Henri Bergson, CREATIVE EVOLUTION (1913).
"There is, then, immanent in the philosophy of Ideas" [Platonism and its kin], "a particular conception of causality, which it is important to bring into full light, because it is that which each of us will reach when, in order to ascend to the origin of things, he follows to the end the natural movement of the intellect....The affirmation of a reality implies the affirmation of all the degrees of reality intermediate between it and nothing. The principle is evident in the case of number: we cannot affirm the existence of the number 10 without affirming the existence of the numbers 9, 8, 7, ... , etc., -- in short of the whole interval between 10 and zero."
Emphasis in the original.
Showing posts with label Plato. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plato. Show all posts
16 January 2011
19 December 2010
More on Phaedo
As faithful readers may remember, on December 12th I commented on an argument in Plato's Phaedo, under the more contemporary inspiration of Anderson Brown.
Now I think I may have grasped a point that puzzled me then. For when Socrates is challenged with the idea that the soul may be a sort of harmony, and thus dependent upon the physical instrument that plays it, his response is to contend that this can't be a good analogy. Why not? Because having a soul is a binary choice: you either have one or you don't. Being harmonious, or melodic, though, is a matter of degree. Some tunes are more tuneful than others.
Setting aside Brown's exegesis of the passage, I found the argument weak. It appeared to be a mere playing with words. Surely, a defender of the soul-as-harmony theory could say that we sometimes use "harmony" in a binary sense, while at other times using it as a matter of degree. Indeed, as a music critic might use the word "soul" in writing of R&B musicians, it is susceptible to a matter-of-degree interpretation too.
But perhaps Plato's point is two-fold. First: if we think of the tune Mary-had-a-little-lamb as a Platonic Idea (as Plato presumably would have), then we will think of the first musician ever to have played that tune on whatever instrument -- or the first composer ever to put it to paper -- not as its creator but as the discoverer of that bit of imaginative space.
Second, though, there is a sharp distinction. The soul is that which does the discovering. A particular tune is that which is discovered. They are as different as subject and object.
Plato is then saying that (a) both tune and appreciative soul can exist in some sense without embodiment, but (b) the soul exists in a fuller, more active, sense than the tune. The soul is that which rejects one tune for another, deciding that one is more "tuneful" than the other.
I'm reminded a bit of something Wittgenstein said about the self. My self would not be part of the contents of a book called "The world as I found it." The self is the finder.
Now I think I may have grasped a point that puzzled me then. For when Socrates is challenged with the idea that the soul may be a sort of harmony, and thus dependent upon the physical instrument that plays it, his response is to contend that this can't be a good analogy. Why not? Because having a soul is a binary choice: you either have one or you don't. Being harmonious, or melodic, though, is a matter of degree. Some tunes are more tuneful than others.
Setting aside Brown's exegesis of the passage, I found the argument weak. It appeared to be a mere playing with words. Surely, a defender of the soul-as-harmony theory could say that we sometimes use "harmony" in a binary sense, while at other times using it as a matter of degree. Indeed, as a music critic might use the word "soul" in writing of R&B musicians, it is susceptible to a matter-of-degree interpretation too.
But perhaps Plato's point is two-fold. First: if we think of the tune Mary-had-a-little-lamb as a Platonic Idea (as Plato presumably would have), then we will think of the first musician ever to have played that tune on whatever instrument -- or the first composer ever to put it to paper -- not as its creator but as the discoverer of that bit of imaginative space.
Second, though, there is a sharp distinction. The soul is that which does the discovering. A particular tune is that which is discovered. They are as different as subject and object.
Plato is then saying that (a) both tune and appreciative soul can exist in some sense without embodiment, but (b) the soul exists in a fuller, more active, sense than the tune. The soul is that which rejects one tune for another, deciding that one is more "tuneful" than the other.
I'm reminded a bit of something Wittgenstein said about the self. My self would not be part of the contents of a book called "The world as I found it." The self is the finder.
12 December 2010
Phaedo
At one point in the dialogue Phaedo [pronounced Fay-doe], Socrates has to meet an objection that Simmias poses to the notion of immortality of the soul.
Simmias is at first reluctant to state his doubts. After all, Socrates will take the hemlock soon, and one does not quarrel with the self-consoling thoughts of a man about to die! But Socrates encourages him, and Simmias says that the preceding discussion has proven the duality of body and soul to his (Simmias') satisfaction. But...here comes a big "but".
"One might also make the same case about harmony and a lyre and its strings, that on the one hand, harmony is something invisible and without a body ... whereas the lyre and its strings are physical and corporeal and composite and earthy and are akin to the mortal."
From this duality is does NOT follow, Simmias points out, that the harmony will survive the death of the lyre. If someone cuts the strings, the music ends.
"If then the soul happens to be a particular harmony, it is clear that, when our body is slackened or stretched without measure by diseases and other evils, the soul ... must in fact immediately be destroyed, even if it be most divine...." [Sounds like John Searle's view of the mind-body problem, BTW.]
