The Enlightenment and Race

Justin E. H. Smith has an interesting discussion of racism and the Enlightenment. However, I do think one thing needs to be corrected:

Scholars have been aware for a long time of the curious paradox of Enlightenment thought, that the supposedly universal aspiration to liberty, equality and fraternity in fact only operated within a very circumscribed universe. Equality was only ever conceived as equality among people presumed in advance to be equal, and if some person or group fell by definition outside of the circle of equality, then it was no failure to live up to this political ideal to treat them as unequal.

It would take explicitly counter-Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder, to formulate anti-racist views of human diversity. In response to Kant and other contemporaries who were positively obsessed with finding a scientific explanation for the causes of black skin, Herder pointed out that there is nothing inherently more in need of explanation here than in the case of white skin: it is an analytic mistake to presume that whiteness amounts to the default setting, so to speak, of the human species.

But you do have examples of Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century who formulate anti-racist views of human diversity. One in particular I occasionally talk about here, namely, James Beattie, and I've briefly discussed Beattie's argument, against Hume, for human equality and "the sacred rights of mankind". In Beattie's view the only reason anyone would deny human equality would be to justify things like slavery, which he regards as a crime against man and God. It might be worthwhile quoting his appeal to his fellow Britons on the point:

It is easy to see, with what views some modern authors throw out these hints to prove the natural inferiority of negroes. But let every friend to humanity pray, that they may be disappointed. Britons are famous for generosity; a virtue in which it is easy for them to excel both the Romans and the Greeks. Let it never be said, that slavery is countenanced by the bravest and most generous people on earth; by a people who are animated with that heroic passion, the love of liberty, beyond all nations ancient or modern; and the fame of whose toilsome, but unwearied perseverance, in vindicating, at the expense of life and fortune, the sacred rights of mankind, will strike terror into the hearts of sycophants and tyrants, and excite the admiration and gratitude of all good men, to the latest posterity.

Thus one can indeed find Enlightenment thinkers who are insistent on the equality of all human beings, regardless of their race. But, of course, this gets into the fact that not all Enlightenment thinkers are the same; they are quite a diverse bunch.

Lent III

Although a man is called blind, blindness is not in any part of him except in the eye, where sight ought to be; for blindness is not in the hand or in the foot. And when a man is called deaf, deafness is nowhere except in the ear. Similarly, even though the mass of the human race is called sinful, sin is not in any part of the human race except (as I have said) in the will....

St. Anselm of Canterbury, De Conceptu Virginali 15 (Jasper Hopkins, tr.)

Poetic Catharsis is Social

Aristotle in the Poetics famously says that the effect of tragedy is catharsis, purification or purgation, particularly of pity and fear, but (also famously) does not give us much information about what this purification is. The word usually means a medical release of fluids. Some interpretations take this very seriously, and thus regard tragedy as being a healing venture, releasing poisonous passions; others think this is heavy-handed use of an obvious figure of speech. There are many other interpretations.

One of the things that I think hampers many interpretations of Aristotle on catharsis is a failure to take into account its social character. The Poetics is not the only place in which Aristotle talks about poetic catharsis. He also mentions it in the Politics, in which he actually refers to the Poetics. The passage (1341b-1342a) is worth quoting at length, but I will break it up a bit and add a few comments, always with the caveat that this is difficult and controversial material.

And since we accept the classification of melodies made by some philosophers, as ethical melodies, melodies of action, and passionate melodies, distributing the various harmonies among these classes as being in nature akin to one or the other, and as we say that music ought to be employed not for the purpose of one benefit that it confers but on account of several

Aristotle had previously noted three kinds of object for music, and raised the question of what it is suitable for:

(1) to relax and amuse, like sleeping and drinking and perhaps dancing, which are all things devoted to what is merely pleasant and removes care;
(2) to cultivate virtue, like athletics (gymnastics), since music affects character by accustoming us to feel rightly;
(3) to contribute to intellectual leisure and culture.

