"Where Did I Go Wrong?" [Teacher Edition]

My need and desire to expound on this particular post today actually fills my heart with much sadness, especially within the context of the class that I teach, itself: Philosophy. And, not just philosophy, but a large part of it (the entirety of the fourth unit, and quite a bit weaved within the first three) on ethics and behavior and looking at the Good and Truth and Beauty, and all that.  So maybe I'll start with my goals as an educator in a Philosophy-based classroom before I work back to what's going on in my head regarding other things.

Philosophy, for me, was something I was always interested in, but never had a chance to pursue until college -- my first exposure to pure philosophy (though in an extremely limited capacity) was through my AP English Lit teacher my senior year of high school; and really, it was through existentialism, of course (our reading of the same text we're covering right now in class, The Stranger by Camus).  But, I've always been the kind of kid that looked at things differently, that saw beyond the obvious.  Often, this got me in trouble -- on standardized tests, especially in verbal sections, like the SAT for example (ugh my scores were so 'meh'), I could sit and rationalize answers for hours by just looking differently at the text or the question, or the semantics of it all.  I wish we would have had the writing section when I was in high school -- it would have been my only saving grace (it was on the GRE -- the graduate-level equivalent to the SAT -- where I got a 6/6 on the writing, which is actually apparently very hard to do).

When I started college, it was very easy for me to fall right in love with the subject.  And, it was easily one of the most worthwhile decisions I've made as an adult in going back to get a Masters in Philosophy.  Honestly, in looking back at the essays I wrote in high school, then as an undergrad, then as a graduate student, I can see just how insanely far my own thinking has come in so relatively short a time (really about 10 years... sounds like a lot to you, but when you get old like me... not so much haha).  Without philosophy, I seriously don't know what I would have even written about -- I look back at high school papers about symbolism and that kind of nonsense, and see what naivety was coming out of my fingers and brain, and realize I had nothing of substance to offer until Philosophy.  And it's not just my writing -- my life has so much depth and meaning as a result of the things I get to think about, having been so exposed.  I thirst for it, every day.  And I can't even begin to tell you what a joy it has already been to be able to spread that to people -- even if no one in my classes get it or care, at all, though it would be nice to reach even just one other person and give them that eye-opening experience that's been so foundational to my own being.  Teaching this class has been phenomenal, and I can't wait until I've done it a few times and become good at it so that I know what I'm doing is the right thing (it'll take time to make the mistakes and fix them, my apologies -- it's just how things work).  I want to be able to help guide others -- be that "Socratic teacher" -- toward becoming not just better students (which in the traditional sense of 'task-performing drones' I could absolutely care less about), but better learners and more importantly, better people.

Which brings me back to the Ethics thing, and my dismay as of late.  I try to build this class around open-mindedness, free speech and expression, creativity, personal intrigue, and philosophy's inherent intention: love of knowledge/wisdom.  That love should be genuine, sincere, and personal (ah, the personal individual subjectivity of Kierkegaard).  And yet, there is still the external pull of grades, of scores, of letters and numbers... and I wish I could do away with it. Unfortunately it's the system in which we operate and thus I can only do so much to emphasize what I think is important (i.e. the learning and its intrinsic value in making us better people), while being up against the forces of college apps, transcripts, student competition, and scholarship awards.  Inevitably I'm David against a massive Goliath... though that might be a more than hopeful analogy to make (as it would assume that ultimately, I will win; I'm not so confident).

Writer, fellow teacher, and author Jessica Lahey of the New York Times and Atlantic wrote a couple of articles a few years ago on the prevalence of student academic dishonesty in all academic levels -- high school and up -- which I found intriguing, and places some of the blame on teachers too (or at least, on the school system), which I also believe have much validity (much to my own chagrin).  She enumerates several failings which contribute to compelling students to take dishonest measures: 1) performance-based tasks vs. mastery-based encouragement; 2) prevalence and pressures of high-stakes testing; and 3) lack of student personal self-efficacy and esteem (something which teachers can mould within the classroom -- something I like to think at least that I work hard to give students; I hope I say enough how much I believe in my kids and how much I value them and love them etc).  She offers up a bit of a conclusion to this, though I'm not ultimately satisfied with how we are to do this in an individual classroom without a serious culture change nationally:

In order to earn our place at the front of a cheating-free classroom, educators are going to have to own our share of the blame for the atmosphere of high-stakes testing and extrinsic rewards that we've created. Cheating is not solely the fault of our students or the declining ethical standards of the millennial generation, but a product of our testing-oriented and performance-obsessed culture. The American educational system should focus on the handing down of knowledge and skills rather than test preparation and administration. The same conditions that encourage cheating discourage our students' mastery of content and skills. And while we waste our time attempting to catch cheaters in the act of deception, we are distracted from our higher goal: catching students in the act of learning.

-- Jessica Lahey, "A Classroom Where No One Cheats"

This is all and well, and I completely agree with everything she says... and yet how? How can one teacher in one classroom stand up against an entire culture of sentiments? What can I do -- in my one hour a day -- to reverse an entire 13 years of educational folly that does just those things mentioned above? How can I begin to show my students that they are too smart and too good to use the internet as a crutch when writing their papers, to go without citations and copy/paste because of a need to get a certain score or complete a certain task just to turn in a piece of paper for points? 

And I know it's not (or at least, I hope it's not) entirely personal -- I know how hard my students work, how involved they are, how stretched they are, and how their time is allotted; I was a student once too -- an AP student, at that.  In fact, my senior year schedule was nothing BUT AP classes, while also the drum major of band and involved in a bunch of other things, too.  I've felt the stress of college applications and essays and acceptance letters and the complete stress of the unknown future. And, it wasn't even that long ago. I'm not that old.  I have been my students (just in a different city, with a different family -- I've always been the one to put more stress on myself).  So I understand the way in which lack of time, or fear, or whatever else can get in the way of learning, and the strength of the temptation to make my life just a little easier by using some 'help' to get by.  After all, "it's a one page assignment, who cares?"  It's so interesting that often, this is the talk and behavior of students who are exceptional -- who are dedicated to multiple avenues of study and activity, who are great people in and out of the classroom, who are incredibly bright and capable, and who frankly, know better.

