Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

The Pythagorean School

  About 530 BCE at Croton (now Crotona), in southern Italy, the philosopher Pythagoras founded a school of philosophy far more religious and mystical than the Ionian school. Pythagoras merged the mythological and the scientific.

  The resulting system of philosophy (Pythagoreanism) combined ethical, supernatural, and mathematical beliefs with ascetic rules, such as obedience and silence and simplicity of dress and possessions.

  Pythagoras and his followers practiced a way of life based on the belief that the soul is a prisoner of the body, is released from the body at death, and migrates into a succession of different kinds of animals before reincarnation into a human being. For this reason, Pythagoras taught his followers not to eat meat, for there was no way of telling whom you might be eating.

  Pythagoras also held that humanity’s highest purpose—and all else was incidental or secondary—was to purify the soul by cultivating intellectual virtues, refraining from sensual pleasures, and by practicing special religious rituals.

  The Pythagoreans, having discovered the mathematical laws of musical pitch (reducing the length of a vibrating string by exactly half, raises the pitch of the string by exactly an octave), inferred that the motions of the planets produced a heavenly music, and based on this developed a musical therapy to bring humanity in harmony with the celestial spheres.

  Pythagoras also held that science was mathematics, there was no other science, and that all things were made up of numbers and geometrical figures.

  A brilliant man, he and his followers contributed greatly to science, mathematics, musical theory, and astronomy.

  The Heraclitean School

  Around 500 BCE, Heraclitus of Ephesus took up the Ionian search for a primary substance, which he claimed to be fire.

  Noticing that heat produces changes in matter, he anticipated the modern theory of energy. Heraclitus also held the Buddhist view that all things are in a state of continuous flux, that stability is an illusion, and that only change and the law of change, what he termed Logos, are real.

  The Logos doctrine of Heraclitus, which held the laws of nature to be the Divine Mind, later developed into the pantheistic theology of Stoicism. (Pantheism is the view that God and material substance are one, and that divinity, therefore, is present in all things.)

  The Eleatic School

  In the 5th century BCE, Parmenides founded a school of philosophy at Elea, a Greek colony on the Italian peninsula that took the opposite view of Heraclitus when it came to universal stability and change.

  Parmenides held that the universe, or the state of being, is an indivisible, unchanging, spherical entity and that the notion of change or diversity is self-contradictory. All that exists, according to Parmenides, has no beginning and has no end and is not subject to change over time. Nothing, he claimed, can be truly asserted except that “being is.”

  Zeno of Elea, a disciple of Parmenides, tried to prove (though not all that successfully) this unity of being by arguing that the notion change, diversity, and motion leads to logical paradoxes. The paradoxes of Zeno later became famous intellectual puzzles that philosophers and logicians since then have tried to solve.

  The problem of logical consistency, a major concern of the Eleatics, was later to form the basis of the sub-science of logic.

  The Pluralists

  The speculation about the world around us begun by the Ionians was, again, taken up in the 5th century BCE by Empedocles and Anaxagoras, who—putting their heads together—postulated that rather than the Ionian’s single primary substance, there were several.

  Empedocles held that all things are composed of four elements, each irreducible: air, water, earth, and fire (which is another view shared by Buddhism), which are then combined and separated by the two opposing forces of love and strife.

  That, he maintained, is how the world evolves from chaos to form and back to chaos again, in an eternal cycle.

  Empedocles regarded this eternal cycle as the true object of religious worship and denigrated the popular belief in personal deities.

  However, Empedocles, though often asked to, failed to explain how the familiar objects of experience could develop from elements that so different from them.

  Here, Anaxagoras weighed in with the suggestion that all things are, in fact, composed of very small particles, or “seeds,” which exist in infinite variety. To explain how these particles combine to constitute the objects that make up the familiar world, Anaxagoras postulated the existence of a world mind that separates and combines these particles on an ongoing basis.

  It was his concept of elemental particles that eventually led to the atomic theory of matter.

  The Atomists

  It was a natural, and not very large step from pluralism to atomism—the theory that all matter is composed of tiny, indivisible particles differing only in simple physical properties such as size, shape, and weight.

  As I mentioned above, this step was taken in the 4th century BCE by Leucippus and his more famous associate Democritus, who is generally credited with the first systematic formulation of an atomic theory of matter.

  The fundamental postulate of Democritus atomic theory is that matter is not infinitely divisible but is composed of a sea of indivisible particles too small for the human eye (or any other sense, for that matter) to detect.

  Democritus’ view of nature was thoroughly materialistic, explaining, as he did, all natural phenomena purely by the number, shape, and size of atoms. This way he reduced the sensory qualities of things—warmth, cold, taste, and odor—to quantitative differences among atoms, to differences in amount or size.

  To Democritus, there was no spirit or soul. Rather, he explained the higher forms of existence, such as plant and animal life and even human thought, in these purely physical terms as well and applied his atomic theory to not only psychology and physiology, but to theory of knowledge, ethics, and politics as well, and so presented the first comprehensive statement of deterministic materialism—the theory that holds that all aspects of existence are wholly determined by physical laws.

  The ultimate materialist, in other words.

