I’ve
been re-listening to a series of lectures on Plato’s dialogues this month. I first heard this course back in the late
1990’s. _This time through, I’ve been inspired with reflections on Plato’s
impact on the history of ethics, specifically with regard to the widespread opposition
toward the revelations of science in our society.
The
thing I’ve been noticing is just how suspicious Plato was of ‘science.’
Plato
draws a line from the ‘naturalists’ in his day—especially the materialists
(Democritus, etc); those who were beginning to give scientific explanations for
things—to the Sophists. Naturalism and
Sophism are portrayed as ‘impetus’ and ‘consequence.’ Specifically,
it is suggested that by seeking out naturalistic explanations the materialists undermined
traditional mythic explanations for why Greek society was the way it was and how
its citizens should act. Plato saw naturalism
as destabilizing ethics, politics and the possibility of personal excellence (άρετή).
Plato saw the Sophists as having ‘ridden in’ on the ‘coattails’ of
naturalism.
Plato
portrays the Sophists as taking advantage of the early scientific
demythologizing of long-standing cultural values; offering an extreme relativistic
worldview – including interpretations of ethics, et. al. – in their place. If Nature can be explained rationally; then
the gods are not the authors of social prescriptions and prohibitions; such as
systems of morals, political authority and ethical values. This opened the door to a freedom to ‘choose
your own values.’ Sophists took this to
an extreme, suggesting – by persuasive rhetoric – that one set of values is just
as good as another. The ethics of Sparta
are one kind of good, and the ethics of Athens are another. Sophists could justify both by their rhetoric.
Protagoras, for instance, could argue for one value system in one city
(and get paid for his efforts) and then argue for another value system in
another city (and get paid for his efforts).
While there is a healthy social and cultural relativism, an extreme relativism
was the vortex within which sophistic practice turned; it played on a total devaluation
of ethics and denial of meaning.
There
were no ‘absolutes’ for the Sophists (beyond getting paid).
Well,
perhaps that’s a little caustic, but_
What
strikes me, listening to these lectures again, is that we have here, in one of
the ur-texts of the Western Tradition (Plato’s dialogues), a touch-point for the
qualms many people still have about naturalism and science. One of the reasons often given for denying or
rejecting the revelations of science is that what science shows us about
reality undermines traditional ethics, social structures and our ability to
find meaning in life.
I’ve
encountered this objection a number of times over the years, and have attempted
to argue against it in a blog or two. For
years I have been exploring ways to re-ground ethics – even ‘traditional’
morals – in the world as revealed by science and mathematics. My thrust toward a ‘spirituality grounded in
science’ has been, on one level, an attempt to allow ethics and morals to arise
out of a naturalistic understanding of ourselves as ‘manifestations of Nature.’
When
I first heard these lectures, I wasn’t dealing with this kind of objection
overtly; though it was there beneath the surface—I don’t think I even
recognized this undercurrent in Plato. Now, however, I see it so clearly. When I first heard these lectures, I was at
the point where I was just starting to delve into science as a major tributary to
the pursuit of wisdom and truth, and was more concerned with Plato’s epistemology
and the various problems I was seeing with an Idealistic metaphysics.
I
now see that we have in fact been
struggling against this bias against naturalism and science for two and a half
millennia. It is not a recent
phenomenon; it didn’t just rear its ugly head in the 19th century in
opposition to Darwin’s revelations about evolution. My impression is that Christianity took up this
bias against naturalism early on in its development. _And it keeps resurfacing today. Too many religious people – and even some
secular people I’ve met – are afraid of science because they think it threatens
cherished beliefs and meaningful values.
Are Creationists and all of those who hate evolution and fear science in
fact the children of Plato? It seems
likely. No doubt science threatens particular versions of beliefs and
values, but as it reveals our nature to ourselves; showing us to be
manifestations of Nature—it lays the
ground for revaluing values and confirming potentially meaningful experiences
of the world.
So
why has this fear of science and naturalism been around so long?
It
has been such a long-standing problem because there is indeed something behind
it; Plato was not completely misguided in his analysis. I think that what he saw happening in his
society was quite troubling, and I
empathize with him. I think he was correct to see Sophistry as a negative outgrowth
of naturalism, even if the link he saw was only a sufficient one.
Naturalism
does not necessarily lead to Sophism.
