THE ST. JOHN'S RE\' w

~ St. John's Coli ge • Annapolis, Maryland-:-Santa Fe, New Mexico

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I \.( -r- January, 1980 ' (

THE COLLEGE: Volume XXXI January, 1980 Number2 THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW

For Progress, by Raymond Aron 1

Prodigal Father (a narrative), by Charles G. Bell 9

The Birth of a Literary Language, by Giuliano Bonfante 16

On the Discovery of Deductive Science, by Curtis A. Wilson 21

Life Beyond the Reach of Hope, by Philipp P. Fehl 32

Kant's Imperative, by Eva Brann 40 Boyle, Galileo, and Manifest Experience, by Martin Tamny 46 Prometheus Unbound, by Thomas K. Simpson 55 Memorials for Simon Kaplan 64

Aristotle Gazing, by Michael Platt 68 Plato's Euthydemus, by Samuel Scolnicov 75 Between the Old and the New Memories of John Dewey Days, by Sidney Hook 79 First Readings Ancient Astronomy and Ptolemy's 'Crime', by Curtis A. Wilson 84 Carrillo and the Communist Party in Spain, by Gary Prevost 89 At Home and Abroad Letter from Budapest and Pees, by Leo Raditsa 92 Notes Inside back cover Editor: Leo Raditsa Managing Editor: Thomas Parran, Jr. Editorial Assistant: Barbara J. Sisson

Consulting Editors: Eva Brann, Beate Ruhm von Oppen, Curtis A. Wilson.

THE COLLEGE is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College, Annapolis, Mary­ land 21404. Richard D. Weigle, President, Ed­ ward G. Sparrow, Dean. Published twice yearly, usually in July and January.

ISSN 0010-0862

Front cover: copy of a Galileo manuscript at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.

©1980, St. John's College. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without per­ mission is prohibited. For Progress After the Fall of the Idols

Raymond Aron

Marx is not dead; in the secondary schools, in the lycees, even guish between l\!Iarx and the Soviet Union with an inverted in the universities, he remains very much alive, an inexhaustible accent of value. The approach of hell is replacing the hope of mine of quotations, concepts, and dogmas, an almost inevitable paradise. reference, if not an undisputed master. In England, sociologists Alexis de Tocqueville had foreseen that the superficial agita­ have never read and discussed him so much. Althusser has disci­ tion of democratic society would not spare intellectual life. Paris ples, almost a school there. He enjoys the same popularity in the is the capital of fashionable ideas, no less than fashion. Gurus are United States. I open the june 29 issue of the New York Review revered for a few years or months, make their rounds and then of Books; I come across a remarkable article, "Inescapable move on. The new gurus who kill the gods of yesterday are not Marx," by Robert L. Heilbroner, dedicated to an impressive list fundamentally different from the gurus of the 50's or 60's. of books on Marx, his life, his theories of history and revolution, Whether one discovers a structuralist Marx or excommunicates his heritage, and the meaning of his thought today- not to men­ the philosophers of German idealism by dint of collages of quota­ tion a magazine entitled, Marxist Perspectives, which reminds me tions amounts to the same thing in practice. The style changes, of the collection of the 30's, In the Light of Marxism. the talent varies; sometimes the good news-the 1977 vintage Much of this work amounts to Marxology, rather than Marx­ guaranteed-reaches the general public and the international ism, although the majority of Marxists, even members of the weeklies; later the s_ect returns to the obscurity from which the Communist party, justify their position through an interpreta­ press had snatched it. tion of the master. What distinguishes the "new philosophers" is Does the present moment-the death of l\!Iarx by and for "the the simultaneous condemnation of Marx, Gulag, and the Soviet princes of intelligence" -have a different historical significance Union (even if they also have to condemn capitalism and socialism from the preceding ones, the quarrelsome association between at the same time). A fraction of the high- or presumably high­ the existentialists and the communists, the Camus-Sartre­ level Parisian intelligentsia, today as yesterday, does not distin- Merleau-Ponty debates, the rise of Louis Althusser and his decline, the Maoists in Paris? I hesitate to answer. The books that reveal the truth of the day do not seem to me, as works of thought, superior to -those of the recent past. Quite the opposite. Raymond Aron's latest book, In Defense of Decadent Europe, has re­ But I do not trust my judgemerit, because of my probable bias in cently appeared in English (Regnery/Gateway). He writes a valuable weekly column of political commentary in L'Express. He is one of the favor of the men of my generation. sponsors of the important new quarterly, published in France, Com­ Moreover, it matters little. What interests me is that a pro­ mentaire, where this article first appeared in the Autumn of 1978. longed phase of economic crisis coincides, not with a revival of

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Marxism, but, at least in appearance, with a completely opposite ideas and societies, that made possible the develop­ reaction. The delayed recognition, under the influence of Solz­ ment of reason, sensibility, and wilL It was the indus­ henitsyn, of Soviet reality has provoked a sort of total rejection in trial arts that made modern man the most perfect of some people, not only of Marx, Marxism, and the Soviet Union, animals. The industrial arts are the Prometheus of an­ but of the master thinkers of modern civilization. The ambition cient drama. Keeping them in mind, let us read the of philosophers to change the world by interpreting it is becom­ magnificent verses of Aeschylus and let us say that it ing the primal sin, and, since its source was historical material­ was the industrial arts that made men out of those weak ism, we find these young people ready to charge intellectuals and ants that haunted dark caves, out of those children who their optimism with all the crimes of the century, from the did not see what they saw, did not understand what slaughters at Verdun to Gulag-a word emptied of meaning by they heard, and who, throughout their lives, blurred misuse. Even the Bastille of Louis XIV is baptized "Gulag." their images with the phantoms of their dreams ... Be­ Radiant socialism in opposition to sordid capitalism? There is yond any doubt, it will be the industrial arts that will no longer any question of it: both of them, avatars of the same save humanity from the moral and material crisis in capital, would show two barely different faces of the same bar­ which it is struggling. Science and industry are superior barism. Let us read a few lines from the book that enjoyed re­ to fate rather than subject to it. They are the third God markable success: that is putting an end to the gods, to the tyrants of heaven and earth ... 2 It is therefore meaningless to "criticize" the idea of progress. It is also meaningless to attack its "illusions." As soon as I left the sheltered 1itt1~ world of the university, I And it is meaningless again to set up other mechanisms collided with the calamity of the Germans, their nationalistic and other real processes in opposition to it. We must delirium. I revolted against the faith of these men of good will; I believe in progress, believe in its infinite power, and no longer shared their confidence in the capacity of science to grant it all the credit it asks for. But we must simply de­ save humanity from its moral and material crisis. To reflect on nounce it as a reactionary mechanism which is leading the course of human history is to become conscious of the the world to catastrophe. We have to say what it says, human condition,. of an incoherent world, torn by conflicts see the world as it does, record the signs of its devasta­ among classes, nations, and ideologies. A dramatic condition that tion wherever it rules. And it is precisely for that reason forbids immoderate hopes but does not justify resignation. that we must discredit it, and only in that sense that it Forty years ago, I meditated on history in the shadow of the must be analyzed, as a uniform and linear progression Great Depression, my glance turned toward World War II, toward evil. No, the world is not wandering nor lost in whose warning symptoms only the blind did not perceive. Today meanders of possibility. It is heading straight for uni­ I am writing in the shadow of an economic crisis, completely dif­ formity, the shallows, the mean. And in order to protest ferent from that of the 30's. The "undiscoverable" war, the war against that, now, for the first time, we must proclaim of Superpowers, remains improbable. Ever since the cultural ourselves antiprogressive. 1 revolt of the 30's, however, modern civilization in its entirety has been on trial. If socialism is no better than capitalism, where This sort of prophecy defies the old practice, dear to French does the blame fall if not on science, progress, technology, and, education, of the explication de texte. Progress, I suppose, desig­ indeed, economic development? An accusation as old as the nates economic development, more or less identified with sci­ accused: Rousseau against the Encyclopedists; the counterrevo­ ence, technology, and industrialization. Has this progress lutionaries against the Enlightenment and the Revolution; Nie­ become reactionary? How? Why? Is it a one-way road to Evil? tzsche against the petty bourgeoisie or socialism. Was it with the What Evil? Is it leading the world to catastrophe? What catas­ Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, or in 1789, at the time trophe? The catastrophe foreseen by the Club of Rome? ls it of the French Revolution, that the West took the fatal turn? I producing uniformity, levelling, and mediocrity? Levelling or leave to others this historical trial and its verdict. mediocrity? There is no longer any choice or hope. Progress, like Today there is no longer any point in unmasking Marxist mys­ Marxism, leads inexorably to catastrophe, but, in distinction to tifications. It is nihilism, the opposite of the Marxism of yester­ Marxism, it promises no after-catastrophe. day, one has to denounce today. The death of Marxism or the To this abdication before a mysterious and pitiless destiny, I defeat of the left threaten to carry off hope as well. As early as still prefer the optimism of the rationalists of the recent past. twenty years ago, Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote that Marxism The eloquent and naiVe voices that irritated me so much a half was not one philosophy of history among others, but historical century ago are recovering some freshness for me: Reason itself-which he condemned along with Marxism. A gen­ eration later, the same line of argument goes even further. The The history of human industry is rightly the history of failure of Marxism would reveal modern civilization in its en­ civilization and vice versa. The propagation and dis­ tirety as irresistible progress toward Evil. We who remain faithful covery of the industrial arts both was and still is funda­ to democracy, science, and liberalism, let us accept the challenge. mental progress. It permitted a happier and happier life Let us have no polemics, but begin to examine our consciences. for ever greater masses over ever vaster territories. It Let us think back to the years immediately following the War. was the industrial arts, through the development of No one raised his voice against growth or industrialization, either

2 January, 1980

on the left or the right. The left blamed the Malthusianism of Civil liberties, in an austere city~a dream on the edge of the his­ French bosses. Statisticians compared the number of persons torically possible. nourished by the French peasant and by the American farmer. I would not, however, say that progress, as it is unfolding, For years, the Soviet growth rate challenged West Europeans. leaves no way out. If we suppose that progress embraces "sci­ Ordinarily more clairvoyant, many economists foresaw the im­ ence, technology, and economic development," it is absurd to minent lowering of the iron curtain by Westerners themselves, decree it "a one-way road to Evil." If, in their recovery from ide­ incapable of bearing the comparison between the lot of the ology, these philosophers will no longer permit the sacrifice of workers in France and that of the liberated proletarians to the the humble to the constructions of the master thinkers, why do East. they forget that the science that produced the bombs and nu­ If the French economy had not kept pace in the race, or if it clear centers also eliminated epidemics and, for the majority of had progressed in the manner of Great Britain~that is, half as mankind, famine? fast as the German Federal Republic-the French, in their hu­ Goats have devastated the terrain of civilizations more often miliation, would again, as they did in 1938, denounce the ineffi­ than pollution. And knowledge has a greater chance of arresting ciency of capitalism and capitalists. After the War, we had no the spread of the desert in the Sahel than prayers to the gods and other choice than to give up forever or to renew our old struc­ invectives against science. I am ashamed of these remarks, wor­ tures through science, technology, or industry. thy of Mr. Homais, but those who beat their mea culpa on the A nation that was one of the greatest in Europe, and which chests of others and replace their delirium of yesterday with still desires to maintain its rank in the world, had to submit to the another, opposite in kind, arouse my bile from time to time. imperatives of work and productivity. (Let us say progress if There is no good, in history, that does not include a share of evil. others prefer the word.) Are we to call this kind of progress "reac­ The least costly and most effective investments are perhaps tion"? Quite evidently, it does not lead us backwards, it leads us those of hygiene. They save millions of lives; they do not assure toward a society without precedent~a society that no one is the means of living decently. Teaching every child to read and forced to prefer to those of the past. But toward which societies write does not suffice to elevate him to culture. Are we to prefer of the past are we to turn our glances and regrets? the illiterate to the semi-cultivated? Are we to prefer the peasant Those who knew the France of 1938 do not miss it: the condi­ who, a century ago, hardly left his village, to the agricultural pro­ tion of the worker was incomparably harsher, and peasant life ducer of today who drives a tractor, knows the world through tel­ was narrower and more painful; only the children of the bour­ evision, and whose daughters desire an urban style of living? geoisie and a few hundred or thousand scholarship-holders had Understand me well: I take the quarrel with industrial society access to secondary and higher education; the establishment seriously, whether it comes from the Club of Rome (shortage of jealously guarded its powers and privileges; more closed in on it­ energy, nonrenewable resources, and pollution) or from thinkers self than ever, France was unaware of the universe and feared who fear the deterioration of man or of the quality of life. Seri­ the future, Germany, and war. ous questions ca1l for inquiries and answers. What I am attacking Do we wish to go back farther, to the France of the peasants is cheap pessimism, historical fatalism, and "irresistible progress who elected Napoleon III by plebiscite? Or had those French­ toward Evil." _men, eighty percent of whom lived still in the countryside or lit­ Toward what "evil" is "progress" leading us? War, totalitarian­ tle towns, already been wounded by "progress/' because the ism, concentration camps, mediocrity, or egalitarianism? The intellectuals believed in the Enlightenment, and because indi­ wars of the nineteenth century were bloodier than most wars of viduals no longer accepted, as a decree of God or nature, their the past, but, at the same time, they have left fewer traces from a place in society or the established order? I do not believe that material standpoint. In 1920, Spanish influenza wiped out the those who call progress "reaction" go so far as to eliminate, in lives of about ten million people, as many as the war. The voids their nostalgia, the equality of individuals before the law, the citi­ were rapidly filled and no population was bled as that of Ger­ zenship of all, as formal as it may be, and, with them, the liber­ many during the Thirty Years' War (reduced by half). Perhaps, in ties that were baptized the rights of man. terms of percentage of population, losses in combat have risen in Promethean ambition and the rights of man (or universal citi­ the twentieth century. Some estimate at a million the number of zenship) have nothing in common, one will probably object. Algerian victims between 1955 and 1962. The Algerian people Logically, the objection is valid. The will to become master and today exceed fifteen miilion. At the time of the conquest, Algeria possessor of nature in no way explains the participation of all in numbered two or three million souls. Must we weep for the dead the government of the city and the respect for individuals. But, of the conquest and the liberation? Yes. Must we imagine what historically, these two movements of ideas and events are inter­ Algeria would be today if the French had not conquered it in the related. Learned men are eroding the prestige of men of quality preceding century? That would be an exercise in counterfactual or birth. Certainly, Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed or foresaw history, devoid of meaning. No one can answer. How can we the corruption of morals by the arts and sciences; citizens as he compare the evils inflicted to the benefits disseminated, even conceived them, poor and virtuous, do not resemble those of to­ involuntarily? day, producers, consumers, taxpayers, and television viewers. Wars always assume the form of the societies from which they The Encyclopedists and Saint-Simonians both applauded the emanate. Weapons depend on industry; military organization future, our present, of which they had a presentiment. Rousseau depends both on social organization and on weapons. In 1914, detested it in advance; he liked the Ancien Regime no better. universal suffrage was in accord with conscription; weapons, still

3 The College relatively simple, permitted the mobilization of millions of com­ Gehiiuse der GehOrigkeit, that is, the edifice of power or the servi­ batants. The growing cost of arms now tends to reduce the num­ tude of the majority. The experiments with public enterprises ber of combatants. Some of them, the pilots, need gunner-mates. and planning have all crystallized das Gehiiuse der GehOrigkeit. It We are free to prefer other military institutions, for example, is therefore, Marcuse argues, necessary to imagine enterprises those of the Ancien Regime, with the recruitment of officers that would remain efficient without the separation of labor and from the nobility, and of simple soldiers from the lowest classes management, or even to imagine automation that would com­ of society. If we condemn war on moral grounds, we must con­ bine formal and substantial rationality without submitting it to demn it also when politico-technological circumstances limit its political, and therefore, often irrational, will. ravages. Herbert Marcuse's polemic against Weberian rationality, War, the settling of conflicts among political entities by force, which was acclaimed in 1965, reminds us of the debates of the is not an invention of modern civilization. Democracy, national­ Weimar Republic. Capitalism or socialism, privately- or publicly­ ism, technology, and science make possible the mobilization of owned property, the market or planning: these antitheses set the millions of men, the manufacture of tens of thousands of can­ terms of debate and discussion at that time. But now the demys­ nons, and wars of peoples and of propaganda. But the same tification of Soviet reality strips the old notion of the nationaliza­ capacity to produce and act in common permits the reconstruc­ tion of the means of production of its charms. Utopia has to be tion of material ruins in a few years. Let us compare the Western sought at the farthest reaches of progress in a technology that is Europe of 1955-ten years after the end of the Third Reich­ liberating in its own right-and even then data processing occa­ with that of 1935; aside from the concentration camps, tombs, sions nightmares as well as rosy dreams. and the massacre of the innocents, the Europeans of the West The case against rationalism turns -easily into the case against found themselves freer, less divided, and more prosperous than totalitarianism. Do not the means of communication figure twenty years earlier. among the conditions indispensable to totalitarianism? Only A materialistic and cynical reckoning? I agree. Each person is those regimes deserve to be called totalitarian in which a single "unique and irreplaceable." How many Menuhins perished at party holds a monopoly of activity or political legitimacy-a Auschwitz before revealing their genius? How many Cavailles or party that professes an ideology, that the State decrees a Lautmans whose deaths deprived humanity of the works they political, indeed, a human, truth. The Soviet regime comes bore within them? Who can forget? Who can forgive? But closest to the perfect example, because, in the name of atheism neither history nor the species, judging from the experience of and materialism, it combats the faith of the Church, the Chris­ centuries, cares about individuals. As for peoples, the decline in tian religion: The claim of the State-party to possess the supreme the birth rate threatens them with extinction more than war­ truth explains the monopolization of the means of communica­ with the exception of the holocaust, which is without example. tion. The State ideology must not, in the main, be called into Conquerors have more than once run their swords through hun­ question. dreds of thousands of men, women, and children, but never was Does such a regime require radio and television? The founders the extermination of a human group conceived cold-bloodedly, of the Soviet State, Lenin and his companions, had neither at never organized and executed so methodically, and, I dare say, their disposal. Marxist-Leninist fanaticism, the kind that ani­ so rationally. mated Lenin and his companions, characterizes certain features Are we to incriminate rationality, because it can be made to of our civilization; it presupposes the weakening of transcendent serve life and death indiscriminately? Similar methods of organi­ faith, the de-Christianization of the masses; perhaps the pseudo­ zation apply to the movement of armored divisions and of science of Marxism borrows its authority from the cult of true drivers on vacation, to concentration camps and to the camps of science. Even Hitler's racism covered itself in scientific ragged the Club Mediterrane. No, rational organization does not bear finery. In this sense, these totalitarian ideologies have some af­ its soul within itself. In a famous lecture, at the 1965 Congress in finity with modern civilization. They caricature science at the Heidelberg, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the same time that they mimic religion or the Church. Toynbee de­ birth of Max Weber, Herbert Marcuse denc:unced the distinc­ fined Marxism more than once as a Christian heresy: the prole­ tion between formal and substantial rationality, or more pre­ tariat will save humanity; the most disinherited will rise to the cisely, the incompatibility between the two. He denounced "the top for the good of all; the way of the cross-"the class neutrality of technical reason with regard to all external affirma­ struggle" -will end with the reconciliation of men with one tions of substantial values." another and with nature. Alain Besan~on interprets Leninism as Marcuse imagines the reconciliation of formal and substantial a gnosis, with the perfect ones (the party) confident in their elec­ rationality in automated production, which would liberate man tion and in the abyss between them and the others, between the from socially necessary but dehumanizing work. Until today, he corrupt world and the world that will emerge from the revolution. admits, Max Weber has had the last word. The rational organiza­ I doubt that any century has been spared the superstitions and tion of production does not, as such, determine its goals: private sects that swarm around Churches. The media did perhaps facil­ or public, production serves ends imposed upon it from without. itate Hitler's rise to power; Lenin owes his victory above all to And rational bureaucracy risks being subjected to the irrational­ the war. Totalitarian ideologies (I am thinking of Marxism and its ity of a charismatic leader. derivatives) mingle half-truths, vestiges of Christianity, ancestral According to Marcuse's criticism, Max Weber had at the out­ dreams, and scraps of science and science-fiction. As for the set assumed private enterprise and the market, along with das techniques of communication, they do not seem to me to be

4 January, 1980

either the origin or the supporting pillar of totalitarian regimes of individuals in pursuit of their interests, wealth, and advance­ (as is often said). Of course, they provide power with additional ment. These individuals no longer obey higher authority, instruments; they make it possible to mislead crowds, to broad­ whether God or legitimate or semi-sacralized powers. cast the litanies of the State's truth or Philippics against the eter­ Once man has rejected masters and gods, once all possess the nal, forever elusive enemy, capitalism or imperialism, to the last same right to happiness, socialism dogs liberalism. For a long village, and into the brush. But before television or the com­ time biological analogies (the survival of the fittest) or the invis­ puter, the police, denunciations, and bureaucracies functioned ible hand (from the clash of egoisms emerges what is best for all) with pen and paper. justified economic liberalism. For a long time political liberalism I even wonder, at the risk of paradox, whether State propa­ sought justification in the efficacy of dialogue: by exchanging ganda does not bring saturation and, indeed, provoke rejection. vpinions, by bringing together their knowledge, citizens would Hitler did succeed in casting a spell over crowds with his arrive at the truth or right decision. But the argument continues: voice-but not Stalin, hidden in the Kremlin and in his cunning. what remains of the utilitarian or rationalist foundation of liber­ After the attack of the Nazi armies, when he finally brought him­ alism? Free competition among individuals does not assure the self to address the country, he appealed to perennial sentiments, rise of the fittest: the starting points are too unequal. Qualities to patriotism, to the defense of Holy Russia. In the countries of that favor success are not those that inspire respect and obedi­ Eastern Europe, not even governments dare to use stiff, emo­ ence. In commercial or electoral competition, victory does not of tionless language any longer. In Hungary, the scaffolding, itself turn the victor into un homme de qualiti-unless public mounted in ten years by the conquerors and their servants, col­ opinion considers success a criterion of worth. Once success is lapsed in a few days in the year 1956, and free of a carapace of taken to be arbitrary or unfair the less favored demand not so lies the Hungarians came to themselves. In an even more spec­ much the right to the pursuit of happiness as the guarantee of a tacular, non-violent manner, in Czechoslovakia twelve years piece of it. later, the truth broke out in a storm. In spite of all technical Political debates focus more and more on the national product means, the State had not convinced its subjects. Perhaps and its distribution. The richer the societies, the more bitter the millions of men had lived in two universes at the same time, the struggle for the standard of living. Can our civilization rise above universe of the official truth that they heard, and the universe of the alternative of commerce or tyranny? Or is it actually in the the other truth that they harbored deep inside themselves with­ throes of both extremes which it falsely sets in opposition? The out even knowing it. commercial and monetary order of the West means also multi­ Was the totalitarian outcome in some way predetermined by national corporations, tentacular bureaucracies. "Prometheus the intellectual origins of modernity? If the answer is, "yes," the putting an end to the tyrants of heaven and earth?" Yes, Enlightenment, liberalism, capitalism, socialism-those moments perhaps, but perhaps also: of thought and of Western history-would form a necessary se­ quence and the verdict is final. I myself wrote the following No one knows who will live in this edifice; whether at words that I have not yet retracted: the end of this transformation entirely new prophets will emerge; whether the old ideas and ideals of yester­ The philosophy of the Enlightenment, liberalism, day will regain new vigor, or whether, on the contrary, a naturally, if not necessarily, ends in socialism, indeed, mechanical petrification, adorned in its shrivelled im­ in Marxism, just as rivers end in the sea. portance, will prevail. In that case, for the "last men" in this evolution of culture, the following words would be­ Words probably dictated to me by Montesquieu's formula: mon­ come true: soulless specialists, heartless men of plea­ archies tend toward despotism. In appearance, nothing is more sure; this nothingness boasts of reaching a summit of contrary than the thought of the Enlightenment, of Montes­ humanity never yet attained. (M. Weber) quieu or of Voltaire, to socialism or Marxism. By what route did Spengler, and many others with him, embrace, in a single histori­ Let us abandon these distant perspectives. Promethean and cal movement, the Enlightenment, liberalism, and socialism? organized, our societies continue to contain das Gehause der Simplified to the point of risking caricature, the path is traced as Geh6rigkeit, the structure of material production and bureau· follows. cracy in which more than eighty percent of the population-the The philosophy of the Enlightenment exalts reason and even wage-earners-spend their working hours. Outside of this edi­ individual reason; it destroys the authority of the Church and, at fice, do not our societies resemble Tocqueville's vision: family the same time, the authority of religion, although belief in a cells, exclusively concerned with their little affairs, reading the clock-god or a vague theism survives. It is an optimistic philoso. same books, watching the same programs on television, unaware phy, which preaches the education of the human race, roots out of, and yet imitating, each other. superstitions, and places trust in science. The liberalism Of the economists accords with the inspiration of the Enlightenment; I see a countless crowd of similar and equal men on the image of an organic society-each of the states or persons oc­ treadmills, in pursuit of vulgar little pleasures with cupying an appropriate position, and together forming a coher­ which they fill their souls. Each man, aloof, is like a ent and hierarchical whole-gives way to a completely different stranger to the destinies of all the others: his own chil­ image: a society constantly agitated by thousands and thousands dren and personal friends constitute the whole human

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race for him; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is the old furniture that villagers replace with Grand Rapids. This next to them but does not see them; he touches them sort of homogeneity of language, maintained by the diffusion of but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for the same words, of a few fashionable ideas, hides entirely differ­ himself alone, and, if he still has a family, we can at ent existences. Did villagers once differ from one another more least say that he no longer has a country. than office workers do today? Were the habitues of the court of Louis XIV, as we know them from Saint Simon, better than the How many times this text has been cited as proof of the presci­ courtiers of the President of the Republic or the president of a ence ofTocqueville! Let us translate into sociological jargon: the corporation? nuclear family, the narrow horizon of the petty bourgeois, Close-knit families, near their peasant origins and still far from egoism set up as the norm of life, in short, a hardened humanity, the fashionable neighbourhoods, differ from their parents or a swarm of mediocre men, each concerned with himself and un­ grandparents less in the narrowness of their life styles than in aware of his nothingness. What does their number matter, since their ambition. The curse (or merit) of modern civilization is to all are cut on the same model; how much they resemble one shake the rules of tradition and the inheritance of trade and sta­ another without knowing it! The same scorn came of Nietzsche's tus, to make parents aware of social competition, of the opportu­ pen a few decades later. Less blinded by hatred of capitalism nity for some to rise and of the risk that others will fall. Even if than Marx, too aristocratic to love the democracy of the common social mobility is less than our ideals suggest, it dominates the man, both Tocqueville and Nietzsche saw the rise of the class thought and conduct of families. It creates the obsession for edu­ whose numbers economic progress was to inflate. Let us call this cation and, at the same time, it makes disappointments inevita­ class the petty bourgeoisie, which ranges from the most skilled ble. Not all the young can win in either the genetic or the social workers to average white-collar employees. The peasantry is dis­ lottery. appearing; what remains of it is being transformed into wheat Endowed with consciousness, and therefore aware of their in­ and meat producers~into machine operators. Are we to con­ terests, have these atoms lost their country, and are they, as Toc­ demn this society without precedent, whose urban style reaches queville foresaw, concerned exclusively with their well-being? into what used to be called the country, this society that is striv­ Certainly, our civilization tends toward a utilitarian or hedonistic ing to teach all its children to read and write? In the name of morality. Who still evokes the categorical imperative? To the what are we to condemn it? superficial observer, everything in our Western societies hap­ Did the peasants that Balzac described represent a human pens as if the distribution of the national income constituted the type superior to our farmers who know how to draw up the bud­ only stake in political quarrels, as if citizens no longer conceived get of their enterprises and how to respond to the market? Are any goal other than the improvement of their standard of living. white-collar workers victims of progress? Can we call progress This impression rests on well-founded il1usion and, to some ex­ "reaction" when this progress reduces the number of blue-collar tent, on reality. But the "materialism" of democratic politics is employees; when it multiplies middle-class wage-earners, those the result of the separation of religion from the state, and of who deal with figures and symbols, and reduces the number of ideology from the State. Lay or neutral, the State does not give paid laborers, those who grapple with matter? What right do we citizens reasons for living. It leaves to individuals the freedom or have to scorn these ordinary men? Who has the right to scorn the burden of finding them of themselves. The partisan State, them? Faced with these kinds of questions, I feel paralyzed. One whether Soviet or Nazi, broadcasts a message, sometimes man says the great majority will, of course, be mediocre. Another arouses enthusiasm and devotion, presents itself as "idealistic", says the few will save humanity. He goes on: I prefer the wisdom and indulges in murder. Is there less authentic "idealism" in the of the illiterate peasant to the semi-cultivated, who catch, in commercial societies of the West than in the tyrannical societies passing, at bits of ideas, at the favorite phrases of journalists, and of the East? Solzhenitsyn detests slovenliness, sexual licence, the discuss the world's future. noise and vulgarity of public life or of the press in the West. But Civilizations have always had an aristocracy of thought, if not he does not confuse these evils with Evil par excellence, namely, of position. Today, it is the scholars, the authentic scholars, who the absence of law and the institutional lie of totalitarianism. He constitute, along with the great artists, the aristocracy of the aris­ does not announce, as predestined, the triumph of Evil, and the tocracy. But these aristocrats do not offer a model of how to be a fall of the West. man that other men would try to imitate. As for those surrounded I belong to the school of thought that Solzhenitsyn calls ra· by the the clamour of popularity and considered the priviledged tiona! humanism, and says has failed. This rationalism does not par excellence (from singers, movie actors, or writers, to corpora­ imply certain of the intellectual or moral errors that Solzhenitsyn tion executives or government ministers), they permit millions of attributes to it. Montesquieu maintains a balance between the fans vicariously to live prestigious lives, but they themselves have Eurocentrism of the Enlightenment and historicism. Science's almost nothing in common, and do not teach the same lesson. universal vocation is not incompatible with a diversity of cul­ I wonder whether Tocqueville's two affirmations are self-evi­ tures. It is the leaders of the Third World who desire the spread dent. In what way do men of our societies resemble one another of Western technology throughout the entire planet. Who re­ more today than yesterday? Do they know less about their fellow fuses the instruments of power and wealth? Now become the men, their neighbors, and their country than our ancestors? Uni­ Far West, Japan will perhaps better safeguard her identity than versal education has suppressed dialects. The customs of cities other countries whose masters would like to separate machines are spreading to the countryside, and city-dwellers are buying from the thought which makes them possible.

6 January, 1980

In what sense can we decree the failure of rational humanism? laws, for he knows that without laws men cannot live together The rationalist is not unaware of the animal impulses in man, peaceably. He is disturbed too at the contradictions of the loud­ and of the passions of man in society. The rationalist has long est, roughest and most widely-listened-to speakers of the market since abandoned the illusion that men, alone or in groups, are place-speakers who expose power and attack it wherever it still reasonable. He bets on the education of humanity, even if he is exists and who, at the same time, advocate the immunity of the not sure he will win his wager. individual who is to be sole master of himself. At what point of The West has ventured further than any other civilization in the disintegration of the state will men be held accountable for pursuit of the moral and intellectual freedom of the individual­ their acts? a freedom in apparent contradiction with the structure of orga­ Certainly, individuals are moulded by their families, their nizations, das Gehiiuse der GehOrigkeit. There is a growing dis­ social milieu, by chance encounters, and by the schools they cordance between the culture of the West and its economic happen to attend. Regardless of the strength or weakness of the institutions. state, individuals interiorize the norms of the city and draw a Pitilessly, Solzhenitsyn notes the symptoms of weakness of the winning or losing number at the social lottery. In Western socie­ West, and finds their profound cause to be the eradication of ties, they still, nevertheless, have the opportunity to fashion their faith. "In itself, the turning point of the Renaissance was ineluc­ characters in the benignity of liberty, and not at the risk of liberty table; the Middle Ages had exhausted its possibilities, the des­ or life in defiance of official truth. potic crushing of the physical nature of man to the benefit of his The European nations haVe populated the New World; they spiritual nature had become unbearable. But, this time, we leapt have spread their science and their weapons of production and from the Spirit to matter, in a disproportionate and exaggerated destruction across five continents, but have not, for all that, con­ manner." verted the other civilizations to their true gods. (Europe has had The history of Europe, since the Renaissance, is full of adven­ greater success with its idols.) In one sense, Europeans have ex­ tures and battles that only a simplistic Marxist would reduce to hausted the historical mission which Auguste Comte or Karl the passion for profit or the love of gold. Religious wars and wars Marx, in a different sense, entrusted to them at the beginning of of the French Revolution witness more to men's attachment to the last century. Because the passions that set them against one truth as they see it than to an exclusive concern for money and another almost destroyed them, they even doubt the- words for comfort. In the final analysis, Solzhenitsyn reproaches the West which their grandfathers endured four years of martyrdom in for its loss of Christian faith, where Tocqueville, after the fall of 1914-18. Today, Gulag, the emblem oftotal tyranny in the name the Ancien Regime, saw and foresaw societies stirred more and of total liberation, weighs, a remorse and a threat, on Commu­ more by the envious and universal pursuit of well-being. nist parties (at least in Western Europe) and paralyzes mass ideo­ To reproach a person or a society for having lost faith seems as logical movements of the left or the right. The memory of Hitler ridiculous to me as calling a believer "still a prisoner of supersti­ and the persistence of Soviet totalitarianism do not protect the tions." The rationalist of today is not unaware of the limits of sci­ European West from its own demons: workers revolt against the entific knowledge. He neither scorns nor condemns those who rationalization of production, against the uprooting of communi­ populate the world beyond knowledge with the images of their ties that are the victims of economic growth, and against the dis­ faith or the ideas of their intelligence. He does, however, con­ integration of society under an invading State. Better than any demn ideologies with totalistic pretensions, ideologies which are other, the Italian people can survive without a State and in a but poor replicas of religions that once gave a civilization a deep kind of anarchy. But for the Italian people also, there are limits unity. The clericalism that had to be fought yesterday now to patience-limits that France or Germany would rapidly reach. assumes the form of the partisan State or of State ideology. At With their mission accomplished (on the assumption that this least initially, the totalizing ideology calls for devotion, sacrifices, teleological or quasi-theological language is acceptable), have the and self-abnegation on the part of the faithful or militants. Are European nations no longer anything to say or do? Are they con­ the young people who followed Hitler-young people that I demned to vegetate in the mediocrity of comfort and of the mid­ knew in 1931-and even a number of today's communists to be dle class, slaves of progress-reaction? Drawn into themselves, called idealists? half-united for the purpose of prosperity but incapable of acting Neither the historian nor the philosopher, and even less the together on the world-stage, will they submit willingly or be futurologist, possess the answer to the questions that the West forced to submit to an Empire which utilizes science but and, in particular, Western Europe, is asking itself. Can a civiliza­ disowns its inspiration? An Empire at once despotic and ideo­ tion prosPer without a faith shared by the great majority? Will in­ cratic that will at all costs combine scientific method in arms dividuals tolerate the moral desert from which they are suffering production with a pseudo-scientific superstition in order to per­ and for which they reproach "society," that elusive entity that is petuate an omnipotent oligarchy? blamed fot everything, including the crimes individuals commit? In spite of everything, "progress" leaves us with one hope. Many intellectuals are enraged by capital punishment, though Despotism requires an educated work force: scientists, engi­ murderers, thugs or political commissars once did, and some­ neers. It cannot close its borders to radio and television, to the times still do, leave them indifferent or indulgent. In the name of images coming from the world outside. To be sure, data process­ ideas, terrorists usurp the right to execute-a right the state is no ing will permit control of the entire population, individual by in­ longer supposed to exercise. The liberal applauds the desacrali­ dividual-it makes possible the nightmare of 1984. But Europe's zation of the State; he is uneasy at the contempt displayed for progress has not been solely or essentially that of machines; it

7 The College has also been the progress of science and individuals. Thanks to prophecies of sooth-sayers. Science and economic prosperity Prometheanism, a growing portion of the population is gaining have given societies the means to enlarge their circle of citizens. access to the opportunities of liberty. The ideas of the Enlightenment that stem from the Greco-Chris­ The pressure of technical rationalization and the religious tian tradition are still alive in the theory of the rights of man. They desert incite and renew revolts. Are Europeans perhaps better recover their lustre and youth in the experience of revolutions. immunized against the totalitarian temptation than others? Reason "will not put an end to the tyrants of heaven and More and more isolated within a league of States that scorn the earth", but her struggle with them will endure as long as a rights of man as we conceive them, in action and often in strange animal species aspiring to humanity. thought, Europeans appear weak in the face of the totalitarian empire. But they retain a strength that Solzhenitsyn underesti­ mates, the strength of liberalism, tried and vigorous, which rests translated by Violet M_ Horvath on no foundation other than the conscience of the individual. Perhaps Spengler is right, and pitiless decadence is striking at formless and godless urban and commercial civilizations. Per~ haps Toynbee is right to hope for a Christian and even a Catho­ lic revival to rescue the West from the final fall toward which it is I. B. H. Levy, Barbarism With A Human Face, New York 1979, 130. moving. The forecasts of historians are no more certain than the 2. Marcel Mauss

8 Prodigal Father

Charles G. Bell

She was sitting on the sidewalk scrunched up in a doorway, on Kingdom of the Law. Second Kingdom seeker for these Holy a pad with a pale sick-looking boy. Her father walked up and Ghost children of the Third (the smoky flame on their forehead stood smiling. Carla, pasty and undernourished, a belly bloated and gabbling in tongues), to her black hustler? fixer? lover?, he by hunger or enlarged liver, her feet bare, the rest of her draped smiled. in loud-colored gypsy rags, Carla looked up with a blankness that "Come on, I'll show you the People's Park." might have been his-she the ghost to be recognized. Then light She led him past the bulletin board by the old bookstore, the broke; she sprang up and fell on his shoulder, hugging him, apocalyptic pictures under glass: the occupied city, bayonet laughing and weeping, while she said to the pale companion: "I men, gas-spraying aeroplanes, a slugged priest, guards firing told you about my Daddy? Well this is my Daddy, my real buckshot into the watching crowd, James Rector, observer, fatally Daddy." wounded on a roof. Goodby hometown U.S.A. Had he overplayed the self-interest of her responses? She had Down a cross street she guided him to the galvanized barrier never been much at letters, and it was often need that had got around the new blacktop with the window-dressing basketball her over the hump, most of all after she threw herself from mar­ goal. Communal hopes gone underground. "So that's the Peo­ riage into Fillmore and drugs; though by that time the pleas from ple's Park." jail or lawyer's office for bail or fees used to come by phone, col­ "And it was so beautiful. All flowers and sandboxes, and over lect. But there had been scrawls not so aimed, "love-you's" on here a huge deep pit with an ever-burning giant fire and a yellow or blue torn notepaper postmarked from crashpads of her cauldron with soups boiling. I slept there every night. The cops wandering. would come and ask everybody how old they were. But I've been Right now anyway she expected nothing of him, support, here so long they know me. They wave and say 'Hi, Frankie, how salvation or a fix; and what was he on pilgrimage for but to quit are you today?' And I say 'Fine, I'm fine. How are you?' I can't his proprietary perch, sit down on her spitty pavement, and ask help liking them. Behind their masks and guns they're people." about Berkeley and the Street? A big black dog wagged over, Park exile too. "Hi Bucky!" She "You should've been here last night. I was on that corner gave him a pat. A police car sirened past. "And there was our when about two hundred people in Halloween costumes came rock-and-roll band, and a huge hole, man, with big fish; And running, with a blow-torch and wire cutters, yelling about the there we had dug the underground palace and the caves, all People's Park. We all stormed up and they cut the fence and the kinds of groovy things for children, nothing like it anywhere in police came with helmets and gas masks. They came down the the world. And they came and destroyed it." Her voice a Gospel street real slow; but the people had brought their children; so whisper: The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be they didn't gas them this time. Because last time they gassed forgiven unto men. everybody." "What's that up there?" He was looking at the top of one of A sleep-dancing powerful Black leaned in: "You see anybody the eight-foot steel fenceposts. "There's an old rag up there. wants anything, let me know." Above you. Somebody's thrown a quilt on top of the fencepost." "Sure will, honey. Meet my Daddy." She raised her eyes from the ground. "That's mine," she cried. Far off it had seemed plots of the murderous Mafia. Was this She was climbing the forbidden fence, her toes in the two-inch the eye ofthe storm? "That's my true love Zulu. Only man ever lattice. got me to a climax, and he never could do it but once." "Hey, let me go up." Faustian fathers vaulting since childhood "A fate worse than death," the Delta judge her grandfather into forbidden places. would have moralized, though he had taken a black sharecrop­ But she had got the tousled comfort off the pole. It was ripped per's case to the Supreme Court and been vexed by Time's ir­ and charred from some Halloween prank of the night before. reverence: "Independent as a hog on ice." Gone, that First He dropped to the ground. She flung it to him in a cloud of dust, all in his face, eyes, hair. "Wooh! It's dirty. I say, that bed· ding's in bad shape." A tutor at St. John's in Santa Fe, Charles Bell has published two books A louder siren. "Here they come. Get on down." of poetry (Songs for A New America [1953], and Delta Return [1956]), and She lowered her toes slowly, musing: "Somebody's burnt it. I two novels (The Ma"ied Land [1962], and The Half Gods [1968]). wonder who did that?"

9 The College

"How' d they get it? Where do you keep it?" The siren was on ton, when he would cyde them out, Octavia in the basket and them. He wheeled. Ambulance. "Well, that one's on a mercy Carla behind, and the day he swerved and chewed her foot in call." the spokes, and she, responding to the shock in his face, stifled She was turning the rag over: "At least I have a blanket now. her sobs. Such hopelessness took him. "So you can't. You'd pass Because I was sleeping in those bushes." She pointed across the out with the shudders before you ever got to the top." street to some fir trees in the yard of a proper white gingerbread Challenge reached her always: "I wouldn't at all. I'm strong." establishment of ancient widow or maiden aunt. "Right over "If you need your dope, you'd go nuts." there, behind that hedge, there's a little cubby hole. I used this "I haven't had it all day. It's only a desire." for my pillow and mattress, it was so torn up. And I had a sleep­ A desire. Well, he had desires too-as to climb those hills. "Is it ing bag. They were gone last night. But it's weird I'd find the possible, from where we are, just to walk up there?" q1.1ilt on the fence of the People's Park." "Uh huh.'' :'You mean you live under those bushes? Wouldn't it be better "Then let's go right now, and let Chuck and lunch wait." up in the hills?" He waved at the green amphitheater above the They worked through jammed cars. What were they all there town. Though her friend Chuck Abrams had told him not an for? That ambulance a while back, sirens. He asked a guy and a hour ago, in the crowded restaurant of the Street's most broken girl in a red convertible, "What's up?" Like bug-eyed fish they block, of finding her on the pavement, black and blue, robbed in stared at anybody who didn't know that- they tricked in blazers those hills by goons she had guided there. and pennants like cheerleaders- "The football game!'' Her voice betrayed none of that. "Oh, it's beautiful. Real big Crowd-happy boosters. As in the 'thirties at Virginia, when it trees and woods and everything. In the summer I used to meet was the style of Our Town; but he had turned his back, heading people on the Street and they'd say 'You know any place I can for the trails of the Ragged Mountains; so they started in earnest stay? I can't sleep on the street, I'd get arrested.' I'd say, 'Don't up the sloping street, he pushing the pace, his blood and lungs you worry; I got a sleeping bag and five blankets' -cause that's set for the Rockies, looking at her. what I had, and now all I've got is just one blanket; so I'd take Whatever her cough meant, she must be undernourished, her everybody up and show them the woods and say 'Whenever you liver bad, diabetes maybe; but she never lagged or complained, need to sleep, you come up here'" She waved. "It's right at the pegged on, panting, chattering. top of this street, and you can see the whole Bay area.'' A glance at her opened past and future. She had always been She was bundling up her quilt. ''I'm going to put this back in strange and overcharged, smiling, kissing, pouting, sobbing. The the cubby hole." time she came crying: "0 Momma, Momma, Tavia hurt my­ "It's too burnt," he said. And then, "Watch your step on the self.''-"Tell her you're sorry, Tavia;" it was she who ran to Oc­ road." tavia, blubbering, hugging: "I'm sorry, Tavia; I'm sorry." Her She thrust through the hedge, her walk a writ of ownership. future: his mother in the bad time, out the long west street of the He had read them Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn almost from in­ alien city, praying, smiling, dying in the old folks home for fancy, and now she was Huck Finn herself- though how every­ strangers. He reached for Carla's hand, and there was another thing had hardened, Jim, the raft, the river. link; he should have brought the nail clippers, as when he went The old bard squinted at the sun, weatherwise. Carla ran back to the nursing home. through a traffic thickening all the time. "Why don't we go up "Don't those nails break and bother you?" there," he said, "before it clouds up." But they hadn't gone half "They never bother me. Only when I play guitar I have to cut a block when she turned toward the Street. them.'' Her face was sad, as when in the pain of adolescence she had A measure how long. "But to be hooked and have to trap other made up those blues that still stirred in the soul. "Have you got a people to make your fix ... " guitar? I want to hear you play while I'm here." She found a bright side: "It was worse at first, when I was In the loss of everything, even her regret had a kind of dream­ hooked bad and prostituting myself." (When clap fulfilled the ing joy: "I had a guitar. I had a beautiful guitar. Until they closed curse of Lear: Dry up in her the organs of increase.) "But I won't the Park and I went back on junk." do those things any more.'' Her backward gaze reminded him of Chuck, waiting in the "If you want to beg and bum like God's folk in old Russia-all restaurant. "Maybe we ought to go back and eat with Chuck, like right, but not this slavery." I told him, and then go up the hill." "I know. It's so dumb, when I'd stayed off for years." The loophole she was after: "Maybe I better go back myself -My God: their worst encounters in those rosy years, when and make some money.'' he brought her from California to escape the psychiatrist who "How you gonna make money?" had got her unhooked, but by using amphetamines, and she "Sell some dope.'' flung off the plane in her rags with her tousled sleeping bag and "How much money you need?" into his arms, desperately needing a father's rescue, but too far Silence, then low: "Twelve dollars.'' gone for him to know how to give it-off heroin, but onto any­ "How often?" thing that would dodge the accommodations of the real, con­ "Not too often.'' vinced reality was nothing but a congeries of psychic trips. He glanced at the misty hills. What a plucky walker she had She had lived for him in a solitude no actual voice could pene­ been when she could hardly toddle up the rocky hill past Prince· trate, from which she emerged only to the extent of going to the

10 January, 1980 dentist to have her teeth pulled, the front pair neglect and drugs you were with the Mafia or lord knows what." had rotted, and a little bridge made, of which he, crass material­ "No, no. It wasn't a very big party, and I hate the Mafia with ist insisted: "That bridge is not imaginary; it belongs to the world all my heart." It came back over her, and her voice sang, as when in which the bill will come and I will pay, the world you counte­ she had phoned and he thought she was stoned: "It was a juke nance by wearing it." box, in our very house. I tried to tell you on the telephone: 'And It was then, when he had told her, as teacher and father of the we have a juke box in our own house.' But you wouldn't listen." younger two, that drugs were out either at the school or at home, He had been so sure that tie was criminal. "But what about that she went straight to the former and returned to the latter the telephone? You said they had a private line the company ripped on marijuana; and in protective rage he almost called the didn't know about-not a credit card, you said- and I thought, cops, but shook her instead (as his grandmother and father used that must be the gangster ring to end all rings." to say) until her teeth rattled (those costly new pearls); then She laughed until she coughed. "They were Yippies, college phoned friends in Baltimore and gave her a chance at therapy Yippies (I told you they were going to the Convention); they for herself and work with handicapped kids at John's Hopkins knew about phones, so they plugged into the main line-I don't hospital; but she opted for New York, wandering on her own, know how-and we didn't have to pay." and as he had promised not to hold her if she came, he put her "What about that sailor who phoned afterward, said he'd on the bus and paid her fare_ found you beat up on a roof, and now his ship had to sail, and And then the phone call, remember, the loving child-rapture: would I help send you west? 'That phone-pluggin gang has "0 Daddy! I've run into a friend named Merrie from Reed Col­ dumped her,' I thought, 'and it's a wonder she's not dead.'" lege and I'm staying at her aunt's beautiful penthouse high over "But that didn't have anything to do with it. That was after I Greenwich Village, and they're so nice to me and let me do came back from Boston, and I met this black guy, a biker, on the whatever I please. And thanks, Daddy, for the teeth; I'm all street, when I was high. 'Hey you're awful handsome,' I told pretty again." him. So I went off and fornicated with him, and I must have He growling at so much easy transport and that she hadn't made him mad, because he said something and I hit him and he buckled down for the cure, could hardly keep from telling her, hit me; and that was how !lost those teeth you paid for. But the "Wait and see. You're going to bust it. I give you three days in Yippies were kind and gentle." that lovely penthouse doing what you please, before you get "Pity you didn't stay with the Yippie~ instead of taking up thrown out." with some motorbiker." And sure enough, next thing he heard she was on the streets; "I only met him one evening; and I was lousy drunk on wine so he phoned his writer friend Hanrahan, who lent her the key to and cough syrup, which'll kill you a lot faster than heroin.'' his downtown studio. But it wasn't many days before the land­ It must have hit them both together, that was in the time she lady called the police_ Carla must have run an open house for had talked of being free: When I had stayed off for years. Village bums, and the place was a shambles. When the cops "I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't like the way I feel came the rest had vamoosed, but not Carla; she was on hand, naturally, so I want to drink something, or take something to feel and she tangled with the sergeant as if he were the offender better. Dumb, I guess.'' against law and order- would have mauled him too, if they They were panting now, the steepest part of the hill, her bare hadn't ganged up and toted her off to Bellevue. feet padding the road, the hiss of his corduroys. Her face had Which was where the paternal dignity saw her next-a horri­ come full cycle-the mask of gloom. "You got a steep hill here," ble madhouse, she more frenzied then ever, though he took her he said. an old guitar and talked with a young doctor there, so moved by She raised her eyes to the green crown. "A little more and you her case he wanted to take her home for special care; but next see the whole Bay Area." day she climbed out somehow and split. "You won't see it today; it's too misty.'' So if that was when she was off heroin, God help her now she She looked back for the first time. "Aw, that's a pity." was on. {Though she seemed to have grown more sane-or was it But you could see plenty: the smoky bowl, the Bay and indus­ the old prodigal who had come round?) trial cesspool, surrounding hills slashed with highways, power­ She stooped for an orange somebody had dropped in the gut­ lines; and everywhere through old forested slopes bulldozed bare ter. There was a jingle on the road. "Hey,'' he said, "you're drop­ earth for new apartment towns, shopping centers. The derogate ping your money." He bent down. body of the landscape as a nude. And Carla in her rags, with her She brooded: "What might save me is my music. Because lost teeth and fish-belly skin: I bruised myself. .. calcined my­ when I take heroin I don't feel music. I don't feel anything self. .. no reason . .. the ways of my love. but-Arrgh!" She hawked up a Iunger. "I'll have to go to the "Where's the ocean?" he said. hospital, but on my own ... " She took the quarters, nickels, pen­ "Ocean? You don't see any ocean. It's behind that big range nies as carelessly as she had thrown her college money into junk. across the Bay." Her being, alien to him before, was clearing and opening, a sad The paved road ended among lanes and private estates. She human light shed on what had seemed dark and sinister. led him down a path to the left which plunged into a little valley "What about that time you used to phone from New Yark in dense with leafy evergreens_ The steep earth gave; she slipped. the middle of the night-weren't you on something then? After They caught each other, leaning on the sheer slope. "We're Bellevue; and those big parties roaring and banging. I thought sliding."

ll The College

To a little stream tumbling clear over sedimental black dirt, "Let's go, while I'm here. It's not like Cheryl in Washington. where a rope hung from an arching limb. "I made that for some You're no child." children. They had the rope, so I climbed up and tied it where "I don't know. Maybe it's easier for a child. At least a child they could swing over the stream." thinks there's something to live for." He looked at the dark foliage. "Must be live oaks." She brought out the orange. "Want some?" "Oaks?" "Better you." He crushed a leaf. "No, you're right. Myrtle, I guess. Smell." "Well, I'm thirsty when I sweat so much." She peeled it into Their voices in the grove hushed and low. the Hobbit Hole. Hers: "Like some sort of menthol, only super-good. But where "You've got to go through with it. And then clear out. You are the Eucalyptus?" said your friend Dona helped hook you. You can't stay with He saw them up the other bank, soaring over the myrtle, mot­ these street people and not fall back." tled green and pale. "There." "The Street People," she pronounced with a mouth full of or­ She was searching the ground. "No, no. Here." She pressed ange, "are very pure and very beautiful. They smoke grass and through a tangle of briars-bare feet and legs. they take a little acid, and they play a lot of music. Those are my "Look out for the thorns." people. The Junkies," she spat seeds, "are another thing. They She never noticed. Bending she scooped up a handful of live in apartments and have money; they come on motor bikes scented balls. "These are what really smell good." She poured a and hustle all the time." bunch in his pocket. "Take some to Cheryl"~the youngest, on A hopeful separation for pilgrims of the Third Kingdom, but it whom they had dreaded Carla's sway. seemed to leave no place for her. "Then who hustles the acid the Up the other slope she drew him to a burrow under a peely­ Street People use? Don't you hustle?" barked Eucalyptus-Melusinda in the hollow tree. "I dug it "It's not real. You think what I'm selling when I make my out," she said. "It's my Hobbit Hole. It was good to sleep here; money ... ? I don't sell no dope. I sell you a vitamin pill and get but some boys found it. .. A real Hobbit Hole." your money. I'm a burn artist." It might have served a rabbit or a fox, but a person couldn't He stared. "No wonder the police don't bother you: embez­ have squeezed in out of the rain. "You'd need a roof on it zling from the poor to pay the Mafia to pay them." though." She got up, her coat trailing. The money fell out, this time into "The roots of the tree would be the roof," she said. "But I'd the pit. Hardly worth picking up, in a life of loss, but he bent have to dig it way down. A gigantic cave." The throaty ecstasy of down. She knelt too, and he saw a patch of scab and blood on those elf-tales she would make up when she was tiny for her sis­ her scalp. "What's that? You've knocked a hole in your head ters. "But those kids were sure to tell." somehow.'' He was searching her black eyes under the tow-headed mop of "When I shoot smack I claw my head." She fingered it: "Oh! hair for a way: "You like living like that? You like it better than What a horrible hole." trying to go back? To get in the deal?'' The sky was Overcast as they walked down. She went to the Mounted on Pegasus. "Ugh! I wouldn't want to get in the Street and he to his room ... deal." He had given his lecture in that University which had closed He pulled the noose: "You're in the deal anyway, like it or the Park. It was louring dusk. Carla had hustled and got her fix, a not." "cotton" of somebody's leavings. Queened in a blue evening It brought her down. "That's what's creepy about it. I'm right dress of cast-off voluminous sateen, she led him down the fierce in the deal. It's what everybody tells me. And six months ago Street: Hell's Angels gunning motors, Krishnas dancing in eter­ they couldn't have said it, because I was a new child. And now nal drugless joy, a pack of acid Red Rockets howling, beating a I'm working for them again, police and junkies and capitalists." mailbox like a tom· tom. They settled down on her usual packing (The birds that wait on the rhinoceros; the little fish that clean case in shadowed talk~ something about her worst years and a the shark's teeth.) "If you oppose a power," he said, "you have to "beautiful old Spade man" ~back when he was wondering if his keep clear of it." duty was to come with his father's pistol and track her down. She sat down, her feet in the Hobbit Hole. "The only thing Gentle tall Dona, of the brown eyes and hair, swayed in, un­ that strung met out again was the power." strung in every joint, a carton of orange juice loosely held: "I "You mean when they broke up the Park?" bought a big bottle cause I thought you'd like some, and you "When I saw how the messed up majority that run things can weren't even here, you bum." She had been Carla's excuse lately send armies with guns and gas to destroy what's beautiful, it for stalling on the cure: "I'll go as soon as I can persuade my girl freaked me out. And Dona kept coming to my basement some friend; she's worse strung out than I am." people had left me and shooting up and asking me if I didn't That anyway seemed a statement of fact. want some (because when you're clean, just the scraping of a wet If he was going to do anything before he left, there was only spoon makes you more loaded than they are), and I thought I'll tomorrow. "Why don't we get a meal and you come to my place? forget those robots. And I didn't care any more, and since then There's an extra room and a mattress. In the morning Abe I've never stopped. And it's really sad. But if I could have stayed Shahn can drive us to Mendocino. Dona can come tonight or off three years after being hooked the way I was, it can't be that meet us in the morning, whichever she wants." hard; it's just a matter of going and doing it." Euphoric Carla noted the address, hugged him, said she would

12 January, 1980 come later for a sleep before the ride. could talk together, hearing only from the front a murmur of in­ In the upstairs apartment lent him through friends, furniture distinct words. A time for memories. Should he keep them unpacked, crates and boxes, on a mattress thrown on the floor he smiling? tossed as formerly-after the day's appeasement the night's The summer at Long Beach Island, a circle of kids crouched remorse, and the debate of "Why remorse? You tried righteous· around a wave-stranded jellyfish as big as your head, incited by ness. Time you found another way." Hours he listened for Carla, whom but three-year Carla, crying: "Poker-man, poker-man, while police sirens of the beleaguered city screamed. Before poker all the way"-jabbing it with their fingers until it melts dawn he gave up, dozed into the day. At ten he met Abe and into a muck of foam. Or night in the little cottage, the scribe Chuck in the restaurant. Ride available but not the rider. It was with a lamp in the low garret wording his Earth Epic, to the two when she appeared, hung over as on other days, but in rhythm of Carla's chants from below, and the smothered laughs proud pace beside the sagging Dona. of the others. And Dona, for a wonder, had decided it was time for a cure. No-what was needed were the dark secrets of her life: the She had been nagging Carla all morning to get her started. Now year she slashed her wrists and was sent back East. the others pitched in, with Dona saying hurry before her shot "Before you came to us that year, your mother wrote-! wore off. wasn't supposed to tell, but we're past that now-about a "But I don't want to be taken; I want to go on my own." rape-a child you bore dead, and buried?" "You mean your own feet? We're only offering you a ride." Her voice a duck's back that sheds the water of tears: "Yeah." No. Zulu had mentioned an underground movie about the "You were a virgin until then?" People's Park showing at six. Outcry had named Carla the "No. That was the worst of it. The boy J'd really loved, took star-in fact: me out there for the others, three guys; told me there was a party "Sqper-star Frankie, mad toothless Frankie, pregnant raga­ and then pulled me into the loft. muffin of the streets, infant of a civilization which murders its "I didn't want the child. As it grew I kept hitting myself in the children because they dare to dance and sing, because they dare stomach. I killed it. And only after it came I knew how much I to plant a flower in a muddy parking lot." Carla had promised to wanted it. I'd been in labor for about a week and never told any­ get Zulu in free. body. And that night-! must have been in shock-! took it Dona turned on the klaxon: "I've got to get up there. I'm go­ down the bluff, ran all the way to the stream, and rolled that ing out of my mind, see. If I wait around here I'll get the fuckin huge stone over it-when they wanted to check, it took two men creeps." She snivelled off, Carla calling after her, calm as a to move it-and I ran all the way back up. I think I stayed in church and as crazy: "It'll be over by seven, and we'll go then." shock a long time after." Zulu never showed. That didn't upset Carla. Only the ticket "Why didn't you tell your mother?" girl's refusing her a pass. Sugar Daddy was about to pay. "Pay for "I never could tell her anything. As if she lived in a dream­ yourself; I'm the star." She strode past the booth, down the dark both of us-different dreams." aisle, flung herself into a seat. He took his place beside her. "And then you came to us ... " The Park blossomed around them. The daughter he had come "You wrote that already," she said, "in that novel. 'The seed to help yielded to the other on the screen, in her fanciful robes, you sowed in Sibyl's darkness.' I thought of it often when I was singing, playing with the children, swinging upside down from hooked: is this what you wanted, what you prophesied?" the crossbar, sleeping with the rest by the ever-burning fire. (As if to write were to spring the trap. No transmoral art; no "The joy and anguish of being human at any cost." Her moody lives probed without effect. He was doing it still.) guitar yields to the closing voice: "On this flowering square block "You remember the night the marine brought me home late­ of sanity in civilization's asphalt madness, the bitter, the dis­ the one I ran off with the next day-and you scolded and said if I gusted, the sick and wretched still huddle together; and if the kept on you'd have to send me back to IVIother-when it was National Guard of Fear should peek through the bushes, they Mother who'd sent me to stay with you and Lucy." will still find us smiling, still saying: 'Let a thousand parks (His eyes adjusting to the moonlight by the door, until her face bloom!'" shows dim around the Maya cenote pools he had known in Sibyl They left arm in arm, her scarred and shell-pitted landscape also and been divorced from: "Two loves have I, of comfort and wrapped as in a softening shower of tears. And there stood the despair" -as if to banish from the new Married Land those eyes great-bearded Abe in front of his M.G.; Dona hove into sight of Eve in the garden, serpent-lured to forbidden fruit.) through the crowd, swinging an almost finished bottle of the ~ "You remember what I told you? That since I was a child I grim white port. "Afraid of the creeps," she murmured; "no fix hadn't been loved. Since you went off and left me with Mother, since morning." Chuck hurried from the bookstore to wave and now she had sent me to you, and you were threatening to goodbye, looking in at Carla with a deserted smile. Even speed­ send me back to her-as if I didn't have a horne.'' blasted black-genius Zulu floated up from somewhere: "Don't "You didn't make it easy. Lucy's mother dying in the next worry about Mendocino, honey; it's a good trip." room; and to nm off with a Marine you didn't even know, and And now they had slipped north past rowed flashes of mercury have the police phoning in the night ... and neon; the city fell behind; they were headed for redwood "So you went back to your mother, and your allergy got country under moonlight, a long night drive. worse." Nestled in the back, under the hum of car and road, the two "I was clawing myself all the time, raw and burning."

