Friday, October 1, 2021

The Anhistorical Man in the Age of Aquarius. Pars Prima.

 

~by David Aiken~

 

 

The Age of Aquarius

Prologue

Like so many players in a traveling company wandering up hill and down dale (the simile is from Nabokov, of course!), from our lofty stage we look out over the audience as our various plays unfold. For it is our purpose that those in attendance should be informed, moved, and inspired by our dialogue and our play. To wax lyrical in Bard-ese: thus do “we lay our scene, […which] is now the [two-part] traffic of our stage.”

 

Humanities, Crisis, & Inhumanities

We assume the following to be the case in the prima pars of this two-part essay. First, that it is predominately those areas of academic study leading to jobs and job placement that enjoy intellectual and financial institutional preference. Generally speaking, fields in the Humanities do not lead to jobs. Second, there are limited academic funding resources, all sources combined, and, generally speaking, it is those fields of study that lead to empirically measurable Results&Benefits (e.g., science/medicine, social sciences, and anything of military interest), which will receive systematic funding from our universities; those same fields that will, in turn, become sources of funding revenue for our universities. Finally, modern cultural values, such as globalization, diversity, and the like, must, in the final analysis, create societies that are fragmented and relativistic (i.e., diversified), which will necessarily result in the fragmentation of the classical or traditional (so-called “elitizing”) agenda that, according to many, presently hovers over and around the study of Humanities.

These assumptions address, to some degree at any rate, many of the ‘Problems in the Humanities’ that are commonly advanced in the literature: that they are 1) intellectually marginalized in our institutions; 2) that funding for Humanities programs is constantly threatened; and 3) that there are tensions between classical or traditional Humanities, and the more recent cultural and critical orientation of some Humanities programs.

Now questions of funding aside—although they are certainly not unrelated to the argument of this essay—while it may seem apparent that scholars engaged in the various disciplines of Humanistic studies are desirous of harmonizing the Humanities, i.e., of defining an overarching and common agenda for the study of Humanities in America, it would seem equally obvious that most of these traditional attempts will end in failure. It shall be our task to explain why this must be so.

 

 

Plato's Euthyphro: An Ancient Drama of Religion and Politics

I propose both as an explanation and a metaphor for at least some elements linked to crisis in the Humanities, the various “FAILURES” that were experienced by the great ethicist Socrates, and especially the striking failure so dramatically represented by Plato in the Euthyphro. Because frankly, and perhaps naively, I see little hope of success latterly where Socrates so obviously failed formerly.

Using as our springboard James Arieti’s original and certainly rather provocative readings of the Platonic dialogues as drama (Interpreting Plato, Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), it would seem that in the Euthyphro Plato stages for our consideration the inevitably unproductive and entirely modern dialectic between the flexible spirit of inquiry (Socrates) and the adamantine cocoon of willfully ignorant belief (Euthyphro). The readers of the Euthyphro, because it is a dialogue in philosophy, are entitled to think that an honest attempt is being made by the protagonists in the dialogue to dis- or un-cover some truth concerning the discursive subject, which is traditionally held to be piety and the gods. And yet we are not so fortunate in this case. For as a work of independent philosophy the Euthyphro is ultimately, and very obviously, inconclusive. Socrates is unable to bring Euthyphro to ‘see’ his ignorance concerning the gods, which means that Euthyphro will not, and if we may anticipate upon this young fellow’s future, will probably never question the piety of his own suit against his father for the wrongful death of his (Euthyphro’s) slave. Thus, in following out the metaphor of our argument, Socrates’ failure to persuade the willfully ignorant Euthyphro on the question of piety also foreshadows his soon to be demonstrated inability to persuade the jury at his own trial for impiety, which will, in turn, serve to confirm us in further concluding that the second charge Meletus brings against Socrates during his trial (viz. corrupting the youth of Athens), is highly implausible. For how could Socrates corrupt where he was so obviously unable to persuade?

 

So, at this point we need to step back in an attempt to get Plato’s ‘big’ picture concerning the importance of Socrates as a philosophical teacher, in order to understand how the successes and failures of Socrates might apply to us today as we attempt to solve the riddles brought to light by the various types of discourse with which the Humanities engage. Because from a straight-forward reading of Plato’s Socratic narratives, we are left to suppose that, in reality, Socrates had no more general success in corrupting the minds of the Athenian youths than he had, specifically, in getting Euthyphro to see the obvious errors in his thinking about piety and the gods. Secondly, when read against the background of the Apology, Plato’s Euthyphro seems to problematize the specific futility of an inquiring Socrates who is trying to reason with an ‘un-inquiring’ Euthyphro, which seems perhaps to suggest the general futility of attempting to engage in honest inquiry with anyone of faith. Indeed, at the end of the dramatic action the audience is left wondering what good Socrates has really accomplished in the polis, and whether, in fact, we may not conclude that his life was really, at least in terms of its philosophical import, a series of failures— failure to find philosophical answers to philosophical questions concerning piety and the gods, failure to encourage Euthyphro to a clearer and more appropriate way of reasoning, failure to persuade the jury of his innocence, failure finally either to teach, or even to corrupt, the youth of Athens.

