Hello all, and welcome again to Philosophy for Kossacks. I guess that it's mildly appropriate that I've been watching that monstrosity of a movie "Alexander" this evening, as I'm continuing in my series on the Greeks [oh - but he's a Macedonian]... But, that's neither here nor there. In my previous edition, I tried to elicit the relationship between two specific theological principles,
charis and
moira and determine the way in which they interacted in the aristocratic social economy and became radicalized within the baby steps of philosophy, namely the Anaximander fragment.
The precipitate of that analysis was an
ahistorical idea of equality that found its home in the social sphere via a politics of recognition - the idea that a `just' polity is one in which the
time, the public recognition of that equality, of each is affirmed within the social interaction of that polity. This begs a new idea. And the idea was precisely that which birthed Athenian humanism and democracy:
isonomia.
Isonomia is a concept with which we are all familiar. It is literally translated as `equality before the law'. It is the idealized heart of every system of `justice' that has been proposed within all historic democracy, or more precisely, as democracy. My next diary will more specifically detail this concept as it existed within 5th century Athenian democracy, via the Tragedians and Solon himself, however, I feel it necessary to introduce the concept here, as it is central to the two readings I am about to propose, namely readings of Empedocles and Parmenides [the latter of which is a highly controversial reading].
We left the last edition with a quote from Gregory Vlastos on the Anaximander fragment on the idea of radical equality. I will reiterate it here.
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
This issue of the balance of powers as an order of equals is key to understanding the political transformation of the pre-polis aristocracy into the democracy of 5th century Athens. Though implicit in the literature referenced in my previous diary, it takes center stage in most of the Pre-Socratic thinkers after Anaximander and in this, reveals itself to be the presupposition of the earlier positions. I will now walk through them with respect to Empedocles and Parmenides.
In the fragments of Empedocles we find possibly the clearest elucidation of the idea of equality. Empedocles posits two fundamental powers in the world: Love and Strife. Of them he says:
These two forces, Strife and Love, existed in the past and will exist in the future; nor will boundless time, I believe, be empty of the pair. Now one prevails, now the other, each in its appointed turn, as change goes incessantly on its course.
The central idea here is that of equality in ascendancy. These powers (be they eternal or sempiternal) hold equal sway over the course of change. Each has its appointed reign and the other withdraws when its turn is done. Love is that which draws the multiplicity of things together into the one while Strife is the process of individuation whereby the many come into being. This idea is akin to what appears in medical theory as
isomoiria. As Vlastos notes in his article "Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies", early medical theory theorizes that "powers [in the body] are equal if they can hold one another in check so that none can gain "mastery" or "supremacy" or, in Alcmaeon's term "monarchy" over the others... Should any power escape this blending and "stand by itself," it would be ominously "strong" and thus create "monarchy" which constitutes disease". Likewise, with natural phenomenon like the seasons and day and night, each power rotates its turn equally with the other -- a democratic rotation of office whereby none gains `monarchy' over the others but each in turn rises to and falls from ascendancy. This
isomoiria of natural phenomenon represents the realm of "cosmic justice" that mirrors the manner in which a just polity functions. If we think of this in the terms developed previously, this cosmic order is closely related to the economy of `esteem'. Within our analysis of
moira and
charis, we found balance among the social participants grounded upon the proper distribution of
time among them. Here `esteeming' takes the role of rotation. Each `power' (in the case of Empedocles, love and strife) esteems the other by coming to ascendancy at its proper time and withdrawing in the face of its equal -- each power recognizes the
moira of its other and grants it esteem through the rotation of office, an idea not too far from that found in Anaximander.
