Interlude: Ex nihilo nihil fit

Wisdom is the highest goal of man; our knowledge as such is obscure, but it is illumined by searching.

Xenophanes in Bruno Snell’s The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought

Some 2500 years ago, having moved beyond the anthropomorphic religion of Homeric Greece, the Greek Pre-Socratic thinkers began seeking to understand reality through reason and observation. They were doing science in the sense of trying to explain the fundamental facts of existence according to logical standards and the kinds of observational tools then available. They sought to explain two basic elements of reality, that anything exists and the process by which things change.

Heraclitus saw only change: “Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.... It is in changing that things find repose.” For him, the universe was uncreated, it always existed, coming apart and back together again. He saw fire – the most visible form of energy – as the principle force of change, as could be seen in the cool becoming hot and the wet, dry.

Parmenides and the Eleatic School made central the logical claim that nothing can come from nothing. Parmenides, like Heraclitus, saw no reason to explain existence as “to be is possible and not-to-be is impossible.” The Eleatics saw the universe as unique, uncreated, unchanging and unbound. They argued that if the universe was bound in space or time, that would mean that it was not unique. If it was not unique, it could not be the universe. The Eleatics denied the existence of change. Zeno used various paradoxes of logic to argue, for example, that things cannot move as “if anything is moving, it must be moving either in the place in which it is or in a place in which it is not” and neither is possible.

Despite the Eleatics, the fact that things appear to change needed explanation. Empedocles accepted the monist view of reality: the universe is singular and unbounded. He pictured it as a circle containing the All. But while the underlying reality is unchanging, the four basic elements – fire, air, water and earth – produce change by combining and separating driven by the opposing forces of Love (philia) and Strife. Anaxagoras developed this approach further by positing a universe made up of an infinite number of particles of all possible qualities while “in everything there is a portion of everything else.” In the original cosmos, all these fundamental particles already existed but were mixed and therefore left the total without quality. Mind (nous) set them in motion and caused them to be separated into what now exists.

In their answers to the questions of why anything exists and how things change, the pre-Socratics said everything that we can logically say. The cosmology of Empedocles and Anaxagoras could be read as an early premonition of our modern version. Our understanding of reality includes seemingly unchanging fundamental particles and forces making up the changing observable. Love and Strife can be read as Gravity and Dark Energy, one pulling matter together and the other pushing it apart. More generally, the essential dynamic of everything that exists – natural and human – can be seen as either a coming together or a coming apart.

It was while reading Empedocles that I went back to reconsider the modern theory of the creation of the universe from the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory essentially explains nothing. Literally. It does not and cannot explain where whatever it was that went “bang” came from. Ex nihilo nihil fit, nothing can come from nothing. Further following the Eleatics, it is not possible to understand the universe as expanding since that would require space to expand into. Modern cosmology seeks to sidestep this by positing that space itself expands as the surface of a balloon expands as it’s pumped up. (Where does it expand into?) Or perhaps our universe is one of many in some higher dimensional multi-verse. (And in what space and from where does that come?) Obviously, these too explain nothing.

That the universe exists, that we exist, must mean that something always existed. That the universe seems to be expanding may be better understood as an unchanging totality without boundaries of time or space. Everything that exists – in the “past, present or future” actually exists at once, whole. Stephen Hawking once hinted at this by noting that the universe could be understood as one big wave function, a singluar All. That the universe appears to be expanding under the influence of dark energy and will eventually decompose into its constituent particles may simply be the state of this All. It is we – individual living beings – that move through reality that experience change and time.

This leaves the question of why there should be something rather than nothing in the first place unexplained except by the very fact that we exist. I don’t know where any of this leads except to wonder.

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 8

Continuing recording here notes made in grad school on A History of Political Theory by George Holland Sabine.  

For episode 7 see here to begin from the start see here

The Theory of the Universal Community

VIII. The Law of Nature

 A. The passing of Aristotle, and the city-states, is the only sharp break in the

      history of Western Political Thought

       1. Continuity since then

       2. Theory of natural law goes from Stoics down to the revolutionary

           doctrine of the Rights of Man

 B. Man cut off from the life of the polis and left to live in a new, enlarged

      and impersonal social union

 C. After Aristotle, philosophies tended to become vehicles for ethical

      instruction and consolation

       1. Took on characteristics of religion

       2. Religious feeling grew

       3. Result of new impersonal world

 D. Distinctions between citizen and other lost usage 

"Political thought had, therefore, two ideas to make clear and to interweave into a common scheme of values: the idea of the individual, a distinct item of

humanity with his purely personal and private life, and the idea of universality, a  world-wide humanity in which all are endowed with a common human nature. (143)

