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Plutarch and the Ancients

Supplementary texts and comments.

The Eclipse of the Moon and Nicias

[Nicias] ... the moon was eclipsed in the night, to the great fright of Nicias and others, who, for want of experience, or out of superstition, felt alarm at such appearances.

[Anaxagoras] ... he who the first, and the most plainly of any, and with the greatest assurance committed to writing how the moon is enlightened and overshadowed, was Anaxagoras; and he was as yet but recent, nor was his argument much known, but was rather kept secret, passing only amongst a few, under some kind of caution and confidence.

People would not then tolerate natural philosophers, and theorists, as they called them, about things above; as lessening the divine power, by explaining away its agency into the operation of irrational causes and senseless forces acting by necessity, without anything of Providence or of free agent.

Hence it was that Protagoras was banished and Anaxagoras cast in prison, so that Pericles had much difficulty to procure his liberty; and Socrates, though he had no concern whatever with this sort of learning [cf. Plato's Phaedrus 229e-230a], yet was put to death for philosophy [both for teaching the young to ask questions about "no small matter, but how to live" (ethics), and for speculations in natural philosophy which he did not make (Apology 18b, 19c); cf. the Athenian indictment against Socrates]. (Plutarch's Life of Nicias, tr. Dryden, rev. Clough)

"... the operation of irrational causes and senseless forces acting by necessity" -- That is what we mean by 'laws of nature'. And it is quite the opposite of "God as a working-hypothesis".

The Religion of the Educated Persons of Plutarch's time

... in accordance with our conception of the divine beings, to whom as the natural authors of all good and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the world. (Life of Pericles)

Is that more or less an example of religious faith than an example of Bonhoeffer's God (or the gods) "as a working-hypothesis"?

According to Arthur Hugh Clough's "Introduction", Plutarch lived circa A.D. 45-120 and was a native of Chaeronea, in Boeotia. Plutarch's "mind in his biographic memoirs is continually running on the Aristotelian Ethics and the high Platonic theories, which formed the religion of the educated population of his time".

Plato made study of natural science respectable

It was only afterwards that the reputation of Plato, shining forth by his life, and because he subjected natural necessity to divine and more excellent principles, took away the obloquy and scandal that had attached to such contemplations, and obtained these studies currency among all people. (Plutarch's Life of Nicias, continued from above)

The mind, the sphinx within

Hortensius told him he was not skillful in solving riddles. "No," said Cicero, "and yet you have the sphinx in your house!" (Plutarch's Life of Cicero; cf. Plato, Cratylus 428d)

And that is how it is with each of us, that through language we pose riddles (That is the sphinx within us), but we are not good at solving them.

Democritus of Abdera and Ethics

Democritus ... taught that goodness is a state of the soul, dependent on self-respect and not on social convention; that the wrongdoer is more unhappy than the wronged; and that the source of happiness is not wealth but uprightness. (Hammond, A History of Greece 3e [1986], iv, 6, p. 422; Vorsokr. 68 B 34; 40; 45; 62; 264 (p. 422n1))

It seems then that Diogenes Laertius is wrong, that it was not Socrates who "introduced the subject of ethics to philosophy" (Diog. L. i, 14), because Democritus had written a work titled "On Manly Virtue". But is it? Because by 'ethics', or 'philosophical ethics', what do we mean? Socratic ethics is natural reason alone applied thoroughgoingly to the question of how man should live his life. And this is what we don't know about Democritus, namely the source of these fragments: was it reasoned reflection or simply empirical observation?

For it may be observed that "happiness" -- not in the philosophical sense of 'happiness' (meaning 'life in accord with the excellence that is proper to man, namely rational moral virtue'), but in the sense of 'contentment' -- correlates with self-control (self-respect). But reason points out that self-control -- although an excellence proper to man -- exercised without knowledge of the good does not result in moral virtue but rather in vice (if, that is, "virtue is knowledge", as Socrates reasoned that it is [despite apparent experience to the contrary, because ethics concerns man when he is rational, not when the irrational part of man takes control]).

Note: this supplements the discussion "Aristotle the scientist versus Plato the philosopher".

