In part I of this series, I briefly analyzed Protagoras' statement and its relationship to the birth of humanism and the flowering of Athenian democracy. The diary was done on a whim and didn't really `get into the details'. In this part, I would like to more exhaustively examine the historical context from which Protagoras arose.
Superficially speaking, the world of Homer and Hesiod seems to bear little relation to that of Protagoras and 5th Century Athens. It was an `archaic world', where aristocracy ruled one was born into a `station' in life; a world full of wars over wives and the whims of dramatic deities. However, this extremely hierarchical social economy was governed by several core concepts of Greek religion that when fully grasped, resulted in its undoing - in a much parallel fashion, the gifts bestowed upon humanity by the gods, resulted in the undermining of the power of the gods. There are two core concepts that are at stake here: moira and charis. The former was the fundamental concept in Greek religion, the latter was the basis of what was envisioned as a just economy.
Charis is usually translated as `grace'. Theologically speaking is was the province of The Charities, who `added luster to things'. Its reach within archaic social code was extensive: rights of adulthood, childhood education, rites of fertility, rites of social interaction such as symposia, and it was the central concept of heroic code. In terms of the last of these,
charis frames the entire action of Iliad. The central problematic within Iliad is the social struggle between Agamemnon and Achilles. At the outset, Agamemnon strips Achilles of his social worth,
time, by stealing from him a priestess of Apollo, Briseis, that had been awarded to him as a spoil of war. This is the last of many outrages that Achilles suffers by Agamemnon, from whom comes `scant
charis'. In response, Achilles decides not to fight, and the Greeks cannot achieve their destined victory over the Trojans without the mercenary talents of Achilles. The social economy breaks, because
charis has been removed. It is only through the restoration of a proper `according of worth', that Achilles will rejoin the Greeks and conquer the Trojans.
One might see this as a simple `reciprocity cult', i.e. one gives gifts and expects gifts in kind. However, it is not merely material exchange. It is a public `recognition of one's worth' - like, for instance, at symposia, where each should speak and act in a manner that confers recognition on all those present. Furthermore, it is only under these conditions, that society itself is `fruitful' [keep in mind for later that `fertility' plays a key role in the idea of `grace'].
Moira is usually translated as `fate' or `destiny'. It really means neither. It is much closer to a `lot', or a `sphere of influence'. Furthermore, it stands above even the gods. This is most clearly seen in Hesiod's cosmogony. Prior to the generation of any gods, Chaos dissolves into four `provinces', the four moirai, earth, sky, water, and underworld. It is within these `provinces' that the generation of the gods begins, and with the rise of the Olympians, these `lots' are shaken. Each of the three sons of Kronos receive their equal `sphere of influence' [moira], with earth being common to all three. As we see in Iliad:
No, no. Great though he is, this that he has said is too much, if he will force me against my will, me, who am his equal in rank. Since we are three brothers born by Rheia to Kronos, Zeus, and I, and the third is Hades, lord of the dead men. All was divided among us three ways, each given his domain. I when the lots were shaken drew the grey sea to live in forever; Hades drew the lot of the mists and the darkness, and Zeus was allotted the wide sky, in the cloud and the bright air. But earth and high Olympos are common to all three.
Moira, however, is not just a spatial term, but it carries moral sanction. Exceding one's `lot' or `sphere of influence' carries with it a tisis, a penalty. Do not envision this as there being a `purposiveness' within nature, or a `moral law' of monotheism. It is rather that nature itself is moral, the very organization of the moirai are the bounds of one's existence, and `going beyond fate' results in adike, an injustice that must be rectified by restoring the balance of the moirai.
Further, as developed in Hesiod's, "An Exhortation to Justice", we see these two concepts come together. In this fragment, Hesiod is lamenting a dispute between his brother, Perses, and himself in which the prodigal Perses is bringing legal action against Hesiod in order to steal the latter's share of their inheritance. In it, Perses, enlists the aid of a `crooked basileaus' [lord] to `bend justice'. What we find is that when the basileaus of a city steps beyond his moira, the city itself will beome `infertile' [i.e. it will see war and famine and the women will be barren], whereas when the basileus is `straight' the city prospers. Staying within one's `sphere of influence' brings charis to the city as a whole. [Incidentally one can see this concept clearly in the histories of Athens done by Herodotus and Thucydides - the downfall of the Democratic Athens rested within its imperialism].
Let's now look at these concepts in their more philosophical context. The earliest known philosophical fragment is called the Anaximander fragment. It is often translated thus:
The unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming to be [of things and qualities] takes place, and it is that into which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.
The first striking aspect of this fragment is the assumption of a `just order' within nature itself. Things come into being, but must pass away -- this is in fact of `moral necessity', for their mere being steps beyond their proper limits as ordained by time, thus begging the requital of justice for their injustice. At this juncture, this logic looks familiar -- it is the logic at the heart of charis and moira with respect to justice as we have mentioned previously. The extension of a being's influence into the rightful province of another is an activity that necessitates retribution because this activity lacks the proper appraisal of the other's time. Thus things give each other `satisfaction' or make `reparations' to one another for their acts -- and this `reparation' is the cessation of the particular existence of that being.