How does Socrates respond? It takes some time -- the dialogue moves in zig-zags, not straight lines. When we in time we come back to this issue of the lyre and harmony, Socrates says that some harmonies are more harmonious than others. Harmony, then, is a matter of degree. This is not the case with the possession of a soul. If I understand the point here, Socrates/Plato is arguing that "possession of a soul" is a binary matter. No one person is more ensouled than another.
"All the souls of us living are equally good, if indeed, souls are, by nature, the same as this itself: Soul."
Thus, the analogy fails, and Simmias lays aside his own objection to immortality.
Contemporary philosopher Anderson Brown translates that argument into 21st century lingo, in a lively way.
Brown sees Plato as saying that we don't simply find material things and discover that you can pluck them and get music. We create material things for that purpose. A manufacturer created the lyre, stringing it together just so, in order to allow it to carry a harmony. Thus: harmony precedes the lyre. Harmony inspired the lyre. So the duality of harmony and lyre is one in which the intangible side of the dualism both precedes and survives the tangible side. It supports Socrates' contention, rather than weakening it.
I don't really see in Phaedo what Brown sees, but he seems to have given a lot more thought to it than I have, so I'll take it for granted this is there somewhere.
Simmias is at first reluctant to state his doubts. After all, Socrates will take the hemlock soon, and one does not quarrel with the self-consoling thoughts of a man about to die! But Socrates encourages him, and Simmias says that the preceding discussion has proven the duality of body and soul to his (Simmias') satisfaction. But...here comes a big "but".
"One might also make the same case about harmony and a lyre and its strings, that on the one hand, harmony is something invisible and without a body ... whereas the lyre and its strings are physical and corporeal and composite and earthy and are akin to the mortal."
From this duality is does NOT follow, Simmias points out, that the harmony will survive the death of the lyre. If someone cuts the strings, the music ends.
"If then the soul happens to be a particular harmony, it is clear that, when our body is slackened or stretched without measure by diseases and other evils, the soul ... must in fact immediately be destroyed, even if it be most divine...." [Sounds like John Searle's view of the mind-body problem, BTW.]
How does Socrates respond? It takes some time -- the dialogue moves in zig-zags, not straight lines. When we in time we come back to this issue of the lyre and harmony, Socrates says that some harmonies are more harmonious than others. Harmony, then, is a matter of degree. This is not the case with the possession of a soul. If I understand the point here, Socrates/Plato is arguing that "possession of a soul" is a binary matter. No one person is more ensouled than another.
"All the souls of us living are equally good, if indeed, souls are, by nature, the same as this itself: Soul."
Thus, the analogy fails, and Simmias lays aside his own objection to immortality.
Contemporary philosopher Anderson Brown translates that argument into 21st century lingo, in a lively way.
Brown sees Plato as saying that we don't simply find material things and discover that you can pluck them and get music. We create material things for that purpose. A manufacturer created the lyre, stringing it together just so, in order to allow it to carry a harmony. Thus: harmony precedes the lyre. Harmony inspired the lyre. So the duality of harmony and lyre is one in which the intangible side of the dualism both precedes and survives the tangible side. It supports Socrates' contention, rather than weakening it.
I don't really see in Phaedo what Brown sees, but he seems to have given a lot more thought to it than I have, so I'll take it for granted this is there somewhere.
10 October 2010
The Soul(s) of Plato
Plato seems to have had two different theories of the soul at different stages of his career. The theory advanced in the Phaedo is that the soul is a perfectly simple entity, not compounded of any parts. That is one of the reasons why 'Socrates' argues that it must be eternal -- only that which is a compound can fall apart!
The perfectly simple soul of the Phaedo must also be immaterial, because it knows the Forms, and the Forms are immaterial. A beautiful woman is embodied, but Beauty as such as not. And my soul can know Beauty, thus my soul is not as such embodied, though it seems to have been associated with a body for the last few years!
Anyway, this theory went through some changes by the time Plato wrote The Republic. There he says that the soul is divided into three part: the passions; the spirit; the intellect. Think of these as akin to Dorothy's three friends -- tinman; lion; scarecrow. Or think of them as the class structure of a city -- workers; soldiers; rulers. The point remains, Plato had begun by thinking of the soul as simple, yet here it is clearly a compound. So it presumably can dissolve at death after all?
You can reconcile these views to each other by saying that in The Republic Plato was using the word "soul" in a broader sense than he was using it in the earlier dialogue. What he calls the "intellect" in The Republic corresponds to what he meant by the "soul" in The Phaedo. So he can be taken as saying that only the intellect, the part of us that grasps the Forms, is simple and immortal. The other parts of our soul are, along with the body, dispensable upon death.
The perfectly simple soul of the Phaedo must also be immaterial, because it knows the Forms, and the Forms are immaterial. A beautiful woman is embodied, but Beauty as such as not. And my soul can know Beauty, thus my soul is not as such embodied, though it seems to have been associated with a body for the last few years!
