THE PHILOSOPHERS OF ATHENS (_continued_).
THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL (_continued_).
PLATO.
We have seen that the advent of Socrates marks a new era in the history
of speculative thought. Greek philosophy, which at first was a
philosophy of nature, now changes its direction, its character, and its
method, and becomes a philosophy of mind. This, of course, does not mean
that now it had mind alone for its object; on the contrary, it tended,
as indeed philosophy must always tend, to the conception of a rational
ideal or _intellectual system of the universe_. It started from the
phenomena of mind, began with the study of human thought, and it made
the knowledge of mind, of its ideas and laws, the basis of a higher
philosophy, which should interpret all nature. In other words, it
proceeded from psychology, through dialectics, to ontology.[487]
[Footnote 487: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
p. 413.]
This new movement we have designated in general terms as the _Socratic
School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense,
Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the
Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the
locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the
scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood
still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might
be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly
discussing the great questions of the day.
Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He
is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect,
expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the
streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every
bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered
no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those
who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his
spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated
and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.
Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who
were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as
Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were
politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were
young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were
compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to
admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he
wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by
Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners,
however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who
imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of
philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the
dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting
impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their
systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato
and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to
be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.
[Footnote 488: "Banquet," §§ 39, 40.]
Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to
Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to
the day of his death.
Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found
an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and
flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him
who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato,
and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his
dream.[489]
[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
ch. vii.]
Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed
from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the
air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was
living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he
was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of
Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that
beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the
eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason
is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to
observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of
consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as
the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and
exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this
philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the
problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness,
and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all
real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.
Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the
possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the
character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit,
that earnestness and rectitude of purpose, that longing after truth,
that inward sympathy with, and reverence for justice, and purity, and
goodness, which dwelt in the heart of Socrates, and which constrained
him to believe in their reality and permanence. He could not endure the
thought that all ideas of right were arbitrary and factitious, that all
knowledge was unreal, that truth was a delusion, and certainty a dream.
The world of sense might be fleeting and delusive, but the voice of
reason and conscience would not mislead the upright man. The opinions of
individual men might vary, but the universal consciousness of the race
could not prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men
concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato
was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are
universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may
endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not
always last; they must perish. The _just_ thing and the _true_ thing are
the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime
conviction that his mission was to draw the Athenian mind away from the
fleeting, the transitory, and the uncertain, and lead them to the
contemplation of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Justice, an Eternal
Beauty, all proceeding from and united in an Eternal Being--the ultimate
agathon--_the Supremely Good_. The knowledge of this "Supreme Good" he
regarded as the highest science.[490]
[Footnote 490: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xvi. p. 193.]
Added to these moral qualifications, Plato had the further qualification
of a comprehensive knowledge of all that had been achieved by his
predecessors. In this regard he had enjoyed advantages superior to those
of Socrates. Socrates was deficient in erudition, properly so called. He
had studied men rather than books. His wisdom consisted in an extensive
_observation_, the results of which he had generalized with more or less
accuracy. A complete philosophic method demands not only a knowledge of
contemporaneous opinions and modes of thought, but also a knowledge of
the succession and development of thought in past ages. Its instrument
is not simply psychological analysis, but also historical analysis as a
counterproof.[491] And this erudition Plato supplied. He studied
carefully the doctrines of the Ionian, Italian, and Eleatic schools.
Cratylus gave him special instruction in the theories of
Heraclitus.[492] He secured an intimate acquaintance with the lofty
speculations of Pythagoras, under Archytas of Tarentum, and in the
writings of Philolaus, whose books he is said to have purchased. He
studied the principles of Parmenides under Hermogenes,[493] and he more
than once speaks of Parmenides in terms of admiration, as one whom he
had early learned to reverence.[494] He studied mathematics under
Theodoras, the most eminent geometrician of his day. He travelled in
Southern Italy, in Sicily, and, in search of a deeper wisdom, he pursued
his course to Egypt.[495] Enriched by the fruits of all previous
speculations, he returned to Athens, and devoted the remainder of his
life to the development of a comprehensive system "which was to combine,
to conciliate, and to supersede them all."[496] The knowledge he had
derived from travel, from books, from oral instruction, he fused and
blended with his own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellowed
the whole, and gave to it a unity and scientific completeness which has
excited the admiration and wonder of succeeding ages.[497]
[Footnote 491: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
p. 31.]
[Footnote 492: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.]
[Footnote 493: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
ch. viii. p. 115.]
[Footnote 494: See especially "Theætetus," § 101.]
[Footnote 495: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
147.]
[Footnote 496: Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p.
22.]
[Footnote 497: Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Plato."]
The question as to _the nature, the sources, and the validity of human
knowledge_ had attracted general attention previous to the time of
Socrates and Plato. As the results of this protracted controversy, the
opinions of philosophers had finally crystallized in two well-defined
and opposite theories of knowledge.
1. That which reduced all knowledge to the accidental and passively
receptive quality of the organs of sense and which asserted, as its
fundamental maxim, that "_Science consists in_
aisthêsis--_sensation_."[498]
This doctrine had its foundation in the physical philosophy of
Heraclitus. He had taught that all things are in a perpetual flux and
change. "Motion gives the appearance of existence and of generation."
