EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY
Podcast #3: The Art of Dialectic
[3,676 words]
At the end of Podcast #2 in this series, I promised to elaborate on what I mean by “laboratories of the soul.” I have already identified libraries as one important place where such laboratories are located. In this podcast I will explore the practice of dialectic as the method of inquiry appropriate for working in laboratories of the soul. What I call dialectic is often referred to as “the Socratic method,” but I think it is important to step back from the character Socrates and consider what Plato does in his entire set of dialogues. For example, in Plato’s dialogue called Sophist, it is not Socrates but a character called “the Athenian Stranger” who describes dialectic as the kind of knowledge that belongs to free people [Greek page 253]. In that dialogue sophists are contrasted with philosophers, primarily because sophists use rhetoric to persuade and convince the public to adopt laws and follow practices that benefit them and their friends and harm their enemies, whereas philosophers—lovers of wisdom—seek what is true, beautiful, and just as a path to what is really good.
What Aristotle called “final causes” are, for Plato, the ideas (ta eide) that provide purpose and meaning for humanity. Those are the values that Einstein said have been exceeded by our technology. At the beginning of Book 2 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates and Glaucon examine the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic values that is relevant to this topic.
[357] Socrates: I thought these words had ended the discussion, but it turned out to be only the beginning. Glaucon was not satisfied with Thrasymachus’ retreat, so he attacked me with his usual audacity.
Glaucon: Socrates, do you really want to convince us that it is always better to be just than unjust, or do you merely want to pretend that you have convinced us?
Socrates: I really want to convince you.
Glaucon: So far you’ve failed. Tell me how you would analyze goodness. Isn’t there a kind of good that is desirable for its own sake, independent of its consequences, such as joy and delight in harmless pleasures?
Socrates: I agree.
Glaucon: And what would you say about another kind of good that is desirable not only in itself but also because of its consequences, such as thinking, seeing, and being healthy?
Socrates: I would say yes to that kind of good.
Glaucon: And isn’t there a third form of good, one that is annoying in itself but valuable for what it produces? Consider bodybuilding, medical treatment, and earning a living. We don’t choose such activities for their own sake but for their results.
Socrates: Yes, there is also that kind. But why are you asking these questions?
Glaucon: Because I want to know how you would classify justice.
Socrates: I would say it is the best kind of good, desirable both for its own sake and for its consequences.
According to this analysis, some values are intrinsic, some are extrinsic, and some are both intrinsic and extrinsic. “Delight in harmless pleasures” is entirely intrinsic, something people pursue for its own sake. These simple pleasures are not condemned in this discussion, but they turn out to be trivial when compared to a value such as justice, the “best kind of good that is desirable both for its own sake and for its consequences.”
The arts and the humanities are often valued for their own sake, and they are worth pursuing simply for their intrinsic value. In their simple form they amuse and entertain. But they also have a much more serious role in human life, especially in a genuine democracy. They nurture a form of education that takes the wellbeing of the whole person as its primary goal, going far beyond merely producing a healthy body or developing a clever mind. In the best human community this kind of education seeks the common good. In the contemporary world, education has moved outside of schools, colleges, and universities and is rapidly expanding on the Internet, in the media, and in computer software that is so portable it can be carried anywhere and used by individuals without the need of teachers or tutors. The media and the arts are now the locus of some of our most important laboratories of the soul.
But this development is a mixed blessing, especially if our primary goal is education for democracy and the common good. Radio, television, newspapers, and other aspects of the so-called “fourth estate” have been indicted for ignoring the common good and promoting the special interests of only a few people. Noam Chomsky, in a book published in 1988, accuses the media of “manufacturing consent”[i] rather than seeking the truth. Since then, the “fifth estate” has emerged bringing a strange transfer of power to hackers, to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and to anyone who wishes to create a website and share information and opinions that can do great harm to the powers that be. Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg created and publicized WikiLeaks with the goal of providing transparency and combating the “manufactured consent” described by Chomsky. Then Edward Snowden joined the Fifth Estate and made the struggle between governments and self-appointed champions of free speech even fiercer.
