzling diversion urges the question:”What makes us wish to use the term “culture” for all the above activities?” For many philosophers some of the items on Eliot’s list would not be regarded as “cultural”. Eliot also takes up activities which Aristotelians and Kantians would be hesitant to include under the concept of “cultural”, carrying with is as it does a positive normative affirmation, e.g. zealous war-like patriotism and the evangelisation of Christianity. For Eliot, on the other hand, culture is the incarnation of religion(P.33), but for Kant culture is more closely tied to the worth and dignity of leading a moral life that is lived in accordance with the categorical imperative and the principles/laws of practical reason. Faith and Grace play a supporting role in the context of explaining and justifying an answer to the critical question “What can we hope for?”. For Eliot the answer is quite clear because for him Christianity is the “highest culture the world has ever known”(P.33). Eliot confounds his own position, however, with the claim that there is value to be attached to so-called “materialistic religions(whatever this means!) simply because it distracts the populace from boredom and despair(cf gambling).

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Book Review of T S Eliot’s “Notes towards the definition of Culture” Part 1

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Eliot begins his Introduction to his “Notes..” with a challenge that remind us of the ancient prophecy of the Greek Oracle, namely, “Everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction.” This prophecy like many prophecies is not intended as a prediction of future events, similar to the predictions of Nostradamus, but serves more as a challenge to man to lead an examined life. Eliot’s challenge to us is formulated thus:

“The most important question that we can ask, is, whether there is any permanent standard by which we can compare our civilisation with another, and by which we can make some guess at the importance and decline of our own. We have to admit, in comparing our civilisation with another, and in comparing the different stages of our own, that no one society and no one age of it realises all the values of civilisation…..Nevertheless, we can distinguish between higher and lower cultures; we can distinguish between advance and retrogression. We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline:that the standards of culture are lower than they were 50 years ago and that the evidence of this decline are visible in every department of human activity.”(Notes…London, Faber and Faber, 1958)

There is much to unpack in the above message, that comes to us like a “message in a bottle”, from a distant land and perhaps a different time. Firstly, let us recognise the developmental view of civilisation, transitioning through different stages. Secondly we need to recognise that in the above quote there is no acknowledgement of the Kantian distinction between the “phases” of civilisation and culture as accounted for in the following:

“We are cultivated to a high degree by art and science. We are civilised to the point of excess in all kinds of social courtesies and proprieties. But we are still a long way from the point where we would consider ourselves morally mature. For while the idea of morality is indeed present in culture, an application of this idea which only extends to the semblances of morality, as in love of honour and outward propriety, amounts merely to civilisation. But as long as stats apply all their resources to their vain and violent schemes of expansion, thus incessantly obstructing the slow and laborious efforts of their citizens to cultivate their minds, and even deprive them of all support in these efforts, no progress in this direction can be expected. For a long internal process of careful work on the part of each commonwealth is necessary for the education of its citizens.”(Kant’s Political lectures, trans by Nisbet, H., B., Cambridge, CUP, 1970, P.49)

Kant, in his work, “The Critique of Judgement”, supplements the above account with the claim that when one can speak meaningfully of the feelings which our judgements are founded upon, we attain the heights of civilisation, and cross the threshold into the realm of Culture. He also adds that developing a taste for fine art created by genius, takes us further into this realm. Yet it is morality and its relation to freedom and human rights that firmly establishes our cultural standing. We do not, unfortunately, encounter this insight into the relation of civilisation and culture in Eliot, but it is clear from his remarks in “Notes..” that Culture as envisaged by Eliot probably does not differ significantly from that envisaged by both Aristotle and Kant. We should also recall that “Notes..” was first published in 1943, four years into the second world war that dwarfed in magnitude and intensity any war Kant may have had in mind.