"Nothing _is_, but is always a _becoming"_[499] Material substances are
perpetually losing their identity, and there is no permanent essence or
being to be found. Hence Protagoras inferred that truth must vary with
the ever-varying sensations of the individual. "Man (the individual) is
the measure of all things." Knowledge is a purely relative thing, and
every man's opinion is truth for him.[500] The law of right, as
exemplified in the dominion of a party, is the law of the strongest;
fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining a permanent
being. "Whatever a city enacts as appearing just to itself, this also is
just to the city that enacts it, so long as it continues in force."[501]
"The just, then, is nothing else but that which is expedient for the
strongest."[502]
[Footnote 498: "Theætetus," § 23.]
[Footnote 499: Ibid., §§ 25, 26.]
[Footnote 500: Ibid., §§ 39, 87.]
[Footnote 501: Ibid., § 87.]
[Footnote 502: "Republic," bk. i. ch. xii.]
2. The second theory is that which denies the existence (except as
phantasms, images, or mere illusions of the mind) of the whole of
sensible phenomena, and refers all knowledge to the _rational
apperception of unity_ (to en) _or the One_.
This was the doctrine of the later Eleatics. The world of sense was, to
Parmenides and Zeno, a blank negation, the _non ens_. The identity of
thought and existence was the fundamental principle of their philosophy.
"Thought is the same thing as the cause of thought; For
without the thing in which it is announced, You can not find
the thought; for there is nothing, nor shall be, Except the
existing."[503]
[Footnote 503: Parmenides, quoted in Lewes's "Biog. History of
Philosophy," p. 54.]
This theory, therefore, denied to man any valid knowledge of the
external world.
It will at once be apparent to the intelligent reader that the direct
and natural result of both these theories[504] of knowledge was a
tendency to universal skepticism. A spirit of utter indifference to
truth and righteousness was the prevailing spirit of Athenian society.
That spirit is strikingly exhibited in the speech of Callicles, "the
shrewd man of the world," in "Gorgias" (§85, 86). Is this new to our
ears?" My dear Socrates, you talk of _law_. Now the laws, in my
judgment, are just the work of the weakest and most numerous; in framing
them they never thought but of themselves and their own interests; they
never approve or censure except in reference to _this._ Hence it is that
the cant arises that tyranny is improper and unjust, and to struggle for
eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to
preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the
stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with
preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense
tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I
confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation,
and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your
philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like
very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about
it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the
child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this
prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals.
The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the
young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society
generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that
Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of
his age from ruin."[505]
[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered
two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of
human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists
in right opinion_" (doxa alêthês), but having no further basis in the
reason of man ("Theæstetus," § 108); and the other affirming that
"_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_"
(meta loxou, "Theætetus," § 139). A close examination will, however,
convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory.
The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds
"reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no
criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are
connatural and inborn.]
[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]
Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times,
as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the
midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is
there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes
around us and within us, is there nothing that is immutable and
permanent? Have we no ultimate standard of Right? Is there no criterion
of Truth? Plato believed most confidently there was such a criterion and
standard. He had learned from Socrates, his master, to cherish an
unwavering faith in the existence of an Eternal Truth, an Eternal Order,
an Eternal Good, the knowledge of which is essential to the perfection
and happiness of man, and which knowledge must therefore be presumed to
be attainable by man. Henceforth, therefore, the ceaseless effort of
Plato's life is to attain a standard (kritêrion)[506]--a CRITERION OF
TRUTH.
[Footnote 506: "Theætetus," § 89.]
At the outset of his philosophic studies, Plato had derived from
Socrates an important principle, which became the guide of all his
subsequent inquiries. He had learned from him that the criterion of
truth must be no longer sought amid the ever-changing phenomena of the
"sensible world." This had been attempted by the philosophers of the
Ionian school, and ended in failure and defeat. It must therefore be
sought in the metaphenomenal--the "intelligible world;" that is, it must
be sought in the apperceptions of the reason, and not in opinions
founded on sensation. In other words, he must look _within_. Here, by
reflection, he could recognize, dimly and imperfectly at first, but
increasing gradually in clearness and distinctness, two classes of
cognitions, having essentially distinct and opposite characteristics. He
found one class that was complex (synkegumenon), changeable (thateron),
contingent and relative (ta pros ti schesin echonta); the other, simple
(kexôrismenon), unchangeable (akinêton), constant (tauton), permanent
(to on aei), and absolute (anypotheton = aploun). One class that may be
questioned, the other admitting of no question, because self-evident and
necessary, and therefore compelling belief. One class grounded on
sense-perception, the other conceived by reason alone. But whilst the
reason recognizes, it does not create them. They are not particular and
individual, but universal. They belong not to the man, but to the race.
He found, then, that there are in all minds certain "principles" which
are fundamental--principles which lie at the basis of all our cognitions
of the objective world, and which, as "mental laws," determine all our
forms of thought; and principles, too, which have this marvellous and
undeniable character, that they are encountered in the most common
experiences, and, at the same time, instead of being circumscribed
within the limits of experience, transcend and govern it--principles
which are _universal_ in the midst of particular phenomena--_necessary,_
though mingled with things contingent--to our eyes _infinite_ and
_absolute_, even when appearing in us the relative and finite beings
that we are.[507] These first or fundamental principles Plato called
IDEAS (ideai).