13 The College

(Yet how her music had grown, as if only anguish could pluck for society maybe, the only safety would be in righteous and re­ those strings.) "So we found that ranch school, in the desert." pressive rage: to shun all touch of that past, never go back, even Abe had stopped at a park-in; they rode on washing down in mind to that ambiguous old Spade, but to indict him, hound clam-burgers: Dona with white port, Carla with red, Hollow­ him, hang him; be moral, vindictive, bourgeois, forewarned. The daddy with a tenth of Zinfandel. Carla lowered the bottle, wiped salutary hypocrisy of law, against the soul's range. her mouth with her hand and let fly at the Arizona school: "Ter­ All the ride (and sipping port) she had grown more amenable, rible place. Coldest man I've ever seen. No more feeling than a hopeful, human. She who had been so stubborn against leaving snake. All he wanted was money ... the Street, now nestled up to him like a child, her tousled head "Then I met Carlos, and we were in love. I came back to you on his cheek, saying how happy she was, how glad he'd taken her for the summer, to be near his boot-camp. You were on our side away, that back there she had seen no future but dope and hus­ then, persuaded his parents." tling, and now it seemed a delirium from which she might awake. (Her only hope; and who could have reasoned her out of it?) "That's why you've got to find a new life," he said, "get away "So we married, and my skin cleared up. Even now it's clear, from that Street, not just heroin, but all those cough syrups and except when I shoot smack I claw my hair, freaky." acids ... " Thus the miracle of housekeeping Carla, in the graduate stu­ Her voice had never been more open, more sure: "0, I love dent bungalow squeaking to each other like lovely mice-three acid. I'll always take acid. It saved my life. That's why I kicked years, until the plunge into the Berkeley ferment of Free the first time. I took some acid when I was strung out and every­ Speech, action, four-letter words, Carla like a tuned receiver, vi­ thing came clear." brating it: she began to slip off nights, weekends, then out of The car threading the moonlit valley of giant redwoods, he sight altogether, her husband hunting in whatever locales rumor wondered why love and nature should fail to be enough. Though guided him to, sometimes with a loaded gun, whether for her or he too sipped Zinfandel. .. the locale unclear; until her married sister Octavia joined in the "I have to take acid to play really good music. At People's search (unarmed), and they found her in Fillmore with what Oc­ Park, before I messed up again, my music was so beautiful, my tavia called a horrible old Black Man, her contact, Carla burnt own kind of Mississippi blues. It flows in rivers, hardly out of me out on heroin, with the whoring and stealing to earn two­ at all. I feel guilty: people crowd up and ask for more; they think hundred bucks a day (besides gonorrhea), lucid only a few hours it's me, but it's not. But heroin kills sex and love and music." after her shot, then down again in a sickness from which she sur­ Standing on the hopeful verge of cure, she looked back on the faced next day not remembering what had occurred-days blot­ badlands of pain. "If I don't get dope enough, I wake up in ting into weeks, months, a year, under the chronic agony of cramps, coughing and vomiting, with diarrhea and sick sweat; trying to get her off: state hospitals, Synanon, which she had and every morning chills, and the blankets wringing wet." tried twice and left, calling it a fake scene. He groaning: "But what a price, my God, and not to be much And now her other sister Monique flew in from mystical pur­ higher than soul and spring water will get you.'' suits in India, fresh to the conquest of soul over matter, took "Right. For two years I'd wake up rejoicing, because I didn't Carla to the house of a Zen friend, seemed to be succeeding, un­ have to run out and get a shot. And the third year I forgot, can til Carla swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills, and Monique, you imagine? I could still wake up rejoicing; and I never did finding no pulse, panicked. So it was the emergency hospital, when I was young. So there's some gain, if I could just keep it." Carla coming to, sobbing "I'm a junkie; I'm a junkie. Help me!" "The hardest thing to understand," he said, "is how you could The cloudy seer wrapped her in his arms, as if body's hold leave Carlos and your boys and go to that Spade in the first might resist the downward power. "Like a nightmare, it must be, · place." that time, that horrible Black Man Octavia begged and threat­ Though he knew what she would say: "jealousy." ened and got nowhere with." Instinct should have told him it "But you had run around yourself?" would be the one she had spoken of before: "A beautiful old "Only when he did. It's true I didn't know. But I felt it, like a Spade man." snake coiled round my throat. That was when I had an affair, "Octavia didn't know anything about him." and then I found out what I had already known, that he'd done it Had she none of the antibodies of blame? "But he was the one before. I wouldn't feel that way now. But I was so young. I didn't you were giving two hundred a day for dope, and prostituting know about jealousy." yourself?" " 'As cruel as the grave.' Your mother and I should have "Uh-huh. But he helped me get off, when he knew I really taught you." wanted to. He'd let me come to his house and he'd shoot up in "If only I had married him later. Such a trivial thing-as he front of me, but he wouldn't give me any; and I got to where I told me, it meant nothing at all; yet to me it was doomsday. could watch him without going crazy for it. He used to say: 'Y au That's my great sadness. It's what ruined my life. And there's look beautiful now, and your soul is beautiful; but when you're nothing I'd love more than to go back with him, but he's scared strung out, you're mean and ugly.'" and doesn't want me any more ... Though I will love him always, The front seat talk had died down. The car-noise privacy of and deep down he still loves me." the back yielded to Dona's chime-in: "It's true, you change com­ (And when there is nothing but ash ... the mill of grinding pletely." (She, who had offered the ruinous cottons.) wheels we have built and are setting the torch to, calcined The terrible thought hammering itself home, that for Carla, as -would that ghost of love remain, a luminous lost inwardness?)

!4 January, 1980

They turned off the highway into the hospital drive-a lawn anyway, that you're a guest here and you choose your own pro­ of trees under the moon. Dona's siren whine filled the car: the gram. But it's a hospital and I'm the doctor, and I can't say hospital fears they cultivated on the Street, of being penned in you're free to do whatever you please." vomiting convulsions; she couldn't stand it, she would go crazy; "Then it's a creepy bad place-a jail-and I won't be locked in while Carla said nonsense, they had come on their own; they like a crook when I came on my own." knew what the program was; everybody said it was a good trip. The wanderer's hand went out, groping. He could no more tell At the office Abe went in. They saw him through the window than the blind what it would reach: the nestling daughter of the gesturing at the receptionist. Something must be wrong, and one car, the chemical body of rage. He touched her cheek. She shied, could guess what: they had come without papers, banking on ap­ his hand in league with tyranny and rape. He tried again, caress­ peal. In the dread, after so much buildup, of offering nothing but ing. "Carla, love. Listen. Don't act crazy. You can see he's a fine return to the Street, the Old Guy went in too. man. He's on our side. You know I love you. You think I would Abe's doctor friend had been sent for. He appeared, one of the leave you in a jail? But it's what you came for. A new start." blessed Blacks. They would take them tonight as guests and She moved toward the door, repeating under the Medusa worry about legality tomorrow. stare: "I put a straight question and he won't give a straight In the car the girls had almost lost heart. Now they were answer." But softer. As in Gluck's taming of the infernal spirits. brought in, but there was a long wait while the secretary filled So once again the Orphic lyre: "Carla. Remember: the hus­ out forms. Ox-eyed Dona sat in a blue funk, no fix since morn­ tling, always hustling, and sweats and sickness. You're no child. ing, the wine wearing off, the red barbiturate she had gulped as Stay on and work with them. I'll get you a guitar. Think of your they waited outside not taking effect, the horror of prison cold­ music ..Sad, to back out now." turkey come on her; she reached a trembling hand in a gray­ She sank into the chair with a gesture of profound defeat. lipped mouth, caught one of her snaggly carious teeth, pulled Bending over, he kissed the red-chapped scales of her street­ half of it out and dropped it into the metal waste-basket. sleeping harried face. In her cloudy vault she did not stir. He The doctor called her to the examining room-the routine walked out tormented, as through all the years, with the first and needle-scar check to confirm junky status. She had worried he last denial: at the tree of life, the sword turned every way. He put might not believe her, since she was using her fingers, where the his hands to his father-aged face under a tumbling whiteness of marks didn't show. Though as he would tell them, one had only hair ... to pull up her sleeves to see why she was shooting under the fin­ And in four or five days or a week, when the methadone was gernails: every vein blown with scar tissue. tapered off and she fled (redemption so rare, however clewed and Carla Was waiting alone, her father and Abe phoning Berkeley rainbowed with tears) and she hit the Street bleak under Novem­ for the neglected referrals. And now she, who had seemed ber rain; when Chuck would shelter her in the bookstore, the strong, heard a cry somewhere far off down the hospital corri­ drug scene spilling in, and as threatened before he would get the dors, and everything came flooding back, as from before birth, sack, and the promised sleeping bag and guitar would have gone the soul's claustrophobic fear of bolts, chains, cave-walls, an ar­ the way of all Carla's possessions; when poor Dona would be chetypal hell-dread enforced by years of bad jails and barred asy­ back shooting heroin into the veins under her tongue-it would lums (to have usurped a word of refuge for those thronging be easy to say "I told you so" -almost ashamed of hopeful senti­ snake-pits she had hardened in and escaped from). ment, almost swayed by the law-and-order hardening, willy-nilly, The secret sharer entered to see her being change with her toward a police state and purgative euthanasia. Though all it face. She was levelling, as at an enemy, at the black doctor, her would have proved in the end was that a little love might go a lit­ friend. "Then I won't stay. I ask you a straight question and you tle way. don't answer straight." A defiance known from his own youth, So if a total love should offer itself in total sacrifice, it might against father, law, police, all canons of coercion and restraint, once more be written: " 'Come out of the man, thou unclean most of all the army's absurd claim to brutalize his acts. But in spirit!' And they were amazed and said, 'What is this? With au­ her case, wide of the mark. thority he commands the unclean spirits, and they obey him.' " Though the doctor's smile was vaguely equivocal: "Frankie, I Even for Carla. Even for the earth she images. don't know how you listen. I said it's hard enough to get you in

15 The Birth of a Literary Language

Giuliano Bonfante

Romanticism (already wonderfully anticipated in the eigh­ "standard English," they mean the same thing as the Italians teenth century by Giambattista Vico) held sway throughout the who, following their aesthetic tendencies, call their national, offi­ nineteenth century and still exerts its influence in the twentieth; cial language a "literary language." Standard English, like any unfortunately, as often happens, mostly with its more second­ "literary language," looks to its best authors for models. (In Italy, rate characteristics: fascination with madness, dreams, fantasy, Manzoni above all is the Bible for whoever desires to speak Ital­ interest in science fiction and horror stories. Among its many ian well. In English, we look up correct usage in the Oxford great accomplishments, Romanticism taught us how to study English Dictionary.) Standard English, and every literary lan­ history and the development of languages, i.e., historical linguis­ guage, follow stricter rules than dialects and spoken speech. For tics. We owe it a great deal. instance, proper English usage will not allow, "I don't know But no movement, no man can be complete or perfect. In its nothing about it," which can be heard on occasion. In Italian disproportionate enthusiasm for the spontaneous, for all that you should not say as some do, incorrectly, "ci b dato illibro" in­ came from the people, for the "vOlkisch," the Romantic move­ stead of "glib dato illibro." Without clear rules, there can be no ment neglected, when it did not outright despise, "literary lan­ such thing as literary language. guages." It held literary languages to be artificial constructions 2. Literary languages exist, despite differences in usage, in ge­ which arbitrarily troubled the natural flow of the people's un­ ography, and even in nationality. The Spanish used in Spain and written speech. You can see this romantic attitude in the suspi­ South America is a single literary language, for example. So also cion with which historical grammars handle so-called "learned" are British English and American-although a foolish national­ words as distinct from words of spoken speech or of"direct tradi­ ism on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, of the "pond" as the tion." (For example, words like the French chose, which made its Spaniards used to call it, would distinguish the two. There are way into French from the Latin causa directly through spoken always grey areas in life: to deny the existence of any real "liter­ speech, handed down for generations from father to son, in con­ ary languages" because of slight differences means to deny the trast to the French word cause, which also comes from the Latin existence of night and day because twilight intervenes. When we causa, but was introduced into the written language by medieval speak of German, English, French, Italian, or Russian, we have a or Renaissance scholars.) But great civilizations live in written clear idea of a language in mind; we know exactly what we mean. languages. To be "literary," a language must be written. There are, of course, borderline cases, especially of languages that were once What is a Literary Language? literary, but which have since broken down into spoken lan­ guages or dialects: Provenc:;:al, "Folksmdl" (the spoken language What is a literary language? How is a literary language born? of the Norwegians), dimotike (contemporary spoken Greek), Incredibly, because of Romanticism's uneasiness with literary Catalan, Basque, Sardinian, Venetian. The doge of Venice once languages, no one has studied this question. said to an ambassador reluctant to go to Turkey because he knew l. When Americans and British use the commercial term, no Turkish: "Va dal Gran Turco e parlighe venexian." (Go to the Sultan and speak Venetian to him.) 1 He meant that even the Sul­ tan would understand Venetian. There are also instances of An Indoeuropean linguist, Giuliano Bonfante concentrates on what languages that had once little or no literary stature, but enjoy to­ languages tell of history. His most recent works include I dialetti Indoeu­ day the status of literary, national, and official languages: Gaelic, ropei, 1976, Latini e Germani in Italia, 1977, and Studii Romeni, 1973. Albanian, Lithuanian, Lettish, and many other languages of the He left Italy in 1931 to teach in Spain and from 1939 to 1954 in the peoples within the Soviet Union. United States at Princeton. Upon his return to Italy in 1954 he taught first at Genoa and then until 1978 at Turin. He now lives in Rome. Another borderline case is the famous lingua franca, derived This article represents a revised version of "Come nasce una lingua from Venetian, and spoken widely in commerce throughout the letteria," published in Atti dell'Accademia dei Lincei, 1978. Mediterranean until the last century. It was never written. The

16 January, 1980

French troops that conquered Algiers in 1830 carried a little and taught in schools. Someone who does not know these rules, booklet of instruction in lingua franca, which today is one of the or violates them, suffers ridicule and contempt. He cannot ob­ most valuable sources for that idiom. You only have to read the tain public (or, for that matter, private) employment. A person's end of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme to learn that lingua franca is way of speech and the words he knows betray his social. standing, not French, as a well-known French scholar argued years ago. as is shown beautifully in Shaw's Pygmalion. These grammatical Pidgin English-"pidgin" is the Chinese pronunciation of "busi­ rules, which some take for mere prejudice, ·keep a language from ness" -until recently widely spoken in the Far East, represents breaking down into dialects. They make it possible for an another instance of a widely-spoken commercial language that Australian to understand an American, and so on. Dialects, in was never written. contrast, with no fixed rules or written grammar, change rapidly As I have said, a literary language above all is written. Dialects, and within small areas. The dialect of Prato differs significantly instead, are usually spoken. When Sardinians, Calabrians, the from the dialect in Florence, only a few miles away. Piedmontese, or the people of Friuli have to write a letter to a There are instances where a literary language is written but compatriot (a "paesano"), they do their best to write in Ital­ not spoken. In German Switzerland, for instance, everyone ian-an often very incorrect Italian. They resort to Italian when speaks SchwizertUtsch, which is the name for various closely re­ they write, because no one has ever taught them to write the lated German dialects of Switzerland, but writes in literary Ger­ dialect they speak among themselves. man, bon allemand (the name implies that German dialects are Learning to write is difficult. Even a child who does not speak bad German). In Italian Switzerland farmers who speak the a dialect learns at school to write a language somewhat different Lombard dialect learn Italian in school, but they never speak it! from the one he is used to speaking. For instance, an American Attempts to fashion a new literary and official language to sub­ schoolboy may learn to write he is not instead of he ain't, man in­ stitute, in a small area, for an already established language which stead of guy, father rather than daddy. Frequently, especially holds wider sway usually fail, because of the difficulty of singling when they speak dialect, children learn to write a language en­ out a single dialect as the national and literary language. In tirely different from the one they usually speak. For sixteen cen­ Switzerland the attempt to fashion a Swiss koine failed because turies the Basques spoke Basque but wrote in Latin; and then there was no way of choosing between the different dia­ they wrote in Spanish. Certainly already spoken in the time of lects-between the speech of Berne and of Zurich. In the end Julius Caesar, Basque did not come to be written down until the the official and literary language remained le bon allemand, das sixteenth century. gute deutsch: that is, literary German. The people in FaerOer 3. A literary language-which is the way a civilization knows Islands attempted to fashion an official language to substitute for itself and makes itself understood-has many more words than a Danish, but they could not agree on which FaerOrish dialect to dialect. A dialect has, at most, some ten thousand words, words adopt. In 1977 the writer Gavino Ledda, in an interview after the necessary for the daily life of country folk. A literary language, in release of the film Padre padrone, based on his best-selling novel, contrast, numbers about sixty thousand words. F. Palazzi's Ital­ pointed out that it made no sense to speak of a "Sardinian lan­ ian Dictionary (2nd edition, Milan 1957) contains roughly this guage," when the people in the south of the island of Sardinia number. Webster's Dictionary of the American language boasts could not understand those in the north. In Norway, since about five hundred fifty thousand words. But most of these are tech­ the beginning of the century, the attempt to substitute the indi­ nical terms from architecture, chemistry, physics, mathematics, genous spoken language, the Folksm.9.l, for the official Danish astronomy, linguistics, and so on, terms used only by specialists. language, failed for a different reason: the written language, Like Italian, "Standard" English in fact counts about sixty thou­ Danish, is the language of Ibsen and Bjornson as well as of all sand words. When men who speak dialects come to cities, they modern Norwegian literature. You would expect to have more learn words from the literary language. In schools, teachers try success in instances where the language which is to substitute (or used to) above all to teach students new words. for the official literary language differs entirely. But this was not D' Annunzio boasted he had used, in his works, forty thousand the case in the attempts to substitute Welsh for English, Breton words; Dante used seventeen thousand, Anatole France, four for French, Irish Gaelic for English, Basque for Spanish- all of thousand. To these we must add scientific and technical words which failed. like bronchitis and carburetor, which anyone with an average There is a continuous borrowing between the literary and the education knows, though they are more rarely used in literature. spoken language, whether this· is a dialect, as in Italy, or jargon, D'Annunzio surely knew more than forty thousand words~and which in the United States tends to take the place of dialects. Anatole France more than four thousand, but they consciously Usually the written language contributes more to the spoken lan­ limited themselves to this number in their writing. guage than it takes~ and the words it does take are of not much In addition to being written, and having a greater number of practical use. When a trolley car conductor tells you, for exam­ words, a literary language is usually much more widespread than ple, that he has seen an "atomic blonde" (bionda atomica), he is a dialect. Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, English, and Russian were writ­ borrowing the Greek word "atom," which everybody under­ ten and spoken over large parts of the world. A literary language stands, from the written literary language. Something similar oc­ also nearly always extends to foreign-speaking peoples who learn curs when we use technical terms like "gastritis" or "nephritis" it in school. in spoken speech. They come from the written language where, 4. Lastly, a literary language, in contrast to a dialect, has a at first merely specialized terms, they gradually won themselves written grammar with precise rules, elaborated by grammarians a place.

17 The College

PARADISO II Beatrice to Dante: Dentro dal ciel de Ia divina pace, si gira un corpo ne Ia cui virtute l'esser di tutto suo contento giace.

Drawing by Sandra Botticelli

How is a Literary Language Born? Several writers (Alfier~ Foscolo, Manzoni) went to live for awhile in Florence to perfect their language, "to rinse their clothes in How is a literary language born? Someone once said that a lit­ the Arno," as Manzoni said. erary language is a lucky dialect. There is much truth in this, But how did Florentine turn into Italian? In the Divine Com· especially if we keep in mind that luck comes usually to the de­ edy Dante uses a great number of words unknown to the com­ serving. Among the European languages Italian was the first lit­ mon people of Florence, unknown too to the tradesmen and the erary language of importance. How was Italian born? From the aristocracy. At one stroke he enriches his native Florentine and Florentine dialect. But the Sicilians say, "The Tuscans robbed turns it into a full-blown literary language, capable of coping, as our language." And there is much truth in this too. it does in his poem, with physics, astronomy, psychology, theol­ In the thirteenth century, down to 1266, Sicilian poetry was ogy, philosophy, history, and much other knowledge. Where read and imitated, as Dante observed, throughout peninsular does he find these words? Italy and beyond; in Genoa it was used by Percivalle Doria, in Dante knew French and Provenc;al very well, but he avoids Bologna by Guido Guinizelli. With the defeat of the Swabian them when he can. His new words come from Latin. He gives kings in 1266, Sicilian, which had been their principal court lan­ these Latin words Florentine phonetic and morphological forms guage, disappeared. By that time, however, Sicilian poetry had and weaves them into the everyday language. The Italian literary been read and imitated by poets of the Dolce Stil Novo in Tus­ language is thus born. Before Dante it did not exist; after him it cany, including Dante. These poets read .Sicilian poetry in exists. It is the child of a "lucky" dialect (Florentine) and of the '~tamed" manuscripts where the Sicilian had been "Tuscanized" imitation of another literary language, in this instance Latin. enough to make Dante imagine that the language he was invent­ (Dante did not know Greek.) The case of one man creating a lit­ ing already existed. erary language is not rare-think of Mohammed and Luther. All these poets incorporated many Sicilianisms in their poetry. A literary language, then, is born of a dialect through the imi­ But it was Dante's greatness which gave his native Florentine tation of one or more literary languages. Born on the lie de pre-eminence. After the publication of the Divine Comedy no France,2 French first drew from Latin,3 and then after 1500 from one doubted the superiority of Florentine, even though certain Italian, became a full-fledged literary and official language which dialects like Venetian continued as official languages for some extended to the whole of France. At this time (1500-1600) Italy time after. (From 1500 on even Venetian ambassadors write their exercised great influence in France, in music, the arts, literature, accounts in excellent Tuscan.) In fact it was a Venetian, Pietro navigation, war, gardening, court etiquette, in all that makes life Bembo, who gave the Italian language its definitive form. pleasant and refined, including war-"ed indite arti a raddolcir From Dante onward all great non-Tuscan writers write in Ia vita" (Carducci, "Alle Fonti del Clitunno'').' Florentine. They strive to rid their language of all regional pe­ Something similar happened with Spanish. There the "lucky" culiarities. Ariosto wrote three versions of Orlando Furioso dialect came from Madrid and Toledo. After absorbing, during before he succeeded in writing Tuscan quite well in the third. the Middle Ages, some words from Arabic, Provenyal, and

18 January, 1980

French,5 aU literary languages in their own right, Spanish Latin modelled? On Greek, more precisely on Classical Greek, reached its classic form, in imitation of the Italian literary the language of the philosophers, the historians, and the orators language, in the seventeenth century. All this occurred under of the fifth and fourth century B.C.9 the impact of the Spanish conquest of Italy, in the sixteenth cen­ Cicero, Caesar, and Sallust did not look to their Greek con­ tury. Previously dedicated more to Mercury than to Minerva, as temporaries, the Graeculi of their contempt, but to the great a Spaniard observed -more to commerce than to the arts­ authors of the classical period: Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Spain was overwhelmed by Italian superiority in the arts and Xenophon, Lysias, Demosthenes. After Cicero, Lucretius's re­ sciences.6 In Horace's words: peated complaint of the meager resources of his native tongue, patrii sermonis egestas, is no longer possible. Cicero, before he Graecia capta ferum uictorem cepit et artes died so tragically, fashioned for Rome a great literary language, intulit agresti Latio. modelled on Greek. On the model of the Greek word poi6tes, fashioned by Plato from pofos, Cicero made up qualitas; on the In the three centuries after 1066, French was the official lan­ model of Plato's mes6tes he made medietas (Timaeus, 720: Vix guage of England. It has left very deep traces in the English of to­ audeo dicere medietates, quas Graeci mesotetas appellant); on the day: "commerce," "industry," "university," "author," and so on, model of Aristotle's word pos6tes, the Latin word quantitas was are all words that came from French. During these centuries later formed, following Cicero's example. 10 Likewise from the in­ Latin was also widely used. In the fifteenth century English de­ fluence of Greek in Latin, the word human us took on the mean­ veloped out of the dialect of London and the imitation of the ing of philCmthr6pos, ingenium of physis and so on. 11 When you Latin and French literary languages. English is also full of Italian shop and ask for "quality meat" or speak of "quantity," you are words; nearly all of which (except musical and artistic terms, like in debt to the Greek philosophers. opera, chiaroscuro), however, came through French and have a In the East, where the Byzantine church dominated, the pro­ French form. In contrast to the indirect influence of the Italian cess was only slightly different. Russian, Bielorussian, Ukrainian, language, the direct influence of Italian arts and sciences was Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romanian also took the Greek literary enormous, from Chaucer who took inspiration from Boccaccio, language as their model, specifically the Christian literary to Shakespeare, described by an American as "a geographically language of the ninth century A.D. The alphabet itself betrays Italian poet" (with the exception, of course, of his historical this late influence [Cyrillic H (eta) is pronounced il as in Greek at plays)7 that period]. The Slavic languages borrowed from Greek in the Both in England and France, I should like to add paren­ same way that German borrowed from Latin-through so-called thetically, this strong Italian influence in the arts and sciences loan translations. In the former case, the spirit is Latin, the mat­ found opposition: "A gentleman Italianate is a devil incarnate." ter Germanic; in the latter, the spirit is Greek, the matter, Slavic, The Anglican Church's break with Rome, like Protestantism in as my teacher Matteo Bartoli put it. 12 On the model of the Greek France, meant in some respects also a break with Italian influ­ word zogrilphos, the Russian language formed Zivopisec; syneideia ences, which had reached the point of threatening national char­ 'conscience' is s6vesi. acteristics. Among German Protestants the cry was: Los von My conclusion should not surprise anyone. Western and Rom ("Away from Rome!"). Eastern, in a word, all of Europe, is indebted to Greek for all of Literary German grew very slowly, to reach full stature with its-often very different-sounding-literary 1anguages. 13 Greece Luther in the sixteenth century. Beginning in the Carolingian alone made a literary language out of nothing, a language which period, German took much from Latin. Masked by German all European peoples, directly or indirectly, took as their model. renderings of Latin words, called "loan-translations," this influ­ When we drop Greek from our schools' curriculum we are cut­ ence of Latin is still perceptible today. For instance, Barmher­ ting ourselves from our roots. 14 zigkeit was modeled after misericordia, Gewissen on conscientia, Eindruck on impressio, Begriff on conceptum. There are count­ less other such words. They all look German, but they are really renderings of Latin words. Ancient literary French, primarily Translated by Alessandra Bonfante Warren through Alsatia (Gottfried of Strassburg, The Nibelungen, etc.) also exercised an influence on German, from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. It brought the new phoneme tsch into Ger­ man, as in putsch, or kitsch. The Scandinavian languages first im­ l. I have been unable to trace the source of the Venetian cited above, itated Latin, and then German, because of the immense impor­ bu.t B. Dudan in Il dominio Veneziano in Levante, Bologna 1938, 268, 8 note 2, cites a similar phrase (along with other important material). tance of Germany's culture in that area. 2. Mis langages est bans, car en France fui nez writes Garnier de Pont I now can hear myself accused of begging the question. If, as I Saint-Maxence in Thomas le martyr, 168, 10 between 1170 and 1173. By have said, a literary language is formed by imitation of one or "France" he meant the region around Paris, now called Ile de France. more literary languages, how did it all start? Where was the first 3. A perceptive anonymous Lorrainer chronicler wrote, around 1350: literary language born? Pour tant que laingue romance et especiaulment de Lorenne est imperfaite et plus asseiz que nulle autre entre les laingages We have worked back to Latin, which inflUenced, directly or perfaiz il n'est nulz tant soit bon clerc ne bien parlans romans indirectly (especially through .French and Italian), all the lan­ qui lou latin puisse translateir en romans quant a plusour guages of Western and Southern Europe. On what language was mots dou latin, mais couvient que per corruption et per

19 The College

diseite des mots franr;ois que en disse lou romans selonc lou Angry was then Vingthor (Thor) when he awoke and did no latin sicom 'iniquitas' iniquiteit, 'redemptio' redemption, more find his hammer (stolen by Loki). 'misericordia' misericorde et ainsi de mains et plusours aultres telz mas que il couvient ainsi dire en romans comme on dit en imitates Horace, Odes I, verses 10 ff.: latin. (Lothringischer Psalter, published by F. Apfelstedt, 1. Cf. also Meyer­ ...... puerum minaci Liibke, Historische Grammatik der FranzOschen Sprache I, Heidelberg uoce dum terret, uiduus pharetra 1934, 13.) risit Apollo. 4. For Italian influence on French, B. Migliorini, Storia della lingua italiana, Florence 1961, 417, 495, 582, 666, 743; see also W. Meyer­ Here, Mercury has stolen a quiver and corresponds to Loki, who has Li.ibke, Grammatik, Heidelberg 1934, 14 ff, and Brunot, cited therein. stolen a hammer. My lamented colleague and friend, Professor Franco Simone, whom I 9. Augusto Rostagni makes a valuable observation here. Latin literature remember always with affection and sorrow, has written beautifully on is a direct continuation of the Greek literature of the fourth and fifth Italian influence on French literature. See also F. Brunot, Histoire de fa centuries, except for the poetae noui, a group of queer people who in­ Langue franqaise, II, 209 and following, and B. H. Wind, Les Mots ita· spired no one. liens introduits en franr;ais au XIVe siecle, 1928. 10. For this process, Antoine Meillet's splendid Esquisse d'une histoire It appears that the very word franr;ais, the national name of the de la langue latine, Paris 1933, 208 ff. French, is derived from the Italian pronunciation, cf. Meyer-Lobke, 81. Direct Greek influence through the spoken language is likewise fre­ The name Fran<;:ois, instead, is authentically French. The Italians had quent. difficulty pronouncing (raswe. This is the opposite case from that of II. Meillet, Esquisse, 316: "Buonaparte": the French had difficulty pronouncing the uo, and the name became "Bonaparte." It is simply a mistake (no doubt an over­ Pour 'parler' on se sert soit de paraboldre (franyais parler, etc.) sight) to say, as docs the etymological dictionary of 0. Bloch and Von soit de {dbuldre (esp. hablar, etc.); c'est ce qui arrive quand, en Wartburg, that franr;ais is found in the Chanson de Roland (where we fran<;:ais populaire, on dit: "Qu'est-ce que tu racontes?" pour have franceis): cf. instead, Gamillscheg's Etymological Dictionary, 2nd "Que dis-tu?". Si !'on remonte en arriere, parabola, dont le edition, under franr;ais. The Italian form triumphs because Italian is the verbe Paraboldre est derive, est un mot tres savant; c'est un language of the court (one has only to think of Catherine de Medici). terme de Ia rhetorique grecque passe tel que! en latin; les 5. On the, at times, enormous influence of French literature in Italy, demi-lettres qui ant Ccrit I'Evangile s'en sont servis pour nom­ England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, etc., see also Meyer­ mer les enseignements donnCs par Jesus sous forme de recits, Lilbke, 31 ff. But here too, Meyer-Lilbke does not go far enough: the de comparaisons; et de Ia langue du christianisme le mot a pronunciation ts, still in use today, for example, for c in Latin words in passe dans !'usage populaire. Germany (censur for our Latin censura), is a result of Carolingian in­ fluence, which he does not mention, and the introduction of the The history of cause and chose is analogous (Italian: causa, cosa; phoneme C (written tsch), which today gives a jocular connotation to its Meillet, Esquisse, 346). We are also indebted to these "demi-lettrCs" for words (and is very wide-spread: kitsch, klatsch, putsch, rutschen, etc.) is the penetration of the Aramaic periphrastic form, Jj'v (h0&uJlwv, com­ also a result of French influence. mon to Italian, Spanish, English, and Old and Middle French. On French words in Italy see R. Bezzola's laudable and accurate, al­ 12. The Polish jakoSC and the Bohemian jakost, both culturally Western beit somewhat neogrammatical study, Abbozzo di una storia dei galli­ languages, are formed on the model of qualitas; the Russian word cismi italiani nei primi secoli dal750 al1300, Zurich 1924. kiiCestvo, documented in the eleventh century, derives instead directly 6. On the Galla-Romance influences in Spanish, seeR. Lapesa, Historia from the Greek poi6tes (but was much strengthened by its frequent de la lengua espafwla, Madrid-Buenos Aires 1942, 96, 110, 207, 213, usage in Western languages). 217-9,262. On Italian influence there, 139, 142, 153, 199-200,211,213, 13. There is no need to insist on the well-known fact that the modern 219-20, 262. On Latinisms see 141-2. European vocabulary of all the sciences is full of Greek words, more so 7. On the acquaintance with Italian in England, see S. Gamberini, Lo every day. studio dell'italiano in Inghilterra nel Cinquecento e nel Seicento, Messina­ 14. Greek influence on the Romance languages was great. The Ro­ Firenze, 1971. John Florio in 1598 published the first bilingual dictio­ mance languages were born out of the special kind of Latin spoken by nary of two living languages, Italian and English, A Worlde of Words, men who were used to speaking Greek. The article, the present perfect, reprinted in 1611 under another title, and again in 1659 and 1687-88. the conditional, the new future tense with habere are all due to Greek. 8. In a communication to the Xllth international congress of linguists, Sanskrit, a pure Indo-Aryan creation, is to the East what Greek was to held in Vienna August 28-September 2, 1977, J. Konsg~rd showed the the West. It became the sacred language, and often the vehicle for cul­ ways Danish absorbed Latin before 1300. ture and literature, in Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, In the Edda (ninth century), too, there are Roman pagan elements as Vietnam, Tibet, Turkestan, China, Korea, and Japan. The resemblance well as Christian Latin influences: a Scandinavian scholar has observed between the creation and diffusion of these two great languages is stun­ that the opening of the Thrymskvidha: ning.

20 On the Discovery of Deductive Science

Curtis A. Wilson 111111.11 l l[nu[~C7~~--; 1 llll..l~;:x::::.iJl:::R , rr 1111 1 1111n II,= II I II ...:9.=-<9-r r 1 rn ® e I :nnHu I II I'C?{C;7 ® 1 r 1 rnc:>'l-11 =-=11 ® ~ii~C:> ll""g "'C' ® <=>'!It! , 11 1 r 1 1 rnnn e a --1 111n-<2> I J I R=tll 11 g 1!!!11.-;;::7 :; t AI I I 1nnn r -11.- /f) ®~ ~~ r 1 R§):t= r te71f4. a How did the notion of deductive science-science based on Figure I This illustration is taken from van der Waerden, definitions, postulates, and axioms, science consisting of a se­ Science Awakening I (1971), Plate 5, facing p. 44; also W. W. Struve, Mathematical Papyrus des Museums in Moskau, quence of propositions, each of which is deduced, either from Quellen und Studien A l. previously deduced propositions, or from the definitions, postu­ lates, and axioms initially set out-how did this notion first come to be thought of, and then realized? For there seems to have been a particular moment in which this idea was first conceived; so far as we can tel1, it did not make its appearance at different In figure l you see a transcription from a papyrus now in Mos­ times and places, independently. Can we learn anything about cow, showing the computation of the volume of a truncated pyr­ the original conception? I am going to pursue this question, amid with square base and top. The base is four cubits on a side, although as you will at once realiZe, it is not the sort of question the top two cubits on a side, and the height or distance between that is likely to receive a non-conjectural answer. The ground base and top is six cubits. The text says: "Add together this 16 here has been worked into a deep and slippery mud by the with this 8 and this 4. [16 is the area of the base, 4 the area of the trampling feet of contending scholars; mere non-classicists or not top, and 8 the product of the side of the base by the side of the yet classicists like myself are liable to stumble over the moulder­ top.] You get 28. Compute one-third of 6 [the height]; you get 2. ing carcasses of defunct theories, not yet decently interred. Cer­ Multiply 28 by 2. You get 56. Behold: it is 56. You have found tain questions of historical fact that are material to this discus­ right." sion I am able to answer only conjecturally. At the same time, I Now the result is right. It is something you might want to wish to affirm that my primary aim is not to establish historical know if you were building pyramids; but by the time of the Mid­ facts, nor yet to hypothesize possible causes for those facts, but dle Kingdom the Egyptians had ceased building pyramids, enjoy­ rather to locate the meaning of facts that, it seems to me, come able though that occupation seems to have been, as we gather nearest to being reliable. 1 from the inscriptions of rival work gangs. It is not clear that there I want to begin by saying something about pre-Greek mathe­ was any immediate practical reason for anyone in the Middle matics. The oldest mathematical documents known from any Kingdom to know the rule for computing the volume of a trun­ place on this earth are Egyptian papyri stemming from the Mid­ cated pyramid. But the real puzzle is how this rule was discov­ dle Kingdom, 2000-1800 B.C., and clay tablets dug out of the ered in the first place. It is a complicated rule, and there is no sands of Mesopotamia, and stemming from about 1800-1600 plausible empirical way of arriving at it by, say, weighing certain B.C. objects; therefore reasoning was involved. But on the other hand, the Egyptian mathematicians would not fall back on alge­ A lecture read at St. John's College, Annapolis, on September 14, 1973. Curtis Wilson has just finished Perturbations and Solar Tables from braic transformations in the modern manner, since their mathe­ Lacaille to Delambre, being published by the Archives for the History of matics dealt explicitly only with particular numbers. There are a Exact Sciences. number of hypotheses as to how the Egyptians' procedure could

21 The College have been arrived at, the most plausible, I think, involving a slic­ always numerical. Are the problems practical problems? Once ing of the pyramid into parts. again, yes and no. Here is an example from the time of Ham­ Let us take another example. murabi, 1700 B.C.:

"A square and a second square whose side is 2 + 4 of "I have multiplied length and width, thus obtaining the the first square, have together an area of 100. Show me area. Then to the area I added the excess of the length how to calculate this."2 over the width. The total result is 183. I have also added "Take a square of side I, and take 2 + 4 (3/4) of I as the length and width, with the result 27. Required: the side of the other square. length, width, and area."4 "Multiply 2 + 4 by itself; this gives 2 + 16. "Hence, if the side of one of the areas is taken to be l, I omit the solution. For us it would involve the solution of a and that of the other is 2 + 4, then the addition of the quadratic equation. This Babylonian problem does not strike me areas gives 1 + 2 + 16. as a practical problem, or a near neighbor to one. The adding of a "Take the square root of this; it is 1 + 4. length to an area seems to me decidedly impractical, perhaps "Take the square root of the given number 100; it is 10. even nonsensical This is mathematics gone a bit haywire: a "How many times is l + 4 contained in 10? Answer 8." pedagogue might invent it to bemuse his pupils, always The two squares then have sides 8 X l = 8 and 8 x understanding, of course, that calculating is a good thing. 3/4 ~ 6, the sum of their squares being 100. Babylonian mathematics, however, is a good deal more power­ ful than Egyptian mathematics. When the Babylonian scribe Now Egyptian mathematics has certain general characteris­ wrote: tics. First, Egyptian mathematics, whatever it is dealing with-areas, volumes, numbers of bricks or loaves of bread or .J2 - I; 24,51,10 jugs of beer-is always a matter of numerical calculation. The mathematician is a computer who uses both integers and frac­ (I am using the Indian numerals in place of the Babylonian), he tions. Second, there are no explicit proofs whatever, but reason­ meant ings have to have been employed in the solution of problems. Finally, while the problems presented in the papyri seldom ap­ pear to be actual practical problems, they give the general im­ pression of being the sort of problems that an instructor might think up for his students, in order to prepare them for solving This is the Babylonian approlimation to the square root of 2, or practical problems. Instructors seldom succeed in being strictly diagonal of a square of unit side. The Babylonians definitely practical, but the Egyptian ones appear to have understood their knew and used the proposition we call the theorem of Pythag­ activity as occurring within the horizon of the practical. oras, which is involved in getting this approximation, but no­ Aristotle claimed that the mathematical arts had been founded where do any of the clay tablets that have been deciphered give a in Egypt, because there the priestly class was allowed leisure; but proof of this or any other theorem. The approximation, which is this is incorrect. The Egyptian calculative art was the possession probably the result of a series of successively closer approxima­ not of a priestly class, but of scribes who had practical functions tions, is good to one-millionth. Ptolemy will still be using it, hav­ in the state, and among whom there was rivalry. So we find one ing acquired it probably indirectly from the Babylonians, when scribe ridiculing another: he computes his table of chords in the second century A.D. Now if we turn to other civilizations besides the Egyptian and You come to me to inquire concerning the rations for the Babylonian, but still uninfluenced by Greek thought-the the soldiers, and you say 'reckon it out.' You are desert­ civilization of the Yellow River valley, say, or Mayan civiliza­ ing your officet. ... I cause you to be abashed when I tion-I think we shall once again find a computational art, often bring you a command of your lord, you who are his highly developed, but not explicit deductions. You may on occa­ Royal Scribe. A building ramp is to be constructed, 730 sion find the contrary asserted. Joseph Needham in his Science cubits long, 55 cubits wide, 55 cubits high at its sum­ and Civilization in China (II, p. 22) gives a passage from a Chi­ mit .... The quantity of bricks needed for it is asked of nese mathematical text which perhaps originated as early as the the generals, and the scribes are all asked together, 4th century B.C.; it is accompanied by a diagram which he labels without one of them knowing anything. They all put "proof of the Pythagoras Theorem" (See Figure 2). their trust in you .... Behold your name is famous ... I quote from the text: Answer us how may bricks are needed for it? 3 "Of old, Chou Kung addressed Shang Kao, saying, "I It seems likely, then, that the mathematical papyri were text­ have heard that the Grand Prefect [that is Shang Kao] books used in the school for scribes. is versed in the art of numbering. May I venture to in­ In Babylonia, the mathematical texts appear to have been pro­ quire how Fu-Hai anciently established the degrees of duced by a similar class of scribes. The texts give problems with the 'Celestial sphere? ... I should like to ask you what their solutions; proofs are entirely absent; the procedures are was the origin of these numbers?

22 January, 1980

tury, bringing the textbooks of their fellow jesuit, Christopher Clavius. It is a curious fact that, for some centuries thereafter, ~ Chinese students reciting their Euclidean theorems out of I Clavius would finish not with our Q.E.D. but with the Chinese , " word for "nail." Apparently they were citing their authority: "clavus" being the Latin word for "nail." / It is conceivable that some day, in the investigation of early ...... civilizations uninfluenced by Greece, evidence will turn up for / ""' ' the existence of some pieces of deductive mathematics. On the J basis of what is known today, the prospects for such a find are dim. Deductive mathematics is a rare bird, which first settled, so far as we know, in Greece. How did it happen? What did it mean that it happened? Seek­ I ",L ing an answer, I turn to a document of late antiquity, a commen­ tary on the first book of Euclid's Elements written by Proclus in the middle of the 5th century A.D. Proclus was a member of the I Platonic Academy in Athens during the last century of its 900-year existence. The commentary includes a kind of cata­ ' / logue of ancient geometers which is based on an earlier history "' of geometry, now lost, by Eudemus, a disciple of Aristotle writ­ - / " ..... ing in the late 4th century B.C. The account begins by saying that geometry was first discovered among the Egyptians, and ' / originated in the remeasuring of their lands necessitated by the ~ annual flooding of the Nile. Proclus then proceeds as follows: Figure 2 Thales, having travelled in Egypt, first introduced this theory into Hellas. He discovered many things himself, [In the course of his reply Shang Kao says:] and pointed the road to the principles of many others, "Let us cut a rectangle diagonally, and make the width to those who came after him, attacking some questions 3 units, and the length 4 units. The diagonal between in a more general way, and others in a way more depen­ the corners will then be 5 units long. Now after drawing dent on sense perception. a square on this diagonal, circumscribe it by half rec­ tangles like that which has been left outside, so as to After mentioning the names of two other ancient geometers, form a square plate. Thus the outer half rectangles of Proclus continues: width 3, length 4, and diagonal 5, together make two rectangles [of total area 24]; then the remainder [that is, After these, Pythagoras transformed the philosophy of of the square of area 49] is of area 25. This is called 'pil­ this (geometry) into a scheme of liberal education. He ing up the rectangles.' surveyed its principles from the highest on down, and "The methods used by Yu the Great in governing investigated its theorems separately from matter and in­ the world were derived from these numbers ... He who tellectually. He it was who discovered the doctrine of ir­ understands the earth is a wise man, and he who under­ rationals and the construction of the cosmic figures. stands the heavens is a sage. Knowledge is derived from a straight line. The straight line is derived from the A little farther on we read: right angle. And the combination of the right angle with numbers is what guides and rules the ten thou~ Hippocrates of Chios, who invented the method of sand things. squaring lunules (crescents formed from arcs of circles) "Chou Kung exclaimed, 'Excellent indeed!' " and Theodorus of Cyrene became eminent in geome­ try. For Hippocrates wrote a book on elements, the first Nothing here, I would urge, has really been proven, certainly of whom we have any record who did so. not the theorem of Pythagoras, so-called. Needham has shown in overwhelming detail that between the 5th century B.C. and the With respect to Hippocrates of Chios, there is no reason to 15th century A.D. no people on earth exercised more technical doubt what Proclus says. A fragment of Hippocrates' work on ingenuity than the Chinese. Long in advance of the West, they lunules still exists, and it shows a high level of rigor. Thus Hip­ possessed cast iron, an escapement clock, the navigational com­ pocrates may very well have written a book on the elements of pass, gunpowder, printing by movable type, the segmental arch geometry. At the time Hippocrates was teaching geometry in bridge. But as for deductive science, the Chinese would not en­ Athens, around 430 B.C., the process of turning geometry into a counter it until the Jesuits came to China in the late 16th cen- deductive science was in all probability well advanced.