What has this to do with “laboratories of the soul”? One of their most important functions is to manifest and evaluate ethical and political judgments about the most important values. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the arts and the humanities have presented and evaluated such judgments. However, much of what passes for “art” in contemporary culture is not devoted to serious inquiry and examination but to moneymaking ventures that feature sex, violence, and thrilling adventures. Broadway, Hollywood, the major television networks, Cable TV, and most of the other forms of public media are more interested in entertainment than in education. Neil Postman presented that critique in a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death.”[ii] Written almost 30 years ago, this book has turned out to be prophetic, announcing the plague that has infected the souls of young people who today spend much of their time staring at small screens, amusing themselves to death. As colleges and universities have increasingly become devoted to preparing people for the workplace and as “STEM education” has eclipsed the arts and the humanities, libraries are more important than ever for providing laboratories of the soul.
In both public and private academic communities, the library does not belong to any particular discipline or department. Outside the academy, public libraries exist to serve all members of the community, regardless of income, political affiliation, religious preference, gender, or age. Today the Internet provides an important extension of the public library, but that will be true only as long as it remains part of the public domain. Once it has been captured for commercial purposes or controlled by special interests of any kind, the Internet will lose its ability to contribute to the common good.
Thinking of the arts and humanities and the libraries that preserve them as “laboratories of the soul” suggests that there are spiritual patterns and principles that can be identified and studied, just as there are physical laws to be discovered in laboratories by using the scientific method. What is most important about those spiritual patterns is that they transcend particular events in space and time and participate in what is timeless and universal. To understand them and use them appropriately, we need to employ a different method, one that suits the subject matter. Aristotle provides one good example of that method in the Poetics where he explores the important cultural role of tragic, comic, and epic poetry. Although scholars often dwell on their differences, Plato and Aristotle both use reason to seek and promote the art of life. The fundamental principles that Aristotle articulates and analyzes in the Poetics are not limited to poetry but are shared among the arts and humanities. These fundamental principles belong to the soul and the essences it manifests. They differ from the laws studied in scientific laboratories because they pertain to a realm where freedom prevails. This is why Aristotle says that “poetry is more philosophical and more significant” than history. He explains it this way:
Poetry presents what is universal, whereas history recounts particulars. By universal I mean the way a certain kind of person will speak or act based on what is either probable or necessary. Even when it names individual characters, poetry aims at the universal—what a certain kind of person might do and say.[iii]
Aristotle claims that the fundamental principles of the soul include universals that pertain not only to what might be but also to what should be.[iv]
There is no formula or list to direct us as we seek laboratories of the soul, but it is easy to find examples of such works that have served humanity in the past. In addition to the classical works from ancient Greece, Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, and historical plays continue to serve as laboratories of the soul. Goethe, Ibsen, Beckett, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller have added important works to that list, but with the advent of film we can point to Bergman, Herzog, Kieslowski, Bunuel, and a growing list of serious artists in that medium. We can add the entire corpus of serious musical compositions from Bach through the classical and romantic periods to contemporary works that have yet to prove their power and lasting value. To understand and evaluate those more abstract creations we can draw upon critical and theoretical reflections such as Leonard Bernstein’s Norton lectures at Harvard University that were published under the title The Unanswered Question in 1976. Examples of painting can already be found in caves in France, Spain, and Brazil perhaps as early as 15,000 BCE, and the history and criticism of the visual arts have long been integral to the humanities. In our day, I would suggest that Rudolf Arnheim’s study of Picasso’s Guernica (The Genesis of a Painting) published in 1962 shows that this tradition is alive and well. In the area of literature the novels of Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Jane Austin have been especially important for my own education. I could add examples from architecture, dance, sculpture, and other media that are still being developed, but this should suffice to indicate what I mean by “laboratories of the soul.” Such creations and reflections manifest, formulate, examine, interpret, and evaluate any and all ideas so that they can be understood and used to practice the art of life. I have developed and explained this way of thinking about the arts as a three-stage process in a book called Reality and the Arts: A Philosophical Guide, published by Agora Publications in 2009.