If we apply this imagery to another early thinker, Parmenides, the structure of his treatise too is clarified. Just as an aside, for those not in the know, Parmenides is considered by anglophiles [i.e. analytic philosophers] to be the first true philosopher, in that he is the first to develop a rudimentary idea of logic - rudimentary in the sense of a logical entity and its negation: either p or not p [why logicians use p to signify anything is beyond me - it's like mathematicians and x and y]. Anyhow, Parmenides is also considered by many to be the precursor to Plato's eidion - theory of the ideas, largely because it is in the namesake dialogue contemplating Parmenides' thought in which the `mature theory of the ideas' comes to be. This is fundamentally because most interpret Parmenides as not believing in `becoming'. I mean, after all, he clearly states that `what is, is' and `what is not, is not'. However, the poem itself [and it is a poem] is divided into three sections, the `Proem' [generally presumed to be a shout out to the epic poetry tradition], `The Way of Truth' [in which he makes his logical claims] and `The Way of Seeming" [in which he details a cosmogony]. And it ain't that simple. And for any of you actually interested in reading Parmenides, I highly recommend the David Calloe translation from the U of Toronto Press.
One of the greatest quandaries within Parmenides scholarship is the relationship between "The Way of Truth" and "The Way of Seeming". As Guthrie puts it in his History of Greek Philosophy: "Why should Parmenides take the trouble to narrate a detailed cosmogony when he has already proved that opposites cannot exist and there can be no cosmogony because plurality and change are inadmissible conceptions?" In general, anglo-classicism takes this seeming discrepancy to be a serious problem. If we read "The Way of Truth" as precluding the possibility of "The Way of Seeming" in the former's tautological insistence that 'what-is, is' and the entailments derived therefrom, one must come to the conclusion that the impetus behind the third section of the poem is simply that of practical necessity. This solution takes several forms -- it may be an attempt to come up with the 'best possible science of nature', it may be a ruse to further show the untruth of the way of seeming, it may be a gesture towards the imperfection of the mortal mind, or it may be, as Guthrie ultimately argues, an attempt to begin an argument that there are "degrees of reality" in nature and that some approaches of the mortal mind to understanding that nature are 'closer' to the real than others. Unfortunately, these are all arguments that stem from Plato's interpretation of Parmenides in the dialogue of the same name; and the positing of this problem is an error endemic to the analytic tradition. A brief perusal of Guthrie's method should elucidate this.
In his reading of the Prologue, Guthrie tries to mend together two common analytic approaches to Parmenides, almost out of a throwing up of his arms in frustration, for "it is extraordinarily difficult, at the immense spiritual distance from which we contemplate his remains, to know how much weight should be given to the non-rational elements in his writings". One cannot deny that the imagery of the Prologue is "for the most part traditional", as the gate of day and night, the ascent from the mortal world, and the appeal to the Goddess as if she were a muse can all be found in the fenestrations of the epic poets. What does this entail, however, for Parmenides' thought? One could claim that Parmenides is merely 'allegorizing', for the distinctly stated purpose of the poem is the delimiting of truth and falsity with respect to knowledge, and all of the common elements of epic poetry are used to that end. The most obvious example is the familiar image of the road, which in Parmenides' poem is "allegorized as a `road of inquiry'". In this light, these traditional elements are simply the linguistic devices available at that time in which he houses his "revolutionary intellectual vigor". However, one must keep in mind two parts of the historical record. The ancient Greek poets truly believed "in an inspiration whereby the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men". This deeper revelation was understood as an actual experience, which is then relayed through poetry. Furthermore, Parmenides was related to what Guthrie calls the "shamanistic strain in early Greek religious thought". According to this tradition, the shamans literally took magical journeys in search of truth or knowledge in which they would encounter various figures to guide them or reveal the object of their search. Guthrie concludes that "one cannot doubt that the prologue describes a genuine experience".