[Footnote 507: Cousin's "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," p. 40.]
In attempting to present to the reader an adequate representation of the
Platonic Ideas, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating some of
the results of his Dialectical method before we have expounded that
method. And, further, in order that it may be properly appreciated by
the modern student, we shall avail ourselves of the lights which modern
psychology, faithful to the method of Plato, has thrown upon the
subject. Whilst, however, we admit that modern psychology has succeeded
in giving more definiteness and precision to the "doctrine of Ideas," we
shall find that all that is fundamentally valuable and true was present
to the mind of Plato. Whatever superiority the "Spiritual" philosophy of
to-day may have over the philosophy of past ages, it has attained that
superiority by its adherence to the principles and method of Plato.
In order to the completeness of our preliminary exposition of the
Platonic doctrine of Ideas, we shall conditionally assume, as a natural
and legitimate hypothesis, the doctrine so earnestly asserted by Plato,
that the visible universe, at least in its present form, is an _effect_
which must have had a _cause_,[508] and that the Order, and Beauty, and
Excellence of the universe are the result of the presence and operation
of a "regulating Intelligence"--a _Supreme Mind_.[509] Now that,
anterior to the creation of the universe, there must have existed in the
Eternal Mind certain fundamental principles of Order, Right, and Good,
will not be denied. Every conceivable _form_, every possible _relation_,
every principle of _right_, must have been eternally present to the
Divine thought. As pure intelligence, the Deity must have always been
self-conscious--must have known himself as substance and cause, as the
Infinite and Perfect. If then the Divine Energy is put forth in creative
acts, that energy must obey those eternal principles of Order, Right,
and Good. If the Deity operate at all, he must operate rightly, wisely,
and well. The created universe must be an _image_, in the sphere of
sense, of the ideas which inhere in the reason of the great First Cause.
[Footnote 508: "Timæus," ch. ix.]
[Footnote 509: "Phædo," § 105.]
"Let us declare," says Plato, "with what _motive_ the Creator hath
formed nature and the universe. He was _good_, and in the good no manner
of envy can, on any subject, possibly subsist. Exempt from envy, he had
wished that all things should, as far as possible, _resemble
himself_.... It was not, and is not to be allowed for the Supremely Good
to do any thing except what is most _excellent_ (kalliston)--most
_fair_, most _beautiful_."[510] Therefore, argues Plato, "inasmuch as
the world is the most beautiful of things, and its artificer the best of
causes, it is evident that the Creator and Father of the universe looked
to the _Eternal Model_(paradeigma), pattern, or plan,"[511] which lay in
his own mind. And thus this one, only-generated universe, is the _image_
(eikôn) of that God who is the object of the intellect, the greatest,
the best, and the most perfect Being.[512]
[Footnote 510: "Timæus," ch. x.]
[Footnote 511: Ibid., ch. ix.]
[Footnote 512: "Timæus," ch. lxxiii.]
And then, furthermore, if this Supreme Intelligence, this Eternal Mind,
shall create another _mind_, it must, in a still higher degree, resemble
him. Inasmuch as it is a rational nature, it must, in a peculiar sense,
partake of the Divine characteristics. "The soul," says Plato, "is that
which most partakes of the _Divine_"[513] The soul must, therefore, have
native _ideas_ and sentiments which correlate it with the Divine
original. The ideas of substance and cause, of unity and identity, of
the infinite and perfect, must be mirrored there. As it is the
"offspring of God,"[514] it must bear some traces and lineaments of its
Divine parentage. That soul must be configured and correlated to those
principles of Order, Right, and Good which dwell in the Eternal Mind.
And because it has within itself the same ideas and laws, according to
which the great Architect built the universe, therefore it is capable of
knowing, and, in some degree, of comprehending, the intellectual system
of the universe. It apprehends the external world by a light which the
reason supplies. It interprets nature according to principles and laws
which God has inwrought within the very essence of the soul. "That which
imparts truth to knowable things, and gives the knower his power of
knowing truth, is the _idea of the good_, and you are to conceive of
this as the source of knowledge and of truth."[515]
[Footnote 513: "Laws," bk. v. ch. i.]
[Footnote 514: Ibid., bk. x.]
[Footnote 515: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
And now we are prepared to form a clear conception of the Platonic
doctrine of Ideas. Viewed in their relation to the Eternal Reason, as
giving the primordial thought and law of all being, these principles are
simply eidê auta kath auta--_ideas in themselves_--the essential
qualities or attributes of Him who is the supreme and ultimate Cause of
all existence. When regarded as before the Divine imagination, giving
definite forms and relations, they are the tupoi, the paradeigmata--_the
types_, _models, patterns, ideals_ according to which the universe was
fashioned. Contemplated in their actual embodiment in the laws, and
typical forms of the material world, they are eikones--_images_ of the
eternal perfections of God. The world of sense pictures the world of
reason by a participation (methexis) of the ideas. And viewed as
interwoven in the very texture and framework of the soul, they are
omoiômata--copies of the Divine Ideas which are the primordial laws of
knowing, thinking, and reasoning. Ideas are thus the nexus of relation
between God and the visible universe, and between the human and the
Divine reason.[516] There is something divine in the world, and in the
human soul, namely, _the eternal laws and reasons of things_, mingled
with the endless diversity and change of sensible phenomena. These ideas
are "the light of the intelligible world;" they render the invisible
world of real Being perceptible to the reason of man. "Light is the
offspring of the Good, which the Good has produced in his own likeness.