Anyway, this theory went through some changes by the time Plato wrote The Republic. There he says that the soul is divided into three part: the passions; the spirit; the intellect. Think of these as akin to Dorothy's three friends -- tinman; lion; scarecrow. Or think of them as the class structure of a city -- workers; soldiers; rulers. The point remains, Plato had begun by thinking of the soul as simple, yet here it is clearly a compound. So it presumably can dissolve at death after all?
You can reconcile these views to each other by saying that in The Republic Plato was using the word "soul" in a broader sense than he was using it in the earlier dialogue. What he calls the "intellect" in The Republic corresponds to what he meant by the "soul" in The Phaedo. So he can be taken as saying that only the intellect, the part of us that grasps the Forms, is simple and immortal. The other parts of our soul are, along with the body, dispensable upon death.
27 July 2008
Mathematics and Reality
Exists there a world of Platonic form aside from (transcending) the world of matter and particulars?
Today I'll give a three-part answer: no, and no, and maybe. The "maybe" is the interesting part.
1. I don't think there's any broad case to be made for a Platonic treatment of universals as such.
2. Nor do I think its helpful to morality to think of virtues as disembodied essences -- Justice, Courage, Temperance, the Good.
3. On the third hand, there IS a strong case to be made that numbers and the equations made from them ought to be considered as an independent world, which mathematicians discover rather than invent.
This case is based largely on the experiences reported to us by the greatest mathematicians since the days of Pythagoras.
Heinrich Hertz put it well. "One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than we originally put into them."
Who was Hertz that we should pay heed to his views on math? A physicist who obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1880, and whose work helped refine the mathematical theory of electromagnetism developed before him by Faraday and Maxwell. He earned his bones in terms of the relationship between physical reality and abstract formulae employed to describe it. If he believed (as have many others of equal eminence) that the formulae have an independent sort of existence, this isn't testimony that those of us who have shown less facility in their use than he should take lightly!
Today I'll give a three-part answer: no, and no, and maybe. The "maybe" is the interesting part.
1. I don't think there's any broad case to be made for a Platonic treatment of universals as such.
2. Nor do I think its helpful to morality to think of virtues as disembodied essences -- Justice, Courage, Temperance, the Good.
3. On the third hand, there IS a strong case to be made that numbers and the equations made from them ought to be considered as an independent world, which mathematicians discover rather than invent.
This case is based largely on the experiences reported to us by the greatest mathematicians since the days of Pythagoras.
Heinrich Hertz put it well. "One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than we originally put into them."
Who was Hertz that we should pay heed to his views on math? A physicist who obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1880, and whose work helped refine the mathematical theory of electromagnetism developed before him by Faraday and Maxwell. He earned his bones in terms of the relationship between physical reality and abstract formulae employed to describe it. If he believed (as have many others of equal eminence) that the formulae have an independent sort of existence, this isn't testimony that those of us who have shown less facility in their use than he should take lightly!
20 July 2008
Plato and the gods
Plato's Euthyphro is a fascinating dialog about the connection between theology and morality. Of course, since the characters in it belong within a polytheistic culture, they would speak about the nature of "the gods" in the plural.
But for those of us raised in a monotheistic culture, that's an easy enough mental adjustment to make while reading it.
What is trickier is identifying the precise question at stake : Is something moral because it is what the gods command? or do they command it because it is moral?
If burying the dead in a proper ceremony is moral only because the gods command it, then are they (is He) a completely arbitrary Being, who could just as easily command one sort of act as another? Who could just as easily tell us "thou shalt kill" as "thou shalt not kill"?
After chewing that, you might move on to Plato's Republic, chapter 2. The relevant passages come near the end of that chapter, where Plato has Socrates explaining how the future guardians of the state should be educated. A proper education must not involve teaching children about the gods as Homer depicts them. (Later in the book, Plato suggests exiling poets from the Republic altogether). The Homeric gods are powerful but degenerate humans. Teaching them to children plants in children's minds the idea that it is good to get away with whatever you can in pursuit of your own pleasures.
There's some obvious synergy between these two Platonic texts and what they say about the nature of the gods Plato and his contemporaries had heard of.
But for those of us raised in a monotheistic culture, that's an easy enough mental adjustment to make while reading it.
What is trickier is identifying the precise question at stake : Is something moral because it is what the gods command? or do they command it because it is moral?
If burying the dead in a proper ceremony is moral only because the gods command it, then are they (is He) a completely arbitrary Being, who could just as easily command one sort of act as another? Who could just as easily tell us "thou shalt kill" as "thou shalt not kill"?
After chewing that, you might move on to Plato's Republic, chapter 2. The relevant passages come near the end of that chapter, where Plato has Socrates explaining how the future guardians of the state should be educated. A proper education must not involve teaching children about the gods as Homer depicts them. (Later in the book, Plato suggests exiling poets from the Republic altogether). The Homeric gods are powerful but degenerate humans. Teaching them to children plants in children's minds the idea that it is good to get away with whatever you can in pursuit of your own pleasures.
There's some obvious synergy between these two Platonic texts and what they say about the nature of the gods Plato and his contemporaries had heard of.
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