An Incomplete Education

by Judy Jones

  Two ologies have to do with final affairs. One, eschatology (not to be confused with scatology, a preoccupation with excrement or talking dirty), describes any doctrine or system focused on such end-of-the-line matters as death, the afterlife, immortality, and redemption. William Buckley, for example, has even described Communism as an eschatological system because it deals in a “millennial vision” of peace and equality, en route to which the present is just a way station, life less a process than a partial product.

  The other, teleology, is applied to a belief in, or study of, an overall purpose, design, or end (telos, in the Greek), usually in nature. Teleologists like to invoke results as reasons: Of course the giraffe has a long neck, argued the pre-Darwinian biologist and teleologist, Lamarck; he needs it to reach the tender leaves he feeds on. Teleology tends to thrive in systems structured around the existence of an active God, intent on revelation. And to be treated as anathema by scientists.

  Still with Us?

  Great! Of the isms, by far the most important are the diametrically opposed idealism and materialism, neither of which has its everyday meaning here.

  Idealism stipulates that the nature of reality is completely bound up with mind and consciousness and thought, that your leg and your bandanna and your patriotism and Bruce Springsteen and his leg and his bandanna and his patriotism cannot be dealt with—perceived or proven to exist—except through the activity of your (or somebody’s) knowing mind.

  Materialism maintains that all entities—including everybody and everybody’s leg and everybody’s bandanna and everybody’s patriotism and everybody’s mind— can be explained only in terms of matter and energy, atoms and electrons. Thus had Madonna sung about being a materialist girl, she’d have been casting her vote not for net gloves and dangly earrings but for molecules over perceptions. Which, come to think of it, was more or less what she was doing anyway.

  Rating the Thinkers PLATO (c. 427-c. 347 B.C.)

  Best-Known Works: The Dialogues, especially the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo (a trilogy about the imprisonment and death of Socrates); the Symposium (on the nature of love); and the Republic (on the principles of government).

  Readability: Too bad you were asked to read the Republic at an age when you couldn’t wait to get back to Lord of the Rings. As philosophers go, Plato is a live wire; the Dialogues read like screenplays, complete with sets, props, characters, and, of course, dialogue. True, that ancient Greek frame of reference takes some getting used to but, as with any vintage movie, switching into another mindset is half the fun.

  Qualities of Mind: Abstract, absolutist, imaginative, moralistic, ironic; intellectually better equipped to walk on water than build bridges.

  Catchphrases: The allegory of the cave, philosopher-kings, the life that is unexamined is not worth living.

  Influence: Metaphysics on a grand scale, from the world’s greatest rationalist. Postulated the existence of a supreme order of archetypal, universal ideas, or pure Forms, of which all our existing forms and ideas are only cheap, transitory reflections; these paradigmatic Forms are independent of, and inaccessible to, sensory experience, and are graspable only through the power of the mind. Plato’s confidence in the possibility of reasoning or conceptualizing one’s way to Truth, together with his mistrust of knowledge obtained through the senses, pretty much defines philosophical rationalism, then and now. He is also our only source—albeit an unreliable one—for the teachings of Socrates.

  Personal Gossip: A rich young aristocrat who could afford to spend his time contemplating pure ideas. His real name was Aristocles; Plato was a nickname meaning “broad,” which may have referred to his forehead, his waistline, or the scope of his ideas. And yes, he was probably gay.

  Current Standing: Some contemporary philosophers would agree with Alfred North Whitehead’s remark that “philosophy is only a series of footnotes to Plato.” (But then, no one can appreciate a philosopher-mathematician like another philosopher-mathematician.) Neither empiricists nor fitness buffs much go for his denigration of sensory experience, however, and, for much of the twentieth century, Aristotle, a nuts-and-bolts type, seemed more acceptable to the modern mind. ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)

  Best-Known Works: Organon, Physics, Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics.

  Readability: If you enjoy reading leases, you’ll love Aristotle; every thought is examined in detail and every detail meticulously numbered. To be fair, you should remember that his only extant works are treatises that were probably intended as lecture notes; his early popular works have been lost.

  Qualities of Mind: Lucid, learned, practical, didactic, analytical, versatile. Dante called him “the master of those who know.”

  Catchphrases: The Golden Mean, the Unmoved Mover, the Dramatic Unities (of action, time, and place), entelechy (in dictionary terms, “the condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized,” or, to paraphrase the Army, “Being all that you can be”), catharsis.

  Influence: The roots of modern science and, probably, Western civilization. Discarded Plato’s abstractions in favor of observation and analysis of the physical world. Systematically studied and categorized virtually everything: astronomy, physics, anatomy, physiology, psychology, natural history, political science, rhetoric, art, theology, whatever. Planted the ideas of the pursuit of happiness (a thoroughly modern, success-oriented morality, which tacitly relegates virtue to the level of a means to an end) and the Golden Mean (or “moderation in all things,” a doctrine that, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, appeals mainly to the respectable middle-aged). Established the West’s first, and until recently only, systematic study of logic. Still associated with modern concepts of scientific analysis, although many of his conclusions put scientists on the wrong track for a couple thousand years.