Light in the visible world is what the _idea of the Good_ is in the
intelligible world. And this offspring of the Good--light--has the same
relation to vision and visible things which the Good has to intellect
and intelligible things."[517]
[Footnote 516: "Now, Idea is, as regards God, a mental operation by him
(the notions of God, eternal and perfect in themselves); as regards us,
the first things perceptible by mind; as regards Matter, a standard; but
as regards the world, perceptible by sense, a pattern; but as considered
with reference to itself, an existence."--Alcinous, "Introduction to the
Doctrines of Plato," p. 261.
"What general notions are to our minds, he (Plato) held, ideas are to
the Supreme Reason (nous basileus); they are the eternal thoughts of the
Divine Intellect, and we attain truth when our thoughts conform with
His--when our general notions are in conformity with the
ideas."--Thompson, "Laws of Thought," p. 119.]
[Footnote 517: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xix.]
_Science_ is, then, according to Plato, _the knowledge of universal,
necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas_. The simple cognition of the
concrete phenomena of the universe is not regarded by him as _real_
knowledge. "Science, or real knowledge, belongs to _Being_, and
ignorance to _non_-Being." Whilst that which is conversant only "with
that which partakes of both--of being and non-being--and which can not
be said either to be or not to be"--that which is perpetually
"becoming," but never "really is," is "simply _opinion_, and not real
knowledge."[518] And those only are "philosophers" who have a knowledge
of the _really-existing_, in opposition to the mere seeming; of the
_always-existing_, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
exists _permanently_, in opposition to that which waxes and wanes--is
developed and destroyed alternately. "Those who recognize many beautiful
things, but who can not see the Beautiful itself, and can not even
follow those who would lead them to it, they _opine_, but do not _know_.
And the same may be said of those who recognize right actions, but do
not recognize an absolute righteousness. And so of other ideas. But they
who look at these ideas--permanent and unchangeable ideas--these men
_really know_."[519] Those are the true philosophers alone who love the
sight of truth, and who have attained to the vision of the eternal
order, and righteousness, and beauty, and goodness in the Eternal Being.
And the means by which the soul is raised to this vision of real Being
(to ontôs on) is THE SCIENCE OF REAL KNOWLEDGE.
Plato, in the "Theætetus," puts this question by the interlocutor
Socrates, "What is Science (Epistêmê) or positive knowledge?"[520]
Theætetus essays a variety of answers, such as, "Science is sensation,"
"Science is right judgment or opinion," "Science is right opinion with
logical definition." These, in the estimation of the Platonic Socrates,
are all unsatisfactory and inadequate. But after you have toiled to the
end of this remarkable discussion, in which Socrates demolishes all the
then received theories of knowledge, he gives you no answer of his own.
He abruptly closes the discussion by naïvely remarking that, at any
rate, Theætetus will learn that he does not understand the subject; and
the ground is now cleared for an original investigation.
[Footnote 518: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xx.]
[Footnote 519: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
[Footnote 520: "Theætetus," § 10.]
This investigation is resumed in the "Republic." This greatest work of
Plato's was designed not only to exhibit a scheme of Polity, and present
a system of Ethics, but also, at least in its digressions, to propound a
system of Metaphysics more complete and solid than had yet appeared. The
discussion as to the _powers_ or _faculties_ by which we obtain
knowledge, the _method_ or _process_ by which real knowledge is
attained, and the ultimate _objects_ or _ontological grounds_ of all
real knowledge, commences at § 18, book v., and extends to the end of
book vii.
That we may reach a comprehensive view of this "sublimest of sciences,"
we shall find it necessary to consider--
1st. _What are the powers or faculties by which we obtain knowledge, and
what are the limits and degrees of human knowledge?_
2d. _What is the method in which, or the processes and laws according to
which, the mind operates in obtaining knowledge?_
3d. _What are the ultimate results attained by this method? what are the
objective and ontological grounds of all real knowledge?_
The answer to the first question will give the PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY; the
answer to the second will exhibit the PLATONIC DIALECTIC; the answer to
the last will reveal the PLATONIC ONTOLOGY.
