Plato and the Spirit of Modernity by E
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VIEWS TK Plato and the Spirit of Modernity by E. Christian Kop! I! C.S. L"#$%’% T"# L$%& B$&&'# the world of Narnia and science, as opposed to abstract thinking, universals and begins to dissolve and disappear. !e Pevensie children are absolutes, the transcendent, and tradition. Actually, ev- confused and frightened, but Professor Kirke, now Lord Di- ery theme of the "rst group can be discovered somewhere gory, reassures them that the Narnia and the England they in classical antiquity or the Middle Ages, and the sec- had known were only shadows compared to the reality they ond group continues to exist and sometimes thrive in the were about to experience. !en he mumbles to himself: “It’s modern world. It is hard, however, to deny the feeling, de- all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them bated in German-speaking countries and simply assumed in these schools?” !e Professor’s irritation is understand- in English-speaking ones, that there is a chasm between the able, but Plato did play an important role in 20th-century ancient and the medieval, on the one hand, and the modern literature, science, mathematics, philosophy, and even poli- or truly modern, on the other. Schmitt shows how much tics. Yet the standard picture of that century, indeed, of the “modern” thinkers have lost by turning away from what modern world as usually conceived, is un-Platonic. For they believe to be ancient or, even worse, medieval. German classicist Arbogast Schmitt in his recently trans- For Schmitt Plato is a symbol of what the modern world lated book Modernity and Plato: Two Paradigms of Reality, has rejected, though he concedes that o#en Aristotle would “modernity since its earliest beginnings in the fourteenth serve just as well and, occasionally, even better. In address- century can be described as an anti-Platonic age.” ing the moderns, he concentrates on Descartes and Kant, Schmitt’s book is part of a German debate on “mo- but acknowledges that he could have reached similar results dernity,” which is supposedly characterized by a belief in by studying Locke. He actually begins by discussing the experience or sensation, the individual, the empirical world, debate in the late Middle Ages between realists and nom- 12 Chronicles VIEWS inalists. Realists argued that universals, general concepts, his encouragement of a sense of political futility exist really, independent of human thought, either tran- similar to that inhering in [Albert Jay] Nock. If, as scendently (Plato’s view) or immanently in the examples Weaver was to assert, “the dissolution of the West” of the universal or species (Aristotle’s view). Nominalists, began in the late fourteenth century when Western on the other hand, believed that general concepts—beauty man made the “evil decision” to accept the nominal- and truth, or cats and dogs—are just names, constructed by ism propounded by William of Occam (d. c. 1349), humans and existing only in the minds of individuals. Led what the hell could be done about it? by thinkers like Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, the forces of nominalism “win,” and the modern age begins. For Tyrrell, Weaver’s “writings were more likely to move Readers familiar with the conservative canon will rec- his readers to political despair than enthusiastic, back-slap- ognize this narrative, because it forms the beginning and ping action.” foundation of that conservative classic Ideas Have Conse- quences (1948), by Richard M. Weaver. In the 1940’s the free-trading individualists and grim anticommunists of the Rist from a Christian perspective, day were "ring their heavy artillery at FDR’s New Deal. A few years later Russell Kirk’s Conservative Mind (1953) took like Schmitt from a secular one, sees aim at the 18th-century French Revolution. For Richard Weaver the decisive event in the decline of the West took Plato as an indispensable resource place in the 14th century: the rejection of Plato’s !eory of Ideas and acceptance of William of Ockham’s nominalism. in confronting today’s intellectual Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, challenges. which has become the e$cient and "nal cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encoun- ter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the !e objection is clearly and vigorously stated and de- late fourteenth century, and what the witches said serves an answer. If materialism is true and there is no to the protagonist of this drama was that man could transcendental reality, then human action and thought, like realize himself more fully if he would only abandon all other material processes, are ruled by the laws of physics, his belief in the existence of transcendentals. !e among them the Second Law of !ermodynamics. !at powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, is why things are getting worse. !e universe is cooling and they couched this proposition in the seeming- down, and jazz is followed by rock and roll, which is fol- ly innocent form of an attack upon universals. !e lowed by rap. If, on the other hand, mind and spirit are defeat of logical realism in the great medieval de- real and can shape matter—if ideas have consequences— bate was the crucial event in the history of Western then we can use our reason to reach an understanding of culture; from this %owed those acts which issue now truth and employ rhetoric to persuade people of the truth. in modern decadence. We can inspire Americans demoralized by the entitlement programs of the New Deal and the Great Society; we can Weaver’s belief in absolutes led relativist le#ists to accuse convert them from secularism to religion. We do not have him of being an “authoritarian” who wanted to trample on to be satis"ed with providing a moderate version of what- freedom by imposing his absolute values on them. As we ever socialist nostrum the Democratic Party is peddling. now know, it is liberals with their speech codes and polit- Weaver’s history lesson has practical consequences. ical correctness who actually trample on free expression, Schmitt avoids politics and prefers discussing the intel- not traditionalists like Weaver. In (e Conservative Crack- lectual basis of the anti-Platonic commitment of Ockham, Up, R. Emmett Tyrrell mocks the charge as bogus, and he Descartes, and Kant. For Plato and Aristotle, for instance, is quite a good mocker. He goes on, however, to criticize the mind can perceive the objective truth of beauty and Weaver’s view: truth; their fundamental intellectual commitment is to the principle of noncontradiction. For Ockham and Kant the !e harmful side e&ect of Weaver on conservatism individual achieves self-evident perception of empirical was not his encouragement of authoritarianism but objects through intuition. (The intellect is for less self- May 2013 13 VIEWS evident concepts.) Descartes "nds our one self-evident of Plato’s Republic VI. !at is why great mathematicians experience in consciousness: Knowledge aside from the like Henri Poincaré and G.H. Hardy speak of the beauty of cogito is secondary and subjective. From these di&erent mathematical formulas. sources individualism, subjectivism, and ethical emotivism For biologists Michael Denton and Craig Marshall, have characterized modernity signi"cantly and distinctive- “Protein folds found in nature represent a finite set of ly. !e Platonic vision did not disappear, however, with the built-in, Platonic forms. Protein functions are second- triumph of nominalism. !e explicit Platonism we "nd in ary adaptations of this set of primary, immutable, natural 20th-century English teachers like C.S. Lewis and Richard forms.” Schmitt discusses carefully and critically how these Weaver is part of a tradition that runs through the mod- views and those of Heisenberg and his students agree with ern period. Renaissance humanists in Florence loved Plato and, in part, contradict Plato’s views as expressed in works and wrote on him. In the 17th century the Cambridge Pla- like Timaeus. !inking within a general Platonic frame- tonists, who today are read by only a few, were admired, work can be and has actually been productive of signi"cant but Plato’s commitment to interpreting the natural world results in biology, physics, and mathematics. Weaver’s Ideas by mathematics also inspired Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. Have Consequences and Lewis’s Abolition of Man show the importance of Plato in ethics and politics. In creative lit- erature we can mention Lewis’s "ction and the novels of We do not have to be satis!ed with Iris Murdoch, whose scholarly writings have explored the signi"cance of Plato for today’s philosophical problems. providing a moderate version of Schmitt shows why the anti-Platonic “turn” (Wende is the favorite German expression for our clumsier “paradigm whatever socialist nostrum the shi#”) has marginalized Plato in academic philosophy. One of Schmitt’s undoubted achievements is establishing Plato’s Democratic Party is peddling. continuing importance. O! &'$% %$(" )* &'" A&+,!&$-, classicist John M. Rist, In his essay on “!e Signi"cance of Beauty for the Exact a#er a series of books exploring and interpreting ancient Sciences,” physicist Werner Heisenberg argued convinc- philosophers, has gone on to argue for Plato’s enduring sig- ingly that the Scienti"c Revolution of the 17th century was ni"cance. !e most accessible for the average reader is his based on a return to Plato by these great mathematizing sci- brilliant lecture On Inoculating Moral Philosophy Against entists. About his own early research Heisenberg reports God (1999), in which he