Russell, Bertrand;
History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Simon and Schuster, 1945, 895 pages
ISBN 0671201581, 9780671201586
topics: | philosophy | history
An amazing tour de force, where the complete opinionatedness of the author does not detract from his complete mastery. For example, he ridicules Aristotle as having caused irreparable harm to Western philosophy - by achieving a high pedestal from which to keep fostering his faulty ideas. Categories - what a category is Russell has never understood. based on lectures at the Barnes foundation in Pennsylvania (preface).
What is important to the historian of the world is not the petty wars between Greek cities, or the sordid squabbles for party ascendancy, but the memories retained by mankind when the bried episode was ended. 101 SPARTA: Lycurgus [so Plutarch says (North Translation) ] thought the education of children "the chiefest and greatest matter, that a reformer of laws should establish"; and like all who aim chiefly at military power, he was anxious to keep up the birth rate. The "plays, sports, and dances the maids did naked before young men, were provocations to draw and allure the young men to marry: not as persuaded by geometrical reasons, as saith Plato, but brought to it by liking, and of very love." The habit of treating a marriage, for the first few years, as if it were a clandestine affair, "continued in both parties a still burning love, and a new desire of the one to the other" -- such, at least, is the opinion of Plutarch. He goes on to say that an old man, was not thought ill of if he allowed his younger wife to have children by a younger man. "It was lawful also for an honest man that loved another man's wife... to intreat her husband to suffer him to lie with her, and that he might also plough in that lusty ground, and cast abroad the seed of well-favoured children." There was to be no foolish jealousy, for "Lycurgus did not like that children should be private to any men, but that they should be common to the commmon weal." goes on to explain that this is the principle that farmer's apply to their livestock. 102
Plato and Aristotle were the most influential .. Plato had the greater effect upon subsequent ages. I say this for two reasons; first, that A himself is an outcome of P; second, that Christian theology and philosophy, at any rate until the 13th c., was much more Platonic than Aristotelian. Plato was born in 428-7 BC [in Athens] in the early ears of the Peloponnesian War. He was a well-to-do aristocrat, related to various people who were concerned in the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. He was a young man when Athens was defeated [by Sparta], and he could attribute the defeat to democracy, which his social position and his family connections were likely to make him despise. He was a pupil of Socrates, for whom he had a profound affection and respect; and S was put to death by the democracy. It is not, therefore, surprising that he should turn to Sparta for an adumbration of his ideal commonwealth [Utopia]. ... It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to understand him. This is the comon fate of great men. My object is the opposite. I wish to understand him, but to treat him with as little reverence as if he were a contemporary... advocate of totalitarianism. 105
- Pythagoras (perhaps by way of S): Orphic elements; the religious trend, the
belief in immortality, the other-worldliness, the priestly tone, and all
that is involved in the simile of the cave; also his respect for
mathematics...
- Parmenides: reality is eternal and timeless, and that on logical grounds,
all change must be illusory.
- Heraclitus: the negative doctrine that there is nothing permanent in the
sensible world. This, combined with Parmenides, led to the conclusion
that knowledge is not to be derived from the senses, but only to be
achieved by the intellect. This, in turn, fitted in well with
Pythagoreanism.
- Socrates: his preoccupation with ethical problems, and his tendency to seek
teleological rather than mechanical explanations of the world. "The Good"
dominated his thought more than that of the pre-Socratics, and it is
difficult not to attribute this fact to the influence of S.
1. Good and Reality being timeless, the best state will be the one which most nearly copies the heavenly model, by having minimum change and maximum of static perfection. [Sparta: laws changed very little over the centuries, unlike most of the other city states]. 2. Plato, like all mystics, has at his core a certainty which is essentially incommunicable except by a way of life. [IDEA: But this is true of the extreme liberal as much as the totalitarian] 3. Much education is needed to make a good ruler on Plato's principles. --> implies an oligarchic view. 4. Leisure is essential to wisdom, which will therefore not be found among those who have to work for their living... [aristocratic view] Two q's arise when confronting Plato in the modern view. a. Is there such a thing as "wisdom"? b. If there is such a thing, can any constitution be devised that will give it political power [3d. q. is "wisdom" a good thing, either for the indiv possessing it, or for the state ruled by the wise?]