As he says here, he thinks that music can contribute effectively to all three of these, allowing people to occupy their leisure in noble ways. This is all part of a discussion of education for civic life, so Aristotle's concern is how music might aid the young in becoming good citizens and soldiers.

（for it serves the purpose both of education and of purgation—the term purgation we use for the present without explanation, but we will return to discuss the meaning that we give to it more explicitly in our treatise on poetry—and thirdly it serves for amusement, serving to relax our tension and to give rest from it）,

It is somewhat ironic that, despite the reference to the poetics, this is actually the closest thing we have in the Aristotelian corpus to an explanation of catharsis; the reference seems to be to the second book of the Poetics, which, of course, is lost. Keep an eye out for it if you visit any ancient monasteries; it would be one of the greatest finds of all time.

He had a little before this passage said that we should not teach the young the flute, because the flute does not teach young people to pay attention, and thus does not moderate but excite, and should only be used for purgation rather than education.

it is clear that we should employ all the harmonies, yet not employ them all in the same way, but use the most ethical ones for education, and the active and passionate kinds for listening to when others are performing （for any experience that occurs violently in some souls is found in all, though with different degrees of intensity—for example pity and fear, and also religious excitement; for some persons are very liable to this form of emotion, and under the influence of sacred music we see these people, when they use tunes that violently arouse the soul, being thrown into a state as if they had received medicinal treatment and taken a purge; the same experience then must come also to the compassionate and the timid and the other emotional people generally in such degree as befalls each individual of these classes, and all must undergo a purgation and a pleasant feeling of relief; and similarly also the purgative melodies afford harmless delight to people）.

So here we see that Aristotle himself seems to take the medical metaphor quite seriously. Passionate kinds of music violently arouse the soul, so that people who hear them are"thrown into a state as if they had received medicinal treatment and taken a purge" involving a "pleasant feeling of relief" and thus giving "harmless delight to people".

It turns out that he classifies the Dorian mode as an educational melody, because it is sedate and manly, and strongly disagrees with Plato's inclusion of the Phrygian mode as educational, because it is too exciting, as shown in its association with Dionysus. (I know nothing about music, but Wikipedia says that the modern Dorian mode is probably closest to the Greek Phrygian mode.) We seem to have no clear idea what was going on with ancient Greek modes, but here is an attempt to present something like what the ancient Greeks would have recognized as Dorian mode.

We don't get much clarity about musical education. But we do get some indication of the importance of catharsis as a social feature; it is so important that it needs to be considered as a matter of how to educate the young to be participants in their society. Hans-Georg Gadamer, I think, is probably on the right track when he says in Truth and Method that the key to tragic catharsis is that the experience is truly common (note Aristotle's explicit statement that "any experience that occurs violently in some souls is found in all, though with different degrees of intensity"), and thus we see ourselves in the tragic characters, and thus our own limitations and subjection to fate. The commonality of the experience seems quite crucial. We are all in some sense caught up together, and, releasing our passions in a civilized way, find relief, restoration, cure. This is very much the Neoplatonist view of the matter. In discussing the Mysteries, Iamblichus happens to comment that human passions, when exercised moderately, provide delight and are calmed, so that in tragedy and comedy we contemplate the passions of others and become more moderate in our own passions, thereby curing ourselves.

In any case, I think it's clear enough that any interpretation of catharsis has to recognize it as having a clear social character, and any interpretation that does not recognize this is probably wrong.

On the Importance of Grasping the Spirit

History of Philosophy, as a discipline, involves a lot of technicalities -- every kind of technicality, in fact, because they all show up somewhere in the actual history of philosophy or its study. But there's also a sort of je ne sais quoi quality to good HoP-work. Obviously, since it's je ne sais quoi, I don't know exactly or completely what it is, and don't think anyone else does. But bits and pieces of it can be brought out. I was thinking of one way to do it the other day; one hard-to-pin-down aspect of HoP is grasping the spirit or sense of a time, a movement, or a philosopher. On the one hand, it's an absolutely essential skill, which can save you from many of the worst kinds of errors. On the other hand, there is no method to it, and no definite way to learn it. This makes it one of the hard things about study the history of philosophy.