 E. Greek notions (Aristotle) of two essentials of citizenship, relations

      between equals and voluntary loyalty to lawful government, were

      reworked to become part of Western consciousness 

 F. Chrysippus the Stoa gave Stoicism form last quarter of Third Century BC

       1. Idea of concord between Greeks and from the east

       2. Theory of Kingship

       3. Result of Alexander's Empire and its breakup

       4. Divinity of king seen as the best way of achieving unity and

           homogeneity of the state and legitimize his rule

       5. Gave positive moral meaning to idea of a world state and universal law

       6. Made achieving self-sufficiency and individual well-being an ethical

           imperative

       7. Taught self-sufficiency by rigorous training of the will

       8. Virtues were resolution, fortitude, devotion to duty and 

           indifference to solicitations of pleasure

       9. Sense of duty re-enforced by religious training -- the duty of every

           man to play well the part assigned by Divine Providence

          i. Man and nature seen as one

          ii. Man shared in the rationality of God, who animates nature

          iii. Right reason is the law of nature

          iv. All men are equal under God (reason), but most are fools not wise

       10. Saw law of the city as customary law and inferior to the law of the world-

           city which is the law of reason

          i. Customary law of several cities combined under a king became the

           common law

          ii. Law of reason is higher that customary law and a separate standard

             of justice

          iii. Law of reason provided an appeal to equity in the

             elaboration of common law

       11. Resulting in part from criticism by the Skeptic Carneades, Stoicism

          underwent reform at the end of the 2nd Century BC

          i. Went back to Plato and Aristotle

          ii. Became less logical but more urbane in appeal and more attractive to

              Roman aristocrats

          iii. Became a philosophy of self-control and public devotion which

               appealed to the Romans

          iv. Ideal of a world-city was of use to idealize Roman conquest

          v. Reason became law for all men, not only the wise

          vi. Contact between Polybius and Panaetius with the Roman Scipionic

               Circle

 G. Scipionic Circle

       1. Brought Stoic thought to bear on earliest studies in Roman jurisprudence.

       2. Roman Law enlightened by inclusion of ius gentium (common law) that

            grew alongside civil (or ceremonial) law based on good business practice

       3. ius gentium coalesced with ius naturale of the Greek Stoics as translated

            into Latin

Next week: Cicero and the Roman Lawyers

  

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 7

For episode 6 see here.

Theory of the City-State

VII. The Twilight of the City-State
 A. Plato and Aristotle had little immediate influence of contemporary political 
      thought 
 B. More influential at the time was protest against the conception of the good
     life as participation in the life of the polis
 C. Individual self-sufficiency became the basis of the good life
 D. Plato and Aristotle both failed to take note of the effects of foreign relations
       on the Greek city-states
        1. City-states constantly balancing between isolation and inter-dependence
          on question of self-sufficiency
       2. Conflict and inability to work together left them open to outsiders
 E. Faced with decline of importance of city-state, two resulting philosophic
          moods:
       1. Withdrawal -- Epicureans and Skeptics
       2. Withdrawal and protest -- Cynics
       3. Represent questions about first principles(as embodied in Plato and
          Aristotle)
 F. Epicureans
       1.  Aimed to lead students towards individual self-sufficiency
       2. The good life seen to consist of enjoyment of pleasure
           i. Avoidance of pain, worry and anxiety
           ii. Congenial friendship, withdrawal from public life
           iii. The good, privately enjoyed
       3. The state formed solely for the sake of obtaining security
           i. Man essentially selfish
           ii. So they make tacit agreement with each other to leave each other be
       4. There are no moral imperatives
       5. Hobbes not unlike Epicureans
 G. Cynics
       1. Reject the lifestyle, virtues and social distinctions of the city-state
       2. Wise man should be completely self-suffcient
       3. Morality was living with nature according to reason and caring for others
       4. Involved a kind of equality of nihilism and anarcho-communism

For further reading on ancient (Greek) philosophy, I can recommend the classics from my grad school days (before the days of political correctness about Western Civilization):

The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought by Bruno Snell

History of Ancient Philosophy by W. Windleband

Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors by Sir Ernest Baker

And for how the Greeks became the Greeks:  The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East by Robert Drews


Next week: The Theory of the Universal Community: The Law of Nature


Dedicated this week and every to grandson William, who arrived today.

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 5

For episode 4 see here.