Aristotle on the Good for Man

[Philosophy is] the organized whole of disinterested knowledge, that is, knowledge which we seek for the sake of ... itself, and not as a mere means to utilitarian ends. (A.E. Taylor, Aristotle [Rev. ed. 1919], (1955), ii, p. 14)

But if 'philosophy' is defined that way, then it does not seem that ethics -- which has as its aim not only identifying the good for man, but also actually amending the individual man's life to make it with that good ("utilitarian ends") -- belongs to philosophy, not as Socrates originally (Diog. L. i, 14, 18) conceived ethics: the reason to seek to know what the good is for man is in order to live in accord with that good. The knowledge sought is not sought as a curiosity ("disinterested").

But for Aristotle there are two parts of philosophy. The definition above applies only to the Speculative part of philosophy, not to the Practical part of philosophy.

[Practical Philosophy or practice also seeks] to know, but not only to know but also to turn our knowledge into account in devising ways to successfully interfere in the course of events. (Taylor, ii, p. 16) In practice thinking is always directed towards the production of some result other than truth for itself. (ibid. v, p. 88)

Of course it doesn't follow that Aristotle is interested in actually interfering in the course of events rather than merely describing those events as a theoretical (i.e. summary of the selected data) question, as a scientist would be. He does not say how the grown man is to amend his life, nor does he seem interested in it, but only in how to educate the young so that they may be orderly citizens in a city-state (That seems to be what Aristotle means by 'human virtue'). But unless one can go back to one's youth to be retrained, knowing that, even if true, is not helpful to amending one's life to become a good human being, that is to say, "to being made good" --

The principle object of lectures on content is not to tell his hearers what goodness is, but to make them good ... (ibid. v, p. 88) [To effect this result Aristotle depends on education of the young.] The young generally have to be trained to obey the right rule [of moral virtue] before they can see for themselves that it is the right rule, and if a man's tempers and passions are not first schooled into actual obedience to the rule he will in most cases never see that it is the right rule at all. (ibid. v, p. 92)

In which case it seems that virtue is training rather than knowledge. But then who trains the trainer? Because someone must first know what the good is for man -- that the good may e.g. be an orderly social life and that courage, piety, justness and self-control are the source of order -- before he can train anyone else to be good. But if one man can know what the good is for man, then can't all other rational men know it as well if they seek to "Know thyself" as the Delphic precept demands? But if that is true, then isn't virtue knowledge rather than training -- or if it is true, then perhaps there two paths to virtue, one for the child, one for the man?

Between "too much" and "too little"

We may lay it down, then, that the kind of training which gives rise to a good habit is training in the of the opposite errors of the too much and the too little. (Taylor, v, p. 94. That is the Delphic proverb "Nothing too much".)

To Aristotle, if I understand aright, the good for man is to be the orderly citizen of a city-state (Greek polis; for Aristotle, ethics is always politics: the individual in relation to society (ibid. ii, p. 20)), that is, one who always chooses the "mean" between the "too little" and the "too much" -- in the way that is suitable to him as a particular individual in the particular circumstances he finds himself in (ibid. v, p. 94-95). A common example of this is: choosing the mean between cowardice ("too little") and recklessness ("too much"), i.e. courage, not over- or under- reaching oneself. Those particulars are why Practical Philosophy can offer only general rules rather than the absolute knowledge of Speculative Philosophy (ibid. ii, p. 17), the absolute that Plato, apparently following the historical Socrates, sought in ethics.

[Knowing oneself as an individual is the second part of "Know thyself", the first part being to know oneself as man as such.]

Aristotle on Socrates and Induction

The example Taylor gives, if indeed it is Aristotle's own, is absurd: Taylor begins,

Historically "induction" is held by Aristotle to have been first made prominent in philosophy by Socrates, who constantly employed the method in his attempts to elicit universal results in moral science. (A.E. Taylor, Aristotle [Rev. ed. 1919], (1955), ii, p. 29-30)

But the example Taylor gives has nothing to do with "moral science": it has to do -- not with moral virtue (which is the subject of "moral science" or ethics) -- but with natural virtue. (The two kinds of virtue in Greek philosophy.)

Thus he gives, as a characteristic argument for the famous Socratic doctrine that knowledge is the one thing needful, the "induction" ...

An example of this we might give in moral science would be, following Taylor's pattern below: The one who knows what bravery is, is the best at being brave; and the one who knows what piety is, is the best at being pious. And thus "from these examples," Taylor says, "we see that universally": the one who knows what a particular moral virtue is, is the best practitioner of that particular moral virtue.

But about that kind of reasoning, namely "induction", Taylor says:

... it is evident that all the relevant cases have not been examined, and consequently that the reasoning does not amount to proof.