Education: two parts: music (everything in the realm of the muses) + gymnastics (all physical training). Aim is to create gentlemen (similar to 19th c England) --> aristocracy. Homer and Hesiod are not to be allowed, for they show the gods behaving badly on occasion. 109 decorum: no loud laughter, but Homer speaks of it: e.g. "The shout of them that triumph, the song of them that feast," describing the joys of heaven. Drama is to be banished. The good man ought to be unwilling to imitate a bad man. [With all due honours], We shall send [the dramatist] to another city." Censorship of music: Lydian and Ionian harmonies are to be forbidden. Only Dorian (for courage) and Phrygian (for temperance) are allowed. Training of the body: no one is to eat fish, or meat cooked otherwise than roasted, and there must be no sauces or confectionery. People thus raised will have no need of doctors. 110 small houses and simple food; No private property beyond what is absolutely necessary. No gold / jewelry. Friends should have all things in common, including women and children. He admits that this presents difficulties, but thinks them not insuperable. Girls are to have the exactly same education as boys, including the art of war. They will have complete equality. "The women shall be, without exception, the common wives of these men, and no one shall have a wife of his own."
Men and women will be brought together by lot, but these lots will be manipulated by the state on eugenic principles - the best sires will have the most children. All children will be taken away from their parents at birth, and great care shall be taken that the parents do not know who are their children, or vice versa. Children arising from unions not sanctioned by the State are illegitimate. Mothers are to be between 20 and 40; fathers between 25 and 45. [In Aristotle: marriage age: women: 18, men: 37; earlier marriage results in weak and female children; wives become wanton and husbands stunted in their growth. 185] 112 Lying is to be the prerogative of the government, just as giving medicine is of physicians. There is one "royal lie", set forth in considerable detail. The most important part of it is that God has created men of three kinds: best to worst made of gold, silver, and brass/iron. Those made of gold are fit to be guardians; those made of silver should be soldiers, the others to do manual work. Usually, but by no means always, children will belong to the same grade as their parents; when they do not, they must be promoted or degraded accordingly. It is hardly thought possible to make the present generation believe in this myth, but the next, and all subseq generations, can be so educated as not to doubt it. 113
Justice (greek word so translated): that everybody should mind his own business: the city is _just when trader, auxiliary, and guardian, each does his own job without interfering with any of the other classes. 115 What will Plato's Republic achieve? The answer is rather humdrum. It will achieve success in wars against roughly equal populations, and it wil secure a livelihood for a certain small number of people. It will almost certainly produce no art or science... in this respect like Sparta. Skill in war and enough to eat: Plato had lived through famine and defeat in Athens. 115 Difference between an "ideal" and an ordinary object of desire: Ideal is impersonal - it is something having (at least ostensibly) no special reference to the ego of the man who feels the desire, and therefore is capable, theoretically, of being desired by everybody. [Difficult discussion: personal choices enter the picture; e.g. someone says that the good of the world is in the happiness of the Germans and the unhappiness of all else. Do I reject it just because I am not a German and do not intrinsically desire it? Nietzsche's impersonal hero differs from the Christian saint - how are we to decide except by means of our own desire? If there is nothing further, then ethical disagreement can only be decided by emotional appeals. On q's of fact we can appeal to science and to observation, but in ethics, ultimately there seems to be nothing analogoous... if this is the case, q's of ethics reduce to contests for power, including propaganda power. 116
This q arises in the Republic Book I, Thrasymachus, (a real person, sophist from Chalcedon, appears in Aristophanes' first comedy, 427 BC). After S has been amiably discussing justice w the old man Cephalus, and with Plato's elder bro's Glaucon and Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, who has been listening with growing impatience, breaks in with a vehement protest against such childish nonsense - "Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger!" At this point, religion has, at first sight, a simple answer. God determines what is good and what bad. Problem: "God is good": then is there a standard of goodness independent of God's will? But Plato does not address this point: he is convinced that there is "the Good", and that when people disagree, one of them is in the wrong, just as there may be disagreement on facts such as snow is white, Caesar was assassinated, or that water is H+O. 117 Plato's republic was not so fantastic or impossible as it might naturally seem to us; many of its provisions, including some that we should have thought quite impracticable, were actually implemented at Sparta. The rule of philosophers had been attempted by Pythagoras, and in Plato's time Archytas the Pythagorean was politically influenced in Taras (modern Taranto) when Plato visited Sicily and southern Italy. It was common practice for cities to employ a sage to draw up their laws; Solon had done this for Athens, and Protagoras for Thurii. 118-119 Unfortunately for Plato, in the next gen, the rise of Macedonia made all small States antiquated...
