Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2010 Sea-Cards for the Impetuous Muse: A Reading of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks Travis Sean Cook Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Cook, Travis Sean, "Sea-Cards for the Impetuous Muse: A Reading of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks" (2010). Dissertations. 31. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/31 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2010 Travis Sean Cook LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO SEA-CARDS FOR THE IMPETUOUS MUSE: A READING OF SHAFTESBURY'S CHARACTERISTICKS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE BY TRAVIS SEAN COOK CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 2010 Copyright by Travis S. Cook, 2010 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have incurred many debts in the writing of this dissertation--in fact, too many to catalogue accurately. Nevertheless: I have been blessed with many excellent teachers over the years. I am very grateful to the members of my committee for the time, care, insight, and patience they offered as I worked on this project. Professor John Danford has been an excellent teacher and keen reader; I am grateful for the generosity and kindness he has shown to me. Stuart D. Warner very generously agreed to serve as reader on my committee and his intelligent questions have pointed out the next step in my work on Shaftesbury. Claudio Katz has been consistently patient in his capacity as graduate program director, department chair, and member of my doctoral committee. I learned a great deal from the conversations we held while I was in Chicago. As the current Graduate Program Director, Peter J. Schraeder has been extraordinarily generous with me. I believe that my understanding of political philosophy has been deepened by many teachers, each of whom has contributed to anything of merit in this work. They include Professor Danford, of course; but also Christopher Bruell, Thomas Engeman, Robert Faulkner, David Lowenthal, Susan Shell, and Richard Velkley. The late Ernest L. iii Fortin, A.A. was especially generous with his wisdom and time. Without the kindness and encouragement of John Pelissero I would not have been able to complete my studies. Many friends and companions have taught and encouraged me as well. Foremost among them is Scott Yenor, whose friendship and advocacy have been essential to my progress. I am also indebted to Michael Grenke, Lise Van Boxel, Jon Schaff, Erik Poppele, David Starr, and Laurence Nee. I owe a singular debt to Michael Palmer, who first introduced me to political philosophy. Anything of philosophical interest in what follows I probably overheard in one of his lectures. Facile est inventis addere. Finally, I am grateful for the forbearance of my family: to my parents, Gordon and Dorothy Cook, and to my brother Bradford, who have supported, encouraged, and assisted me in all endeavors and without whom this would never have been written; and above all to my wife, Michelle and our children, Adam, Samuel, and William. iv To my wife, MICHELLE, and to my children, ADAM, SAMUEL, and WILLIAM. Socrate, tout en réprouvant l'abus que les Sophistes faisaient du droit de douter, était pourtant de leur école. Comme eux, il repoussait l'empire de la tradition, et croyait que les règles de la conduite étaient gravées dans la conscience humaine. Il ne différait d'eux qu'en ce qu'il étudiait cette conscience religieusement et avec le ferme désir d'y trouver l'onligation d'être juste et de faire le bien. Il mettait la vérité au-dessus de la coutume, la justice au-dessus de la loi. Il dégageait la morale de la religion ; avant lui, on ne concevait le devoir que comme un arrêt des anciens dieux; il montra que le principe du devoir est dans l'âme de l'homme. En tout cela, qu'il le voulût ou non, il faisait la guerre aux cultes de la cité. En vain prenait-il soin d'assister à toutes les fêtes et de prendre part aux sacrifices; ses croyances et ses paroles démentaient sa conduite. Il fondait une religion nouvelle, qui était le contraire de la religion de la cité. On l'accusa avec vérité « de ne pas adorer les dieux que l'État adorait ». On le fit périr pour avoir attaqué les coutumes et les croyances des ancêtres, ou, comme on disait, pour avoir corrompu la génération présente. L'impopularité de Socrate et les violentes colères de ses concitoyens s'expliquent, si l'on songe aux habitudes religieuses de cette société athénienne, où il y avait tant de prêtres, et où ils étaient si puissants. Mais la révolution que les Sophistes avaient commencée, et que Socrate avait reprise avec plus de mesure, ne fut pas arrêtée par la mort d'un vieillard. La société grecque s'affranchit de jour en jour davantage de l'empire des vieilles croyances et des vieilles institutions. --Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité Antique V.1 Hoc tamen solo delectabar in illa exhortatione, quod non illam aut illam sectam, sed ipsam quaecumque esset sapientiam ut diligerem et quaererem et assequerer et tenerem atque amplexarem fortiter. --Augustinus, Confessionum III 4.8 PREFACE SHAFTESBURY, PHILOSOPHY, AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE While contemporary scholars disagree about the extent to which Locke was a sincere Christian,1 his former pupil Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, seems to have considered him one. Shaftesbury's papers contain an odd letter addressed "to a friend" describing his reaction to Locke's sentiments about dying.2 His reaction, it must be said, is scornful. Shortly before his death in October of 1704, John Locke writes a letter to be delivered to his friend Anthony Collins upon his decease. Locke writes, may you live long and happy in the enjoyment of health, freedom, content, and all those blessings which providence has bestowed on you, and your virtue entitles you to. I know you loved me living, and will preserve my memory now I am dead. All the use to be made of it is, that this life is a scene of vanity, that soon passes away; and affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of doing well, and in the hopes of another life. This is what I can say upon experience; and 1 John Dunn, for example, argues that Locke was religious theorist, while Richard Ashcraft presents him as Nonconformist. John Marshall thinks Locke was tempted toward Unitarianism. John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke : An Historical Account of the Argument of the 'Two Treatises of Government', 1st paperback ed. (Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke's Two Treatises of Government (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). John Marshall, John Locke : Resistance, Religion, and Responsibility, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Michael Zuckert, on the other hand, denies that Locke was a believer at all. Michael P. Zuckert, Launching Liberalism : On Lockean Political Philosophy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002). 2 Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury, The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, ed. Benjamin Rand (London, New York: S. Sonnenschein & Company, The Macmillan Company, 1900), 344-47. vii what you will find to be true, when you come to make up the account. Adieu; I leave my best wishes with you.3 It is difficult to know what to make of a parting letter. Locke speaks of the transience of this life and the hopes of a life to come. Perhaps he intends to console his friend; perhaps he consoles himself. Shaftesbury himself finds no consolation in Locke's account of beatitude. He writes, the piece of a letter you sent me savours of the good and Christian. It puts me in mind of one of those dying speeches which come out under the title of a Christian warning piece. I should never have guessed it to have been of a dying philosopher. Consciousness is, indeed, a high term, but those who can be conscious of doing no good, but what they are frighted or bribed into, can make but a sorry account of it, as I imagine. Now it being my turn to say something in a dying way (for so, indeed, I am looked upon), I take upon me to send you, as my disciple, this counter charge.4 Shaftesbury's letter contrasts the life of the Christian with the life of the philosopher. "Consciousness," is indeed something to be sought, although he has a different understanding of it than does Locke; it is more common to find Shaftesbury speaking of self-knowledge. The remark about consciousness intimates Shaftesbury's own understanding of philosophy. For Shaftesbury, Socrates is the model of excellence, and for Socrates, knowledge is virtue. Shaftesbury's counter-charge takes Locke point by point. Shaftesbury extends his good wishes but denies he is offering a compliment. Instead he offers the simple acknowledgement of virtue owed to a noble friend: "the use I would have you make of it 3 August 23, 1704. "For Anthony Collins, Esq." John Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, 8 vols., The Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke (Oxford [Eng.]: Clarendon Press, 1989), 418-19.