Where does this get us? Guthrie concedes that it is likely that Parmenides understood himself as an epic poet -- as relaying an actual experience in which the deeper truth of things has been revealed to him. However, because of the 'novel' nature of this truth (namely its advancement in logic), we must not treat Parmenides' poem as simply that. Thus, we must brusquely push forward from the explicitly poetic and religious imagery deployed from the outset into its philosophic rigor. Such is true in general of the analytic approach, in that the actual implications of the images employed by Parmenides are bypassed for a strict analysis of his argument. Such is also the reason why the analytics get mired in "The Way of Truth" and can never make their way to the latter part of the poem, much less understand the relationship between the two. What this belies is their fundamental hermeneutical presupposition, one that distinguishes between philosophical and poetic discourse and disavows any important relationship between the two. For the analytics, though limited by the poetic linguistic forms available to him, Parmenides represents a progression from the poetic world into the world of 'inquiry' or science by making the first contributions to the science of logic.
As one might note from the introduction to from my previous diary, I have argued that not just the imagery, but the positive content of Greek poetic theology lies at the heart of the philosophical notions developed by the Pre-Socratics, most emphatically those pertaining to justice and democratic idealism. Using what I have thus far developed, it is easy to see why I contend that the positing of this seeming contradiction as a problem at all is incorrect. If one takes note of the both the structure of the "Proem" and that of the poem as a whole, several features that relate Parmenides' thought to religious representations shine forth. The most notable is the relationship of dike [justice] to the `realm of light' and `realm of night'. In verses 11 through 20 of the "Proem", Parmenides relates a description of the gates between the `realm of night' and that of `light':
There are the gates of the paths of Night and Day, and a lintel and a threshold of stone surround them, and the aetheril gates themselves are filled with great doors; and for these Justice, much-avenging, holds the keys of retribution. Coaxing her with gentle words, the maidens did cunningly persuade her that she should push back the bolted door for them swiftly from the gates; and these made of the doors a gaping gap as they were opened wide, swinging in turn in their sockets the brazen posts fitted with rivets and pins...
When thought through the ideas we found underlying Empedocles' fragments, this flocculates. Justice, as the key holder (of retribution) to the passageway between Day and Night represents the balance and equality of the two. It is through dike [justice] that one passes from one to the other, and further, the inclusion of justice as retribution suggests that imbalance between night and day is something punishable by her. This reading gains some support from a suggestion made by Reiner Schürmann in his article "Tragic Differing: the Law of the One and the Law of Contraries in Parmenides". Schürmann points out an interesting symmetry in the movement of the poem, a symmetry that, though Schürmann himself does not mention, can be found in the structure of nearly all ancient religious texts. What he elucidates is the point that the 'traveler' and the Goddess both navigate the same set of paths, only in reverse order. The traveler moves from the world of mortals, through the gate of justice, into the world of the divine. And likewise the Goddess narrates the reverse, from the world of truth, through the gate of justice, and into the world of seeming. These two worlds are set in balance by the justice common to both. Thus we have a threefold symmetry. As day and night are balanced by justice, so are the `realm of day' (the divine) and that of night (the human), and further "The Way of Truth" stands in the same balanced relationship with "The Way of Seeming". It is not, as the analytic tradition contends, that the world of truth is `true' and the world of seeming is `false', but that each stands in relation to and in balance with one another through justice, which insures that neither attains ascendancy. The `realm of night', that of humanity, is in fact no less `true' than the `realm of light' and the `realm of light' is no less `false' than the `realm of night' -- `truth' and `falsity' have no `truth-value' in the sense of contemporary logic. Fragment 5 clearly reflects this sentiment: "And it is all one to me where I am to begin; for I shall return there again".
One might further contend that all is one because all is equal, or even further, identical in its perfect balance. Fragment 8 relates such a picture:
From every direction like the bulk of a well rounded sphere, everywhere from the centre equally matched; for it must not be any larger or any smaller here or there; for neither is there what-is-not, which could stop it from reaching its like, nor is there a way in which what-is could be more here and less there since it all inviably is; for equal to itself from every direction, it lies uniformly within limits.