Jessica Lahey also did some research for another article, where she actually got one of those bright, capable, ambitious students to philosophize on the need for his cheating.  She summarizes:

This student felt justified -- even ethically obligated -- to cheat when he felt he had been denied a good education. His teachers, he argued, had cheated him of the education he deserved and promulgated the very system I blamed for the rise of academic dishonesty. He'd responded by cheating right back in retaliation. Most journalists are thrilled when evidence comes to light that support their argument. I, however, was divested. It's one thing to read the statistics of cheating, but it's quite another to be faced a real-life example of a student cheater.

-- Jessica Lahey "I Cheated All Throughout High School"

What is scary about this is that responsibility for ethical behavior is totally surrendered.  And, with all of the discussion of choice and responsibility currently happening in my class, I can just hope and pray to whatever God we want to call upon at the time (we've covered so many versions this year, pick one eeny-meeny-miney-mo), that this isn't the case in my classroom -- that I'm not failing to provide my students with the education they think they deserve, or that they actually do deserve and hopefully appreciate.  The above student-cheater-representative goes on to rationalize his behavior, claiming that "It should be expected that when a student goes to school, he or she enters a social contract with the teacher, one that demands teacher expertise, devotion, and instructional talent in exchange for the student's discipline and commitment."  I completely agree... but is it always a result of the teacher's failing of that contract? What of it when it is the student's failing? What then? Who is to blame? Like Lahey argues, "the teachers and administrators who heaped accolades on this student's shoulder, wrote the letters of recommendation that secured his admission to a top university, and placed their faith in his intelligence and character [my emphasis] deserved more."  

I really hope, that by the end of the semester -- any of them present and future -- that my students will realize my passion and dedication to the eye-opening experience of testing their own limits, measuring their own worth, exacting their own individual primacy, and the gratification and satisfaction of becoming a whole, true, and Good human being. Even just a little bit.  I hope that ultimately, the realization will be that philosophy isn't something to cheat -- because ultimately, all you're doing is cheating yourself out of the chance to make a choice that really defines you as something meaningful, individual, and more important than just a cheater.  For me personally, ethics isn't just an 'ends-justify-the-means' game -- but maybe I'm too much of a classical virtue ethicist for this day and age.  

To my students: aim to be more than just followers, perpetuating a broken education system that says complete the task and get in line makes you a drone -- not a person. Be people. Be responsible people, and know that how you act, and what you do, even on the SMALLEST of things, becomes who you are.  You are loved, and valued. Thank you for taking the time to read my rant. <3

A Long Post on Kierkegaard: on how we come to the 'occasion' of the Paradox

In another of his major works, Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard seeks to utilize reason -- as exemplified in the example he uses throughout the text, Socrates -- in order to explore the logical implications of epistemic Truth.  This thought-project of his is written under a different pseudonym, this time Johannes Climacus, who's name is borrowed from a sixth-century monk of the same name who wrote Ladder of Paradise, which details in thirty chapters the steps toward raising one's soul to God.  The meaning of the name -- 'climax' or 'ladder' -- mirrors the logical strucure through which Climacus entertains his 'hypothesis' -- central to his writing is Cartesian thought (i.e. the philosophies of skeptical doubt of René Descartes), and it is through its logical method that he concludes, "coherent thinking was a scala paradisi."

The work follows the Socratic model, in that "man should make all haste to escape from earth to heaven; ... and man becomes like God when he becomes just and pure with understanding." Despite his adherence to the rational, Climacus is not, however, satisfied with stopping at the well-received ideals of Socratic understanding; instead, he aims to go beyond Socrates, which then engenders the tension between ideality (as inherent to the rational/ethical, and ultimately limited aim of the Socratic) and the actuality of the individual subjective nature of the paradox with which Climacus engages his interlocutors throughout the dialectic.

Climacus begins the first part of the Fragments with the Propositio -- proposal, or 'hypothesis': "The question is asked by one who in his ignorance does not even know what provided the occasion for his questioning in this way" (PF, p. 9).  This statement indicates Climacus' own awareness that he himself has been given some idea, and that this idea is not of his own invention. It is precisely this awareness of question that leads to the hypothesis.  The hypothesis, then, provides the basis for the thought-project in which Climacus seeks to understand how a person acquires knowledge.

 He begins with the Socratic conception of Truth as recollection (as explored by Plato in his dialogues, which we discussed in class).  Socrates' basic assumption rests on the idea that the Reality of things is what is most True of things; the soul participates in this intelligible, true Reality, and thus, the intelligible is inherent within the individual.  The soul can be aware of the True through the use of reason. Learning is then 'uncovering' that which is hidden or has become 'dim' by sense perception, which also acts simply as a reminder in that "we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering that it existed before and is ours" (Plato's Phaedo 76d-e). Therefore, knowledge is never new, but eternal, and learning is recollection of those already-present realities.

In terms of his own system, Socrates as the teacher defines himself as the "midwife" who assists in bringing about learning in his followers.  He does not himself give new knowledge, but simply aids his followers in discovering "within themselves a multitude of beautiful things, which they bring forth into the light" (Plato's Theaetetus 150c).  Climacus in Kierkegaard's Fragments warns that it would cause confusion to the individual for the teacher to present himself as if he were the give of knowledge, which coincides precisely with his own warnings in the Preface above.  Because he cannot give new knowledge, the teacher is only of historical importance, as he is as much as the learner particular to the temporal and "influenced by circumstances." At this level exists a reciprocal relationship in which the teacher is both teacher and learner, which is itself the highest relationship humans can achieve -- each acts as an occasion for the self-understanding of the other (in fact, this is also pretty consistent with Hegel's dialectic as well, in which two subjective selfs serve as means for self-discovery).