Well, but all Taylor gives is an example of a general thesis; he does not remark that in Socratic philosophy that thesis would have to be put to the tests of reason and experience in Socratic dialectic (questioning and cross-questioning for clarity and truth).

In any case, induction is not a method of proof. It is a tool for discovery.

Taylor gives as his example of "Socratic induction":

... he who understands the theory of navigation is the best navigator, he who understands the theory of chariot-driving is the best driver; from these examples we see that universally he who understands the theory of a thing is the best practitioner.

But navigation and chariot-driving are not moral virtues; they are natural virtues; and it would have to be demonstrated that, even if "knowledge is the one thing needful" for moral virtue, that knowledge is also "the one thing needful" for natural virtue.

I would call Taylor's account of Socrates and "induction" a caricature of Socrates' philosophy, not that I think that would have bothered Aristotle, since his interest in the history of philosophy wasn't as an historian, but only of someone using his account of the history of philosophy to make his own views about things clear.

Query: Aristotle's speech on an unexamined life.

I don't think that was of interest to Aristotle: I can't see Aristotle exhorting anyone to philosophy as Socrates and Plato did. ("The unexamined life is not worth living.")

Final and Formal Causes

If I understand Copleston's A History of Philosophy, Volume I, XXIX, 10-12, in Aristotle's jargon a thing's final cause (providential design) is not the same as God's reason for even making the thing in the first place. Man's final cause is his formal cause (the realization of the excellence or form that is proper to his nature). That does not explain why God made man at all rather than not make him. For example the Catholic catechism's answer "to love and serve God" is not man's "final cause" in Aristotle's jargon (unless to love and serve God is the excellence proper to man).

"Aristotle held that species are eternal, though individual sensible objects perish" (ibid. XXIX, 10). Ideas are eternal, as are Plato's Forms. But if species are inseparable from perishable sensible objects how can species be eternal?

Cato the Elder did not entirely despise Socrates

... he admired the ancient Socrates for nothing so much as having lived a temperate and contented life with a wife who was a scold, and children who were half-witted. (Plutarch's Life of Marcus Cato)

[Question: Is that the origin of the words Erasmus (The Praise of Folly) quotes, that Socrates' children favored their mother rather than their father -- i.e. they were fools?]

In his essay "On Old Age", if that text indeed has anything to do with the views of the historical Marcus Cato, despite Cicero putting everything in his mouth, Cicero writes:

Nay, do not some even add to their stock of learning? We see Solon, for instance, boasting in his poems that he grows old "daily learning something new".... When I heard what Socrates has done about the lyre I should have liked for my part to have done that too, for the ancients used to learn the lyre, but, at any rate I worked hard at literature ["it was only when an old man that I became acquainted with Greek literature"]. ("On Old Age", tr. Shuckburgh, viii)

Note that Marcus Cato was born circa 165 years after the death of Socrates, Cicero [106-43 B.C.] almost 300. And yet Cicero speaks of "the ancients", who, if 500 B.C. be taken as the beginning of classical Greece and 600 B.C. as that of ancient Greece, had lived no more than 400-500 years before Cicero. So that our own perspective in years is much longer than his was.

Thucydides, Polybius, and the Cycle of Human History

Men are driven on by greed to win wealth in unrighteous ways. (Words attributed to Solon)

The historians Thucydides (circa 460-circa 400 B.C.) and Polybius (circa 201-circa 120 B.C.) wrote not only histories but also philosophy of history, specifically speculative philosophy of history, for they said that human history is cyclic.

... the cause of all the wars ever fought. The motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession which no power and no possession satisfy. Power, Thucydides wrote, or its equivalent wealth, created the desire for more power, more wealth. The Athenians and the Spartans fought for one reason only ... because they were powerful and therefore were compelled (the words are Thucydides' own) to seek more power. (E. Hamilton, The Greek Way (1942), ix, p. 187; the quotation from Solon, p. 189)

Both the historians Thucydides' and Polybius' "basic thesis" is that "human history is a cycle which excess of power keeps revolving" (ibid. p. 187-188). "The rule of the one [tyranny], of the few [oligarchy], of the many [democracy], each is destroyed in turn ..." (ibid. p. 188) "Power, whoever wielded it, was evil, the corrupter of men" (ibid. p. 187).