An example might help. I once ran across a website, by a professional philosopher, for one of his Intro or Ethics classes (I forget which). And he claimed that Kant held that the Golden Rule was a "deeply misguided principle." Now, this and this alone would immediately set alarm bells ringing for anyone who had any sort of sense of Kant. It's just not the sort of thing Kant would ever say or commit to. The Golden Rule, of course, was stated by Jesus, and to put it very baldly, Kant would never contradict Jesus. If Kant did have a problem with the Golden Rule, anyone with familiarity with Kant knows what he'd do: he'd argue that it was an excellent principle but only for a very specific domain, or he would say it had been widely misinterpreted and give his own interpretation. It is in fact difficult to get a sense of what Kant's view of the Golden Rule is, because he has only scattered comments that can be considered even relevant -- but having a sense of Kant, grasping the spirit of Kant, would have prevented this particular philosopher from an egregious misinterpretation.

Or consider the Scottish Enlightenment. One of the difficult things about interpreting the Scottish Enlightenment are the overwhelmingly important roles played by law and aesthetics. Jurisprudence and good taste -- each of them affects almost everything in almost every major philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. This is especially difficult for us because in general we don't live in an intellectual world where law and taste are the governing principles of most of life. But it can prevent you from making a serious mistake, like the old view that Thomas Reid just 'tacked on' the Essay on Taste to his book on Intellectual Powers, or like not noticing how much of Hume's account of morality is actually an account of law. Or, to take two other examples from the same period, it's difficult to grasp the complicated balance between French intellectual life and English intellectual life that governs so much of Scottish intellectual life, or the utter urgency with which almost everyone insists that there needs to be some kind of middle-of-the-way between enthusiasm and priestcraft.

There's no easy way to learn these things, or even determine what will be important for diving in. It makes HoP a perpetual adventure. But it trips everyone up sometimes, and everyone comes to a point where they realize that some previous view they held was not even remotely plausible, however much it looked at the time like the text supported it.

Lent II

Everything takes its species from its form: and it has been stated (2) that the species of original sin is taken from its cause. Consequently the formal element of original sin must be considered in respect of the cause of original sin. But contraries have contrary causes. Therefore the cause of original sin must be considered with respect to the cause of original justice, which is opposed to it. Now the whole order of original justice consists in man's will being subject to God: which subjection, first and chiefly, was in the will, whose function it is to move all the other parts to the end, as stated above (Question 9, Article 1), so that the will being turned away from God, all the other powers of the soul become inordinate. Accordingly the privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God, is the formal element in original sin; while every other disorder of the soul's powers, is a kind of material element in respect of original sin. Now the inordinateness of the other powers of the soul consists chiefly in their turning inordinately to mutable good; which inordinateness may be called by the general name of concupiscence. Hence original sin is concupiscence, materially, but privation of original justice, formally.

St. Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.82.3

On Some Questions about Moral Realism

Peter Hurford has some interesting questions for moral realists. So here are my answers; unfortunately I only have time to be quite brief at the moment.

(1) Why is there only one particular morality?

'Morality' is not the sort of thing that can be one or many; it's just an abstract common category. One might as well ask why there is only one particular humanity; that could mean any number of very different things. And there are several different things that might be meant if we take the question to be a metonymy. For instance, we might be asking why there are universal moral principles; to which we would have to reply that it's because some universal rational principles fall into the category labeled by 'morality' -- those governing whether it's rational to throw out all standards of rationality, for instance, or the principle of noncontradiction as applied to moral situations. On the other hand, the word 'particular' suggests that the question is asking why there is only one moral code, understood as including all moral principles? And the answer is that there isn't: application of universal principles to diverse particular situations will diversify particular moral principles. This divergence affects the answers to all the questions.

(2) Where does morality come from?