However, as Climacus points out, knowledge must have been, at some point placed within the individual by someone or something else.  If recollection is how truth is learned, then learning from anyone can only be of historical concern, because truth is universal and eternally present within.  This fails to address the part of Climacus' original question, in which he asks: "Can a historical point of departure be given for an eternal consciousness?" The point of departure addressed in the Socratic, is no departure at all, and has no bearing on the self's eternal consciousness:

because in the same moment I discover that I have known the truth from eternity without knowing it, in the same instant that moment is hidden in the eternal, assimilated into it in such a way that I, so to speak, still cannot find it even if I were to look for it, because there is no Here and no There, but only the ubique et nusquam. (PF p.13)

The event of historical importance still resides in the realm of the ethical, and the moment of its departure is insignificant as it raises recollection of the universal into which the moment itself is assimilated.

It becomes Climacus' purpose, then, to go beyond the Socratis to answer the second question he raises: "How can such a point of departure be of more than historical interest?"  To do this he must address the following concern: How can one seek Truth, if the idea of recollection is not sufficient for explaining the origin of Truth; and how is it possible for one to know whether one even has Truth if awareness of it becomes lost to the universal? If the situation is to be different (namely, if it is to be the movement not from individual to universal but from universal to individual, as the 'leap of faith' past the paradox of the Ethical into the Religious would suggest), then the moment (the specific paradox itself) must have decisive significance so that it will not be hidden or forgotten (or dismissed back) to the universal.  This presupposes a few things: 1) the individual must not possess truth (so that it is not available to recollection); and 2) the individual must not be looking for it, as he would not be aware of not having it and so no knowledge of the need to look in the first place.  Tehrefore, under these presuppositions, the individual must be outside of the utmost truth, or what Climacus labels as 'untruth.'

In this situation, the Socratic definition of the teacher is no longer sufficient.  If the truth is not innate nor given, the teacher is only the occasion that reminds the learner that he is untruth, which in turn further excludes the learner from the truth that when he was in ignorance.  If the learner is to obtain truth, he must also have the condition for understanding it.  The learner himself cannot be that condition, as this would revert back to the idea of recollection. The presence of the condition, however, is essential to the process of learning. In order for the moment to have decisive significance, the learner must lack the condition, and then receive it; this cannot be an act of God (as this would be contradiction to his character), cannot be accident (which would have no essential significance), but must be an act of will of the learner.  In this understanding, the learner has chosen to forfeit the condition, believing himself to be in freedom when in fact he is slave to 'unfreedom' unconsciously and acts within it.  Thus, the teacher must save the individual from himself by providing truth and the condition for understanding it.

The learner who is in untruth, upon receiving the condition and the truth, becomes a new self -- this process is what Climacus labels as 'rebirth.' The learner here owes no human teacher anything (as they are just an occasion), but owes the divine teacher everything; thus, he must not forget this moment of rebirth and must continually choose to assimilate the truth into his eternal consciousness. He again raises the difficulties of the Socratic, saying that recollection would produce no significance in the defining of the self, in that the moment of self becomes ware of being,' he recollects that he was already 'being' and would continue as he was. Therefore, in line with the Cartesian cogito, ergo sum, it must be so that the self was previously 'not-being' and can only be aware of having been 'not-being' once he has received the truth and condition for understanding it by God, and experiences that rebirth.  Thus, he shows that "only with Christianity does eternity become essential" (Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety p. 84).

As a result, Climacus looks specifically at the relationship of God as the Teacher who is beyond the Socratic.  He argues that the relationship between teacher and learner is not similar to the Socratic, which produces the occasion for mutual self-understanding, as "God needs no pupil in order to understand himself" (PF p. 24).  Nothing moves God to appear int he teacher-learner relationship but himself. Climacus hypothesizes that the movement is of a love that is self-directed and for the learner within which "the different [are] made equal, and only in equality or in unity is there understanding" (PF p. 25).  It is this love which serves as the moment; it must be from eternity, but itself fulfilled in time (hint: he's alluding to God's love of man, out of which he gave his only begotten son, upon the cross, to die for the sins of all creation and atone all in the moment of the crucifixion and of which salvation lasts for all eternity).  It is not, however, a low in equality, as the learner has yet to be brought to 'Absolute relation with the Absolute,' and so it is an unhappy love based in misunderstanding (think about John chapter 1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God ... and they knew Him not) -- and the unhappiness belongs only to the one who is ware of the existence of the misunderstanding (i.e. God).  It is in the unequal love that man owes God everything, as God (through this love) is providing something for him (namely truth and the condition for understanding it) which cannot be reciprocated (there is nothing I can give God that is even remotely equal to what he's giving me, here).

Unfortunately, Climacus' problem in the form of his hypothesis inherently contradicts its content.  The Religion, which as shown in our discussion of Fear and Trembling, is incommunicable, irrational, and not something that can be or should be understood, and vastly inwardly personal (which is why we can never truly understand Abraham, or his moment of the paradox -- it's only his own moment, not our own).  And yet, it is the Religious that ironically the philosopher makes attempts to understand in Philosophical Fragments through the use of logical dialect.  It is particularly in the moment, "simultaneously historical and eternal" (PF 134-135) that philosophy meets its biggest challenge; and its attempt to rationalize such produces "old-fashioned orthodoxy in its rightful severity" (Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript p. 275) and is an obstacle to establishing a proper relation to the paradox (and thus, be able to make the 'leap of faith' to 'Absolute relation to the Absolute').  Climacus is not immune from this contradiction, in his need to attempt to rationalize the religious standpoint, leading to the perversion of understanding that he himself warns against (and which, as a human is unfortunately impossible to get away from if we're going to make any attempt at communicating the concept to each other -- language inevitably fails us).

The question, however, remains: who can attest to the idea of the religious, one who is reborn, or not? Climacus concludes this rhetorical question by answering that it must be the one who is reborn (the one who is in the Absolute relation to the Absolute, the one who has embraces the religious standpoint) as they would be the only ones aware of the transition from not-being to being. This conclusion places a level of doubt over Climacus' own mental processes in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments, as one who is not himself 'reborn.' Climacus does exactly as the philosopher should in his willingness to "lay down life simply in oder to solve it" (as quoted in the historical introduction to the text) but comes to the same limited that any in the ethical face when approaching the religious -- namely, the futile attempt to 'solve' something which cannot be rationally solved: "If he abandons this extreme position, he may very well arrive at something, but in doing that he would have to also abandon his doubt about everything... Life has not acquired any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy."