Further, we can read it off of Hesiod's cosmogony. Anaximander breaks the natural order into three distinct spheres: the apeiron, the elements, and processual growth and decay of individual beings. Of the first, he says it is "uncorruptible and undying". If we are to read it off of the cosmogony in Hesiod, we might call this Chaos. From this apeiron, develop the elements constitutive of individual things (i.e. earth, air, water, etc.). Again looking back to the cosmogony we have here the point at which the spheres of influence as the fundament of natural order are delimited with the coming to be of Gaia, Ouranos, Pontos, Tartaros, etc. -- what comes out of the apeiron are the moirai, the provinces. The final step is the processual growth and decay of individual beings. As a noted classicist Francis Cornford puts it:
Consider for instance, the animal body. Its proper substance is earth; but for its formation it misappropriates portions of other elements: water for its blood, air for its breath, fire for warmth. The dissolution of death repays these robberies: each stolen portion rejoins its like -- water to water, air to air, fire to fire... The plundering of one element by another to make an individual thing, is injustice, unrighteousness. The penalty is death and dissolution.
Another possible tack on this is Heidegger's. He translates the fragment thus: "along the lines of usage; for they let order and thereby reck belong to one another (in the surmounting) of disorder". Needless to say, this rendering of the fragment looks quite different from the standard ones. Heidegger leaves off the first part of the fragment due to an obscure habit of Greek scholarly citation pointed out by John Burnet, whereby an author's text is often `blended' in with the beginning of a citation from another author's text. There are several questionable links that Heidegger makes in the philology of his translation (not the least of which is the insertion of the `in the surmounting of' prior to adike). What interests me, however, is the way in which Heidegger translates one particular word: tisis. Tisis is normally translated as a penalty or recompense in punishment for some unjust deed. Likewise, in the widely accepted translations of the fragment, it is translated `penalty' -- the individual beings must `pay penalty' for their injustice. Heidegger, however, against the juridical reading claims that the original meaning of tisis is `esteem' and in the eventual translation, he uses the word `reck'. [Keep in mind that time, one's publicly recognized worth has the same root as tisis, so this is not too far fetched]. The latter word is the forgotten German root of ruchlos -- `reckless' -- and is related to the middle high German ruoche and the modern verb geruhen. All of these words circle around the notion of respect, solicitude, and above all, order. Heidegger chooses `reck' as the proper translation because, in the fragment, the word tisis stands in direct relationship to dike (dike kai tisis), which Heidegger translates as order (fug in the German -- a word that Heidegger employs often in his readings of Pre-Socratic thinkers). In light of this, we find that the `order' of `esteem' is required as recompense for injustice. The individual beings must `esteem', or give `reck' to the other individual beings to restore the order disrupted by their stepping beyond their proper sphere, which, according to Heidegger, is here represented as the will to outlast one's `while'. Individual beings stand against the passing of the proper time allotted to them and hence must `pay esteem' to those things coming into being with their passing away.
Such are some suggestions on how to read of the order of justice as envisioned by Anaximander. There is, however, a more principally important issue not touched on in the above involving the assumption of equality within this order. As another noted classicist, Gregory Vlastos develops with respect to this fragment:
It follows that the hot in a given world will be no stronger than the cold, and so for the other opposites. Moreover, since the world is "encompassed" by the boundless, nothing can enter or depart to upset the balance fixed upon the opposites in the process of generation. Thus the Boundless "governs" the world throughout its growth and decline... The Boundless "governs" by "encompassing", i.e., by safeguarding the original equality of the opposites with one another. If this equality is maintained, justice is assured.
Inequality is incommensurate with this system. Each act of encroachment beyond the proper share of each province is punishable precisely because it disturbs the balance of their equality. Further, we see now that this notion is implicitly recognized by the economies of moira and charis as well and serves as their ground. Each moira must be equal to every other -- when that fundamental balance of power is disturbed recompense is necessarily served. When, as quoted earlier, Poseidon decries Zeus' command to desist, he appeals to the fact of their equality. They each have equal shares and equal powers and he should not be subject to the will of Zeus as the earth is common to all. The only way in which Iris can resolve the dispute is through an appeal to Zeus' status as elder brother -- an appeal which sidesteps the issue of moira by invoking unrelated aristocratic notions of family. Likewise with charis, in that it rests upon the proper distribution of time, it is subordinate to the order of moira, and this presupposes the fundamental equality of the participants. The time due others serves as a recognition of their fundamental equality -- each must be respected as an equal, and disregard for such constitutes the fundamental injustice. Once again, this is not to say that the idea of charis cannot be employed within an aristocratic, hierarchical social system, for charis only assumes equality among the immediate participants, i.e. the aristocratic or heroic set in Homeric society. Likewise, when Aristotle maintains that charis keeps the city together, it is within the context of developing his aristocratic notion of friendship. However, as it is essentially subject to the order of moira by the nature of its concept, it is ill-construed within an aristocratic order, for the balance demanded by moira is not one of rank, but one of equality universally.
When I first started this, I thought I would also get to Empedocles and Parmenides as well, but alas, this is already too long. But with respect to my original intention, what we find in some of these original theological and historical ideas, as gazed upon through the lens of the earliest philosophical fragment, is the grounding idea of the humanism we see in Protagoras among others: the idea that each being is equal and that their just order is the public recognition of that equality. It is not rationalist humanism of the Enlightenment, as exemplified by Kant. Rather, it is the type of humanism developed by Hegel and Marx - a humanism founded on the idea of Annerkenung, `recognition'. Though the latter devised this concept with reference to the theory of causality of another Greek, Aristotle.
But that is for another day.
And btw, for any of you Kossacks in NYC, I'm playing a show tomorrow at The Blu Lounge in Williamsburg. Info is available on my band's site http://www.systemnoisenyc.com .