  The Sophists

  Toward the end of the 5th century BCE, a generation of itinerant teachers who came to be known as the Sophists made a name for themselves throughout Greece—especially for their role in the evolution of the Greek city-states from agrarian monarchies into commercial democracies.

  Over the previous century or so, Greek industry and commerce had taken hold and created a class of nouveau riche, economically powerful merchants who by now had begun to wield political power. However, lacking the formal education of the aristocrats (who had little else to do but study things), they sought to prepare themselves (and their offspring) for politics and commerce by paying these Sophists for instruction in public speaking, legal argument, and general culture.

  As with most areas of life, there’s bad with the good, and although the “good” Sophists made valuable contributions to Greek thought, the group as a whole (i.e., the “bad” ones) acquired a reputation for deceit, insincerity, and demagoguery, and this is where we get the word sophistry (meaning false or insincere reasoning) from.

  Protagoras, one of the leading Sophists and, in my view, one of the more reputable (if not entirely “good”) ones, sets the tone of the Sophist school with his famous aphorism, that “man is the measure of all things.” With that he meant that individuals have the right to judge all matters for themselves.

  Indeed, Protagoras denied the existence of objective knowledge, arguing instead that truth is wholly subjective in that different things are true for different people and in that there is no way to prove that one person’s beliefs are objectively correct and another’s are incorrect.

  Pragmatic to the core, Protagoras also asserted that natural science and theology were of little or no value to people because they have no impact on daily life, and he concluded that ethical rules need be followed only when it is to one’s practical
advantage to do so.

  Socrates

  Most everyone has heard of Socrates, possibly the greatest philosophical personality in western history. He lived from 469 to 399 BCE, but left no written works and is, in fact, only known through the writings of his students, especially those of his most famous pupil, Plato.

  Socrates taught by philosophical dialogue, and held that the philosopher’s task was to provoke people into thinking for themselves, rather than to teach them anything they did not already know. This got him in hot water with the parents of those he taught, and he was eventually found guilty of corrupting the minds of youth, and for this he was sentenced to death.

  Even though given a chance to save himself, he refused, and preferred to down the famous hemlock.

  Socrates did not develop a systematic doctrine but, rather, a method of thinking and a way of life. He stressed the need for analytical examination of one’s beliefs, the need for clear definitions of basic concepts, and the need for a rational and critical approach to ethical problems.

  Also, unlike the perhaps a little too pragmatic Sophists, Socrates refused to accept payment for his teachings, maintaining that he had no positive knowledge to offer except the awareness of the need for more personal knowledge.

  Socrates also held—and eagerly pointed out—that in matters of morality, it is best to seek out genuine knowledge by exposing false pretensions. Ignorance, he claimed, is the true source of evil, so it is therefore improper to act out of ignorance or to accept moral instruction from those who have not proven their own wisdom.

  Instead of relying blindly on authority, he maintained, we should unceasingly question our own beliefs and the beliefs of others in order to seek out genuine wisdom. This, of course, is what got him in trouble with the powers that be (whose wisdom, naturally, was unchallengeable).

  Socrates also held, and taught, that every person has within his or her soul, full knowledge of ultimate truth, and needs only to be spurred to conscious reflection to become aware of it. In Plato’s dialogue Meno, for example, Socrates guides an untutored slave to the formulation of the Pythagorean theorem, and so demonstrates that such knowledge is innate in the soul, rather than learned.

  Socrates Cave

  In the famous parable of the cave—which tells of mankind fettered in a dark cave, their backs to the fire that blazes between them and the opening—Socrates shows that the dwellers of this den, gazing at the inner cave wall, see only shadows cast by the fire, which they take to be real, living things. That is, they see only the appearances of material things, not their true nature. Yet, the shadows that they are accustomed to observe appear to them more real than the forms that caused them.

  This is how Plato related this particular exchange between Socrates and his student:

  “And now,” Socrates said, “let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.”

  “I see,” said his student.

  “And do you see,” Socrates said, “men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking others silent.”

  “You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.”

  “Like ourselves,” replied Socrates, who then asked: “And what do they see if not their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?”

  “True,” said his student, “how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”

  “And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?”

  “Of course,” said his student.

  “And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadows?”

  “Yes, no question,” replied the student.

  “To them,” said Socrates, “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images, and the sounds of echoes.”

  “Yes, that is certain.”

  “And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision. What will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?”

  “Far truer.”

  “And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer that the things which are now being shown to him?”

  “True,” his student replied.

  “And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.”

  “Not all in a moment,” said the student.

  “He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and others objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  “Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.”

  “Certainly.”

  “He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and is a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?”

  “Clearly,” said his student. “He would first see the sun and then reason about him.”

  “And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?”

  “Yes, he would.”

  “And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, ‘Better to be t
he poor servant of a poor master,’ and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner again.”

  “Imagine once more,” said Socrates, “such a one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?”

  “To be sure.”

  “And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to lose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.”

  “No question,” he said.

  “This entire allegory,” said Socrates, “you may now append to the previous argument: The prison house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed—whether rightly or wrongly, God knows.

  “But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.”