The middle of the _Republic, introduces q's of pure philosophy with this somewhat abrupt statement: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one ... cities will never have rest from these evils... If this is true, we must then decide what constitutes philosophy. The conseq discussion is the most famous part of the Republic, and perhaps the most influential. It has, in parts, extraordinary literary beauty; the reader may disagree (as I do) with what is said, but cannot but help being moved by it. 119 Plato's philosophy rests on the Distinction between reality and appearance, first set forth by Parmenides. There is however, a religious tone about reality, which is rather Pythagorean. The resulting doctrine was felt to be satisfying to both the intellect and the religious emotions - influenced most of the great philosophers, down to and incl Hegel. But not only philosophers: why did the Puritans object to the music and painting and gorgeous ritual of the Catholic Church? You will find the answer in book X of the Republic.
Our q is: what is a philosopher? A man who loves knowledge? But not in the sense of mere vulgar curiosity... A philosopher is a man who loves the "vision of thruth". Consider a man who loves beautiful things, makes a point of being present at new tragedies, seeing new pictures, and hearing new music. Such a man is not a philosopher, because he loves only beautiful things, whereas a philosopher loves beauty itself. The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is awake. The former has only opinion, the latter has knowledge. Diff between "knowledge" and "opinion": knwoledge: knowledge of something - something that exists. for that which does not exist is nothing. Thus knowledge is infallible, since it is logically impossible for it to be mistaken. But opinion can be mistaken- can be of what is not; if of what is, it would be knowledge. Therefore opinion must be of what both is and is not. This contradiction is possible because particular things always partake of what is opposite: what is beautiful is alwso, in some respects, ugly; what is just is also unjust, etc.
Theory of "ideas" or "forms" - idea of great importance, not traceable to his predecessors: Partly logical, partly metaphysical: LOGICAL part: What do we mean by the word "cat"? Obviously something diff from each particular cat. An animal is a cat, it wsould seem because it particiaptes in a general nature common to all cats. Lg cannot get on without general words such as "cat", and such words are evdently not meaningless. But if the word "cat" means anything, it means something which is not this or that cat, but some kind of universal cattyness. This is not born when a particular cat is, and does not die with it. It has no position in teim or space - it is "eternal". T METAPHYSICAL PART: the word "cat" means a certain ideal cat, "_the cat", created by God, and unique. Particular cats partake of the nature of _the cat, but more or less imperfectly. It is only owing to this imperfection that there can be many of them. In the last book of the Rep, prior to a concemnation of painters, there is a very clear exposition of the doctrine of ideas or forms. e.g. though there are many beds, there is only one "idea" or "form" of a bed. Just as a reflection of a bed != apparent, not real, so also, the various particular beds are unreal, being only copies of the "idea", the real bed, made by God. Of this one bed, there can be _knowledge, but in respect to the many beds made by carpenters, there can only be _opinion.