How can we foster this inquiry into the fundamental principles of the soul? The first step is to distinguish what I have been calling “the scientific method” from what Plato calls “dialectic.” Plato practiced the art dialectic in his dialogues, which are a form of poetry. I will offer an example of how this dialectical process works. Plato’s dialogue Phaedo presents Socrates in prison where he is awaiting execution. He was accused and convicted of being an atheist and corrupting young people, and the jury condemned him to death. Plato’s version of that story, which does have a historical basis, features a careful examination of the nature and destiny of the soul. For Socrates, the issue of what happens to him after they kill his body is not an abstract puzzle but an immediate existential question. This laboratory of the soul allows all of us who read or listen to the dialogue to participate in the drama. Socrates will die at sunset, and when he does the bell that tolls also tolls for thee. What, exactly, is the soul? Is it immortal? If so, what does that mean?
Plato’s Phaedo offers not one but four different views of the soul and provides separate arguments for each one. The dialectical process in Plato’s Phaedo follows a sinuous path because it examines several popular beliefs about the nature and destiny of the soul. This requires both explication and refutation, and it must follow the argument wherever it leads. Socrates tells about his own youthful quest for an explanation of causality and his excitement when he heard someone reading from a book by Anaxagoras. The book said that mind is the cause of everything, leading Socrates to hope that Anaxagoras would explain not only how things come to be and pass away but also why it is best for them to do so. [Plato’s Phaedo, Disk 3, Track4]
Cebes, my friend, this wonderful hope soon flew away and disappeared. As I proceeded, I found that the man did not attribute to mind any genuine role in organizing things but appealed to air, ether, water, and many other strange things as the real causes. It was as if someone said that Socrates does everything he does with his mind, but when asked to explain any particular action—such as why I am currently sitting here in prison—responded by saying that I am sitting here because my body is made up of bones and tendons, that the bones are hard and have ligaments that connect them, and that the tendons are elastic and cover the bones, which also are covered by flesh and skin. As the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, it is possible to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here with my legs bent. That is what he would say, and he would explain my talking to you in a similar way. He would attribute that to sound and air and hearing, and he would list ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that the Athenians thought it best to condemn me, and I thought it is best to sit here and it is right to endure the penalty they imposed. By the dog of Egypt, I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia long ago, guided by the idea of what is best, if I had not decided that it is better and nobler to accept the sentence inflicted by the state rather than escape and run away.
It is absurd to call such things causes, but it would be right to say that without bones and tendons and other parts of my body I could not carry out my decisions. But to say that those are the causes of what I am doing — that I’m doing it with reason but not by choosing what is best — is an extremely careless and sloppy way of talking. Imagine being unable to distinguish between the true cause and a condition without which it could not act. Many people talk that way, but they are groping around in the dark—applying the term cause where it does not belong.[v]
This view of causality is remarkably similar to Whitehead’s position in The Function of Reason, but Socrates is not Plato’s “mouthpiece.” It would be a mistake to confine our interpretation of Plato’s philosophy to the words of only one of his characters. How we interpret Plato’s dialogue (or any other serious work of philosophy) is much more important that what is said in any single part of that work. All of Plato’s characters are essential to the unfolding of Plato’s dialectical process.
Whitehead agreed with Bergson in thinking that evolution is a creative process. Evolution gave rise to the human species, but it was not until human consciousness evolved that we emerged from the realm of what Immanuel Kant calls “heteronomy” to the realm of “autonomy.”[vi] Heteronomy refers to laws imposed from the outside, whereas autonomy means that we impose laws on ourselves. Material and efficient causes dominated on Planet Earth before human beings evolved. When we humans began to question, challenge, and think for ourselves, we evolved to the point of making free choices based on values that were previously unknown. Material and efficient causes suffice for heteronomy, but autonomy cannot function without formal and final causes. In an important sense, the Pythagorean theorem was discovered rather than invented. It was unknown until those ancient mathematicians formulated it. Only then was it able to shape the practice of architects, engineers, and builders. By analogy, artists, philosophers, and historians do not create ideas such as justice, beauty, and goodness; they discover them; they manifest them.