That is "the cycle of human history" (from the one to the few to the many (from tyranny to oligarchy to democracy) and back to one, then the few, then the many, again and again "to the last syllable of recorded time") and that is an example of speculative philosophy of history.

[For Thucydides, power and wealth are like the hunger Pindar (Olympian Odes 2) speaks of, the hunger of man "laboring for the food that does not satisfy" (Tr. Hamilton, The Greek Way (1942), v, p. 99).]

The Dust of the Sophistic Storm: From Marathon to Callicles (Gorgias 481b-c)

To the men who fought against Persia [at Marathon (490 B.C.) and Salamis (480 B.C.)], their astonishing victory was a proof of the belief that divine justice ruled the world. It worked, indeed, in a mysterious way; nevertheless, those who trampled on the rights of others would be punished no matter how strong they were, a nation as surely as an individual. The arrogance that springs from a consciousness of power was the sin Greeks had always hated most. In their earliest literature, throughout the stories of their mythology, it was sure to draw down the wrath of the gods upon the individual ...

But these convictions were swept away by the rising tide of money and power as Athens turned on her associates in the league [formed in 480, when "after the final defeat of the Persians, the Athenians had been chosen to lead the new confederacy of free Greek states" (p. 192)] and forced them to become her subjects. To young men of the [new Athenian] empire the old belief was proved false by the facts. [Contrary to Aeschylus' verse, gold seemed more powerful a defense than justice. It seemed clear to them that the wicked were not] painfully punished and the good substantially rewarded. [It was no longer thought that being safe required refraining from evil-doing.] (Hamilton, The Greek Way (1942), ix, p. 192-193)

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) between Athens and Sparta, which ended with the defeat of Athens, fell during the time of the Sophists and Socrates, and yet Plato in his defense of Socrates, although he alludes to Aristophanes (Plato, Apology 19b-c), does not allude to that war. Were the Sophists held responsible for creating the way of thinking that made the empire, war and defeat possible? And this is what I have read, that by those who did not know how unlike the philosopher Socrates was to the Sophists, he was thought to be a Sophist, as he is portrayed as being in Aristophanes' The Clouds and The Frogs, where Euripides' critical views are implied to come from Socrates.

Socrates fought in the Athenian expeditions to Amphipolis (422 B.C.), Delium (424 B.C.), and Potidaea (432 B.C.). (Diog. L. ii, 22-23)

"To make the worse appear the better"

[From Protagoras' doctrine of the] subjectivity of knowledge ... which he expressed in the formula 'Man is the measure of all things ...' ... one important corollary was deduced. On every and any matter two opposite statements can be made and maintained, which may be distinguished as the stronger and the weaker, the stronger being that which is more commonly accepted, and generally taken for granted as true. But the weaker can always be strengthened by an able exponent. One of the things which can be learned and which an expert Sophist can teach is the art of strengthening the weaker statement.... This theory of the two statements was held up to ridicule in a scene of his Clouds by Aristophanes, where they appear on the stage personified as the Just and the Unjust Statement. (J.B. Bury, "The Age of Illumination" in Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 5, Chapter 13, p. 378-379)

Typhoeus and Tartarus

Background for Plato's Phaedrus 230a.

His arms are employed in feats of strength, and the legs of the powerful god are tireless. Out of his shoulders came a hundred fearsome snake-heads with black tongues flickering, and eyes in his strange heads flashed fire under the brows; and there were voices in all his fearsome heads, giving out every kind of indescribable sound. Sometimes they uttered as if for the gods' understanding, sometimes again the sound [of a bull, or lion, or pack of hounds]; sometimes again he hissed ..." (Theogony, c. lines 821-835, tr. M.L. West)

[Typhoeus is the source of the] winds [that] blow haphazard on the sea ... scattering ships and drowning sailors, [and on land] destroy the fair husbandry of earthborn men. (ibid. c. line 870 ff.)

Pindar (Pythian Odes i.20) says that Zeus pinned Typhoeus down under the volcano Etna; but in his notes to the Theogony (line 860), West calls this "a later story". According to the Theogony, Zeus imprisoned Typhoeus in Tartarus.

Socrates and Silenus

About the Sileni. (The singular and plural of the word 'Silenus' were used indifferently; the Silenus was a type.)

He knows important secrets and is captured to make him reveal them.