A Short Post on Kierkegaard (more to come)

Kierkegaard grew up and was educated in a society dominated by the main-stream thought of Hegelian philosophy.  Much of his ideas seem to coincide decently with Hegel’s, though there are some points against which he argues.  In sections of his work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, (particularly section II chapter 2 on subjective truth) Kierkegaard argues that objective truths cannot guide one to knowledge of what he finds fundamentally important: God.  Hegel’s metaphysical arguments for the dynamics of relationship place the subject, the “self,” as the important over the object, which he generally classifies as “the slave.”  However, Kierkegaard maintains that a relationship with a dynamic being cannot be reduced to objectivity, as both the subject and “object” are really subjects in both lights. 

For Kierkegaard, the knowing subject relates himself to his relation to truth; yet, truth is not an object for Kierkegaard, but outside of the Hegelian system.  Truth, rather, is achieved when the self relates itself to what it thinks to be true, and then ascribes actions based on this.  The self must commit itself to what it believes to be true, and whether it is objectively true is neither provable nor objective. 

The best example Keirkegaard gives for this set of metaphysical ideas is found in the second chapter of section II, in which he discusses the relationship between the self and knowledge of the existence of God.  Though one may never know objectively the truth of God’s existence, one may do so subjectively; in order for this to be subjectively true, the self must understand his relation with God subjectively, and the truth of this is understood when one makes it true for one’s own life by committing oneself indefinitely to living and believing that God exists in truth.  Truth, understood this way subjectively, is just what Kierkegaard calls it, a “paraphrasing of faith.”  His theories, however, are not what would be classified as relativism or subjectivism, but rather an inner understanding of subjective truths which cannot be understood or guided objectively.

A Letter of Red Upon the Heart of All Men

Through Me is the way into the doleful city;

Through Me is the way into eternal pain;

Through Me the way among the people lost.

Justice moved my High Maker;

Divine Power moved Me, Wisdom Supreme and Primal Love.

Before Me were no things created, but eternal;

And eternal I endure: Leave all hope, ye that enter.

All of us are just images and empty shade.
Just when you think all is straight and constant,
A fork is made, and the road becomes two;
     "Where do I go, which way do I turn?"
The decisions come and go,
But it is always the same --
Good and evil, right and left, this world or that --
The bells toll and the sun passes over the mountain;
     "Which way do I turn?"

But there is no proof for that road. Why take it?
Where can it possibly lead that we have not already been?
There is always a single road -- material reality.

But, I tell you, this choice is real;
It is life, gone, like fleeting sand blown through the fingers,
Slipping steadily away, until --
Nothing thus remains.
     "Hurry now, there isn't much time,
     Which way do I turn?"
Shadowless bodies cast no shade.


Evil comes from Night, daughter of Chaos,
The Original emptiness.

Stories of evil told by Muses, singing and dancing,
Ones that tell truth of lies;
Stories of those caught in the balance
Between the fingers of Fate,
Cutting the golden thread;
We know what we hear, but believe only what we see.

Terpsikhore, tell us of where winter falls again on earth,
And Persephone returns to the underworld:
Demeter, wrought with sorrow,
Sees the land as it withers away -- nothing but dust;
Trees shrug, flowers bow at death,
The winter sun blanches all.
     "But poor Demeter, it is your people, your land,
     That now suffers."
     "It no longer matters to me
     I care not, for my beloved,
     I am without."
Your apathy takes its toll on earth,
And your dying heart;

Even a mountain of love crumbles.

Fair-voiced Calliope brings us to a story of jealousy,
Of a question unanswerable, impossible;
     "Three goddesses, we are told:
     The wife of power, beautiful and pure,
     But a streak of green so deep it runs through her veins;
     Daughter, bourn fully of the mind of the highest father,
     Wise and wishing only for honor;
     And the third, in a mix of blood and water,
     Bourn of the father's suffering,
     Envy of all."
A wedding -- an apple thrown, kallistêi
But who can choose so bold a title
Without any of the least offense?
O Innocent passerby -- Paris, forced to choose
Between three, for which no answer yields good;
Influenced by the cold repose of Aphrodite,
Becomes the object of jealous rage.

By sheer misfortune, a cold war; the land of Troy will fall.

Merely self-infliction, Thalia brings news of Tantalos:
     "Why, dear man, play games with those of power?"
Friend to gods, man loved by all
Shared the wonders of the immortal world,
The sacred indulgence of nectar and ambrosia.
Darkness clouds thought, in a fit of pleasure,
Steals of the sustaining life;
Those of ikhor do not bleed.
     "You fool, you cannot reach the fruits,
     For they escape beyond your mortal grasp."
Forever hunger and thirst for life, tantalized,
Forever punished for selfish satisfaction;
Even the water recedes to quickly to drown away.

Suffering will never end.

O Polymnia, tell us of the god of man,
Who loves his creation, but despised of by all Olympus:
Prometheus, god of wisdom and knowledge,
Inventor by craft -- trickster by sport.
     "See what your trickery has done?
     Man has much now, but what have you?"
Nothing, but the suffering inflicted by selfish gods.
On a desolate mountain, bound to cold stone,
The eagle comes, are your back:
In a cold blast, the rattle of bones.

Erato, of love and beauty, what of Echo?
Punished for her excessive lies, Hera bid her only the final words
And given a fierce lust for the handsome Narcissus.
     "Echo, do you hear? Do you hear?
     He cannot love you, for he lusts only for himself."
She withers away, but her punished voice remains:
She rings in deep caverns,
Avalanches of snow still respond
Liker her voice, cold, lonely, emotionless --
Calling only to the flower on the banks in Spring,
Gone again by winter, in the bleak silence,
Here, her mourning is heard best.

Please come back, come back!

