EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY
Podcast #2: Laboratories of the Soul
[3,236 words]
In the first podcast of this series, I quoted Albert Einstein who said: “our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Some people react to that development by attacking both technology and reason. These days the European Enlightenment (in both its classical and modern forms) is frequently identified as the source of the problem, and some of the people who seek to preserve or restore humanity advocate irrational or non-rational alternatives. I do not favor that approach. Instead I propose taking another look at reason itself and seeking a way to retain and expand it. Contemporary science and technology are too valuable to discard, because we need all the scientific and technological knowledge we can get if we hope to deal successfully with our current environmental crises (especially climate chaos; various medical issues such as the spread of diseases like Ebola, cancer, and dementia; and with the explosion of human population that is out of control). The problem is that the scientific method simply cannot provide everything we need to know in order to shape, nurture, and implement the ideas that are essential for promoting the art of life.
I will begin by referring to lectures given at American universities by two of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. In 1913, Henri Bergson came to the United States for the first time in order to lecture at Columbia University. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the enthusiasm generated by his appearance was responsible for the first ever traffic jam in the history of Broadway, probably generated by a long article about him that had appeared the week before in The New York Times. I think Bergson’s popularity can be traced to his attempt to connect reason with the art of life. To achieve that goal we must know ourselves. In his essay called An Introduction to Metaphysics, Bergson tries to rescue both science and philosophy from relativism—the view that all judgments about truth and values lack universality and that nothing is absolutely true, good, beautiful, just, or holy. Here is the opening paragraph of that essay by Bergson:
If we compare various definitions of metaphysics with conceptions of the absolute, we realize that in spite of their apparent differences, philosophers agree in distinguishing two profoundly different ways of knowing. The first implies that we move around something and the second that we enter into it. The first one depends on the viewpoint we take and on the symbol by which we encounter it. The second takes no point of view and does not rely on any symbol. Of the first kind of knowledge we say that it stops with something relative; of the second kind, where possible, that it reaches the absolute.[1]
According to Bergson, this second kind of knowing, the kind that reaches what is absolute, is how we know ourselves. To know ourselves we must go beyond symbols and grasp the essence. This is the reality that we encounter from the inside, not by analysis but by intuition.[2]
Bergson’s philosophy had a profound influence on Alfred North Whitehead, who gained his early fame as a logician and philosopher of science in England, and who spent his final years at Harvard University teaching and publishing in the area of metaphysics. Whitehead gave a series of three lectures at Princeton University in 1929 that were published as an essay with the title The Function of Reason. Following Bergson, Whitehead claims that reason must ultimately function as a single process, but it has two aspects that often appear as separate and seem to oppose each other. Whitehead chose two figures from the ancient Greek world to symbolize those two aspects: Plato and Ulysses. “The one shares reason with the gods; the other shares it with the foxes.”[3] The form of reason symbolized by Plato seeks complete understanding, the knowledge of essences, whereas that of Ulysses calls for an immediate method of action.
The primary idea that distinguishes these two forms of reason is what Plato’s student, Aristotle, called “final causes.” In the Physics--and later in the Metaphysics—Aristotle says there are four factors or causes [aitiai] that are necessary for understanding anything.[4] These are usually called the material, efficient, formal, and final causes. Although the debate about the nature of causality has a long history, Whitehead traced the modern view to Francis Bacon at the beginning of the 17th century. Bacon’s prescriptions concerning the scientific method still prevail, especially his demand that no consideration of final causes should be allowed to intrude into science.[5] In modern science, material causes dominate. What is the “stuff” that explains not only what something is but also how it comes to be and passes away? Efficient causes are acceptable to the scientific method, but only if they are purged of any hint of agency that might invite us to go beyond the physical world. Formal causes are tolerated as long as they are limited to structures, such as the structure of the brain or the double helix that symbolizes the structure of the DNA molecule. Final causes are unwelcome in science, because any appeal to purpose or teleology might open the door to the supernatural. Gods and spirits are anathema in the modern scientific laboratory.