If we are talking about universal principles, at least some of them are simply intrinsically necessary, while others are necessary given certain common natural facts (e.g., that human beings need to eat in order to live, or that human beings seek to learn by both imitation and reasoning). If we are talking about particular principles, they are solutions to problems raised by particular kinds of circumstances, based on the general universal moral propositions and the circumstantial facts. Hurford also asks, "Are moral facts contingent; could morality have been different? Is it possible to make it different in the future?" And we can see that some aren't contingent and some are, and that some can be made different in the future. by changing circumstances, and others can't (and, it should be said, the two distinctions are different: a moral principle being contingent does not of itself imply that it could be changed in the future).

(3) Why should we care about (your) morality?

The answer is that it no more matters whether anyone cares about moral principles, assuming that's what's in view, than it matters whether people care about rational standards in reasoning, and for exactly the same reason. This ties in to the question of wordplay that Hurford raises. If someone were to change the meaning of 'rationality' so that it allowed 'accepting contradictions as true just because one feels like it', it wouldn't change any of the obvious problems with being 'rational' in this way, nor would it change anything fundamental, because the whole point of realism is that it's not a matter of how one defines words, but a matter of facts and necessities. Whether people care, of course, is just a matter of motivation; whether people care about abstract algebra is completely irrelevant to the question of what's true about abstract algebra, and equally irrelevant to the question of what a given person can and can't rationally believe about abstract algebra. Changing the definition of the words 'rationality' or 'morality' doesn't affect any of the actual facts, necessities, or possibilities.

Hurford recognizes the possibility of raising this point, but I suspect he is assuming the division between what is commonly called instrumental rationality and epistemic rationality, and taking this to be exhaustive. This, however, is an untenable dichotomy. If we have rationality concerning means, we can sum over all possible means to get rationality concerning ends: there will be ends that cannot be reached by any possible means. So there's a non-epistemic rationality that is not itself what people generally regard as instrumental rationality. We can do similar things starting from epistemic rationality. The distinction between the two is not exhaustive, and there has never been any good reason to think it is exhaustive; it's quite easy to start with with them and show that either alone or in combination imply forms of rationality that cannot be put into either category. And, of course, what I said about 'morality' applies to 'rationality'; these are abstract category-labels able to include multitudes of different things, not unitary things in their own right. Rationality is as extensive as reason itself; it cannot be arbitrarily chopped up into bits.

Someone who didn't desire "morality" at all would be quite literally insane: they wouldn't desire, directly as an end or indirectly as a means, to conform to rational norms, social standards, prudential reasoning about means, or their own aesthetic tastes, all of which at least partly fall under the label. Beyond that, we'd have to look at each sort of thing in its own right.

Lent I

It is laudable for the sinner to confess his sin as quickly as he conveniently can because a grace is conferred through the sacrament of penance which makes a man stronger in resisting sin. However, some said that he is bound to confess as quickly as the opportunity of confessing offered itself so that if he delays he sins. This is against the intelligible structure of an affirmative precept which, although it obliges always, does not however oblige for always but obliges for a fixed place and time. Now the time for fulfilling the precept concerning confession is when an occasion is imminent in which it is necessary for a man to confess, e.g. if the moment of death is imminent, or the necessity of receiving the Eucharist or Holy Orders or the like, for which it is necessary for a man to be prepared by being cleansed through confession. So if one of these events is imminent and someone neglects confession, he sins as long as a due opportunity is present. And because from the Church’s precept all believers are bound to take the communion of the sacrament at least once a year, on the feast of Easter especially, therefore the Church decreed that once a year when the time for taking the Eucharist is near all believers should confess. Therefore, I say that delaying confession until this time, essentially speaking, is permitted, but it can become unlawful accidentally, e.g. if a moment in which confession is required should be near, or if someone delays confession out of contempt. And likewise such a delay may be accidentally meritorious if he delays so that he may confess more prudently or more devoutly because of the holy season.

St. Thomas Aquinas, QQ1.5 (Sandra Edwards, tr.)