  Personal Gossip: Student of Plato (remember the order: Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle); teacher of Alexander the Great, who apparently didn’t pay much attention to him.

  Current Standing: Plato’s opposite number and of the two, the top dog in a science-minded age. SAINT AUGUSTINE (A.D. 354-430)

  Best-Known Works: Confessions, The City of God.

  Readability: Not difficult, exactly, but after reading seven pages on the wickedness of stealing a pear, or two chapters on the putative differences between good demons and bad demons, you may decide you’d rather spend your time discussing, say, fluoridation of the water supply with someone closer to your own age.

  Qualities of Mind: Scholarly, fevered, guilt-ridden, dogmatic, idealistic.

  Catchphrases: City of God, city of man.

  Influence: Cornerstone of the Christian Church; attempted a rational defense of Christianity in light of the fall of the Roman Empire and tried to fit all of history into a Christian framework. Sometimes called the founder of theology. Gave us ideas of separation of Church and State and of history as progression toward a goal. Biggest influence on Christian thinking, and especially on Roman Catholicism, after St. Paul. Wrote the first self-analytical autobiography, precursor of the genre as well as of the modern introspective novel.

  Personal Gossip: Had a long-term mistress and an illegitimate child before his mother, St. Monica, finally talked him into becoming a Christian.

  Current Standing: Out of date, but he had soul. Admired by Platonists (since he was an outspoken Plato fan himself) and by contemporary Protestant theologians in search of “the essence” of Christianity. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)

  Best-Known Works: Summa Theologica, Summa Contra Gentiles.

  Readability: Elaborate and extremely formal; do not drive or operate heavy machinery while reading.

  Qualities of Mind: Learned, dogged, systematic, analytical; they didn’t call him “The Prince of Scholastics” for nothing.

  Catchphrase: His epithet, “The Angelic Doctor.”

  Influence: Constructed the second great synthesis of Christian thinking, which superseded Augustine’s as of the thirteenth century. Championed Aristotle, as
opposed to Plato, and based his theology more on concrete analysis of this world than on irrational faith in the next. Reinterpreted Aristotle’s ideas in Christian terms. Effected the classic integration of reason and revelation, proved conclusively the existence of God, and split hairs more brilliantly and systematically than nearly all his Scholastic colleagues. Provided the Catholic Church with much of its official dogma, then and now.

  Personal Gossip: When he was a teenager, his mother had him locked up for two years to prevent him from becoming a Dominican monk. He escaped and joined the order anyway. He later became very famous and very fat.

  Current Standing: A lesson in the rewards of thoroughness; beyond that, unless you’re a Catholic priest, take him with a grain of salt. NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)

  Best-Known Works: The Prince, Discourses.

  Readability: A piece of cake; Machiavelli was forced to earn his living as a writer, so he understood the importance of keeping his audience awake.

  Qualities of Mind: Shrewd, pragmatic, insightful, cynical.

  Catchphrase: The chief foundations of all states are good laws and good arms.

  Influence: Revolutionized political philosophy and shocked idealists by adopting a purely secular, scientific perspective toward statecraft; left out questions of morality altogether in order to focus, reporterlike, on what was, not what should have been. Wrote the classic how-to book for aspirants to power (The Prince). Based principles of government on the assumptions that man is fundamentally bad and that the end justifies the means. Was the rare philosopher whose name became a household word, in his case, synonymous with deception, unscrupulousness, and cunning.

  Personal Gossip: A politician himself (as well as author and historian), Machiavelli wrote The Prince in an unsuccessful attempt to curry favor with the reigning Medici, who didn’t like him and who probably never read it. (Among those who did read it: Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin.) For a more balanced and more honest picture of his ideas, read the Discourses.

  Current Standing: His political views are more acceptable in our era than in any since his own; nowadays anyone who disagrees with him is assumed to be hypocritical or naïve. Considered a first-rate social scientist, but as a pure thinker, superficial, inconsistent, and generally shaky. RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650)

  Best-Known Works: Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy.

  Readability: Rolls right along; philosophy with a sense of style for a change. Descartes writes like an intelligent adult addressing other intelligent adults. His prose, some say, is to the French language what the King James Bible is to English.

  Qualities of Mind: Sophisticated, independent, lucid, methodical, individualistic.

  Catchphrase: Cogito ergo sum.