The works of Plato and Aristotle are important inaugural influences, insofar as the shape and direction of our Western Culture is concerned. The superficial surface-value of honour, and war, have been connected with one another since the Peloponnesian war and the wars against the ancient Persians. It was, in fact, Greek Culture that promoted a new type of hero in the person of Socrates who manifested not courage combined with aggression but courage combined with humility(Socrates genuinely claimed that his “wisdom” consisted in knowing that he did not know everything). Socrates led his examined life in a Greek context of areté, arché, diké, epistemé, and phronesis, and this battery of terms defined the agenda for this new type of “hero”, who was prepared to die because he so respected the crucial cultural elements of Philosophy and The Law. “The long internal process of careful work” which assisted in the crossing of the threshold of civilisation began, then, with the work of Socrates, and this process continued with the work of Plato and Aristotle. The Enlightenment continued this momentum with the work of Kant, but the rate of cultural progress slowed significantly with the work of Hegel, and his active attempt to “turn the work of Kant on its head”. The momentum of progress was further slowed by the followers of Hegel working in the traditions of phenomenology and existentialism. Kant’s view of science was supplanted by the naturalism of mathematical-empirical science and its techné-inspired revolution. This slowing of the rate of progress was probably also assisted by the Kantian attacks on ecclesiastical religion, which Kant specifically dissociated from what he termed “universal Philosophical religion” of the kind espoused by Aristotle.

Yet it is in the context of what Eliot called the decline of Culture that we encounter the attempt firstly to define Culture in Aristotelian-Kantian terms that, for example, manifest themselves in the articles declaring the purposes of UNESCO:

  1. To develop and maintain mutual understanding and appreciation of the life and culture,, the arts, the humanities and the sciences of the people of the world as a basis for effective international organisation and world peace.
  2. To co-operate in extending and in making available to all peoples, for the service of common human needs the worlds full body of knowledge and culture, and in asserting its contribution to the economic stability, political security and general well-being of the peoples of the world.”(“Notes…”, P.14)

Secondly, the articles above are certainly interesting from the point of view of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Economic stability is obviously necessary to meet human physiological and security needs. Political security, on the other hand, appeals to the higher maintenance needs of security and belongingness. Higher growth needs such as self-esteem , cognitive and aesthetic needs, refer obviously to general well-being, and this form of life(to use an Aristotelian expression), would not espouse the honour-model of heroism, but rather appeal to the Socratic/Aristotelian models that lead us to the examined/contemplative life. Aristotle would have little objection to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which he would believe is supported by his 4 kinds of change, 3 media of change(space, time, matter), 4 causes of change, 3 principles of change and the Aristotelian canon of the theoretical, practical and productive sciences. Freudian theory is another possible hylomorphically-based theory with close connections to Kantian Philosophy and Anthropology.

Eliot outlines 3 conditions of Culture which also have connections to Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy. The first condition refers to the growing cultural structures that facilitate the transmission of theoretical, practical ,and productive knowledge in the community. The second condition, refers curiously to the division of this culture into “regional cultures” which have some relation to overall culture but differ in what seem to be superficial respects. The third condition relates to Religion, which Eliot argues has a necessary connection to the existence of a Culture, i.e it is claimed that culture has never existed without a religion. Eliot is not, however, clear about the causality of this relation. He is not sure, for example, whether it is “Culture” that causes religion or vice versa:

The third is the balance of unity and diversity in religion, that is, universality of doctrine with particularity of cult and devotion.”(Notes, P.15)

This resembles the Kantian distinction between historically based ecclesiastical religion and philosophical universal religion. For Kant, all that instantiates the latter concretely in the former, is retained, and those rituals and beliefs that cannot be defended on universal grounds are discarded and regarded as unjustified.

Eliot unfortunately appeals to elite groups of leaders in society(cf Plato’s Philosophers governing the Republic), which will be “honoured” thus raising a question of the importance of Greek and Enlightenment ideas of The Golden Mean or Equality that will create an educated middle class which respects but does not “honour” or worship its leaders. Leaders, regarded by this Aristotelian middle class are, in this new form of society viewed as advisers or “water-bearers”. The imperative form of language that all use in such a society respects the freedom and responsibility of the groups/communities that are being organised. This is the role of class in a Culture that has crossed the threshold of civilisation which previously relied upon an inward looking principle of self-love(manifesting itself in nationalism and war-like behaviour), but now looks forward to a cosmopolitan peace-loving society. On this view, leaders or races of men were not supermen possessing a will to power that appeals to a vision of the Absolute or an ultimate proletarian dissolution of the state. Rather these cosmopolitan knowledge-loving equals use their understanding, judgement, and reason to evaluate advice and action in a spirit of areté, arché, epistemé, diké, phronesis. Happiness, which might have been the telos of the inhabitants of a civilisation that had not crossed the threshold into a culture, is sublimated by a communal demand for Eudaimonia(a good spirited flourishing life).