Here we must take great care to make sure that we properly understand Whitehead’s position. He is not opposed to scientific explanation. He says: “current scientific opinion is nearly infallible in selecting methods.”[6] When scientists limit their work to seeking methods that lead to practical action, they can provide great benefits to humanity, but when they leave their proper domain they can be destructive. Whitehead says: “Some of the major disasters of humankind have been produced by the narrowness of people with a good methodology. Ulysses has no use for Plato, and the bones of his companions are strewn on many a reef and many an isle.”[7] There are good reasons to avoid final causes, purposes, and teleology in a scientific laboratory, especially when they become confused with religious, ethical, and political aims and goals. Galileo learned that lesson the hard way.
The contemporary “theory of evolution” serves as a good example of the proper use of scientific methodology and of its limits. Whitehead offered a perceptive analysis that has unfortunately been ignored by many neo-Darwinians. He warned against equating evolution with “the survival of the fittest.” For example, rocks are better at surviving than are living beings, but that does not mean they are better at practicing the art of life. “This problem is not to be solved with any dogma that is the product of mere abstract thought elaborating its notions of the fitness of things. The solution requires that thought pay full attention to the empirical evidence—and to the whole of that evidence.”[8] What kind of evidence does Whitehead mean? I think he means that once we leave the scientific laboratory and consider the function of reason that lies beyond the narrow limits of materialism we find a realm of experience that is essential to “the art of life.”
There is no reasonable way to avoid teleology in explaining human beings and their practice of the art of life. The sciences, technology, and the STEM courses that prepare people to engage in medicine, engineering, business, agriculture, computer design, and similar professions are essential to our wellbeing in the contemporary world. However, limiting reason to scientific methodology eliminates the primary function of reason. The art of life requires purposes, aims, and goals. But not all goals are equal. Reason is required if we are to separate the good ones from the bad ones, to distinguish those that are just from those that are unjust, and to justify our choices when it is time to act. Whitehead describes the role of final causes in human life this way: “The conduct of human affairs is entirely dominated by our recognition of foresight determining purpose and purpose issuing in conduct. Almost every sentence we utter and every judgment we form presuppose our unfailing experience of this element of life.”[9] Whitehead called the attempt to eliminate final causes from human existence “a colossal example of anti-empirical dogmatism.”[10] Those who do so might be compared to the members of the Christian clergy who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. Scientific rationality depends on experience to test its hypotheses, but Whitehead rightly reminded us that there is more to experience than sense experience. Our experience of formal and final causes is no less empirical than what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell in the material realm. Whitehead is quite blunt: “The universe, as construed solely in terms of the efficient causation of physical interconnections, presents a sheer, insoluble contradiction.”[11] What could be more absurd than a group of human beings whose primary purpose is to eliminate purpose from human existence? Unfortunately, that is precisely what happens when philosophers join the scientific community and embrace Francis Bacon’s expulsion of final causes. Is it not contradictory freely to embrace a cosmology based on materialistic determinism and thus deny the existence of human freedom?
To counteract what Whitehead called “the narrowness of people with a good methodology,” we should incorporate the most recent stage of evolution into our cosmology. Strange as it might sound to followers of Ulysses, the emergence of soul in the evolutionary process is what transformed the world into a human habitat that promotes “the art of life.” That broader function of reason is at home in the arts and the humanities. Why have I chosen the term “soul” to designate that essential dimension of our humanity? It is, indeed, an old-fashioned word, usually connected with some religious tradition and generally shunned by serious scholars in the contemporary world. Why not use the word “mind” to identify what transcends our body? As a translator of ancient Greek texts into contemporary American English, I have often struggled with this problem. I believe it is better to use the word “soul” rather than “mind” to translate the Greek word “psûche.” The central problem with the term “mind” is that we have a strong tendency to limit “mind” to scientific rationality—the intellectual, analytical, logical process connected with mathematics and the scientific method. “Soul,” on the other hand, is deeply connected with passions and emotions, not just the intellect. The expanded meaning of “reason” that promotes the art of life includes our passions and emotions. Plato treated “soul” as a topic in several of his dialogues, and for him it always has a strong passionate and emotional aspect. We do not need to choose between “mind” and “soul” if we think of mind as an aspect of the soul. For Plato, three different aspects of the soul (passion, will, and reason) are necessary to promote the art of life.