Philosophy is not merely wisdom, but love of wisdom. Intimate union of thought and feeling - Spinoza's "intellectual love of God". Doers of any kind of creative work: experiences to a greater or lesser degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth, or beauty, appears or seems to appear, in a sudden glory. The experience is, at the moment, very convincing; doubt may come later, but at the time there is utter certainty. I think most of the best creative work, in art, in scienc, literature and in philosophy, has been the result of such a moment. 123 Plato's vision, which he completely trusted at the time, needs ultimately the help of a parable - of the cave. prisoners in a cave: fire behind, and wall in front. Can only see the wall. All they see are shadows of objects behind them - they regard shadows as real, and have no notion of the objects themselves. At last some man succeeds in escaping the cave and come out into the sunlight - he sees real things, and becomes aware of the deception of the shadows. If he is the sort of philosopher who is fit to become a guardian, he goes back in the cave and tells his former fellow-prisoners about the truth. But he will have difficulty convincing them, because coming out of the sunlight, he will see the shadows less clearly than they do, and will consider them stupider than before his escape. 125 The first theory to emphasize the theory of universals, which in varying forms, has persisted to the present day. 126
In relation to physics, Aristotle's background was very different from that of a modern student. Now-a-days, a boy begins with mechanics, which, by its very name, suggests machines. He is accustomed to motor-cars and aeroplanes; he does not, even in the dimmest recesses of his subconscious imagination, think that a motor-car contains some sort of horse in its inside, or that an aeroplane flies because its wings are those of a bird possessing magical powers. Animals have lost their importance in our imaginative pictures of the world, in which man stands comparatively alone as master of a mainly lifeless and largely subservient material environment. - p.203 [Russell comes down particularly hard on Aristotle's Logic, which while a significant landmark in the evolution of western thought, had fossilized it to such an extent that even now Catholic teacher's of philosophy will still use nothing but Aristotle. The basic premise of Aristotle's approach is several categories of syllogism, named Barbara, Celarent, Darii, etc, but all a manifestation of Modus Ponems with various types of quantification and negation. One of the fundamental flaws is equating the structure of statements of the type "All Greeks are men" and "Socrates is a man."]
[Rome, 2nd c. B.C.] A democratic movement, inaugrated by the Gracchi in the latter half of the second century B.C., led to a series of civil wars, and finally - as so often in Greece - to the establishment of a "tyranny." - p.272
[Some very great books compose themselves], in the memory of those who have
read it, into something better than at first appears on rereading.
- of Augustine's City of God, p. 355
if all sin were punished on earth, there would be no need
of the Last Judgement. - p. 356
It must be admitted that SEXUAL INTERCOURSE in marriage is not sinful,
provided the intention is to beget offspring. Yet even in marriage a
virtuous man will wish that he could manage without lust. Even in
marriage, as the desire for privacy shows, people are ASHAMED of sexual
intercourse, because "this lawful act of nature is (from our first
parents) accompanied with our penal shame." ...What is shameful about
LUST is its independence of the will. Adam and Eve, before the fall,
could have had sexual intercourse without lust, though in fact they did
not. The need of lust in sexual intercourse is a punishment for Adam's
sin, but for which sex might have been divorced from pleasure. - 357-8
[IDEA: collection of views on SEX:SIN]
The Jewish pattern of history, past and future, is such as to make a powerful
appeal to the opressed and unfortunate at all times. Saint Augustine adapted
this pattern to Christianity, Marx to Socialism. To understand Marx
psychologically, one should use the following dictionary:
Yahweh = Dialectical Materialism
The Messiah = Marx
The Elect (who go to heaven) = The Proletariat
The Church = The Communist Party
The Second Coming = The Revolution
Hell = Punishment of the Capitalists
The Millennium = The Communist Commonwealth [p.364]
We are in bondage in proportion as what happens to us is determined by outside causes, and we are free in proportion as we are self-determined. - Spinoza, Ethics (as interpreted by Russell, p.573)