I. PLATONIC PSYCHOLOGY.
Every successful inquiry as to the reality and validity of human
knowledge must commence by clearly determining, by rigid analysis, what
are the actual phenomena presented in consciousness, what are the powers
or faculties supposed by these phenomena, and what reliance are we to
place upon the testimony of these faculties? And, especially, if it be
asserted that there is a science of absolute Reality, of ultimate and
essential Being, then the most important and vital question is, By what
power do we cognize real Being? through what faculty do we obtain the
knowledge of that which absolutely _is_? If by sensation we only obtain
the knowledge of the fleeting and the transitory, "_the becoming_" how
do we attain to the knowledge of the unchangeable and permanent, "the
_Being_?" Have we a faculty of universal, necessary, and eternal
principles? Have we a faculty, an interior eye which beholds "_the
intelligible_," ideal, spiritual world, as the eye of sense beholds the
visible or "_sensible world_?"[521]
Plato commences this inquiry by first defining his understanding of the
word dynamis--_power_ or _faculty_. "We will say _faculties_ (dynameis)
are a certain kind of real existences by which we can do whatever we are
able (_e.g._, to know), as there are powers by which every thing does
what it does: the eye has a _power_ of seeing; the ear has a _power_ of
hearing. But these powers (of which I now speak) have no color or figure
to which I can so refer that I can distinguish one power from another.
_In order to make such distinction, I must look at the power itself, and
see what it is, and what it does. In that way I discern the power of
each thing, and that is the same power which produces the same effect,
and that is a different power which produces a different effect_."[522]
That which is employed about, and accomplishes one and the same purpose,
this Plato calls a _faculty_.
[Footnote 521: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xviii.]
[Footnote 522: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi.]
We have seen that our first conceptions (_i.e._, first in the order of
time) are of the mingled, the concrete (to synkechymenon), "the
multiplicity of things to which the multitude ascribe beauty, etc.[523]
The mind "contemplates what is great and small, not as distinct from
each other, but as confused.[524] Prior to the discipline of
_reflection_, men are curious about mere sights and sounds, love
beautiful voices, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, but their
intelligence can not see, can not embrace, the essential nature of the
Beautiful itself.[525] Man's condition previous to the education of
philosophy is vividly presented in Plato's simile of the cave.[526] He
beholds only the images and shadows of the ectypal world, which are but
dim and distant adumbrations of the real and archetypal world.
Primarily nothing is given in the abstract (to kegôrismenon), but every
thing in the concrete. The primary faculties of the mind enter into
action spontaneously and simultaneously; all our primary notions are
consequently synthetic. When reflection is applied to this primary
totality of consciousness, that is, when we analyze our notions, we find
them composed of diverse and opposite elements, some of which are
variable, contingent, individual, and relative, others are permanent,
unchangeable, universal, necessary, and absolute. Now these elements, so
diverse, so opposite, can not have been obtained from the same source;
they must be supplied by separate powers. "Can any man with common sense
reduce under one what _is infallible_, and what is _not
infallible?_"[527] Can that which is "_perpetually becoming_" be
apprehended by the same faculty as that which "_always is?_"[528] Most
assuredly not.
[Footnote 523: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.]
[Footnote 524: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. viii.]
[Footnote 525: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xx.]
[Footnote 526: Ibid., bk. vii. ch. i., ii.]
[Footnote 527: "Republic," bk. v. ch. xxi.]
[Footnote 528: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxii.; also "Timæus," § 9.]
These primitive intuitions--the simple perceptions of sense, and the _à
priori_ intuitions of the reason, which constitute the elements of all
our complex notions, have essentially _diverse objects_--the sensible or
ectypal world, seen by the eye and touched by the hand, which Plato
calls doxastên--_the subject of opinion_; and the noetic or archetypal
world, perceived by reason, and which he calls dianontikên--_the subject
of rational intuition or science_. "It is plain," therefore, argues
Plato, "that _opinion_ is a different thing from _science_. They must,
therefore, have a different _faculty_ in reference to a different
object--science as regards that which _is_, so as to know the nature of
real _being_--opinion as regards that which can not be said absolutely
to be, or not to be. That which is known and that which is opined can
not possibly be the same,... since they are naturally faculties of
different things, and both of them are faculties--_opinion_ and
_science_, and each of them different from the other."[529] Here then
are two grand divisions of the mental powers--a faculty of apprehending
universal and necessary Truth, of intuitively beholding absolute
Reality, and a faculty of perceiving sensible objects, and of judging
according to appearance.
[Footnote 529: Ibid., bk. v. ch. xxi., xxii.]
According to the scheme of Plato, these two general divisions of the
mental powers are capable of a further subdivision. He says: Consider
that there are two kinds of things, the _intelligible_ and the
_visible_; two different regions, the intelligible world and the
sensible world. Now take a line divided into two equal segments to
represent these two regions, and again divide each segment in the same
ratio--both that of the visible and that of the intelligible species.
The parts of each segment are to represent differences of clearness and
indistinctness. In the visible world the parts are _things_ and
_images_. By _images_ I mean shadows,[530] reflections in water and in
polished bodies, and all such like representations; and by _things_ I
mean that of which images are resemblances, as animals, plants, and
things made by man.
You allow that this difference corresponds to the difference of
_knowledge_ and _opinion_; and the _opinionable_ is to the _knowable_ as
the _image_ to the _reality_.[531]
[Footnote 530: As in the simile of the cave ("Republic," bk. vii. ch. i.
and ii.).]
[Footnote 531: The analogy between the "images produced by reflections
in water and on polished surfaces" and "the images of external objects
produced in the mind by sensation" is more fully presented in the
"Timæus," ch. 19.