  Influence: Marks the point at which the world decided to go modern. Was determined to make a clean sweep of all the comfortable old assumptions, to take nobody’s word for anything, to doubt everything in order to find something he could be sure of. Came up with the famous bottom line, “I think, therefore I am.” Built a philosophical system based on deductive reasoning and a priori truths, the basis for seventeenth-century Rationalism. Believed in innate ideas, ones that do not come to us through experience. As a mathematician, came up with the idea for analytic geometry and the mind-set behind the scientific method. Insisted on the complete separation of mind and matter (which would later split philosophy—not to mention personality—into warring camps) and on the purely mechanistic nature of the physical world.

  Personal Gossip: Who can gossip about a mathematician? This was the kind of guy who would move rather than allow his friends to drop by and interrupt his train of thought.

  Current Standing: Seminal figure of modern philosophy; usually off-base (who says “I am” just because “I think,” and how do I know I think, anyway?) but always inspiring. JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

  Best-Known Works: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Second Treatise on Government.

  Readability: Boring but bearable; like reading the Declaration of Independence, which, in fact, borrowed from his phraseology as well as from his ideas.

  Qualities of Mind: Modest, sensible, utilitarian, tolerant.

  Catchphrases: The mind as tabula rasa (blank page), the system of checks and balances, the labor theory of value, laissez-faire, the rights of man, “Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas.”

  Influence: As a political philosopher, was the theoretical architect of what we call democracy; gave us basic liberal ideals (the primacy of the pursuit of happiness, the belief in the natural rights of man) and specific principles of government (majority rule, checks and balances). As a pure philosopher, was the first to make a really big deal out of epistemology, of how we know things. Pioneered modern empiricism, a vehement rebuttal of the Rationalist school of philosophy that ruled the day (see previous page), declaring that the mind at birth is tabula rasa, that there are no such things as innate ideas, that all ideas come to us through our senses from the material world—a science-oriented way of thinking that opted for limited, but immediately usable, knowledge of everyday reality.

  Personal Gossip: A physician who came to prominence, politically and philosophically, when he chose the winning side (William of Orange) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

  Current Standing: No towering intellect, just an eminently reasonable man with a head full of ideas whose time had come. A propounder of popular, rather than profound, political theories, the validity of which depend largely on how one feels about liberal democracy. BARUCH SPINOZA (1632-1677)

  Best-Known Work: Ethics.

  Readability: Just conquered the Matterhorn? Looking for a challenge? Welcome to Ethics, a deadly morass of Euclidean definitions, axioms, theorems, and demonstrations of the impossible. Too bad; Spinoza could be a rather eloquent writer. We’re told that if you can get through the whole thing—twice—it starts to grow on you.

  Qualities of Mind: Analytical, realistic, idealistic, mystical, rational, patient, rigorous, determined.

  Catchphrases: Sub specie aeternitatis (in the light of eternity); all determination is negation.

  Influence: The world’s most sensible mystic. Constructed the first thoroughly logical, consistent metaphysical system and made the first attempt at an objective, scientific study of human behavior. Carried all arguments to their logical conclusions, even when those conclusions meant trouble. A pantheist and a pure determinist, who believed, as all good mystics do, in the oneness of the universe, in the supremacy of immutable natural law, in the necessity of learning to go with the flow. Had no followers, but his freethinking religious views helped pave the way for the Enlightenment.

  Personal Gossip: Excommunicated (and formally cursed with all the curses of Deuteronomy) by the Jewish community in Holland for refusing to keep his heretical thoughts to himself. Socially ostracized, he earned his living as a lens grinder, wrote philosophy on the side, and is best remembered for behaving, all the way to his deathbed, like a saint.

  Current Standing: Nobody doesn’t like Spinoza; he was smart, hardworking, and holy, one of the few intellectuals on record to have actually lived by his beliefs. Bertrand Russell called him “the most lovable of philosophers.” On the other hand, the idea of bowing quietly to Natural Law has never been big box office in the West. GOTTFRIED WILHELM VON LEIBNIZ

  (1646-1716)

  Best-Known Works: Monadology, Principles of Nature and of Grace, Theodicy.

  Readability: Uninviting: dry, precise, businesslike; moves fast and seems likely to snap at you if you can’t keep up.

  Qualities of Mind: Rigorous, dynamic, logical, systematic, concise, humorless.

  Catchphrases: Windowless monads, preestablished harmony; also Voltaire’s parodistic phrase “This is the best of all possible worlds.”

  Influence: One of the great “Continental Rationalists,” mainstream thinkers of the seventeenth century. Invented infinitesimal calculus, founded the first system o
f symbolic logic, furthered the development of exact logical analysis. A metaphysician in the tradition of Descartes, he created the famous analogy of the Cartesian Clocks, which postulates that mind and body do not interact, but only seem to, because they are synchronized by God. Publicly espoused a philosophy that was pious, logical, and somewhat simpleminded, for which he was caricatured as Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide. Secretly spent his life trying to perfect a brilliant, complex mathematical system that aimed at replacing thought with calculation.