On this reading, does not Plato lead us to the necessary conclusion that genuine “Socratic” dialogue, which should ideally lead us to convert intellectually to the ‘good life’ and thereby transform us into wise men, is in fact futile when confronted with an audience that is disposed neither to conversion nor to wisdom? And by metaphorical extension, are we not guided toward the same conclusion of futility when we consider that the same insurmountable obstacles that faced and finally crushed Socrates, continue to face those who engage in the modern humanistic pursuits?

 

Now assuming the plausibility both of our argument and of the metaphor, there are obviously a variety of possible responses to the question of how the Humanities might position themselves vis-à-vis changing times; but for the most part these responses are ultimately unsatisfactory. There are, for example, metaphorical responses to our metaphor, one of which might be derived from an optimistic reading of another of Plato’s Dialogues, The Theaetetus. On this reading, for example, there will inevitably be some searching, inquiring minds ‘out there’, and we teachers of the Humanities must simply persevere for the sake of those few who may one day come along, such as the humble Theaetetus, in their search for truth-in-the-world. This hopeful optimism is ubiquitous in the Humanities, and is reflected famously in Nietzsche’s bold epigraph to the Antichrist: “Dies Buch gehört den wenigsten. Vielleicht lebt selbst noch keiner von ihnen. (This Book belongs to the very few. And it may well be that none of them are even alive yet.)” However, if we actually and publically dare to formulate this elitizing argument in our various Humanities disciplines, then we must surely also be prepared to accept that, given the democratic accessibility generally underpinning entrance to America’s universities, and the politically correct environment of the modern intellectual and cultural arenas, the vast majority of our universities, which distain this unseasonable discourse, will continue to consider Humanities departments second class intellectual disciplines, and will continue to throw toward the Humanities only the most modest crumbs of financial support.

            However, leaving behind otherwise unsatisfactory “Theaetetian” rejoinders to my Euthyphro-as-metaphor argument, there are also other, certainly more practical interpretations of the role of the Humanities in the modern intellectual arena. What if we assume, for example, that the type of dilemma Plato frames in the Euthyphro does not speak to the current issues addressing the Humanities, and that the over-arching purpose of the Humanistic discourse is in fact rather more practical than philosophical or theoretical? An illustration of one such practical interpretation is the archiving role of the Humanities as suggested by, inter alia, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or Ayn Rand’s Anthem. From this point of view, it may be said that the broader picture of what we do in the Humanities is to encompass, to archive, and to transmit all facets of human experience and knowledge, both empirical and beyond.

But while this is clearly an accurate depiction of what happens in the various disciplines of Humanistic studies, nonetheless, to consider the Humanities solely, or even only largely, under these auspices still fails to provide adequate answers for the difficult questions concerning why the Humanities are intellectually marginalized; why funding for Humanities programs is constantly threatened; and why there are tensions between classical or traditional Humanities and the more recent cultural & critical orientations of some Humanities programs.

 

 

There are obviously philosophical responses to our Euthyphro-as-metaphor argument. Pierre Hadot is to a large degree responsible in the modern generation for the rekindled interest in philosophy as a servant to the philosophical life, as an exercise in correct thinking and self-examination that helps us to transform our lives into philosophical art. Following in the tradition of the Stoics, the early Christians, Ignatius of Loyola, et al, Hadot suggests a “stoic” impetus that sees value in the practice of a life lived philosophically, and argues that the philosophical practice of life is persuasively reasonable because the life of the mind is the sole means for the individual to arrive at happiness.