There is, however, an even more important reason to focus on the soul at our stage of human evolution. Today we are in the habit of thinking of the soul as an individual and isolated entity, but “soul” also plays an important role in the way we think about ourselves as members of the human community. Our existence in society is the primary topic in Plato’s Republic, and the central focus is on the nature and distribution of justice. Socrates and Glaucon discuss the three different aspects of the soul and the qualities they manifest: passion manifests moderation; will manifests courage; and reason manifests wisdom. It is not clear whether the soul is different for every individual or is the same for everyone. Socrates begins by asking about wisdom: [Plato’s Republic, Book 4, Track 25]
Socrates: What about the wise person? Should we call wise those in whom the small aspect that rules and governs is based on knowledge of what is in the interest of all three aspects and what all three have in common?
Glaucon: Yes, let’s put it that way.
Socrates: And the moderate person has all three of these aspects in friendly harmony. Would you agree that in moderate people reason rules, and both passionate will and desire agree this is how it should be, and do not rebel?
Glaucon: I would agree with that account not only for the individual but also for the republic.
Socrates: We have characterized the just person several times. Do you still agree with that view?
Glaucon: I do.
Socrates: If we apply the form of justice to the individual, does it retain the sharp outline it had in the republic? Is there any reason that it should not fit both the individual and the republic?
Glaucon: Not as far as I can tell.
Socrates: Is the form of justice different in the individual or is it the same as in the republic?
Glaucon: In my opinion, Socrates, there is no difference.[12]
If the form of justice is the same, is it possible to achieve justice both in the individual and in the human community? This is a long story that is still being told. We do not know how it will end, but in the 21st century it is clear that the future existence and wellbeing of humanity depends on how we respond to this challenge.
Climate chaos, the threat of nuclear war, and our feeble efforts to achieve a reasonable political order on a global scale are some of the factors that make the question of soul in both its individual and communal forms more urgent than ever. We cannot find the answer to that question in scientific laboratories where the scientific method is confined to material and efficient causes. So, where should we look? In other words, where can we find the “laboratories of the soul”? To The Friends of Goddard Library, I said that we should turn once again to the arts and the humanities; a good place to look for them is in libraries. Throughout centuries of human history libraries have been largely devoted to acquiring, preserving, and distributing books, however changes in technology over the past two centuries have brought about a huge expansion of media for which libraries also now exist. The human soul is at home in books, and libraries provide an excellent context for reading, distributing, and discussing the ideas that exist and flourish there. But the addition of film, videos, audio performances, photography, and, of course, computers has enlarged the scope of what libraries can and do provide. As dramatic as this expansion of new media has been in recent decades, from the standpoint of the human psyche it is the ideas manifested in those media that are the most important part of the process. Whether it is a lonely reader at home with a borrowed book, a group of children listening to someone read a classic work, a public discussion of a new publication, a film forum with an opportunity for critical evaluation, or a roomful of people using computers, what matters most is the ideas they are sharing and evaluating.
Are written texts or oral exchange the best way to seek and express the truth? This issue was already posed in Plato’s Phaedrus. Interpreters of that dialogue usually focus on the claim that writing is inferior to speaking, because written words remain fixed and cannot respond to questions and to criticism. This dispute became much more complex when other media were introduced and both writing and speaking were forced to contend with photography, film, video, and computer languages that have been spread throughout the globe on the Internet. A close reading of Plato’s Phaedrus shows that there is a deeper insight that helps us sort out the relative value of all forms of expression. Consider this exchange between Phaedrus and Socrates: [Phaedrus Disk 2, Track 25]
Socrates: Now, Phaedrus, tell me this. Is there not another kind of language that is the legitimate sibling of the one we have just been discussing? Is it not better both because of its power and how it is generated?
Phaedrus: What kind of language do you mean, and how is it produced?
Socrates: The kind that is inscribed knowingly in the mind of the person who understands. It is able to defend itself and knows whom to address and when to remain silent.
Phaedrus: I think you mean the living and dynamic thought of someone who truly knows. The written word is properly called a shadow image of it.
Socrates: That is exactly what I mean. Now tell me whether a prudent farmer who has seeds and wishes to produce fruit would hastily force them to bloom in pots during the summer so that their beauty emerges in eight days—simply for amusement, possibly to celebrate some holiday. Or would a serious farmer follow the rules of the art and sow the seeds in suitable soil, tending them until the fruit reaches its perfection in the eighth month?
Phaedrus: Yes, Socrates, a serious farmer would follow those rules and not the other ones.
Socrates: Now consider the people who know about what is just and beautiful and good. Do you suppose that they would be less prudent about their seeds than the farmer?