23 The College

Thales, who was active about a century and a half before Hip­ a split within the Pythagorean tradition; the Mathematikoi, pocrates of Chios, is a much more shadowy figure, and it is those who wished to discuss and teach openly the mathematical unclear how we should interpret what Proclus says about him. disciplines, separated off from the secret cult, the Akousmatikoi, Proclus attributes to Thales the discovery and proof of five the hearers of the sacred and secret sayings. Reliable 4th-century propositions: sources speak of the arithmetical studies of the 5th-century Pythagoreans. Aristotle says that the so-called Pythagoreans were (1) A circle is bisected by any diameter. the first to deal with mathemata, mathematical disciplines. Ac­ (2) Vertical angles of intersecting straight lines are equal. cording to the Epinomis, a dialogue written either by Plato or a (3) The base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal. follower of Plato, the first and primary discipline or mathema of (4) Two triangles such that two angles and the included side the Pythagoreans was arithmetic. Now it is possible to make a of one are equal to two angles and the included side of the plausible reconstruction of some of this early Pythagorean arith­ other, are themselves equal. metic. When this is done, we find ourselves before a piece of (5) The angle at the periphery of a semicircle is right. deductive science, quite possibly the earliest that ever was; it is Now these are general, theoretical propositions, theorems, the science of the odd and the even. It is a science in which the propositions to be contemplated rather than mere rules for solu­ principles are explicit, and in which the theorems are, to use Pro­ tion of problems. The enunciation of them may therefore mark a clus' terms, investigated independently of matter and intellec­ decisive step in the emergence of theoretical science. But how tually. were they proved? The usual guess is that it was by superposi­ The reconstruction necessarily starts from Euclid's text, tion, the visual showing that one figure or part of a figure would which appears to be, to a certain extent, a compilation from coincide with another. If this is right, then it is unlikely that we earlier texts which it drove out of circulation, and which are now have here the notion of a logically constructed theory which be­ wholly lost, so that we know of them only from certain ref­ gins with expressly enunciated premises and advances step by erences by Aristotle or Plato or other ancient authors. The step. Thales need not have enunciated any premises explicitly. reconstruction proceeds by a kind of literary archaeology. He pointed the road to the principles, as Proclus says; the extent Permit me to give here a set of not very reliable dates. to which h~ laid out principles is totally unclear. As for Pythagoras, whole books have been devoted in recent Flourishings times to showing that the ancient accounts of his mathematical Thales !lor. 585 B.C. exploits are unworthy of trust.5 These accounts stem from Pythagoras !lor. 550 B.C. members of the Platonic Academy from the 4th century and Parmenides flor. 475 B.C. later, men who saw in the 6th-century Pythagoras a forerunner Hippocrates of Chios flor. 430 B.C. of Plato, and who tended to attribute to him discoveries that had Archytas of Tarentum !lor. 400 B.C. been made later on in the Pythagorean tradition. Pythagoras Theaetetus c. 415-369 B.C. cannot have known all the five cosmic figures, because two of Plato c. 428-348 B.C. them, the octahedron and the icosahedron, were first discovered Aristotle 384-322 B.C. by Theaetetus, a contemporary of Plato. Contrary to what Pro­ Euclid flor. 300 B.C. clus says, there is no good evidence that Pythagoras knew anything about the doctrine of irrational lines. The old verse Flourishing was something Greeks did as a rule at age 40, just quoted by Plutarch, according to which Pythagoras, on making a as they often died at 80, to suit the taste for symmetry of a cer­ certain geometrical discovery, sacrificed an ox, cannot be true, tain 2nd-century B.C. chronographer named Apollodorus. because it is well attested that Pythagoras was a vegetarian, who Euclid wrote about 300 B.C. There are good grounds to believe believed in transmigration of souls and was opposed to the killing that much of geometry had been organized as a deductive of animals. What we can be fairly sure of, with regard to Pythago­ science by the time of Hippocrates of Chios, about 430 B.C.; and ras, aside of course from his having had a golden thigh, is that he there are plausibilities in assuming that portions of arithmetic had made the flight to the Beyond and had become the leader of had been organized deductively even earlier. In discussing this a cult, a medicine man, a shaman. He can well have taught that development, I shall want to refer to Parmenides, who lived in odd numbers are male, even numbers female; that five is the the first half of the 5th century; to Archytas of Tarentum, a marriage number; that ten is perfect, being the sum of l, 2, 3, Pythagorean and friend of Plato living around the turn of the 5th and 4. Somewhat similar beliefs have been found all over the and 4th centuries; and to Theaetetus, another friend of Plato, world, in connection with rituals and creation myths, and have who died as a result of battle wounds in 369 B.C., and was one of not led to deductive mathematics. Pythagoras' thought seems to the great mathematicians of antiquity, being the author, in all have been cosmogonic, concerned with the coming-to-be of our probability, of nearly all of books X and XIII of Euclid's world out of something prior and more fundamental. There is no Elements. trustworthy evidence that Pythagoras ever carried out an explicit In 1936, Oskar Becker pointed out a number of peculiar facts proof. concerning Propositions 21-34 of Book IX of Euclid. These the­ On the other hand, the transformation in the character of orems are for the most part so obvious that it is hard to imagine mathematics that Proclus attributes to Pythagoras may well have why anyone would be so fussy as to want them proved. "If as been brought about by Pythagoreans. The old accounts speak of many even numbers as we please be added together, the whole is

24 January, 1980 even." Certainly. "If from an even number an even number is their present form and thus in apple-pie order; for Book VII is subtracted, the remainder will be even." Who will doubt it? worked out with great care and in such a strictly logical fashion The proofs, with one exception, do not depend on any pre­ that no step can be removed without the whole collapsing. vious theorems in Euclid's Elements: they depend rather on cer­ There are other clues that lead van der Waerden to believe that tain definitions given at the start of Book VII, the first of the most of Book VII was complete before Hippocrates of Chios arithmetical books. The one exception, IX.32, depends on IX.l3. wrote on lunules about 430 B.C. But Becker suspects the proof as we now have it to be Euclid's These two pieces of deductive arithmetic-the doctrine of the emendation of the original proof; he shows that IX.32 follows even and the odd, and what became Euclid's Book VII-along quite straightforwardly from IX.31. Thus Propositions IX.21 to with Hippocrates' quadrature oflunules, constitute the available IX.34 are a selfsufficient set of propositions dependent only on presumptive evidence for the character of fifth century deduc­ certain definitions. Moreover, with one curious exception noth­ tive mathematics. Can we learn anything from them, which ing else in Euclid's Elements depends on these propositions. The might throw light on the question of what it meant for them to exception is the last proposition of Book X, which modern come to be? I want to take up, first, the demonstrations, then, editors delete as not fitting into the argument of Book X. It is the the premises on which they are based. ancient proof of the incommensurability of the side and diagonal Every Euclidean proposition ends with the stereotyped for­ of the square, and what it depends on is the doctrine of the even mula, hoper edei deixai, meaning: the very thing that it was and the odd, and more specifically, Propositions 32~34 of Book necessary to show. The infinitive here, deixai, seems to have had IX. the original meaning of showing visually. Thus in Plato's dia­ Becker believed that, originally, before incorporation in logue Cratylus Socrates says: Euclid's Elements, the doctrine of the even and the odd had led to another consequence, the traces of which have been left in "Can I not step up to a man and say to him, 'This is Euclid. Propositions 21~34 of Book IX are followed by two final your portrait,' and show him perhaps his own likeness propositions, 35 and 36; 35 is used for the proof of 36, and 36 or, perhaps, that of a woman? And by 'show' (deixai) I shows how to construct a perfect number-perhaps all perfect mean, bring before the sense of sight." (430e) numbers, but that I believe is not yet known. Euclid's proofs for these two propositions depend on propositions in Book VII hav­ Early geometry must have been primarily a kind of visual show­ ing to do with ratios of numbers. Becker shows that 35 and 36 ing, the pointing out of a symmetry, or the possibility of the coin­ can be proved on the basis of the immediately preceding proposi­ cidence of two figures, superposition. But in Euclid's text every tions of Book IX, independently of any reference to ratios. Thus effort is made to reduce the dependence on superposition to a Becker's conjecture is that, long before Euclid, there existed a minimum. We come to suspect that there was present a kind of treatise on the even and the odd, including Propositions 21-36 of anti-illustrative, anti-empirical tendency in mathematics, as it Book IX and the last proposition of Book X; that out of piety was being transformed into deductive science. This tendency is Euclid or some ancient editor added this treatise to the detectible in arithmetic as well as geometry. Elements, then, in an effort to integrate this addition with the Pythagorean arithmetical doctrines seem to have been origi­ whole, changed some of the proofs (32,35 and 36), making use of nally worked out and taught with the aid of calculating pebbles. propositions on numerical ratios from Book VII. This hypothesis There is a fragment of the comic poet Epicharmus, written prob· at least accounts for the peculiarities of Book IX that I have ably before 500 B.C., that runs as follows: cited: the fact that, with an easy revision of the proof of IX. 32, propositions IX.21 to IX.34 form a treatise independent of the "When there is an even number present, or, for all I rest of Book IX, to which IX.35 and 36, with revised proofs, can care, an odd number, and someone wants to add a peb­ also be added. ble or to take one away, do you think that the number Such, then, is Becker's reconstruction of the doctrine of the remains unchanged?'' even and the odd. That such a doctrine existed in the fifth cen­ "Not mel" tury is supported by the fact that Plato defines arithmetic as the "Well, then, look at people: one grows, another one per­ doctrine of the even and the odd, and refers to this doctrine as a haps gets shorter, and they are constantly subject to familiar discipline. change. But whatever is changeable in character and Following Becker, van der Waerden has argued that most of does not remain the same, that is certainly diffenint Book VII of Euclid had also been worked out in the fifth cen­ from what is changed. You and I are also different peo­ tury. One of his arguments is that Archytas of Tarentum, in a ple from what we were yesterday, and we will still be work on musical theory written about 400 B.C., depends on different in the future, so that by the same argument propositions found in Book VIII, and these propositions depend we are never the same."6 in turn on propositions found in Book VII. Since Archytas is punctilious in working out the most trivial syllogisms, it is un­ Presumably the sly rogue goes on to argue that he need not pay likely that he merely assumed the propositions he needed; he the debt he contracted the day before. must have known them to be already proved. If the propositions Aristotle, too, speaks of the Pythagorean pebble figures, the of Book VII existed in any form in Archytas' time, then van der triangles, squares, and rectangles formed of pebbles with which Waerden concludes that they must have been in almost exactly the Pythagoreans taught arithmeticfll truths. We can easily see

25 The College how they could have satisfied themselves, with their pebble fig­ of the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of the square ures, of the propositions concerning the even and the odd. Take is also a reductio, and in this case we have to do with a truth Proposition IXJO: if an odd number is the divisor of an even which is altogether non-visualizable. Let me pause to review the number, then this same odd number is also the divisor of half the strategy of that proof. even number. (See Figure 3). Suppose, if possible, that the side and diagonal of a square are commensurable. Then there would be a length that measured both, and also a largest such length. Let this largest such length measure the diagonal a times, and the side (3 times, where a and (3 are integers or whole numbers. Now a and (3 cannot I both be even, for otherwise our unit length could have been dou­ I bled, and the numbers halved, contrary to the assumption that I I the unit length was the largest possible; so at least one of the I ••• ct •••••• numbers must be odd. The sequence of the proof then shows I that both must be even, or as Aristotle says in referring to this I ••• proof, that the same number must be both even and odd. For I cl = 2(32; therefore cl is even, whence a is even. Let a = 2')'. 2 2 2 I• •• Then a 2 = 4')' = 2(3 , or (3 = 2')'2• Therefore (32 is an even number, and so (3 is an even number. Adunatonf 'The only alter· even number••• ~- native left is to relinquish the original assumption that a and (3 exist, or that side and diagonal are commensurable. In this Figure 3 demonstration human reason exhibits a rather astonishing power, the power to discover what eyesight could never in any The number will be a rectangular number, with our odd num­ way disclose. This discovery would encourage the anti-illustra­ ber, the divisor, represented by the pebbles forming one of the tive tendency, and the recourse to indirect proofs. It also implies sides. But the number as a whole is even, hence divisible in half, that geometry cannot be subsumed under arithmetic, and needs as by the vertical line. We see at once, then, that our odd number therefore to be built up as an independent science on its own is a side of the half rectangle, hence a divisor of the half. right, for magnitudes if incommensurable do not have to one The proof of this in Euclid is quite different. The numbers are another the ratio of a number to a number, while surely having a not represented by points, but rather by lines. We know that relation with respect to size. But the relevant point at this mo­ Archytas represents numbers in this way, by lines, as a matter of ment is that the emergence of deductive science appears to be course, and presumably, therefore, this mode of representation connected with an anti-illustrative tendency, and with the had become conventional before his time, that is, already in the closely-connected introduction of reductio proofs. 5th century. Now by looking at a line which represents a num­ What about the principles or premises of Pythagorean arithme­ ber, one cannot tell whether the number is even or odd, since tic? I have already mentioned that the premises of the doctrine any line can be halved; consequently, Euclid's visual representa­ of the even and the odd are to be found among the definitions of tion of the numbers does not help us at all to see why the Euclid's Book VII, and only there. The same thing goes for the proposition is true. A pebble configuration could only represent doctrine concerning divisibility and proportionality found in visually a particular number; the new representation has the ad­ Book VII itself. And fundamentally, all the definitions of Book vantage of generality, but it also has the disadvantage that it VII rest on the first two definitions, the definition of number-a forces one to look for an entirely new proof. The new proof that number is a multitude composed of units or monads-and then Euclid gives us involves the famous reduction to the absurd, or the definition of monad: monad is that according to which each indirect demonstration. The important step is to show that the of the things that are, each of the beings, is called one. What odd number a, the divisor, measures the even number (3 an these definitions do, above all, is to limit the following discussion even number of times, or in other words, that the quotient, 'Y is to whole numbers. Comparing this Greek arithmetical theory even. Euclid's argument runs as follows: I say that 'Y is not odd, with Egyptian and Babylonian numerical work, we see that the for if possible, let it be so. Now a multiplying 'Y makes (3, and Greek theory is sharply distinguished by its careful avoidance of a was taken at the start to be odd, and an odd number multiply­ fradions; and the first definition, whatever else it is doing, is ex­ ing an odd number yields only an odd number, as Euclid has pre­ pressing this prohibition against fractions, this insistence on the viously shown. Therefore it would be odd, which is impossible indivisibility of the one or unit. This insistence was already tradi­ (adunaton), because it was taken at the start to be even. tional in Plato's time. The anti-illustrative tendency brings with it the reductio ad ab­ In the Republic Socrates speaks of "the teaching concerning surdum proof. It is surprising how many reductio proofs occur in the one" (he peri to hen mathesis), and explains what he means the arithmetical treatises that, according to Becker and van der by it: Waerden, stem from the 5th-century Pythagoreans. In proposi­ tions 21-36 of Book IX there are six such proofs, or eight if we ... You are doubtless aware that experts in this study, accept Becker's reconstructions of 32, 35 and 36. In the first the­ if anyone attempts to cut up the 'one' in argument, orems of Book VII there are 15 such proofs. Moreover, the proof laugh at him and refuse to allow it; but if you mince it

26 January, 1980

up, they multiply, always on guard lest the one should mortal, should have taken this road. He must now learn both the appear to be not one but a multiplicity of parts ... Sup­ unshaken heart of well-rounded truth, and the unreliable beliefs pose now ... someone were to ask them, "My good of mortals. The goddess describes three ways of inquiry: first, friends, what numbers are these you are talking about, "That it is (esti), and cannot not be; this is the way of Persuasion, in which the one is such as you postulate, each unit for she is the attendant of Truth;" second, "That it is not (ouk equal to every other without the slightest difference esti), and must necessarily not be; this I tell you is a way of total and admitting no division into parts?" What do you ignorance;" third, "That it is, and it is not, the same and not the think would be their answer? This, I think-that they same; this is the way that ignorant mortals wander, bemused." are speaking of units which can only be conceived by An initial difficulty that we face is tha~ although the pronoun thought, and which it is not possible to deal with in any "it" is not expressed in Greek, we can hardly resist the impres­ other way. sion that there is something that is being talked about, and we should like to know what it is. The next fragments may be Socrates' explanation tells us why the indivisibility of the one helpful. had to be insisted upon; if the one were divisible, then it would be a multiplicity of parts, hence many, not one. In other words, "It is the same thing that can be thought and can be." the thought that the one is divisible is self-contradictory. Thus "What can be spoken of and thought must be; for it is the insistence on the indivisibility of the one, which is Euclidean possible for it to be, but it is not possible for nothing to and also, according to Plato's Socrates in the Republic, pre­ be. These things I bid thee ponder." Platonic, is the conclusion of an indirect demonstration, a reduc­ tion to the absurd: The one is indivisible; for if not, then it is In a preliminary and superficial way I think I can conclude divisible, and therefore a multiplicity of parts, hence not one; that the subject of the verb estin is: that which is intended in therefore, etc. thought, what we call the object of thought. The goddess is I have not yet taken up the principles used in early deductive presenting an argument: that which thought intends can exist; geometry, but let me recapitulate what I have said, and consider but nothing cannot exist; therefore that which thought intends what it suggests. The earliest deductive science, as far as we can cannot be nothing; hence it must exist. tell, was the arithmetical theory of the so-called Pythagoreans of The syllogism holds, I believe, although at that point in time the 5th century. Their science differs from all earlier mathemat­ logic had not been invented. But what does it mean? That which ics, first, in exhibiting an anti-empirical tendency, which sought in no way is cannot be entertained in thought. Thought always is to eliminate mere visual showing, as with the pebble figures; of something, it is intentional in character. Hence I must accept secondly, in making use of indirect demonstration, or proof of the Goddess' rejection of the second way, or non-way, of inquiry. something by reduction of its opposite to absurdity; thirdly, in But the Goddess means something more. Some of this "more" insisting upon the indivisibility of the one, on the ground that emerges as she proceeds to dispose of the third way of inquiry. admission of its divisibility would contradict the very meaning of This is the way whereon, she says, mortals who know nothing the word "one." Now these features call to mind certain lines wander two-headed; perplexity guides the wandering thought in that remain of a poem written early in the 5th century, the poem their breasts; they are borne along, both deaf and blind, be­ by Parmenides of Elea; and to no other author of this time can mused, as undiscerning hordes, who have decided to believe that these features be related. I must try to say some words about the it is, and it is not, the same and not the same, and for whom poem of Parmenides. there is a way of all things that turns back upon itself. "Never," Only fragments of it remain. Their interpretation is thor­ says the goddess, "shall this be proved: that things that are not, oughly controversial There is widespread assurance that, what­ are; but do thou hold back thy thought from this way of inquiry, ever it was that Parmenides meant, he was wrong. On the other nor let custom that comes of much experience force thee to cast hand, it will be little contested, I believe, if I say that Parmenides along this way an aimless eye and a noise-cluttered ear and was the founder of Dialectic. Aristotle says that Zeno of Elea, tongue, but judge through logos (through reasoning) the hard· Parmenides' pupil, was the founder of dialectic; but I think that hitting refutation I have uttered." may be because Zeno wrote out arguments in prose, whereas "It is necessary," adds the Goddess, "to say and to think that Parmenides wrote a poem in epic verse, while dialectic has es­ Being is." sentially nothing to do with verse. I believe there is also rather Now in one way, this is all simple and undeniable. When I en­ general agreement that Parmenides, in composing his poem, was tertain an idea, when I use a word to signify some idea, I intend responding to, and attacking, earlier cosmogonies, which sought what I am thinking of as a constant, invariable. Never mind that to derive all the variety and diversity of the world out of some my thought, my intending of what I am thinking about, is a shift­ underlying stuff, understood to be the real stuff of the world. ing and not very controllable process. What is thought and The poet begins by describing his journey in a chariot, drawn named is intended as having a certain fixity. Otherwise, as Aris­ by mares that know the way, and escorted by the Daughters of totle puts it, to seek truth would be to follow flying game. We the Sun. They arrive, high in the sky, before the gates of Night would be reduced to the level of Cratylus, who did not think it and Day. The Sun Maidens persuade the Goddess Justice to right to say anything, and instead only moved his finger, and open the gates, and Parmenides is welcomed by the goddess who who criticized Heracleitus for saying that it is impossible to step takes his hand and assures him that it is right and just that he, a twice into the same river, for he, Cratylus, said that one could

27 The College not do it even once. On one level, the words of the Goddess are menides, as I have said, dialectic takes its start. The age of those simply telling us what the prerequisites and necessities are for called sophists begins. One of the earliest of them, Protagoras, is speech and thought that will be free of contradiction. Parme­ clearly reacting to Parmenides when he makes his famous state­ nides' poem is the earliest document preserved from the past ment: man, he says, is the measure of all things, of the things which speaks explicitly of the logical necessities of thought. that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they Yet the discourse of the Goddess is more strange and frighten­ are not. Who but Parmenides had raised these questions about ing, or insane, or as Whitehead might say, important, than I have Being and not-Being? Protagoras has concluded that the been making it out to be. The Goddess is not concerned with Parmenidean standard of truth, that is, freedom from contradic­ just anything that might be thought; she is concerned-she says tion, is unreachable; thought, he thinks, inevitably involves con­ so again and again-with Being. tradiction. Therefore he turns to sense-experience, and asserts What is all this silly talk about Being? What else is there for Be­ his right to say that the same thing can at one time be, and at ing to do but be? "It is necessary," says the Goddess, "to say and another time not be, according as he, Protagoras, holds it to be or to think that Being is." Is it? Then is it necessary to say and to not to be. In Protagoras' time and later, there will be other objec­ think that rain rains, that thunder thunders, or that lightning tors with other formulations, rejecting the speech of the lightnings, and are not these parallel cases? I shall later come Parmenidean Goddess in other ways. Gorgias, for instance, back, very briefly, to this question. It is just here that the poem argues, first, that nothing is; second, that if anything is, it cannot becomes exasperating and impossible, prompting Aristotle to say be known; third, that if anything is and can be known, it cannot more than once: the premises are false, and the conclusions do be expressed in speech. not follow. From the fact that Being just is, the Goddess pro­ Among the Parmenidean sequels, I want to suggest, was de­ ceeds to conclude that Being is precisely One, and contains no ductive arithmetic. For according to Aristotle, Parmenides was plurality, no mriltiplicity or differentiation within it, and no mo­ the first to speak of the One according to logos, according to defi­ tion. In particular, and to Aristotle's great disgust, the Eleatics nition; and arithmetic seems to have become deductive just claim to have discovered the self-contradictory character of mo­ when the Pythagoreans set out to found the doctrine of the even tion. It is Zeno, Parmenides' pupil, who formulates this discov­ and the odd on the definition of the One, on its essential indivisi­ ery in the most memorable way. The flying arrow is in every bility, and proceeded in Parmenidean style to formulate proofs instant exactly where it is, is at rest in the space equal to itself, which relied no longer on visualization but rather on non-contra­ and since this is true of every moment of its flight, it is always at diction of the logos. rest, it does not move. Never mind the mortal wound we think it Of course-and this is a crucial qualification-no arithmeti­ can inflict; this does not answer the argument, it does not tell us cian could fo11ow the teaching of the Parmenidean Goddess how motion can be consistently thought. The question is not strictly. When the deductive arithmetician took his start from whether Zeno is wrong but how. It is still being debated in the the indivisibility of the One, he was proceeding in accordance philosophical journals. with a Parmenidean necessity of thought. When he went on to In the case of Parmenides, a more insistent question is what multiply the One, in order that arithmetic might be, he was vio­ he can have meant by his poem. There is a second part to it, lating the Parmenidean Way of Truth. Parmenidean-wise, how called the Way of Seeming or Opinion, of which 40 lines remain, could there be many ones, each exactly the same as every other, and this speaks of the coming-to-be of the visible things of our and yet each retaining its identity to the extent of remaining ordinary world out of Fire and Night. Did Parmenides intend the separate from the others? The way in which these many ones Way of Opinion to have any validity at all, or only to present the can be, or are in being, is a question not for arithmetic, but for bemused and erring beliefs of mortals? Plutarch remarks that meta-arithmetic, but apparently the arithmeticians recognized that their discipline depended on the question about being. The Parmenides had taken away neither fire nor water nor Euclidean definition of Manus, One, reads: Monas is that in ac­ rocks nor precipices, nor yet cities ... for he has written cordance with which each of the beings i::. called one. A plurality very largely of the earth, heaven, sun, moon and stars, of beings-what they are remains unclear-is here presupposed. and has spoken of the generation of man. As for geometry, the violations of the Parmenidean logos that are necessary in order for it to become deductive are more Traditions credit Parmenides with having given laws to the city drastic. The definitions of point and line with which Euclid of Elea, and with having been the first to say that the Earth is begins Book I were no doubt modelled on the definitions of One round, that the Moon shines by reflected light, and that the and Number, but there is a world of difference between the morning star is identical with the evening star- momentous dis­ cases. The definitions tell us that a point is without parts, that a coveries every one of them. But such actions and discoveries do line is without breadth, but we cannot go on to derive any geo­ not seem easily compatible with the teaching about Being that metrical proposition from these rather problematic denials. It the goddess has set forth, with such emphasis, such imperial ab­ was the questionable character of the geometrical things that led solutism. The heart of well-rounded truth, Being which is pre­ Protagoras to reject the possibility of geometry altogether: a cisely and only One appears to have no place in it for human law, wheel, he said, does not touch a straight pole in one point only; for the earth's rotundity and its conical shadow, for Venus and therefore geometry is impossible, Q.E.D. But even if the geomet­ her irregularities, or for Parmenides or you or me. rical definitions are granted, they do not provide a sufficient The speech of the Goddess is nevertheless fateful. With Par- basis for the organization of geometry as a deductive science.

28 January, 1980

At the beginning of Euclid's Elements three kinds of principles propositions which violated, in the most obvious way, the canons are set out. First, definitions or horoi; second, postulates or of the Parmenidean logos. Two things equal to the same thing, aitemata; third, common notions or koinai ennoiai. About a cen­ Euclid tells us, are equal to each other. But what is equality but tury ago, it was argued that the term koinai ennoiai had to be of sameness, and how can three things that are exactly the same be late Stoic origin, and therefore not due to Euclid. Was there an three? How, moreover, are we to perform the absolutely impossi­ earlier Greek term? It may well have been axiomata; this is the ble feats that the aitemata require-to draw a straight line from term that Proclus constantly uses instead of koinai ennoiai, and point to point, to extend a line, to describe a circle? Part of the it may have been the term in front of him in his Euclidean text. paradox here is described by Socrates in the Republic: "The sci­ Instead of horoi for definitions, Proclus commonly uses ence (of geometry)," he says, "is in direct contradiction to the hupotheseis; this usage is found earlier in Archimedes, and earlier language spoken by its practitioners. They speak in a ludicrous still in Plato's Republic, where the odd and the even, and the way, although they cannot help it; for they speak as if they were various kinds of figures and angles are said to be treated in the doing something and as if all their words were directed towards sciences that deal with them as hupotheseis. All three of these action. For all their talk is of squaring and applying and adding terms, hupotheseis, ait?!mata, and axiomata, were connected at and the like, whereas the entire discipline is directed towards one time with the practice of dialectic. knowledge" (527'b). It is probably this peculiar mixture that The term aitemata, postulates, comes from the verb aiteo, to Timaeus is referring to when he speaks of geometry as appre­ require, to ask. "Whenever," Proclus tells us, "the statement is hending what it deals with by a bastard kind of reasoning. unknown and nevertheless is taken as true without the student's I should like to conclude with a short summary of and com­ conceding it, then, Aristotle says, we call it an aitema." The term ment on what I have been saying, followed by a brief epilogue. axiomata comes from axioo, which can also mean to require, to Deductive science appears to have been first discovered by a demand; it is often so used in the Platonic dialogues. To be sure, few Greeks; so far as I know, this discovery remained unique. Proclus says of the axioms that they are deemed by everybody to Knowledge of it fell into oblivion during certain times; at what­ be true and no one disputes them. I believe this statement ever later times the possibility of deductive science has been reflects an Aristotelian and post-Aristotelian usage. Aristotle recognized, the recognition has come through the recovery of himself refers to the earlier, dialectical usage when he says: axioO Greek deductive science. is used of a proposition which the questioner hopes the ques­ What did the original discovery involve, what did it mean, for tioned person will concede. those who made it? That is the question I have sought to exam­ As for the term hupotheseis, there is perhaps little need to ine. From a plausible reconstruction of Pythagorean deductive mention its dialectical use. At a certain point in Plato's Republic, arithmetic, I am led to conclude that the essential moves were (l) Socrates speaks of the principle of non-contradiction, the pre­ the turning away from visualization and taking recourse in logos; sumably unshakeable principle according to which it is not possi­ (2) the application of a negative test, the method of indirect ble for the same thing at the same time in the same respect and proof or reduction to the absurd. Now these two steps are dialec­ same relation to suffer, be, or do opposite things. And having tical steps, they are the steps of the method that Socrates in the enunciated the principle, he says, "Let us proceed on the hy­ Phaedo describes as his own: "I was afraid," he says, "that my pothesis that this is so, with the understanding that, if it ever ap­ soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my pear otherwise, everything that results from the assumption shall eyes or tried to apprehend them only by the help of the senses. be invalidated" (437a). And as even the not-so-dialectical Aris­ And I thought I had better have recourse to the logos . ... This totle recognizes, this principle can only be established controver­ was the method I adopted. I first assumed some principle, which sially, that is to say, dialectically, against an adversary who offers I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever to say something. seemed to agree with this, and that which disagreed I regarded as My general point is a simple one. The first book of the ele­ untrue." But in all the features that Socrates mentions, Socratic ments of geometry of which we have record was written in the method is essentially Eleatic, Parmenidean dialectic. The search middle of the fifth century, by Hippocrates of Chios. An anti­ for the sources of Pythagorean deductive arithmetic thus leads visual, anti-illustrative tendency that had first emerged, so far as us back to Parmenides, or to someone else, who lived about the I know, in Parmenidean dialectic, is already present in the geo­ same time, and whose utterances had the same effect metrical proofs of Hippocrates of Chios that have come down to What was so special, so peculiar, about the discourse of the us, e.g. proofs of inequalities that would be obvious to visual in· Parmenidean Goddess, that it could precipitate what followed? spection. The fact that at an early stage the terms adopted for "Thinking and the thought that it is," says the Goddess, "are the premises of geometry were terms of dialectic, terms referring one and the same. For you will not find thought apart from that to assumptions or concessions that do not entirely lose their pro· which is ... ; for there is and shall be no other besides what is, visional character but are required in order that a discussion since Destiny has fettered it so as to be whole and immovable." might proceed, reinforces the impression that the transforma­ "It is necessary to say and to think," the Goddess adds, "that tion of geometry into a deductive science was carried out in a Being is." These words are spoken not by Parmenides but to context determined by the practice of dialectic. Parmenides. He is being called upon to say and to think, and the It is also important to realize here that the premises of geom­ saying and thinking are not separated, although the order in etry had to be concessions: propositions needed to derive what which the Goddess names them is worth noticing, being the op­ not only geometers but even surveyors and carpenters knew, yet posite of that which we moderns tend to choose. The thinking,

29 The College we had better remind ourselves, is Greek thinking; the verb is superior to geometry, "since it can treat more clearly than the noein, which once meant: to perceive by the eyes, to observe, to latter whatever it will." Archytas thus fails to notice that the fact notice. It is not to conceive, to analyze, to grasp, to attack in our of incommensurability sets a new task for mathematics, the for­ thinking. And that which Parmenides is asked to say and to mulation of a new definition of proportionality, one which will notice, what will it do for him to say and to notice it? The apply to magnitudes that may be incommensurable. sentence, "Being is," does indeed offer nothing to grasp, nothing The problem is solved by the early fourth century, possibly by to conceptualize, nothing to attack in our thinking, nothing to Theaetetus; at least he is the first we know to have used the new analyze. Except-there is a twoness there. There is the noun definition, and he did so extensively. The new definition of same and the verb, essentially, of course, the same word. Yet, there is ratio or proportionality is not the one embodied in Euclid, the that which is present, and there is its presence. To say and to definition due to Eudoxus, but a precursor of the latter, one notice not only what is present but its presence is to be arrested which we can argue Euclid excised from Book X as it came down in front of something. It is to be, at least a little bit, astonished. It to him from Theaetetus. The manner of the new definition is is to respect what lies before us. It is to think appropriately, as worth noting. At the beginning of Book VII of Euclid, a method befits the matter. At some point Greek thought ceased asking: is given of determining the greatest common divisor of two num­ Out of what do the many things come to be? and began to ask in­ bers; it has come to be called the Euclidean algorithm. stead: What is the Being of that which is in front of us? Ti to on is the Greek: what is the being? In this question, there are implicit What is the greatest common divisor of 65, 39? the so-called laws of logic: A is A, A is not not-A. Deductive 65 - 39 ~ 26 science, I am proposing, takes it start here. What seems to have 39 - 26 ~ 13 been important, for these beginnings, was not answering the But 13 measures 26. question but pursuing it. Even Aristotle, from whom we have Ans: 13 is g.c.d. (65,39). received more answers than questions, nevertheless says: The lesser of the two numbers is subtracted from the greater Both formerly and now and forever it remains some­ until a yet smaller number remains. This smaller remainder is thing to be sought and something forever darting away: subtracted from the preceding subtrahend in the same manner, Ti to on? and so one continues, obtaining a series of decreasing remain­ ders, until one arrives at a remainder that measures the preced­ Suppose, if you will, that the account I propose is something ing remainder. In the case shown, this number is 13, which is the like the truth. Then deductive science came to be and perhaps greatest common divisor of 65 and 39. still comes to be as a result both of a logos from beyond the gates This same procedure of successive, in-turn, subtractions -its of Night and Day, and of the fracturing of Being and of the Mo­ Greek name was antanairesis-can be applied to magnitudes, in tion going on in the Realm of Fire and Night. Or can deductive order to determine their common measure. But suppose they are science proceed on its own way, simply leaving behind what trig­ incommensurable; then the subtractions would go on forever, gered its coming-to-be? It has sometimes attempted to do this: to without any remainder being found that measured the preced­ become, for instance, purely formal, with the specification of ing remainder. A particular such situation is shown in the follow­ every element and every rule of operation, and the exclusion of ing diagram, which shows the side and diagonal of a square: (See every bit of explicit or implicit ontology, with the intent of insur­ Figure 4). ing logical completeness and consistency. The effort has led to many refinements; but the odd result of modern metamathe­ matical study is that the effort cannot succeed in its original in­ A tention. Mathematics does not succeed in being completely in DE ~ EB (symmetry) itself and for itself. Its triumph lies not in isolated grandeur, but ~ CD (isosceles rt. 6] in coping as best it can with necessities that appear. CD~ AC- AB Deductive mathematics, not quite a century after coming to CE ~ AB (or CB) - CD (or EB) be, underwent a crisis with respect to its foundations. The And so on ad infinitum. discovery of incommensurability can well have been early in the 5th century. It implies, rather obviously one would think, the falsity of the old Pythagorean doctrine that all is number, whatever that doctrine may have meant. But if the discovery was early, an important consequence of it was somewhat slow in be­ ing realized. The teaching concerning ratios of magnitudes was originally conceived in a numerical fashion: four magnitudes are proportional when the first is the same part, parts or multiple of the second that the third is of the fourth. That definition was still being used by Hippocrates of Chios. Archytas, around 400 B.C., was saying that logistic, the doctrine of ratios of numbers, has the highest rank among the arts, and in particular it is Figure 4

30 January, 1980

First the side is subtracted from the diagonal, leaving CD; CD is are designed to cope: we are free men when we are aware of that then subtracted from the side CB twice, and so on; I will not go necessity and can begin to cope with it. The liberal arts become into the proof of incommensurability here, which necessarily in­ fully liberal only as we turn toward the problem of the principles, volves a reduction to the absurd; but one can get a hint from the toward the matrix of necessity in which those principles are diagram as to why the process would be infinite. Nevertheless, embedded, toward the question of being from which those arts this infinite process of antanairesis would go on in a determinate take their rise. way, for a given pair of original magnitudes. The nth remainder, for example, might subtract two times from remainder n-1; and remainder n-1 might subtract three times from remainder n. The two and three, along with the corresponding numbers for all the 1. This lecture owes everything, or nearly everything, to a number of other subtractions, would characterize and define the anta­ studies by historians of mathematics, particularly; 0. Becker, "Die nairesis as a whole. Then same antanairesis could be the defini­ Lehre vom Geraden und Ungeraden im neunten Buch der euklidischen tion of same ratio: a first magnitude would have to a second Elemente," Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik . .. , magnitude the same ratio as a third to a fourth if the first and Abt. B, Band 3, 1936, 125-145; B. L. van der Waerden, "Die Arithmetik der Pythagoreer," Mathematische Annalen, 120, 1947-1949, 127-153, second magnitude had the same. antanairesis as the third and the and Science Awakening, New York, 1971: G. Vlastos, "Zeno of Elea" in fourth. With this definition, it is possible to prove, for example, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, VIII, 370; 0. Neugebauer, The Exact that rectangles under the same height are to one another as their Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edition, 1969; and above all articles by Arpad bases, because one sees that the antanairesis will go on in the Szabo: "Zur Geschichte der Dialektik des Denkens," in Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, II, 1954, 17-62, and "The Transfor· same way with the rectangles as with the bases, even though the mation of Mathematics into Deductive Science and the Beginnings of antanairesis be infinite. its Foundation on Definitions and Axioms," in Scripta Mathematica, 27, There are other mathematical exploits of Theaetetus, em­ 1964, 28-48 and 113-139. For the Proclus text I depended on Procli bodied in books X and XIII, and they are of a kind with the for­ Diadochi in Primum Euclidis Elementorum Commentarii, ed. Freidlein, mulation of the definition of proportionality that I have just Teubner, 1873, and the recent translation by the late Glenn R. Morrow, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, Princeton, 1970. described. Using theorems about numbers in new ways, Theae­ In the section on Parmenides there may be recognized a certain inspira· tetus succeeds in rendering what was inexpressible expressible. tion, much diluted, of Martin Heidegger's What is Called Thinking?, tr. Such achievement, I would suggest, should be put down under Wieck & Graz, New York,: 1954. the rubric of Pascal's esprit de finesse, rather than under his esprit 2. I note that Egyptian fractions, with one exception, are unit fractions, fractions we would write with l as numerator. They are written by put· de geometrie, the geometrical turn of mind, which Pascal so ting a line above the number we call the denominator. The exception berates for its blindness to the problem of the principles. The was 2/3, written by putting two of these lines above the numeral 3. Pythagorean mathemata, arithmetic, geometry, and the rest, are 3. Quoted in 0. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd edi­ not liberal arts merely or primarily in being deductive, in pro· tion, Dover, 1969, 79. 4. Paraphrased from van der Waerden, Science Awakening I, 63. ceeding stepwise in accordance with certain rules. Their liberal­ 5. In particular, see Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythag­ ity, it seems to me, has an essential relation to the awareness not oreanism. merely of logical necessity, but of that necessity with which they 6. Quoted by van der Waerden, Science Awakening, I, 109.

31 Life Beyond the Reach of Hope: Recollections of a Refugee, 1938-1939

Philipp P. Fehl

For Katharine and Caroline

The central Jewish cemetery in Vienna is composed of two with it but was detached from it upon entering the gates of the very large fields of land which are narrowly planted with graves. Jews. There was even in the air a certain touch of surprise as one Located at the outskirts of the city, it forms part of the constantly left the crowds and went, as it were, the wrong way. Inside the busy, huge municipal cemetery which, at the time of its found­ cemetery an air of discreet prosperity prevailed. I remember the ing nearly a century ago, was a model of enlightened planning in gleam of gold buttons on the frock coat of an attendant at the the matter of regulating the public inconvenience of the disposal gate, the simple dignity of the architecture of the old ceremonial of the dead in a large city teeming with progress and expansion. hall, and above all, the impression of stability in the form of the Even today the effects of this foresight make themselves felt. old fashioned tombstones, and their substance. Out of respect There is a steady coming and going on the streetcars of somberly for the second commandment there were hardly any figurative dressed people, women whose eyes are red from crying, and em­ pieces. Instead, the tombstones spoke with lettering: the names barrassed men clutching garden tools or flowerpots. A small col­ of the dead, honorific titles, often antiquated and now quaint, ony of women selling candles and flowers has sprung up at the and the sentiments of the survivors in German; pious sayings in principal gates; long rows of stoneyards line the last stretch of Hebrew. The magic of certain family names more or less pecu­ streetcar rails and display the wares of the monument makers. It liar to Austrian Jews enhanced, in the very place where death is an awkward city of the dead, clumsily, perhaps, but lovingly ruled, a sense of belonging, of lastingness, and the continuation cared for by the living who come to it from inconvenient dis­ of family. Stones bearing the names of famous men filled us with tances, handicapped, burdened, and sometimes also upheld by pride joined to melancholy, as did the names of rabbis we knew the anonymity of a well-regulated public service in which even and revered. One grave was that of the rabbi who had married the individuality of grief obtains the form of a cliche. my parents and whose father (as my father was fond of pointing The Jewish sections of the cemetery, such as I remember out), my grandparents. Visitors ever seemed to be few in compar­ them from the few visits on which I was taken as a child, were ison to the vast expanse of the Jewish graveyard. It is against the not really touched by this flow of traffic; one came and went Jewish law except under strict necessity to bury more than one body in a grave, or to move bodies to make room for others. This explains the disproportionate size of the premises. On many graves one could see a few pebbles, tokens of a pious visit, which Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois, Philipp Fehl is au­ relatives and friends would leave at the tombs instead of flowers thor of The Classical Monument: Reflections on the Connection between Morality and Art in Greek and Roman Sculpture, New York 1972. After for, among conservative Jews at least, flowers counted as a van­ serving in the U.S. Army from 1942-1946, he was an interrogator at the ity. From time to time one could hear the voice of a man who Nuremberg trials for a year. was somewhere near, but could not be seen for the dense rows of

32 January, 1980 stones, in the familiar chant of the prayer for the dead. On one Jews and Christians, but marked with crosses, are the graves of occasion as we were visiting family graves my father said to me Christians of Jewish descent who were buried in the Jewish sec­ quietly, "Remember those graves; you must learn to find them tor because what was called their 'race' denied them access to on your own." I was still quite young and the realization that he the cemetery of their co-religionists. thought he must instruct me, and that I would lose him as a Remarkable in the Jewish cemetery proper are also islands of guide, pained me. I could think of nothing better to say but that neat rows of old tombs carefully straightened, many of them the graves all had numbers, and that the plan of the cemetery with inscriptions entirely in Hebrew. These are the tombs trans­ was readily comprehensible, but he repeated what he had said ferred to Vienna since the end of the war from ancient Jewish and spoke no more of it. communities in the provinces where there are no Jews left and This was long before Hitler's annexation of Austria. To me the where the Jewish cemeteries continued to be exposed to vandal­ world seemed stable and at least as predictable as the security of ism or were in the way of local building expansion. Everywhere the well-kept cemetery. My father, who was a practical man, had the grass grows over the cemetery. It is a gentle wilderness, a no such illusions and I remember I was a bit ashamed of that. His seemingly endless expanse of melancholy peace. Birds are at sentence had an echo in it of an ancient Jewish caution regard­ home there as if it were a nature preserve and on and off a rabbit ing tombs; we may have to leave the graves behind, but we will be startled by our steps into running. should remember where they are and, times permitting, be able Some years ago my wife and I took our two children there. Ad­ to find them again and put them in order, we or our children. It venturesome as they were, and willing to help find graves we was, I thought, not only unwarranted but ungenerous, uncom­ could no longer find, they soon were out of our sight. They could prehending of the spirit of modern times, even to consider the not have been far but we both felt a strange, sudden fear that possibility that we might have to flee, like our ancestors, when they would be gone forever, as if they had been given to us in a they were ruled by the whim of princes. These were not the Mid­ dream from which we were now awakening. But they soon came dle Ages. back to us, with their sweet American voices, and we awoke from I have gone back on occasion to the old cemetery and inevi­ the awakening. It was then that I decided to write down these tably remember this unfinished conversation. The cemetery is memories, but it took years before I actually began. now deserted; the streetcar no longer even stops at the farther What I have to say is in praise of silence. The terror of the Ger­ gate. It is extremely difficult to find a grave that is not on a main man persecution and finally the mass murder of the Jews of Eu· road; the section markers are in part lost, impenetrable thickets rope is a matter of record~even of German record that boasts of of underbrush obscure the boundaries between individual it. I saw very little of it (if it had been otherwise I would, prob­ graves. There are also great holes in the ground, piled high with ably, not have lived to tell the tale) and I do not, at any rate, want tombstones that slipped or fell into them. Some of these holes to speak of that, but rather of moments in which a kind of insight are the results of erosion, others of artillery fire. A battle was was communicated that escaped words. My memory holds them fought across the cemetery as, at the end of the war, the Russian up to me in the form almost of pictures that fill me with an in· troops advanced on Vienna. In the early years after the war, now finite longing, and with gratitude that I can still see them. It was, and then one could see the marker of the grave of a Russian sol­ I am tempted to say, my privilege to see how people I loved pre­ dier with its Soviet star incongruously placed among the Jewish pared themselves for death-and I saw it with open eyes for I tombs. The Russians buried their dead where they fell. There was young and so wanted to learn-not at the time when death also were signs of the desecration of the cemetery during the was actually upon them, but when there was still time to reflect, Nazi years; the ceremonial halls were burnt out shells. Like the during the lull, when normal life had come to a halt for Jews but synagogues in the city of the living, they had been put to the no one knew, perhaps not even the eventual devisers of mass flames. One of them is now rebuilt, the other, in the oldest part murder, just what the end would be, or how long it would take. of the cemetery, has become a picturesque ruin. The inscrip­ We knew, however, that those of us who could not emigrate­ tions on the old tombs are hardly legible anymore-only here and there were not many who readily could: there were no coun­ and there one sees a new tracing of the old lettering or a lawn ac­ tries open to refugees at the time; at best, they had only restric­ tually cared for; they stand out incongruously against the mass of tive quotas-would be doomed to a cheerless existence without lonely graves and stones slowly tipping over or sinking into the means of support and at the mercy (if that is the word) of a hos­ ground. Here and there an added inscription on an old tomb re­ tile government, to a life without a future. Suddenly, there was calls people who were murdered in faraway places or who died time on our hands, and the opportunity, the invitation, to marvel abroad as refugees. And there is a section of graves with little about the purposes of life, to wonder how to support each other, wooden markers, the names long worn off, where those who died and to prepare for death. in Vienna during the war, before the deportations were effected, I do not know how those who stayed behind when I finally found their burial. The markers were improvised, often from escaped met their death. It must in its horror and panic and fa­ shop signs of Jewish stores, and one can now read on them tigue have been incongruously different from what they antici­ fragments of texts announcing wares or skills. There also are a pated. I cannot speak of that but I do want to recall, such as I number of small gravestones erected after the war by mourning could discern it in the silence, what they discovered about the relatives, to take the place of these impermanent signs. The dignity of man when they still had the leisure to do so and hold cemetery authorities, quite justly, do not permit large stones in on to it in the lull of the months that preceded the outbreak of this section. Quite at the border, in a no-man's land between the war.

33 The College

The Germans moved into Austria suddenly. Their arrival took which the very next speaker turned into a liberation and a wel­ us quite by surprise, though, in hindsight, it seems quite aston­ come to the new times-the German air force, flying very low, ishing that we had not expected it. The invasion threats, the in­ was over Vienna. For days a carpet of airplanes with their low vectives, the call for a new order, had been going on for years. drone was spread over the silent city, and the hum of these gray But they were not taken seriously because they kept on being re­ machines and the finality of their threat went on and on and peated. It was only journalism, it seemed, just words~the deed with its reverberation affected every thought, every word one was against the law of nations; it was unreasonable, if not scan­ spoke; it was an object lesson in the 'facts of life'. These air­ dalous, to expect it. In the view of many-certainly in mine (I planes, clearly equipped for spreading death, dropped little pink was then a high school student of seventeen)-this kind of vio­ leaflets, friendly jubilating messages, "the German air force lence no longer was possible; the modern democracies would not greets German Vienna"; and as the sky was filled with the view tolerate it. But the surprise came. of death so the ground was covered with these confetti of na­ There was to be an important announcement over the radio. tional fraternization. We knew the political situation was tense; and suddenly there But upon Jews a new reality was imposed-there was not a day was the tired voice of the Austrian chancellor, abdicating and ac­ that did not bring vilifications in the ugliest language that the ceding to the German demands in order to prevent, so he put it, press and radio could devise. It was so astonishing to me that Gen'nan blood from being spilled-that is the German blood of people in order to express their joy, their professed hopes for the the Austrians as well as the German blood of the Germans, a good, should join with it so much hatred, that scorn could be so kind of fratricide. And then there was music, variations on the alive. But there it was, a simpleminded brutal explanation of the Austrian national anthem by Haydn, and then the voice of the nature of evil in the world: there were Aryans and Jews, and the new chancellor-designate Seyss-Inquart (he later became the ones were good, shining examples of what man could be, and the German governor of the Netherlands and after the war was others evil. The world, they said, needed a 'solution of the Jewish hanged at Nuremberg), addressing his audience as 'fellow Ger­ problem'. And my former compatriots, with the exception of mans'. He represented a new law and order, and in a strained, those who now became as shy, as cautious, as lonely as the Jews, passionate way, invited the German troops to enter Austria. And and saddened unto death by the shame of the country, readily then suddenly we knew we were trapped, that the conditions of accepted this formulation. Antisemitism, which before had been our lives had changed, that we had no future in the terms of liv­ regarded as vulgar, now was indulged in by high and low, gladly ing as we had been living, that aU was insecure, that our days_ had and pompously. It became the natural expression of a new patri­ turned to night. otic highmindedness. No appeal was possible, not to reason nor We had a neighbor, a gentile woman who had come in to listen loyalty. to the radio with us. She was a devout Catholic and a devoted I remember a conversation with one of my fellow students partisan of the Catholic party that ruled Austria. She was dis­ who had been a friend. He was now a genuinely converted Nazi consolate and almost fainted during the broadcast, and we, the but, as a former friend, he felt the need of securing my approval obviously doomed victims of the invasion (the others, the of his now having to hate me. It was something that I, too, would German-blood Austrians as they would say, were now being lib­ have to honor, as it were, for we were natural enemies of each erated from the presumed dominance of the Jews), we the Jews, other. But I did not understand and argued, not to defend my­ had to comfort her and take her home. "My Franz," she said of self but to reach, such as I could, for what we both, however her son, who was a minor civil servant, "Will he keep his post, dimly, had comprehended in our studies, and above all, in the will they now refuse to promote him because he is a faithful love of literature which we shared, especially that of the German Catholic?" We said, "there, there," to her and as we said it we classics, for the definition of what made life worthwhile, some­ knew that our exclusion from the sharing of speech with our thing that I now loved and needed with a new urgency, to ac­ compatriots, or new ex-compatriots, had begun. From that day company me and hold me up in the loneliness unmitigated by on the same woman, a lonely, pleasant enough elderly widow friendship and the sharing of trust that was now before me. He whose son Franz was her only purpose in living, cut herself off listened to me as if I were presenting a siren's song and nodded from talking to us and avoided my mother, whom for a long time like one who understands what he must reject, and concluded she had made a not altogether willing but tolerant partner of not coldly but sadly that what I said was quite right, as long as it daily conversations about her hopes for her son. But now she was seen from my position, but that I could not rise to his and we would not talk to the old neighbor who suddenly, without chang­ could not argue the matter out because our blood was different. ing, had become a 'Jewess,' a controversial figure. But some No matter what I thought, my understanding would be governed weeks after the invasion she appeared beaming at the door, and by my blood-my very argument showed it-and I could neither announced, "My Franz told me it is all right that I talk to you see nor feel the truth of what he advocated because in him spoke again ... it won't harm him in his career." She had wanted to the knowledge of nature and God that. suited the German mis­ come for days, she said, to invite my mother to her apartment. sion in the world. And so on. We never spoke again. She had taught her parrot to say "Heil Hitler!," and he did it so Short of the flood of official vilification and occasional, police­ well. For some reason she thought-if thinking is the word-that inspired acts of murder and vandalism against Jews, nothing this would please my mother. much happened to change the routine of our lives. My father The German invasion was masterminded quite impressively. continued to work in his store, my brother and I continued going Soon after the announcement of the surrender on the radio- to school, doing homework. But we knew we were no longer citi-

34 January, 1980 zens. Our presence in our city was, for the time, being tolerated at regular intervals they cutely went through the exercise of giv­ but also scorned, and we were no longer protected by the law. ing the Hitler salute in unison. When they came by our windows, We lived on grudgingly bestowed sufferance, provided we were which were identifiable as Jewish windows because they were not 'noticed'. And going out meant that you no longer could be not decorated, they broke into a chant rehearsed for such occa­ reasonably sure you would come home again. Apart from other sions: Wenn's Judenblut vom Messer spritzt~a threatening invo­ obvious distinguishable traits Jews could readily be identified in cation of a day of reckoning yet to come: "When Jewish blood the streets because their lapels were not decorated with the ubiq­ will drip from our knives ... "-and marched on, ever so many. It uitous swastikas, and, more readily than that, by their sadness, was a cold night in March, and my mother looked down with the loneliness of the unjustly persecuted for whom there was no such a sadness, and in the same matter-of-fact way in which my hearing, in the midst of a city now teeming with a new jollity filled father, before, had spoken of Hitler's hairdo, she .said, shaking with that joie de vivre, a veritable delirium of pleasure, that had her head, "These children down there will catch cold ... " descended upon Vienna where everyone was making, collec­ I do not think many Jews in those days 'explained' themselves tively, a new start in life. We disturbed the millennium that was to each other. Everybody knew that the other was moved by the just dawning upon the others. And there were so many petty in­ same loneliness. A certain intimacy of loving understanding held sults to Jews to accompany the obvious great threats with which the victims together without words; looks sighed and then with­ we now had to cope. You could no longer sit down on a park drew into themselves, out of politeness, perhaps, mingled with bench unless it was marked as one particularly reserved for Jews, compassion, so as not to break out in fruitless tears and disturb on streetcars you were not allowed to take a seat, and the con­ the other's grief with one's own. We began to learn to live with ductor when he collected your fare would no longer say "Thank desperation, to be social in solitude. you." And every visit we made had the aspect of a last farewell. There was a Jewish old age home in Vienna that was also a There were so many suicides. There was not a day when we home for the incurably ill My mother had long made it a prac­ did not hear of a friend, an acquaintance, a relative, who chose tice to go there once a week, to speak to people, to bring them lit­ so to end his life, and the news was acknowledged not with the tle gifts. She always dressed for the occasion, it was festive, and shock that normally accompanies one's hearing of such an end, she often took my brother and me along. Once she was intro­ but with a nod of the head, an understanding, even a hushed duced to a very old lady and she kissed her hand, because this envy, or a gesture of loving respect, for we knew they died be­ was the way to honor old age. It was no longer done in the new cause they would no longer be offended. The news of these time, that of the Republic of Austria that was then 'my time', deaths came and fell like soft snow, drifting, and enveloping us and the gesture which was spontaneous, natural, and so obvi­ with a great loneliness. It even brought a kind of comfort, an af­ ously well mannered surprised me in its beauty and touched me firmation of the dignity of man that defined itself in choosing as it still touches me. death. And similarly it could define itself in the choice of staying We continued these visits under Hitler, and there were now alive and in mourning, and in the choice of one's words, and in many people visiting in the home. Many were paying a last call the listening to what was barely spoken. to relatives, some were on the verge of emigration or flight, One day soon after the "liberation" there was to be a great pa­ whether abroad or into death. All had time on their hands be­ rade. Our house was situated on a road traditionally taken by cause they had lost their jobs_ The old and the infirm in the processions. Every year, on Corpus Christi Day, a temporary home were more lively, and the visitors dejected; the roles had altar was erected directly across the street from us. I remember been reversed, the old now comforted the young. For they were that we always left our places at the window when the celebra­ already marked for death-only waiting-and now almost grate­ tion of the Mass was begun there; it was not right to watch it for ful, that they (as one then thought) could no longer be disturbed. the sake of curiosity. But this time the street and the windows They were so sorry for us because our lives were threatened un­ were festively decked out with swastika flags and across from our naturally, by the society of our fellowmen, rather than illness and window someone had decorated his window with a huge picture the death that cuts off old age. The dying blessed the living and of Hitler framed elaborately with flowers. It was an official holi­ wept for their fate. There was so much love alive in the sunlit day and we were all at home. There was no place to go. And courtyard of the ancient building when I went there for the last there was nothing to say. We did not speak until my father, who time to bid my farewells, shortly before I left Austria. And the had been looking absentmindedly and yet with a kind of fascina­ peace of a world retreating into the tomb. tion at the Hitler picture, said with such an astonishment in his My first and lasting lesson in loneliness was imposed upon me voice, as if he had hit upon the solution of an enigma, "Look, in the first week after the invasion, when I still rebelled against that guy-dieser Kerl-parts his hair on the wrong side of the accepting the obvious fact that we were proscribed people and head_" And then after a pause he added, quietly, "If they will outside the protection of the law. It was the first Sunday under only let me keep on working ... ''That same evening was the pa­ the new state of affairs and my father was anxious to find out rade. It seemed as if all of Vienna was marching below our win­ how his relatives were faring. It clearly was not wise to be seen in dows. Among the neatly divided groups with banners there was, the streets, but I argued, with too much acerbity, that Nazis or of course, a contingent of children; then there came a huge not, the nation lived by laws, and if we observed them-even group of little boys dressed in T shirts and very short knee pants, though we obviously could not endorse them-the authorities a sort of freedom through fitness demonstration, marching with would have no reason to harm us. I remember insisting with anxious adroitness. They were much applauded in the streets as what now would be called teenage defiance that it was coward-

35 The College ice, feebleness, to give in to fear and sit at home when we had the in silence, concentrating on the pavement, and from time to tight to use the streets. If one gave it up, no wonder they would time looking up, still marvelling whether this was real, and for riot concede it to us, etc. My father, more to stop the noise of the the very marvel of it wanting to see it all. I so well remember the argument though also irritated by his son's sharpness, merely eyes turned on me that even now, as I write this down, I can see said to me, "Come, let's go." And off we went. It was a peaceful some eyes turning away, as I look up to see, to remember, to Sunday morning and many Viennese were in the streets, walking comprehend. And then someone tapped me on the shoulder, a their dogs, chatting, all or almost all wearing a swastika in their guardian; a new victim had been brought in. "You can go now." buttonholes. In their festivity they looked at us with joy, ready to He said it almost tenderly. I had served my turn, the ordeal was greet us, and to be greeted with a hearty Heil Hitler! but as we over, and they were not, he seemed anxious to assure himself by looked away they realized we did not belong and looked at us this arrogation of the aspects of fairness, members of a gang, but oddly before they looked away themselves. "See," I said to my police: if their measures were harsh they were just also because father, "it works." they were administrated in an orderly fashion. From time to time we saw small crowds in the streets, gathered I walked off quickly, moving towards the line of houses so as to about a central group; we did not venture nearer to find out have their cover, a protection of anonymity, as near the wall as what was going on; it would have been a provocation so to be­ was practical. And I heard my father's familiar whistle from a come a part of a group. But it did not take us long to find out. A doorway. He had followed me from a distance, waited, and been young man pu1led up a bicycle near us; he wore a red arm band at the ready to help if help were needed, if help he could, all this with a swastika in the center of a white field, a young believer re­ time. It had been perhaps two hours. We then walked on cruited into the auxiliary police. He stopped us and, without through side streets, like shadows, my father guiding my steps, meanness, as if it were a merely diagnostic routine, addressed for he knew, from his service in the war, how to be on one's own both of us, "The gentlemen will please excuse me for stopping on patrol. When we came to his brother's house they were aston­ them, but are the gentlemen by any chance Jews?" And upon ished to see us and even reproachful ("How dared you venture our saying yes-it was as if we were admitting to a crime-he out?") when they heard the story. pointed~ his finger at me and said, "The young one" (he was And so we lived. The adventure cured me of arguing. It also himself just about my age) "comes along with me!" He made me made me very silent, as were the rest of us. I sometimes still see run in front of his bicycle, and he wanted me to run smartly, that silence in old passport photographs. So many of tis had to "Chest out," he cried, and "move your arms!" Soon we arrived have pictures taken, for all sorts of documents that were needed at one of those circles of onlookers my father and I had noticed for the rigamarole of applying for passports, emigration visas that before. It was a particularly large gathering, and together we one knew only in the rarest cases would be granted. But one left pushed our way into the center. I saw some people squatting on nothing untried. Almost everyone spent day after day standing the ground, obviously all Jews, who were scrubbing the pave­ in long queues before embassy doors, only to be given a form to ment on which slogans had been written only a few days ago, apply which was but a prelude to rejection. This practice of for­ when Austria was still free, exhorting people to unite behind the eign governments to protect their labor market from a sudden in­ government i11 a plebiscite that was to demonstrate to the world flux of penniless Jews weighed heavily on us. One expected that Austria treasured its independence. It was now proposed nothing from the Nazis who breathed murder and contempt in that the Jews had conspired to bring about this show of resis­ every one of their utterances regarding Jews, but outside there tance and the Jews therefore had to clean the words off the pave­ was what one called "the world". The world at best, however, re­ ment. It was oilpaint and we were not given any solvents or soap, sponded grudgingly to our desperate need for help and reassur­ just brushes and water. All of us squatted there, and scrubbed, ance, exactly because our needs were so desperate. and when we ran out of water one of the overseers poured more on the pavement, caring to be careless, and splattering us with But to return to the photographs. There is such a sadness in the water. There was no jeering, just hundreds of eyes glued on those pictures. It was then still customary that the photographer us in silence, a wicked, fascinated curiosity to see how we would would try to make you smile for your picture-and no one, no 'take it'. And take it we did. From time to time a new victim was one ever smiled. The picture, one knew, might well be the last brought in, and an earlier one duly released, the crowd making record of one's life. When mine was taken by a cousin who dab­ way for him, not courteously but as if he were infecti0us or a bled smartly in amateur photography he took me outside and ghost. lined me up against a wall for the obligatory neutral gray back­ There were women in the crowd, beady-eyed. "I know a really ground. As I stood and waited and looked at the camera I saw bad Jew," said one, with the eagerness of a witch, "really bad." one of the slogans of the new regime written in large letters on And one of the young attendants: "Where do I find that Jew?" the wall opposite: "Juda verrecke," a singularly brutal exhorta­ And two or three women crowding around him, gave the ad­ tion to Jews to just up and die. We saw and heard things like that dress, dtsputing the quickest way to get there. Once an old man, all the time, and no one spoke to us. a rabbi, aged and infirm, was pushed into the circle: "No, let him I do want to report one silent act of kindness that probably go," murmured the crowd, "he is too old." "No, make him do it," saved my life. It all happened as if in a silent movie, in slow mo­ said others, "he is only pretending." "Beat it," said the guardians tion. I was on my way to school, and, as often happened to me, to him after a quick consultation, "beat it and never show your nearly late-the presence of horrors in the streets had not dirty face around here again." And so it went. changed the bad habits I had lovingly acquired in the years of I worked there, with a fierce eagerness, in anger first, and then coping with school.