The comparison of Socrates with Silenus is based not only on common ugliness ... but also on common irony and wisdom. Portraits of Socrates and idealized heads of sileni show great similarity ... Silenus is often represented as a good father ... or as an old drunkard. (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., "Satyrs and Sileni")

The gentleman of the Renaissance

Good manners; that was another product of Urbino. In common with other Italian courts -- Ferrara and Mantua -- young men went there to finish their education. They learnt to read the classics, and to walk gracefully, speak quietly, to play games without cheating or kick each other on the shins, in short to behave like gentlemen. Under Federigo's son and successor Guidobaldo, the notion of a gentleman was given classic expression in a book called Il Cortegiano -- "The Courtier" -- by Baldassare Castiglione. It had an immense influence.... For over a hundred years it formed everybody's notion of good manners. Actually it's very much more than a handbook on polite behavior, because Castiglione's ideal of a gentleman is based on real human values. He mustn't hurt people's feelings, or make them feel inferior by showing off. He must be easy and natural, just as Castiglione himself appears to be in his portrait by Raffael. And he mustn't be a mere worldling. The Cortegiano ends with a moving discourse on the subject of love.... Castiglione's Courtier unites the Medieval concept of chivalry with the ideal love of Plato. (Kenneth Clark, Civilisation (1969) iv, "Man -- the Measure of all Things")

Baldassare Castiglione: 1478-1529. The Courtier: 1528.

The Spirit of Criticism

The Renaissance historian of art Vasari when he asked himself why it was in Florence more than elsewhere that men became perfect in the arts gave as his first answer the spirit of criticism, the air of Florence making minds naturally free and not content with mediocrity. And this harsh outspoken criticism meant that there was no gap of incomprehension between the intelligent patron and the artist. Our contemporary attitude of pretending to understand works of art in order not to appear philistines would have seemed absurd to the Florentines. They are a tough lot. Many people since Bruni in 1428 have compared them with the Athenians, but the Florentines were more realistic. Whereas the Athenians loved philosophical argument, the Florentines were chiefly interested in making money ... However, they had a good deal in common with the Greeks. They were curious; they were extremely intelligent; and the had to a supreme degree the power of making their thoughts visible. (ibid.)

Both Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574) and Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370 - 1444) were born in Arezzo, Tuscany.

William of Ockham and Ockhamism

Source: Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III: Ockham to Suárez (1953).

[The via moderna (in contrast to the via antiqua), associated with William of Ockham (c. 1290-1349)] was inclined to analysis rather than to synthesis, and to criticism rather than to speculation .... The nominalist movement [was] the wedge which was driven between theology and philosophy .... Metaphysics, while not abandoned, tends to give place to logic; and questions which were formerly treated as metaphysical questions are treated primarily as logical questions.

[Two characteristics of nominalism were the] tendency to doubt or to deny the validity of inferring from the existence of one thing the existence of another, [and the view that] the only adequate ground for asserting a causal relation between two phenomena is observation of regular sequence. (I, 2)

"Terminism"

[Copleston says the nominalists had better been called "terminists" because] the logicians of the new movement gave great attention to the logical status and function of terms. (Idem.)

"Probable reasoning" = probably nonsense

In the [Third or] New Academy ... a radical skepticism showed itself, as when Carneades [of Cyrene (c. 213-129 B.C.)] taught that there is no criterion of truth and that knowledge is impossible, on the ground that no sense-presentation is certainly true and that conceptual reasoning, since it is founded on sense-experience, is no more reliable than the latter ... (Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume I: Greece and Rome (1946), XLVII, 4)

Could you say "Strictly speaking, this is true"? Not if 'meaning' is defined as 'the use of a word [sign] in the language', because Carneades has torn 'truth' and 'reliable' and 'certainty' from their normal homes, which is our way of life, which is where they have meaning. "Use in the language" is at the same time use in our life. The words 'true' and 'know' and 'reliable' and 'certainty' are tools used in our life and in our reflections about our life (thinking). (As to certainty: objective doubt requires objective grounds for doubt: you cannot just say "I am possibly mistaken" without saying why: there are doubts and there are ways to resolve doubts.) That is Wittgenstein's logic of language. But what is another possibilities?

"Strictly speaking" = "on a deeper level", that this is not a question for logic, but for metaphysics to answer. Do you have the notion (vague idea) of a "super truth" or "super certainty"? "The eye of God" sees the truth without the possibility of being mistaken. That could be called the subliming (sanctifying or deifying) of our concepts.