The story of the hero Achilles is all too well-known,
But here a story of destruction, Euterpe tells:
Raised by the good centaur Cheron,
Achilles grew to be a great warrior
Bred on fearlessness, only to thirst for dominance.
Brought to anger the leader Agamemnon,
Stealer of Briseis, prized servant and friend,
Achilles lets his anger, quick to rise, full of wrath.
Refusing to fight in anger of the leader's wrong,
His friends fall to enemies on his behalf,
His own soon to come at the strike of a heel;
Anger can only lead to death.

Wrath only covers the light shed on truth.

Do not fear Ourania, tell us of your realm
And what comes of a high spirit:
Trapped in a winding maze,
Only a candle to possession,
The inventor plans his escape.
     "I give you these wings, my son, to fly;
     To escape the twists and turns of Fate,"
He tells his son, and in time, the plans complete.
Warned by a father's cautious love,
Icarus lets only pride in his way;
     "I feel like a god" flying higher and higher;
But O, Icarus, if only you knew
What would come of your prideful nature.
     "Why this mournful gloom,
     For that celestial light?"
     "It is better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!"
Falling from the heat of the fiery sun
Only icy water of the sea,
Burned and melted away.
What was there in the end? Ash.

You! Who are like white-washed tombs,
Handome on the outside, but inside
Are full of dead men's bones.
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!

O Kind Watchmaker
Who sees this 'watch?'
It goes: tick-tock, tick-tock --
Bang

Finitude and Infinitude

Last week, our discussion got into the idea of complete determinism -- a topic that will come up soon as we pursue Unit 3's Concept of Free-Will through Camus' piece, The Stranger (easily one of the most popular texts I've ever taught to students).  Now first, I'll say that I've never been a fan of the overly-scientific determinism that has become increasingly popular in our increasingly scifi-based society.  So, of course that colors my interpretation a bit, as I seek to prove things to myself for my already preconceived understanding :)

While I definitely believe that our understanding continues to increase over time with more and more discovery.  At the same time, I think that the more and more we continue to increase our understanding, the more and more we realize how much we don't understand -- each question, and answer, simply opens up a new realm of possible questions that need answering as the universe continues to expand into infinity.

So if we're even going to assume a scientific standpoint, we have to look at some of the presuppositions even that entails itself, before we argue for determinism or against free will.  If we're going to assume strict scientism, we have to accept entropy and the infinite expansion of the universe.  Something, which I've always had a hard time conceptualizing -- well, mostly because I've always tried to picture the universe somehow.  I remember as a kid, picturing in my mind the solar system. Then, trying to expand it past that to more galaxies, and then ultimately the universe.  However, I always knew the pitfalls of my thinking -- I can't force a picture of the universe (maybe the KNOWN universe, but not the universe in its entirety).  Anytime I drew a picture in my mind, I could always recognize the 'end of the paper' so to speak, and recognized that that wasn't the infinite universe.

My husband Andy always puts infinity in the clearest perspective for me.  He describes it like this:  Think of a library full of an infinite amount of white books, and an infinite amount of red books.  If you were to take away ALL of the red books, you would STILL have an infinite amount of books total.  The thought is totally crazy, but this is about as accurate of a conceptualization of infinity as I can wrap my mind around.So let's say we accept that the universe is infinite.  That means to me, then, that there is an infinite amount of stuff, and infinite amount of possibilities, an infinite amount of change.

It was brought up in class that if were could learn ALL there was about a person, their genetic history, past behaviors, etc. that it would be conceivable to predict everything about their futures.  However, this limits it down to one person's experience.  Humans are a social creature, and a lot of our life-situations are on dependent upon the circumstances that surround us.  Fine, we grant that, and say then we must learn ALL there is to know about the people and places surrounding those individuals.  Unfortunately, we meet the same issue with each expansion -- in order to learn ALL about those people, we must expand to all of their influences and environments and peoples within the circumstances, and this continues to expand (if you include both past and present) until it eventually becomes infinite, like the Universe (in fact it becomes knowledge OF the universe, which by our prior admission, is infinite).

But, using the words 'infinite" and "all" are incompatible.  We cannot know ALL because ALL assumes beginning and end -- finitude.  It's a limitation. We cannot ever know "all" about infinitude -- there is no all (see the library example above).  As a result, I don't see it as ever possible for us to learn everything there is to know, because everything means there is a finite amount of things to know, which is contradictory.  As a result, I definitely don't see it possible for us to ever determine human behavior with absolute certainty (sure, we can do some of that, based on averages and probabilities and such, but this is not certainty by any stretch, and there are plenty of instances where we defy our own probabilities).  As a result of this -- even if there is a greater being out there -- free-will seems to be a thing for us, and as we'll never be able to predict with absolute certainty, we might as well live as if free-will is the case for us.

Syzeuxis: Plato's 'Yoking' of Sensible and Intellgible Reality

Many modern and contemporary thinkers (though often based on misinterpretation) criticize Plato as having lost "himself in speculative thought" and having forgotten "what it means to exist" (Kierkegaard, in his work Concluding Unscientific Postscripts).  Existential philosophers, especially, attribute this belief to Plato's usage of the term eidos or idea, which translates on one level into the English terms "idea," or "form."  These modern philosophers interpret this term throughout the dialogues as understood to be an abstraction of ideas from objects.  The ideas, therefore, necessitate a position hierarchically superior to objects as experienced in sensible reality.  This assumes a separation of a kind of distinct and perfect reality from the earthly, imperfect reality of intelligibility, which has come to be known as Plato's metaphysical "Realm of Forms."  However, this separation simply is not supported by Plato -- through his speaker Socrates -- in the dialogues; in fact, as Plato shows throughout Politeia, in light of the search for the meaning of the Good, that there is a necessary "yoking together," a codependence, of the sensible and intelligible realities of human experience.