36 January, 1980

As I hurried along with my books under my arms I saw a young school took on a new direction; education served the new state woman standing in the doorway of a house, looking at me insis­ and affirmed new values. tently, anxious to catch my attention. It was the first time since We, the Jews, received the same instruction, the same assign­ the disaster had occurred that a non-Jew had looked at me, want­ ments as the other shldents, but were treated as if we were ing to be noticed, to be recognized. I saw her, with her mouth shadows. By and large the teachers turned their faces to where open as if she wanted to scream, beckoning me to come over to the gentiles sat. With some it was shame, with others a veritable her, into the house. I wanted to walk on, but I saw the terror in lust to humiliate. Small clues would show a world, and young her eyes, and crossed the street. Quickly, quickly, she motioned, eyes see keenly. As far as my Jewish friends and I were con­ and when I came into the house she was gone. As I turned cerned it was now the teachers who were being tested. But I took around I saw a whole row of storm troopers walking in step along no pleasure in seeing them fail; sadness overcame me, and a new the width of the street, a net of men spread out to catch Jews, to kind of loneliness that came of the effort, I think, to escape from arrest them as they came upon them. There were quotas, I disgust. Some of our old teachers, however, I loved, or learned to learned later; so many victims to be brought in per day, to be in­ love, because an occasional accent of regret or a sigh of fatigue terrogated, perhaps to be sent to concentration camps, just to indicated how troubled they were. I could see, or thought I could keep the Jews in line, I suppose, and themselves busy. see, that they were mourning the death of Austria and that they We kept on going to school becaUse there was nothing else to lived in silent pain. I felt sorry for these elderly men to the point do and because the habit of working for the final certificate, the of tears, because of the burden they carried within, because they Matura, which.in normal circumstances would have entitled us were compassionate when it was stylish to be hard. to enter the University, was ingrained. At school, Jews and Gen­ Two encounters in school, not in themselves lovable, but tiles now sat apart. Our teachers, with the exception of the Jew­ quaint, stand out in my memory for their indefinable oddity, a ish ones who had been replaced, were the same we had before. result of the contrast between the habits of civilization that still Some, dearly and shamelessly traitors to their teaching of just a made themselves felt, like dead weight, and the order of the new few weeks before, now aired Nazi convictions with a sternness orientation. One of the substitute teachers we had (he took the full of contempt for us, the Jews. They ignored us as if we were place of our beloved teacher of German who was a Jew and was not in the room. Before this they had preached other sermons now gone, replaced without explanation) was a thoroughly inter­ with the same tones of highmindedness that now accompanied esting figure. His name was Thiel, he was young but was what the new texts. one then called an 'old Nazi'. He had, so gossip among us had it, We watched ever so carefully, hoping for a word of recogni­ been living for years as a political refugee in Germany, making a tion, a sign of secret support, but none really came, though we living as the conductor of a jazz band. He had, in fact, something saw that some of our old teachers were embarrassed when, ac­ of the politesse of a musical performer about him. cording to their instructions, they began every day's lecture with It was the rule that students would get up when a professor the Hitler salute. As far as dealing with Jews was concerned, entered the room. Every time this man met his class he per­ they-the best of them-found refuge in an exacting correct­ formed a ritual he had himself invented. Like the other teachers ness; the grading (as it always had been in our school) was strict he turned towards the gentile side of the classroom and gave the but fair. In that respect there was no change. Only conversation Hitler salute, very smartly, but then he turned to us, the Jews, had died, and with it the occasional corrective or encouraging and responded to our having stood up for him with a polite, ele­ comments on our papers, ever sparse though they had been, that gantly clipped bow. He was the only one in the whole crowd of would have invited a discussion with the teacher. professors who openly acknowledged our existence. Nor was there talk with our gentile fellow sh1dents. Some were The other moment of courtesy occurred after we had taken now members of Nazi youth outfits and came to school in uni­ our final examination, the Matura. By that time Jews and Gen­ form. All, with a strange solicitude, watched each other's behav­ tiles had been altogether segregated into separate schools. The ior, especially vis d vis the Jews. Any civility would have school I had been attending was now a school for Jews only, the amounted to a protest against the regime. empty places filled up by Jewish students who were moved to And so did we watch them, furtively and amazed. Our fellow ours from other districts of Vienna. The Matura was a solemn, if students were still the boys we had known, but there was now a not awesome event in the life of students and the school upheld new element of optimism in them. Even if they remained playful all the appearances of tradition. The examinations were rigorous they now knew, with an unbecoming resolve, where they were but fair, except that the Ministry of Education had decreed that going. They felt liberated and proud to be members, partic­ in case of doubt a Jewish student should receive the worse rather ipating members, of that great political and military machine than the better grade. It was an effort to be just in the full rigor represented by Greater Germany: formerly citizens of a small of the law, uncornpromised for members of the accursed race, by contemptible state that had no power, they had suddenly be­ charity. The chairman of the commission that administered the come members of a nation which, they were sure (and for rea­ examination was, as usual, an outsider to the school; in our sons more formidable than hindsight now is capable of seeing), instance a man who had been called back into service from re­ would inherit the world. They were not, or not just, opportunists tirement, to replace someone who because of his origins or his but idealists who had learned or were learning to see the duties allegiance to the former regime had been removed from the of man in a new way, a more joyful and life-assenting conviction board. He was, so gossip had it, known for his very old Nazi sym· that turned the lust for power into a moral asset. Instruction at pathies, and for his tried antisemitism. He turned out to be a

37 The College very old gentleman, with nice, easy manners, a little deaf and, if a had to break down and tell me that she had been jewish. It was Nazi and antisemite, still formed by the old ways of civility. His as if a whole world had collapsed, and I ran away from home and antisemitism was more a matter of private prejudice than a mani­ lived in the fields for weeks. There I figured things out, and now festation of civic pride, a sort of crabby dislike of what was alien I want to become a Jew, and take my examinations in my capac­ that has a tradition all its own and that was, before it merged ity as a Jew, and at the first opportunity I shall go to Palestine with the rabid, modern hatred of the Jews, more ridiculous than and live there." monstrous. I do not know what became of him. I do remember that I won­ Our man presided fairly, if with some disdain, over our exami­ dered at the time, as I wonder now, whether his desperate rejec­ nations. The time for the festivities having arrived, we filed into tion of his father, who had betrayed the rllemory of his mother the assembly room and the professors took their seats. He rose to because, I presume, he had wanted the child to grow up happy, give the speech for the occasion, which he may easily have given adjusted, as it were, to his environment, was not a continuation fifty times before. He was fond of that speech, one could see. He of his original commitment to fight things out in the terms of began, "Gentlemen!" And then he looked about the room-it whatever happened to be your origins, as if that determined was a part of his initial speaking gesture-and disappointment what was right, and not justice. But I do know that his reasoning spread about his face. He had forgotten we were all Jews and was earnest and original and brave and that he was touched by now he remembered and his speech would not fit the occa­ sorrow as we looked down upon our schoolmates milling about sion-which was a first (and probably also a last) in the history of and that he was sorry-not just because he had changed sides or Austrian education. There was nothing for which he could ex­ fortune had changed sides on him-but because he had learned press a pious wish. Our certificates, though valid, did not entitle about compassion and the nature of guilt only when he himself us to enter the University, because we were Jews. And what was a victim. would we be doing in the world? If anything good or prosperous, I also want to record a story I only heard. As is well known, on could he as a loyal civil servant of the new order wish for it? November lOth, 1938, all or almost all the synagogues in Ger­ "Gentlemen!", he began again, and his embarrassment grew many and Austria were blown up by order of the government quite visibly, as did our keen attention. And then he spread his and many Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. I arms, palms upwards, with a gesture of polite helplessness. was then no longer in the country, though my parents and my "Well, gentlemen, I congratulate you." He sat down. The cere­ brother were. Our family had a good friend, an elderly gentle­ mony was over. man who was a pious Jew and made his living as a Hebrew In this school, during the last weeks of classes, I made a new teacher. On the day after the burning of the synagogues there friend, a young man who stood apart. He had just recently come was a knock at his door early in the morning and he thought he to our school to take his final exams with us. One day we stood was going to be arrested. But instead he found a young gentile on a balcony looking into the school courtyard teeming with stu­ woman at his door with a bundle in her hands which she pressed dents, none of them knowing what the next day might bring, all upon him. She knew he was a good Jew, she said-she and her perhaps too busy talking about the exams because there was no husband had often seen him go to the synagogue nearby. After future beyond that, most of us still very much schoolboys in the the fire the two of them had poked about the remains and they slang we spoke, the old ways still about us and no longer fitting had found the object in the bundle. It was a Torah scroll; it our new situation which was not a situation at all, our lives alto­ would bring them no luck. "It was a pity what was done," and gether undefined, and each one of us unspeakably insulted, and she asked his blessing and wept and left. Our friend and his very each in his own way trying to cope with it. As we stood there old father, another Hebrew scholar, examined the scroll and then and talked of what it meant to be alone, and I looked for found it charred and in places torn. So they went to the Jewish words, or images, in the plays of the German and Greek and cemetery with their bundle and, as the Jewish law prescribes, French classic authors which we were rereading for the examina­ buried the Torah scroll. I sometimes see them in my mind's eye tion, and which I had always loved and which now began to standing there in the loneliness of twilight, two small huddled mean so much more, he told me that he had come to this Jewish figures furtively burying a book. school by his own choice, that he was in fact not a Jew but Once in the night after a number of terrible things had been wished to become one. reported and friends had disappeared, I all of a sudden was His story was singular. His widower father, a prosperous seized by a desperate fear. I lost all nervous control. I so desper­ farmer, had brought him up as a regular country boy. "It was ately wanted to be saved. I don't remember what I said-or natural, among young people in our part of the country," he ex­ shouted-at my parents, but I do know that I asked, demanded, plained, "to be active in the illegal Nazi gangs. It was, so to speak, that they must save me, that I was afraid of death, that I did not a sporting activity; once we broke the windows of the one Jewish know what to do. They had already gone to bed and I startled store in our little town. When Hitler moved into Austria, heroes them from their sleep, from their own sadness. My father lis­ of the underground movement were needed. It was suggested tened and then to stop the terror and to state the truth spoke that our gang be inducted into the storm troopers as a special ever so quietly, with a disappointment in his voice that was only unit. It was an honor for the entire village. In order to fulfill the too genuine. "But," he said, calling me by my name, "have you entrance requirements everyone of us had to show proof of his forgotten that we all share the same danger?" I had, indeed, for­ German (i.e. non-Jewish) ancestry to the fourth generation. gotten, and I was changed, I think, in my manner from that When I asked my father for my dear mother's birth certificate he moment on and tried to learn, to learn as best I could, to live con-

38 January, 1980 siderately in a world full of fears and beyond the reach of hope. were for sale. At a great sacrifice, such a visa was secured for me Still hope there was for me once again, when I fled to Czecho­ and I left the country very hurriedly. I remember the farewells, slovakia. But my cares followed me, and my hope was never free; the dazed realization that I might never again see the beloved it had no wings. It was more like wondering how it would all turn faces of the members of my family. I was tempted very much not out, when the night would cease. Would anyone I cared for be to go and yet, for their sake even, saw that I must. left? My mother took me to the station. It was my first railroad trip Escaping to Czechoslovakia was a relatively easy thing if you on an express train. There was all the excitement of the journey found the right corrupt connections, and if you had the money before me and the well~wishing conversation, to take care not to to pay for the assistance you needed. Perhaps it was the fear I catch cold, and all the things one says when one sees a child off had exhibited so rudely that moved my parents to decide on the in ordinary times. As the train pulled out of the station I bent out matter. But also I was, in fact, the most exposed member of our the window ever so far to see my mother once more and she, family. The Nazis especially had it in for young Jews about my who had kept her poise all along and was tall and beautiful as she age-for at that age people can be hotheads and cause trouble. It stood there talking to me-so she wanted to be remembered­ was clever police minds at work that first, on any pretence, singled now was a lonely figure on the platform, her hands clasping her out the unpredictable young for detention and worse. Visitors' face and weeping. I had seen her weep only once before, when visas to Czechoslovakia that normally were not made available to her mother died. I sat down in my compartment, and was all Jews because, of course, they could not go back to Austria, could, alone. however, be bought, on a kind of black market in which lives (to be continued)

39 Kant's Imperative

Eva Brann

I have called this lecture "Kant's Imperative" so that I might Let me end these introductory remarks by pointing out that it begin by pointing up an ever-intriguing circumstance. Kant is precisely because they have such a rewarding surface and such claims that the Categorical Imperative, which is the Moral Law, unsettling depths that Kant's works have attracted the most ef­ is implicitly known to every fullyformed human being. And yet fective explications and the most pertinent criticisms, among its formulation is absolutely original with him. Thus to study that both of which I shall mention only the one full-scale commen­ hard philosophical gem, the Foundations of the Metaphysics of tary on the Foundations, which is by Robert Wolff and is called Morals, the little work in which Kant first sets out his imperative The Autonomy of Reason. in its various versions, is to be in the curious position of laboring I shall make a straightforward beginning, then, by giving a to acquire an utterly new principle which yet makes the almost brief explication of the literal meaning of the terms "categorical" persuasive claim of having been always in our possession. Out of and "imperative." this arises a common experience which, I am sure, you will have The word "categorical" comes from a Greek verb which -or are already having-with the Categorical Imperative: you means to say something of something or somebody, and to say it will probably find yourself ultimately unable to accept it, but you flat out, without modification, without ifs and buts, as in accusa­ will never be able to forget it. But what we can neither accept tion. A categorical assertion is an unconditional assertion. nor ignore, it only remains for us to understand. The purpose of The word "imperative" means a formulated command. A this lecture is to offer you some help with Kant's Imperative. command, marked by an exclamation point, is the irruption into Let me waste a few of our numbered minutes by setting out the world of an intention, an intention to change the course of what kind of help I can try to give you. You might at first smile to events by an imposition of purpose, to cause a re-routing of the hear it, but I think if it is put to you rightly, you might eventually flow of events. Not every command, however, has a formula, agree that Kant is an easy author, easier, say, than Plato or since it may take the form of an imperious gesture, or an only in­ Nietzsche. He is easy precisely because he seems difficult: labori­ cidentally intelligible sound, like "Heel" to a dog, or "Let there ously explicit, forcibly systematic, rigorously technical. This is be light" to the elemental darkness. Obedience to such com­ the kind of ruggedness meant to make a text accessible to mands is a measure of the bidder's power to be an efficient straightforward explicatory industry. I shall engage in just so cause, to have an irresistibly powerful purpose. An imperative, much of such explication of terms and their connections (gratify­ on the other hand, not only articulates a projected move, it also ing though it be) as is necessary for our common discourse. gives a reason for it. It conveys not only the what, but also the There is, however, another kind of help I can offer, though it why, of a command. It is an order directed to a rational being. might be a little premature. Some people might say that we To understand what a Kantian imperative is, then, we must should go farther in unravelling the text before coming to this know what a rational being, a being having reason, is. Reason is part of textual interpretation. It also has to do with the precise the chief of those terms which carries in it far more than Kant's sobriety, the systematic self-sufficiency and the deliberate au­ bone-dry and matter-of-course presentation exposes. Indeed, it thority of our writer. For these qualities all work to veil from view carries within it the whole system. the real roots of the system~the stupendous assumptions that Reason, then, in its rock-bottom aspect, is first of all a faculty, are packed into its technical terms, the strange abysses opening a power. A rational being is above all a being capable of function­ up beyond its well-delineated foundations, and the human ing to some effect. Next, reason is a faculty for laying down the pathos implied in its projects. To raise these roots is not, in my law, for law-giving. Reason is a legislative power. opinion, the worst way to begin to understand the system, and is What, next, is a law? A law is an instrumental formula that probably the most profitable way to use our short time together. subjugates, or brings under itself, those elements that are reached by it. Yet it does not accomplish this in the wanton, arbi­ trary manner of a despot, but in the mode of universality. The A lecture read at the University of Chicago in March, 1979, at the invita· law commands, for it binds (indeed, that is what the word tion of Leon Kass in a series sponsored by the Dean of the College and means), but it binds universally, or better, by means of universal­ the staff of "Human Being and Citizen." ity, so that in binding it unifies. To say that reason is legislative

40 January, 1980 is to say that it is the unifying power of universality. That, in one might say in sum, takes the path of morality rather than turn, means that it is a power of principles, for "principle" is the ethics, where I mean by ethics the concern with right conduct name in logic of a first law, a law of thought which in unifying all and by morality the concern with good intention. that we have in mind applies universally to whatever may come Morality, then, or better, moral worth, is the next term to at­ before us. Let me interject here an observation: Nothing in tend to. Moral worth is what is to be valued in the agent's mode Kant's system seems to me more difficult to penetrate than his of action. "Nothing in the world-indeed nothing even beyond legal metaphor for reason as judgment given under law. I shall the world-," Kant begins, "can possibly be conceived which bypass that problem here, because its resolution is not immedi­ could be called good without qualification except a good will." ately required. To begin like that is precisely to begin with morality, for it is only An imperative, then, is a command given to a being that is the agent's faculty for initiating action-that bejng what the will itself a source of lawlike commands. is-which is good in itself. All other possible goods, the actions Such a command, to be acceptable, must therefore take the themselves, talents, acquisitions, circumstances, or, above all, form of a law, a universal rule of reason, or more simply, of a the end to be achieved. are only conditionally or relatively good, reason why that command should obligate any and every rational since they might all be in certain situations, productive of harm. being. It follows immediately that, strictly speaking, no com· I want to say in passing that it is a very deep assumption that mand can be externally issued to such a being; at most a law may only the will and never its object can be simply good. be suggested to it for its own internal adoption. What is mofe, if a At any rate, the will is clearly the central notion of morality. law is truly rational, namely unexceptionably universal, it will be The perfectly good will, which Kant calls a holy will, is one adopted by any perfectly rational being, and will thus scarcely which always obeys its own "ought." Human beings do notal­ need to take the form of a command. It will be a principle of ways do as they know they ought. That is Kant's second moral reason simply. fact. The first was that we all experience an inner obligation to In sum, therefore, a categorical imperative is an unconditional certain actions; the second is that we by no means always dis­ law-like command, formulated so as to be fit for adoption by a charge it. Kant never confuses, as he is sometimes accused of do­ being which by its very nature deals in universals. ing, the universality of the moral command with the frequency The next question must then be: Is there such a command? of its execution. To be sure it may seem a little back-to-front to define a formula When the kind of being that knows an "ought" but does not, and then to ask whether it has a matter. The question has a point from merely knowing it, necessarily obey it-when such a being only because we are all already aware of the fact that the Cate­ does do as it ought, it is said to be doing its duty. Duty is the mo­ gorical Imperative is Kant's term, taken from logic, for the Moral rality of beings whose will is handicapped. "The concept of Law. Therefore the question really is: Is there a moral law and duty." Kant says, " ... contains that of a good will though with does it and it alone have the form of a categorical imperative? certain restrictions and hindrances." When, however, such a be­ Or, in brief: What is morality? ing, a human being, can be said to do its duty, it must do so from You may have found the title of the first section of the Foun­ no ulterior motive but out of mere respect for its own inner dations, "Transition from Common Rational Knowledge of voice, not by compulsion of command but for the sake of the law. Morals to the Philosophical," a little strange, because it expresses Here I must go outside of the Foundations to deal with two re­ the intriguing circumstance to which I have already referred, the lated matters: the reason why Kant founds his philosophy on the fact that Kantian moral philosophy claims to be nothing but an good will rather than on an objective good, and what it means to elaboration of common knowledge. Note that this beginning be a human being, a being with a defective will. means that the principal problein of most moral inquiries-are This necessary tangent requires me to set out in the briefest there moral rules and whence are they known?-is settled before way Kant's system as reflected in the major texts. You know that philosophy ever begins: Kant claims that we all know that there the central works are all called "critiques": There is a Critique of is morality; we are all directly acquainted with the fact of Pure Reason, a Critique of Practical Reason, and a third critique I morality. shall barely mention at the end of the lecture. The word "cri­ This moral fact consists merely in the experience we have (all tique" is used by Kant for an inquiry into the grounds of human of us, Kant means, even the most hardened sinner) of having knowledge, and that means for him, into the human faculties. said to ourselves: "I ought ... ;" I ought to do this or that, quite The purpose of each critique is to certify some knowledge or ac­ apart from profit or pleasure, quite against my desires and incli­ tivity which is already ours, to give us certain guarantees of its nations. I must say that Kant's claim seems to me to ring true: possibility-the desire for certainty is the guiding motive of We have all heard that contrary inner voice of command, and Kant's enterprise. the moral monster in whom it is dumb is simply not imaginable The Critique of Pure Reason inquires into the faculty of ex· to most of us. periential knowledge; it grounds what for Kant is the sole mate· Now notice that Kant does not begin with the highest good, rial knowledge we can have, the science of nature. The second nor with virtue, nor with habits, customs, good deeds or tables of critique gives the grounds of moral action for which the term commandments. (To be sure, we have already anticipated the "practical" is reserved; later we will see why. fact that Kant will maintain the tradition linking right behavior Each of these texts is preceded by a short preliminary work to commands which is established in the Bible, but their num­ which analyzes respectively the established natural science and ber, source, claim to authority will all be radically altered.) Kant, the common moral experience to discover what faculties we

41 The College

must possess to make them possible. The Foundations of the Now we can see why our morality is a morality of duty. The Metaphysics of Morals, the work we are at this moment studying, Will, our power of initiating action, is defined by Kant as a fac­ is one of these; it was actually published three years before its cri­ ulty for causing the reality of objects through ideas, that is to say, tique, in 1785. The critique itself is named from the faculty a faculty for realizing our conceptions. But our conceived object which is disclosed in the last section of the Foundation, the is naturally a wish or a desire. Yet by a desire, as I have just "practical reason," of course. (Just for the sake of systematic pointed out, we are but passively drawn; our motion toward its completeness, I might mention here that both critiques are fol­ object is but a pseudo-action, not a genuine exercise of the Will. lowed by works giving the actual metaphysical systems grounded (Kant has a special word for such an object-determined choice: in the faculties, namely the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Willkuer, usually rendered in English "will" with a lower case w.) Science and the Metaphysics of Morals.) Aristotle says in the Ethics: "If anyone says that the pleasant or The main point of this sketch of Kant's works is to document the beautiful exercise compulsion on the ground that they are their all-determining, fundamental division into theoretical and external to us and compel us, we must answer that this would practical philosophy. To quote from the first critique: "The law­ make everything compulsory, seeing that we do everything we giving of human reason (i.e. philosophy) has two objects, Nature do for their sake." Kant wants to say just that, namely, that all and Freedom, and thus contains both the law of nature and the motion after external goods is compulsive, but he also wants to law of morality, initially in two separate, but eventually in one assert that we do not do everything for the sake of an external philosophical system.'' object. Now I think that the practical reason is the centerpiece of He proceeds, in sum, by conceiving human beings as rational Kant's philosophy, but that it is circumscribed and negatively de­ and natural beings, as double beings with a double will, a patho­ fined, silhouetted, so to speak, by the pure reason. Morality be­ logically affected faculty of choice as well as a practical faculty gins where nature ends. So I must try to do the impossible and for initiating action. This latter, pure Will, is lead by no external supply a three-minute review of the Critique of Pure Reason, purpose, aim, or object, but only by its very own laws and ends. which contains the account of nature. Therefore, to act from duty is to follow the internal command, The account of nature and the account of the science of na­ the Ought of the pure will and to resist the pull of desire. Duty ture are for Kant identical. That is because the system of nature is, to begin with, to be negatively apprehended as resistance to is determined by the way our Sensibility forms and our Under­ the mechanisms of nature. We can never experience ourselves as standing functions over the sensations that come to us. This doing as we ought except when we deny ourselves as natural be­ Understanding is a sub-faculty of the Reason, and its function is ings, for only nature has sensible appearances and can be experi­ the structuring of appearances so as to unify them into a lawful enced, and we can feel the will only as thwarted happiness. That system of things, the system of nature and natural laws. What is is by no means to say that morality lies in opposing our natural here relevant to the exposition is that while we ourselves are the inclination-only that its sole evidence is of this negative sort. legislators who constitute nature, we are not so freely and con­ All we can know of our willing is that we are capable of doing our sciously; our understanding does its regulating, as it were, behind duty. But how can we know even that? our backs; we cannot alter or abrogate its dispositions. Here, half way through the exploration, let me recapitulate. What is more, we ourselves are a part of rule-bound nature. We saw what a categorical imperative in general was, namely an For nature consists of ordered external appearances, the physical unconditional command so formulated as to be capable of adop­ appearances of space, but also of inner appearances, the tion by any rational bf:':ing. Next we saw that Kant's moral philos­ physchological events of our temporal consciousness. So, as ophy is a philosophy of intention, and begins with the moral fact human beings, we are at least partly of a piece with nature. Our of the sense of duty, an internal command of the will; further­ behavior is controlled by inexhorable psychic mechanisms, akin more morality takes the form of duty for those rational beings to the laws of nature in being invariable sequences of cause and who have a will whose agency is sometimes blocked by the effect. Our desires and inclinations are as tendencies to motion, rriechanism of their nature, namely the pull of desire. Finally we psychic lunges, incited by an object of desire or fear, as bodies saw that human beings are beings of just that kind, for whom to are attracted or repelled by other bodies; we go after our natural will means to come into conflict with the natural self. ends not because of their intrinsic worth, but because they push or pull and bend us systematically-by inclination, as Kant says, What remains to be articulated is the positive aspect of moral­ using a physical term. Consequently, Kant has a most melan­ ity. How is it that we nonetheless believe ourselves able to exert choly understanding of happiness: It is simply the-ever elu­ our will freely? And what actually is the command it issues? sive-sum total of achieved desire, the successful completion of That, after all, comes near the problem with which we began: all psychic motion. (Let me, incidentally, remind you that this Does the moral law, which, as we have seen, appears as the theory of happiness was set out within a decade of the Declara­ Ought of duty, have the form of a categorical imperative? tion of Independence and its inalienable human right to the Now is the moment to draw together the two terms, Will and "pursuit of happiness," a pursuit which has been understood as Reason. The Will, Kant repeatedly reveals, is nothing but the a similarly infinite chase.) Reason in its practical capacity. It is not merely associated with As natural beings we are, then, in Kant's term, "pathological," rationality; it is reason. Note that this identification is another meaning that we suffer rather than act, that we are passive crucial juncture, a tap root of the system. Will is reason initiating rather than "practical" (Kant uses the word practical to signify a action, or, as Kant says, determining itself to action: By being willed action, a deed.) "determined" is meant being pulled together out of the laxness

42 January, 1980

of abeyance to become a spring~board for specific deeds. Recall And now, at last, I return to the middle section where it is ac­ that the subfaculty of reason called the understanding consti­ tually formulated in three main versions. The first formulation tutes and consequently knows nature and that therefore natural is: science is certain. The upper reason, however, Reason proper, has no object of knowledge; the critique of pure reason is, among "Act only according to that maxim by which other things, a criticism of the unwarranted uses of reason as a you can at the same time will that it faculty of knowledge. Instead it is a power of action, a practical should become a universal law." faculty. The understanding regulates appearances, but uncon­ sciously; the practical reason, on the other hand, consciously legislates. To make laws for itself is, as we have seen, for Kant the Let us see what this formula contains. It contains a new term, very essence of reason and to enforce them its very life. Reason "maxim." A maxim is my private, individual, "subjective" reason is self-controlled, self-determined, self-legislating. It is autono­ for a choice. It is intelligible enough, but it is individual in being mous: the word means simply "self~legislating." contingent on my desires. A maxim is whatever subjective rea­ Such autonomy is what Kant calls Freedom. We have a free son articulate beings give themselves for acting. will; we can obey the command of duty because it is our inner­ Now the imperative says precisely that those private reasons most, supersensible self that issues it. must be regulated. It says that they must always be required to The idea of freedom and the will as a faculty of freedom are have the character of a law of Reason. They must not be merely discovered as necessarily implied by the fact of morality in the subjective but must be capable of being universalized. TheCate­ third and last section of the Foundations. Note that I am holding gorical Imperative commands only this: that every action should the great middle section in abeyance for the moment. be performed for a reason having the character of a law. It does What, then, is freedom? Negatively it is what is not nature-a not command this or that particular action. It does not even lay mystery, namely a non-natural causality, an invisible, supersensi­ down this or that specific law. It only requires lawfulness itself. ble source of change in the time- and space-bound sensible The first version of the moral law simply requires the will to act natural sequences and connections, the occasion of natural mo­ as a Will, namely in accordance with its character as Practical tions with supernatural significance. Reason. Positively, freedom is nothing but that very autonomy, that Let me right here forestall what seems to me to be a niggling, power of being a law unto itself, which characterizes the prac­ logic-chopping objection to this grand rule. It is said that anyone tical reason. What makes freedom possible is beyond all know­ can undercut its authority by so particularly specifying a maxim ing, but what makes the moral law possible-that is to say, what that the class of actions to which it applies contains only his own, makes it possible to obey the moral law-is freedom itself. The and its universalization is emptily guaranteed. For example, I fact that we have a faculty of freedom is the critical ground of can take the maxim that I, standing at precisely my co-ordinates the possibility of morality. The moral law is in need of such at precisely the present moment, may tell you lies. The universal­ grounding because, while a mere analysis of the concept of de­ ized version of this maxim will then say that anyone in my pre­ sires will inform us that we will follow them, nothing in the mere cise position may tell lies, there being, however, no one else in concept of a moral law tells us that we can obey it. It therefore that class. But of course, Kant intends no such craftiness. The needs a ground on which the command form "You ought!" is ef~ working import of his severe and noble rule is plain enough: fectively conjoined to the thing to be done. (Incidentally, Kant Never take the easy way; never make an exception of yourself! calls such a proposition in which terms are conjoined on grounds The illustrative cases he immediately furnishes make that per· other than their mere meaning a synthetic proposition, and fectly clear. when it is given from beyond experience, he calls it a synthetic a Another immediate criticism, derived precisely from a loose priori proposition.) reading of one of these cases, is a simple mistake. Kant says that Morality, therefore, demands freedom and freedom grounds a maxim may fail to be a fit rule of moral action for one of two morality. We can now collect all the chief terms of Kant's moral reasons. The first is because its universalization is self-contradic­ discourse: Freedom is the radical power of the Reason to become tory: If I lie, and so all may lie, speech itself, the instrument with practical, to determine itself as a Will, a supersensible cause of which I meant to deceive, is destroyed. The second is because natural events. The human being is a rational being that can, the universalization is clearly undesirable: If I will not aid others, however, appear to itself only as a part of nature. Therefore it ap­ they need not aid me. Now it has been argued from the latter ex­ prehends the rulings of its will as an "Ought," as a command to ample that Kant's morality is after all enmeshed in a calculus of do its duty in the face of the compelling mechanisms of its na­ convenience and desire. But the desire for help from others is ture. The injunction of its will is the moral law. not the reason why we ourselves must not adopt a maxim of That law, being laid down by reason for reason, must have the selfishness. The reason for rejecting that maxim follows from the form of rationality. It is therefore an imperative. Furthermore, it pure formalism of the Categorical Imperative: It is that we can­ must command an action in no way contingent on external cir­ not reasonably universalize such a maxim, whether we ourselves cumstance. It is therefore a categorical imperative. Finally, it will ever need help or not. must as a law of reason have the mark of universality, of covering Clearly, the major problem connected with this version of the all cases, and hence it must be unique. It is therefore the Cate­ imperative arises from the framing of maxims and the testing of gorical Imperative. universalizations. I shall return to it at the very end.

43 The College

Let me now go to the second version. It says: responsibility for his deeds from the individual. Accordingly literature, especially German literature, abounds in vividly "Act so as to treat humanity, whether in severe Kantian characters who perform their duty in the face of your own person or in that of another, their natural humanity; they are evidently drawn from life, always as an end and never as a means only." especially from the Prussian military and officialdom whose harsh virtues came from a Kantian training. It is almost unnecessary to remark that however repellently se­ Therefore, the most telling criticisms of Kant's moral philoso­ vere Kant's moral law may seem, this version at least goes phy have to be dredged up, it seems to me, from the substruc­ straight to our republican hearts. The reason is plain: It is clearly ture of the system itself. Although I must be very brief, I do want the rule which gives the moral basis of our own political disposi­ to run through some of those difficulties, because, as I men­ tion, our democratic way of life, which requires that we accord tioned in the beginning, this sort of critical rooting-about in a others the respect belonging to self-determined beings capable Of system is not the worst way to work one's way into it. Besides, making their own decisions for themselves, and that when we you have probably already formed suspicions of your own which use them, as Kant knows we sometimes must, we do not only use I might help you articulate. them. Indeed, in the afore-mentioned sequel to the critical in­ Clearly all the difficulties begin with Kant's idea of reason it­ quiry, the Metaphysics of Morals, justice, the principle which self as a law-giving function. (There are, of course, other concep­ binds human beings into a political system, is directly derived tions of the intellect, for instance as a receptive capability-such from this version: Justice is so dealing with others as to make my a conception precludes, to be sure, epistemological guarantees of freedom compatible with theirs. certainty.) Band in hand with the radical self-determination of For that is precisely what it means to regard others as ends in Kantian reason goes the pathological mechanism of the tem­ themselves. It means considering them not as things but as per­ poral consciousness, a sharp opposition of freedom and nature sons, not as the means to our happiness, but as, in their turn, in­ which disallows in principle the possibility of any object of desire dependent, ultimate law-givers, free beings whose will consults which is also good in itself, and so forestalls the very inquiry no end but its own. That is also precisely how Kant connects the which interests most of us above all. first and the second formula. And that is where trouble starts. Again bound up with the uncompromisingly mechanistic view For, to begin with, there is in the Kantian system no external of desire is Kant's repellent view of happiness as the unattainable appearance by which to recognize a fellow will in its interiority. satisfaction of all desires. Now that conception is belied by any One may only conjecture that some exemplar of the natural spe­ moment of real happiness we have ever had, not only by the fact cies homo sapiens is in fact a rational being. But let that deep that we have attained it, but also by its quality: fulfilled desire is problem of intersubjective recognition be. What is more immedi­ not what happiness feels like. Besides, in being quite discon­ ately to the point is this question: Why should I, and further, how nected from the performance of duty, such happiness is related could I, take another free being as an end? For that it is an end in to moral goodness only through the worthiness to be happy and itself cannot logically make it an end for me. Furthermore, its the cold comfort of that strange exception to the strict separa­ very worth lies in the performance of its duty even to the point tion of reason and the emotions which Kant has contrived, the of thwarting its own happiness; what sense does it make for me moral feeling of self-respect. (The guarantor, by the way, of an to meddle with its external well-being, which plays no part in its ultimate concurrence of moral worthiness and pathological hap­ self-sufficiency? (You may immediately be reminded of a prob­ piness, is a mere hypothesis, a god posited to serve just this func­ lem in political morality that is always with us, namely how to tion.) But some direct connection between acting well and living minister to the welfare of human beings while preserving their well seems to me to be both required and indicated by human self-determination.) The most appealing version of the Categori­ experience. Virtue is the realization of morality in a living dispo­ cal Imperative is also the most shaky in its systematic derivation. sition, and therefore the notion of Kantian virtue will display the Let me do no more than read the third version, because you quandary in the disconnection of morality from the good life. will see right away that it is nothing but the sum and substance, For, just as one might expect in view of the stern demands of plainly stated, of all that has gone before. Significantly it is not Kantian morality, human virtue is presented in its place, the even framed as an imperative, but simply as a condition, the con­ Metaphysics of Morals, as essentially fortitude, strength of dition that the will must harmonize with universal practical rea­ character acquired by rigorous ethical training. But what possi­ son, or as an idea, namely "the idea of the will of every rational ble role can such an acquired, habitual disposition of the phe­ being as making universal law." It is the ultimate formulation of nomenal consciousness play, when the Categorical Imperative Kant's Moral Law. requires precisely a radically rational response to every case? In­ I invite you to consider how remarkable it is that a principle so deed, one would think that there could be no direct, positive, formal, so empty of specific content, gives rise to so characteris­ persisting external structure of Kantian morality, no visible tic a morality. Indeed, all the criticisms accusing it of excessive and exemplary virtue-no such thing as the firmly and finely formalism or excessive flexibility seem to me misconstructions. moulded moral excellence of antiquity. The Kantian mah of Kantian morality issues in concrete kinds of conduct and defi­ duty does, to be sure, bear the strong stamp of his morality in his nitely predictable deeds: uncompromising adherence to princi­ respectability, but that is the consequence and not the source of ple; the exclusion of any sentimentality from the effort to do his deeds. The emphasis on the continuously radical agency of good; unwillingness to let circumstances, private or social, lift the will shapes moral life as a succession of knife's edge decisions

44 January, 1980 and of crucial moments in which our self-respect is forever in the ulty which structures appearance in its basic reality, do not de­ balance. It seems to me that there are such moral moments, termine particular occurrences, but only the general system of when all comfortable contexts, all decent habits, fail and our things and their relations, which is precisely what Kant calls na­ naked integrity is at stake. For such crises the Categorical Imper­ ture. That indeterminacy enables us, as knowers of nature, to ative is made, but not for the continuous stream of reasonable turn her to our own puTposes, to move mountains and manipu­ life which it seems to me that a moral science ought to shape. late people. Such acts of applied science are performed accord­ Instead of a conclusion let me end with a coda of a slightly ing to what Kant calls a technical or a hypothetical imperative, technical but also of a consolidating sort. Almost by the way, and which is the very contrary of a categorical imperative, since it al­ not counting it among the standard versions of the Categorical ways has the form: "If you desire such and such a result, do such Imperative, Kant offers the following formulation: and such because it is technically or prudentially appropriate:" If you would level a hill, lay a charge of dynamite; if you would win "Act as though the maxim of your actions a crowd, promise things. were by your will to become a law of nature." Such technical interferences with nature are certainly phe­ The formula appears in the Critique of Practical Reason with nomenal, in both senses-apparent and sometimes spectacular. much more emphasis under the title of "Typic of pure practical They appear because they are, after all, but the interaction of in­ judgment." It is essentially a rule of instruction for forming max­ ner psychic and outer physical nature; they are not deeds of prac­ ims, or rather for testing maxims to see if they can be made into tical reason. Moral action, on the other hand, is a true irruption universal laws. In sum, it is the founding rule for the-very of rational purpose into the course of natural events. It is a sec­ necessary-moral science ef maxim-making. For obviously to do ond law-giving which grafts upon nature a second, an invisible as I ought, I must, albeit incidentially, also know what to do; the order which is yet of the "type" of a natural law-a system of "So act" must have a content. So we see that although for Kant harmonious lawfulness. The act of nature-making which the virtue is not knowledge, yet the decisions of the practical reason understanding accomplishes automatically is to be consum­ are imbedded in the judgments of pure reason. We must know a mated by practical reason consciously. But the effects of the free criterion for deciding what maxims bear universalization. will can never be evident as such: however our moral purpose Such a criterion, the formula informs us, is to be derived from may re-route nature, what appears will still be the course of the science of nature. We must know nature's works, its interac­ nature. First and last, there can be no phenomenal morality. tions and reciprocities, its harmonies and balances well enough And yet there is at least a visible symbol of the possible unity to be able to make a speculative projection of our maxims, and to of the two law-givings. It is an appearance which stands for the imagine what the world would be like if the contemplated choice possible harmony of natural and moral lawfulness. Kant intro­ occurred inevitably, mechanically and universally, as a law of duces it in the last critique, the Critique of Judgment. It is the nature. What, for instance, would a world governed by a maxim beautiful. For beauty raises in us a pleasure, which is without de­ of selfishness look like, a world deterministically devoid ofbenev· sire, at the harmonious interplay of our free sensual imagination olence-a question which we require a certain experience of and the lawful nature produced by our understanding. Therefore nature to answer. Thus, as Kant had promised, there is a re­ a thing of beauty is analogous to a moral deed in which our free approachment of the science of nature and what he calls the will, without regard to inclination, must work in the world of "casuistry" of morality. And that was to be expected. determined nature. So, although beauty is only a symbol, it is yet For first, we ourselves are, through the structuring functions a source of hope for the possibility of effective obedience to of our understanding, the makers, and immediately also the Kant's Imperative and for its product: a morally informed knowers, of nature. Yet the rules of our understanding, the fac- nature.

45 Boyle, Galileo, and Manifest Experience

Martin Tamny

The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century is prop­ more amorphous view of it from the outset, though doubtless erly viewed as overturning the Aristotelian tradition which had the texts from which he imbibed the dominant view in his child­ dominated the thought of the West for nearly 500 years. But hood did represent some particular school or other. 1 In any case, there is disagreement as to what, precisely, is meant by Aristoteli­ we shall see that Boyle's characterization of Aristotelianism ap­ an ism. It was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, contain­ pears to have been largely derived from his reading of Galilee. ing a variety of schools, each with a large number of differing Galilee did, of course, create an Aristotelian, Simplicia, to argue tenets. We could, with some difficulty, find some doctrines that against. Simplicio is perhaps the sole Italian representative of the were shared by all these schools (e.g., the four qualities, five sub­ amorphous core of Aristotelianism he espouses in the Dialogue stances, four causes, etc.) and identify this core of doctrines as and the Discourse, but he is not on this account a straw man. He Aristotelianism, and I do think it is just this sort of thing that is represents a legitimate conflation of widely accepted Aristotelian generally meant when historians and philosophers speak of the views. What is more, he has an English brother in Robert Boyle's Aristotelianism that was overturned by the new science. But creation, Themistius. even this core Aristotelianism is complex, consisting of a large Simplicia first appeared in 1632, in Galilee's Dialogue Con­ number of claims. For this reason, accounts of the scientific cerning the Two Chief World Systems. Themistius, a younger revolution differ widely in which claims they center on. And brother, first appeared in 1665, in Boyle's New Experiments and these differences, in turn, affect our understanding of the re­ Observations touching Cold or an Experimental History of Cold maining claims. Begun. Themistius seems clearly to be modelled after Simplicio, Differences about the core of Aristotelianism, however, are and shares with him the same basic v'ie'w of Aristotelianism. not limited to those who write about the history of the scientific What I wish to do is, first, to identify one feature of this core revolution. They were also problematic for the very people who Aristotelianism, a feature that I will refer to as the "Doctrine of overthrew Aristotelianism and brought about the triumph of the Manifest Experience" and the associated method of "Ocular new science. Many of them, indeed, were self-conscious revolu­ Demonstration," and then, to examine how both Galilee· and tionaries, and wrote a variety of polemics against Aristotelianism. Boyle understood this doctrine and how it influenced not only Two of the most articulate of these polemicists were Galilee and their attack on Aristotelianism but also their conception of the Boyle. new science. Living in Italy, Galilee was familiar from his childhood with When we look back at Aristotelianism we don't think of it as nUmerous schools of Aristotelian thought, from the relative being characterized by the appeal to experience. Aristotle, of spirituality of Averroism to the stricter materialism of Alex­ course, did use sense experience as the foundation of his scien­ andrism. Yet, when he launched his polemics on Aristotelianism tific methodology in that one begins with sense experience and it was not a particular school he attacked, but rather that amor­ moves "upward" to more and more general statements until one phous core of Aristotelianism-the doctrines held in common by reaches the most general statements that characterize that a wide variety of thinkers. science. But when we wish to draw the lines of demarcation In England Boyle was almost certainly less familiar with the between Aristotle's own thought, on the one hand, and Aristo· numerous schools of Aristotelianism and thus, perhaps, had a telianism, on the other, we usually do so on the issue of the rele­ vance of sense experience to knowledge. The Aristotelians, believing that Aristotle had discovered the most general truths, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The City College of The City Uni­ versity of New York, Martin Tamny is at present preparing (with J. K no longer bothered to test the tenets of their thought against ex­ McGuire) an edition of one of Isaac Newton's early notebooks, Quaes· perience. This approach to Aristotelianism is quite correct as far tiones quedam philosophiae. as it goes but it ignores one important point. The Aristotelian

46 January, 1980 picture of the world is remarkably consistent with ordinary ex­ should manifestly, as I have seen it, smoke, as if it had perience. One might even say it has a kind of common sense ap­ been but lately taken off the fire. And this may be said, peal which is lacking in Newtonian mechanics, for example. It without a metaphor, to demonstrate ad oculum the was precisely this aspect of Aristotelianism that made it so perva­ reality of Antiperistasis ... 6 sive for so long. We, of course, find it difficult to recover for ourselves that feeling of plausibility, since we have grown so ac­ These references to sense experience introduce an interesting customed to regard Aristotelianism as wrong. problem. It is commonly thought that the scientific revolution Thus, although the Aristotelians were convinced that their introduced sense experience as the arbiter of the acceptability of basic doctrines had the force of necessity, they nevertheless sup­ scientific claims. But this is an oversimplification. The Aristotel­ ported them when under attack by referring to their common ians of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. were viewed by sense consistency with experience. These references were to our revolutionaries as supporting their false claims with sense ex­ what they termed "manifest experience," and they believed that perience. What Galileo and Boyle show us is that it is not by these references they had offered an "ocular demonstration'' experience that is the arbiter of truth but experience properly of certain of the truths of Aristotelianism. interpreted.7 The Aristotelians' appeal to sense experience as Both Simplicia and Themistius are presented as making such such is not to be attacked, but rather their notion that such expe­ appeals to manifest experience. Which shows that both Galilee rience is ever manifest, evident, or obvious. and Boyle saw such appeals as part of core Aristotelianism. Both Galileo and Boyle attack this concept of manifest experi­ From early in the first day of the Dialogue Concerning the Two ence by having Simplicia and Themistius support an Aristotelian Chief World Systems Simplicia continually opposes Salviati's doctrine by reference to manifest experience and then under­ Copernicanism with references to experience. mining that support not by contesting the sense experience itself, but by showing that the same sense experience is consis­ SIMP .... He [Aristotle] held in his philosophizing that tent with the denial of the Aristotelian doctrine in question. sensible experiments were to be preferred above any Two examples show this kind of attack on manifest experi­ argument built by human ingenuity, and he said that ence: Galilee's demonstration that sense experience is not incon­ those who would contradict the evidence of any sense sistent with the doctrine of a moving earth; Boyle's demonstra­ deserved to be punished by the loss of that sense.2 tion that sense experience is not inconsistent with the denial of antiperistasis. I think that a comparison of the two arguments And again, after Salviati has called several Aristotelian principles and their respective participants will reveal that it is very nearly into question, certain that Boyle's dialogue is a product of his reading of Galileo's Dialogue in the sense that both the characters and the SIMP. There is no doubt whatever that since you wish issue of manifest experience as well as the arguments used are to deny ·not only the principles of the sciences, but borrowed with little change from Galileo. manifest experience and the very senses themselves, Galileo's Dialogue contains three characters. In addition to you can never be convinced, nor relieved from any pre­ Simplicia, the Aristotelian, there are Salviati, the Copernican, conceived opinion.3 and Sagredo, the intelligent, uncommitted layman, who listens to both views and is moved only by the truth. In the same way Themistius supports the Aristotelian doctrine In The Second Day Salviati and Simplicia construct an argu· of antiperistasis4 by affirming it on the basis of manifest ment for the non-rotation of the earth. If a stone is dropped from experience. the ceiling within a high tower and it is observed that the stone does not hit against the walls but falls parallel to them, then the THEM. As for Antiperistasis, the truth of it is a thing so earth does not rotate. For if the earth rotated the stone could not conspicuous, and so generally acknowledged, that I fall perpendicularly. The argument can be reformulated as cannot imagine what should make some men deny it, follows: except it be, that they find all others to confess it. For though in other cases they are wont to pretend ex­ A. If the earth rotates, the body cannot fall perpen­ perience for their quitting the received opinions, yet dicularly. here they quit experience itself for singularity, and B. But the body does fall perpendicularly. chuse rather to depart from the testimony of their therefore, senses, than not to depart from the generality of men. 5 C. The earth does not rotate.8

And continuing a page later, Themistius says, Salviati, after getting Simplicia to accept this argument, then argues that it is really a paralogism. The minor premise (B) pre­ And as if nature designed men should not be able to supposes the conclusion in the sense that what we see (the stone contradict the doctrine of Antiperistasis, without con­ not hitting the walls of the tower) is an indication that the stone tradicting more than one of their own senses, she has falls perpendicularly only if we assume that the tower (and thus taken care, that often times the water, that is freshly the earth) is not moving. And, since this is the conclusion that is drawn out of the deeper sorts of wells and springs, claimed to follow from the premises, the argument is flawed by a