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A review of Thomas Howards Youtube lecture on T S Eliots “Four Quartets”: Part 4– A Wittgensteinian commentary

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It may be true to claim that attention to both Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophy is necessary if one is to succeed in capturing the full sense or meaning of the philosophical component of Eliot’s poetry. There may, however, be, an aspect of Eliot’s poetry that remains untouched by the above philosophical interpretations(Aristotle, Kant, Freud) and that aspect is also important for our understanding and reasoning about aesthetic and religious problems.

We argued in an earlier work entitled “A Philosophical History of Psychology, Cognition, Emotion, Consciousness and Action”(Lambert Academic Press, 4 volumes2019-2022) that Wittgenstein conducts investigations into the use of language in order to reveal the important role of words in the understanding of their “meaning”. Wittgenstein believes that grammatical investigations can reveal the essence of things, thus distancing himself from various modern forms of relativism, and he also insists on the objectivity of the linguistic practices that are an essential part of our communal life-world. These investigations are conducted in Greek and Kantian spirit, and seek to connect essence-specifying characterisations with both the notion of “forms of life”, and our mental capacities. Wittgenstein attempts to assemble his album of sketches into a landscape that we find our way about in. He also, we know, compared Kant’s project favourably with what he was attempting to do, but there is no acknowledgement of the Aristotelian hylomorphic idea of “forms of life”.

One of the major “revolutions” of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy involved referring to the differing philosophical significance of the different “forms of language”, e.g. descriptive, interrogative, imperative and “countless other kinds”(Philosophical Investigations, 23). These forms are viewed in terms of the way in which we master the use of these forms as a consequence of learning the language. Wittgenstein, in the context of this discussion, uses the term “technique”, and this invokes the image of “tools”: words and sentences are “tools of language” he claims. Using these tools correctly then becomes an important part of the training process, and this process connects to areté( saying the right thing at the right time in the right way in the right circumstances). Imperatives, it is argued, have both conditions of understanding and performance. For example, the imperative “We ought to keep promises”, requires both understanding of the meaning of the words, and an understanding involving the importance of doing what one has said one is going to do. These elements are part of the language game we play with imperatives which is also founded on the praise or blame of fellow language users who believe the practice of keeping promises is important for the community. Imperatives of the above kind, then can be seen as “universal maxims” or principles, related to the moral law(the categorical imperative). The logic of the language game governing individual promising consists of a set of premises that begin with a universal”necessary “ought-statement”, and continues with a premise or premises stating the facts of the matter(that Jack promised Jill he would pay the money back that he was borrowing), and a concluding premise expressing what the individual ought to (Pay the money back).

Wittgenstein also analysed the language of religious belief. He points out, for example, that a religious belief cannot be characterised as a momentary state of mind(Lectures on Religious Belief). Neither can it be characterised as the kind of belief that can be proved via the production of evidence or the giving of reasons. The “reasons” given for a religious belief differ significantly from the reasons we give for a belief such as “Jean-Paul will be grading his students at the end of this academic year.” The faith that a religious person places in the future occurrence of a Judgement Day can be defended, but the “reasons” will not “prove” the veracity of the belief. There are, however, similarities. In both cases we will expect certain kinds of behaviour/activity on the part of the believer. Without some kind of public criterion, we would not know whether we understood the meaning of what has been said. If, for example someone believes that they will not cease to exist after their death, it might be a challenge to understand exactly what they mean, even if they engage in various forms of preparatory activity for a life after death, e.g. an author who writes an autobiography, or a ruler who arranges to have certain objects placed in their grave. This draws attention to an important condition for the existence of language-games, namely, that they require a form of life constituted of a constellation of actions which are embedded in the practice of learning the use of words. The telos of this learning process is the actualisation of this linguistic knowledge in the community. Wittgenstein, in relation to the life after death question expresses the same kind of scepticism that Socrates expressed in his cell whilst awaiting the implementation of his death sentence. Socrates, we know, claimed that he did not know whether a dreamless sleep or communion with other souls in a heavenly medium, lay in the future. What he was certain of, however, was that whatever it was that was going to happen it would be something Good. Wittgenstein has this to say about “The Good”:

“What is good is divine too. That ,strangely enough, sums up my ethics”(Culture and Value 5e)

This of course is a Kantian position. Wittgenstein goes on to say:

“You cannot lead people to the good: you can only lead them to some place or other: the good lies outside the space of facts.”(5e)

This is, of course a primary strategy of Eliot’s poetry which also strives to integrate the religious belief system with our moral belief system. Eliot leads us to the places of the beginning, exile in the waste land, and finally to the end where we “know” the beginning for the first time. These places, for Eliot are the “objective correlative” that he claims is a necessary instrument for the poet to use, when it comes to the evocation of the appropriate emotions and passions connected to fundamental themes of the poem. The Garden of Eden and the Waste land are, of course, in a sense “virtual”, and not actual places, but we understand that they are creations of the productive imagination. We understand this by the way in which Eliot uses his these ideas.

Wittgenstein, in his later work, moved away from the logical positivist view of Science and toward a more humanistic position. In Culture and Value he specifically claims that Science sends us back to sleep, and he reiterates here what he has said elsewhere, namely, that the solution to scientific problems no longer interest him(cf Socrates). What is needed, Wittgenstein claims, (in Socratic and Aristotelian spirit) is that we wake up and view the world with awe and wonder. Reminding us too of the Kantian claim that :

“We may apply….to an organised being, all the laws of mechanical generation known or yet to be discovered, we may even hope to make good progress in such researches, but we can never get rid of the appeal to a completely different source of generation for the possibility of a product of this kind, namely that of a causality by ends. It is utterly impossible for human reason, or for any finite reason qualitatively resembling ours, however much it may surpass it in degree, to hope to understand the generation of even a blade of grass from mere mechanical causes.”(Critique of Judgement, Dialectic of Teleological Judgement, P.66)

The implication of the Aristotelian, Kantian and Wittgensteinian view, is that science, (with its “book of nature” commitment in which observation of the facts and the mechanical causes of phenomena is the primary concern), will not provide us with answers to the aporetic questions that arise when we attempt to understand nature. Similarly, if we view past culture with the same commitment we may reduce it to rubble and ash, but, given the complex nature of our mental capacities and the way in which they relate to the human psuche, a spirit will hover over the ashes. Eliot captures this scenario in his image of the ashes of burned roses on the sleeve of winter. Aristotle Kant and Wittgenstein all agree on the complex integration of our human capacities and powers. Wittgenstein expresses this in the following fashion:

“The treatment of all these phenomena of mental life is not of importance to me because I am keen on completeness. Rater because each one casts light on the correct treatment of all”(Zettel, 465)

It is in this spiritual space that we find “The Good” and the awe and wonder we feel in the face of the beauty and sublimity of the natural world. Kant noticed the tendency to attempt to reduce the “architectural” work that occurs in this spiritual space to rubble, and objected to this attempt in all three of his major works, but most specifically in the Critique of Judgement, where the emphasis is upon the relations of the “faculties” of imagination, understanding and reason. Wittgenstein shares many of Kant’s concerns:

“Even if it is clear to me that the disappearance of a culture does not signify the disappearance of human value but simply of certain means of expressing this value, still the fact remains that I contemplate the current of European civilisation without sympathy, without understanding its aims, if any.”(CV 9e)

Whether what Wittgenstein means here is the European penchant for viewing the world scientifically, or whether he also has in mind the “transformation” of European Philosophy since the times of Aristotle and Kant, is unclear. This view, however, fits in well with the thesis that Kantian and Aristotelian Philosophy have been, in the modern industrial world, marginalised as part of the technical and financial “march” of “progress”. A march to the drum of techné rather than the symphony orchestra of arete, areté, epistemé, diké, logos and phronesis. Music was a primary concern for Wittgenstein and we find reflections on Beethovem, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Wagner and Hadyn in the writings on Culture and Value.