Plato's Politeia, arguably his most well-known and consequently often most misrepresented work, introduces Plato's typical character, Socrates, in open dialogue initially with the Pythagorean thinker Thrasymachus, and later his own followers Glaucon and Adeimantus.  Socrates employs the strategy of myth and imagery -- typical to most of his dialogues; using the concrete discussion of a perfectly structured and ordered, just city as a tool for uncovering the proper structuring and order of the just human soul, Socrates describes a city built upon the foundations of a working class, supported and governed by the Guardians within which an individual -- the Philosopher-king -- must come to rule.  Despite his interlocutors' affinity for becoming enveloped in the imagery themselves, Socrates' purpose in this discussion is simply to draw connections to the proper orientation of the human soul.  In Book VI, Socrates engages his followers in defining the philosopher as a lover of truth and wisdom.  The image of the philosopher leads to the more pertinent discussion of the good person, and by extension, the nature of the Good itself.

Socrates is initially reluctant to define the good, arguing that it is "something" but that the soul is "perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is" despite its pursuit of it (Politeia 505e).  He is, however, quick to dispel the popular notions of the good as pleasure or knowledge.  Socrates, as per usual, begins the discussion of good with his famous analogy -- the sun -- the "offspring of the good and most like it" (Politeia 506e). His quest for understanding beings in the sensible with perceptible things, particulars, in relation to sight and visible objects.  It is clear that there is a relationship between both: in order for objects to be visible, there must be the ability of vision, and conjugally, in order to have vision, there must be visible objects.  Socrates reminds however that there must be a "third kind of thing" that is present, "which is naturally adapted for this very purpose" (Politeia 507e).

This "third kind of thing" -- at least in the visible realm -- is light, which allows for things to be seen and for sight to occur.  Without light, there is neither seeing nor the thing seen.  Light is that which connects self -- which has sight -- to the object sen, and is a "more valuable link than any other linked things have got" (Politeia 508a).  The link, or unifier, "yokes together" (syzeuxis) the two elements of sensible reality.  The sun, as the cause of the light which allows for the yoking of the sensible experience, is then elevated, in the sense that it is "neither sight itself nor that in which it comes to be, namely the eye" (Politeia 508b).  Therefore, the sun is not a part of sight or an ingredient of the visible, but is necessary to it, as it is "the cause of sight itself and seen by it" (Politeia 508b).

Socrates uses this image of the sun as analogous to the Good; what the sun it sot he sensible, the Good is to the intelligible.  Within the intelligible, the Good acts as a unifier which yokes together (syzeuxis) the intelligible (idea) and the intellect that apprehends it.  Without the good, there is no way of apprehending the things apprehended. It is the good which gives "truth to the things known," as well as "power to know to the knower" (Politeia 508e).  This shows the necessary and codependent relationship of both the elements of the self and thing as either sensible or intelligible, though neither of them is the Good itself.  Yet in this discussion, Plato has only hinted at the meaning of the Good, itself.  He does, however, give a clearer picture of the good and its nature in another dialogue -- Philebus.  Socrates, in Philebus, continues a more detailed discussion of the Good as either pleasure or knowledge.  Again in this dialogue, Socrates is adamant that it is neither -- instead, the good occurs everywhere, in reality, and yet "we cannot capture the good in one form" as it is a conjunction, a unifying integration, and act of collecting the forms (as idea) of "beauty, proportion, and truth" (Philebus 65a).  It is the unity of the mixture that "makes the mixture itself a good one" (Philebus 65a).  It is not a blending, or an "unconnected medley" of many, but the coordination of the many (forms) into a single, unified whole (Philebus 64e).  The Good, itself, is not an ingredient in the unified whole to which one can point or locate.  Therefor, it is not one of the many intelligible forms, and not intelligible itself by itself.

In the discussion of book VI of Politeia, the objection may be raised that there still seems to be a disconnect between sensible and intelligible, as sight and that which is seen is still separate from the intellect and that which is intelligible.  This seems to still indicate an imperfect lower realm of sensible experience, which must strive and relate to a metaphorically 'higher' realm of 'perfect,' intellect, as supported by the view that idea means an abstracted 'form' from which all sensible objects are merely copies.  However, nowhere in Politeia -- beyond the claimed images and metaphors -- does Plato espouse any separation.  In fact, he claims that "objects of knowledge" not only "owe their being known to the good," but more importantly, "their being is also due to it" (Politeia 509c).  While the Good, itself by itself, is beyond intelligibility (in that it is not an object of knowledge, but rather an act) in seniority and power, it is still the source of the reality of things.  It is that which allows things to be any thing, or some thing.  The emphasis he draws here is not idea as 'form' above or beyond things, but that their trough can be found within the existing object -- the reality of things (ousia), what is most true of things (aletheia).  Plato's warning is not that sensible objects are mere appearances, or imperfect tools (organon); instead, his warning is not to see the appearances -- just as his images and myths suggest -- as the realities themselves by themselves (as universals), but as sharing in them and reflecting in their truth (as particulars which must be collected as a whole in order to discover the true form -- the purpose -- of the particulars in collection).  The unity of the many forms make an object good and true, while the unity of the many appearances of a single form make its single whole, good and true.  Therefore, perceptible things are not forms in and of themselves, but are true appearances of those forms in conjunction and unified with others -- neither the intelligible nor the sensible object can be abstracted from the other, as it is their unity that makes their essence good.

The Philosopher's Return to the Cave, Part II

However, it isn't concerned with someone's doing his own externally, but with what is inside him, with what is truly himself and his own. One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other. He regulates well what is really his own and rules himself. He puts himself in order, is his own friend, and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes in a musical scale -- high, low, and middle.  He binds together those parts and any others there may be in between, and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious.

Plato, Politeia 443c-e

**Last post covered for the most part an explanation of the way in which Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave as a metaphorical version of his more abstract explanations of knowledge in the Divided Line.  This post will cover the rest of the paper, which will discuss the idea of The Good, the reasons for the Philosopher-king's decent back into the cave, and the role of the Socratic Teacher.