For
a society that has had its social and political order anchored in a
mythological tradition (e.g., Homer, The Torah, the Bible, the Koran, etc.),
there are ‘reasons’ why things are the way they are. “The gods made the world after their own
devices.” “God created the Heavens and
the Earth in six days.” Those ‘reasons’
are mythological, not historical—much
less scientific. They ‘explain’
humanity and human society in a metaphorical way that allows people to
function; and not just to
function—but to aspire to be good, or to be wise, or to be honorable, or to
become enlightened – and any number of other potential, positive goals.
Mythology
gives us a ‘logic’ for self-realization.
It
could also be said that myths give people a ‘logic’ for how to live life well.
So long as mythological stories are not mistaken for some literal, ‘scientific’
explanation of the world, mythology can function in a healthy, positive
spiritual way. _And every pre-scientific culture had its own mythology, with its own
logic, justifying its own valued paths for self- and social- realization. Then along comes science, and a rational,
empirical explanation of the Earth & Cosmos begins to be revealed which
causes a ‘tectonic’ shift in the ground beneath a mythological worldview.
What
does it mean to live life well, if what the myths (i.e., scriptures) once told
us about life and the world is not ‘true?’ —This question reflects the initial
conflict between the old myths and science; it points to the first stage in
demythologization—one through which it is often difficult to navigate a
course. _I know it was for me! But there are
other ways to ground our existence and find value and meaning other than in one
or more of the old mythologies. Navigating
the changing ground as natural science reveals a new understanding of the world
is a spiritual and mystical adventure; one well worth the undertaking.
Plato
lived and wrote in the crux of the first demythologization of human
consciousness at the arche of the Western
tradition. What can be called ‘natural
science’ emerged in Greek society in the century or so before Plato, and the
ideas put forward by natural philosophers and early mathematicians were often experienced
as a ‘threat’ to the traditional mythological justification of social norms and
values. The Sophists stepped in and
offered people an extreme relativistic understanding of life and the world,
just as certain modernists have done.
Plato saw this relativism eroding values, and sought to lift people out
of the morass and up to new heights of self-realization through participation
in permanence (the World of Forms) over against change (the Heraclitean River).
An
heroic program, if ever there was one!
…
However misconceived. As a stop-gap against
amelioration of meaning and anomie, it was perhaps a valiant exercise to pursue
a path toward transcendence. By doing
so, Plato showed that the path of the Sophists was not the only option. But in the long run, Plato’s project was
escapist. It did not embrace and work
out an understanding of our objective situation in the Earth & Cosmos. It devalued our bodily nature, it set up a
bias against the emotions and poetics that has haunted us ever since, and it put
rationality and reason on too high a pedestal.
Today we realize that the emotions are an integral part of human
experience, and that poetics enhances human existence. Creativity is a primary human capacity; we
are homo creativus as well as the “rational
animal.” There is a kind of knowledge
associated with healthy emotional experience, and so long as it is not mistaken
for rational knowledge or scientific knowledge of the world, then it is
valuable as contributing to human wellbeing.
I
am convinced that value and ethics, meaning and all social good can be grounded
in a naturalistic understanding, at least today, in the 21st
century, given the progress of the sciences and philosophy over the last 500
years. Plato was right to criticize the
Sophists and attempt to set up an alternative to their extreme relativism, but
he was in error in thinking that ethics, value, meaning and the social good
could not be grounded in naturalism. He
was wrong to fear naturalism and science.
Perhaps in his time – the 4th to 5th century BCE –
science was not far enough advanced to allow for a naturalistic ethics or an
earthen aesthetics that would uplift, sustain and edify human becomings. The ancient Greeks had only experienced the
first tremors in the ground beneath their mythological world. Today, I think, such an ethics and aesthetics
is possible, and the more science
reveals to us about Earth & Cosmos and our place in it, the more we can
find meaning in a naturalistic worldview through devout philosophical
reflection.
It is unfortunate that 2500 years after Plato
identified the link between demythologization and Sophism so many people are
still struggling to free themselves from a worldview grounded in mythology; so
many people have felt the tectonic shift beneath their belief systems and
refused to heed it. It is also
unfortunate that the second half of the 20th century saw the rise of
Post-Modernism and ‘Deconstruction’ which, at their worst, were simply new
forms of Sophism. Until we develop a mature
naturalistic ethics and an earthen aesthetics we will perhaps never be free of
the kind of extremist ‘relativism’ that sees all language as a game and all ethics
as a mere personal choice without any ground.