47 The College

petitio principi. We do not ''see'' the stone fall perpendicularly to ing stone is consistent with the Copernican view and there is the earth. All we see is that the stone fails to hit the walls of the neither manifest experience nor ocular demonstration. Before tower. we go on to look at our example from Boyle, let us look at Not content to show that the simple-minded Simplicia can another way that Galileo has approached this problem and misinterpret experience without his realizing that he is inter­ which has misled some scholars into thinking him a believer in preting anything at all, Galilee goes on to show that even quick­ the Platonic theory of anamnesis.12 witted Sagredo can make the same mistake, in a more sophisti­ Seeking to convince Simplicia that the earth reflects more cated way. light than the moon, Salviati claims, "What you think is a cause making the earth unfit for illuminations, Simplicia, is really not SAGR. As to the simple movement toward the center, one at all. Would it not be interesting if I should see into your depending on gravity, I think that one may believe ab­ reasoning better than yourself?" 13 solutely without error that it is a straight line, exactly as Salviati begins by asking a question about Simplicia's ex­ it would be if the earth were immovable. perience, viz., "Tell me, when the moon is nearly full, so that it SALV. As to this part one may not only believe it, but can be seen by day and also in the middle of the night, does it ap­ experience renders it certain. pear more brilliant in the daytime or at night?"14 Simplicia SA GR. But how does experience assure us of this if we answers, "Incomparably more at night."15 And describes how he never do see any motion except that which is composed has seen the moon in the day among the clouds and no brighter of the two, circular and downward? than them. Then Salviati asks a question concerning the inter­ SALV. Rather, Sagredo, we never see anything but the pretation of the experiences described by Simplicia, "Do you simple downward one, since this other circular one, believe that the moon is really brighter at night than by day, or common to the earth, the tower, and ourselves, re­ just that by some accident it looks that way?" 16 Simplicia mains imperceptible and as if nonexistent. Only that of answers that it shines in the day the same as in the night and that the stone, not shared by us, remains perceptible; and of it is in comparison with the dark night sky that it seems brighter this our senses show that it is along a straight line at night. Salviati then points out to Simplicia that we never see always parallel to a tower which is built upright and per­ the earth lighted in the night, i.e., we have had no experience to pendicular on the surface of the earth.9 refute the claim that the earth shines more brightly than the moon. If knowledge is to rest on experience, we must compare Simplicia did not see motion perpendicular to the earth but the experiences of earth and moon we have had, which is to say Sagredo did, while Simplicia thought that he did and Sagredo as seen in the daytime when both are illuminated. But Simplicia thought that he did not. But this apparent paradox is removed by has already reported his experience of the white clouds around recalling that Simplicia began by assuming the earth did not the daytime moon shining as brightly as the moon itself, and move while Sagredo assumed that it did. In short, the difference Salviati adds, in Salviati's (Galilee's) description of their respective experiences depends upon their different presuppositions. Once again the More so, if you will recall in memory having seen some point is that the experience is not manifest; it is dependent upon very large clouds at times, white as snow .... If we were the correct interpretation. sure, then, that the earth is as much lighted by the sun In order finally to drive home this point, Galilee presents the as one of these clouds, no question would remain about bewildered Simplicia saying, its being no less brilliant than the moon. 17

But, good heavens, if it moves slantingly, why do I see it Sagredo then ca~ls Simp1icio's attention to the fact that the move straight and perpendicular? This is a bald denial moon has risen and its brightness is less than the third reflection of manifest sense; and if the senses ought not to be of the Sun's light upon a wall within a room. Salviati then makes believed, by what other portal shall we enter into the following Platonic sounding statement: philosophizing? 10 If you are satisfied now, Simplicia, you can see how you It is indeed a denial of "manifest sense" but not in the way yourself really knew that the earth shone no less than that Simplicia means. Galilee simply has Salviati state the inter­ the moon, and that not my instruction but merely the pretation of the experience which makes it relevant to the recollection of certain things already known to you philosophical point at issue. have made you sure of it. For I have not shown you that the moon shines more brilliantly by night than by day; With respect to the earth, the tower, and ourselves, all you already knew it, as you also knew that a little cloud of which all keep moving with the diurnal motion along is brighter than the moon. Likewise you knew that the with the stone, the diurnal movement is as if it did not illumination of the earth is not seen at night, and in exist; it remains insensible, imperceptible, and without short you knew everything in question without being 11 any effect whatever." aware that you knew it. 18

In this way Galilee has shown that our experience of the fall- This is not Platonism, but a parody of it. All the things already

48 January, 1980 known by Simplicia are matters of comicaHy simple ex­ declarations, which nature makes of her own accord, perience-that the moon appears brighter at night than during and not as Confessions extorted from her by artificial the day, that a little cloud appears as lucid as the moon in the day and compulsory experiments, when being tortured by sky, and that the earth (the part we see of it) is not illuminated at instruments and engines, as upon so many racks, she is night-not matters of rational principle as in Plato's Meno. What forced to seem to confess whatever the tormentors Galilee is showing us is that these experiences are not, by please. 19 themselves, sufficient to give us this knowledge; what we need is not more experience, but a way of "looking" at the experiences This statement comes as close as any to Boyle's definition of we have already had. Galilee parodies the notion that Simplicia manifest experience, and provides a hint on how we are to over­ already knew that the earth shines more brightly than the moon, come the errors of manifest experience, for the very method that but is quite serious in believing that he could have known it Themistius rejects, Carneades accepts. earlier if he had interpreted his experience correctly. This, then, Eleutherius casts doubt on the significance of the claim that is an answer to Simplicia's earlier statements that Salviati is argu­ well water feels warm when freshly drawn in winter on the ing contrary to manifest experience. grounds that the same water that feels warm to a cold hand will Experience is not a simple notion. For it involves both percep­ feel cold to a warm hand. He says, tion and interpretive judgment. The problem is that these judgments a,re often "transparent" and made without our For I frankly confess to you, that when I consider what awareness. We must become aware and somehow make only cor­ interest the unheeded dispositions of our own bodies rect interpretations. Therefore, after we have looked at Boyle's may have in the estimates we make of the degree of similar arguments against manifest experience we must return to cold and heat in other bodies, I should not lay much the question of how we are to precede so that our interpretations weight upon the phaenomena, that are wont to be will be correct. urged as proofs of Antiperistasis ... 20 The dialogue section of Boyle's History of Cold is titled, "An Examen of Antiperistasis as it is wont to be Taught and Proved." I call your attention to the term "unheeded" in the foregoing, There are three interlocutors: Themistius, an upholder of an­ for it characterizes both Boyle's and Galilee's attitude toward tiperistasis and spokesman for the schools; Carneades, a natural manifest experience. They don't deny the experiences, only the philosopher of the modern school, who does not reject an­ naive claims made on the basis of them. The claims are naive tiperistasis outright, but shows that there are no arguments that because they fail to heed various critical factors. establish its truth; and, Eleutherius, a quick-witted philosopher, When Carneades joins the discussion he claims not to be at­ who neutrally listens to both sides and is convinced by tacking the doctrine of antiperistasis but rather the grounds Carneades. In short, Themistius is Simplicia, Carneades is upon which it is maintained, or as he puts it, "I have not been Salviati, and Eleutherius is Sagredo. wont to deny an Antiperistasis, as it may be, but only as it was The doctrine of antiperistasis as applied here consists of the wont to be, explicated."21 Carneades deals quickly with claim that naturally hot bodies will become hotter when sur­ Themistius's arguments from reason and turns to the arguments rounded by cold bodies in order to preserve their heat against the from experien~e, of which he says, onslaught of cold; while naturally cold bodies, on the other hand, will become colder when surrounded by hot bodies in order to I might represent, that of those examples, some are preserve their coldness. false, others doubtful; and those, that are neither of Themistius begins with the attack on doubters of antiperistasis these two, are insufficient, or capable of being other­ quoted above; he asserts that they doubt the evidence of their wise explicated, without the help of your hypothesis-" senses merely to be different-to depart from the established view. He claims that he has conclusive arguments for an­ Our interest here is not in those experiences that Carneades tiperistasis derived first, from authority (viz., Aristotle); second, says are false or doubtful, for they could not be called manifest from reason; and third, from experience. Themistius decides to experiences. Rather, we are concerned only with those he says forego the arguments from authority, because he feels that it was are true and certain, btit can be "otherwise explicated," than by precisely the revolt against authority that led his adversaries to recourse to antiperistasis. deny antiperistasis. For example, Carneades accepts Eleutherius's contention that His arguments from experience are simply the recounting of water freshly drawn from a well in winter will seem to be warm various "manifest experiences" such as the steaming of water because the observer's hand is cold. He goes on, however, to use when drawn from a well in winter, the warmth of such water to this to explain the supposed coldness of cellars in summer. He the hand, the coolness of cellars in summer and their warmth in says, winter. Concerning these experienced phenomena, Themistius In summer our bodies having for many days, if not asserts, some weeks, or perhaps months, been constantly envi­ roned with ~n air, which, at that season of the year, is These phaenomena ought the more to be acquiesced much hotter than it is wont to be in winter, ... our in, because they may safely be looked upon as genuine senses may easily impose upon us, and we may be

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much- mistaken, by concluding upon their testimony, telling than the differences, especially in light of the accepted that the subterraneal air we then find so cool, is really fact that Boyle read the dialogues of Galileo in both Italian and colder than it was in winter ... as they that come out of Latin. Thomas Birch writes in his biography of Boyle, with hot baths think the air of the adjoining rooms very fresh which he prefaces his standard edition of Boyle's Works in 1744, and cool. .. 23 that "The rest of his spare hours he [Boyle] spent in reading the modern history in Italian, and the new paradoxes of the great A similar argument is offered for the supposed warmth of cellar~ star-gazer Galileo, whose ingenious books .. were confuted by a in winter. decree from Rome."26 Although I contend that Boyle was strongly influenced by The testimony of our senses ... may in this case easily Galilee's arguments against core Aristotelianism, I do not mean and much delude us. For those places being sheltered to claim that their attack on manifest experience was unique. from the winds, and kept from a free communication The philosophic and scientific thought of the sixteenth and with the outward air, are much less exposed than early seventeenth century was much influenced by the publica­ others to the action of those agents, whatever they be, tion in 1562 and 1569 of the works of Sextus Empiricus and the that produce cold in the air. So that our bodies being rediscovered Pyrrhonian scepticism that emerged from them.27 constantly immersed in the air refrigerated by the Pyrrhonian scepticism, both the ancient variety and that of winter, and consequently brought nearer to the temper the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, can be characterized as of that air, when we bring those bodies into cellars, the the belief that both those who claim that absolute' knowledge is subterraneal air must seem warm to us, though in itself obtainable and those who claim that no knowledge is obtainable it were unvaried as to its temper.24 have weak arguments for their positions and that one should sus­ pend judgment on all matters where conflicting evidence can be Among the manifest experiences that were to prove anti­ evinced, including the issue of whether or not knowledge is peristasis there remains only the steaming water drawn from possible. Reason and sense experience are both attacked as wells in winter. This last argument from experience is answered faulty grounds upon which to base knowledge claims. by Carneades as follows: Nearly all of the figures of the early scientific revolution were familiar with the new Pyrrhonism;28 it presented them with both The smoking of waters drawn from deep places in frosty an opportunity and a problem. On the one hand, the sceptical weather ... does not necessarily conclude such water to arguments helped to undermine the prevailing Aristotehanism, be warmer in winter, since that effect may proceed not including its claim of ocular demonstration by manifest experi­ from the greater warmth of the water in such weather, ence. On the other hand, it seemed also to undermine all possi­ but from the greater coldness of the air. For we may ble alternatives to the Aristotelian views. Yet both Galileo and take notice, that a man's breath in summer, or in mild Boyle clearly believed that their own views were safe from scep­ winter weather, becomes very visible, the cold ambient tical arguments. air nimbly condensing the fulginous steams, which are This strange mixture of scepticism and optimism was not, discharged by the lungs, and which in warmer weather however, unique to Boyle and Galileo. It had a tradition going are readily diffused in imperceptible particles through back tO Erasmus, Montaigne, Charron, and others, but reached a the air.2 5 peak in joseph Glanvill's The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), a book which is almost a caricature of the seventeenth century's In the foregoing the notions of ocular demonstration and form of this "doctrine." manifest experience are clearly as much at stake as antiperistasis. Glanvill writes at one place that, "to say, the principles .of And here, as in Galileo' s Dialogue, the attack is not on the visual Nature must needs be such as our Philosophy makes them, is to or tactile "facts" but on their interpretation. Carneades does not set bounds to Omnipotence, and to confine infinite power and deny that the phenomena described by Themistius occur but wisdom to our shallow models. "29 And at another, "The last Ages shows, instead, that they can be explained without reference to have shewn us what Antiquity never saw; no, not in a Dream."30 antiperistasis. Glanvill's scepticism, which was rooted in Pyrrhonism, led The similarities between Boyle's dialogue and that of Galileo him to distrust the senses. He writes, for example, should be clear from what has been said. There is a strong similarity between the characters of the two dialogues, as well as It is conceiv' d to be as certain, as our faculties can make a concern with the same issues. On the other hand there is a it, that the same qualities, which we resent [represent] naturalness in Galilee's dialogue that is absent from the within us, are in the object, their Source. And yet this awkwardness of Boyle's style. Further, whereas there are argu­ confidence is grounded on no better foundation, then a ments against antiperistasis itself in Boyle's dialogue, there are delusary prejudice, and the vote of misapplyed sensa­ no experimental arguments for Copernicanism in Galileo's. But tions.31 this is in the nature of the case, since there existed readily ac­ cessible evidence against antiperistasis and none for the motion Yet he believed that there existed, at least in principle, an an­ of the earth (the coriolis effect and foucault pendulum were not tidote against these errors of "misapplyed sensation." This belief discovered until some time later). Thus the similarities are more becomes clear in his extremely interesting notion of Adam as

50 January, 1980

observer. mechanical causes produce in him. God simply knows how he Glanvill presents Adam before the fall' as an ideal observer. made the world. Since Adam originally had all the perfections of which man is We can now return to the questions we previously raised. Why capable he had no need for all the devices we use to improve our do Galileo and Boyle believe we can make correct interpreta­ senses. tions of experience? What methods can we use to recapture that critical power of Adam? Adam needed no Spectacles. The acuteness of his Here we shall find a fundamental difference between Galilee natural Opticks (if conjecture may have credit) shew' d and Boyle. For the mathematically minded Galileo, the method him much of the Coelestial magnificence and bravery that guarantees correct interpretation is a quantitative one­ without a Galileo's tube: And 'tis most probable that analysis and synthesis (or something much like it). For the non­ his naked eyes could reach near as much of the upper mathematically minded Boyle, it was a non-quantitative no­ World, as we with all the advantages of art. ... and 'tis tion-experiment, the rack on which the truths of nature would not unlikely that he had as clear a perception of the be extracted. The methods are not inconsistent, of course, since earth's motion, as we think we have of its quiesence. experiment can use quantitative methods and Boyle crudely did Thus the accuracy of his knowledge of natural ef­ so from time to time. fects, might probably arise from his sensible perception To the question, "How is one to go about interpreting experi­ of their causes .... And whereas we patch up a piece of ence?" Galileo's rather broad answer is the method set forth by Philosophy from a few industriously gather' d, and yet Aristotle himself-not that of the Aristotelians of the sixteenth scarce well observ' d or digested experiments, his century. Galileo clearly distinguished between Aristotle and the knowledge was completely built upon the certain, ex· Aristotelians and emphasized the difference over and over again; temporary notice of his comprehensive, unerring he asserts that had Aristotle looked through a telescope he would faculties. 32 have become a Copernican. 34 In the Dialogue, Galileo has Simplicio assert, All of which makes it sound as if there is a manifest experi­ ence-albeit not manifest to us-which allows for immediate Aristotle first laid the basis of his argument a priori, knowledge of causes. Yet such a conclusion does not really do showing the necessity of the inalterability of heaven by justice to Glanvill's position. In the Preface to The Vanity Glan­ means of natural, evident, and clear principles. He vill deals with some possible objections he fears may be raised afterward supported the same a posteriori, by the senses regarding the perfection of Adam's senses. and by the traditions of the ancients.35

Granting Adam's eye had no greater Diametrical To which, Salviati responds, wideness of the pupil, no greater distance from the Cor­ nea to the Retiformis, and no more filaments of the Op­ What you refer to is the method he uses in writing his tick nen~es of which the tunica Retina is woven, than doctrine, but I do not believe it to be that with which we: the unmeasurable odds of Sensitive perfections he investigated it. Rather, I think it certain that he first which I assign him; will be conceiv' d mechanically obtained ft by means of the senses, experiments, and impossible.33 observations, to assure himself as much as possible of his conclusions. Afterward he sought means to make Glanvill attempts to get round these objections by arguing that them demonstrable. That is what is done for the most although the image on Adam's retina was the same as that on part in the demonstrative sciences; this comes about ours his critical faculties were so much better that he saw as because when the conclusion is true, one may by mak­ through a telescope or microscope. But if the perfection of ing use of resolutive methods hit upon some proposi­ Adam's sensibility was a product of his critical faculties, then it is tion which is already demonstrated, or arrive at some clear that we are no longer dealing with manifest experience but axiomatic principle; but if the conclusion is false, one with the interpretation of sensations. can go on forever without ever finding any known It would, however, be a mistake to take Glanvill's Adam too truth-if inde~d one does not encounter some impossi­ literally. His function is not that of a piece of history, but as an bility or manifest absurdity. And you may be sure that ideal against which man's shortcomings are to be measured. The Pythagoras, long before he discovered the proof for quality being measured is not excellence of vision but the ability which he sacrificed a hecatomb, was sure that the to acquire knowledge of the world through what Glanvill takes as square on the side opposite the right angle in a right tri­ the only possible method, namely, empirical science. As an ideal angle was equal to the squares on the other two sides. observer, Adam is capable of knowing all that man might know The certainty of a conclusion assists not a little in the were it not for his imperfections. discovery of its proof ... 36 Why Adam, rather than God, as the model of perfection? Because Adam, unlike God whose omniscience is uncondi­ The last sentence in Salviati's statement makes it appear that tioned, obtains knowledge through sensation. Adam knows the Galileo has merged the physical and the mathematical in a way cause of gravity and magnetism through the sensations that tl:1at is not typical of Aristotle. It also seems to assert that Pythag-

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oras was a follower of Aristotle's methods, which is either a sim· perfect is logically independent from the abstract and im­ pie mistake or a profound insight. We shall assume the latter. material. It may be the case that there are no perfect spheres, but The method here ascribed to Aristotle is that of resolution and it is not a necessary truth that there are none. What keeps a composition-a method which moves from sensory experience material object from being a perfect sphere is not its material na­ of particulars to general principles and then explains those par· ture but certain ''accidents" whose effects might (depending on ticulars by deducing them from the principles.37 There existed in the particular case) be discounted. Salviati says, mathematics a structurally similar method known as the method of analysis and synthesis, but it is quite clear that Aristotle, at I tell you that even in the abstract, an immaterial least, saw these methods as distinct. 38 What we will try to show is sphere which is not a perfect sphere can touch an im­ that Galilee conceived of himself as having combined the two material plane which is not perfectly flat in not one methods and having thereby created a notion of a mathematical point, but over a part of its surface, so that what hap­ physics. pens in the concrete up to this point happens the same The Dialogue makes it quite dear that it is a mathematical way in the abstract. It would be novel indeed if com­ method that allows us to go beyond Aristotle in both the inter­ putations and ratios made in abstract numbers should pretation of our experience and in the ability to acquire demon­ not thereafter correspond to concrete gold and silver strative knowledge. Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics" that coins and merchandise. Do you know what does hap­ one should not always expect necessity of the mathematical sort pen, Simplicia? Just as the computer who wants his cal­ in dealing with nature is reiterated by Simplicia and then iron­ culations to deal with sugar, silk, and wool must dis­ ically echoed by Sagredo.40 But the Dialogue as a whole refutes count the boxes, bales, and other packings, so the this view. mathematical scientist (filosofo geometra), when he Galilee's belief in the central role of mathematics in the cor­ wants to recognize in the concrete the effects which he rect interpretation of experience is also made evident through has proved in the abstract, must deduct the material the irony of Sagredo who, in criticizing Chiaramonti, says, hindrances, and if he is able to do so, I assure you that things are in no less agreement than arithmetical com­ Now if, from the observations mentioned and from all putations. The errors, then, lie not in the abstractness the calculations made on these, the height of the star or concreteness, not in geometry or physics, but in a can always be inferred to have been less than that of calculator who does not know how to make a true ac­ the moon, this would suffice the author to convict of counting. Hence if you had a perfect sphere and a the crassest ignorance all those astronomers who, perfect plane, even though they were material, you whether they erred in geometry or in arithmetic, could would have no doubt that they touched in one point.45 not deduce the true conclusions from their own obser­ vations.41 Galilee's point here is that when we consider the net weight of the sugar in a bag we are not dealing with abstract or immaterial The application of Aristotle's method of resolution to our sugar~not even an abstract or immaterial bag of sugar. The physical sensations resulted in natural laws or principles. But the analogy we are supposed to draw is that when we are considering method of analysis, on the other hand, resulted in mathematical a frictionless inclined plane we are not considering an abstract or statements. Such statements could never serve as explanations immaterial inclined plane. Thus mathematics, though of the of our physical sensations, inasmuch as, according to Aristotle, perfect, is applicable to the material world, suitably considered, mathematics lacked any force regarding efficient and material and not only the abstract and the immaterial After having causes. Mathematics was not of the physical or material but of shown in this way that the perfect-imperfect distinction cuts the abstract. To use Aristotle's favorite example, the results of across the material-immaterial distinction, Galilee has Sagredo resolution are to those of analysis as "snub" is to "curved."42 and Simplicia push the point by claiming that any material ob­ What Galileo does in the Dialogue is to attack this difference at ject has the shape that it has, perfectly. its root. The mathematical method is, then, a way of obtaining certain He shows Salviati and Simplicia discussing the applicability of knowledge of the material world. Galileo tempers his oPtimism, mathematics to the material world. Salviati has just completed a however, not by denying the certainty of our knowledge but by demonstration of the fact that a sphere touches a plane in a restricting its range. His optimism concerning human under­ single point and Simplicia responds by saying, "This proves it for standing is put over against the view that man knows practically abstract spheres, but not material ones."43 Salviati asks that an nothing (which he identifies with Socrates and the oracle). Gali­ argument be given why what holds "for immaterial and abstract lee marks a difference between intensive understanding and ex­ ones" should not hold for material spheres. Simplicia identifies tensive understanding. The few things that man can know he the immaterial and abstract sphere with the perfect, and the ma­ can know perfectly, but compared to the number of things that terial with the imperfect, saying, "doubtless it is the imperfec­ are to be known he knows little. Referring to mathematics, he tion of matter which prevents things taken concretely from cor­ has Salviati say, responding to those considered in the abstract."44 It is thus being maintained by Simplicia that the immaterial, abstract and Such are the mathematical sciences alone; that is, ge­ perfect are logically identical. Salviati, however, argues that the ometry and arithmetic, in which the Divine intellect in-

52 January, 1980

deed knows infinitely more propositions, since it knows of nature, that clearly and particularly prove their hy­ all But with regard to those few which the human in­ pothesis, but from their notion of a body ... seems to tellect does understand, I believe that its knowledge make the controversy about a vacuum rather a meta­ equals the Divine in objective certainty, for here it suc­ physical, than a physiological question .... 48 ceeds in understanding necessity, beyond which there can be no greater sureness.46 The means presented by Galileo and Boyle as solutions to the problem of the interpretation of experience-the conflation of Boyle's solution to the problem of how to correctly interpret mathematical and physical methods of discovery and proof, and experience was experimentation. This can be seen first in the method of controlled experimentation-are surely the most

Themistius' very definition of manifest experience as what important methods of contemporary science. They are not1 ·how­ nature freely gives of herself in perception over against what can ever, the answers to Pyrrhonian scepticism that Galileo and be tortured out of her by experiment. But this constitutes evi­ Boyle thought them to be. The answer to scepticism lies not in dence for experiment as the method only on the grounds that the search for certainty, but in the recognition that today's what Themistius the Aristotelian rejects, Boyle, the new scien­ claims may be refuted by tomorrow's considered experience. If tist, accepts. More positive evidence is to be found in Boyle's this itself sounds like scepticism it is because we have accepted postscript to the dialogue, which is titled, "A Sceptical Consid­ so many of the sceptic's premises. The truth is that our consid­ eration of the heat of Cellars in winter, and their coldness in ered experieJ:)ces can be trusted over the long run, for it is experi­ Summer," in which he writes, ence itself that reveals our past errors. These errors, once revealed, refine our consideration of future experience and we The foregoing discourses of Carneades seem to have move toward the truth. In so far as Galileo and Boyle thought of sufficiently shaken the foundation of the vulgar doc­ their methods as yielding certain truths, irrefutable by any future trine of Antiperistasis, so far forth as it is superstructed experience, their position was as assailable as that of the Aris­ upon the vulgar observations and phenomena, whereon totelians they attacked. men are wont to build it. . . for as to the obvious phe­ nomena, that nature does, as it were, of her own accord present us, they seem to have been perfunctorily con­ I. Boyle was educated at Eton (only two years), and in Switzerland by a sidered, and our senses only being the judges of them, citizen of Geneva named Marcombes who seems to have been a rather remarkable educator. It was under his tutelage that Boyle was intro­ we may easily, as Carneades argues, be imposed upon duced to Aristotle. by the unheeded predispositions of our organs. And as 2. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, for contrived and artificial experiments, there scarce 2nd edition. Edited and translated by Stillman Drake, Berkeley, 1967, seem to have been any made to clear the difficul­ 32. ties ... 47 3. Galileo, Dialogue, 34. I have replaced Drake's words "palpable experi­ ence" with the more literal "manifest experience" for Galileo's words "esperienze manifeste." Boyle is generally optimistic about the ability of science to dis­ 4. The doctrine holds that resistances or reactions are roused in a body cover truth. This optimism seems grounded in his belief that we against actions, and that this fact can be used to explain various kinds of can overcome the mistakes of mere observation through experi­ change, including projectile motion and the behavior of hot and cold bodies. mentation. Boyle qualifies observation with the term "vulgar" 5. Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Thomas which is not meant to tell us how the observations are carried Birch, vol. 2: New Experiments and Observations Touching Cold or an out but rather to point to the fact that they are, by their very Experimental History of Cold Begun, London, 1772, 659. nature, uncontrolled. But experiments, because they are 6. Boyle, History of Cold, 660-661. controlled, will somehow free us from the errors of "manifest 7. The emphasis given to interpretation is not unique to Boyle and Galileo. It is, in fact, one of the cornerstones of Baconianism. Galileo experience." Boyle is not, of course, telling us to shun mere ob­ and Boyle, however, present us with the opportunity to see how working servation when nothing else is possible, but rather to use experi­ scientists view the role of interpretation. ment whenever possible. The problems of perception to which 8. Santillana reformulates the argument in essentially the same way in Boyle draws our attention are not, then, meant to dissuade us Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Great World Systems, Introduction and revisions by Giorgio de Santillana, Chicago, 1953, 154. from the enterprise of science; on the contrary, they are meant 9. Galileo, Dialogue, 163. to point the way. What is called for is not mere observation but 10. Galileo, Dialogue, 171. wary experimentation. Scepticism regarding our sense experi­ ll. Galileo, Dialogue, 171. ence becomes a method for Boyle. 12. See, for example, Alexandre Koyre, Metaphysics and Measure. This view of method leads Boyle to reject investigations into ment, London, 1968, 42-3. 13. Galileo, Dialogue, 87. metaphysical problems as a proper part of science, or physiology, 14. Galileo, Dialogue, 87. as he calls it. Indeed, he appears to have defined the metaphys­ 15. Galileo, Dialogue, 87. ical as that which lies beyond the reach of experimentation. In 16. Galileo, Dialogue, 88. The Spring of the Air, he writes, 17. Galileo, Dialogue, 89. 18. Galileo, Dialogue, 89-90. 19. Boyle, History of Cold, 660. And the reason why there cannot be a void, being by 20. Boyle, History of Cold, 661. them taken, not from any experiments, or phenomena 21. Boyle, History of Cold, 662.

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22. Boyle, History of Cold, 664. more properly corresponds to the analytical method of mathematics 23. Boyle, History of Cold, 670. than it does to the resolutive method of Aristotle. However, one could 24. Boyle, History of Cold, 671. argue the other way since Galileo clearly attributes the method of which 25. Boyle, History of Cold, 676. he is writing to Aristotle. It is my opinion that Galileo was quite con­ 26. Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. sciously conflating the two methods here and was surely aware of the Thomas Birch, vol. 1: The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle, London, fact that they were commonly distinguished, therefore I will take 1772, xxiv. Galileo at his word. 27. The rise and influence of the rediscovered Pyrrhonian scepticism 37. The method of resolution and composition has its origin in Aris­ that emerged has been chronicled and masterfully dealt with in Richard totle's Posterior Analytics. The Italian Aristotelians claimed that they H. Popkin's The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, New derived the terms "resolutio" and "compositio" from Galen, Cicero, and Ymk, 1968. Boethius. But the Arabic commentator on Galen, Hali ('Ali ibn 28. It is possible that Galileo was not directly aware of Pynhonism and Ridwan), writing about 1060 describes its source as Aristotle's Posterior the writings of Sextus Empiricus since, as the tradition has it, he was not Analytics. For a discussion of the history of this method see John Her· a "bookish man." There is, however, ample evidence of his knowledge man Randall, Jr. The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modem Sci­ of the major sceptical arguments, whether he arrived at them on his ence, Padua, 1961, 27-67; also, A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and own, or in discussion, or in his reading. the Origin of Experimental Science 1100-1700, Oxford, 1953. 29. Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing: The Three Versions, ed. 38. The method of analysis and synthesis is attributed by Proclus (410- Stephen Medcalf, Hove, Sussex, 1970, 212. 485 A.D.) in his Commentary on Euclid to Plato. T. L. Heath in The Thir­ 30. Glanvill, Dogmatizing, 188. teen Books of Euclid's Elements, New York, 1956, val. I, 137-138, indi­ 31. Glanvill, Dogmatizing, 89. cates that a definition of analysis and synthesis is to be found interpo­ 32. Glanvill, Dogmatizing, 5-6. Compare this with the last paragraph of lated into the MSS of the Elements. This definition, as given by Heath Francis Bacon's Novum Organum, where he writes, on page 138 of the Elements, is as follows: For man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of in· Analysis is an assumption of that which is sought as if it were nocency and from his dominion over creation. B9th of these admitted through its consequences to losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; something admitted (to be) true. the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and Synthesis is an assumption of that which is admitted through its consequences to the finishing or at­ 33. Glanvill, Dogmatizing, Preface. tainment of what is sought. 34. Salviati rhetorically asks Simplicia, Heath argues in his A History of Greek Mathematics that the method of Is it possible for you to doubt that if Aristotle should see the analysis was known to the Pythagoreans. new discoveries in the sky he would change his opinions and 39. Aristotle writes in the Metaphysics, Book a.2, 995~15, correct his books and embrace the most sensible doctrines, The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded casting away from himself those people so weak-minded as to in all cases, but only in the case of things that have no matter. be induced to go on abjectly maintaining everything he had Hence its method is not that of natural science; for presum­ ever said? ably the whole of nature has matter. (Galileo, Dialogue, llO.) 40. Galileo, Dialogue, 14 and 410 respectively. 35. Galileo, Dialogue, 50. 41. Galileo, Dialogue, 281. 36. Galileo, Dialogue, 51. I have replaced Drake's words "analytical 42. See Aristotle's Physics, Book 11.2, l93b30. method" with the more literal "resolutive method" for Galileo's words 43. Galileo, Dialogue, 206. "metoda resolutivo." It is curious that both Santillana and Drake have 44. Galileo, Dialogue, 207. used the term "analytical method" where Galileo has clearly written 45. Galileo, Dialogue, 207-208. "resolutive method." Salusbury in his translation of 1661 writes 46. Galileo, Dialogue, 103. "resolutive method" and Santillana, whose translation is presented as a 47. Boyle, History of Cold, 683. revision of Salusbury's, has replaced it with "analytical method." I 48. Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. believe that both Santillana and Drake thought that Galileo must have Thomas Birch, vol. I: New Experiments Physico-Mechanical Touching meant analytical rather than resolutive, since the method he describes the Spring of the Air, London, 1772, 37-38.

54 Prometheus Unbound Karl Marx on Human Freedom

Thomas K. Simpson

Rumor has it that toward the end of his life Marx read through appears in on1y the one play Prometheus Bound, the rest of that the works of Aeschylus in Greek every year. This has the feel of a trilogy having been almost entirely lost. In this case, then, we see biographer's exaggeration, but even if it does to some extent only the first phase of the trilogy, that of bondage, and must strain the facts, it is one of those fictions which ought to be true: envision for ourselves how Aeschylus would have composed the many of us reading Marx are, I suspect, intrigued by the sense in release: but I think it is in any case in that bondage that we best which Marx is drawn to the Greeks, most obviously to Aristotle, grasp, through the figure of Prometheus, Aeschylus' definition but to Aeschylus as well. Marx is writing at a time-his time and of man. And that definition, it seems to me, can be very helpful ours-which is in some ways at the greatest possible distance to us in attempting to understand Marx's vision of man as from Athens, a time in which reason in the sense of the use of well-both in his bondage, and in the state of freedom which is mind in the pursuit of the human good is in eclipse. Marx implicit in the powers the bondage reveals. If I am not mistaken, devotes his own enormous energies, culminating in his great Aeschylus and Marx are very close to one another in this vision work, Capital, to the formulation of the theory of this darkened of the Promethean spirit in history. period, a period in which rational man is in bondage to what Let me explain before 1 go further the objective 1 have set for Marx calls the fetishism of a commodity society. But out of that this discussion. 1 want, if I can, to formulate Marx's concept of very theory comes the perception that the pendulum, now at the human freedom. In a way, considering all the dimensions of extreme of its negative swing, is destined to swing back once Marx's concerns, this single focus on his concept of freedom more, toward a restoration of the rational polity. Hence, in an­ would seem a very limited objective. But of course a concept of ticipation, Marx is already close to Aristotle. And the poignancy human freedom lies at the very center of any political enterprise, of the foresight of release from present suffering, out of the so that if we can understand this one concept we are well on the depths of human bondage, is an Aeschylean principle. Consider way to understanding the whole. Therefore, we do have, after the opening line of the Oresteia trilogy, in which the Watchman, all, a major undertaking before us. And this question may be of paradigmatic figure for both Marx and Aeschylus, cries out: special interest to us, here at the nuclear center of America in these last dark decades of the twentieth century. For our major I pray the gods release from aU this suffering ... single national effort, to which our science, our technology, and Ow Us p,€v lnrW ;WvO lx1rcxAAcx"(~V 1r6vwv . .. our national economy are directed, is the continual preparation for ever-more-advanced nuclear warfare. And the target of all Both the burden, 1r6vos, and the release, the reversal, b-JrcxAXcx"f~, this preparation, the offense which is so terrible that we are are seen together, the one nested in the manner of the Greek ready at any moment to destroy life on a large part of our genitive within the other, rWvO' &1rcxAAcx"(~V 1rdvwv. The release planet-is what we call "communism." It seems, then, that it comes slowly, through the long cycle of the tragic development, would be well to knoW, before we go, what it was we were object­ in the final persuasion of neccessity in the Eumenides. Marx, in ing to. And it is precisely because Marx is officially anathema to the same way, will see the nesting of a future release in the very us, that it is probably more difficult in this country than in most laws of operation of a mindless economic order-and like that to get any perspective on his writings, and in particular to grasp Protagonist, who is first the Watchman, but ultimately Agamem­ his concept of human freedom. I do not, of course, mean to im­ non and Orestes, he reads the signs of an era yet to come. ply that many Marxists understand Marx much better than we But the figure who seems to me to come closest to Marx's do, or that those societies which today call themselves "com· sense of man's position is Prometheus. Prometheus is the old munist" represent the goals he intended for men. But there is god, the Titan, who has been bound to a rock cliff by Zeus, as the very real, and disturbing, possibility that some do understand punishment for giving to mankind the symbolic gift of fire. He something we don't-and that if we and they understood each other better, we could at least have a more interesting conversa­ Thomas Simpson, a tutor at St. John's College, read this lecture at Santa tion before we proceeded to destroy a large part of the human Fe on Aprill4, 1978. race, or all of it, over our differences.

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Let me go back to Prometheus. I digressed because I wanted Zeus, then, we have Prometheus himself, unbound. to make clear the particular sense in which I am interested in Though Prometheus is a god, and a timeless god, a Titan, I him tonight. I think he stands, both for Aeschylus and for Marx, think we must recognize that he becomes for Aeschylus not as the figure of man himself, and that in that figure we can find a merely philanthropos, the friend of man, but man himself, and characterization of the essence of human freedom. Prometheus Unbound is man in his fuJI powers, free man. This is First, then, who is Prometheus? Prometheus is, as I have said, not, I think, ho eleutheros, the free man of Aristotle's Politics or a Titan, which means that he is one of the oldest of the gods, the Platonic Republic. Aeschylus, Promethean himself, seems to older perhaps than Zeus himself. At the outset of the play, Zeus have reached beyond the rational soul which contemplates eter­ has completed a revolution against his father, Cronos, with Pro­ nal forms, to a new kind of soul in which will is primary, and in metheus' aid; but as the new tyrant of Olympus, Zeus has at­ which reason does not intuit forms, but rather thrusts into an tempted to annihilate mankind, by denying them, or us, the arts historic future in which things will be new, and of its own mak­ by which to exist. Prometheus, as man's friend among the gods, ing. At least, I suspect it is this new definition of man, a Pro­ philanthropos, has thus in his turn revolted against Zeus, on our methean principle of will and act, which Marx finds in behalf. He has stolen fire from Hephaestus, as the principle of all Aeschylus, and identifies with his own. the rational arts, and passed it on to us. In punishment for this When the pendulum of dialectical history swings back to ra­ transgression-that is, for insisting on the continued existence of tionality, then, I think Marx foresees it will be Promethean man, mankind-Prometheus at the outset of the drama is being not the philospher of the Republic or the statesman of the riveted by Hephaestus to a rock-face in Scythia. We, as specta­ Politics, who will inherit the new era. And this succession Marx tors of the drama, become witnesses in effect to the crucifixion will see as a higher order of personal freedom, more radically in­ of that god who has saved us from destruction: he is the source dividual and, yes, creative, than freedom within the Aristotelian of our rationality, and he is impaled precisely because he has polis. dared to stand on our behalf against Olympus. The last spike is driven through his breast, but he cannot die; as a Titan, son of I. SELF-ACTIVITY Earth herself, he sees beyond Zeus, both before and after, and it is his doom to endure. His is not simply the rational mind, but With Prometheus, we seem to have foreseen a world-change: a the historical mind: he in effect has Zeus bracketed, first having leap out of the ancient world, into the modern, from the world of lent him reason, the secret weapon, to overthrow old force-but forms, to the world of will. Another figure comes forward, now knowing, as Zeus does not, the contingent fate of the new parallel to Prometheus, namely Faust: and indeed there is one regime as well. Zeus is to be overthrown, in his turn, by a son of precise moment in which Goethe permits us to watch Faust his own-a potential fourth in the terrible cycle of gods which so weighing that world-change, appropriately enough, as an act of preoccupies Aeschylus-if Zeus consummates a marriage translation. Faust is re~translating the opening line of the Gospel which, unbeknownst to Zeus himself, has been proscribed by According to John: lev b:exii ~v b AO-yos-"in the beginning was Fate. In time, over the ages, the thousands of years, Prometheus the ... "what? Faust, taking on our behalf that fateful step into a will trade that knowledge of Zeus' fate for his own freedom, and new world, senses that it can no longer be translated "in the during that unimaginable span of punishment, Prometheus will beginning was the word." He concludes by translating: "in the all the while be fortified to unending defiance of Zeus by the beginning was the deed." His German is "am Anfang war die knowledge that ultimately pro-methean mind will prevail­ Tat." Tat is the noun-form of the verb tun, to do or to act. It will mind which knows ahead, -promanthanei. It is this bold and help us with our study of Marx if we tentatively take that shift unrelenting, principled defiance of Zeus which constitutes from word to act as the key to the new world. What will it entail? Prometheus' special fascination for Aeschylus. As a play, Pro­ Faust abandons his study-a library which is not merely his metheus Bound is a tour-de-force of the dramatic art, a drama in own, but is inherited, and full of wisdom stored in books out of which the Protagonist, literally pinned to the earth, cannot so the long western tradition-to commit himself to action. This is much as offer a gesture or change his position from beginning to not an abandonment of his rational effort, but a thrust of restless end: action, then, is distilled to pure will Prometheus, as mind mind into a new mode. Clearly Goethe is inviting us to a new, riveted in time and space and forged by Zeus' repression to sheer dramatic model of the workings of human reason-reason which will, becomes the fixed center of the world for both men and works itself out not in relation to a form written with finality, but gods. He becomes, I think, a self in a unique way-a center of anew, through act itself. But perhaps, as with Prometheus, the energy, willing and reasoriing his way into a future which he in crux of the difference is in the notion of self. Faust is radically a part foresees, and in part designs, and which will bring not only self, in a sense in which the rational soul for whom Aristotle his own release, but through his defiance of tyranny, a new order writes the Politics and Ethics is not. If men are individual simply in the cosmos. He will in time be released, he foreknows that. He as instances of a species, differentiated by their "matter" as Aris­ will reveal to Zeus the secret of the forbidden marriage, and will totle says, but so deeply alike that in the act of understanding thus in the nick of time prevent Zeus from fathering the son who two minds become, as it were, fused into one undifferentiated would have overthrown him; and in exchange for that cosmic intellect-then words reflecting forms are true vehicles of under­ tip-off, Prometheus will be given his freedom. Thus in a way Pro­ standing: form is then first in the comos. But Faust is to be metheus becomes the surrogate for that Fourth God, successor understood in terms of that Creator God, the Lord, who, to Zeus-the god who never was. As surrogate successor to through Mephistopheles, in effect gives Faust his assignment in

56 January, 1980 the drama, his own role, unique in history. Such a created self is What does this introduction of the terms "subject'' and "object'' in a different world from the individuated soul inhabiting the do to our understanding of art? There was not such subject/ Aristotelian cosmos. This new self, radically individual, radically object split in Aristotle's account of techne, or in his cosmos. important, radically alone, we might say, has its own way to Aristotle's workman was not a subject, but merely a rational mind make in the world, and this is freedom in a new sense. It is a self going about its business in an orderly way. with terrible options. Marx has turned craftsmanship into Faustian drama: what was We have been a long while getting to Marx, but the transition simply telos, an intelligible end, has become Zweck, a goal, and through Goethe will, I believe, be helpful. The centerpiece, the the artist is characterized, not by the easy competence of his keystone, of Marx's thought is a word built out of Faust's word work, but by what Marx calls der zweckgemiisse Wille, the goal­ Tat. Since it has no direct English counterpart, it will be worth a oriented will. The instruments of labor, which for Aristotle were minute to trace the expansion of that little word Tat into Marx's merely rational methods of the prudent mind, are now Leiter der own larger term. Tat, which, as we saw, means act, in its first ex­ Tiitigkeit, conductors, perhaps lightning rods, of the artist's activ­ pansion becomes Tiitigkeit, the abstract noun, activity. A second ity. For Marx, then, art has become process, in which the goal­ expansion identifies that activity with the self, in German, seeking will of a subjective self finds its way to objective expres­ Selbst. The result, a German mouthful, is Marx's term: Selbst­ sion, a product which is partly foreseen but at the same time betiitigung. The most literal translation would be self-activity, and something new, while in this process the artist discovers himself that is the term the translators give us. But of course that is a objectively as something he had never known, perhaps had manufactured term, for we have no such word in English, so that never been, before. At the seat of this drama is self-activity. We the most central of Marx's words does not convey much in our need only contrast this with Aristotle's quiet remark, "Art does language. We have to circumnavigate it with words like initia­ not deliberate," in order to sense the full measure of the world­ tive, vitality, restlessness, or spontaneity. I take the liberty now of change, which will reflect in turn upon the contrast between suggesting that this is the very Promethean principle, that drive physis and self-activity. We have, incidentally, witnessed the which will not let the self rest in chains, or under tyranny: thus birth of our modern word art, which today leans so far on the where we lack a word, Aeschylus, looking beyond his own world, Faustian, Promethean side that we cannot safely use it to trans­ may have provided us with an image. late techne, a pregnant difficulty which often troubles discussion "Self-activity" sounds a little like Aristotle's physis, nature: an in our seminars and tutorials. The making of the world in the indwelling principle of motion. Marx is immensely drawn to Aris­ Timaeus, for example, is a craftsman's job, not a work of Prome­ totle's terms and concepts, and indeed he calls the opposite of thean art. In his account of the drama of the labor-process, Marx self-activity "accident," very much as Aristotle does, as if he were shows us in effect how we can understand art as creative, with­ simply transcribing the Physics. But we must be careful, and in­ out misusing terms: something genuinely new, not an imitation deed it will be instructive to contrast physis, nature, and of a pre-existing form, is emerging. Similarly freedom of speech Selbstbetatigung, self-activity. One way to do that will be to set is important to us today, and troubles us in our reading of theRe­ Aristotle's notion of making, craftsmanship, against Marx's ac­ public, because free speech is vital when there is the possibility count of what he calls the "labor-process." that something new may need to be said. Aristotle sees art, techne, as a rational process in his own sense. That little word ·~new" perhaps contains it- all. Aristotle in the The competent craftsman has first a form in mind. This is the Physics argues convincingly that time does not exist (that is what telos, the end of the work. The artist, in short, knows in advance he means when he says that it is nothing but the measure of mo­ what he is doing; there will be a word for it-let us say he is mak­ tion); it is contrary to reason that there be anything new. For if it ing a chair-and there will be a definition to go with the word. is anything at all, it must be an instance of being that always was. Form is primary, here as everywhere in the cosmos, for. Aristotle. By contrast, one way Marx has of epitomizing the labor-process The crux of techne, the art, is to confront matter, the formless, is to say that in it, Unruhe leads to Sein-out of restlessness with pre-existing form, and to know how to shape matter so as to comes being. Self-activity leads to new being. Marx is not joking bear form as fully as possible. The more complete the techne, the -he really means this. There are forms ... but we make them. more smoothly and effortlessly this motion of poiesis, this mak­ The forms have a history. And among the forms, is the form of ing, takes place. If ships grew by nature, says Aristotle in his in­ man. Yes, man has made man: what man is to be is a question imitable way, that effortless process would be like the work of a not yet answered, a question for history. fully competent shipwright. Marx did not invent this notion, or this new world. He inherits Some of the things Marx says about the labor-process sound it from many sources-from Goethe, as we have seen, and even very much like this, but as the account unfolds (in Chapter VII from Aeschylus; but above all he takes it to a large extent from of Capital, a chapter which we might regard as J\!Iarx's Physics) Hegel. Hegel, Marx says, must be stood on his feet: where Hegel we begin to recognize signs of the world-change. Form and mat­ sees the making as ideal, in man's self-consciousness, Marx sees it ter suddenly reveal a certain curious symmetry: not only the ob­ as real, in man's practice. But Hegel, while being stood right side ject, but the workman undergoes change-work and workman up, remains, I suspect, to some important extent intact. develop together in the unity of the work-process. Marx says, As you can see, we are now in momentous conflict with those "The work is objectified, as the object is worked." The work has most powerful arguments out of the Platonic dialogues. Has be­ clearly taken on a new sense, as something in its own right, some­ ing been reduced to becoming? Becoming what? If forms change, thing subiective, which finds expression in the objective result. how can words mean? What of justice, and the moral choice? If

57 The College there are no unchanging standards, have we not fallen into thoughts in praxis: the truth, that is, the reality and the moral chaos, slipped completely into the hands of the lonians~ power, the this-sided-ness, of our thoughts .... is all, then, relative? Marx says, in effect: brace yourself! He and Hegel are not speaking of chaos, there is a way in which reason In the first thesis, Marx looked at reason in terms of its object. In can be reconciled with history-in which the new can be mean­ this second thesis, he looks at the thinking process itself. Is there ingful, and in which the moral can be unfolding. objective truth? This is very much like our question from the Dialogues: does dialectic have an object-do the forms exist? Marx shifts the ground of the question: Theses on F euerbach:' Theses I-IV ·There is always a difficulty, of course, in lecturing about books Man must establish the truth ... of his thinking in which only Seniors have read in the course of the Program. In praxis. order that we have some common ground, I have distributed a selection from Marx's so-called "Theses on Feuerbach". Feuer­ What is it to have a thought? Marx is suggesting here, I believe, bach, I should explain, was a student of Hegel, who after a cou­ that we have the thought (the German word might mean, we ple of years became disaffected and left to try to say as com­ manifest the thought, establish it, prove it, or show it) in praxis. pletely as he could the opposite of what Hegel was saying-for When we do so, it will be real, powerful, and as he says, "on this Hegel's idealism, Feuerbach substitutes a thoroughgoing materi­ side" -that is, on the side of our real lives. The thought will be alism. What Marx says in the "Theses" is essentially that Feuer­ part of our lives; in that way we have the thought. Thus, the first bach did not go far enough. I suspect you may not have been thesis argued the significance of praxis as object: through his ac­ able to make much of these Theses out of their context, but let tion, we see the self of the artist. This second thesis argues the us see now whether they will help us as a response to our con­ significance of praxis as the vehicle of thought: in praxis, our own cern about a mode of human reason which proposes to join be­ action, we manifest to ourselves our own thought. In this second ing and becoming, and for which the forms have a history. thesis, we might say, the thought-process and the work-process, art, have coalesced. The new science does not regard human ac­ Thesis I. tivity with detachment: its very mode of knowing is action, it is The main trouble with "materialism" ... up to the inherently involved. present time is that it thinks of its subject matter­ namely, reality, the domain of the senses-always as an Thesis III. object, or an observation. It thus has not included action The (old) materialist doctrine of the changing of cir­ -tangible human activity, or praxis . ... cumstances and of education forgets that circum­ stances are themselves changed by men, and that the educator must himself be educated .... In this first thesis, Marx appears to be defining a new "material­ ism," "materialism" in a sense which he says has never before This third thesis shifts the ground again, from the individual been ascribed to the term. Other materialisrns have always dealt thought process, to history. Evidently, at any given moment in with things as objects, objects, he says, to be looked upon (an· history, today, for example, we live in the midst of circumstances geschaut); this is, of course, pretty much what we mean by objec­ given to us in the form of social relations, social institutions in­ tive science. Marx's new proposition is this: our own, subjective herited from the past. It is not clear how much we might be able selves take objective form in the working out of our activity-in to do about this, but on the whole we have to work out our lives doing things. (Marx-uses the Greek word, praxis.) This is what we as best we can in terms of these given conditions. A crude mate­ have just seen in his account of the labor-process, in art. In such rialism-the old materialism-would say that they determine our praxis, the self makes itself objective, visible. Hence, Marx says, lives. Feuerbach has said, "Man ist was man isst"-"Man is what human activity, Tiitigkeit, must be recognized as belonging to he eats". Marx does not say this. He reminds us that "circum­ the domain of the senses, and in this way the active self becomes stances are changed by men" -that is, that history consists of an the concern of an inclusive materialism. All that Marx means interplay, self-activity acting through and upon conditions. here by "materialism" is that discipline whose subject-matter is When he speaks in this thesis of the "fusion of the changing of the domain of the senses, whatever enters sensation. Evidently circumstances with human activity," I understand him to be say­ this one realm of reason, or science, is very far from "materialist" ing that history is praxis, art, writ large. Elsewhere he speaks of in any ordinary sense: it does not confine itself to inert objects, our inherited social structures as "material" or <(inorganic", and matter, bodies subject to laws of motion, but it includes all that of our own activity upon them as "organic". Hence, acting in his­ enters the real world, especially men, not as objects, but as sub­ tory, we are the workman as artist, giving scope to his own pur­ jects, selves, manifest in their actions. The subjective and the ob­ poseful will-and if we combine this insight with that of the jective coalesce as the concern of one science of the real second thesis, we see that history has become for Marx our thought process writ large. To think seriously is to act boldly, in Thesis II. history-that is, to seize inherited social structures as material on The question whether human thought attains to ob­ which to work, and to change them, to turn them to our own jective truth is not at all a question for theory, but a goals. Such action Marx calls not just praxis, but revolutionary practical question. We have to establish the truth of our praxis.