Ockham, Empiricism, Natural Science

... the Ockhamist philosophy should, of its very nature, have favored the growth of empirical science. William of Ockham had a strong belief in the primacy of intuition [or of immediate experience (X, 1)], that is, in the primacy of the intuition of the individual thing: all real knowledge is ultimately founded on intuitive knowledge of individual existents.

Moreover, the only adequate ground for asserting a causal relation between two phenomena is observation of regular sequence. These two theses tend of themselves to favor empirical observation and a fresh approach to scientific questions. (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III, I, 2)

Copleston says that "[the nominalists substituted] the study of the behavior of things for the traditional search for essences" (XVIII, 2, iv). Ironically, however, science does assume and does search for the essences of things (it chooses essential definitions for its terms, as e.g. in chemistry); it is not empiricism, which is a common sense view of things or a method of trial and error. Science is theoretical, i.e. it looks for the underlying principles, for what is not in plain view to common sense, and seeks solutions that way. Another name for underlying principles is 'essences'. Or so it seems to me.

A Cosmos, a law-governed system (Nature)

If the pre-Socratic philosophers discovered Nature, in the sense that they formed the idea of a cosmos or law-governed system, the Renaissance scientists discovered Nature in the sense that they developed the use of scientific method in the discovery of the "laws" which actually govern natural events .... developed the scientific study of Nature in a way in which it had never been done before. (XXIV, 4)

The dusk of philosophy

... whereas in the Middle Ages philosophy was ... the sole representative of "scientific" knowledge outside the sphere of theology, in the post-Renaissance world rival claimants have arisen which ... have wrested from philosophy the title to represent knowledge at all. (XXIV, 4)

But I do not believe natural science is responsible for loss of faith in the possibility of philosophical knowledge. I believe philosophy itself has been responsible for that: philosophy has deadened metaphysics (Rationalism), not natural science (something which has nothing to do with natural theology: we no longer expect philosophy to find God, the ultimate cause and explanation of existence, and describe His nature).

If one can find in the rediscovery of Aristotle [Before this for the medievals philosophy had been dialectic or logic. "But when the Aristotelian system as a whole became known in the Christian universities the province of philosophy was extended far beyond the sphere of dialectic" (XXIV, 3) .... In the Middle Ages Aristotle was known as "the philosopher" "because his system was for the medievals "philosophy" ... because it was the one great system of philosophy of which they possessed an extensive knowledge. It is important to realize this fact" (XXIV, 2)] a dividing-line in medieval philosophy, one can also find in the growth of Renaissance science a dividing-line in the history of European thought .... the development of science made it much easier than it formerly had been to consider the world from a point of view with no obvious connection with theology .... after the Middle Ages philosophy tended to become "lay" in character .... fresh interests and lines of thought ... could be pursued without any obvious association with or in relationship to [theology]. (XXIV, 4)

Mathematics and Hypothesis (astronomy)

The use of mathematics as the special means of disclosing the nature of physical reality led to a transformation in physical science. The old way of common-sense observation was abandoned ... physical science became less "empirical": it was freed not only from Aristotelian physical theories but also from the common-sense idea of an observational method, which had tended to prevail among earlier physicists. (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III, I, 2)

Roger Bacon, the thirteenth-century Franciscan, had insisted [that] astronomy requires the aid of mathematics .... it is obvious that ordinary observation will not suffice to convince anyone that the earth moves round the sun: ordinary observation would suggest the contrary. The heliocentric hypothesis doubtless "saved the appearances" better than the geocentric hypothesis did; but it was a hypothesis. Moreover, it was a hypothesis which could not be verified by the type of controlled experiment which is possible in some other sciences. It was not possible for astronomy to advance very much on the basis of observation alone; the use of hypothesis and of mathematical deduction were also required. It argues ... a short-sighted view of the achievements of Renaissance science if one ascribes those achievements as due to observation and experiment [alone]. (XVIII, 2)

Roger Bacon called "mathematics "the door and key" of other sciences", and "had a firmer grasp of scientific method, of the combination of deduction and induction, than was possessed by Francis Bacon [1561-1626]" (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume II, XLIII, 2). He was imprisoned where he died (1278-1292) for "teaching novelties" in his work Speculum astronomiae (XLIII, 1).

Movement: a boat on a bankless river

Nicholas of Cusa said everything I said about 'motion' being a relational concept in the fifteenth-century.