Whitehead’s idea of teleology does not apply to a supernatural realm outside of nature. It is a natural process that evolves as human consciousness evolves, but once we include final causes in the process, the meaning of nature changes fundamentally. It provides a worldview that transcends the scientific materialism spawned by positivism; this idea of nature becomes a rich and dynamic cosmos that incorporates mind and soul as essential aspects. It cannot be explained without including what is just, good, and beautiful. To say that final causes promote autonomy does not mean that they are spontaneous, irrational, or arbitrary. Autonomy does not mean “uncaused.” Freedom, in this sense, means that purposes and goals are chosen rather than being determined by forces outside of our control. Heteronomy implies a scheme in which something or someone “other” causes what takes place in the world. Autonomy, especially when it embraces dialectical reason, leaves us responsible for what happens.
Dialectical thinking goes beyond the narrow method of scientific rationality and follows the creative process wherever it leads. Unlike other methods of inquiry, dialectic requires that each participant must make the journey from the cave of shadows into the sunlight as a personal quest. Glaucon, like many of us, would prefer a simple formula or a set of rules to follow. In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, he asks Socrates to provide a roadmap:
Socrates: Glaucon, I think we have come at last to the song that dialectic sings—a mental performance the power of sight can only imitate. In our allegory we imagined looking at real animals, the distant stars, and finally at the sun itself. In this way a person begins to use dialectic, seeking to discover reality by thinking—not by relying on sense perception—and by settling for nothing less than goodness itself. This journey leads to the limit of what we can think, just as leaving the cave led to the limit of what we can see.
Glaucon: That’s a good way to put it.
Socrates: Don’t we call this journey dialectic?
Glaucon: Yes, that’s what we call it.
Socrates: Then the release of the prisoners from their chains, their turning from the shadows to images and then to the light, their ascent from the cave to the sun while their eyes are still weak and they are unable to look at animals and plants and the light of the sun but are able to see divine images in the water and shadows of reality—rather than shadows of images cast by the firelight, which is itself only the image of the sun—this process of studying and pursuing the arts we recently described has the power to lift what is best in the soul to contemplate what is best in reality, just as the most lucid of the senses reveals what is brightest in the visible world.
Glaucon: I agree with what you are saying. Even though it is hard to believe, from another point of view it is even harder to deny. But whether or not it has been proved, let’s assume it is true—I’m sure we will discuss it again on another occasion. Let’s proceed from the prelude to the song itself and describe it in the same way. Tell us the nature of dialectic, its various aspects, and the paths that lead to the end of our journey. [533]
Socrates: My dear Glaucon, I’m afraid that you cannot follow me any farther, though I am quite willing to lead. Instead of presenting an image through allegory, I would have to disclose the truth itself as it appears to me. I’m not sure that what I see is true, but I am confident that there is truth to be grasped and that we should settle for nothing less. Don’t you agree?
Glaucon: Of course.
Socrates: Can we also say that only the power of dialectic can reveal it to someone who has learned the subjects we were just discussing?
Glaucon: We can definitely say that.
Socrates: And nobody can establish that there is any other way of inquiry specifically designed to understand reality itself. All the other arts are concerned with human desire and opinion, cultivated for producing and nurturing things that grow or building and tending what is constructed. We did agree that mathematical studies such as geometry have some power to grasp reality, but they only dream about being, never able to capture it while fully awake. They work only with assumptions that they take for granted and cannot justify. When a person does not know first principles and cannot give an account of the conclusions and the reasoning leading to that conclusion, how could we possibly call such arbitrary agreement genuine knowledge?
Glaucon: That would be impossible.
Socrates: Then dialectic is the only form of inquiry that goes to the source, eliminating hypotheses and seeking the certainty of first principles. When the eye of the soul is buried in the muck of Hades, dialectic releases it and turns it up toward the light, assisted by the studies we have been discussing. We are in the habit of calling those studies sciences, but they should have some other name, indicating greater clarity than opinion and less clarity than knowledge. This is what we previously called understanding. But let’s not quibble about names when we have matters of such importance to consider.
[i] Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
[ii] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
[iii] Aristotle’s Poetics, translated by Albert A. Anderson, in Beauty and Truth (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, Inc., 2007), 1451b.
[iv] Ibid, 1460b.
[v] Plato’s Phaedo, Translated by Benjamin Jowett, revised by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2005), pp. 98-99.
[vi] See Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Foundations of Ethics, Second Edition, translated by Leo Rauch and revised by Lieselotte Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, Inc., 2007), pp. 54 ff.