58 January, 1980

Thesis IV. struction. We sense that we live in a world gone mad, but we Feuerbach begins with the fact of religious self­ sense, too, that there is nothing we can do about it. No available alienation, the doubling of the world into one which is act of political decision will have any significant effect on it­ religious, and another which is worldly. His task is to nobody is asking our opinion about the real questions. So we are dissolve the religious world into its worldy foundation. left with a sense of alienation, and possibly a heightened will to But the fact that this worldly foundation takes off from make a better world for man if there is any way to do so. itself and establishes for itself an independent realm in Already in the midst of the nineteenth century, Marx experi­ the clouds, can only be explained in terms of the inner enced essentially these feelings, which he diagnosed technically strife and self-contradiction of this worldly foundation as "alienation", and he traced them to their source in the struc­ itself. ... ture of society. As so often, here too Marx brings Aristotle for­ ward as consultant, and I think it may help us to look with Marx This fourth thesis turns to religion. Marx is not only a material­ at a passage he quotes from the first book of the Politics. Aristotle ist, he is an atheist. However, just as his "materialism" embraces is here helping us to locate the art of economics by making a self and the subjective, and the praxis of his "materialism" be­ basic distinction between economics (oikonomike, housekeeping) comes the medium of thought itself, so his atheism takes religion properly so-called, and something else, a spurious economics, extremely seriously. Christianity suffers the same fate as Hegel: which he calls chrematiske, "chrematistic,'' from the Greek word it too must be stood on its feet, but, like Hegel, to an impressive ta chremata, money. extent it is preserved as an invariant of the rotation. The Chris­ tian dream Marx sees as a transformed projection of the real One kind of acquisition therefore in the order of na­ world-a realm in the clouds. The Christian brotherhood of man ture is a part of the household art (oikonomike), in ac­ is a wish and an idea, born of the violence and contradiction of a cordance with which ... that art must procure ... a sup­ dark phase of the world's history. Christianity is thus a dialectical ply of those goods, capable of accumulation, which are insight, a moment of thought, but the real task for thought is to necessary for life and useful for the community of city establish that insight in praxis, to realize the vision of brother­ or household. And it is of these goods that riches in the hood, in our lives. true sense at all events seem to consist. For the amount The fact that the suffering and negation of a commercial, class of such property sufficient in itself for a good life is not society generates the idea of its opposite illustrates the dialectical unlimited .... progress of thought, in history. As in a Platonic dialogue, But there is another kind of acquisition that is spe­ thought advances through refutation. In the dialogue, Gorgias, cially called wealth-getting (chrematiske), and that is so for example, learns what he is by discovering, through the an­ called with justice; and to this kind it is due that there is guish of refutation, that he is not what he thought he was-he is thought to be no limit to riches and property. Owing to better than he knew. In history, we make our way by discovering its affinity to the art of acquisition of which we spoke, it that the institutions we have inherited in fact deny ourselves. is supposed by many people to be one and the same as Historical praxis is dialectical thought. That is why Marx says that. .. that it is inherently revolutionary praxis: it questions, and dares to change, inherited forms. This distinction between true economics, which is rationally lim­ ited and measured by the httman good, and spurious econom­ II. ALIENATION ics, or chrematistic wealth-getting, which is uncontrolled by any rational measure, but moves only from quantity to greater quan­ Thus there is, in our modern society, a general sense of frus­ tity, already seems to point to the central fault of our society. tration, dismay, and something we tend to call in a vague way Aristotle's analysis continues to the fundamental distinction be­ "alienation". We sense that the world of modern technology, tween two ways of appraising goods; this becomes the founda­ modern finance, class-divisions (however covert), and nuclear tion of Marx's analysis of our capitalist society. warfare is not really a proper home for man: the self sees in the world in which it lives not its own image, but its opposite. This With every article of property (Aristotle goes on) extreme negative swing of the pendulum, away from the valid there is a double way of using it; both uses are related to expression of the human self, is a dialectical crisis for us. Let us the article itself, but not related to it in the same man­ leave the examination of the "Theses on Feuerbach" for a mo· ner-one is peculiar to the thing, and the other is not ment to consider this situation of alienation more carefully. peculiar to it. Take for example a shoe-there is its Although everywhere the processes of our society are devas­ wearing as a shoe, and there is its employment as an arti­ tatingly rational in detail-to say that they are "computerized" cle of exchange . ... sum its up-the net result makes no sense for man: senseless and increasing devastation of the earth's resources, escalation of pov­ To say, then, that we live'in a society which has gone chrematis­ erty and hunger in the face of growing quantities and concentra­ tic, is to say that our processes of production and distribution are tions of food and wealth, the proliferation of unsought and ruled not by use value but by exchange value-that is to say, we unwanted technologies, and, most serious, most unbelievable of make things not because they are good, but because they will all, the world poised at every moment for instant nuclear de- sell. Our society is governed, Marx stresses, not by considera-

59 The College

tions of the good life-human use, or human purpose-but by pay for a book, or for shoes, or for a house-or an education­ the infinite and essentially irrational criterion of ever-increasing what we do, except that ultimately they, and the materials and quantity. There is no limit to increase of quantity, since one machines which have gone into their making before them, have quantity is as such exactly like another, and we are always at the a common measure-have cost so much of human time? same starting-point, driven by the same urge, to make another Aristotle, Marx is very much interested to point out, balked at cycle of profit. What we caH "economics" is therefore not the just such an analysis-pricing, Aristotle decided, was simply irra­ choice of effective means to achieve human ends, but that false tional, for he could find no common measure between a coat "art or skill" of getting more, and more, and more. Progress is and a house. That historic aporia which Aristotle faced, Marx measured by growth in the GNP. In these terms, we already see says, was highly significant: Aristotle was right to stop where he the roots of alienation in the separation of life from human ends, did. For in his time, in a society including slave labor, there was and that this alienation is intimately associated with our capital­ no common measure. Only when men become socially equal do ist society, a society which is "economic" only in the chrematis­ their labor hours constitute a common measure. Hence our po­ tic, and not in the true, sense. litical statement that men are created equal, and our economic Beginning with this distinction out of Aristotle, Marx lays the principle of the universal exchange of their products as commod~ foundation for a scientific study of the modern economic order ities in one single network of markets, reflect each other, and, in his book, Capital. Capital is as a scientific work in many ways more deeply, correspond to our conviction of the universal strikingly analogous to Newton's Principia, and I shall point out worth of the human self. Beginning with Aristotle, we have once one of these ways in a moment. But we should notice also one again taken a major step beyond him, and that step, towards a huge difference: Newton writes of eternal natural laws; Marx universal, quantitative chrematistic of our commodity world, is writes the theory of a passing set of social relations, a moment of at the same time the passage from use value-a society which is a history, and his theory reaches to the very laws of their passage. home for man-to exchange value, and a society of total aliena­ In this sense, Capital belongs to the new understanding of rea­ tion. son: it analyzes, not timeless truth, but truth incorporated in When a man makes a product, as we found in our considera­ man's praxis. The Theses have shown us that praxis bears man's tion of self-activity, his purposeful will shapes an object in which self-expression, and his understanding of himself-his knowl­ he as worker finds expression: the self knows itself, and finds sat­ edge-so that the study of a passing social structure is in no way isfaction, in the product. We assumed when we spoke that way to be despised. Nor is it a matter of regret that, if Marx is right, that the product was indeed the object of the worker's will-that his great work, Capital, will one day have no object. Thought be­ it was for him a goal, a good thing, a use-value. If on the other longs to history. hand, he makes it as a commodity, not because he prizes it but in With this disclaimer before us we can observe that the first order to sell at the highest price he can command, the product's and fundamental likeness between the Principia and Capital is significance for him is evidently eroded. And if, finally, he works that each is built on a strict and universal mathematical quantity. not for himself but for someone else, so that the product is not Where Newton first defines quantity of matter, and thereafter even his own to exchange, the bond between the worker and the secures all of his analyses of the physical world on this one quan­ work is altogether severed. He may or may not in some distant titative foundation, Marx defines exchange value equally quanti­ way approve the product, but if his labor-power has been pur­ tatively and exactly, and thereafter constructs all of his analyses chased and commanded, and he does not work out of free will, of the functioning of the capitalist economy on this one fixed but from necessity, the significance of his work is lost. This is the ground. It is ironic that our contemporary economists tend to deeper root of modern alienation, according to Marx. Still fur­ fault Marx most for his preoccupation with this supposedly un­ ther, the man who sells his labor-power to another has himself necessary foundation-it is as if one were to fault Newton for his become a commodity. Not only is the product not his own, but insistence on a firm definition of the "quantity of matter"! We his very time, his energy, and his will are not his own-in short cannot, of course, deal adequately with this concept tonight, but his life during the hours he has sold to an employer, is not his let me say simply that Marx adopts from such radical predeces­ own. The ultimate analysis of alienation is not, then, that the sors as Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin the postulate that product of man's work is not his own, but that his own activity, the exchange value, or simply value, of any commodity arises his life, has been alienated. That is not just a matter of hours. from the investment of labor in it. Value is then measured in What is lost is the opportunity for the expression of self, which js hours of labor time. To be strict, as Marx is, we must reduce at the ce~ter of Marx's concern for human freedom, and no energetic and lazy labor, efficient and inefficient, highly trained doubt the center of our own concern as well. When we make and simple, to one common unit: thus, more exactly, Marx de­ ourselves commodities, we perform the original act of alienation, fines the value of any commodity, such as Aristotle's shoes, as reducing what is most personal, what is most original and strictly the amount of socially necessary, socially average simple labor creative, self-activity, to common coin. When we market our­ time which has gone into its making. Money is merely an expres­ selves, we do that-and every one of us who works for another, sion of this labor value. Almost everything we can point to in our has performed that act of alienation. surroundings is an object of exchange in our chrematistic world, We might at this point pause to correct some false impressions which means only that it has, or has had, its money price-and about Marx. It is commonly supposed that Marx is concerned that in turn means that it has been reduced by the appraisal of with fair, or uniform, distribution of the product of labor. He is the market process to equivalent labor hours. Why else do we not unconcerned with that; however, we see that this js not the

60 January, 1980

center of his concern, which is rather the free command of one's does not go back to Aristotle either. What, then, is man for own time, one's own life. It is commonly supposed that Marx Marx? Our essence (or perhaps now, we should translate, our be~ recommends a uniform or regimented society, in which the indi­ ing) is the ensemble of our social realtions. What am I? I am not vidual is engulfed in a mass. We see that the situation is precisely man simply: I am late twentieth-century American man, in a the opposite, for Marx takes as his measure the total freedom of number of more particular social relations which are quite deci­ the creative individual. Marx, looking at us, says that the sive for me. Does such a social definition limit me arbitrarily? freedom we imagine we possess is to a large degree illusory, No, I think Marx is saying that it is simply a realistic appraisal of precisely because we do not freely command the hours of our the fact that I essentially have a place in society, and in history, working days-we alienate ourselves in a way he regards as a and that to grasp that reality for what it is, is to gain new and fundamental violation of personal freedom. Finally, readers of more human power. Note in particular that it does not cut Capital often make the initial mistake of supposing that Marx modern man off from his predecessors~ it shows the way back to recommends the reduction of all labor to a homogeneous mea­ the ancients, for that way is part of the historical, social relation sure, while, on the contrary, he describes with surgical precision which defines us. Does man have a nature? Only in the sense what in fact he observes happening in the commodity society, that we are reshaping our nature, as we are reshaping the rest of our society, for which he is building the theory. Marx does not the natural world: man is not limited by his nature; we are full of write Capital because he loves capitalism! He writes it to show us possibilities, and we cannot at any point know what they might our own situation, to help us see where we are in history, and yet be, though we can in part foresee them. In place of an eternal hence to determine where, in strict realism, we may expect to ad­ form, a definition of man-whether Aristotelian, or abstract, in vance. We do not always reflect on the fact, but whenever we the modern manner-we have Prometheus: the unity and direc­ turn to the classified ads in the local paper to begin the process tion of the rational principle, the unrelenting self What keeps it we call "getting a job," we alienate ourselves. Marx is not recom­ on course? Not eternal forms, but one inner principle, about mending this, but simply pointing it out. which Hegel and Marx seem after all not to be in such funda­ mental disagreement: mind, finding its way to new forms em­ III. HUMAN SOCIETY bodied in new modes of human society, new Republics-and with them, new possibilities for human freedom, In the logic of dialectic, recognition that we are alienated from If we understand the term "materialism" in the very special our true selves in an automated, chrematistic society leads not way discussed in connection with the earlier Theses, we can give only to a sense of human frustration, but at the same time to a this course of striving through history the name, dialectical growing perception of what a genuinely free human society materialism. might entail That is the way we learn. It is not Marx's manner­ indeed, it would not be compatible with his account of the oper­ Thesis VIII. Let us move on now, directly to the eighth Thesis: ation of human reason-to begin by writing down a prescription for a new society: we must find our way to it, according to Marx, All social life is in its essence practical. All mysteries in and through a commitment to new praxis. Readers of Capital which turn theory into mysticism find their rational who seek in that work a schema of a proposed life under social­ solution in human praxis and in the understanding of ism come away disappointed; in that respect, it would be much this praxis. more useful as a handbook for readers of the Wall Street Journal. Yet it is possible in Marx's writings-and out of our own experi­ What does Marx mean here by "mysteries which lead theory to ence, if Marx is right-to identify a new direction. Let us see mysticism," and the claim that such mysteries "find their ra­ what guidance we can get from Marx, turning back to certain of tional solution in human practice?" I think we can illustrate this, the remaining Theses on Feuerbach. and thereby clarify it, with a rather familiar example. We in the United States have had a long-standing desire to Thesis VI. bring freedom to peoples of other parts of the world. I think at Feuerbach dissolves (or "resolves") religious essence our best we have, over the years, been quite sincere about that. into human essence. But this human "essence" is no We have given loan~. sent technicians, established trade, made abstraction dwelling in each individual person. In real­ investments, even dispatched armies and waged fearful wars. ity, it is an ensemble of social relations. Yet we have seen over the years a widening gap between our~ selves as "haves" and other nations as "have-nots;" and we have When Marx says, here, that " ... the human essence is no ab­ discovered that what we thought would be "development" has straction dwelling within each single individual," -what really is proved the systematic development of underdevelopment, as this proposition which he is rejecting? It is, I believe, different in third-world economies have retrograded, and those nations have an important way from Aristotle's understanding of the form of grown to be ever deeper in debt. The theory of freedom has thus man. Aristotle's forms are not "abstract," and for Aristotle the become a mystery: we continue to speak of the "free world," but form of man draws man essentially into the community-he can we know that it is everywhere marred by political police of our be himself only in the polity. Feuerhach .speaks instead of ab­ own training, dictatorship, corruption, and economic distress. stract form, a universal separately present in each individual The idea, thus floating over reality like Laputa, becomes a mysti­ man. Marx denies the existence of such abstract form, but he cism. Marx here gives us a piece of direct and sound advice: the

61 The College solution will not be in the domain of theory or abstract ideas-a teaching us dialectically, Marx would suggest, that our society is rational solution will come in and through concrete human prac­ not yet the highest form. Any move from our present form must tice, and in the comprehension of that practice. Promethean rea­ preserve political and legal freedoms inviolate, but it must at the son will in time work its way around such mysticism. Of course it same time shift from the irrationality of isolated civil life to a new is not we, but other, revolutionary, forces which are breaking rational polity-a polity rational in the new sense of "reason," through the fetters of an ineffective, confining theory. And of reason which does not merely collect statistics and turn the course, it is not by accident that we keep finding ourselves on the handles of existing mechanisms, but which is prepared to learn wrong side of such issues. through dialectical commitment. We can say very simply, in a general way, what that change Thesis IX. would be. Man would reshape existing social structures so as to The highest point to which observational materialism turn them to serve human purposes-but to do that would be a attains-that is, materialism which does not grasp the social effort, and could only be consequent upon man's recogniz­ domain of the senses as practical activity-is the obser­ ing that he is not in essence an isolated entity, but an inherently vation of single individuals and civil sOciety. social being, who cares not only for his private castle, but for that social home in which we all collectively live. To take such effec­ We spoke earlier of the contrast between an "old" materialism, tive social action toward freedom, man must learn, Marx says, which was that of objective science, seeing reality at a distance, that he is both a Promethean self and, like Prometheus, a social as an onlooker, and the "new" materialism proposed by Marx, being whose thinking, to be effective, must take social form. In­ which is involved in praxis, and sees human reason as moving in dividual freedom and social thought and action are not contra­ and through concrete activity. Marx now knits that earlier con­ dictory; they are two aspects of a single Promethean principle. sideration of two forms of materialism-which are really simply Prometheus chained in isolation, gives all his thought to the two ideas of human reason itself-to two corresponding political future of the polity. ideas. When the old materialism looks at society it will see man "ob­ Thesis X. jectively": that is, it will see abstract man, man as an isolated in­ The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; dividual Of course, the social scientist will see huge numbers of the standpoint of the new is human society, or social such men, but their groups will be simply aggregations of iso­ mankind. lated individuals, heaps of social atoms. By contrast, when the new reason looks at man, it sees him as an inherently social We had given a name to the old polity; now Marx names the being, social in his very essence-and the new reason itself will new. Where the old society, our own, is called civil society, the operate dialectically, through its own involvement in these social new he names human society-one in whose structures man can processes. The old reason is objective, cold, distant; and it sees recognize himself and his own purposes. When he calls the abstract, isolated objects-things. The new reason moves members of this society "social mankind," he clearly does not through involvement, and it will see man as a social being, whose mean mass society as in the caricatures of socialism. He means groups are not accidental to him, but essential. individuals, freer than we are, who have won that freedom by What society will the old mode of reason describe? It will be a recognizing that it cannot be gained through retreat from so· society in which people relate to one another competitively, for ciety, but through rational social commitment. individual gain, or group together out of convenience or neces­ sity; this is what Marx calls "civil society." The corresponding Thesis XI. political motto will be, "The best government is the least govern­ Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ment." Each citizen will be as independent as possible of others. ways; the point is to change it. The highest aim of the political structure will be to guarantee equal individual rights, meaning the right of each individual to This final claim, in the eleventh thesis, is a corollary of those this independence. The political unity will thus be formal, unify­ which have preceded. Objective reason looked upon the world, ing a daily reality of practical life which is as free-that is, as and interpreted it; real reason, the new philosophy, which knows atomic-as possible. We see this as coming close to describing that theory is fused with practice, and that the object of reason is our own political ideals, and our own society-and of course we form which is evolving, will know that it can only learn by enter­ have seen the corresponding "old" materialism as characterizing ing upon practice. Its modus operandi will thus be practice, dia­ our concept of "objective" science. Marx prizes highly such lectical practice which does not accept but questions old forms. political freedoms, and the rights we enjoy under our Constitu­ Hence its "point will be to change the world." Not for the sake of tion; he suffered immensely under the denial of such rights in change, but because history is a dialectical argument, and that his own time. But they yield the alienated society we have de­ argument has not yet reached its end. scribed, and we are thus caught in a contradiction. Politically and legally, the individual self in our society is treated with great CONCLUSION formal respect, and is set as free as possible. But the realities of civil life in the same society leave the self alienated, without a It might well seem that Marx is merely a dreamer, and that by home, and thus deny it real freedom. This very contradiction is insisting on a serious definition of freedom as self-activity, full

62 January, 1980 command of one's own time, and envisioning this as realized to a the laws of motion which he derived, implying secular trends to new extent in something called human society, he has left realis­ ever-increasing crises, may be holding true. The consequence tic possibility behind. There are, I think, two modes of response that Marx drew was that capitalism is not a system which can re­ to this objection. One is, that the technological possibilities now main viable over the very long run; it contains inner contradic­ in our hands are almost unlimited, and certainly at least beyond tions which will force a move to new social forms. In other anybody's present reckoning. It is impossible to say what might words, Marx is not so much a dreamer as a Promethean analyst, be accomplished if we turned over our present factories and skills and there may yet be reason to take his predictions into account. to production for rational human ends. Vast quantities of un­ He foresaw as inevitable a revolution in which the chrematis­ wanted products could be quickly eliminated, vast hours of time tic society, capitalism founded on private ownership of the now wasted on efforts to persuade ourselves to buy things we do rrleans of production, would be replaced by a use-value society, not want, could immediately be saved. Public transportation in which human reason would master rather than serve its in­ could be re-invented; we could rebuild our devastated cities, and strument of production. How man would guide the forces of pro­ restore the blessings of life to the pedestrian. The list of such ra­ duction to human purposes if he had such a chance, there is no tional transformations, which are physically within our present way for Marx to say, since man has never been in that position. grasp, is virtually endless. Beyond these immediate possibilities, Man has never had command of his own time, has never been we have before us the almost unlimited ability to set machines to asked to decide how he would use it. Social forms of a free soci­ work for us, and through automation, to release ourselves from a ety would have to be developed almost from scratch, through the very large part of the labor we now perform, even with respect to excruciating dialectic of praxis. But the Promethean principle is necessary or wanted functions. The length of the working day constant: Man will not accept life under conditions of contradic­ could certainly be cut to a fraction of the present hours. From an tion and alienation forever without rebellion, and he will engineering point of view, these things are available to us. What contrive new ways to bring reason to bear on social forms, in is it which stands between us and the redirection of our society something like what Marx calls, "human society." Marx asks us toward such rational, human ends? to move from an individualistic society to a commitment to hu­ The obstacles are not physical. We have all the Promethean man society, and thereby to advance to a new understanding of arts at our command-except perhaps one, the real fire: the abil­ ourselves; not as isolated beings but as what Marx calls species­ ity to reorganize our society so as to make these physical possibil­ beings-that is, human beings. The free human self-the Pro­ ities socially attainable. We are Prometheus, fully able to foresee methean self, unbound-ends its alienation, and finds itself at a new order, but pinned to a system which denies us the realiza­ last free by being in a society in which it can be at home. The in­ tion of all that lies within reason's grasp. This is perhaps the most dividual is then both a free self, and truly a member in good acute form alienation takes for us, and the sharpest goad to dia­ standing of the human race. Only by endorsing our common life lectical thought. At least, so Marx might diagnose our case. together in this way as truly our own can we be individually free, The other answer is that Marx is in much of his work a scrupu­ or can we achieve rational lives directed to human goals. lous realist, and he labored with enormous energy for years to Marx says somewhere that Prometheus' greatest gift to man is come to grips with the realities of the system within which we that he showed him the way out of the darkness of the cave in live. The result is his book, Capital, certainly a powerful analysis which he had always lived, and gave him a "dwelling full of of the structure and function of the capitalist system. This light." In that image, I think, we come as close as we can in this theory is perhaps Marx's Promethean secret. Capitalism has of brief discussion to Marx's concept of rational human freedom. course taken new forms over the century since Marx wrote­ above all, the corporation has become the capitalist of first in­ stance, and monopoly capital has absorbed much of the market process which Marx, like Adam Smith before him, tends to pre­ l. To be found in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideol­ suppose. But beneath this, his analysis may remain sound, and ogy, (New York 1965), 197-199.

63 Simon Kaplan

Bam: December 5, 1893, Libau, Russia Died: March 13, 1979, Annapolis, Maryland Texts from the Memorial Service m the Great Hall of St. John's College, Annapolis, April 22, 1979

J. Winfree Smith

Simon Kaplan was during all the time that I knew him a living acceptable rules of human decency, and he did not pretend that challenge to the Christian teaching about original sin. Few peo­ a Christian could begin to attain some reconciliation with Juda­ ple whom I have known have in their lives exhibited as he did ism by weakening the traditional Christian claim that God is such simple goodness, a goodness consistently maintained and truly and altogether identical in person with one who is truly and unmarred by self-righteousness. completely human. I believe that he was what he was because he was a Jew with a Year after year almost up to the very present he gave a precep­ clear and profound understanding of what that meant. He would torial in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason from which his students sometimes disclaim being a really good Jew. As far as I could see, profited greatly. His interest in Kant was in some way of a piece his failure to be a really good Jew consisted in his teaching at St with his Judaism. As a Jew he believed that God had given man John's College instead of meditating on the Torah day and night. the Bible not to be a starting point from which the speculative Mr. Kaplan and I came to St. John's at nearly the same time. reason might come to know God as He is in Himself, but rather Scott Buchanan thought that St. John's students were mistak­ as a law showing him what he ought to do. He, therefore, found enly, however understandably in the circumstances, making a something congenial in Kant who sought to remove man's claim religion of the St. John's program, and that the College itself to any knowledge of God through speculative reason and who should do something about that. Consequently, he encouraged sought to establish the primacy of practical reason as directing Mr. Kaplan and me to undertake extracurricular classes in the man in what he ought to do. Of course, it goes without saying Bible. I remember that there was a question of how the classes that Mr. Kaplan would not identify "the moral law within" with were to be announced. Mr. Kaplan obviously would not want his the Torah. Once he humorously proposed a revised St. John's called "Old Testament," and I would not want mine called any­ program which went as follows: First year: Bible with beatings; thing that would imply that the New Testament was not Bible. Second year: Kant to show the limitations of reason; Third year: So his came to be called "Bible" and mine "New Testament." Hegel to show how reason can go astray; Fourth year: Bible with­ We attended each other's classes for a certain time. What I out beatings. learned from him was of inestimable worth to me. It was a cor­ We remember him today as a man who was lovely and pleas­ rective of the mistaken views of Judaism that Christians so easily ant in his life, good in word and deed, in whom we have lost one fall into, such as the view that the six hundred and thirteen pre­ who gave something unique to this community. cepts that a Jew is bound to observe can only be a woeful burden leading to nothing but despair. I can remember the glow in Mr. Kaplan's eyes when he would say, "The law is grace," or "The Harvey Flaumenhaft law is life" or when he spoke of "living in the law." Our friendship was based in large part upon the common rec­ ognition that Judaism and Christianity are irreconcilable, that Remembering Mr. Kaplan brings to mind Samuel Johnson's there is no neutral "theistic" religion that might unite Jews and dictum that we more often need to be reminded than instructed. Christians provided that they slough off the things that divide Mr. Kaplan's presence made it harder to forget what needs to be them from one another. I did not pretend that a Jew could re­ remembered. main a Jew and reduce the law to a few ordinary and easily He was born into another age. You students here are some-

64 January, 1980

Petrograd, 1922 Annapolis, 1974 what younger now than Mr. Kaplan was when cataclysmic war Settling safely on this distant shore, he did not turn his mind broke over Europe, and, amid that great destruction of a world, away from those grim deeds which make of history a slaughter the Russia of the tsars collapsed in revolution. I am somewhat bench. He solemnly recalled the victims, and admonished the younger now than Mr. Kaplan was when the last European war potential victims, of murder and oppression. Mr. Kaplan was a erupted, destroying all except a tiny remnant ofJewry in Europe, stern critic of American naivete and complacency. Marvelling at and ending the hegemony of Europe in the world. Over the pros­ the abundant wealth, mechanical ingenuity, and unrestrained trate middle lands where Mr. Kaplan had matured, there stood pursuit of pleasure in this country, he had doubts of its capacity in fateful post-war confrontation the masters of the eastern land to withstand for very long a ruthless and relentless foe respecting in which he had been born and spent his childhood, and the only strength and resolution. leaders of the western land in which he'd found a refuge. He was especially a critic of his people in America, who ought The national socialism most cruelly incarnate in the Stalinist to know what need only be remembered. At worship in the S}na­ regime and in that of Hitler did not get Mr. Kaplan as a victim, gogue during the Days of Awe last autumn, Mr. Kaplan whis­ though it got at him by getting at many of those dear to him. The pered: "In America the Jews are rich, they are contented, they storms that battered down the old world brought Mr. Kaplan to look as if Messiah has already come-it's an affliction." the new, where he found his work in helping keep alive some It was also then, and in my hearing only then, that Mr. Kaplan portion of the decency and devotion from of old which new hor­ praised a prayer. During the chanting of the Unetanneh Toke{, rors had not managed to obliterate. which is recited during the service on the Jewish New Year and In addition to his regular classes in the program that's required also on the Day of Atonement, more than once he said: "This at this college, Mr. Kaplan regularly taught an outside class de­ prayer is good!" voted to the Bible, particularly to the Torah. Torah is, the Torah The prayer, envisioning the Judge of all the world before an teaches, wisdom of a kind, and particularly from Mr. Kaplan did open book remembering all the things forgotten, tells us that on students learn to seek that kind of wisdom. Peculiar might have Rosh Hashannah it is written and it's sealed on the fast of Yom been the source of such instruction; parochial it was not. Torah, Kippur: who shall live and who shall die-who by fire and who it is written, will go forth from Zion; for the righteous, it is writ­ by water, who by sword and who by wild beasts, who by hunger ten, light is sown. Under Mr. Kaplan's guidance, many became and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who familiar with the Torah as a guidebook to the source of righteous by strangling and who by stoning-who shall rest and who shall living. Mr. Kaplan with his students sometimes also read writings wander, who be at ease and who afflicted, who be made poor of Yehudah Halevy. Greek wisdom may adorn our life with and who enriched, who be brought low and who exalted. This flowers, wrote Yehudah, but it does not bear the fruit that catalogue depresses, but there follows an encouraging reminder nourishes our life. The wisdom of the Bible is a tree of life. But that those who've gone astray may yet, according to the ancient its fruits that nourish us are nourished by its roots. To sever the triple formula, by return, and prayer, and righteousness, affect roots of the faithful city is to sever the roots of the city of what is to be-for the Power that is highest wishes not the death righteousness. Mr. Kaplan was a cosmopolitan; rootless he was of him who strays, but rather that he turn and live; that Power not, uprooted though he may have been by deadly storms that waits for him to turn until the very day he dies. But that day burned or blasted many others. comes, sooner or later, and the prayer comes to a close in con-

65 The College

With Mrs. Kaplan, Annapolis, 1973 Annapolis, 1974 templation of the death that finally must close our life: man's vivid sense that human life is frail a love profound of this our foundation is of dust-it says-and return to dust, his end; his earthly life, holding as inseparable this love of life and righteous­ bread he earns at peril of his life; he is like a fragile potsherd, like ness, and confident that while a man has earthly life a way for the grass that withers or the flower that fades, like the wind that him is open to return for his renewal to the source of all our blows or the dust that's blown, like a vanishing dream. The righteousness. prayer's last word, however, is not a whimper, nor even a sorrow­ Indeed, the only passage from the Bible that within my hear­ ful sigh; its last word elevates the spirit, affirming that over flesh ing Mr. Kaplan ever urged to be included in the common read­ and blood there is a higher Power that fosters righteousness and ing that is required at this college was the eighteenth chapter of gives it life-and itself is ever-living. the Book of Ezekiel; Ezekiel 18 speaks about this threefold What was it in this prayer that so appealed to Mr. Kaplan? theme of righteousness, return, and life. Two things, it seemed. When Mr. Kaplan's dear friend Jacob Klein was buried, Mr. "In Russia," he remarked as the prayer was chanted, "in Kaplan said, at the gathering right after, to someone who did not Russia when they said it people cried; the poverty was not the feel much inclined to eating or to drinking then: "A Jew should whole of it-there were also the terrible pogroms." It should be eat and drink after burying the dead-we are obliged to-for the noted now that at the time of Mr. Kaplan's birth Alexander III sake of life.'" was tsar. To borrow words from one historian: "It was under Mr. Kaplan on the following night invited to his home a few of Alexander III and thanks to Alexander III that anti-semitism in us his younger friends to share with us his memories of the prime Russia became institutionalized, respectable~and violent''; of jacob Klein. It troubled Mr. Kaplan that we only knew his "Jew-beating and killing-the organized pogroms ... distinguished friend in his declining years, when we could not see that extraor­ Alexander's reign," and, indeed, "for a time the pogroms ... dinary philosophic intellect most fully at its work, or that extraor­ were supported by certain revolutionaries, brimming with dinary philosophic generosity in its abundant overflow. The ideals,'' who argued "that in killing the Jews the masses had em­ years that we knew Mr. Kaplan cannot be called the years of his barked on the course which would end in the killing of all op­ decline; for though his vigor had by age been much diminished, pressors everywhere." The historian finds it "not too much to age had raised him somehow to his peak. We seem to think not say" that "the official attitude towards anti-semitism and po­ quite of Mr. Kaplan if we try to think of Mr. Kaplan without his groms ... contributed as much as any other single factor towards seeming venerable. Not that he tried in any way to make himself encouraging and perpetuating that paralyzing lawlessness from appear ·so; the dignity with which he bore himself excluded any­ above which was to do so much to undermine the dynasty and thing of vanity. He was humble with no vain show of humility. It then to set the tone for the successor regime." was, indeed, with proper pride that he recounted all the youthful But it was not just by reminding him of sorrows such as these, skill that placed his name forever (or for what passes for forever) and of the later versions of the same old story, that the prayer on the wall display of one of Heidelberg's most eminent estab­ moved Mr. Kaplan. I believe that he was moved as well by feel­ lishments for playing billiards; when he was eighty-four years old, ing the joyful trust the prayer so well expressed~joining to a he said that someday he'd retire, and then become a real teacher-

66 January, 1980 if the college would provide him with a title and equipment, he was unfailing. But as many people came to know, his courtesy would give instruction, as an expert, in the art of billiards. Mr. was more than courtesy; in a perfectly natural way it reached Kaplan was a man with a past he chuckled to reveal. over into friendship. His capacity for friendship was extraordi­ He was formal but not stiff; he was firm although not harsh; nary. He seemed to have a universal sympathy for everything he was kind but he was not sentimental The twinkle in the eye healthy and decent. Yet as I came to see and to wonder at, he of that lovely old tease deflated any puffed-up self-importance; was utterly unsentimental. Warmth, kindness, and gentility were but he teased without malice or envy. Pettiness diminished near joined in perfect blend with dignity, wit and abundant good him: whenever in his company, one had to take a wider view and humor. He could at times be impish, but still dignified. It also try to be a bit more upright. took me some time to realize how acute and critical he could be: He did not bow to what was low; he elevated those whose priv­ acute, critical and witty, but never unkind. He seemed to have ilege it was to know him; he had reverence for what is high. He whatever virtues a cynic could have with none of the vices. was loyal to the people from which he grew, loyal to the culture He was not inclined to take himself or his views too seriously, in which he was educated, loyal to the government by which he but if asked about himself he sometimes replied, "I am a refugee was protected, and loyal to the institution at which he was em­ from Bolshevism." It argues much for the essential rightness of ployed-but concerning each of them he harbored no illusions. this college and this country that men like Simon Kaplan can He had a gift for friendship that was extraordinary. We first find here a congenial refuge. Yet with something akin to the met when he was seventy-five years old. By that time, many men same fatherly and grandfatherly regard many of us experienced, have lost both interest in the world's news and capacity to inter­ he was concerned for the land of his refuge. What troubled him est newer men who fill the world-not, however, Mr. Kaplan. has been called many things: pseudo-sophistication, permissive­ Almost till the time _he passed away, he passed his time a neigh­ ness, moral decline. His own way of putting it was much simpler, borly citizen of the world, reading Kant and the Bible with his barbarism, and most dangerous of all for America, hedonism. newest students, telling his friends of the newest Russian books, What seemed to bother him was the fact that when people cease exacting home-made apple pies from the newest of the college to observe and impose limits on themselves, it becomes natural wives, and finding out about the newest of the children. He to think more about having limits imposed by others from above. inspired affection and respect for him in many very different Democracy with no clear sense of hierarchy, he said, is on the people. way to tyranny. And tyranny, for him, was no abstraction. Tyr­ We'll better remember what we should remember, because we anny meant and means countless acts of human cruelty, person­ cannot forget Mr. Kaplan. His memory will be, as we say, for a ally suffered and personally perpetrated. The Russian experience blessing. and the experience of European Jewry, he thought, had alerted him to dangers of which Americans in general were dangerOusly innocent. We Russians, he once said, have an enormous political Laurence Berns experience of tyranny behind us, of which you Americans have not the slightest idea. It was with a certain sad but bemused pity Part of Simon Kaplan's success as a teacher stemmed from the that he looked upon those who thought that this tyranny in its fact that he never ceased being a student. He never ceased to be latest form was, as he once said, "just one step on the way to the fascinated by the great problems of philosophy, theology, ethics, millenium." religion, and in particular the meaning of Jewishness, the Jewish At once tender-hearted and cool-headed, he was also learned, tradition. His clarity of mind and love of learning was communi­ cosmopolitan, and beautifully simple. As Mrs. Kaplan, who so cated to all those with whom he conversed. His students enjoyed appropriately shared his interests, concerns, and life, said, he was a rare blend of graceful old age with a youthful spirit of inquiry. truly a man of a pure heart, no vanity and no petty ambition. He He taught as much by what he was, as by what he said. One of was and is for us a model of civilized humaneness. We were his favorite words was the word "appropriate''. It is difficult, if enriched and gladdened by his presence, we keenly feel his loss, not impossible, to describe appropriately the unusual combina­ but we also cannot help somehow being cheered by our memo­ tions of characteristics that made him what he was. His courtesy ries of him.

67 Aristotle Gazing

Michael Platt

Illustrations: Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, Rembrandt Harmensz, van Ryn. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchased with special funds and gifts of Friends of the Museum, 1961. Pendant with head of Alexander (detail)

What should arrest us about Rembrandt's Aristotle is his gaze. Heidegger has stressed the important things about this passage: To reach the original in the Metropolitian Museum in New York, however, we must be in motion. We must make our way to The group of unknown visitors in its inquisitive and then through a modern city. There is no way to approach curiosity about the thinker is disappointed and puzzled this painting on foot and in silence. No wonder then that when at first by his abode. It believes that it must find the we arrive at the original we find it hard to enter into the solitude thinker in conditions which, contrary to man's usual of Aristotle. Nor does the museum always help us. The voices of way of living, show everywhere traits of the exceptional the paid guides are hard to ignore; and their loud familiarity is as and the rare, and, therefore, the sensationaL The group distracting as the silent familiarity of the guards who shift from hopes to find through its visit with the thinker things foot to foot, vacant·eyed. Meanwhile, the crowds shuffle past. which, at least for a time, will provide material for Most are disappointed. These visitors to Rembrandt's Aristotle entertaining small talk. The strangers who wish to visit are attracted or they would not visit, and yet they move on.1 the thinker hope to see him perhaps precisely at the Perhaps philosophy always disappoints mere visitors. We learn moment when, sunk in profound meditation, he is from Aristotle himself of a visit which some curious men made to thinking. The visitors wish to experience this, not in Heraclitus: order to be affected by his thinking, but merely so that they will be able to say that they have seen and heard An anecdote tells of an explanation that Heraclitus is one who is reputed to be a thinker. said to have given strangers who wanted to approach Instead, the inquisitive ones find Heraclitus at a him. Upon approaching they found him warming stove. This is a pretty ordinary and insignificant place. himself at a stove. They stopped surprised and all the True enough, bread is baked there. But Heraclitus is more so because as they hesitated he encouraged them not even busy with baking at the stove. He is there only and bade them come in with the words: 'For here too to warm himself, and so he betrays the whole poverty of there are gods present.' (de part. anim., A5, 645a 17)' his life at this spot which is in itself prosaic. The glimpse of a freezing thinker offers little of interest. And so the Professor of English at the University of Texas, Michael Platt has re· inquisitive ones at this disappointing sight immediately cently published Rome and Romans According to Shakespeare (Salzburg lose their desire to come any closer. What are they to do 1976). there? This ordinary dull event of someone cold and

68 January, 1980

standing by the stove one can find any time in his own Where in antiquity one was embarrassed to labor or enter home. Then, why look up a thinker? The visitors are business, today one is embarrassed to loaf and invite thoughts.4 about to leave again. Heraclitus reads the disappointed We moderns know perfectly well how to hurry. Our life is filled curiosity in their faces. He realizes that with the crowd with errands, engines, and phone calls. What is hard for us is to the mere absense of-an expected sensation is enough to sit still and gaze. To learn how to gaze we must strain against make those who have just come leave. Therefore, he what prevails around us-crowds in museums, and not only in heartens them. He especially urges them to enter with museums. the words ELVm ycxp xm tvTcxv8cx Ot:ovs. 'There are Gods Tonight I am looking at Rembrandt's Aristotle not in the present even here.' museum but in my study, but I do so after a day spent taking This statement puts the abode [~8os] of the thinker apart the engine of my Old car. 5 A more modern machine or a and his doing in a different light. Whether the visitors more modern activity I cannot think of. (Couldn't the superiority have understood the statement immediately or at all of modernity over antiquity be stated rather simply: the ancients and then seen everything in this different light, the did not have motor cars?) An engine is an exacting teacher, and story does not tell. But that the story was told and trans­ it dirties all its pupils. I have bathed and put on fresh clothes to mitted to us today, is due to the fact that what it reports approach Rembrandt's Aristotle. Still, under my nails some dark is of the bearing of this thinker and characterizes it. xm thick grease remains, a m·ark of the day's immersion. Heraclitus EVTcxv8cx 'Even here,' at the baking oven, at this com­ might say, "There too, in the garage, the gods are dwelling.''6 mon place, where all things and every condition, each But Rembrandt's ancient Aristotle would reply, "Elsewhere as act and thought, are familiar and current, i.e., securer, well. He who has an old car or an old house in the country has 'even there' in the sphere of the secure HPm Otovs, it is need of clothes in which he cannot pull a head, grind a valve, so 'that even there there are gods present.'3 mow a field, hoe nine bean rows, or tend the honey bees." Dressed as Rembrandt's Aristotle is, there are very few things Yet the disappointment ancient visitors felt before Heraclitus you can do. Dressed as he is, one is almost compelled to think differs from the disappointment modern visitors feel before and to gaze. Rembrandt's Aristotle. Rembrandt's Aristotle is not freezing and Titles are meant to guide our eyes, but the title this painting precisely this may disappoint the modern visitor. He would now bears, "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer,'' prefer to find the philosopher beside a stove in a bakery or a hut, troubles our eyes as much as it guides them. If we look at Aristo· or in the garage, the hospital, or the bedroom, or along the bar­ tle and carefully trace imaginary lines from his eyes, we readily ricaded streets. Everywhere but in a study. discover that his eyes do not rest upon the bust of Homer at alP To disappointment may be added offense. Nothing offends A minute ago he may have been looking at the bust, but now he the modern visitor of Rembrandt's Aristotle more, I think, than looks beyond it, not elsewhere or at random but in a mental the philosopher's rich dress. Is it not enough to be handsome? direction suggested by the bust. Aristotle's hand lies on the bust, Need one dress so splendidly? Look at the speckles of gold which while the thought which put it there goes beyond it (as it should). shine from his large dark beret. Need a philosopher or any man So perhaps Aristotle contemplates Homer but certainly not the adorn himself with rings and earrings and drape an expensive bust of Homer. Let us leave until later the adequacy of the word glittery chain across his breast? How well his jewelry is set off by "contemplation" and turn instead to the word "Aristotle" in the his dark garments. This splendor is deliberate. But for the title with a beginner's question: is the title correct? Is this really modern visitor the most offensive glory is likely to dwell in the meant to be Aristotle? Evidence from the time of the painting's sleeves with their thousand hand-sewn folds, the work of many a commission suggests that this is indeed meant to be Aristotle.8 seamstress for many an hour. I learned how offensive the rich From faraway Sicily a wealthy nobleman named Don Antonio dress of Aristotle is to the modern visitor from an outspoken stu­ Ruffo sent to Amsterdam to commission from Rembrandt a dent a few years ago who announced that such dress is incom­ "philosopher." The family records) only recently brought to patible with philosophy. He wanted, I think, philosophy to be light, confirm that the philosopher here depicted is Aristotle, for clothed in the rags of St. Francis or the overalls of Marx. Or in a they mention "copia del costa e spese del quadro dell' combination of rags and overalls: the dress befitting Simone Aristotle."9 The choice of Aristotle to fulfill the general instruc­ Wei!. The sight of the wealthy, handsome, and richly-appareled tion of Don Ruffo's c;ommission seems to belong to Rembrandt philosopher is not edifying. himself. 10 Perhaps also the inclusion of Homer (in the bust) and If we want the world all denim and corduroy and no silk, we of Alexander as well (for the image of Aristotle's most famous are bound to be offended or disappointed by Rembrandt's pupil appears on the pendant which hangs from the chain he has Aristotle and our preference in dress will also insure that we are given to his teacher). Don Ruffo seems to have responded not arrested by Aristotle's gaze. Today he who would live the vita. favorably and discerningly to these inclusions, for a few years contempla.tiva. has a bad conscience; he will be shy, and he must later he ordered both "a Homer" and "an Alexander" to go with be furtive. To others he must pretend that time spent walking his "philosopher." It is not unnatural to think that he meant with friends and with thoughts is "for the sake of health.'' Fi­ them to hang on either side of Rembrandt's Aristotle. nally, he will believe it himself and taste leisure only along with a What then is the correct title? The family records speak of an bad cold. That solitude is a pleasure must not be mentioned "Aristotle.'' Do we need more? Perhaps what is enough for the among those who cannot bear to be alone with themselves. family record-keeper, enough to say "yes, that one" and pass on

69 The College

these two, Aristotle, wrote as "a teacher of those who know" (in Dante's phrase) and the founder of a school. Raphael's "School of Athens" is Aristotelian in its emphasis upon school for while the pupils of Plato or of Socrates differ quite a bit from each other, the pupils of Aristotle naturally make a school. By showing Aristotle gazing, Rembrandt shows philosophy and Aristotle in quite a different lightY What most strikes us about Aristotle is his gaze. As we gaze at him gazing, we begin to find out something about gazing. Gaz­ ing is not staring. To look steadily at something, to stare at it, is not at all easy. As children we engaged in staring contests. To win them you had to make your opponent turn his eyes away, either by embarrassing him, making him laugh, or simply out­ lasting him. To keep your own eyes staring, you must go blank, not see what is in front of you; the trick is to keep one's lids open and one's mind shut.14 Our natural way of looking at things seems to require that we move our eyes around, move from feature to feature, and also alternate periods of resting our eyes on some thing with periods of looking away:

Wahrend ich einen Gegenstand sehe, kann ich ihn nicht vorstellen.

Aristotle Contemplating While I am looking at an object I cannot imagine it. down the list rapidly, is enough for us too, even though we do Wittgenstein, Zettel, 622 not intend to pass on rapidly. While we are looking we do not need titles; only later and far away, in the course of a conversa­ Hence, to reflect upon an object in front of us, to think about it, tion far from the Metropolitan Museum do we need something we usually look away from it as well as look at it. In conversation, short to call up the right image to the mind's eye. For such occa­ for example, eyes make contact but not all the time; so the per­ sions Rembrandt's "Aristotle" will do. But if we wish something son who looks you in the eye all the time is just as deficient as the more inviting and something which will encourage the right ex­ one who never looks you in the eye. Then with persons or ob­ pectations, in ourselves as well as others, then I believe we will jects there are those moments, not the least pensive, when we do better to refer to Rembrandt's "Aristotle Gazing." Mean­ put our eyes to the side of the person or object, leave them open, while, seated here gazing, we can ignore the title. but really look with the mind's eyeY' Rembrandt stood before this very canvas many times. When This is exactly what Aristotle does. He looks away from the he first stood before it, it was blank. What questions faced him? bust of Homer; while he rests his open eyes a bit past the bust, he The commission from Don Ruffo said, "give me a philosopher." views Homer with the mind's eye. To think of Homer or dwell Very well, which one? Which philosopher would we choose to with him, you must look away from the bust of Homer. The bust paint or choose to commission? Descartes? II Machiavelli? Plato? is an image, something which invites its viewer to "look for Shakespeare? Nietzsche?12 Galilee? Bacon? Rembrandt chose Homer" elsewhere than in stone. Aristotle. (Or if indeed Don Ruffo himself asked for Aristotle, While I have been writing tonight I have been "looking away" then Rembrandt, in accepting the commission, chose Aristotle.) from the painting. In order to write I must look down at the Perhaps we will understand Rembrandt's choice of Aristotle bet­ page, but my mind is not wholly where my eyes are; in my mind's ter if we ask another question he must have faced: how is a eye I see the painting. I both imagine it and in addition think philosopher to be portrayed? How is philosophy made visible? about it. Thinking about it, I treat it as an image, as an invitation Could one paint a man in such a way that, even without the title, to understand Aristotle and to understand this very "looking everyone would know him to be a philosopher? The most away" which characterizes Rembrandt's image of him. In other famous pictorial answer to these questions, before Rembrandt, is words, this painting shows a certain way of looking and does so Raphael's "School of Athens," a picture in which Aristotle so as to provoke that very way of looking in its beholder. This figures prominently. It is a crowded scene. Several figures seem provoking is not the least way in which the painting shows us cloaked in the walking solitude of thought, but the emphasis falls what it would mean to be Aristotle. upon activity, upon teaching and learning. It really is a school. When the beholder asks, what does Aristotle see? or what kind Such an emphasis is proper to any attempt to make ancient of seeing is this?, questions which the painting provokes, he is philosophy visible. Socrates may have philosophized without beginning to understand what it means to phi_losophize. forming a school, Plato may have written without ever revealing Philosophizing, here painted in the person of Aristotle, is visible his true teaching (Letter VII), but still the pupil and inheritor of in a certain kind of looking, one which is ocular and direct but in·

70 January, 1980 complete without a looking away which helps the mind's eye teaching which makes a school, and they value it especially for open. those of its consequences which make ordinary life more amus­ According to Rembrandt, philosophy cannot be made truly ing (paradox), more secure (astronomy), or more comfortable visible except if it be painted so as to arouse a philosophic gaze. (mathematical physics). Raphael has portrayed philosophy Any description of philosophy which does not incite to philos­ primarily from this point of view. It remained for Rembrandt to ophy must be made from the outside, from the vantage point of uncover the source of all these things, a source which like a foun­ a non-philosopher or of a philosopher who has forgot himself, tain running over takes no thought of the basin it falls into or of who adopted the stance of a visitor when he knew better, when the citizens who draw daily water from it. To the question "how he knew that there are no visitors in philosophy, only dwellers. should the philosopher be portrayed?" Rembrandt answers, Rembrandt chose to portray Aristotle philosophizing, and to "how else but philosophizing." In a way it is an obvious answer, do so he has recourse to something common, to the look in a but also one which can only be given by someone who has it in man's face which we call a "faraway" look. We look at such a him to philosophize. man, and we know he is seeing something else than what is right By exhibiting philosophy as a certain look in the eye Rem­ before his open eyes. Certain landscapes, ones which lift the brandt characterizes philosophy as a way of looking at all things valley-dweller's eyes to ridges and mountains, make this look human, divine, and natural. This way of looking is something more common among one people than another. While walking chosen, cultivated, and habitual with Aristotle. A whole way of with friends or thoughts in alpine landscapes, one's eyes involun­ life goes with it, supports it, ~nd in turn is crowned by it. That tarily alight on some peak or high meadow. Such sights not only philosophy is a way of life Rembrandt has emphasized by re­ draw one's steps on but also one's thoughts, giving eye and mind minding us of other ways of life which differ from the philoso­ something faraway to feed on. The Italian painters love to place pher's. The bust of Homer reminds us of the life of the poet, and such clear Alpine landscapes in the distance behind their Ma­ the image of Alexander reminds us of the life of the political donnas and other Biblical scenes. Not only distant but pointless man. things are conducive to thought. Everyone knows the con­ How right Rembrandt is to include these ways of life and just tribution which a flickering fire can make to conversation, per­ these persons. The very theme of the most choiceworthy way of mitting thoughtful silence which would otherwise be awkward. life is often treated by Aristotle himself. Early in the Ethics (IV), Smoke curling gracefully from a teacher's pipe has made many a it seems that the palm will go to the gentleman or great-souled silence in a class productive. In Moliere's Misanthrope one man man; leave out the eyes of Rembrandt's Aristotle, and you have a explains that he came to despise another when he watched him portrait of such a man. Put those eyes back in, and you have a "spend three-quarters of an hour spitting into a well, so as to visible gloss on the last books of the Ethics where something make circles in the water," not appreciating, perhaps, the higher than the gentleman or great-souled man appears, the man wonderful thoughts which can arise from spreading circles in a who cultivates the divine nous in himself, the philosopher pool. Here too there may be gods dwelling. Amsterdam, of (1177a-1179b). Nor are poetry and Homer out of place in Rem­ course, does not provide such views; nor does Aristotle need brandt's Aristotle. In the course of his instructive treatise on them to look as he does. poetry, Aristotle most often and most highly praises Homer. The What is important is that the gaze of the philosopher is the same is true of politics and Alexander. Aristotle treated the polit­ deepening of something common, or something commonly ical life in his Politics and his Ethics, and his relations to Alex­ available. Here as elsewhere in his work Rembrandt works the ander are manifold. Alexander was first his pupil and later his same way; to understand and make visible the rare, remote, or benefactor. That Rembrandt's Aristotle wears a gold chain from past, he has recourse to the immediate, available, and common. Alexander reminds us that it was Alexander who endowed the To discover what Christ looks like, he inspects the faces in the Peripatetic School in Athens. Nor is the rank which these three streets of the Amsterdam Ghetto. To show what Aristotle looks lives have in Aristotle far off from the rank suggested by Rem­ like, he looks at the way a faraway thought overcomes a man. brandt's painting. The eyes tell us the ranking. The pensive eyes Because he saw what was in front of him, he could see the of the philosopher find no answering light in the dim eyes of faraway and because he saw what was far away, he could see Homer, while the eyes of the political man, Alexander, are not more thoughtfully what was in front of him. In this respect he visible at all beneatp. his miniature visor. and his Aristotle are alike; both gaze. But while an Aristotle Since Aristotle is turned toward Homer, we may well do the without hands is possible, a Rembrandt without hands is not. same. The opposition of the blind Homer and the deep-eyed Aris­ Rembrandt has not given us a familiar Aristotle. We do not see totle seems an absolute one. Most men with eyes find the sight "the Stagarite,'' an epithet which the too familiar always employ. of a blind man discomfitting; they feel both privileged and vul­ Nor do we see the famous teacher and law-giver, "the teacher of nerable, and both feelings make them uneasy. 16 What makes those who know." The Aristotle of Raphael's School of Athens is most men uneasy prompts a philosopher to thought. Aristotle is such a teacher and law-giver. One admires and even worships not discomfitted by the blind Homer; instead he thinks about philosophy in his person, but one does not understand it from sight. In order to be a poet, you need not have eyes; blind Homer within, and indeed one is not invited to. Only in Rembrandt's shows this. To be a philosopher, need one have eyes? It is hard to Aristotle do we see the source of these impressive and effectual say. Aristotle has eyes, and we know of no notable example of a teachings. Before teaching there was learning, before school philosopher without eyes, yet there seems no necessity in this there was thinking. To non-philosophers philosophy is a coincidence. (There is a man for whom eyes are necessary, but

71 The College

thinks of such muses and such angels is by no means clear.) One difference remains. The gazing Aristotle is silent, and Homer speaks. What Homer speaks, his scribe records on a scroll, while to writing and teaching the gazing Aristotle pays no heed whatever. The relation of poetry and philosophy has long been charac­ terized as a quarrel. The teacher of the teacher of Aristotle was Socrates, and as he explains in his Apology, the first attacks against philosophy in his person were brought by poetry in the person of Aristophanes. The counterattack by the immediate pupil of Socrates is well known, as also is the reconciliation of­ fered by Aristotle's Poetics. Rembrandt's Aristotle accords with that reconciliation. There are differences between Aristotle and Homer, but not enough to make a quarrel. In writing of this painting I have used the word philosophy and the word philosopher, and the other pair, poetry and poet. These words come easily to one's pen; they are familiar and es­ pecially familiar as opposites. Already, however, in the course of our gazing together, that thoughtful gazer and maker Rem­ brandt has taken us beyond that familiar opposition. For he in­ dicates a higher ground which unites the two. In Homer we see a wonder which speaks, in Aristotle a wonder which gazes. Each of these wonders shares something. Each is a certain kind of atten­ tion: perhaps we should say they both behold something, the one with the eye and mind's eye, the other with the ear and mind's ear. Who is to say which is higher or- more comprehensive? Aristotle the philosopher turns to Homer ... perhaps Aristotle's Bust of Homer (detail) writings are only a spelling out of Homer's poems. Perhaps Aristotle's works are only long footnotes to Homer. This would we will speak of him later.) Isn't the blind Homer only a more ab­ make Rembrandt's view of Aristotle something like Heidegger's solute case of "looking away" (as we were saying of the philoso­ view of himself, for Heidegger contemplates the bust of pher); isn't Homer only a more striking case of a man with a 1-Iolderlin. It is surely a long question. In any case Homer and "faraway look" in his eyes, and if so, then is not poetry akin to Aristotle, poetic wonder and philosophic wonder, sh~re more philosophy? Something of the kind is suggested by the fact that than the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy would suggest. In Aristotle has a bust of Homer in his study, by the sensitive way what follows then, while I use the old words "philosopher" and he touches the bust's head (not with a flat hand, but with the poet, we must remember that while the one gazes and the other heel and the finger tips), and of course by his thoughtful turning hearkens, they are united in wonder. in the direction of the bust, but the precise nature of the kinship In addition to poetry there are two other arts present in Rem­ is elusive. The stone bust of Homer manages to convey both the brandt's Aristotle. The bust of Homer is the fruit of the blindness of Homer and at the same time his intelligience and sculptor's art, while the painting as a whole is the fruit of the nobility, to show us both the vacant eyeballs of Homer and at the painter's art. For their appreciation and for their production, same time the marvelous mind's eye from which flowed those both arts require men who are not blind. Something of the qual­ clear, beautiful images. Is it the quality of that mind's eye which ity of a sculpture can be appreciated by touch alone, but the justifies the admiration of Aristotle and constitutes the kinship blind cannot judge how the light falls on a figure. It is possible to of philosophy and poetry? be a blind poet or even a blind philosopher, but not a blind sculp~ A few years later Rembrandt painted a separate Homer; even tor or a blind painter. Yet while blindness is equally to be feared more than the bust of Homer, this painting shows us the mental by sculptor and painter, sight is not equally appreciated by both. concentration on some faraway thing which constitutes the Sculpture lasts longer than painting; it is more readily copied; it kinship of the poet and the philosopher. Yet two differences re­ can be walked around; it can be touched; it has a physical main. Judging from the painting of Homer dictating, 17 the con­ presence; it succeeds beautifully in representing bodies, their centration of the poet is not pure. He concentrates in order to solidity and weight, and the sens·e of presence which goes with make something present; for the gazing Aristotle, some thing these. But sculpture cannot equal painting in the representation simply is present. Homer waits for and at the same time invites of the most expressive part of a man: the eyes. All sculpture is a and welcomes the Muses. He is like a man who awaits a rider on little like the bust of the blind Homer. The light, the expressive~ a white horse in the distance and by so doing welcomes him ness, the intelligence, and spiritedness which come from the soul closer. In this respect Rembrandt's Homer reminds us of his and give motion and liveliness to the body are found most often Matthew with the angel at his ear. (What Rembrandt's Aristotle in the eyes, and !tis painting which best represents them. If it is