Phaedrus: Of course not.
Socrates: So if they were serious they would not expect to write in black water or sow with a pen words that are powerless to defend themselves and cannot adequately teach the truth.
Phaedrus: They probably would not do that.
Socrates: No, but it is likely that when they do write they will plant gardens filled with letters to pass the time pleasantly and to store away memories for themselves when they reach the forgetfulness of old age and for all others who follow in their footsteps. While other people indulge in various amusements such as getting soaked at drinking-parties, they will delight in passing the time by watching those young plants put forth their delicate leaves.
Phaedrus: Socrates, you are contrasting the most trivial ways of passing time with the finest—namely your pleasure in telling stories and myths about justice and the other things you talk about.
Socrates: Yes, Phaedrus, that is true. But I think that nurturing serious reflection on those topics by practicing the art of dialectic is an even finer way of spending time. That art takes hold of a fertile soul and plants and sows knowledgeable words that are able to help themselves as well as the one who planted them. They are not barren but produce new seeds that germinate in other minds, and, when maintained, forever allow those who master this art to attain the highest state of wellbeing that is possible for humans.[13]
The “art of dialectic” is a form of thinking that begins with particulars and seeks to go beyond them to essences. It is prior to speaking, writing, and all other symbolic forms. Above all, it seeks as its goal—its final cause—“the highest state of wellbeing that is possible for humans.” In other words, its ultimate purpose is “to promote the art of life.”
The best way to explore the nature of dialectic in concrete terms is to take a closer look at some examples of what has come out of the laboratories of the soul since we human beings have reached our current stage of evolution. In my next podcast I will begin by explaining what I do not have in mind and then explore some exemplary works.
[1] Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Albert A. Anderson and Lieselotte Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2014), p. 3.
[2] Ibid, p. 5.
[3] Whitehead, p. 7.
[4] Aristotle, Physics, Book II, Chapter 3.
[5] Whitehead, p. 7.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, p. 4.
[9] Ibid, p. 8.
[10] Ibid, p. 9.
[11] Ibid, p. 12.
[12] Plato’s Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett, revised by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2001), p. 442.
[13] Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2013), pp. 276-277.
Podcast #2: Laboratories of the Soul
[3,236 words]
In the first podcast of this series, I quoted Albert Einstein who said: “our technology has exceeded our humanity.” Some people react to that development by attacking both technology and reason. These days the European Enlightenment (in both its classical and modern forms) is frequently identified as the source of the problem, and some of the people who seek to preserve or restore humanity advocate irrational or non-rational alternatives. I do not favor that approach. Instead I propose taking another look at reason itself and seeking a way to retain and expand it. Contemporary science and technology are too valuable to discard, because we need all the scientific and technological knowledge we can get if we hope to deal successfully with our current environmental crises (especially climate chaos; various medical issues such as the spread of diseases like Ebola, cancer, and dementia; and with the explosion of human population that is out of control). The problem is that the scientific method simply cannot provide everything we need to know in order to shape, nurture, and implement the ideas that are essential for promoting the art of life.
I will begin by referring to lectures given at American universities by two of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. In 1913, Henri Bergson came to the United States for the first time in order to lecture at Columbia University. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the enthusiasm generated by his appearance was responsible for the first ever traffic jam in the history of Broadway, probably generated by a long article about him that had appeared the week before in The New York Times. I think Bergson’s popularity can be traced to his attempt to connect reason with the art of life. To achieve that goal we must know ourselves. In his essay called An Introduction to Metaphysics, Bergson tries to rescue both science and philosophy from relativism—the view that all judgments about truth and values lack universality and that nothing is absolutely true, good, beautiful, just, or holy. Here is the opening paragraph of that essay by Bergson:
If we compare various definitions of metaphysics with conceptions of the absolute, we realize that in spite of their apparent differences, philosophers agree in distinguishing two profoundly different ways of knowing. The first implies that we move around something and the second that we enter into it. The first one depends on the viewpoint we take and on the symbol by which we encounter it. The second takes no point of view and does not rely on any symbol. Of the first kind of knowledge we say that it stops with something relative; of the second kind, where possible, that it reaches the absolute.[1]
According to Bergson, this second kind of knowing, the kind that reaches what is absolute, is how we know ourselves. To know ourselves we must go beyond symbols and grasp the essence. This is the reality that we encounter from the inside, not by analysis but by intuition.[2]
Bergson’s philosophy had a profound influence on Alfred North Whitehead, who gained his early fame as a logician and philosopher of science in England, and who spent his final years at Harvard University teaching and publishing in the area of metaphysics. Whitehead gave a series of three lectures at Princeton University in 1929 that were published as an essay with the title The Function of Reason. Following Bergson, Whitehead claims that reason must ultimately function as a single process, but it has two aspects that often appear as separate and seem to oppose each other. Whitehead chose two figures from the ancient Greek world to symbolize those two aspects: Plato and Ulysses. “The one shares reason with the gods; the other shares it with the foxes.”[3] The form of reason symbolized by Plato seeks complete understanding, the knowledge of essences, whereas that of Ulysses calls for an immediate method of action.