We perceive motion only in relation to fixed points; and if a man in a boat on a river were unable to see the banks and did not know that the water itself was moving he would imagine that the boat was stationary. (Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume III, XV, 6)

The Layout of Albert Schweitzer's Books

... when editors and publishers followed his wishes. What are called "insertions" in the following letter are like the footnotes in W.K.C. Guthrie's A History of Greek Philosophy: they need only be read by the serious student of the subject -- although I don't think that's true: the qualifications and illustrations in the footnotes are often explanations of the author's meaning, and they are sometimes needed to avoid mistaking the author's may be for an is.

You did the right thing by printing certain portions in a smaller typeface. Did you know that I was one of the first people to use this technique for insertions?... This technique was invented by my teacher the philosopher Windelband. He employed this technique in his writings on Greek philosophy ... Windelband also inspired my habit of placing keywords on the sides; they help the reader to orient himself in the book. (Letter from Lambaréné, 5 October 1958, in Albert Schweitzer, Letters 1905-1965, ed. Bähr [1987], tr. Neugroschel (1992), p. 280-281)

Thomas Aquinas, to study the solutions of his predecessors

Aristotle's advice, followed by the Scholastics ...: before giving the solution of a problem, expound the reasons for and against. This explains, in particular, the great part played by the history of philosophy or the critical examination of the solutions proposed by the great thinkers. (Maurice De Wulf, "Philosophy" in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911))

Albert Schweitzer's method is related to Aristotle's: "he explores the problem of philosophy through a criticism of earlier philosophizing". As is the method of Thomas Aquinas, although the saint is more modest.

Melancholia

Albrecht Drurer, 1513 engraving 'Melancholia 1', 61 KB

"In the Middle Ages 'melancholia' meant a simple combination of sloth, boredom and despondency ... But Drüer's application is far from simple. This figure is humanity at its most evolved, with wings to carry her upwards. She ... holds in her hands the compasses, symbols of measurement by which science will conquer the world. Around her are all the emblems of constructive action: a saw, a plane, pincers, scales, a hammer, a melting pot, and two elements in solid geometry, a polyhedron and sphere. Yet all these aids to construction are discarded and she sits there brooding ... I began by mentioning the enemies of civilisation: well, here, in Drüer's prophetic vision, is one more way in which it can be destroyed, from within." (Kenneth Clark, Civilisation [1969], v, p. 152-155)

The Substance of Cathay

Cathay owed its existence to a confusion. Two words, referring to the same country, had been given substance.

In central Asia the term Cathay had prevailed, derived from a tribe called Khitan who had formerly lived in an area southwest of Manchuria and southeast of Mongolia. In the tenth century this people invaded northern China and the name Khitai, written Cathay by Europeans, was applied to China as a whole by Arabs, Persians and Russians. Consequently Marco Polo and the Franciscans, approaching China through Turkestan knew their destination as Cathay.

The Chinese themselves were as ignorant of the term Cathay as of China. They called their country Middle Kingdom or by the name of the ruling dynasty.

Her neighbours, to the south and east, knew her under the name of the dynasty ruling at the time of their first important encounter. [In Siam, China was known therefore as Chin and the] Portuguese who by chance gained their first knowledge of the Middle Kingdom through the Siamese, adopted the name the Siamese used and applied it to the country they reached by the sea route [in contrast to the land route across northern Asia]. In its modified form, China, this became general throughout Europe. The difference of name had arisen from a difference of [geographical] approach. (Vincent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci [1552-1610] and his mission to China (1955), xiii: "The Quest for Cathay")

Rather than given substance by the scholars and dreamers of Europe, Cathay had been given imagination.

Tradition, the Unity of Chinese Society

The Gregorian calendar, largely the work of [Ricci's] mathematical master, Christopher Clavius, had been adopted in western Europe in 1582 ...

If Europe had taken the momentous step of changing to a new calendar, might not China also? [The Chinese used a lunar calendar, and based their year on the coming round of 28 constellations in the night sky.] Ricci was convinced that the provision of a more accurate calendar would redound greatly to the credit of Christianity. It might even become possible to replace the lunar by the solar year. That would strike a decisive blow at magical belief; it might shatter the wheel -- the twenty-eight constellations of the lunar zodiac -- to which China was bound.

When this cycle of worship and mimesis [mimicry (representation) of nature's seasons which the emperor was obligated to live out] had been disrupted, China would perhaps consider the acceptance of a supernatural religion less outrageous to nature [than it present one].