From among the plurality of possible life-options that society, which is both fragmented and relativistic, lays out before us, the philosophical life of the mind must certainly be more desirable than the life of men lived as brute beasts. This affirmation is anticipated even in the more traditional, albeit impoverished interpretations of Plato’s Theaetetus, where both the humble Theaetetus as well as the wise Socrates fail to present a solution to the aporia concerning human knowledge, but where Plato’s readers are left with the idea that the dramatic action of life does not necessarily lie in abstractly understanding or interpreting and resolving specific intellectual problems, but is manifest rather in the simple philosophical practice of coming together to reason and to speak about reality and the human experience. At the very least, goes this argument, this process increases human understanding about the human condition. Yet this idealization of human inquiry as the goal of the humanities, especially when the student of ideas begins to understand that, per this reading, human inquiry does not lead necessarily to increase of knowledge, still falls short of addressing meaningfully the hard questions concerning the value of the humanities in higher education.

 

While no interpretation of Plato’s dramatic Socrates may provide a totally unequivocal description and response to problems presently confronting the Humanities, and especially in the American Academy, there does yet remain an American philosophical response to these difficult questions. One persuasive response, which is at once meaningful, intellectually satisfying, and relevant to the specifically American evolution of studies in the Humanities, is the principle of education proposed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Unlike the philosophical exercise of wisdom traditionally embraced by the western and profoundly Platonized intellectual tradition, in the new experiment in self-governance called America, argues Jefferson, the people need to be generally educated in order to watch over and safeguard the orderly outworking of governance by the people—the people need to be educated in order to protect against the corruption of political power into tyranny. “The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny]”, suggests Jefferson, are,

to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes (Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526).

Quite distinct from the paideia of the Greeks, the type of education to which Jefferson alludes constitutes in fact the bedrock of a distinctly American liberal education, namely politics, history, and the study of philosophy for virtue. Jefferson speaks of a People even more broadly conceived, though, a People that is at once wise and honest, happy and virtuous.

Laws will be wisely formed and honestly administered in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the public happiness that those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens... (Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:527).

So, although the metaphors and reflections that have been suggested in this essay do not necessarily elucidate the varied problematic of Platonic interpretation, they yet serve the purpose of demonstrating, by a consideration of Socrates’ dramatic dialogues, the insufficiencies of classical western thought to solve the difficulties presently confronting humanistic studies. This allows us to consider in perhaps a new light the radical educational propositions of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, and to envision a Jeffersonian response to the questions concerning the role, value, and purpose of the study of the Humanities in the American society. At the very least, such a response must include the idea that all teachers of the Humanities must be engaged in the struggle to ensure that humanistic studies represent, finally and definitively, the core of all education in America. Education must be liberal.

Jefferson did not conceive of an America in which the study of the Human Sciences would be in crisis, and in which the Humanities would have to skirmish with the “hard” sciences for institutional approval and funding dollars. In present-day America, among the very first subjects to be funded are the harder sciences, and among those to be cut in times of budget deficit, subjects in the Humanities and the Arts. In Jefferson’s vision of American, however, the education that is necessary to a free, self-governing people does not lie in an understanding of the hard sciences or the social sciences; but in the general improvement of the individual gatekeepers of democracy, which has always been the interest and specific goal of the Humanities.

The value of science [i.e., general and liberal knowledge] to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight. (Thomas Jefferson: On the Book Duty, 1821).

To a very large degree indeed, the continuity of a nation’s political, social, and cultural heritage is established and guaranteed by the ties that bind students to their teachers. So to enable a Jeffersonian vision, which strives after the ongoing improvement of democracy’s gatekeepers, teachers of Humanities must continue to argue and to militate for the study of those subjects that keep our eyes riveted upon Power of all sorts, and, how much more, upon the subtle permutations of power into tyranny. We need to study history, and politics, civics and current events in order to keep before our eyes the political institutions whereby Men define and govern themselves; and we need to study foreign languages, philosophy, religions, mythologies and literatures, and all the “sciences” in order to understand that it is through various and diverse languages and “stories” that we as a people initially begin to frame, and then to flesh out, our political and social institutions, which in turn become reflections of the intellectual life of the American demos. Why do we do this? Because, "[i]f the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education" (Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818. FE 10:99).

 

Bibliography

·      Arieti, James A. 1991. Interpreting Plato. The Dialogues as Drama. MD:Rowman & Littlefield Pubs.

·      Cornford, F.M. 1971. Principium Sapientiae. Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith

·      Guthrie, W.K.C. 1975. A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. IV. NY: Cambridge University Press.

 

Reprised and reworked from an original Phrontisterion essay published in November 2016. This essay was modified from its original form, which was presented as part of a Panel Presentation at The International Humanities Symposium held at Columbia University in 2007, with the title: “Conversations and Conversions: Humanities in the State University.” The complete Panel Presentation was published as "Skepticism, Stoicism, and the Jeffersonian Model" in The International Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 5, No. 8, 2007. ]