The primary idea that distinguishes these two forms of reason is what Plato’s student, Aristotle, called “final causes.” In the Physics--and later in the Metaphysics—Aristotle says there are four factors or causes [aitiai] that are necessary for understanding anything.[4] These are usually called the material, efficient, formal, and final causes. Although the debate about the nature of causality has a long history, Whitehead traced the modern view to Francis Bacon at the beginning of the 17th century. Bacon’s prescriptions concerning the scientific method still prevail, especially his demand that no consideration of final causes should be allowed to intrude into science.[5] In modern science, material causes dominate. What is the “stuff” that explains not only what something is but also how it comes to be and passes away? Efficient causes are acceptable to the scientific method, but only if they are purged of any hint of agency that might invite us to go beyond the physical world. Formal causes are tolerated as long as they are limited to structures, such as the structure of the brain or the double helix that symbolizes the structure of the DNA molecule. Final causes are unwelcome in science, because any appeal to purpose or teleology might open the door to the supernatural. Gods and spirits are anathema in the modern scientific laboratory.
Here we must take great care to make sure that we properly understand Whitehead’s position. He is not opposed to scientific explanation. He says: “current scientific opinion is nearly infallible in selecting methods.”[6] When scientists limit their work to seeking methods that lead to practical action, they can provide great benefits to humanity, but when they leave their proper domain they can be destructive. Whitehead says: “Some of the major disasters of humankind have been produced by the narrowness of people with a good methodology. Ulysses has no use for Plato, and the bones of his companions are strewn on many a reef and many an isle.”[7] There are good reasons to avoid final causes, purposes, and teleology in a scientific laboratory, especially when they become confused with religious, ethical, and political aims and goals. Galileo learned that lesson the hard way.
The contemporary “theory of evolution” serves as a good example of the proper use of scientific methodology and of its limits. Whitehead offered a perceptive analysis that has unfortunately been ignored by many neo-Darwinians. He warned against equating evolution with “the survival of the fittest.” For example, rocks are better at surviving than are living beings, but that does not mean they are better at practicing the art of life. “This problem is not to be solved with any dogma that is the product of mere abstract thought elaborating its notions of the fitness of things. The solution requires that thought pay full attention to the empirical evidence—and to the whole of that evidence.”[8] What kind of evidence does Whitehead mean? I think he means that once we leave the scientific laboratory and consider the function of reason that lies beyond the narrow limits of materialism we find a realm of experience that is essential to “the art of life.”
There is no reasonable way to avoid teleology in explaining human beings and their practice of the art of life. The sciences, technology, and the STEM courses that prepare people to engage in medicine, engineering, business, agriculture, computer design, and similar professions are essential to our wellbeing in the contemporary world. However, limiting reason to scientific methodology eliminates the primary function of reason. The art of life requires purposes, aims, and goals. But not all goals are equal. Reason is required if we are to separate the good ones from the bad ones, to distinguish those that are just from those that are unjust, and to justify our choices when it is time to act. Whitehead describes the role of final causes in human life this way: “The conduct of human affairs is entirely dominated by our recognition of foresight determining purpose and purpose issuing in conduct. Almost every sentence we utter and every judgment we form presuppose our unfailing experience of this element of life.”[9] Whitehead called the attempt to eliminate final causes from human existence “a colossal example of anti-empirical dogmatism.”[10] Those who do so might be compared to the members of the Christian clergy who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. Scientific rationality depends on experience to test its hypotheses, but Whitehead rightly reminded us that there is more to experience than sense experience. Our experience of formal and final causes is no less empirical than what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell in the material realm. Whitehead is quite blunt: “The universe, as construed solely in terms of the efficient causation of physical interconnections, presents a sheer, insoluble contradiction.”[11] What could be more absurd than a group of human beings whose primary purpose is to eliminate purpose from human existence? Unfortunately, that is precisely what happens when philosophers join the scientific community and embrace Francis Bacon’s expulsion of final causes. Is it not contradictory freely to embrace a cosmology based on materialistic determinism and thus deny the existence of human freedom?