The prison dwelling of the cave, representative of the visible, introduces the "offspring of the good"  as discussed in the analogy of the sun found in book VI as well (Politeia 517b).  Though both sight and sensible objects are inherently present in reality, there must be a third thing which causes them to exist.  In the face, the firs is the third thing, whose light "yokes together" (from the Greek word "synousia") the prisoner's ability to see with the shadows on the wall and the objects upon the parapet, as well as his own physical form (this comes from the discussion between Socrates and Glaucon in Book VI in which he discusses the sun as that which "yokes together" sight and the things that are seen -- it is also the cause of their existence, and without it, neither the thing seen nor the seer would exist).  Keeping in mind that the point of Politeia is to discuss the proper ordering of the soul, it is thus that the soul within the visible can draw conclusions about the visible.  However, it cannot yet apprehend beyond particulars.  The focus is on opinion, contingent upon particulars that change and can be manipulated.  While the soul is ascending toward full disclosure or 'unhiddenness,' it is not yet genuinely liberated, as it is still dependent upon the sensible as the conclusive object of knowledge.

In another dialogue entitled Phaedo, Plato describes the proper orientation of the soul as separated from the body, which he -- metaphorically here -- represents as 'death.'  In death, reason itself is unencumbered by the senses which do "not allow it to acquire the truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it" (Phaedo 65a).  Death allows the soul the ability to grasp at reality in its full unhiddenness, "using pure thought alone" to "track down each reality pure and by itself" (Phaedo 66a).  This is precisely what occurs in the Allegory of the Cave when the prisoner is freed and his eyes adjust to look at the purest forms (those objects in themselves outside of the cave, in the intelligible realm).  Now, the Philosopher-king resides in the most unhidden, "released from the regions of the earth as from a prison" (Phaedo 114c). 

The Philosopher-king provides a necessary function for Socrates' 'just constitution of the city' -- itself an image and metaphor, again, for the proper ordering of the soul -- as well.  The other classes cannot provide the function of rule, and for reasons that lie within the definition of the Just (for him, Justice in both the city AND the soul, is the harmonic functioning of each class doing that which each is suited for, and no other function which is provided for or allotted to another part).  Though the auxiliaries share in some aspect of intelligibility (lying within the second quadrant of the Divided Line, intellect for the object of sense), both the auxiliaries and clearly the working class rely too heavily upon apprehension derived from particulars.  Unable to grasp the unified form itself by itself, nor then the Good, these classes would not rule from the foundation of knowledge.  In order for the city's constitution to remain a just one, Socrates expresses that it must be the Philosopher-king who comes to rule the city, as he is the one in whom knowledge of the forms and the Good is achieved; thus, he "imitates them" in that they are unified and ordered and "tries to become as like them as he can" (by them, he means the highest forms of conceptual knowledge -- intellect for the sake of intellect -- universals; Politeia 500b-c).  

Socrates warns, however, that if given the chance, the Philosopher-king would remain within the purely intelligible outside of the constituted city; therefore, he must be compelled to act (note again the forcible language -- just as the prisoner must be forced up and turned around and dragged, so much the philosopher be 'compelled' to return, enduring the pain of all the transitions of knowledge). This is the only way the city can be, as a whole, Just -- the Philosopher-king must be the one who gives order and governance properly to the city, and does so in relation to the good of which only he is knowledgeable.  This produces the best constitution in that it clearly exhibits dimity, while any other would represent "natures and ways of life" that are "merely human" (Politeia 497b).  Also, as a lover of learning, he is most able to set himself free, and in so doing is also the one able to guide others to their own liberations.  It is for these two reasons -- metaphorically -- that the Philosopher-king must make the descent back into the cave.  

Various concerns can be raised about the nature of the Philosopher-king's task. Glaucon first gives voice to one in Book IV; he questions Socrates' description, asking:

How would you defend yourself, Socrates, he said, if someone told you that you aren't making these men very happy and that it's their own fault? The city really belongs to them, yet they derive no good from it... But one might well say that your guardians are simply settled in the city like mercenaries and that all they do is watch over it. (Politeia 419a)

Socrates answers that the constitution's goal is to "be fashioning the happy city, not picking out a few happy people and putting them in it" (Politeia 420b-c).  Thus, in terms of the image of the city, it is not the individual that is the aim (and by extension of the metaphor, not the aim to please one aspect of the soul over others), but the whole, unified city.  He seems to suggest here that the happiness of the Philosopher-king is entirely irrelevant in and of itself, though he also mentions that he would not be surprised if he were to be happy as he is, in this situation (that is, of returning to the cave to act as the liberator, Socratic teacher, and leader of the city -- of which he means, this is part of the souls duty, and as Aristotle suggests in his works of metaphysics, that a happy soul is one that is fulfilling it's purpose -- so here, the purpose is to bring order and intellect to the rest of the soul, and in doing this, must be happy).  

In fact, the "yoking" of the sensible and intelligible within the soul is the reason it must necessarily participate in the activity of the cave, in both the human and the divine, and cannot forsake one for the other.  Properly, man will be driven to grasp "everything both divine and human as a whole" (Politeia 486a) as he should be lame in "loving one half of it, and hating the other" (Politeia 5535d).  However, he must maintain proper orientation toward them; he must constantly be aware to maintain the governance of reason while still experiencing the sensible, keeping in mind that he is surrounded by hiddenness, and that the appearance of particulars are just that -- particulars; he must refrain from confusing the two knowledges, and must be aware that even in the necessity of particulars, that particulars do not give the whole of knowledge and are only a stepping stone to the intelligible.

All man can do, then, is be ordered as best "as a human being can" (Politeia 500c-d).  He will continually deal with the difficulty of misinterpreting images and forms, always between the two in risk of confusion.  However, once his eyes do become accustomed, because he has seen the forms outside the cave and can grasp them by intelligible means again, he will have an easier time discerning the images in the cave -- the particulars -- from true things themselves by themselves, the universals.  So long as he maintains the use of reason and understanding of the Good, he will not be tempted by the images of the cave, nor the honors or desires of the prisoners.  This person can be called the human philosopher -- one whose eros drives him toward knowledge.  He comes to use of reason in discerning that there is intelligibility of things, that the intelligibility causes there to be things, and that he must order his soul in such a way as to follow as best he can the paradigm of truth.  Throughout the process, the human philosopher not only comes to some knowledge of the things, the reality, around him; he also comes to knowledge of the self.