I can empathize with Plato’s conundrum and his
project of inspiring people to look beyond the world of mere change and seek
the permanent and perfect world of the Forms.
I relate to the thrust of his project, without accepting his criticism
of science and naturalism. There is a
need for inspiration; for meaning-building experiences and a philosophy that
backs-up these experiences and makes them reliable. I allow that Plato’s World of Forms may actually
refer to the ‘world’ of concepts in our minds; our ability to construct
‘perfect’ templates for things that exist.
But such an idea also needs to be grounded in naturalism; in cognitive
science and neurology. Over the last
decade and a half, I have crossed-over the boundary between mythology &
science, and found meaning in a naturalistic worldview. And so, here I now stand.
CODA –Plato, Science and
Transcendence II
I
am continuing to listen to the lecture series on Plato, and as I get into the
heftier dialogues, I realize that my own project – of constructing an earthen
spirituality – perhaps has a certain oblique resonance with Plato’s project,
while shifting the foundations of Platonism.
Plato thought natural science was responsible
for the erosion of values and meaning, integrity and knowledge in his
time. He thought the Sophists, who rode-in
on the coattails of the naturalists, were mis-educating the Athenians; ruining
their souls and making them unfit for social life much less for enlightenment.
To
a extent, he was certainly right, especially about Sophism (and, today, of
Post-Modernism), which in its more extreme versions (e.g., the rhetoric of Gorgias)
makes out that there is no knowledge, that we can’t act ethically, and thus the
only thing worth living for is to “do your own thing,” justify your actions to
others, and get everything you can for yourself (or for those in your group).
Like
Plato, I also detest the degradation
of value and ethics, meaning and purpose in modern life, one of the sources of
which is certainly the emergence of “extreme relativism” in a number of venues. Relativism – at its best – was a move away
from Absolutism; and it was – in the 18th, 19th and early
20th centuries – a wedge against ethnocentrism, racism and rampant
nationalism (a secularized cousin of the former two problems; a more
sophisticated version of tribalism). The
late 19th and early 20 century relativists argued, rightly, that there
are many ways to live life well; people are not ‘ignorant barbarians’ just
because they dress, act, eat and speak differently from you. This kind of relativism has wrought the positive
possibility of pan-human equality.
What I would like a naturalistic spirituality to do is to counter the
abusive and demoralizing extremes to
which relativism was taken in the late 20th century and,
complimentarily, to critique the ‘return to absolutism’ under the guise of
‘reclaiming’ mythology and religion.
The
project of naturalistic spirituality is, for me, one of grounding transcendence
in Earth & Cosmos—in what is known through the revelations of science. Transcendence is itself a naturalistic
phenomenon. Our brains are wired in such
a way that what are called “transcendent experiences” are possible—without
reference to an external source or impetus (i.e., astral planes, divinities, God
or Goddess, etc.). There does not need
to be any ‘supernatural’ order or being(s) for us to experience
transcendence. We can have transcendent
experiences because we are human; because we are the particular kind of animal
that evolution has ‘made’ us to be—and these experiences can enhance our lives
in a variety of ways.
This
does not preclude the possibility of an actual transcendent realm or being(s);
it is just that there is no evidence for such Transcendents, nor is there need to appeal to them in order to experience “going beyond/
above/below” (pick your directional metaphor) our normal waking consciousness
and entering into a transcendent state.
I
think that ethics can also be grounded in a scientific, evolutionary
worldview. One key to this is that we
are social animals; we have survived and succeeded by virtue of cooperation
with others of our kind and through alliances with other animal species that we
have domesticated over the course of our evolutionary history. All of our ethical systems flow from the
basic biological fact of our evolutionary propensity for cooperation, which is
our particular hedge (a general mammalian trait, evolutionarily understood) against
extinction. Individuals emerge from the
social group, differentiating themselves through experience, self-assertion and
elf-expression. A significant portion of
social ethics functions to keep individuals integrated into the larger group without
suppressing their individuality. Different
societies and social groups balance the individual and the community
differently, but in the deepest analysis, I
think, we will find that the purpose of both social behavior and
individualism will be tied to cooperation, which is our particular species
tactic for survival.