72 January, 1980 just to call Rembrandt tlw painter (as Aristotle is called tlw philosopher), it is because he so excels in the representation of the eyes. The painter understands the philosopher to gaze in the very way he does. Indeed, to paint the gazing Aristotle, Rem­ brandt must have gazed as his Aristotle does. The kinship of the way of life of the philosopher to the poet and to the painter is further emphasized by Rembrandt's inclu­ sion of a way of life which is distant from all these-the life of the political man, represented by the image of Alexander which hangs from the chain which adorns the philosopher. The philosopher's left hand touches this chain, the gift of his pupil, but there is no sign in his disposition or in his hand to suggest that the pleasures of the political life merit comparison to those of the philosophic life. It is fitting that the prince offer gifts to the philosopher, that he see that he is adorned with rich attire, and see that his school is amply endowed. The suggestion that such chains bind philosophers to princes is, in this case, 18 a mis­ interpretation. Alexander was the happy exception among princes, one who knew how to honor philosophers because he esteemed philosophy above politics. Rembrandt's Aristotle is a portrait of antique philosophy in a truly antique setting, with the philosopher flanked by his chief rivals, the poet and the prince; and it is composed so as to em­ phasize the difference between antiquity and modern Chris­ tianity, for the figure of Aristotle in his study with a bust should remind us of all those pictures, by Rembrandt and others, of the saint in his study. These modern Christian saints do not contem­ plate a bust of Homer; in its place we find a skull. 19 Of course Bust of Homer (detail) Homer is dead, and perhaps this contributes to the pensiveness of the philosopher, but it does not disappoint or agitate him. It is mystery, and this should suggest to us that Rembrandt's Aristotle a Christian conviction that "death is the wages of sin," that is not purely antique. The antique Aristotle appreciated the sun­ death is unnatural, that it does not belong to our original Edenic lit world of appearances, and he ascended from them to the even condition, and that, consequently, the ways of God need to be brighter sun of mind (nous) itself. The clear sunlit air of justified to man (Milton). The skull is a fitting image of these Raphael'~ School of Athens (all is clear and sunlit, even though convictions, one quite "foreign to antiquity which pictured death the school is set in the new St. Peter's imagined by Bramante21 ) as a "sleeping youth" and called it "the brother of sleep" better accords with the antique Aristotle than Rembrandt's. An (Homer). 20 The sobriety of ancient convictions are fully repre­ Aristotle with light pouring in a window and a more tranquil look sented in Rembrandt's Aristotle. upon his face, an Aristotle by Vermeer, would capture the an­ Rembrandt's portrait of antique philosophy is also to be dis­ tique Aristotle better. Here, as so often in Rembrandt, the set­ tinguished from Jewish Biblical religion. Rembrandt often paints ting for the study is cavernous, and here not even the usual faint Rabbis conversing together or studying alone; almost always they or baffled light of day shines in. We cannot tell whether Aristotle have their precious books with them. The relation of antique contemplates in the day or in the night. Here, as elsewhere in philosophy to books is not less serious, but it is both less exclu­ Rembrandt's work, light stands out from darkness; it does not sive and less absorbed. Not knowing or acknowledging a book re­ vanquish the darkness or sweep it away; it dwells uneasy and also vealed by God or a god, it did not subordinate all books to one more bright in a darkness from which it cannot separate itself ut­ and study it alone with fervor. So, the shelf which we see behind terly.ZZ Judged by natural understanding, this light is mysterious. the bust of Homer in Aristotle's study has more than one book Without a natural source, it arises from page, hand, face, and on it. cap, from both the mind and the thing it ardently sees. Perhaps Rembrandt's Jews are students and readers of their precious the soul of Rembrandt's Aristotle is taught to burn more bright book, but he does not show us the moment of its divine revela­ in darkness by Biblical religion23 with its sense of silent depths.24 tion. To understand such revelation, we must look at one of his If Rembrandt's Aristotle is truly antique, then it is the antique Christian portraits, his St. Matthew, where the rapt gospel writer Aristotle as discovered by Heidegger, one who points to the hid­ listens to a beautiful angel. The angel whispers, and he writes. denness of Being as much as to its unhiddenness. No such angel visits the antique philosopher's study, for Rem­ In his Aristotle Rembrandt has portrayed the spirit of ancient brandt's Aristotle trusts to unaided human powers Jo appreciate philosophy. For the spirit of modern philosophy according to this sunlit world and fathom the mysteries which border it. Rembrandt, we must turn to his Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaas Now the antique Aristotle speaks of wonder, but not of Tulp. 25 Ancient philosophy begins in wonder and dwells in won-

73 The College der; it gazes like Rembrandt's Aristotle. Modern or scientific 12. Edvard Munch's ideal portrait of Nietzsche places the philosopher philosophy begins with a corpse and dwells in the fear of death; on a bridge beside an abyss; he listens to the scream which pierces nature but he does not join it. See Reinhold Heller, Munch: The Scream it calls for a conquest of Nature, and fashions weapons for the (New York, 1973). coming war, weapons like the method of Descartes, the mathe­ 13. According to Otto Benesch, Rembrandt (New York, 1957), 92, Rem­ matization of physics, and the scalpel of Dr. Tulp. The modern brandt was familiar with Raphael's image of ancient philosophy. philosopher proposes to relieve man's condition, while the an­ 14. Here the contestant might be aided by modern accounts of sight it.26 which regard sight as merely a matter of "cones and rods." By repeating cient philosopher proposed to understand The latter dwells "it is only cones and rods," one may succeed in ignoring what one sees. in the study; the former will be found in the palaces and senates, 15. This expression is Shakespeare's gift to all English speakers (Hamlet in garages and laboratories, in the streets and in the hospital. 1.1.112 and 1.2.185); its Italian equivalent is Dante's gift to his people The cool competence of the modern philosopher is well ex­ (Paradiso X). hibited by Dr. Tulp, but for his fundamental restlessness we may 16. Consider the way the one-eyed stare of Julius Civilus in Rembrandt's "The Oath of the Batavians" affects his potential co­ look to Rembrandt's print of Dr. Faustus in his study. Modern conspirators and also the viewer. For grants which helped me travel to philosophy according to Rembrandt is the hand of Tulp with the Stockholm to study this painting I wish to thank NEH and Franklin and soul of Faustus. Marshall College. In his Aristotle Rembrandt has portrayed not only the spirit of 17. Part of this painting, a part which seems to have included two students taking dictation, has been cut away. Held, 11. See also Herbert ancient philosophy but philosophy itself, for the vividness with von Einem "Rembrandt und Homer," Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuck (KOln, which he represents Aristotle gazing suggests that this way of l 952), XIV, 182-205. looking and living is not dependent upon the times but available 18. Here I disagree with Held's interpretation of the thoughts which everywhere and always. Even if one begins with a corpse instead this chain brings to Aristotle. Held adduces many examples of scholars of a bust of Homer, one may gaze as Aristotle does. The man who felt they were chained to princes whose chains they accepted. These examples tempt us to forget something unusual in the relation of beside the corpse in his later Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deyman Aristotle and Alexander. Alexander was the pupil of the· man he re­ holds in his hand a section of the corpse's skull; meanwhile he warded. The chain is not a temptation; just as Aristotle acknowledges gazes with a faraway look. This "faraway" look is closer to the with his right hand that philosophy is stimulated by poetry, so does he look on Aristotle's face than to the look on the face of the dis­ acknowledge with his left hand (touching the chain) that philosophy needs to be supported by politics. While lower than philosophy or tracted Dr. Tulp. poetry, politics cannot be ignored. 19. True of other painters, but of only one Rembrandt I have dis­ covered (#175, Bauch). 20. See Lessing's essay, "Wie Die Alten Den Tod Gebildet," Gesam­ melte Werke, Zweiter Band (Muchen, 1959), 963~1015. 1. This essay was delivered to the Philadelphia Political Philosophy 21. Kenneth Clark in his Civilization series. That Aristotle and Plato Seminar at Bryn Mawr, The Independent Journal of Philosophy in Vi­ stand in the place of Christ crucified seems to me an unavoidable con­ enna, at the University of Dallas, Dickinson College, and Russell Sage clusion. College; I would like to thank my hosts and these audiences for the occa­ 22. The contrast of darkness and light seems in accord with the empha· sion to share and perhaps improve these reflections. sis which Rembrandt has given to the contrast of blindness and sight. So 2. The translation of this passage from Aristotle's Parts of Animals is far as 1 know, Aristotle himself never refers to the blindness of Homer. from Edgar Lohner's translation of Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" 23. It should be noted that Rembrandt's Christianity seems in turn to in Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ed. W. Barrett and H. D. Aiken be sweetened by something which may be antique, for unlike so many (New York, 1962), 296ff. others, he never, or almost never (see Note 19 above and also his etch­ 3. Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit, Mit einem Brief iiber den ings of St. Jerome in his Study) o.ffers us a skull for contemplation. "Humanismus"(Bern: Francke Verlag, 1947), paragraphs 76-78; again 24. In the first cha_pter of his Mimesis, (Princeton, 1968) Erich Auerbach the translation is that of Edgar Lohner. contrasts the narrative intention of Homer, who wishes to make every­ 4. Here I follow Nietzsche, Frohliche Wissenschaft, 329. thing visible, with the narrative effect of the Biblical story of Abraham 5. For supervision in this task and for many a good conversation, I wish and Isaac, whose every brief word is surrounded with silence and to thank my friend Lee Gohlike. fraught with depth. Cf. the remarks of Paul Valery on the sense of inner 6. So, too, might Robert Pirsig whose Zen and the Art of Motorcycle depth which Rembrandt likes to create around his shut-in philosophers, Maintenance (New York, 1974), has much to say about techne and its in his essay "The Return from Holland," Collected Works in English place in our modern Western lives. (Princeton, 1968), IX, 82. 7. See the sensitive observations ofJulius Held in the title essay from his 25. For a fuller exploration of this painting and what it suggests about Rembrandt's Aristotle and Other Rembrandt Studies (Princeton, 1969); modern scientific medicine, see the present author's dialogue, "Looking throughout, I am indebted to his observations and his learning; his at the Body," Hastings Center Reports, V, 2 (April, 1975), 21-28. The dedication to the task of preserving our precious heritage by ardent contrast of Tulp and Aristotle might serve to remind us that the current study is, to my mind, exemplary. discussion of medical ethics should not be confined, as it largely is, to 8. Held, 5ff. isolated situations, quandaries, and cases, but must, for the very clarifi­ 9. Held, 12. These words are "found in a copy written in November cation of these cases, include consideration of the way of life of the par­ 1662 of the original shipping bill of 1654." ticipants. Often we do the deeds we do because we have long ago 10. Held, 12-13. chosen to be who we are. If we find the conduct of modern doctors 11. Would it be possible to paint Descartes in accord with his own wanting, we should examine not only their conduct, but the education teaching? As a thinking ego and a mechanical body? Frans Hals's por­ which formed them. So, too, if we are discontented with modern medi­ trait of Descartes may be the solution; the solitary thinking ego stares cine, we should ask what we most desire from medicine and whether a out of a pale face itself engulfed in darkness; towards the bottom of the contented way of life can be based on this desire. painting an awkward hand appears; it is so awkwardly placed that it 26. In terms of Plato's image of the cave, as Allan Bloom has stressed in hardly belongs with the face above. This reminds us that in Descartes' his commentary on the Republic (New York, 1968), 403, the ancient phi· teaching the relation between the thinking ego and the body is quite losopher is a guide: he leads a few cave dweflers out of the cave; while perplexing. the modern philosopher is a torch-bearer: he brings light into the cave.

74 Plato's Euthydemus

by Samuel Scolnicov

The Euthydemus is a caricature, to be sure. But, as all good technique of argumentation is presumed to be indifferent to the caricature, it has a serious intent. It shows the degeneration of content of the argument, refuting the truth is, for the Sophists, a the Sophistic approach to education, in some of its aspects. live possibility. There is a technique of refutation that works More importantly, it distinguishes Socratic education from the equally well on either side of the case. Not so for Socrates: "If I methods and effects of its Sophistic counterpart. am not mistaken," he says to Dionysodorus, "even you will not Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, the two sophist brothers, are refute me, clever as you are."2 reminiscent of the great Sophists of the Protagoras in more than Socratic elenchos is the refutation of false or confused ideas. one way. They are polymaths like Hippias, and, at one time or But truth cannot be refuted. There are two sides to each argu­ another, have taught a variety of arts, from forensic rhetoric to ment only so long as we do not know on which side truth lies. armed combat. Also, they have Prodicus' penchant for linguistic Socrates, indeed, claimed not to know. He therefore kept both analysis. But most of all, they are Protagoras' epigones, down to sides of the argument as possibilities. But this did not preclude the smallest details: they walk around the courtyard with their the supposition that one side was right and the other wrong. entourage of disciples, who follow them from city to city; they Protagoras claimed to be able to teach excellence, and to make promise to teach human excellence with speed and efficiency; his students better "from day to day." Socrates, not less than !so­ with the change of fashions, they have come to think of the crates, doubts the claims of that "new-found art of making good other sciences (apart from the teaching of excellence) as value­ men out ofbad."3 For him, education is too complex a matter to less; they deny the possibility of contradiction; they can argue be summarized in a collection of foolproof techniques. But the equally well either side of a case. 1 But where Protagoras had in­ two sophists promise even more: they are capable of"delivering" tellectual stature and moral integrity, the two brothers are no or "handing down" excellence "in the quickest way" (273D 8-9). more than unscrupulous quacks. Nevertheless, Euthydemus and Indeed, as Socrates remarks at 2728 10, "last year or the year Dionysodorus are a direct and presumably inevitable product of before they were not yet wise." Protagoras' views, much as Callicles is a product of Gorgias'. Plato is drawing an exaggerated picture, but his point is valid: For the two brothers, philosophy has become the science of ar­ there are no shortcuts in education, no crash-courses in virtue. gumentation. They are experts of verbal fight, capable of refuting Instant wisdom is a sham; the way of education is long and diffi­ any position, true or false. It is significant that the brothers had cult (presumably somewhat like the curriculum of the Republic), previously taught the pancration. In this Greek variety of"catch­ and, what is worse, its results are uncertain until one reaches the as-catch-can" almost anything was permitted, regardless of very end of it-if one ever does reach it. whether the opponent still stood or had already been downed. It is true that Socrates seems now and then to achieve some The brothers' type of argumentation is not much different. As in encouraging results with his method of interrogation, but he the other types of litigation which they practiced, such as foren­ never claims, for instance, that Clinias in the Euthydemus, or the sic oratory or armed combat, victory over the opponent is the unnamed boy in the Meno, have actually attained wisdom or only goal, and means are evaluated solely in respect to that goal. knowledge. He only prepared Clinias for learning, aroused his in­ The brothers too, like Socrates, equate virtue with knowledge. terest. It would be a good thing if excellence and wisdom could But their concept of virtue is the knowledge of how to succeed at be handed down.4 But these are not the sorts of things that can all costs; of how to get the better of others in any circumstance. be transmitted; they can only be slowly developed by each per­ As a result they teach mockeries of the traditional excellences: son for himself, with some outside help and no guarantee of litigation instead of justice, techniques of fighting instead of success. courage, and above all eristic instead of wisdom. The first question raised by Socrates, as soon as the conversa­ The brothers' logic is purely formal and argumentative, tion gets going, is the question of motivation. Should the student equally appropriate to any content or circumstance. Since the be willing to learn, or be convinced that he can or should learn, from his particular teacher, or is this unnecessary?5 If teaching Samuel Scolnicov is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at The Hebrew and education consist chiefly in the impersonal handing down of University of Jerusalem. He is at work on a study of Plato's thinking on certain beliefs, then the student's learning is indifferent to any education. involvement with a teacher. Learning is then somewhat like re-

75 The College ceiving an object which is given to the learner: there need not be posed solution or one type of proposed solutions is examined. much, if any, activity or initiative on the part of the receiver. To Alternatives not followed in one dialogue are sometimes hand down intellectual content requires at most suitable prepar­ developed by Plato in another, sometimes dropped altogether. ation. In such instances arousing interest means removing the Taken as a whole, the schema of all possible bifurcations pro­ emotional or intellectual elements which block the way to new vides a sort of matrix of possibilities to be explored. Rarely is information. It does not mean bringing the student to seek or such a schema to be found in one single dialogue. 11 produce knowledge himself. There need, therefore, not be any Socrates conceives of instruction in earnest as essentially an personal relation between teacher and student. individual matter. It depends on the personal convictions of the When asked if the brothers Would mind conversing with Cli­ learner at each stage of the discussion, and for different people nias, Euthydemus answers that it doesn't matter to them, so long the discussion branches off differently at different points. No aS the boy is willing to answer their questions. They merely need two processes of instruction can be alike, not only in regard to a respondent.6 They are not worried, as Socrates is, by the possi­ how instruction is conducted, bu! also in their content, in what bility that the boy's studies may do him harm rather than good.7 actually is learned or discovered. For them, all respondents are equal, and, to a certain extent, the Socrates correctly sees the two sophists' verbal equivocations questioners too are interchangeable. It does not matter too as degenerate offspring of Prodicus' insistence on the correct­ much who leads the questioning, the one or the other, so long as ness of names. He considers all such linguistic distinctions mere he abides by the rules of the art.8 Socrates, in contrast, refused play. They do not teach us anything about the world itself. Such students. He felt that some persons would not profit from him, knowledge allows us to make rather broad fun of others, but little on grounds of intelligence or of character. A personal relation· else. ship between teacher and student was for him a necessary condi­ The brothers' view of language is none too subtle: the func­ tion of education.9 tion of language is to designate; to speak truly is to succeed in Once the sophistic display has actually started, Socrates' first designating, to speak falsely, to fail. But if one speaks, one ob­ words stress his interpretation of the elenctic, in distinction to viously succeeds in doing something, namely speaking, which is the sophistic, process. At 275D, Euthydemus asks young Clinias supposed to be just a way of designating, like pointing. Ob­ a question not unlike Meno's: "Who are those who learn, the viously, if one points, one has succeeded in pointing. Therefore, wise or the ignorant?" 10 As Clinias seems perplexed by the ques­ if one speaks, one necessarily speaks truly. Such a simplistic ap­ tion, Socrates entreats him to answer "courageously, whichever proach is bound to break down. answer it seems to you. For," he says, "maybe you are to get the Ctesippus spots the flaw in the argument. "Speaking" is not a greatest of benefits." two-place predicate, like "pointing," but a three-place predicate, Socrates ironically presents the two brothers' sophistry as on a like "naming" or "identifying." Not "A speaks of x," but "A par with his own elenchus. Each question requires a courageous speaks of x as N" (cf. "A points at x," and "A names x 'N'," or "A answer, no matter which, so long as it is what really seems to the identifies x as N"). To speak falsely is then not to fail to speak of answerer to be the case. In contrast Dionysodorus immediately x, but to speak of x as M (when x is in fact N). To call a spade a makes it clear that Clinias' answers do not matter in the least. spade is to speak truly. To speak falsely is to call it something Whatever the boy says, the outcome will be the same: "And I else; it is not to fail to speak.IZ foretell you, Socrates, that whichever way he answers, the boy But Dionysodorus and Euthydemus will have none of this in­ will be refuted." terpretation. They stick to their view of "speaking of" as a two­ The technique is so set up that the interaction of teacher and place predicate, and accordingly allow modifiers such as "truly" student plays no significant role in it. There is only a sequence of and "falsely" to be understood only adverbially, i.e., as referring steps to be followed that can be mastered with relative ease. It is, to the act of speaking or designating. Speaking truly means in effect, a teacher-proof and student-proof method. In the speaking in a certain manner, like speaking slowly or loudly. Fur­ Sophistic elenchus, there is no way in which the answerer canal­ ther, if to speak truly is to speak of what iS as it is, then, on their ter the course of the argument. view, this amounts to speaking of each thing in a manner appro­ Despite its superficial similarity to the Sophistic interrogation, priate to it, for instance, speaking badly of bad men, and taste­ 1 Socratic elenchus differs from it in a crucial respect, not im­ lessly of tasteless men. 3 mediately apparent in the written dialogue. In the Socratic dia­ Consistent, as far as it goes, the sophist brothers' argument is logue each of Socrates' questions brings the answerer to a fork in self-defeating, as Socrates points out:14 if there is no contradic· the road. At each point in the conversation the answerer himself tion, or alternatively, if one cannot speak falsely, then refutation must decide which way to take: The course of the dialogue is too is impossible. But Plato does not seem to think that there is a jointly determined by Socrates' presentation, and his partner's formal contradiction in the argument, only a circumstantial one choice, of alternatives. Socrates' emphasis on the joint search for which depends on the particular speaker. When Socrates points an answer is not mere rhetoric. He leads the search, but his part­ out to Dionysodorus that on his own view refutation is impossi­ ner confirms or denies the suggestions Socrates makes. When ble, Euthydemus takes over. Since the contradiction is between this is done in good faith-and it is not always so-both sides are the proposition "Refutation is impossible," and Dionysodorus' responsible for the outcome of the dialogue. Because the demand that Socrates refute him personally, a change of dialogue is always carried on withi~ a context, not all possible al­ speakers should take care of the problem. It should be noted that ternatives are explored in one dialogue. Frequently only one pro- if cor,ttradiction is impossible, so is error and teaching. This is, of

76 January, 1980 course, Protagoras' view. Only Protagoras is· much subtler. happiness and excellence, or is the aim of education en­ Circumstantial contradiction can be ignored if one is stub­ cyclopedic knowledge? The Republic will claim that these are bornly prepared to disregard the need for consistency in one's not alternatives, but that wisdom, the knowledge of the right several utterances or between one's utterances and one's ac­ conduct of one's affairs and of the affairs of the state, is in fact tions. The price would seem too high. But Dionysodorus sees synaptical (but not encyclopedic) knowledge. The difference be· himself at liberty to disown what he has said before. He con­ tween encyclopedic and synaptical knowledge will be made clear siders each argument in isolation. There is no overall coherence only in the Republic and in the Phaedrus. 20 (or even consistency) in his argumentation and no commitment Now philosophy, Socrates summarizes, is the acquisition (or to the issues that he raises. 15 possession)21 of knowledge. He does not explain how this acquisi­ Socrates too changes his views in the course of many a dia­ tion comes about, or what such a possession consists of. He im­ logue, at least apparently (for instance, in the Protagoras, or in plies such an acquisition occurs not in receiving information, but the Meno), and he certainly causes his respondents to change in the process Clinias is undergoing at that very moment. Some their minds, but he always stresses the consistency of the argu­ analytical discussion of this process-one of Socrates' few suc­ ment as a whole and the commitment to finding out what the cesses in educating an interlocutor in the early dialogue 22 ~is case is. When one changes one's views, this should be done in undertaken in the Meno. honesty and with responsibility for one's utterances, not merely Here Plato is interested in the nature of the knowledge that because of expediency in argument. constitutes wisdom, i.e., of the knowledge they had earlier Because Dionysodorus' approach is purely verbal and formal, agreed was worthwhile. Socrates resumes the utilitarian line and with no regard for either the coherence of the argument or for suggests that knowledge worth acquiring is knowledge that will the matter discussed itself, the discussion degenerates into benefit us. So far this is nothing but an explication of the utilitar­ personal insult. If one is not committed to one's answer, and con­ ian assumption of the argument. But the interlocutors had ducts the inquiry on a purely verbal level, without paying atten­ earlier agreed that nothing is beneficial unless wisely used. tion to things as they are, then there is nothing ridiculous, or Knowledge worth acquiring must, therefore, be knowledge of shameful, or absurd one cannot say. Once semantic criteria have using things, not of making them, or getting them.23 been discarded as not formal enough, even the rules of syntax The argument now turns to the need for a hierarchy of crafts are not of much help. Language itself breaks down. 16 and sciences. Such a hierarchy makes it possible to distinguish The consequences of such an education are obvious~a spu­ between the encyclopedic knowledge of the sophists, and the rious art of argumentation. Its results can be seen in the ex­ synaptical knowledge Plato favours. The organizing knowledge change of insults between Ctesippus and Euthydemus, earlier in is the art of kingship, identified with politics. Individual educa· the dialogueP Ctesippus makes progress indeed in the argumen­ tion thus becomes inextricably linked with political thinking. tative art, and manages in a short time to master it well enough There is here a prefiguration of the Republic: not only is the to engage the sophists in their own game. His youthful Philosopher-King presented both as the final outcome of educa­ impetuousness prevents him from reaching Clinias' stage of pro­ tion and himself the educator, but also there are hints of the ficiency, however. Ctesippus can see through the sophists' hierarchical relations among the sciences, dialectric and the po­ tricks, but because of his psychic make-up he is unable to par­ litical art 24 ticipate in serious discussion. The art of the Philosopher-King as the art of educating men, In contrast, Socrates gives an example of conversation which however, occasions some difficulties. For one thing, unlike the will move a mind to pursue wisdom. 18 As usual he begins with other arts, it does not seem to have a product of its own. The the obvious and close-at-hand. All men desire happiness. He at ruler as educator gives the citizens a share of knowledge. 25 His first describes this happiness in conventional terms: the posses­ art consists in infusing the state with knowledge, in the different sion of the goods of the body, such as health and beauty; good degrees which the capacities of each citizen allow. The art of birth, power and honour; the virtues such as temperance, justice kingship is to make others good. There can be no separation be­ and courage. But on further examination it is found that only tween politics and education, no ideologically neutral education. wisdom brings success. All the so-called goods turn out not to be In what way does the art of kingship make us good? In what good or bad in themselves. 19 If accompanied by wisdom they are way is it different from the "newly discovered art of making good good and bring happiness. Without it they are liable to be mis­ men out of bad"? We cannot answer that it makes us capable of used. This is an example of the protreptic argument Socrates educating others, and these still others, etc., for such an answer had asked for at 275A. does not help us find out what the art is. A characterization of Clinias is now at least initially moved to philosophize, to seek education in terms of "initiation" or preservation and continua­ wisdom, insofar as he thinks it is to his advantage. The question, tion of the patterns of the society or of the culture will not do whether wisdom is teachable, is passed over (282C), since it without further specification. Plato is after the cqntent of such would require a full examination of the nature of wisdom and its art relation to happiness~to which a great part of the Republic is But apparently the analogy to the other arts, which leads us to devoted. look for the content, is misleading. Its content cannot be uni­ Even without going into so long an inquiry, a second, more versal, "carpentry, and cobbling, and all the rest," and it cannot limited question now arises: Is wisdom the whole of knowledge be the knowledge of itself. 26 These questions cannot be ade­ or is it a specific knowledge? In other words, is there a science of quately discussed in the context of this dialogue and they are

77 The College

merely hinted at, as a demonstration of the Socratic method. 5. Euthydemus 274D 7. Socrates' inquires in the Euthydemus reach an impasse, and 6. Euthydemus 2758C. 7. Euthydemus 275AB; cf. Protagoras 313A ff. seem to lead nowhere. The sophists' tricks too lead nowhere. 8. Cf. Euthydemus 297 A Yet, these two negative conclusions are of different types. 9. Cf. Theaetetus 150E-151B. Socrates' aporia shows the need for further investigation, and in­ 10. The second horn of the dilemma is developed as a variation on this cites the partner to such investigation. The sophistic quandary theme: see 276D. puts down its victim and makes him despair of inquiry. 11. The second part of the Parmenides is perhaps the best example of an exhaustive presentation of a field of discourse-achieved there at the The Euthydemus' aim is to set out the difference between the cost of extreme formalism. Socratic and the sophistic method. But Plato is well aware that 12. Euthydemus 284C 7-8. Cf. also Meno 82B 9-10, Cratylus 429E, the difference is not easy to grasp. Many felt Socrates also put Republic 477-478. See further G. Prams, Platon und der logische Eleatis· down people, led them in circles by means of sophistic tricks and mus (Berlin, 1966), 125 ff.; S. Scolnicov, Plato's Method of Hypothesis in in the end paralyzed them with questions from which there was the Middle Dialogues (Ph.D. Thesis, Cambridge University, 1973), ch. VI. Problems notoriously do arise in further analysis, as Plato shows in no escape. At the end when the dialogue returns to the frame­ the Sophist. story, Crito tells of an outsider to whom Socrates appeared 13. 284C 9 ff. A similar doctrine appears in the Cratylus; cf. the previous ridiculous and embarrassing. Crito himself-no fool, but a man note. seriously concerned with his sons' education, and Socrates' 14. 286E 2 ff. One has to presume a sullen silence on the part of Diony· sadorus after Socrates' words at E2-3. friend-agrees, to some extent, with this appraisal of SocratesP 15. 287 A 5 ff. Contrast with Socrates' insistence on the coherence and It takes a keen eye-the eye of Plato, presumably-to spot the the unity of the personality. difference between Socrates and the sophists, and to be aware of 16. JOJA 7-8. the problems in the Socratic method. The Socratic method can 17. 2988 ff. 18. 278E ff. often be misused or mistaken for ridicule. Socrates more than 19. This was later to be an accepted Stoic doctrine. once, not the least in the Euthydemus, was taken to be indulging 20. Meno 810 l-4 already enunciates briefly the Platonic counterpart in such ridicule.28 An educational approach which uses irony is of Euthydemus 294A 2-3: if only one knows one single thing, one knows bound to be limited to the few. For Plato, the political man, the all. difficulties would be obvious. But Plato could also appreciate the 21. Ktesis. The Greek is ambiguous. 22. Socrates' brief interchanges with Clinias in the present dialogue is positive value of Socrates' irony when properly understood. another limited success. 23. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics l098b 32. 24. For a discussion of the Philosopher-King in this passage and in other l. Polymathy: Euthydemus 271C 6 with Hippias maior285B ff.; linguis­ dialogues, see R. K. Sprague, Plato's Philosopher King: A Study of The tic analysis: Euthydemus 277E; peripateticism: Euthydemus 273A 3 with Theoretical Background (Columbia, S.C., 1976). Protagoras 314E 4; instant arete: Euthydemus 2730 8-9 with Protagoras 25. "To give a share" translates 292B 8 metadidonai; cf. 273D 8 318A 5 ff.; disregard for other types of knowledge: Euthydemus 273D paradidonai, ''to hand down." l-4 with Protagoras 318D 5 ff.; denial of contradiction: cf. Euthydemus 26. Cf. the Lysis. 285D ff; arguing both sides: Euthydemus 275D ff., and for Protagoras, cf. 27. 305A ff. Cf. 307A l-2. It is difficult not to suppose that the refer­ above. Cf. also Socrates' introduction of Clinias to the two brothers, at ence is to !socrates, although other identifications have been proposed. 275AB, with his introduction of Hippocrates to Protagoras, at Protagoras Crito himself is, of course, quite close to this description. 3168C. 28. I cannot follow Leo Strauss' analysis ("On the Euthydemus," Inter­ 2. Euthydemus 287E 4-5. pretation, I (1970), 1-20.) which leads to the conclusion that "In the 3. Euthydemus 2858 4-5. Euthydemus Socrates takes the side of the two brothers against Ktesip­ 4. Protagoras 319A, Euthydemus 274A. pos and Kriton.''

78 BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEw

Memories of John Dewey Days

An Autobiographical Fragment

Sidney Hook John Dewey, by Diego Rivera, from the Special Collection, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, with permission.

I have related my memories of John Dewey in many places come. As a young Socialist I was almost automatically an advo­ and on many occasions. 1 Sometimes I suspect that these reveal cate of progressive education or of anything that would break more things about me than about him. But this seems unavoid­ the educational lock~step. My own educational experiences, able because, among other reasons, Dewey was and remains one looking back, were devastating confirmations of Dewey's criti­ of the most controversial figures of his age, despite the mildness cisms of conventional education. Elementary school was a of his manner, the softness of his speech, and his kindly disposi­ period of prolonged boredom and high school was a succession tion. When I got to know him well-which was after my student of nightmares and persecutions. days-we fought in so many "causes" together that he himself My familiarity with Dewey's writings began at the College of and the ideas he stood for became one of the central "causes" in the City of New York. I had enrolled in an elective course in my life. In some quarters this earned me the sobriquet of social philosophy with Professor Harry Overstreet who was a "Dewey's bulldog" because of my efforts to clarify his views and great admirer of Dewey's and spoke of him with awe and bated to defend them against the misunderstandings of critics and breath. The text of the course was Dewey's Reconstruction in sometimes the misstatements of fancied disciples. Philosophy which we read closely. (Before I graduated, in con­ In these pages I shall write of my experiences and observations nection with courses in education, I read some of Dewey's as a graduate student at Columbia from 1923 to 1927. The time I Democracy and Education and was much impressed with its phi­ spent in classes and on the campus was limited until the last year losophy of education without grasping at that time its general when I received a University Fellowship. Since I was shouldering significance). Overstreet was a colleague of Morris Cohen with a heavy economic burden and found it necessary to teach in a whom I studied at the same time. In marked contrast to Cohen, Brooklyn Williamsburgh public school from 9 A~! to 3 PM and at Overstreet was a devoted follower of Dewey and a teacher of the East Side Evening High School from 7:15PM to 10:15 PM, I great charm and histrionic talent. But I was taken aback by the took my courses in the afternoon hours. In the first years in con­ weakness of Overstreet's defense of Dewey's views. His enthusi­ sequence I missed Dewey's lectures because of scheduling dis­ asm outstripped his philosophical sophistication. What did im­ parities and enrolled in courses with W. P. Montague, F. J. E. press me about Reconstruction in Philosophy, and later in other Woodbridge, and Irwin Edman. writings of Dewey, was the brilliant application of the principles I had first heard of john Dewey when I was a high school stu· of historical materialism, as I understood them then as an dent. Casual references were made to him as an educator. That avowed young Marxist, to philosophical thought, especially didn't mean very much to me at the time and for some years to Greek thought. Most Marxist writers, including Marx and En­ gels, made pronouncements about the influence of the mode of Sidney Hook is at work on his political autobiography, Out of Step. economic production on the development of cultural and philo­ His latest book, Philosophy and Public Policy, will be published in the sophical systems of thought, but Dewey, without regarding him­ spring by Southern Illinois University Press. self as a Marxist or invoking his approach, tried to show in detail

79 The College how social stratification and class struggles got expressed in the gressive causes. metaphysical dualism of the time and in the dominant concep­ John Dewey's classes were always full but never really tions of matter and form, body and soul, theory and practice, crowded for long. There was a considerable number of students truth, reason and experience. Even at that time, however, I was of mature years in his audience who had come to Columbia from not an orthodox Marxist. Although politically sympathetic to all various regions of the country to study with him. Those from for­ of the social revolutionary programs of Marxism and quite sym­ eign countries were most likely to be enrolled in his courses at pathetic to Dewey's commitment to far-reaching social reforms, Teachers College which, to the best graduate students in the I had a much more traditional view of philosophy as an autono­ Faculty of Philosophy, was intellectually off limits. mous discipline concerned with perennial problems whose solu­ As a teacher Dewey seemed to me to violate his own pedagogi­ tion was the goal of philosophical inquiry and knowledge. cal principles. He made no attempt to motivate or arouse the I was prepared to grant that the acceptance of philosophical interest of his auditors, to relate problems to their own experi­ ideas, and possibly their origin, could be explained by the social ences, to use graphic, concrete illustrations in order to give point interests and struggles of the time rooted in the economic sub­ to abstract and abstruse positions. He rarely provoked a lively structure of society~just as the emergence of certain scientific participation and response from students, in the absence of problems and the motives for some types of scientific theory which it is difficult to determine whether genuine learning or could be related to extra-scientific causes and considerations~ even comprehension has taken place. Dewey presupposed that but I denied that this had anything to do with the problem of va­ he was talking to colleagues and paid his students the supreme lidity or truth in either field. I recall doing a piece of homework intellectual compliment of treating them as his professional for Overstreet, subsequently published in the Open Court Maga­ equals. And indeed if the background and preparation of his stu­ zine, a philosophical dialogue between Pragmaticus, whose posi­ dents were anywhere near what he assumed, he would have tion was Dewey's in Reconstruction in Philosophy, and Univer­ been completely justified in his indifference to pedagogical salus, for whom philosophy was the vision of the world sub specie methods. For on the graduate level students are or should be aeternitatis in which time and place had no role. considered junior colleagues. But when they are not, a teacher While taking work with Overstreet I was also studying with h~s has an obligation to communicate effectively. Dewey never colleague, Morris R. Cohen. My stimulating bitter-sweet experi­ talked down to his classes, but it would have helped had he made ences with him I have described elsewhere. 2 Cohen was a highly it easier to listen to him. articulate and harsh critic of pragmatism. For him pragmatism Dewey spoke in a husky monotone, and although there was a was primarily the philosophy of William james and the philoso­ sheet on the desk at which he was usually seated, he never phy of William James was primarily the doctrine of the will to seemed to consult it. He folded it into many creases as he slowly believe. And the doctrine of the will to believe was simply indul­ spoke. Occasionally he would read from a book to which he was gent wish thinking, and damned as a transparent piece of intel­ making a critical reference. His discourse was far from fluent. lectual dishonesty. Although in his writings Cohen distinguished There were pauses and sometimes long lapses as he gazed out of between the views of James and Dewey, remaining critical of the window or above the heads of his audience. It was as if he both, in class he lumped them together. He mocked the were considering and reconsidering every point until it was categories of "life," "experience," "the dynamic," associated toned to the right degree of qualification. I believe it was Ernest with pragmatists and their writings. He dragged in references to Nagel who first observed that Dewey in the classroom was an pragmatism at every opportunity but I do not recall him ever as­ ideal type of a man thinking. Despite the fact that his listeners signing us any specific text in the writings of James or Dewey. sometimes feared that, because of his long pauses, Dewey had "Pragmatism," he would declare, "is a philosophy for people lost the thread of his thought, if they wrote down and then re­ who cannot think." read what Dewey had actually said, it was amazingly coherent. I embarked on the study of philosophy at Columbia University But at the time, because of the absence of fluency or variation of completely unsympathetic to the philosophy I expected to be tone in his speech, except for an occasional and apparently arbi­ professed in the classrooms of its most noted figure. trary emphasis upon a conjunction like "and" or "but," which woke most of his auditors with a start, the closely-argued charac­ ter of his analysis was not always apparent. * * * * Every experienced teacher knows that because of the vicissi­ A student wandering into a class given by John Dewey at Co­ tudes of life, he or she sometimes must face a class without being lumbia University and not knowing who was delivering the lec­ properly prepared. This is not always educationally disastrous. ture would have found him singularly unimpressive. But to those Some individuals have a gift for improvisation and a skillful of us enrolled in his courses, he was already a national institution teacher can always stimulate fruitful discussion. Dewey never with an international reputation~indeed the only professional came to a class unprepared and there were plenty of family crises philosopher whose occasional pronouncements on public and in his life. Rarely did he miss a class. There was an exemplary political affairs made news. In that period he was indisputably conscientiousness about every educational task he undertook, all the intellectual leader of the liberal community in the United the more impressive because it was so constant His posthumous States, and even his academic colleagues at Columbia and papers reveal draft upon draft of lectures and essays. elsewhere who did not share his philosophical persuasion ac­ Despite the distracting extrinsic features of Dewey's teaching, knowledged his eminence as a kind of intellectual tribune of pro- it was impressive. The high seriousness of his concentration, un-

80 January, 1980

relieved by any irrelevant humor, affected us in the same way as to repair to Cohen to find out what was wrong with the way the it did his colleagues. Dewey seemed to exemplify not only man argument was coming out. He shrugged off my complaint that thinking but nature itself thinking. In some letters that have re­ he had not done justice to Dewey's views about the nature of the cently come to light by Bertrand Russell to his inamorata, Lady "practical" -which made the practical synonymous with the Ottaline, after his first meeting with Dewey in 1914, when their "experimental" and not with the "useful"-and that in some re­ paths crossed at Harvard, he wrote, "To my surprise I liked him spects he had not sharply enough differentiated Dewey's theo­ very much. He has a slow moving mind, very empirical and can­ ries of meaning and truth from those of James. After he read the did, with something of the impassivity and impartiality of a draft of my article, to my astonishment Cohen said: "What you natural force". (Royce he dubs "a garrulous old bore"). In a sub· have written is true enough. If that's pragmatism, I'm a pragma­ sequent letter, he refers to Dewey's criticisms of a paper read tist. But it isn't Dewey." before the New York Philosophical Club at Columbia on "The I then went to see Dewey, whose office I had been reluctant to Relation of Sense-data to Physics" as very profound, and all visit until then because of my critical role in his class, and said in others as worthless. This turned out to be the high point of effect: "I started out to criticize your positions but I seem to Russell's appreciation of Dewey. From that time on, save for an have come to the conclusion that they can very well be squared extended article on Dewey's Essays in Experimental Logic in with Peirce's arguments, his rejection of Cartesian dualism and 1918, Russell's strictures on Dewey were an expression of mis­ his doctrine of leading principles. I think something is wrong, for understanding and malice. instead of refuting your views here I am confirming them." I can still remember his grin as he took the paper and suggested that I * * * return later. When I did, he handed the paper back to me with * the smiling observation: "I don't see anything wrong with it." Subsequently I was to come to the conclusion that Dewey During the first year of my study with Dewey-the course rarely found anything wrong with the position of anyone who may have been Types of Logical Theory-! constituted myself, so philosophically was moving in his direction. At the time it was to speak, the official opposition. I did the apparently unprece­ clear to me that although kindly and amused, Dewey was rather dented thing of interrupting him from time to time with ques­ impressed with my development, not so much perhaps because tions that reflected the metaphysical and logical standpoints, as I it strengthened his convictions of the validity of his own views as understood them, of Russell and Cohen. This annoyed some of because someone who had been close to Cohen and sympathetic my fellow students whom I awoke out of their somnolent to Russell's Platonic realism, and who had advertised himself as a drowse. Others informed me with some acerbity after class that resolute opponent of Dewey, had found some of Dewey's most they had paid money to hear John Dewey speak, not to hear me formidable critics wanting. To outsiders it looked as if Dewey ask him questions. But Dewey showed not the slightest annoy­ had won over one of Cohen's disciples. It certainly looked that ance or impatience. Before the year was out there were others, way to Cohen himself who never forgave me for my defection too, who had questions. What I remember only about these despite his expressed gratitude for my published encomia about questions is that whenever they caught him up on a terminolog­ him as a teacher and philosopher. It had a bearing on our subse­ ical inconsistency or on a purely dialectical difficulty, he would quent relations. We rarely met without heatedly disagreeing with smile and with a twinkle in his eye resolve it. Years later I asked each other about Dewey whenever his name came up. him whether he had resented my persistent questioning which During those years we never socialized with our professors. must have sometimes interrupted his trend of thought. "No", he What we got to know about them was largely hearsay or inferred replied, "it was obvious to me that you were eager to find out, from public prints, reviews, association meetings, sometimes and struggling to come to grips with a position unfamiliar to news stories. Dewey and F. J. E. Woodbridge dominated the De­ you." He had easily divined the quarter from which my ques­ partment, too much so, and the degree of their agreement and tions had come. He made an invidious comparison between me difference on key issues was the subject of much speculation and and another student, who had studied with him shortly before debate among us, something which we could easily have ascer­ my time, whom he characterized as an exhibitionist who asked tained had they and the other members talked back to each questions only to parade the answers to them before Dewey other in joint meetings with us. Only William Pepperil Mon­ could respond. tague would occasionally in his classes venture on indirect criti­ Nothing Dewey said in class convinced me of the validity of cisms. But he was the odd man out and I believe remained in a his general position. It was only at the end of the year when I sat state of genuine puzzlement about the strange doctrines his emi­ down to write a definitive refutation of pragmatism that I discov­ nent colleagues propounded. Montague was devoted to Dewey ered to my astonishment, as I developed my argument, that I was as a human being, supported all his liberal views, but was baffled coming out in the wrong place. Instead of refuting Dewey's by his technical philosophical doctrine. Cohen truly remarked of views, I was confirming them! They involved judgements of per­ him: "What he sees he sees clearly but what he doesn't see, he ception,_ the nature of theories, and the ultimately existential doesn't see at all." character of the laws of logic. My point of departure was Peirce's The primary difficulty with the teaching of philosophy when I fallibilism and his theory of leading principles to which I had was a student was that it was insufficiently systematic. WOod­ been introduced in my CCNY days by Morris Cohen. I was intel­ bridge was a thinker of deep insight thoroughly steeped in the lectually distressed by this outcome, and the first thing I did was history of philosophy who was convinced that epistemology was

81 The College a mistake. He was always asking "simple" questions that had, he faculty could question us about anything it chose. Usually I am insisted, "simple answers" but it required considerable philo­ in good form with interlocutors but for the first hour and a half I sophical sophistication to understand the meaning of the ques­ was conscious that I was not doing well. I tangled with Mon­ tions, and preternatural powers of intuition to grasp the answers tague on Plato-he was nettled by my rejection of the subsis­ ~which we did by guessing. Dewey at the time was challenging tence doctrine of universals to which he subscribed. I answered the confusion between cosmic and ethical issues on which the inadequately a question from Woodbridge on the relation be­ Greek classical tradition in philosophy rested, and the mistaken tween Plotinus and Christian theology because I had concen­ theories of experience on which the whole of modern philoso­ trated on some of the more difficult points in the Enneads (the phy rested. Long before Wittgenstein, he denied that there was course on Plotinus was the first one I took at Columbia with Ir­ any philosophical knowledge and dissolved questions like the ex­ win Edman whom, I fear, I terrified because I had read the same istence of the external world, the traditional mind-body problem, secondary sources he consulted. Neither of us knew Greek). etc., by showing that on their own assumptions they were insol­ Some quirk impelled me to antagonize Woodbridge, who had uble or question begging. This approach as well as that of Wood­ been quite friendly to me in his classes since I could guess the bridge would have been stimulating and challenging to students answers to his "simple" questions better than others, by differing already well trained in the analysis of the traditional problems, with him on his view of Schopenhauer's Fourfold Root of the but to the miscellany of theological students, ·social workers, Principle of Sufficient Reason. What was worse, I outraged him teachers, seekers of wisdom or beauty or social salvation that by gratuitously revealing in one of my answers that I believed constituted during those days a considerable part of the classes that Book II of Spinoza's Ethics was not logically out of order in philosophy, Dewey and Woodbridge were obscure. although I knew that for Woodbridge it should have preceded But to return to the teaching scene, I doubt that the teaching Book I. We can find our way up to God but if we begin with Him staff got much philosophical stimulation or challenge from those we cannot come down. Woodbridge's own position was funda­ they taught except in a few small seminars. There was not mentally materialistic and I really agreed with it, but his textual enough intellectual kick-back. Woodbridge enjoyed asking ques­ reading of Spinoza seemed to me arbitrary. By the time Dewey tions that stumped his class but didn't fancy getting them. Mon­ began the questioning on Peirce I was rather rattled. Dewey be­ tague was always wary of the philosophical quarter from which gan in words that I still recall at least in part: "I wish I could take they came. The younger men were suspicious that someone was the time to read the questions Mr. Hook has submitted on trying to catch them out. Everyone except Dewey and Mon­ Peirce's doctrines. They reveal a thoroughgoing grasp and mas­ tague seemed to me to be trying to understand why the philoso­ tery not only of Peirce's doctrines but of their revolutionary im­ phers of the past said the things they did, not whether what was pact on traditional philosophy." And he went on in this vein for said was true or even formally valid. In later days, when linguistic a minute or two before he put his own questions. It restored my analysis became the rage, the pendulum may have swung to nerve and I finished with some fine rhetorical flourishes about other extremes, and the historical dimension of philosophical Peirce's seminal ideas that I owed to Cohen. problems not sufficiently appreciated. No one who was genu­ I am confident that Dewey would have done the same thing inely interested in philosophy, however, was discouraged, but if for any other student in the same position. Some years later Ed­ he caught fire intellectually, it was from an outside source, usu­ man told me that he and Dewey had carried the day for me, and ally from something read. A few of us kept abreast of the profes­ that his own contribution had been to assure them that having sional periodicals which in perspective seemed more exciting heard me give a report on Plotinus' theory of space and time than those today, possibly because the issues discussed seemed (aspects of Plotinus that he was profoundly uninterested in), he larger and not so specialized. had no doubt about my philosophical competence. I was never Dewey was the soul of kindness· to questioners whenever they able to confirm Edman's account. Nor was it necessary. I began were bold enough to interrupt him, which they did as the course publishing while a graduate student and reactions from Harvard wore on. He never put any student down. If a question was ob­ and elsewhere were favorable. Woodbridge beamed on me more scure or made no apparent sense, he would find an intimation of and more as my powers of divination in responding to his "sim­ relevant significance in it that encouraged some students to take ple questions" increased. By the time I faced the Department at themselves more seriously as thinkers of profound grasp than the final examination in defense of my dissertation The Meta­ was warranted. As a rule I have discovered that students seem to physics of Pragmatism, which I had stitched together out of the resent their classmates who ask questions more than their teach­ articles I published, everything went smoothly. Only Montague ers do. held out. He tried to tax me, unfairly I thought, with having com­ In my own case I recall an act of extraordinary kindness on mitted the fallacy of the undistributed middle term in one of my Dewey's part which was all the more surprising to me since at arguments. I was startled when Woodbridge broke in on our the time I had little contact with him During that period, to wrangle to say: "Maybe, but it is not important to the qualify as a doctoral student, one had to pass a preliminary oral argument." I was startled because I still had-and have-enough examination of two hours on four philosophers, two from the an­ of Cohen's training left in me to believe that anyone capable of cient and medieval period and two modern. I selected Plato, making such an elementary logical error was not qualified to Plotinus, Schopenhauer, and Charles Peirce. We were required teach philosophy. Dewey's kindness to me extended to his will­ to hand ~n questions or extended topics on each of them which ingness to write an introduction to my dissertation which would indicate the area and range of our interests although the enabled me to find a commercial publisher for the volume.

82 January, 1980

Although at the time the world seemed in turmoil, looking I leave to others the assessment of the validity of my interpre­ back from where we are today, and despite the hurried quality of tation of Marx's philosophy and its anticipation of the key doc­ our student days, Columbia during those golden years seemed trines of pragmatic naturalism. I cite here only one point which an island of peace and calm and yet of intense intellectual excite­ seems central to my view. Neither Marx nor Dewey's philosophy ment. We were filled with hope and a tremendous expectation would hold water if one believed, as so many philosophers have, that great things were in the offing and that the ideas we were that we have immediate and certain truths of fact. The most ap­ debating would play a role. Memories of the First World War and parent of such truths are allegedly immediate truths of sense per­ the inglorious post-war years in America (1919-1921), when the ception. Marx denies that there are such truths on the basis of worst cultural excesses in American history had occurred, were his Hegelian heritage but since he rejects Hegel's theory of receding. The Palmer raids and deportation proceedings against Mind, he offers no supporting analysis. Dewey, however, in a radicals as well as hysteria against the German language (sauer­ complex and suhtle analysis argued that despite Aristotle, Des­ kraut became "Liberty cabbage"), literature, and music had cartes, Locke, and a long line of distinguished thinkers which in­ characterized these years. We sensed the presence of intellectual dude philosophers as divergent as Husserl, Carnap, and Russell, giants on the campus-not only Dewey but Robinson, Beard, that there are no immediate truths of perception in our observa­ Mitchell, Boas, and others. The only extra-academic issue that tion. Tradition for him has more to do with the actual starting mildly stirred the campus was the Sacco-Vanzetti case. Together point of knowledge than what is apparently given in anything with a few other students and the help of a young woman from called sense-knowledge. Sense perception as a distinctive activ­ the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee I organized a demon­ ity occurs within a subject matter which is primarily determined stration for Sacco-Vanzetti on the steps of the Low Library. It by a social tradition. That is to say, the whole system of custo­ was a mild and tepid affair which attracted few passersby, drawn mary beliefs as they are handed to us from one generation to more out of curiosity than sympathy. One of the junior members another, not only by speech patterns but also by the patterns of of the Department of Philosophy was outraged by our action al­ overt action, enter into what we observe. Sense perception tends though in sympathy with our views. Such things, he told me, to be dominated by the beliefs, meanings, and habits which in­ "were in bad taste." I replied "To hell with taste when men's dividuals incorporate into their own reach for knowledge while lives were at stake." reacting to the speech and behavior of others. This analysis does At that time I was convinced that Sacco and Vanzetti were in­ not deny or reduce the value of sense perception, but establishes nocent but ten years or so later Carlo Tresca, the Italian-Ameri­ that it is in a derivative and mediate position. It is a deliberately can anarchist leader, who ought to know, told me that Sacco was used activity to check on the validity of the primary subject mat­ guilty. It was indisputable, however, that they never got a fair ter of belief, but is not itself warranted knowledge. trial, and like many radicals, then as now, I was prepared to be­ Finally, there was Dewey's denial of the autonomy of anything lieve the worst about American justice. I recall that Dewey was that can be called philosophical knowledge, the view that all gen­ deeply moved by their fate. As events were moving towards the uine knowledge was scientific in the broad experimental sense end, he once said to me in a tone of wonder and despair, "She and involved an element of activity as integral to the knowing was right after alL She kept telling me that they would never let process, that all philosophical problems which were not prob­ them go regardless of the appeals." I didn't know to whom lems of the special sciences or disciplines and of their assump­ "they" referred. "She" was Celia Polisuk who had come to see tions, were problems of value that were open to rational analysis him to enlist his aid in the defense of Sacco-Vanzetti. I don't know how the no~ion got about those days at Columbia and possible solution. This brought philosophy centrally into the that I was a dangerous radical I never concealed my strong inter­ area of public affairs where both Marx and Dewey believed it ests in Marx, whom hardly anyone read or cared about, and belonged. whose views were considered irrelevant to any particular philo­ I have travelled some distance philosophically since the days sophical issues. Dewey had never read Marx systematically and of my youth when I thought I could fuse Marx and Dewey-a was inclined to judge him by the doctrinaire vulgarisms of his journey that has taken me further from Marx than from Dewey. orthodox proponents. Again and again I was struck, in studying In the fifty odd years that have elapsed since then, the world it Dewey, to find worked out in detail certain views that Marx had seems to me has changed more radically with respect to beliefs, expressed in cryptic and undeveloped form. Dewey was at first manners, and morals than in any other comparable time span ip non-commital when I communicated my impression to him. A history. It would be odd if I h::H:l not learned something from the few years later he was inclined to be more sympathetic to my transformation of our youthful socialist dream into a totalitari~~ reading of Marx than to Max Eastman's, with whom I was en­ nightmare abroad, and from the spectacle at home, not only of gaged in furious controversy, and who caustically reviewed my heartening social and political reforms, but of riotous excesses of books on Marx under the title "What Karl Marx Would Have students, abetted by a goodly number of their teachers, against Said Had He Been a Student of John Dewey's." But after the background of bombed and burning libraries and classrooms. Dewey's experience in Mexico at the Trotsky Hearings, Marxism All this and more I shall discuss elsewhere. for him meant Marxism-Leninism, the state philosophy and reli­ gion of one of the most terroristic regimes in human history. He­ devoted a large part of the last fifteen years of his life to combat­ l. cf. Chap. 6 in Pragmation and the Tragic Sense of Life, originally ting it, a struggle in which, our differences forgotten or shelved, written in 1952, and John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, N.Y. 1939. Max Eastman and I loyally and cooperatively participated. 2. "Morris Cohen-Fifty Years Later," American SchoWr, Summer 1976.