The eye is a light-bearer, "made of that part of elemental fire which
does not burn, but sheds a mild light, like the light of day.... When
the light of the day meets the light which beams from the eye, then
light meets like, and make a homogeneous body; the external light
meeting the internal light, in the direction in which the eye looks. And
by this homogeneity like feels like; and if this beam touches any
object, or any object touches it, it transmits the motions through the
body to the soul, and produces that sensation which we call _seeing_....
And if (in sleep) some of the strong motions remain in some part of the
frame, they produce within us likenesses of external objects,... and
thus give rise to dreams.... As to the images produced by mirrors and by
smooth surfaces, they are now easily explained, for all such phenomena
result from the mutual affinity of the external and internal fires. The
light that proceeds from the face (as an object of vision), and the
light that proceeds from the eye, become one continuous ray on the
smooth surface."]
Now we have to divide the segment which represents intelligible things
in this way: The one part represents the knowledge which the mind gets
by using things as images--the other; that which it has by dealing with
the ideas themselves; the one part that which it gets by reasoning
downward from principles--the other, the principles themselves; the one
part, truth which depends on hypotheses--the other, unhypothetical or
absolute truth.
Thus, to explain a problem in geometry, the geometers make certain
hypotheses (namely, definitions and postulates) about numbers and
angles, and the like, and reason from them--giving no reason for their
assumptions, but taking them as evident to all; and, reasoning from
them, they prove the propositions which they have in view. And in such
reasonings, they use visible figures or diagrams--to reason about a
square, for instance, with its diagonals; but these reasonings are not
really about these visible figures, but about the mental figures, and
which they conceive in thought.
The diagrams which they draw, being visible, are the images of thoughts
which the geometer has in his mind, and these images he uses in his
reasoning. There may be images of these images--shadows and reflections
in water, as of other visible things; but still these diagrams are only
images of conceptions.
This, then, is _one_ kind of intelligible things: _conceptions_--for
instance, geometrical conceptions of figures. But in dealing with these
the mind depends upon assumptions, and does not ascend to first
principles. It does not ascend above these assumptions, but uses images
borrowed from a lower region (the visible world), these images being
chosen so as to be as distinct as may be.
Now the _other_ kind of intelligible things is this: that which the
_Reason_ includes, in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it regards
the assumptions of the sciences as (what they are) assumptions only, and
uses them as occasions and starting-points, that from these it may
ascend to the _Absolute_, which does not depend upon assumption, the
origin of scientific truth.
_The reason takes hold of this first principle of truth_, and availing
itself of all the connections and relations of this principle, it
proceeds to the conclusion--using no sensible image in doing this, but
contemplates the _idea alone_; and with these ideas the process begins,
goes on, and terminates.
"I apprehend," said Glaucon, "but not very clearly, for the matter is
somewhat abstruse. _You wish to prove that the knowledge which by the
reason, in an intuitive manner, we may acquire of real existence and
intelligible things is of a higher degree of certainty than the
knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called the Sciences_. Such
sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for their basis; and these
assumptions are by the student of such sciences apprehended not by
sense, but by a mental operation--by conception.
"But inasmuch as such students ascend no higher than assumptions, and do
not go to the first principles of truth, they do not seem to have true
knowledge, intellectual insight, intuitive reason, on the subjects of
their reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible things. And you
call this habit and practice of the geometers and others by the name of
JUDGMENT (dianoia), not reason, or insight, or intuition--taking
judgment to be something between opinion, on the one side, and intuitive
reason, on the other.
"You have explained it well," said I. "And now consider these four kinds
of things we have spoken of, as corresponding to four affections (or
faculties) of the mind. INTUITIVE REASON (noêsis), the highest; JUDGMENT
(dianoia)(or _discursive reason_), the next; the third, BELIEF (pistis);
and the fourth, CONJECTURE, or _guess_ (eikasia); and arrange them in
order, so that they may be held to have more or less certainty, as their
objects have more or less truth."[532] The completeness, and even
accuracy of this classification of all the objects of human cognition,
and of the corresponding mental powers, will be seen at once by studying
the diagram proposed by Plato, as figured on the opposite page.
[Footnote 532: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx. and xxi.]
PLATONIC SCHEME OF THE OBJECTS OF COGNITION, AND THE RELATIVE MENTAL POWERS
___________________________________________________________________________
| |
| VISIBLE WORLD | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD
| (the object of Opinion--doxa). |(the object of Knowledge or
| | Science--ipyttêmê).
|_________________________________|____________________________
| | | |
| Things. | Images. | Intuitions. | Conceptions.
____________|________________|________________|______________|_____________
And may be thus further expanded:
___________________________________________________________________________
| |
| VISIBLE WORLD. | INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
____________|_________________________________|____________________________
| | | |
| Things | Images | Ideas | Conceptions
OBJECT | | | |
| zoa. k. t. l. | icones. | ideai. | duenoêmata.
____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
| | | |
| Belief. | Conjecture. | Intuition. |Demonstration.
PROCESS | | | |
| piotis. | eikasia. | noêsis. | ipisiêiê.
____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
| | | |
| SENSATION. | PHANTASY. | INTUITIVE | DISCURSIVE
FACULTY | | | REASON. | REASON.
| aisthêsis. | phantasia. | nous. | logos.
____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
| | | |
MODERN | SENSE. | IMAGINATION. | REASON. | JUDGMENT.