Podcast #3: The Art of Dialectic
[3,676 words]
At the end of Podcast #2 in this series, I promised to elaborate on what I mean by “laboratories of the soul.” I have already identified libraries as one important place where such laboratories are located. In this podcast I will explore the practice of dialectic as the method of inquiry appropriate for working in laboratories of the soul. What I call dialectic is often referred to as “the Socratic method,” but I think it is important to step back from the character Socrates and consider what Plato does in his entire set of dialogues. For example, in Plato’s dialogue called Sophist, it is not Socrates but a character called “the Athenian Stranger” who describes dialectic as the kind of knowledge that belongs to free people [Greek page 253]. In that dialogue sophists are contrasted with philosophers, primarily because sophists use rhetoric to persuade and convince the public to adopt laws and follow practices that benefit them and their friends and harm their enemies, whereas philosophers—lovers of wisdom—seek what is true, beautiful, and just as a path to what is really good.
What Aristotle called “final causes” are, for Plato, the ideas (ta eide) that provide purpose and meaning for humanity. Those are the values that Einstein said have been exceeded by our technology. At the beginning of Book 2 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates and Glaucon examine the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic values that is relevant to this topic.
[357] Socrates: I thought these words had ended the discussion, but it turned out to be only the beginning. Glaucon was not satisfied with Thrasymachus’ retreat, so he attacked me with his usual audacity.
Glaucon: Socrates, do you really want to convince us that it is always better to be just than unjust, or do you merely want to pretend that you have convinced us?
Socrates: I really want to convince you.
Glaucon: So far you’ve failed. Tell me how you would analyze goodness. Isn’t there a kind of good that is desirable for its own sake, independent of its consequences, such as joy and delight in harmless pleasures?
Socrates: I agree.
Glaucon: And what would you say about another kind of good that is desirable not only in itself but also because of its consequences, such as thinking, seeing, and being healthy?
Socrates: I would say yes to that kind of good.
Glaucon: And isn’t there a third form of good, one that is annoying in itself but valuable for what it produces? Consider bodybuilding, medical treatment, and earning a living. We don’t choose such activities for their own sake but for their results.
Socrates: Yes, there is also that kind. But why are you asking these questions?
Glaucon: Because I want to know how you would classify justice.
Socrates: I would say it is the best kind of good, desirable both for its own sake and for its consequences.
According to this analysis, some values are intrinsic, some are extrinsic, and some are both intrinsic and extrinsic. “Delight in harmless pleasures” is entirely intrinsic, something people pursue for its own sake. These simple pleasures are not condemned in this discussion, but they turn out to be trivial when compared to a value such as justice, the “best kind of good that is desirable both for its own sake and for its consequences.”
The arts and the humanities are often valued for their own sake, and they are worth pursuing simply for their intrinsic value. In their simple form they amuse and entertain. But they also have a much more serious role in human life, especially in a genuine democracy. They nurture a form of education that takes the wellbeing of the whole person as its primary goal, going far beyond merely producing a healthy body or developing a clever mind. In the best human community this kind of education seeks the common good. In the contemporary world, education has moved outside of schools, colleges, and universities and is rapidly expanding on the Internet, in the media, and in computer software that is so portable it can be carried anywhere and used by individuals without the need of teachers or tutors. The media and the arts are now the locus of some of our most important laboratories of the soul.
But this development is a mixed blessing, especially if our primary goal is education for democracy and the common good. Radio, television, newspapers, and other aspects of the so-called “fourth estate” have been indicted for ignoring the common good and promoting the special interests of only a few people. Noam Chomsky, in a book published in 1988, accuses the media of “manufacturing consent”[i] rather than seeking the truth. Since then, the “fifth estate” has emerged bringing a strange transfer of power to hackers, to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and to anyone who wishes to create a website and share information and opinions that can do great harm to the powers that be. Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg created and publicized WikiLeaks with the goal of providing transparency and combating the “manufactured consent” described by Chomsky. Then Edward Snowden joined the Fifth Estate and made the struggle between governments and self-appointed champions of free speech even fiercer.