83 every premature attempt at generalization, FIRST READINGS and his insistence on thorough under­ standing of the mathematics involved. Into HAMA go thousands of the analytical re· suits of this scholarship. None ofthem are ANCIENT AsTRONOMY AND PTOLEMY'S 'CRIME' more important than those resulting from the decipherment of the Babylonian astro­ nomical texts, begun by Kugler at the A History of Ancient Mathematical As~ eminent place to Ptolemy: Book I of his beginning of this century and carried to tronomy, by 0. Neugebauer, 3 vols., 1458 history (some 420 pages in all, counting 100 completion by Neugebauer and his stu­ pp., Springer Verlag 1975. pages of expertly drawn figures) is devoted dents. Book li of HAMA is devoted to to a close analysis of the mathematical con­ Babylonian astronomy. The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, by Rob· tent of the Almagest, along with its imme­ In the last three to five centuries before ert R. Newton, 411 pp., Johns Hopkins diate antecedents in the work of Apollonius our era, the Babylonians, using the sex­ University Press 1977. and Hip parchus. "In general", Neuge­ agesimal notation which their scribes had bauer quotes from Jacob Burckhardt's developed a thousand years before, worked Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen, "one out arithmetical procedures of surprising should begin in one's studies with the be­ ingenuity and precision for the prediction Ancient astronomy had its culmination ginnings, but not in history." In ancient of lunar and planetary 'phase' phenomena, in the writings of Ptolemy. So Delambre, a astronomy, Neugebauer would argue, the such as first and last visibility following and great astronomer (the first to apply the for~ beginnings are so obscure that one can get preceding immersion in the Sun's rays, sta­ mulas of Laplace's celestial mechanics) and one's bearings only from the final achieve­ tion points, and lunar eclipses. Absent here in his last years an indefatigable historian ment, which is Ptolemy's. In Book V of were geometrical models of the solar, lu­ of astronomy, wrote at the start of his His­ HAMA, on astronomy during the Roman nar, and planetary motions; as far as the loire de l'astronomie moderne ( 1821 ): imperial period and late antiquity, Neuge­ evidence goes, the Babylonian astronomers bauer devotes another 200 pages to the were solely interested in prediction of the The most exact and the most scrupu­ other works of Ptolemy, includings his phase phenomena, and their predictive de­ lous investigations have not enabled us Planisphaerium, Planetary Hypotheses, Ge­ vices were purely arithmetical algorithms. up to now to discover any other [pre­ ography, and Handy Tables. All told, more Their results were influential. With the modern] astronomy than that of the than forty percent of the entire history is decipherment of the cuneiform texts and Greeks. Everywhere we rediscover the devoted to the achievement of Ptolemy, the resulting identification of the numeri­ ideas of Hipparchus and Ptolemy; their which Neugebauer regards as decisive in cal constants used in the Babylonian pro­ astronomy is that of the Arabs, the Per­ shaping geography till Columbus and as· cedures, it has become possible to trace sians, the Tartars, the Indians, the Chi­ tronomy till Kepler. their influence as far as India, where they nese, and that of the Europeans until In his treatment of the ancient astron­ were still being used in the 18th century Copernicus. omy that is not Hipparchan or Ptolemaic, for the prediction of lunar eclipses. But Neugebauer goes far beyond anything that their most consequential effect may have This statement would today require some Delambre could have achieved; and while been that on Greek astronomy. modification, but it retains a large measure the work of some other scholars like Schi­ Prior to Apollonius and Hipparchus, of truth: astronomy on the Eurasian land­ aparelli (who reconstructed the homocen­ Greek mathematicians like Eudoxus and mass from the second century A.D. to the tric spheres of Eudoxus) and Kugler (who Aristarchus constructed geometric models 16th was predominantly Ptolemaic in con­ first discovered the astronomical content of the heavenly motions, or wrote about tent and method. Delambre also con­ of the Babylonian cuneiform tablets) plays procedures for determining solar parallax, tended-again correctly, as I will maintain an important role here, it is above all but no attempt that we know of was made -that Ptolemy fabricated many of his Neugebauer's own scholarship, extending to apply the procedures to accurate data or observations. over fifty years and into every aspect of an­ to render the models quantitatively predic­ Until 1975, the most extensive and thor· cient Babylonian, Egyptian, early Greek, tive. Hipparchus, using Babylonian numer­ ough account of ancient and medieval late classical, and oriental astronomy, that ical constants, appears to have been the astronomy was provided by Delambre's makes the difference. A large number of first to endeavor after a geometric model volumes: Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne published analyses and carefully prepared that would fit the phenomena with quanti­ (2 vols., 1817) and Histoire de l'astronomie textual editions (of which the Astronomical tative accuracy. Is it not probable that du moyen age ( 1819). For the period up to Cuneiform Texts, 3 vols., 1955, and with recognition of the success of the Babylo­ A.D. 700, Delambre's work has now been Richard A. Parker, the Egyptian Astronomi· nian predictions was here the triggering superseded by Neugebauer's monumental cal Texts, 3 vols., 1960, 1964, 1969, are the cause? The drive towards an exact geome­ History of Ancient Mathematical Astron· chief) bear witness to Neugebauer's enor­ trizing science, based on accurate data and amy (hereinafter abbreviated HAMA). And mous industry and care, his persistent de­ capable of exact predictions, probably Neugebauer, like Delambre, gives a pre- votion to factuality to the exclusion of dates from this moment.

84 January, 1980

Neugebauer's analysis of the complexi­ emy's equinox and solstice observations believe, be plausibly maintained. The ties of Babylonian procedures occupies had to have been fabricated, and in general times for all of them are too late by about a some 240 pages (counting the figures). He dismisses the charges against Ptolemy's in· day or more; the errors as deduced from then turns to Egyptian astronomy, which tegrity. The interest and importance of Bryant Tuckerman, Planetary, Lunar, and he dismisses in the eleven pages of Book Ptolemy's work, in Neugebauer's view, lie Solar Positions, A.D. 2 to A.D. 1649 (Ameri­ III: for despite the ancient and ever resus­ in the structure of the theories; I cannot can Philosophical Society, 1964), are as citated claims of the wisdom of the Egyp· disagree. Still, the charges of dishonesty follows: 1 tian priests, Neugebauer, who has exam­ ined every surviving document of Egyptian Times of equinoxes and solstices reported by Ptolemy astronomy, finds in it nothing in the way of Year Day Hour Error in Hours technical achievement. To the Egyptians we owe the 24-hour day, and astrology A.D. 132 Sept. 25 14 + 33.2 owes the decans; there is little else. A more A.D. 139 Sept. 26 7 + 34.4 extensive treatment is accorded early A.D. 140 Mar. 22 13 +21.5 Greek astronomy, the subject of Book IV A.D. 140 June 25 2 +37.0 (225 pages, counting the figures). Although the Greeks introduced geometrical meth­ cannot be swept under a rug. Hipparchus' observations of equinoxes, in ods and models into astronomy, their work Serious doubts concerning Ptolemy's contrast, seldom err by more than a quar­ up to the second century B.C., as Neuge­ prowess as an observer were already rife in ter of a day; and the errors in the spring bauer shows, takes the form of mathe­ the 17th century. Tycho Brahe in his Pro­ and fall are opposite, as one would expect. matical exercises, and aims largely at gymnasmata (published in 1602) showed For any instrument aligned so as to give demonstrating the abstract power of math· (253-256) that the observational deter­ the fall equinox late, would give the spring ematics. Book V, on astronomy during the minations of the longitude of the star Spica equinox early, and vice versa, but would Roman imperial period and late antiquity, by Hipparchus, Albategnius, Copernicus, not affect the time of the solstice. occupies more than 300 pages; but with and himself lead to a strictly uniform rate Faced with this puzzle, Longomontanus the exception of 200 or so pages devoted to of precession of the equinoxes over the in the early 17th century and Euler in the Ptolemy's 'minor works', the story is of centuries, while the observations of Timo­ early 1750's proposed adjusting the dates decline and non-achievement. charis and Ptolemy diverge markedly from that Plotemy gives by a day. But as the as­ In Neugebauer's treatment the impor· this uniform rate and hence (so Tycho con­ tronomer Tobias Mayer explained to Euler tant developments in mathematical astron­ cludes) are suspect; later astronomers have in a letter of 22 August 1753,2 an inter­ omy between 700 B.C. and A.D. 700 followed Tycho in rejecting the Ptolemaic calated day would change the longitude of reduce to: (I) the Babylonian work from observation. Gassendi in the middle of the the Moon by 13 ° and so introduce an un­ about 500 B.C. onward, in which 'phase' century and Flamsteed in its last decades acceptable discrepancy between modern phenomena such as first visibility of moon found modern values for the obliquity of theory and ancient observations of lunar and planets after immersion in the Sun's the ecliptic to be in fair agreement with eclipses. Mayer preferred to conclude that rays, are rendered predictable by means of one another but in decided disagreement Ptolemy had "borrowed the solar motion periodic arithmetical functions; and (2) the with the larger ancient value that Ptolemy from Hipparchus without any particular Greek introduction of geometrical models attributes to Eratosthenes (third century investigation." Hipparchus' year was too and development of plane and spherical B.C.), and which he claims to have con­ long by about 7 minutes, which in 260 trigonometry, with their application, in the firmed by his own observations. Even after years adds up to the I 1/4 days by which period from Apollonius (200-170 B.C.) and 18th-century observations and Euler's the­ the Ptolemaic equinoxes are found to be Hipparchus (fl. 150-130 B.C.) to Ptolemy ory had established the hypothesis of a too late. "It can be that Ptolemy perceived (ca. A.D. I 00-178), to the construction of slow uniform diminution of the obliquity, this error of his solar tables in his observa­ geometric, kinematic hypotheses yielding Ptolemy's alleged observation of the arc tions of the equinoxes, which are the very quantitative predictions as to the where· between the tropics had simply to be re­ last of all his remaining observations; only, a bouts of celestial bodies, not just at partic­ jected as some 20' too large, and so because he had already built his whole sys­ ular phases, but at any time. irreconcilable with the rest of what was tem upon it, perhaps he had rather wanted In regard to the question of Ptolemy's known. Most disconcerting of all were the to discard his observations than to attempt accuracy as an observer and his integrity as "very accurate observations" that Ptolemy to revise his system from the outset. Since, a reporter of observations, Neugebauer has claimed to have made of equinoxes and however, no one could object to it, he pre­ oddly little to say. Following the work of solstices. From Brahe and Kepler onward it tended that the erroneous equinoxes of his some earlier scholars such as Boll, he con­ was recognized that the acceptance of tables were true and observed." cludes that it is not plausible to assume these observations as genuine would throw In 1819 Delambre showed in detailed that there was an Hipparchan star cata­ the computation of the length of the trop­ calculations what Mayer had surmised: logue from which Ptolemy's star catalogue ical year into total confusion. Ptolemy's alleged observations of the equi­ could have been derived. He passes over in The genuineness of these alleged obser­ noxes follow computationally, to the hour, silence Delambre's argument that Ptol- vations of equinoxes and solstices cannot, I from the equinox observations of Hippar-

85 The College chus together with Hipparchus' erroneous tion of the fractional parts of degrees used departures from the expected distribution value for the length of the tropical year. 3 in reporting the longitudes of the 1028 can be accounted for if we assume that the For instance, Ptolemy's allegedly observed stars in the catalogue. observer's eye allotted more space on the equinox of 26 September A.D. !39 at 7 The arc of the original instrument of ob­ arc to the whole and half degree divisions a.m. was just 285 Egyptian years (each of servation was probably divided into whole than to the other (unmarked) divisions. 365 days), 70 days, and 7 hours after a fall or half degrees, without finer subdivision, The distribution for the longitudes, he equinox observed by Hipparchus. Accord­ so that smaller fractions of degrees had to goes on to argue, is inexplicable if we ing to Hipparchus, the length of the be estimated. Some of the longitudes and assume it resulted directly from observa­ tropical year was 365 114 - 11300 days. latitudes are given simply in whole degrees, tion. The fraction l/4 occurs only four But 285 (1/4 - 1/300) ~ 70.3 ~ 70 days, without fractional addition; for the others, times, and the fraction l/2 + l/4 never; 7.2 hours. The other two equinoxes and Ptolemy uses the Egyptian-style fractions whereas probability would require that the solstice that Ptolemy claims to have 1/6, 114, 113, 112, 2/3, 112 + 1/4, 1/2 + each of these fractions occur about l/12 of observed are similarly derivable from obser­ l/3. Expressing these fractions in minutes the time, or about 1027/12 ~ 86 times. vations of Hipparchus and Meton. In a re­ of arc, we shall have 10', 15', 20', 30', 40', But what if Ptolemy derived his catalogue cent, careful review of the situation, John 45', and 50'; and we see that they do not from an earlier catalogue, constructed in Phillips Britton states: "The conc;lusion divide the interval of the degree into equal Hipparchus' time, about 130 B.C.? The that Ptolemy's equinox observations can parts. Let us assume that the positions of derivation would consist in adding 2°40' to have been scarcely more than the results of the stars are randomly distributed, and that each of the longitudes, for this is the computations is unsatisfying but I can find the observer in assigning longitudes or lati­ amount of precession that, according to no other explanation of the errors in his tudes uses the nearest of the above Egyp­ Ptolemy, had occurred between Hippar­ reported times and their agreement with tian fractions. Then the stars reported as chus' observations and the epoch of his Hipparchus' observations and length of having a longitude of some whole number own catalogue (20 July 137). Now adding year."4 of degrees plus 116 ° will have longitudes of 40' to one of the Egyptian fractions 116, That not only the equinox and solstice between 5' and 12 112' beyond the whole 1/3, 112,2/3, 1/2 + 113leads to a sum ex­ observations, but also a large number of degrees; those reported as having a longi­ pressible in terms of one of these same other observations that Ptolemy claims to tude of some whole number of degrees fractions. But adding 40' to 114 and to 112 have made or claims that others made, were plus l/4° will have longitudes between + 114 yields 55' and I 0 25' respectively, fudged or fabricated so as to agree with 12 112' and 17 112' beyond the whole which are not expressible in terms of the Ptolemaic theory: this is the conclusion of degrees; and so on. The number of stars Egyptian fractions used. Let us assume 0 a series of detailed analyses published in falling in one of these intervals can be ex­ that Ptolemy rounded the 55' up to I , and the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astro­ pected to be about the same fraction of the rounded the I 0 25' down to I 0 20'. (He nomical Society in 1973 and 1974, and now total number of stars, that the interval is of could have rounded in the other direction drawn together and amplified in a book, the whole degree. But the interval from 5' in each case; but hold on!) Assume further The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, by Robert to 12 112' is 1/8 of the whole 60'; the inter­ that the distribution of fractions in Hippar­ R. Newton. Ptolemy's 'crime', according to val from 12 112' to 17 112' is 1112 ofthe chus' catalogue was about the same for the Newton, included deriving his star cata­ whole 60'; and so on. The expected num­ longitudes as for the latitudes. Add 40' to logue not from observation as he seems to bers of cases with the several fractions, as such a distribution of fractions as you find claim to do (Almagest VII, 4), but by calcu­ compared with the actual numbers re­ in the latitudes, carry out the roundings lation from an earlier catalogue no longer ported by Ptolemy, are given by R. R. mentioned, and compare the resulting dis­ extant, that was constructed about 130 Newton (245) in the following Table: tribution with the distribution of fractions among the longitudes as given by Ptolemy; the result is shown on the following page Number of cases with this fraction (R. R. Newton, 250) (See next page). Fraction In the In the (minutes) longitudes latitudes Expected The agreement looks too good to be mere coincidence. Another hypothesis 0 226 236 171 may account for the facts; but R. R. New­ 10 !82 106 128 ton's proposal at least cuts the ground from 15 4 88 86 under the earlier arguments of Boll and 20 179 112 128 Neugebauer. The likelihood that Ptolemy's 30 88 198 171 catalogue was derived from Hipparchus' 40 246 129 128 catalogue is very strong indeed. 45 0 50 86 Newton's study makes it evident that !02 50 107 128 none of the observations reported in the 1027 Totals 1026 1026 Almagest-of Moon and planets as well as of Sun and stars-can be trusted as gen· B.C. probably by Hipparchus. The evi­ Newton urges that the distribution for uine, unless reliably attested by indepen­ dence emerges from the statistical distribu- the latitudes should cause no surprise: its dent sources. It further shows that Ptol-

86 January, 1980

Number of cases with this fraction spect to observations. No astronomer Fraction In original With 40' added before Tycho Brahe made the accumula­ (minutes) sample & suggested roundings In star catalogue tion of accurate observations a primary goal, taking precedence over every effort at 0 236 200 226 theory construction. A promising start was 10 106 198 182 made by the Islamic astronomers in Bag­ 15 88 0 4 dad under the Caliph al-Ma'mun in A.D. 20 ll2 179 179 829-830; the tradition there begun of 30 198 107 88 building large instruments for solar obser­ 40 129 236 246 vations continues into China in the 13th 45 50 0 0 century under the Mongols and into Sa­ 50 107 106 102 markand in the 15th century under the emy's solar, lunar, and planetary theories were either unique or uniquely successful. Tartar Ulug Beg. Already in the late 9th would have been considerably better, that There is no evidence that Ptolemy be· century Albategnius (al-Battani) by obser­ is, more empirically adequate, if they had longed to a community of active scientists, vations at Aracte and Damascus had de­ been based on but a modest number of ob­ with a vigorous, ongoing tradition. He ap­ tected the necessity of revising Ptolemy's servations accurate to, say 10' of arc. pears to have been an isolated figure, in his solar and lunar constants: Ptolemy's value Newton concludes (379): "I do not know own time and also during a stretch of many of the obliquity was badly off; contrary to what others may think, but to me there is centuries. The more 'immediate' predeces­ Ptolemy's claim, the solar apogee was not only one final assessment: The Syntaxis sors he mentions are: Theon, who may immobile with respect to the ecliptic but [Almagest] has done more damage to as­ have been his teacher; Menelaus, who was moving eastward; the annual preces­ tronomy than any other work ever written, lived a few decades earlier, and whose sion was more nearly 55" than 36". These and astronomy would be better off if it had theorems enabled Ptolemy to do spherical discoveries implied the need for a thor­ never existed. Thus Ptolemy is not the trigonometry; Hipparchus, two and a half ough revision of all Ptolemy's numerical greatest astronomer of antiquity but he is centuries earlier; and Apollonius about a constants; for his planetary theories and something still more unusual: He is the century earlier still. The seven centuries observations depend upon solar and lunar most successful fraud in the history of that followed Ptolemy yield no sign of sig­ theory. science." nificant theoretical activity in astronomy. 'Nhy was that thorough revision never That Ptolemy lied about his observa­ And from the 9th century to the 16th, little carried out during the middle ages? We tions-as this reviewer believes to have theoretical work is done in astronomy that suspect: a lack of cash, patience, interest­ been sufficiently shown-is deplorable.5 is not minor variation of Ptolemy's hypoth­ and not merely conservative traditional­ But R. R. Newton goes further: he implies eses. ism, powerful though that may have been. that Ptolemy fabricated data in bad faith, The transformation of ancient astro­ Planetary tables were used primarily to in order to support theories he knew to be nomical theory carried out by Copernicus draw up horoscopes, and horoscopy did false or inadequate. Newton's picture is of and Kepler involves specific geometrical not presuppose a highly accurate posi­ a scientist greedily seeking fame by means transformations of the Ptolemaic theories: tional astronomy. And if Ptolemy seems to of fraud. To this reviewer, the portrait we cannot understand that revolution have shown insufficient concern for obser­ vational accuracy, the same has to be said seems anachronistic and implausible: Ptol­ unless we understand the Ptolemaic of nearly every astronomer before Tycho. emy was not a modern scientist, nor was theories, nor can 'we imagine in detail how It is significant that the concern for ob· the community for which he wrote a com­ modern astronomy could have come to be servational accuracy became urgent for munity imbued with the aims and ethos of had there not been the Ptolemaic consoli­ Tycho under new circumstances, and with modern science. By his detailed analyses dation of theory to learn from, to work on, the prompting of a dramatic event. Coper­ Newton has done a great service; but in his to oppose. Truth, says Francis Bacon, is nicus had but recently carried out an ex­ general interpretation he has given too lit­ more likely to emerge from error than from tensive revision of astronomical theory, confusion. And Kepler says: it is perhaps tle attention to a number of considerations relying strictly on the accuracy of ancient better to have a wrong theory than none at that-in our immense ignorance of the observations as well as later observations particulars of motive and circumstance­ all. Alternative histories are no doubt including his own. In his earliest observa­ must not be ignored. thinkable, sans Ptolemy. Given the rare­ tions Tycho learned that both the (l) A first fact to keep in focus is that ness of innovation in traditional societies, Copernican and Ptolemaic theories failed Ptolemy, by writing the Almagest, the there can be no assurance that the way to miserably in predicting such an event as a Planetary Hypotheses, the Geography, the modern, Keplerian astronomy would have planetary conjunction. Then in 1572 a Handy Tables, consolidated ancient astron­ proved shorter rather than longer. Mean­ nova appeared, and Tycho was able in omy and geography. Can we assume that, while, the historical development that ac­ three weeks of observation to show that it had he not done this, it would have been tually occurred has Ptolemy as an essential was free of parallax, contrary to the Aristo· done? The available evidence is negative. starting-point. telian doctrine about the immutability of If these textbooks had ancient rivals, they (2), Secondly, we must take note of the the celestial realm. From that moment are unknown to us today; in their kind they ancient and medieval situation with re· Tycho was a revolutionary. His turn to ob·

87 The College servation occurred at a juncture in which (d) The understanding as to how theory of the tropical year was doubted by Hippar­ the available theories had been tested and is to be based on observation was different chus, whom he refers to as "that truth­ found Wanting. in ancient astronomy from what it is in loving man". He proceeds to assert the Concerning the pre-modern attitude to­ modern astronomy. The statistical ap­ constancy of the tropical year, using obser­ wards astronomical observation, we would proach used since Laplace was absent. The vations that surely are fabricated. I would add these further remarks: attempt was to derive a theory from a very conjecture that the theory that enabled (a) A reasonable choice of instruments few cleverly chosen, and supposedly deci­ him thus to fabricate had worked fairly for naked-eye observation requires consid­ sive, observations. The constants of solar well for him, in his earlier planetary stud­ erable trial and error, and hence expense, theory were derived, for instance, simply ies; he was not supposing that it was in er­ as Tycho's example shows.6 We can seri­ from the lengths of the seasons: a tour de ror by as much as it was, a whole degree. It ously doubt (despite R. R. Newton's claim force, it must have seemed. There was no was a case of wishful thinking. to the contrary) that the instrument Ptol­ doubt a sense of power and pride in such (3) Finally, we should give attention to emy calls an "astrolabe", essentially an ar­ achievement. what Ptolemy says about his subject-matter millary sphere provided with sights, was a Given the difficulties of observing well, as a whole, and his motives for studying it. reasonable choice; the machining toler­ the lack of motivation and funding for He wrote as a pedagogue, presenting the ances were in all likelihood low, and the such activity, the trust in numerical con· astronomical topics in the "order of know­ alignment of the polar axis and the ecliptic, stants furnished by tradition, and the pre­ ing", seeking to lead the student "out" and poor. The instrument is too complicated. modern view of the way in which theory "up" from his natural, provincial stand­ Ptolemy here falls prey to the temptation was to be founded on fact, one should not point to a cosmic standpoint, whence the to design an instrument which will mirror wonder if fudging and fabrication oc­ Earth appears as a point in relation to the the imagined coordinate circles in the sky, curred; and indeed Willy Hartner has as­ heavens. The stars, in his view, were divine rather than make possible the most easily sembled evidence that it was common beings. checkable and repeatable determinations. enough.7 The tendency to find what one is At the start of the Almagest Ptolemy pro­ (b) Even if the available instruments are looking for, to obtain the results one wants, vides a general characterization of his sub­ supposed accurate and easy to use, good is strong in any time. Kepler in a letter to ject matter, and hints at his motives for naked-eye observers, with the requisite Galilee in 1597 says that, if he cannot win studying it. Of the three genera of the acuity of vision and patience, are yet few astronomy for Copernicanism by valid theoretical part of philosophy (as distin­ and far between. Not all who have believed arguments, he will not hesitate to use guished by Aristotle in Metaphysics El), themselves to be making the best observa­ fraudulent ones. Isaac Newton, in Book III theology, the science concerned with the tions possible were in fact doing so; Riccioli of his Principia, arrives at the accepted ''outermost" original source of motion ''up in the mid-17th century, for instance, with value of annual precession by an incorrect high somewhere with the loftiest things of the example and precepts of Tycho before argument and the most unconscionable the cosmos", and physics, the science of him, still commonly made errors of 10' or fudging of data.8 In an earlier time the material qualities like warm and cold, dry more. restrictions imposed by scientific rivalry, and moist, within the sublunary sphere, (c) It should further be realized that the the restraints felt because there are two or have a largely conjectural character; for the observations most easily made, for instance five or twenty pairs of eyes on the lookout one deals with the totally invisible, and the of altitude and azimuth, required mathe­ for one's least misstep, were not yet sharply other with what is always in flux. Only matical reduction in order to yield the posi­ felt. mathematics represents a certain and ir­ tion in ecliptic coordinates; and these Ptolemy, in his time, iS on the verge of a refutable science. "By these thoughts [says reductions in turn presupposed such nu­ country he has not imagined to be there. Ptolemy] we were led ... to study to our ut­ merical constants as the obliquity, solar He is setting forth the first extended most ability a theoretical discipline of such parallax, and refraction (the latter was first geometrical science of phenomena; he can­ a sort, especially insofar as it concerns taken into account by Tycho). Such con­ not have even dimly guessed at all the divine and heavenly things, for it alone is stants were likely to be taken over from tra­ progeny that the Greek effort of geometri­ involved in the inquiry concerning things dition. A true "starting from scratch" is ex­ zation would have in a later time, and in which are always as they are and because ceedingly arduous, and even Tycho did not particular he cannot have guessed how of this is able, since the kind of apprehen­ succeed in going the whole way;· for in­ precise the science of celestial things, the sion proper to it is neither unclear nor dis­ stance, he accepted the ancient, erroneous only science that the ancients thought orderly, to be always much as it is- which value for solar parallax without adequate capable of mathematical precision, would is the peculiar property of science ... "9 testing. It was Huygens, Auzout, and Pi­ in the end become. He claims to have But the divine things, the gods, cannot card at the Paris Academie in the 1660's observed cmefully. He presents his science really be circumScribed by our mathe­ who made the first thorough attempt to as exact, as more exact than it could have matics, Ptolemy implies. In the Planetary start over again from the very beginning, been, although its exactness could have Hypotheses, he compares the motions of without assumption (find north!). That been much improved with further effort. the planets to the flight of birds. And in Ptolemy did not make such an attempt is He seems to have taken it as his task to save Chapter 2 of Book XIII of the Almagest, clear; he relied again and again on unreli­ astronomy from doubts and confusions. devoted to the latitudes of the planets, able transmitted constants. He notes, for instance, that the constancy which are horribly complicated in a

88 January, 1980 geocentric frame of reference, Ptolemy in such sciences by those really applying l. The errors as given by Robert R. Newton in says: themselves to them, and also by making a The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, 87, are 28.1, 28.4, 27 .6, and 36 hours, respectively; these small original contribution such as the numbers imply a larger eccentricity than that period of time from them to us could well embodied in Tuckerman's tables. The errors Let no one, seeing the difficulty of our make possible" (Almagest I, preface). derived from Tuckerman agree very nearly with devices, find troublesome such hy­ Judging by the number, size, and com­ those calculated by John Phillips Britton, On potheses. For it is not proper to apply plexity of the books he wrote, we must the Quality of Solar and Lunar Observations and human things to divine things nor to get Parameters in Ptolemy's Almagest (Yale Univer­ acknowledge that he was a hard worker. sity Ph.D. Dissertation, 1967), 26. beliefs concerning such great things He was a summarizer, a putter-together of 2. Eric G. Forbes, The Euler-Mayer Cor­ from such dissimilar examples. For results, one who completed symmetries respondence (1751-1755) (New York: American what is more unlike than those which and rounded out theories, a defender of Elsevie,, 1971), 73-76. are always alike with respect to those 3. Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie du moyen the constancy of the divine things. And in age (Paris, 1819),lxviii. which never are, and than those which the process of neatening up his pedagogy, 4. Britton, op. cit. in Note 1, 44. are impeded by anything with those he told what he no doubt regarded as little 5. In the March, 1979 issue of Scientific which are not even impeded by them­ fibs about his observations. American, 92, it is claimed that on the basis of selves? But it is proper to try and fit as We cannot make of this intellectual fore­ arguments by Noel Swerdlow, Victor Thoren, far as possible the simpler hypotheses to and Owen Gingerich, "Newton's case against bear of ours a giant or hero or profound Ptolemy collapses because it is based on faulty the movements in the heavens; and if thinker. It seems equally presumptuous to statistical analysis and a disregard of the this does not succeed, then any hypoth­ rate him a criminal. To be sure, his fabri­ methods of early astronomy." Since writing the eses possible. cated equinoxes put Copernicus to an present review, I came across Noel M. Swerd­ low's "Ptolemy on Trial" (American Scholar for enormous labor, the devising of the theory January, 1979, 523-531). Swerdlow argues that of the "twisted garland"; and his unreliabil­ Thus our mathematical devices are not to R. R. Newton's use of statistics is wrongheaded be imagined to be copies of heavenly ity as a reporter is frustrating to an R. R. and misleading, and that his scholarship in Newton who would seek to use ancient ob­ some further respects is untrustworthy. Swerd­ mechanisms. Yet the mathematics qua servations to determine the secular accel­ low's critique seems to me largely justified, but I mathematics has the character of certain do not believe that the main propositions ar­ erations of the Earth and Moon. But knowledge, according to Ptolemy; it has for gued in this review anent the reliability of him a divine character; our initiation into ancient theoretical astronomy as consoli­ Ptolemy's reported observations~that in all dated by Ptolemy was an essential begin­ likelihood he fabricated the observations of the it, in his view, is a way of approaching the ning for the coming-to-be of modern equinoxes and solstice of A.D. 139 and 140, and divine things. that in all likelihood he derived his star cata­ astronomy, and without it there is no say­ What else can we say of this Ptolemy? logue from a previously existing one con­ He was an astrologer, though temperate in ing where we would be. structed two and 2/3 centuries earlier~are Malcolm Miller, lecturing on the stained thereby undermined. his claims for this discipline, admitting its 6. See Victor Thoren, "New Light on Tycho s lack of certainty. It is likely that his glass and the statuary at Chartres, reminds the tourists that, according to medieval Instruments", Journal for the History of Aristotelian doctrines came to him through Astronomy, IV (1973), 25-45. Christian doctrine, the whole of the conse­ Stoic channels, and one may conjecture a 7. Willy Hartner, "The Role of Observations in quences of a man's life and actions will not Ancient and Medieval Astronomy", Journal for kind of Stoic religiosity in this contem­ the History of Astronomy VIII (1977), I-ll. porary of Marcus Aurelius. He was a mod­ have accumulated until the end of time, the day of judgment, when all will be 8. See Richard S. Westfall, "Newton and the est man, a traditionalist, who regarded Fudge Factor", Science CLXXIX (23 Feb. 1973), mathematical astronomy as a cumulative known. Perhaps the judgment of Ptolemy 751-758. affair: "And so we ourselves try to increase should be postponed until that time. 9. For the translation as well as the paraphrase that precedes ,it, I have depended on Jacob continuously our love of the discipline of Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the things which are always what they are, by Origin of Algebra (tr. Eva Brann; Cambridge, learning what has already been discovered CURTIS A. WILSON Mass.: M.l.T. p,ess, [cop.) 1968), 256-257.

CARRILLO AND THE CoMMUNIST PARTY IN SPAIN

Eurocornrnunism and the State, by Santiago Carrillo Laurence and Hill Co., Westport, Connecticut 1978

A strong argument can be made that cation of the political practice of the West response to attacks on the Spanish CP Santiago Carrillo's Eurocommunism and European Communist parties since the leadership from two directions-from the State is in large measure simply a codifi~ 1930's. More specifically, however, it is a those who argue that its avowal of demo-

89 The College era tic principles is only a cover for plans to CP's. This approach allows the PCE to respond, seize power by force, and from those who At the same time that he argues that the with more success than the French and accuse it of presenting Social Democratic new world relationship of forces makes the Italian CP's, to ideas popular among radi­ views. capitalist state more susceptible to change, calizing youth in the universities and the While the tactics of Eurocommunism in­ Carrillo maintains that the division of the factories. By taking more radical stances on clude a greater willingness to enter into world into blocs dominated by the two nu­ women's liberation and nuclear power, the coalitions with the Social Democrats, the clear "superpowers" rules out revolution­ PCE has won the adherence of some radi­ Communist Parties of Western Europe ary processes of the "classical" type that cal workers and youths, In addition, Car­ continue to insist on their difference. In would overthrow the existing systems by rillo argues that capitalism, rotten through Spain, in particular, the CP, which receives force. In the past all such revolutionary up­ and through, is on the decline. only about a third as many votes as the So­ surges have been by-products of the defeat Carrillo builds his case for the decline of ci~l Democrats, must avoid being swallowed of the capitalist state in war, but in lhe nu­ the capitalist state on alleged changes in up by its rivals-a problem not encoun­ clear age no such possibilities exist because major establishment institutions such as tered by the large Communist Parties in nuclear war would destroy all the gains of the Church and the Army. He cites bishops France and Italy. humanity. who state that the principles of capitalism At the same time that he argues that ad­ Because violent revolution is not a plau­ are contrary to Christian morality. Such vances in culture and social organization sible option, Carrillo argues that the playing up of the Catholic hierarchy's are changing the capitalist states, Carillo system must be changed by "getting the demagogy has been standard practice of also maintains that the capitalist state can representative democratic institutions Stalinist parties throughout Western Eu­ now be transformed without a violent revo­ which today fundamentally serve capital­ rope and Latin America for more than a lution-because of the change in the rela­ ism to serve instead the causes of social­ decade. tionship of forces in the world brought ism." In the Spanish context this means In an effort at "national reconciliation," about by the Russian Revolution, the ap­ working to make the capitalistic system in the mid-fifties Carrillos' PCE made posi­ pearance of new workers' states in Eastern more "rational." As one party leader told tive gestures toward the Church. Carrillo Europe after the Second World War, and me in an interview, "Our main goal is to called religion not the opium of the people the collapse of the old colonial empires make Spain more like Sweden, an advanced but, "objectively," "the yeast of progress."2 under the impact of the colonial revolution: welfare state."1 To achieve such a transfor­ "We will build socialism with a crucifix in mation the PCE goes out of its way to one hand and the hammer and sickle in the What is the concrete reality today? The demonstrate that the party is willing to other."3 reality is that despite the power imperi­ work within the framework of the Spanish At the trade union level, direct contact alism still has as a social system, it has parliamentary system and also to accept between the Church and the PCE occurred been destabilized, first by the great Oc­ the monarchy. with important results in the early sixties, tober socialist revolution, and subse­ Carrillo's view that revolution is unlikely Cooperation between Catholics and Com­ quently by the advance of socialism, and undesirable in the advanced capitalist munists was crucial to the development of with all its limitations, failings, and im­ countries corresponds entirely to the So­ the Worker's Commissions which have be­ perfections-which we do not hide and have no interest in hiding-in Europe, viet leadership's conception of peaceful co­ come powerful trade unions since Franco's Asia, Africa, Latin America; and by the existence. Identical positions, down to the death and a major source of support for the whole process of decolonization. This details, have been put forward by the PCE. destabilization increases continually Kremlin and representatives of such super­ Carrillo also sees change in the Army and is stimulating currents of change in loyal Stalinist parties as the American CP and the police. In discussing the events of the countries that have until now domi­ for many years. The Spanish CP head the May-June 1968 crisis in France, he ob­ nated the world. does, however, pose this non-revolutionary serves that the police began to balk at the perspective in a somewhat different way "repressive" role they were assigned, and Carrillo's view that the gradual transfor­ from Communists in the past. started to develop a notion of serving the mation of the capitalist state has been The notion of the continuous "transfor­ society as a whole rather than the privileged made possible by the increase in the power mation'' of the state allows him to drop the few. He argues that such a trend must be of the Soviet Union and other workers' prospect of socialist revolution in the dis­ encouraged in the police and spread to the states that arose in its shadow is clearly an tant, hypothetical future. This approach Army-which can be transformed into an offspring of Stalin's conception of "social­ reassures West European industrialists and instrument of reform. He says the left ism in one country": worldwide revolution political leaders that the Eurocommunist should create "an identification between depends on the progress of the Soviet Rev­ CP's are not thinking of revolution or of the Army and civil society ... That will olution. For many years Stalin justified the spreading revolutionary propaganda among overcome the historic equation that the oli­ subservience of the Communist Parties workers. garchy plus the armed forces equals con­ around the world to Moscow with this pol­ At the same time, the concept of an un­ servatism and reaction." icy. Critical of the Soviet Union in some re­ interrupted process raises the possibility in Because, in his and the Soviet concep­ spects, Carrillo, however, reaffirms the link the immediate future of structural reforms tion, the world relationship of forces can­ between Moscow and the West European going beyond the framework of capitalism. not be rapidly altered without risking a

90 January, 1980 nuclear disaster, Carrillo virtually excludes the enmity of its political opponents within fending the prestige of the USSR. The the possibility of exploiting a confrontation the workers' movement. Although the so­ Spanish leader strives to dissociate his between workers and soldiers to break the cialists and particularly the anarchists are party from the totalitarian socialist states, army. In his view, the military must be less strong today than during the Civil because the Spanish workers he appeals to maintained as social necessity but must not War, "political memory" in Spain makes it are not interested in a Spain without dem­ be allowed to be the exclusive instrument necessary for the current PCE leadership ocratic rights: of right-wing elements in Spanish society. to dissociate itself from its most negative Carrillo envisions the Communists com­ acts of the past. 5 I think that all this will confirm for our ing to office like any other party, "if Although it denounces some isolated friends and honest enemies that the "Eurocommunist" phenomenon is not through a vote the majority of the popula­ Communist acts of the Civil War period, a "tactical maneuver by Moscow ... " tion grants them such a mandate." Aware the PCE does not, however, accept blame Anyone who judges us impartially must that many conservative political figures for the defeat of the Republic. On the con­ recognize that this strategy is not de­ and members of the Spanish public ques­ trary, Carrillo argues that the outcome in signed to "extend the influence of the tion the democratic credentials of the Spain would have been different if the Soviet Union" or shift the relationship PCE, Carrillo stresses the Party's "demo­ other leaders and Parties had allowed the of military forces on our continent. On cratic" internal functioning, its openness CP to participate in the Republican gov­ this level, it is designed to mitigate the to criticism, and its critical stance toward ernment from the beginning. With the CP policy of blocs and assure the indepen­ the socialist states. In an unusual move for in the government, he argues, the fascist dence of each one of our countries, and a Communist Party, the Party, in fact, per· uprising might have suffered defeat before of Europe as a whole, within a socialist perspective, and to increase the weight mitted factions to form in the period be­ the Civil War. He adds that if the CP in of Europe in maintaining peace, inter­ fore its Ninth Congress in 1978. With less France had been in the French popular­ national cooperation, as in establishing than ten percent of the vote the opposition front government, "the fate of Spain and more equalitarian and democratic inter· within the Party, however, did not seriously Europe might have been different." For national relations, especially with the challenge Carrillo's leadership.4 Carrillo F ranee might not have denied aid to the Third World. would probably not be tolerant of a more Republican government. Many observers, substantial challenge to his dominance. however, think the PCE in its refusal to The current stance of the PCE is not a Carrillo has to face Spain's past. A signif­ support all political forces opposing Franco mere tactical maneuver. Carrillo and other icant minority has positive memories of damaged the Republican cause more than PCE leaders have for most of their political PCE's role in the Civil War, especially its the absence of the French.6 lives worked to forge alliances with non­ participation in the heroic defense of Ma­ In his campaign for a more positive Communist forces for the purpose of rees­ drid in the early months. A greater number image for the PCE, Carrillo praises the tablishing "bourgeois'' democratic forms in of Spaniards from the generation of the economic gains of the socialist countries Spain. The party is not about suddenly to Civil War, however, remember the PCE as but goes on to say that "there mlist be become a revolutionary party. It has too a party that used its connections with Mos­ channels for- criticism and it must not be much to lose-especially a dominant posi­ cow for its own factional gains and resorted repressed by methods that are intolerable." tion in the Spanish labor movement. To to violence against its opponents in the In this regard, Carrillo has gone beyond state, however, that the PCE is sincere in workers' movement, particularly the anar· the criticisms of the French and Italian its commitment to the parliamentary pro· chists and the Trotskyists. During the Sec­ parties who concentrate largely on the So­ cess in Spain is not to say that it has be­ ond Republic in the thirties, the PCE had viet handling of dissidents. come liberal or social democratic. The ex· almost no base in the trade union move· Carrillo is certainly aware that the Span­ amples he gives of democratic pluralism, ment, dominated by the Socialists and the ish CP is not going to convince anyone the Spanish Republic during the Civil War anarchosyndicalists. that it is not a totalitarian-minded party if it and governments of the "people's repub­ During the early 1930's, under direction denies the facts of the bureaucratic dicta­ lics" in Eastern Europe, show the limita­ from the Comintern in Moscow, the PCE torship in the USSR, which have long been tions of Carrillo's notion of a "democratic shunned any cooperation with other work­ obvious to anyone who cares to look. "The state." In spite of its criticisms of the Soviet ers' parties. Beginning in 1935, the party, October revolution has produced a state Union, the PCE retains a special relation­ however, in accordance with Stalin's policy that is obviously not a bourgeois state, but ship to Moscow and the October Revolu­ of alliance with Western democracies, neither is it yet the proletariat organized as tion which will not allow it simply to began a "popular front" strategy which in­ a ruling class, it is not yet a genuine work­ become a liberal or social democratic party. volved electoral alliances with socialists ers' democracy." Recognizing that such and cooperation in the youth and trade criticisms are heresy in the world Commu­ Gary Prevost union movements. The party grew rapidly nist movement, Carrillo defends himself by but it did not hesitate to weaken its oppo­ saying that the PCE "cannot be the last to Assistant Professor- of Government at St. John's nents through the denial of Soviet arms face the facts." University in Minnesota, Gary Prevost spoke shipments to some of the forces defending Carrillo specifically rejects the Soviet about Carrillo and the Communist Party in Spain at the meeting of the American Political the Republic. The party probably under­ Union's argument that the future of the Science Association in Washington, D.C., last mined the war effort and definitely gained CP's in Western Europe depends on de- September.

91 The College

1. Interview with Refael Ribo, member Central ism in the Spanish CP," Intercontinental Press, Committee, PSUC, Barcelona, Spain, July 13, june 5, 1978. 1978. 5. For the PCE's role in the Civil War see Bur­ 2. Carrillo, quoted in Guy Hermet, The Com­ nett Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage, North munists in Spain, Lexington, MA 1974, 156. Carolina 1978. 3. Carrillo, quoted in Jon Amsden, Collective 6. See Pierre Broue and Emile Temine, The Bargaining and Class Conflict in Spain, London Revolution and the Civil War in Spain, Cam­ 1972, 93. bridge 1970. 4. Michael Rovere, "The Debate Over Lenin-

AT HOME AND ABROAD

Letter from Budapest and Pees

I came to Budapest after a few days in where without warning and without choice Vienna. In Vienna I saw a production of you could fall back to 1956, to 1945, to Lessing's Nathan der Weise good enough to 1939, a city that cannot forget anything, let you feel the strength of reason, and a but must act as if it does not remember. At play about Freud which betrayed embar­ the International Congress of Classical rassing niggardliness of soul in facing Studies I attended, I was embarrassed to home-grown greatness. In its overgrown the quick to hear my American colleagues familiarity-Freud at home blustering talk breezily of Hitler (but not of Stalin), about "academic" charlatanry-the play classes, and economic causes, for Budapest told of a city that could not remember is a city where those words still draw BoczGyula Flower, 1971 Freud because it dared not remember it­ blood-and silence. They did not fear to self. To Lessing's play, the prosperous, for­ make fools of themselves. That was admi­ another continent, as if its history were not mally dressed audience listened with a rable. But their assurance depended too a part of theirs, as if it had less to do with naked eagerness that told of a deprivation much on not acknowledging what was go­ them than with us. At a reception a Hun­ other than economic, of living too long ing on before their eyes. garian scholar told me in a way I shall not without words that make sense enough to In the city the first thing that hit me forget "We are European-we feel Euro­ show the world in its danger and beauty. hard was something I had often thought pean; that will not go away." I do not think Lessing's words, and his actors moving but was startled to see before my eyes: the he believed me when I told him I knew with the proportion that inhabits Italian was is not over. You could touch it with that. painting, sounded bolder, more straightfor­ your eyes, not so much in the obviously re­ The light on Budapest is soft and thick, ward and, therefore, more intimate (be­ built buildings or in those still shell-scarred, not unlike the light of Turner but more cause not "personal") than any of the but in something unmistakable in the air yielding, for it does not have the sharpness words of the Freud play which so obviously everywhere, that nothing appeared cap­ and cutting glister of the sea. In the morn­ sought refuge in the commonplaces of pri­ able of resisting, in an unearthly quiet per­ ing it wraps the city in a glowing haze that vate chatter because they feared strength vading everything that tells of deprivation softens more than blurs the shapes of the and the necessary plain spoken ness that ac­ and subjection. buildings and makes the nineteenth cen­ companies it. I left for Budapest with Something else came to me that I had tury gothic parliament on the edge of the eagerness and apprehension: no city I have not understood before: this was Europe, as Danube look as if it were in Venice. The seen tells more of what Europe has done to much Europe as the rich and active coun­ river, the Danube moving through the itself in this century than Vienna, which tries to the West. If you think of Europe at center of the city at its own sweet will, now shamelessly introduces herself as the all, you have to think of all of Europe. Are­ lends the city strength and the proportions home of OPEC in her official brochures. luctance to think of all of Europe may ex­ of nature. It opens it to the soft but power­ If Vienna tries to behave as if it had no plain why there is little thinking about the ful movement of light and air. In contrast past, like an immigrant to the new world political (as opposed to the economic) uni­ to Buda with its wooded green hills that who still feels the impress of the sounds of fication of "Western" Europe-which is rise like waves, Pest stretches flat in streets his native tongue but no longer recognizes nothing but a geographic expression for a with remarkable buildings dating from the their meaning, Budapest instead feels like a historical accident. But the "Western end of the nineteenth century and the city with nothing between itself and its Europeans" I saw (with the exception of early twentieth. They are the only streets I past. A city with no time, with no present, the Germans) acted as if Hungary were on have seen anywhere in which architects

92 January, 1980 managed to make the surface of a building much more than a facade, so that the sides of the sometimes cave-like streets are not merely flat walls but undulate. These buildings have gone for decades without repair so they look much older than they are, almost at moments like ancient ruins. The decay occurs more slowly than almost anybody can tell, but irresistibly as if it were the only way to mark time. I found myself looking with the eyes of an archae­ ologist, for the life there had been-with the aid of bits and phrases I had gathered in New York which remembered Budapest before the war as "elegant" and "with the best service in Europe." It was as if time had stood still. In all its beauty the city feels empty and abandoned, like an intruder from another world, as if nobody dares look upon it with full eyes, as if all the former inhabitants had left and some others unknown to us and to each other had taken their places. It looks like a conquered city, that is made, daily, to conquer itself. For the Soviets, un­ Barta Lajos Wave, 1960 like the straightforward empires of the past to which careless and ignorant writers com­ pected you had no control over anything. thousand) if I was to have even the barest pare them, pretend that those they subject I was struck at how few Hungarians I sense of the country. I chose Pees in the rule themselves. It looks like a city with the met in museums, in stores, or on trains south, because I had heard its museums stuffings pounded out of it, that knows it spoke major European languages. That showed the work of Csontvary (1853-1919) and exists in the knowledge of it and has tells something of a generation of isolation. and contemporary Hungarian painting and dignity because of that knowledge-and In some instances, especially with German, sculpture. because it has not given up but is only wait­ I had the sense they knew the language but I left Budapest just after dawn with a ing. That is the sense I got, constantly, of would not speak. But when you attempted thick, blue softening mist just beginning to waiting and silence. In contrast I ca1led up a word of Hungarian they were sometimes glow over the country. The train at first fol­ the confusion of Italy, of Western Europe, overwhelmed. Towards Americans they lowed the Danube which, even more mag­ of the United States that cannot tell when app~ared indifferent, even sullen but not nificent in the countryside than in a city, it is in danger. But not to know danger is hostile, as if they wanted to keep their looks like a moving sea. The light over the the nemesis of those who do not aid the country to themselves, to hide in it and its country, growing brighter, moved and bil­ brave. 1956 came sharply to my mind. language-but knew there was no way of lowed. Fields of corn and sunflowers In offices of the most modest sort, at the doing it. Tourism from Western Europe stretched out in the flat Hungarian plain state airline, at the hotel, you could feel and the United States does not mean con­ whose vastness made me wince at the ab­ fear of responsibility, palpable, in the face tact with Hungarians, necessarily. I had the sence of the sea. There were many horse­ of almost any question. There was evasive­ sense that some were pretending they drawn farm wagons. ness and secretiveness which felt like a could not see me. But the concert I heard From the first moment I stepped out on habit acquired to replace civility. The rude­ left its mark on me forever. Music tells in Lenin Square, Pees made me aware of the ness and sullenness aimed at making you the silence-you learn to listen. When my extent Budapest kept up appearances. In feel you were of no importance. On a wife and I ate at a canteen for ordinary Pees there was no pretence, no posturing, transatlantic call when I spelled my name people, not a restaurant for tourists, the but a nakedness, the nakedness of a coat an operator who had before spoken in cook who worked hours that took my turned inside-out. There was the same uni­ broken English, suddenly said with clear breath away came out from behind the form plainness as in Budapest but the peo­ sarcasm, "Yours is obviously an American counter to embrace us. It was the deepest ple kept their distance from it. They were name." You began to understand you were welcome we got. courteous, courteous with warmth. The not a customer but a visitor who paid the I knew enough to know I had to get out young people in the central square on the state for permission to stay overnight or eat of Budapest (a city of more than two mil· steps of what had once been the Turkish a meal-a permission "they" could at any lion in a country where no other city num­ mosque looked less subdued, more ener­ moment withdraw or refuse. You sus- bers much over one hundred and fifty getic than those I had seen in Budapest-

93 The College

simpler, openly baffled as if not knowing where to turn, alone but not isolated from each other. The friendliness, the absence of pretence made the city worldly, more worldly than Budapest which was so obvi­ ously, and so obviously not, just another European city. One of seven museums scattered through the center of Pees, the Museum of Contemporary Hungarian Art, fills three or four good-sized rooms in a country house on what must have been the outskirts of Pees fifty years ago. About six sculptures like rocks in the sea lay in the grass sur­ rounding it. It is hard to tell the joy I felt coming upon these works which were un­ mistakably alive and unplanned, looking in fact almost as if they had sprung from the ground. The work was obviously good. There was no bragadoccio, no sawing the air, and it knew its limits. Above all these artists knew how to learn from masters like Brancusi without aping them and confus­ ing their talent with his genius. Inside the museum there is a collection of painting and sculpture from around 1900 to the present, a collection obviously Kmetty Janos Woman with Tumbler, 1916 selected (in contrast to the collection of contemporary art in Budapest) by people who can see and dare to look, for there is hardly a work in it that does not have its own life. I spent most of my time with art­ ists born since 1944. There were only one or two works for each artist, so I could not get a sense of their consistency or range. But almost everything I saw had real con­ tent, sometimes more content than the masters whom it had taken for teachers. All this work told unmistakably of living-in a world I knew. I blushed shame even to have wondered whether Europe was here too: every work in this museum told of painters and sculptors who throughout the century knew the work of Paris, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, and Oslo and knew how to remain true to themselves in the face of it. There was little posturing, no drive to im­ press, little impatience, no fear of modesty. The museum taught me something about arrogance. My own. Pictures from the Gallery of Hungarian Modern Art, Pees.

LEO RADITSA

94 NOTES

"1784: The Year St. John's College Was Named" Charlotte Fletcher, The Maryland Historical Magazine 74, 2, June 1979, 133-151

In honor of whom was St. John's named? St. John Chrysostom? The College at Cam­ bridge, itself named after St. John the Evangelist? Or was the name given as a compliment to a Masonic fraternity-a St. John's Lodge-in Annapolis at the time of the College's founding, a theory proposed by Bernard Steiner in 1894? In such a case the College could have been named either for the Evangelist or St. John the Baptist, since the Masons honored both. Charlotte Fletcher dismisses St. John Chrysostom, argues against Cambridge and denies Steiner's theory. She concludes that some special influence-perhaps Masonic-at work within the General Assembly during December of 1784 determined the Col­ lege's name. On December 27, the feast day of St. John the Evangelist and a festival day for Masons, the Maryland Assembly, after working with a Virginia delegation headed by George Washington, an active Free­ mason, passed the first piece of cooperative legislation of the Confederation following the Definitive Treaty of Peace of 1783- the Potomac Bill to improve navigation on the Potomac River. Three days later, on December 30, the Assembly approved the College's charter and named the College St. John's, perhaps to commemorate the date of this remarkable legislative perfor- mance. LEO PICKENS The College Non-profit Org. St. John's College U.S. Postage Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PAID Permit No. 66 Lutherville, Md.