Each and every soul has the ability to learn, as reason is a necessary part of it.  However, it cannot be reason alone that is reoriented in light of what it discovers of the Good -- it must "like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body," be "turned around" in all aspects (Politeia 518c-d).  In order to do so, he has to come to self-knowledge, so that he may properly understand the orientation of the soul in relation to itself as well as the orientation of his whole self towards truth and goodness. So far, the discussion has focused on the stages of the ascent to knowledge and its product; it must also be discussed what kinds of things, in fact, bring about the 'turns' within and outside the cave, causing the movements of becoming toward actualization.

Intitially, when the prisoner is first encountered in the cave, Socrates alludes to the state of ignorance; but upon the first motion, or 'turn,' the prisoner is initiated into the process of becoming -- the role of the soul that "strives toward being" (Tschemplik in his work, Knowledge of Self-knowledge in Plato's Theaetetus).  It is through this motion that learning can occur.  In Phaedo Plato describes the learning process as recollection, in which the soul recalls the universals which are present in relation to the eternality of the soul.  However, recollection deals simply with the potential of learning things, which does not necessarily contain the knowledge of things; rather, knowledge must be accessed by a different method, which is reflected by the ascent from the cave, and further discusses in another of his dialogues, Theaetetus.  What it does show is that persons possess knowledge, inherently, and the process of coming to know the already knowable is "necessarily self-reflexive" in that "what we can know is a necessary part of the question what can be known in general" (Sedley in his work The Midwife of Platonism).  

Once the first movement is made within the cave, the soul lies between ignorance and knowledge.  This middle ground provided the point from which the inquiry and ascent to knowledge begins. Perception becomes correlated with intelligibility, and upon observing things, triggers the love and thirst for more understanding.  However, both Socrates and Theaetetus in the dialogue Theaetetus come to the conclusion that this preliminary turn, the internal dialogue and self-examination of the thinker alone, is not sufficient enough to produce knowledge -- the prisoner cannot unshackle himself, and must be forced from the cave into the light.  Therefore, there is a need for a 'facilitator' -- the role of the already-enlightened Philosopher-king -- which also comes to be known in philosophy for years to come as the "Socratic Teacher."

Socrates, in the dialogue, describes himself as such a facilitator, likening himself to a midwife over the state of the soul (instead of a midwife who facilitates in physical birth of the body; this, instead is helping others to give birth to their own ideas).  Consistent with the idea of recollection, the midwife (or henceforth, the Socratic Teacher) does not give knowledge; the idea or knowledge 'given birth to' is still the idea of the thinker, and the Socratic Teacher simply aids in its 'delivery.'  Thus, the Socratic Teacher himself is best when serving as a reflective to the learner, and is not someone who himself forces ideas and uses them as a comparison tool -- the focus is simply on his commitment to allowing the self-reflection of the learner to naturally occur. The violent ascent from the cave, particularly, highlights the need for the other in the process of education and learning. The other is not responsible for placing new knowledge into the prisoner; he is only responsible in leading the prisoner from the cave.  What the prisoner 'gives birth to' is that which is already within him -- the reaction to the aporia (see our discussions previously of the term from our readings in Out of the Silent Planet) he experiences upon the first turn within the cave (and again, upon reaching the cave's opening).  The ascent out of the cave represents the dialectical testing of his knowledge of the cave over and against what he will come to see in the forms themselves.  In the process, he will eventually decide the worth of his prior knowledge, which then aids in defining the self -- either in the case of knowledge of knowledge, or in the case of knowledge of his ignorance.

The descent of the Philosopher can be explored within these same terms.  Knowledge itself is not a static and stable thing -- yet, it is not the things known, the forms, that are changing as they are eternal and unchanging by their very definition; rather, it is the knower who is constantly in the state of becoming.  As man desires the immortal, namely in knowledge (for Plato, particularly of the Good), he attempts to be as like it as he can be: he attempts to appear immortal, and does this be continually replenishing knowledge "all over again" (Plato's dialogue, Symposium 198d).  The illusion of continuity -- of being "outside the cave" -- is then the constant human endeavor of studying the knowledge  that is "leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of knowledge, while studying puts back a fresh memory in place of what went away, thereby preserving a piece of knowledge, so that it seems to be the same" (Symposium 207e-208a).  Thus, the return to the cave is inevitable; it is man's forgetting of the knowledge that forces the descent.  He must continually make the ascent, with the aid of a Socratic Teacher (as he acts as one for others as well), as dictated by man's constant striving toward the actuality of the divine, which is itself beyond intelligibility.  Thus, the real knowledge man comes to is this continual pursuit of knowledge and self-knowledge, which is one of the goals of human philosophy: one must strive for renewed self-knowledge with each and every new birth of ideas and judgments, upon rediscovery of knowledge of things and ideas and the world and the self -- whether they be knowledge of knowledge, or knowledge of one's ignorance.  

Despire not being able to live as a fully intelligible, divine being, man need not feel as if he is caught in a Sisyphean task of forever-becoming-and-never-reaching.  The process, even when resulting in knowledge of our own ignorance, is not a fruitless or pointless endeavor.  It is a positive self-knowledge in that "we shall be less inclined to think we know things which we don't know at all" (Theaetetus 187c).  Living as pure intelligibility, in fact, would not be conducive to human living -- it would not be beneficial for the philosopher to remain outside his duties toward the cave or the city, nor would it be beneficial in the soul of reason to be disconnected from its duty towards the lower functions of appetite.  To make a human attempt to live in pure intelligibility, while impossible, would be to neglect all other aspects of the soul which would not disappear as a result -- the physical human elements will still be present.  It is for the same reason that the soul should not focus on the appetitive desire alone, that the soul should not focus on reason along -- this would not qualify it as just, nor as good, but rather ad dysfunctional, incomplete, and inhuman.  Instead, all parts must be in proper balanced proportioned in order to be what Plato calls "beautiful" and "good."  It is for this reason that man cannot metaphorically remain outside the cave for longer than necessary to recollect the ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness, of the reality in which he lives.  He must always return to govern himself in such a way as to maintain order and consistency within himself, and avoid internal conflict, contradiction, and war.