To counteract what Whitehead called “the narrowness of people with a good methodology,” we should incorporate the most recent stage of evolution into our cosmology. Strange as it might sound to followers of Ulysses, the emergence of soul in the evolutionary process is what transformed the world into a human habitat that promotes “the art of life.” That broader function of reason is at home in the arts and the humanities. Why have I chosen the term “soul” to designate that essential dimension of our humanity? It is, indeed, an old-fashioned word, usually connected with some religious tradition and generally shunned by serious scholars in the contemporary world. Why not use the word “mind” to identify what transcends our body? As a translator of ancient Greek texts into contemporary American English, I have often struggled with this problem. I believe it is better to use the word “soul” rather than “mind” to translate the Greek word “psûche.” The central problem with the term “mind” is that we have a strong tendency to limit “mind” to scientific rationality—the intellectual, analytical, logical process connected with mathematics and the scientific method. “Soul,” on the other hand, is deeply connected with passions and emotions, not just the intellect. The expanded meaning of “reason” that promotes the art of life includes our passions and emotions. Plato treated “soul” as a topic in several of his dialogues, and for him it always has a strong passionate and emotional aspect. We do not need to choose between “mind” and “soul” if we think of mind as an aspect of the soul. For Plato, three different aspects of the soul (passion, will, and reason) are necessary to promote the art of life.
There is, however, an even more important reason to focus on the soul at our stage of human evolution. Today we are in the habit of thinking of the soul as an individual and isolated entity, but “soul” also plays an important role in the way we think about ourselves as members of the human community. Our existence in society is the primary topic in Plato’s Republic, and the central focus is on the nature and distribution of justice. Socrates and Glaucon discuss the three different aspects of the soul and the qualities they manifest: passion manifests moderation; will manifests courage; and reason manifests wisdom. It is not clear whether the soul is different for every individual or is the same for everyone. Socrates begins by asking about wisdom: [Plato’s Republic, Book 4, Track 25]
Socrates: What about the wise person? Should we call wise those in whom the small aspect that rules and governs is based on knowledge of what is in the interest of all three aspects and what all three have in common?
Glaucon: Yes, let’s put it that way.
Socrates: And the moderate person has all three of these aspects in friendly harmony. Would you agree that in moderate people reason rules, and both passionate will and desire agree this is how it should be, and do not rebel?
Glaucon: I would agree with that account not only for the individual but also for the republic.
Socrates: We have characterized the just person several times. Do you still agree with that view?
Glaucon: I do.
Socrates: If we apply the form of justice to the individual, does it retain the sharp outline it had in the republic? Is there any reason that it should not fit both the individual and the republic?
Glaucon: Not as far as I can tell.
Socrates: Is the form of justice different in the individual or is it the same as in the republic?
Glaucon: In my opinion, Socrates, there is no difference.[12]
If the form of justice is the same, is it possible to achieve justice both in the individual and in the human community? This is a long story that is still being told. We do not know how it will end, but in the 21st century it is clear that the future existence and wellbeing of humanity depends on how we respond to this challenge.
Climate chaos, the threat of nuclear war, and our feeble efforts to achieve a reasonable political order on a global scale are some of the factors that make the question of soul in both its individual and communal forms more urgent than ever. We cannot find the answer to that question in scientific laboratories where the scientific method is confined to material and efficient causes. So, where should we look? In other words, where can we find the “laboratories of the soul”? To The Friends of Goddard Library, I said that we should turn once again to the arts and the humanities; a good place to look for them is in libraries. Throughout centuries of human history libraries have been largely devoted to acquiring, preserving, and distributing books, however changes in technology over the past two centuries have brought about a huge expansion of media for which libraries also now exist. The human soul is at home in books, and libraries provide an excellent context for reading, distributing, and discussing the ideas that exist and flourish there. But the addition of film, videos, audio performances, photography, and, of course, computers has enlarged the scope of what libraries can and do provide. As dramatic as this expansion of new media has been in recent decades, from the standpoint of the human psyche it is the ideas manifested in those media that are the most important part of the process. Whether it is a lonely reader at home with a borrowed book, a group of children listening to someone read a classic work, a public discussion of a new publication, a film forum with an opportunity for critical evaluation, or a roomful of people using computers, what matters most is the ideas they are sharing and evaluating.