What has this to do with “laboratories of the soul”? One of their most important functions is to manifest and evaluate ethical and political judgments about the most important values. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the arts and the humanities have presented and evaluated such judgments. However, much of what passes for “art” in contemporary culture is not devoted to serious inquiry and examination but to moneymaking ventures that feature sex, violence, and thrilling adventures. Broadway, Hollywood, the major television networks, Cable TV, and most of the other forms of public media are more interested in entertainment than in education. Neil Postman presented that critique in a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death.”[ii] Written almost 30 years ago, this book has turned out to be prophetic, announcing the plague that has infected the souls of young people who today spend much of their time staring at small screens, amusing themselves to death. As colleges and universities have increasingly become devoted to preparing people for the workplace and as “STEM education” has eclipsed the arts and the humanities, libraries are more important than ever for providing laboratories of the soul.
In both public and private academic communities, the library does not belong to any particular discipline or department. Outside the academy, public libraries exist to serve all members of the community, regardless of income, political affiliation, religious preference, gender, or age. Today the Internet provides an important extension of the public library, but that will be true only as long as it remains part of the public domain. Once it has been captured for commercial purposes or controlled by special interests of any kind, the Internet will lose its ability to contribute to the common good.
Thinking of the arts and humanities and the libraries that preserve them as “laboratories of the soul” suggests that there are spiritual patterns and principles that can be identified and studied, just as there are physical laws to be discovered in laboratories by using the scientific method. What is most important about those spiritual patterns is that they transcend particular events in space and time and participate in what is timeless and universal. To understand them and use them appropriately, we need to employ a different method, one that suits the subject matter. Aristotle provides one good example of that method in the Poetics where he explores the important cultural role of tragic, comic, and epic poetry. Although scholars often dwell on their differences, Plato and Aristotle both use reason to seek and promote the art of life. The fundamental principles that Aristotle articulates and analyzes in the Poetics are not limited to poetry but are shared among the arts and humanities. These fundamental principles belong to the soul and the essences it manifests. They differ from the laws studied in scientific laboratories because they pertain to a realm where freedom prevails. This is why Aristotle says that “poetry is more philosophical and more significant” than history. He explains it this way:
Poetry presents what is universal, whereas history recounts particulars. By universal I mean the way a certain kind of person will speak or act based on what is either probable or necessary. Even when it names individual characters, poetry aims at the universal—what a certain kind of person might do and say.[iii]
Aristotle claims that the fundamental principles of the soul include universals that pertain not only to what might be but also to what should be.[iv]
There is no formula or list to direct us as we seek laboratories of the soul, but it is easy to find examples of such works that have served humanity in the past. In addition to the classical works from ancient Greece, Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, and historical plays continue to serve as laboratories of the soul. Goethe, Ibsen, Beckett, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller have added important works to that list, but with the advent of film we can point to Bergman, Herzog, Kieslowski, Bunuel, and a growing list of serious artists in that medium. We can add the entire corpus of serious musical compositions from Bach through the classical and romantic periods to contemporary works that have yet to prove their power and lasting value. To understand and evaluate those more abstract creations we can draw upon critical and theoretical reflections such as Leonard Bernstein’s Norton lectures at Harvard University that were published under the title The Unanswered Question in 1976. Examples of painting can already be found in caves in France, Spain, and Brazil perhaps as early as 15,000 BCE, and the history and criticism of the visual arts have long been integral to the humanities. In our day, I would suggest that Rudolf Arnheim’s study of Picasso’s Guernica (The Genesis of a Painting) published in 1962 shows that this tradition is alive and well. In the area of literature the novels of Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Jane Austin have been especially important for my own education. I could add examples from architecture, dance, sculpture, and other media that are still being developed, but this should suffice to indicate what I mean by “laboratories of the soul.” Such creations and reflections manifest, formulate, examine, interpret, and evaluate any and all ideas so that they can be understood and used to practice the art of life. I have developed and explained this way of thinking about the arts as a three-stage process in a book called Reality and the Arts: A Philosophical Guide, published by Agora Publications in 2009.