Theory of the City-State

V. Aristotle: Political Ideals
 A. Pupil of Plato at the Academy
 B. Politics is probably not a unified work but a collection of essays 
 C. The Politics can be divided into two parts
       1. Books II, III, VII and VIII on an ideal state
       2. Books IV, V and VI offer final thoughts on political science
       3. Book I considers nature-convention problem
 D. Prefers to stick more to common experience rather than logical departures
      from it.
 E. His ideal state is the second best of Plato, never accepted Plato's ideal
       1. Best was constitutional 
       2. Based on some degree of moral equality of men [citizens]
       3. Rejects the model of the father's rule over children
 F. Aristotle sees law as "reason unaffected by desire"
       1. Law gives authority of the magistrate a "moral quality" to which all are
           obliged
 G. Under constitutional rule, the public, or general, interest determines law
       rather than factions or tyrannous rule by one or some 
       1. Government carried out by general regulations not arbitrary decrees
       2. Government of willing subjects not merely due to force 
 H. Saw experience of ages as embedded in law, or capable of being so, 
      contrary to Plato
       1. Saw possible supremacy of collective wisdom over single wise lawgiver
       2. Wisdom that should guide the state goes from being the exclusive domain
          of the philosopher to being the result of social custom embodied in law. 
 I. Aristotle's ideal state based on Plato's Laws. 
 J. Wisdom as embodied in custom must be the guiding principle in taking
      advantage of actual conditions to gradually reform them. (For Plato, the
      ideal often in radical opposition to facts.)
 K. The state is the association of men to realize the good in the form of the best
      moral life
 L. Looks to build up the best state from experience and from not a preexisting
      ideal
       1. Saw some merit in the usual claiments for power -- democrats and 
          aristocrats
       2. Reasoned that since none had absolute claim, law (good law) must be
          supreme
M. Aristotle saw forces working on and through real agents and not from Plato's
      Ideal Forms. [Perhaps two sides of the dialectic.]


Next week: Aristotle: Political Actualities

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 4

For episode 3 see here.

 Theory of the City-State

IV.Plato: The Statesman and The Laws
 A. Written much later than The Republic
 B. Resemblance between the two
       1. Marked difference from The Republic
       2. Plato's final reflections on the city-state
 C. Of greater influence on political thought after Plato, departure point for
     Aristotle
 D.The Laws sketches a government in which law is supreme
       1. Was a change from government of philosopher-kings of The Republic
       2.  Plato did not fully recognize these changes in his theory
       3. Law-based government is still only the second best and not logically
          compatible with it 
       4. The Republic presumed opposition between intelligence and perception
       5. Law was seen by the Greeks as on the side of perception and experience
         (i.e., convention)
       6. Even now, law can be seen as irrational obstacle to intelligent chance or
          action
       7. For Plato, the good ruler, one who rules through knowledge and reason
          should not be bound by law as that is meant to govern the average man
       8. In The Laws, law become a surrogate for reason
 E. The Statesman puts off The Republic as an ideal model not usually attainable
       1. Has six-fold classification of governments, three good and three bad that
          Aristotle later used
       2. Sees democracy more favorably 
 F.  The state in The Laws constructed with temperance as its chief virtue 
       1. Seeks to achieve harmony through a spirit of obedience to law
       2. This meant a mixed state as the mode of political organization
 G. The mixed state --  harmony through balance of forces or tendencies
       1. Mixed monarchic principle of wisdom with democratic principle of
          freedom
       2. Saw original 'state of nature' as the life of peaceful herdsmen. With
          agriculture comes civilization.
       3. Urges study of politics attached to history of civilization (causes and
          changes in political stability)
 H. In The Laws, still favors communism but concedes private property and
       private family life, due to human frailty, but regulates both
       1. Land inherited but not to be divided or alienated
       2. Produce goes to common (public) mess
       3. Property to be equal except for limited personal items allowed
       4. Citizens not to engage in industry or trade; what is necessary to be done
          by resident aliens
       5. Use of property regulated, only token currency, no loans with interest
 I. Government belongs to the citizens, those who can afford to leave private
      business of earning a living to slaves (on farms) and aliens. This was not
      Periclean democracy. 
       1. State still to be weighted in favor of richer through four-fold division on
          basis of private property
       2. Education and religion remain roughly the same as in The Republic except
          education becomes institutionalized
       3. Religious persecution and the Nocturnal Council out of line with the rest
 J. Government in the [ideal city]* of The Republic follows the rule of the father
      over children, while The Laws more in line with government of and by 
      responsible citizens through law.

*Note:  Sabine's reading of The Republic, Laws and Statesman follows traditional lines.  He takes them literally, especially The Republic.  But if one reads Plato's Socratic dialogues closely, it should be noticed that he actually is focused on justice, virtue (arete) of the individual.  The Republic presents the model for the healthy soul balanced between its three parts with reason guiding desire and will.  Socrates presents the outer polis to better see the inner one.  As Plato understood the 'ideal city' of The Republic to be difficult to achieve in reality, he offered in The Laws a model for a city guided by reason embodied in law.  (Even here he did not trust any particular system so added the Nocturnal Council, a group to be guided by philosophy to meet at night and review that was done during the day.)  In The Statesman, he offers a model for rule by an individual guided by knowledge.  But such a person would also be hard to find achieving or holding power.


Next week: Aristotle: Political Ideals