NOMENCLATURE|Presentative |Representative |Regulative | Logical
| Faculty. | Faculty | Faculty. | Faculty.
____________|________________|________________|_____________|______________
| |
| MEMORY. | REMINISCENCE
| mnêmê. | anamêsis.
| The Conservative Faculty-- | The Reproductive Faculty--
| "the preserver of sensation" |"the recollection of the
| (sotêria aisin, seôs.) [533] | things which the soul
| | saw (in Eternity) when
| | journeying in the train of
| | the Deity."[534]
|[Footnote 533: "Philebus," § 67] | [Footnote 534: Phædrus,
| | § 62.]
____________|_________________________________|____________________________
The foregoing diagram, borrowed from Whewell, with some modifications
and additions we have ventured to make, exhibits a perfect view of the
Platonic scheme of the _cognitive powers_--the faculties by which the
mind attains to different degrees of knowledge, "having more or less
certainty, as their objects have more or less truth."[535]
1st. SENSATION (aisthêsis).--This term is employed by Plato to denote
the passive mental states or affections which are produced within us by
external objects through the medium of the vital organization, and also
the cognition or vital perception or consciousness[536] which the mind
has of these mental states.
2d. PHANTASY (phantasia).--This term is employed to describe the power
which the mind possesses of imagining or representing whatever has once
been the object of sensation. This may be done involuntarily as "in
dreams, disease, and hallucination,"[537] or voluntarily, as in
reminiscence. Phantasmata are the images, the life-pictures (zographêna)
of sensible things which are present to the mind, even when no external
object is present to the sense.
[Footnote 535: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. xix.]
[Footnote 536: "In Greek philosophy there was no term for
'consciousness' until the decline of philosophy, and in the latter ages
of the language. Plato and Aristotle, to say nothing of other
philosophers, had no special term to express the knowledge which the
mind has of the operation of its own faculties, though this, of course,
was necessarily a frequent matter of consideration. Intellect was
supposed by them to be cognizant of its own operations.... In his
'Theætetus' Plato accords to sense the power of perceiving that it
perceives."--Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 198 (Eng. ed.).]
[Footnote 537: "Theætetus," § 39.]
The conjoint action of these two powers results in what Plato calls
_opinion_ (doxa). "Opinion is the complication of memory and sensation.
For when we meet for the first time with a thing perceptible by a sense,
and a sensation is produced by it, and from this sensation a memory, and
we subsequently meet again with the same thing perceived by a sense, we
combine the memory previously brought into action with the sensation
produced a second time, and we say within ourselves [this is] Socrates,
or a horse, or fire, or whatever thing there may be of such a kind. Now
this is called _opinion_, through our combining the recollection brought
previously into action with the sensation recently produced. And when
these, placed along each other, agree, a true opinion is produced; but
when they swerve from each other, a false one."[538] The dixa of Plato,
therefore answers to the experience, or the _empirical knowledge_ of
modern philosophy, which is concerned only with appearances (phenomena),
and not with absolute realities, and can not be elevated to the dignity
of _science_ or real knowledge.
We are not from hence to infer that Plato intended to deny all reality
whatever to the objects of sensible experience. These transitory
phenomena were not real existences, but they were _images_ of real
existences. The world itself is but the image, in the sphere of sense,
of those ideas of Order, and Proportion, and Harmony, which dwell in the
Divine Intellect, and are mirrored in the soul of man. "Time itself is a
moving image of Eternity."[539] But inasmuch as the immediate object of
sense-perception is a representative image generated in the vital
organism, and all empirical cognitions are mere "conjectures" (eikasiai)
founded on representative images, they need to be certified by a higher
faculty, which immediately apprehends real Being (to on). Of things, as
they are in themselves, the senses give us no knowledge; all that in
sensation we are conscious of is certain affections of the mind
(pathos); the existence of self, or the perceiving subject, and a
something external to self, a perceived object, are revealed to us, not
by the senses, but by the reason.
[Footnote 538: Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Plato," p.
247.]
[Footnote 539: "Timæus," § 14.]
3d. JUDGMENT (dianoia, logos), _the Discursive Faculty, or the Faculty
of Relations_.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds on the
assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring into their
validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions which
necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions Plato calls
hypotheses (ypotheseis). But by hypotheses he does not mean baseless
assumptions--"mere theories--"but things self-evident and "obvious to
all;"[540] as for example, the postulates and definitions of Geometry.
"After laying down hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of
angles [right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square,
circle, and the like], he _proceeds on them as known, and gives no
further reason about them_, and reasons downward from these
principles,"[541] affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible
therefrom.
[Footnote 540: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xx.]
[Footnote 541: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xx.]