Wittgenstein speaks quite often about a “landscape” in relation to his philosophy, and the difficulty his pupils have in finding their way about in this philosophical terrain. He also speaks about his own work in terms of an attempt to produce an album of sketches of this landscape, regretting the fact that these sketches do not form a whole. Perhaps both Aristotle and Kant felt this way about their work too. Wittgenstein’s modernity, however, manifests itself in the following remark:

“The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It is not, e.g., absurd to believe that the scientific and technological age is the beginning of the end for humanity, that the idea of Great Progress is a bedazzlement, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known:that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that humanity, in seeking it is falling into a trap.It is by no means clear that this is not how things are.”(CV 64e)

Yet at the same time Wittgenstein is uncertain of this position, and speculates hopefully that perhaps one day our civilisation will evolve into a Culture. He focuses on a major modern concern orbiting around our modern educational systems, and claims that the education of his time was merely designed for the purpose of the pupils having a good time in the name of the Popper’s principle : “minimise suffering”. Suffering of the kind experienced by souls exiled in the waste-land (referred to by Eliot) is, Wittgenstein argues, out of date. This exemplifies for Wittgenstein, the decline of civilisation but it also connects with Kantian reflections on the importance of leading a moral life that has nothing to do with what Kant referred to as the principle of self-love in disguise, namely happiness. The Kantian moral agent, instead accepts the suffering involved in the effort to protect ones freedom and do ones duty, and they do this by, amongst other things ,bearing responsibility in relation to other peoples freedom. The saint, for Eliot obviously embodies this Kantian ideal in the way in which suffering is borne and in the way in which life is appreciated: a life lived , Eliot argues, at the intersection of time and the timeless.

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If music be the food of poetry, play on.

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Music is sound organised in Time. This particular pieceby Beethoven inspired the musical form of Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, each quartet consisting of 5 movements. Eliot wrote to Spender and referred to this Beethoven piece, and the relief that is felt after great suffering. We know that Hamlet says to Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are contained in his Philosophy. I have been arguing in several blog posts(http://michaelrdjames.org) that there is more to the philosophical content of Eliot’s poetry than many suspect. The combination of music, prose, and philosophy is what makes Eliot’s poetry classical and timeless. One example of this combination of how rhyming prose, philosophy, and the timing and rhythm of music, can make good poetry is the following section from Little Gidding:

Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house-
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.

 The end of the story of man may well be best pictured in the form of dust from the once blooming rose(the life of man), and this is suggestive of two ancient philosophical themes.

Firstly, we know Socrates turned away from his investigations of the physical world(the world of particles, air, fire, water, earth) fearing it may blind his soul to more important matters. Life and its creations reduced to dust may well prove to be the end of air. This is one of the suggestions in these lines. Secondly, there is an oracular prophecy that everything created by man is destined for ruin and destruction and it was this prophecy that motivated Socrates to lead the examined life, rather than a life investigating earth, air water and fire. Four Quartets is obviously a celebration of Christianity, but it is also and elaboration upon themes from Ancient Classical Greece. We ought to recall that the elements earth, air, water, and fire were important elements of Aristotle’s physics, which together with the processes of heat and cold, wet and dry can be used to explain both weather systems and life-systems. Dust in the air suspended may, that is combine with evaporated water to form clouds, which in turn produce rainfall, which in turn nourishes the earth: as the earth gets hotter dust rises again in the air and is swept upwards and across the earth by the four winds and the cycle continues. There is nothing in Eliot to contradict this physical account and whilst Aristotle does not shy away from exploring the physical world as did Socrates, he does agree with Socrates that the investigation of the human form of life(the human soul) is the most interesting form of investigation and he also embarks upon the project that resulted from the challenge of the Delphic oracle to man to “Know thyself!”