How can we foster this inquiry into the fundamental principles of the soul? The first step is to distinguish what I have been calling “the scientific method” from what Plato calls “dialectic.” Plato practiced the art dialectic in his dialogues, which are a form of poetry. I will offer an example of how this dialectical process works. Plato’s dialogue Phaedo presents Socrates in prison where he is awaiting execution. He was accused and convicted of being an atheist and corrupting young people, and the jury condemned him to death. Plato’s version of that story, which does have a historical basis, features a careful examination of the nature and destiny of the soul. For Socrates, the issue of what happens to him after they kill his body is not an abstract puzzle but an immediate existential question. This laboratory of the soul allows all of us who read or listen to the dialogue to participate in the drama. Socrates will die at sunset, and when he does the bell that tolls also tolls for thee. What, exactly, is the soul? Is it immortal? If so, what does that mean?
Plato’s Phaedo offers not one but four different views of the soul and provides separate arguments for each one. The dialectical process in Plato’s Phaedo follows a sinuous path because it examines several popular beliefs about the nature and destiny of the soul. This requires both explication and refutation, and it must follow the argument wherever it leads. Socrates tells about his own youthful quest for an explanation of causality and his excitement when he heard someone reading from a book by Anaxagoras. The book said that mind is the cause of everything, leading Socrates to hope that Anaxagoras would explain not only how things come to be and pass away but also why it is best for them to do so. [Plato’s Phaedo, Disk 3, Track4]
Cebes, my friend, this wonderful hope soon flew away and disappeared. As I proceeded, I found that the man did not attribute to mind any genuine role in organizing things but appealed to air, ether, water, and many other strange things as the real causes. It was as if someone said that Socrates does everything he does with his mind, but when asked to explain any particular action—such as why I am currently sitting here in prison—responded by saying that I am sitting here because my body is made up of bones and tendons, that the bones are hard and have ligaments that connect them, and that the tendons are elastic and cover the bones, which also are covered by flesh and skin. As the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, it is possible to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here with my legs bent. That is what he would say, and he would explain my talking to you in a similar way. He would attribute that to sound and air and hearing, and he would list ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that the Athenians thought it best to condemn me, and I thought it is best to sit here and it is right to endure the penalty they imposed. By the dog of Egypt, I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia long ago, guided by the idea of what is best, if I had not decided that it is better and nobler to accept the sentence inflicted by the state rather than escape and run away.
It is absurd to call such things causes, but it would be right to say that without bones and tendons and other parts of my body I could not carry out my decisions. But to say that those are the causes of what I am doing — that I’m doing it with reason but not by choosing what is best — is an extremely careless and sloppy way of talking. Imagine being unable to distinguish between the true cause and a condition without which it could not act. Many people talk that way, but they are groping around in the dark—applying the term cause where it does not belong.[v]
This view of causality is remarkably similar to Whitehead’s position in The Function of Reason, but Socrates is not Plato’s “mouthpiece.” It would be a mistake to confine our interpretation of Plato’s philosophy to the words of only one of his characters. How we interpret Plato’s dialogue (or any other serious work of philosophy) is much more important that what is said in any single part of that work. All of Plato’s characters are essential to the unfolding of Plato’s dialectical process.
Whitehead agreed with Bergson in thinking that evolution is a creative process. Evolution gave rise to the human species, but it was not until human consciousness evolved that we emerged from the realm of what Immanuel Kant calls “heteronomy” to the realm of “autonomy.”[vi] Heteronomy refers to laws imposed from the outside, whereas autonomy means that we impose laws on ourselves. Material and efficient causes dominated on Planet Earth before human beings evolved. When we humans began to question, challenge, and think for ourselves, we evolved to the point of making free choices based on values that were previously unknown. Material and efficient causes suffice for heteronomy, but autonomy cannot function without formal and final causes. In an important sense, the Pythagorean theorem was discovered rather than invented. It was unknown until those ancient mathematicians formulated it. Only then was it able to shape the practice of architects, engineers, and builders. By analogy, artists, philosophers, and historians do not create ideas such as justice, beauty, and goodness; they discover them; they manifest them.