[Nevertheless, a difficulty was that in China nothing was allowed to] jeopardise the national unity, whose outward signs were the [use of the] mandarin language [by the government] and the [Chinese lunar] calendar. (Cronin, op. cit., xii)

Three years after Ricci's burial [on the feast of All Saints in 1611], as a consequence of a serious mistake by [China's] Board of Astronomers in forecasting the eclipse of 1610, the missionaries' friend at court, Leo Li [Li Chih-tsao, Chinese geographer (ibid. xi [Note: converts were given the names of Christian saints as their baptismal names])], obtained a decree ordering [Jesuit Father] De Uris to reform the calendar and to translate European astronomical books. This task he undertook with the assistance of Paul Hsü [Li Ying-shih, military general and mathematician (ibid. xi)], who continued to use his high office in the cause of Christianity. [But] not until 1830, when Adam Schall von Bell, a German Jesuit skilled in astronomy, arrived at Peking was the work of revision seriously undertaken. [After the Tartar invasion and overthrow of the Chinese government, the Tartar dynasty] appointed [Schall] President of the Board of Mathematics ... (ibid. Epilogue [xv])

[But it wasn't to be until] the early decades of the twentieth century [that the year] was reckoned by the sun rather than the moon [and that was in a profoundly changed China from the one Ricci had known]. (ibid. Epilogue [xv])

Tradition and Reason

At the same time, it was Matteo Ricci's teaching that Christianity is consonant with natural wisdom -- because beside the Chinese love of tradition there was the Chinese love of reason, for as they would say to Ricci, "Religions are many, but reason is one" -- that won Christianity converts in China. Just prior to Ricci's death in 1610 the number of converts had been 2,500 (xiv), while the authority Schall as President of the Board of Mathematics "gave the [Jesuit] mission [, largely] accounted for a rise in the number of [Chinese] Christians, at the time of his death, to a quarter of a million" (ibid. Epilogue [xv]).

The New Men of the Atomic Age

"By the way," said Martin, in a tone dry and without feeling, "I heard one story about tactics that might interest you."

He had heard it from someone present after the bomb was made. "There was a good deal of discussion," he said, "about how to drop it with maximum results. One ingenious idea was to start a really spectacularly pretty flare a few seconds before the bomb went off."

"Why?"

"To make sure that everyone in the town was looking up."

"Why?"

"To make sure they were all blinded."

I cried out.

"That's where we've come to in the end," he said. (C.P. Snow, The New Men (1954), xxvii)

In the event, those who were looking towards the bomb were instantly made blind by the flash and instantly made deaf by the force of the blast.

Einstein, the artisan

Albert Einstein wrote to Seiei Shinohara in 1953-54 (as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), and published by Taipei Times, 5 July 2005):

I didn't write that I was an absolute pacifist but that I have always been a convinced pacifist. That means there are circumstances in which in my opinion it is necessary to use force ...

Einstein, the "conditional pacifist": I am opposed to all war, but not to every war. Isn't that what everyone means by saying that someone is not a pacifist?

Such a case would be when I face an opponent whose unconditional aim is to destroy me and my people.... Therefore the use of force against Nazi Germany was in my opinion justified and necessary.

If someone wants to destroy "me and my people", then it is just to create a weapon to destroy "him and his people". He wrote to Shinohara: "I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan" -- why? Because the aim of "Japan", unlike "Germany", had not been to destroy "me and my people"? Who is "me and my people" exactly? (Luke 10.30-37)

Einstein said that he only favored the development of the atomic bomb for its "deterrent effect", which was foolishness (1) because it could not act as a deterrent until the effects of its use on cities and human beings had been demonstrated, as it was over Hiroshima, and (2) because no one delivers a weapon into the hands of someone he cannot control without the implicit acceptance that the person may choose to use that weapon. And that means that Einstein was willing for the weapon to be used.

Like the artisans Socrates questioned (Plato, Apology 22d-e), Einstein thought that because he had knowledge of mathematics and physics, he also had knowledge of ethics, which he clearly did not have. Like the artisans Einstein thought himself wise when he was not. That is the original sin philosophy is the battle against, that and not some other (BB p. 45, PI § 109).

Shostakovich, I think, said of Andrei Sakharov, "You give us the atomic bomb, and then you want to talk to us about human rights!" And the same applies to Albert Einstein, "You give us the atomic bomb, and then you want to talk to us about peace!"

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