Are written texts or oral exchange the best way to seek and express the truth? This issue was already posed in Plato’s Phaedrus. Interpreters of that dialogue usually focus on the claim that writing is inferior to speaking, because written words remain fixed and cannot respond to questions and to criticism. This dispute became much more complex when other media were introduced and both writing and speaking were forced to contend with photography, film, video, and computer languages that have been spread throughout the globe on the Internet. A close reading of Plato’s Phaedrus shows that there is a deeper insight that helps us sort out the relative value of all forms of expression. Consider this exchange between Phaedrus and Socrates: [Phaedrus Disk 2, Track 25]
Socrates: Now, Phaedrus, tell me this. Is there not another kind of language that is the legitimate sibling of the one we have just been discussing? Is it not better both because of its power and how it is generated?
Phaedrus: What kind of language do you mean, and how is it produced?
Socrates: The kind that is inscribed knowingly in the mind of the person who understands. It is able to defend itself and knows whom to address and when to remain silent.
Phaedrus: I think you mean the living and dynamic thought of someone who truly knows. The written word is properly called a shadow image of it.
Socrates: That is exactly what I mean. Now tell me whether a prudent farmer who has seeds and wishes to produce fruit would hastily force them to bloom in pots during the summer so that their beauty emerges in eight days—simply for amusement, possibly to celebrate some holiday. Or would a serious farmer follow the rules of the art and sow the seeds in suitable soil, tending them until the fruit reaches its perfection in the eighth month?
Phaedrus: Yes, Socrates, a serious farmer would follow those rules and not the other ones.
Socrates: Now consider the people who know about what is just and beautiful and good. Do you suppose that they would be less prudent about their seeds than the farmer?
Phaedrus: Of course not.
Socrates: So if they were serious they would not expect to write in black water or sow with a pen words that are powerless to defend themselves and cannot adequately teach the truth.
Phaedrus: They probably would not do that.
Socrates: No, but it is likely that when they do write they will plant gardens filled with letters to pass the time pleasantly and to store away memories for themselves when they reach the forgetfulness of old age and for all others who follow in their footsteps. While other people indulge in various amusements such as getting soaked at drinking-parties, they will delight in passing the time by watching those young plants put forth their delicate leaves.
Phaedrus: Socrates, you are contrasting the most trivial ways of passing time with the finest—namely your pleasure in telling stories and myths about justice and the other things you talk about.
Socrates: Yes, Phaedrus, that is true. But I think that nurturing serious reflection on those topics by practicing the art of dialectic is an even finer way of spending time. That art takes hold of a fertile soul and plants and sows knowledgeable words that are able to help themselves as well as the one who planted them. They are not barren but produce new seeds that germinate in other minds, and, when maintained, forever allow those who master this art to attain the highest state of wellbeing that is possible for humans.[13]
The “art of dialectic” is a form of thinking that begins with particulars and seeks to go beyond them to essences. It is prior to speaking, writing, and all other symbolic forms. Above all, it seeks as its goal—its final cause—“the highest state of wellbeing that is possible for humans.” In other words, its ultimate purpose is “to promote the art of life.”
The best way to explore the nature of dialectic in concrete terms is to take a closer look at some examples of what has come out of the laboratories of the soul since we human beings have reached our current stage of evolution. In my next podcast I will begin by explaining what I do not have in mind and then explore some exemplary works.
[1] Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Albert A. Anderson and Lieselotte Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2014), p. 3.
[2] Ibid, p. 5.
[3] Whitehead, p. 7.
[4] Aristotle, Physics, Book II, Chapter 3.
[5] Whitehead, p. 7.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, p. 4.
[9] Ibid, p. 8.
[10] Ibid, p. 9.
[11] Ibid, p. 12.
[12] Plato’s Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett, revised by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2001), p. 442.
[13] Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2013), pp. 276-277.