Whitehead’s idea of teleology does not apply to a supernatural realm outside of nature. It is a natural process that evolves as human consciousness evolves, but once we include final causes in the process, the meaning of nature changes fundamentally. It provides a worldview that transcends the scientific materialism spawned by positivism; this idea of nature becomes a rich and dynamic cosmos that incorporates mind and soul as essential aspects. It cannot be explained without including what is just, good, and beautiful. To say that final causes promote autonomy does not mean that they are spontaneous, irrational, or arbitrary. Autonomy does not mean “uncaused.” Freedom, in this sense, means that purposes and goals are chosen rather than being determined by forces outside of our control. Heteronomy implies a scheme in which something or someone “other” causes what takes place in the world. Autonomy, especially when it embraces dialectical reason, leaves us responsible for what happens.
Dialectical thinking goes beyond the narrow method of scientific rationality and follows the creative process wherever it leads. Unlike other methods of inquiry, dialectic requires that each participant must make the journey from the cave of shadows into the sunlight as a personal quest. Glaucon, like many of us, would prefer a simple formula or a set of rules to follow. In Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, he asks Socrates to provide a roadmap:
Socrates: Glaucon, I think we have come at last to the song that dialectic sings—a mental performance the power of sight can only imitate. In our allegory we imagined looking at real animals, the distant stars, and finally at the sun itself. In this way a person begins to use dialectic, seeking to discover reality by thinking—not by relying on sense perception—and by settling for nothing less than goodness itself. This journey leads to the limit of what we can think, just as leaving the cave led to the limit of what we can see.
Glaucon: That’s a good way to put it.
Socrates: Don’t we call this journey dialectic?
Glaucon: Yes, that’s what we call it.
Socrates: Then the release of the prisoners from their chains, their turning from the shadows to images and then to the light, their ascent from the cave to the sun while their eyes are still weak and they are unable to look at animals and plants and the light of the sun but are able to see divine images in the water and shadows of reality—rather than shadows of images cast by the firelight, which is itself only the image of the sun—this process of studying and pursuing the arts we recently described has the power to lift what is best in the soul to contemplate what is best in reality, just as the most lucid of the senses reveals what is brightest in the visible world.
Glaucon: I agree with what you are saying. Even though it is hard to believe, from another point of view it is even harder to deny. But whether or not it has been proved, let’s assume it is true—I’m sure we will discuss it again on another occasion. Let’s proceed from the prelude to the song itself and describe it in the same way. Tell us the nature of dialectic, its various aspects, and the paths that lead to the end of our journey. [533]
Socrates: My dear Glaucon, I’m afraid that you cannot follow me any farther, though I am quite willing to lead. Instead of presenting an image through allegory, I would have to disclose the truth itself as it appears to me. I’m not sure that what I see is true, but I am confident that there is truth to be grasped and that we should settle for nothing less. Don’t you agree?
Glaucon: Of course.
Socrates: Can we also say that only the power of dialectic can reveal it to someone who has learned the subjects we were just discussing?
Glaucon: We can definitely say that.
Socrates: And nobody can establish that there is any other way of inquiry specifically designed to understand reality itself. All the other arts are concerned with human desire and opinion, cultivated for producing and nurturing things that grow or building and tending what is constructed. We did agree that mathematical studies such as geometry have some power to grasp reality, but they only dream about being, never able to capture it while fully awake. They work only with assumptions that they take for granted and cannot justify. When a person does not know first principles and cannot give an account of the conclusions and the reasoning leading to that conclusion, how could we possibly call such arbitrary agreement genuine knowledge?
Glaucon: That would be impossible.
Socrates: Then dialectic is the only form of inquiry that goes to the source, eliminating hypotheses and seeking the certainty of first principles. When the eye of the soul is buried in the muck of Hades, dialectic releases it and turns it up toward the light, assisted by the studies we have been discussing. We are in the habit of calling those studies sciences, but they should have some other name, indicating greater clarity than opinion and less clarity than knowledge. This is what we previously called understanding. But let’s not quibble about names when we have matters of such importance to consider.
[i] Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).
[ii] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
[iii] Aristotle’s Poetics, translated by Albert A. Anderson, in Beauty and Truth (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, Inc., 2007), 1451b.
[iv] Ibid, 1460b.
[v] Plato’s Phaedo, Translated by Benjamin Jowett, revised by Albert A. Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, 2005), pp. 98-99.
[vi] See Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Foundations of Ethics, Second Edition, translated by Leo Rauch and revised by Lieselotte Anderson (Millis, MA: Agora Publications, Inc., 2007), pp. 54 ff.