As Vlastos states, this fundamental equality of `what-is' is depicted by Parmenides as the `just universe'. It `holds together' because of its equality. If something in being had a greater degree of reality, more `is-ness' than another thing in being, it would necessarily come to predominate, thereby stamping out the lesser things, as per Aristotle's discussion of the infinite mentioned in the last diary. This form of hierarchy is impossible given Parmenides' logic, for it would entail that what is in being is also not in being. The realms of day and night, being both in being, must therefore equally be [and so on with the `divine' and `human' and `truth' and `falsity']. Neither stands higher than the other on an ontological scale. Given this, one could say that the analytic tradition falls into the very error Parmenides seeks to correct by positing a distinction, or hierarchy if you will, between the `realm of light' and that of night. "The Way of Seeming" is necessarily part of what-is, for it certainly cannot not-be, nor could it have a `lower' ontological status than the world of `truth', for "all is full of light and obscure night together, of both equally". Like Empedocles' and the medical theorists' idea of isomoiria, Parmenides implies here that neither reigns over the other in `monarchy' -- in fact, this is the fundamental `truth' of the poem as a whole.
In addition, we see here other features that directly link Parmenides' thought with the concept of moira as developed through Anaximander and Empedocles. The most obvious is that `justice' here insures that beings stay within their allotment. Once again, the imagery of day and night in the Proem is important in this regard as two separate powers kept in balance as equals by the retributive power of justice -- to borrow from Heraclitus, should either overstep their bounds, justice will find them out. This imagery further mirrors is the delicate balance between the divine [light] and human [night] worlds remarked upon with respect to moira in my last diary. Should human or god step beyond their moira (i.e. Zeus saving Sarpedon from death or Aegisthus murdering Agamemnon) the balance is upset and retribution follows. An important change, however, occurs in the employ of this idea by Parmenides. In the heroic age, though neither could overstep their moira lest begging certain retribution, there still existed a fundamental hierarchy between the two. The human world was subject to the whim of divine will -- the simple enactment of a god's fancy did not in and of itself outstrip his/her moira. This was rather an issue of content. For the characters of Homeric epic, the world was not just `full of gods', but dictated by them. Humanity was dependent upon the good will of its protectors.
With Parmenides, as we have seen, neither is human dependent upon divine nor is the divine dependent upon the human. One might say there is a vocal indifference between the two. Each is and is equally and that balance constitutes the just universe. If one were to transpose in this context the idea of the divine into a non-anthropomorphic idea of nature one might even get a clearer notion of what Parmenides intends. Both the order of nature and the order of humanity coexist. Neither has a greater ontological significance nor is one dependent upon the other. They are, on that level, fundamentally equal. Should either try to step beyond its due portion retribution necessarily ensues. The law of humanity should concern itself with humanity and likewise with nature. This is what I take to be the meaning of the "deceitful words" the Goddess warns of when introducing the third section of the poem ["The Way of Seeming"]. The words are `deceitful' precisely because she speaks the `truth' of deceit. It is a deception to view the order of humanity as a lesser being than the order of nature, for, according to nature [that what is - is], the order of humanity equally is. These two worlds -- those of being and becoming, the order of nature and the order of humanity -- are `held together' in justice, each in its rightful place, and each is `esteemed' by traveler and Goddess alike. The move Parmenides makes here is one of the quintessential traits of humanism -- the desacralization of the natural order and the attribution of worth to the order of humanity.
Before we can have an idea of isonomia, `equality before the law', we must recognize that our law is our law - it is not subject to the whim of forces beyond our control. With Parmenides, a very vocal supporter of democracy historically, we find the transformation of this idea from an abstract idea of equality as `esteem' into a lived notion in which the law humanity makes, is no less than the law of the gods...
From `grace' to `fate' to `equality', to `law'. It's an interesting history, one which will culminate in my next diary, and be destroyed in the one thereafter [on Plato]. Though 5th century bce democracy in Athens is nothing to pine for these days, it was damned remarkable - and that will be the next installation.