All judgments are therefore founded on _relations_. To judge is to
compare two terms. "Every judgment has three parts: the subject, or
notion about which the judgment is; the predicate, or notion with which
the subject is compared; and the copula, or nexus, which expresses the
connection or relation between them.[542] Every act of affirmative
judgment asserts the agreement of the predicate and subject; every act
of negative judgment asserts the predicate and subject do not agree. All
judgment is thus an attempt to reduce to unity two cognitions, and
reasoning (logizesthai) is simply the extension of this process. When we
look at two straight lines of equal length, we do not merely think of
them separately as _this_ straight line, and _that_ straight line, but
they are immediately connected together by a comparison which takes
place in the mind. We perceive that these two lines are alike; they are
of equal length, and they are both straight; and the connection which is
perceived as existing between them is a _relation of sameness or
identity._[543] When we observe any change occurring in nature, as, for
example, the melting of wax in the presence of heat, the mind recognizes
a causal efficiency in the fire to produce that change, and the relation
now apprehended is a _relation of cause and effect_[544] But the
fundamental principles, the necessary ideas which lie at the basis of
all the judgments (as the ideas of space and time, of unity and
identity, of substance and cause, of the infinite and perfect) are not
given by the judgment, but by the "highest faculty"--"the _Intuitive
Reason_,[545] which is, for us, the source of all unhypothetical and
absolute knowledge.
[Footnote 542: Thompson's "Laws of Thought," p. 134.]
[Footnote 543: "Phædo," §§ 50-57, 62.]
[Footnote 544: "Timæus," ch. ix.; "Sophocles," § 109.]
[Footnote 545: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
The knowledge, therefore, which is furnished by the Discursive Reason,
Plato does not regard as "real Science." "It is something between
Opinion on the one hand, and Intuition on the other."[546]
[Footnote 546: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xxi.]
4th. REASON (nous)--_Intuitive Reason_, is the organ of self-evident,
necessary, and universal Truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive
manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason,
through the medium of _ideas_, holds communion with the world of real
Being. These ideas are the _light_ which reveals the world of unseen
realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. "_The idea of
the good_ is the _sun_ of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects
the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows, the power of
knowing."[547] Under this light, the eye of reason apprehends the
eternal world of being as truly, yes more truly, than the eye of sense
apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul
possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous
with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine Father," and, like
him, it is in a certain sense "_eternal_."[548] Not that we are to
understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent
and underived existence; it was created or "generated" in eternity,[549]
and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the
conditions of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in
eternity; and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and
coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and
truth--that is, with God, the _Absolute Being_.
[Footnote 547: Ibid., bk. vi. ch. xix.; see also ch. xviii.]
[Footnote 548: The reader must familiarize himself with the Platonic
notion of _"eternity" as a fixed state out of time existing
contemporaneous with one in time_, to appreciate the doctrine of Plato
as stated above. If we regard his idea of eternity as merely an
indefinite extension of time, with a past, a present, and a future, we
can offer no rational interpretation of his doctrine of the eternal
nature of the rational essence of the soul. An eternal nature
"generated" in a "past" or "present" time is a contradiction. But that
was not Plato's conception of "eternity," as the reader will discover on
perusing the "Timæus" (ch. xiv.). "God resolved to create a moving image
of eternity, and out of that eternity which reposes in its own
_unchangeable unity_ he framed an eternal image moving according to
numerical succession, which we call _Time_. Nothing can be more
inaccurate than to apply the terms, _past, present, future_, to real
Being, which is immovable. Past and future are expressions only suitable
to generation which proceeds through time." Time reposes on the bosom of
eternity, as all bodies are in space.]
[Footnote 549: "Timæus," ch. xvi., and "Phædrus," where the soul is
pronounced archê de agenêton.]
Thus the soul (psychê) as a composite nature is on one side linked to
the eternal world, its essence being generated of that ineffable element
which constitutes the real, the immutable, and the permanent. It is a
beam of the eternal Sun, a spark of the Divinity, an emanation from God.
On the other side it is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its
emotive part[550] being formed of that which is relative and phenomenal.
The soul of man thus stands midway between the eternal and the
contingent, the real and the phenomenal, and as such, it is the mediator
between, and the interpreter of, both.
[Footnote 550: thymeides, the seat of the nobler--epithymêtikon, the
seat of the baser passions.]
In the allegory of the "Chariot and Winged Steeds"[551] Plato represents
the lower or inferior part of man's nature as dragging the soul down to
the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery and debasement of corporeal
conditions. Out of these conditions there arise numerous evils that
disorder the mind and becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the
condition of finite and multiform being into which we have "fallen by
our own fault." The present earthly life is a fall and a punishment. The
soul is now dwelling in "the grave we call the body." In its incorporate
state, and previous to the discipline of education, the rational element
is "asleep." "Life is more of a dream than a reality." Men are utterly
the slaves of sense, the sport of phantoms and illusions. We now
resemble those "captives chained in a subterraneous cave," so poetically
described in the seventh book of the "Republic;" their backs are turned
to the light, and consequently they see but the shadows of the objects
which pass behind them, and they "attribute to these shadows a perfect
reality." Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark imprisonment in the
body, a dreamy exile from their proper home. "Nevertheless these pale
fugitive shadows suffice to revive in us the reminiscence of that higher
world we once inhabited, if we have not absolutely given the reins to
the impetuous untamed horse which in Platonic symbolism represents the
emotive sensuous nature of man." The soul has some dim and shadowy
recollection of its ante-natal state of bliss, and some instinctive and
proleptic yearnings for its return.
[Footnote 551: "Phædrus," § 54-62.]
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Has had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar,
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home."[552]
[Footnote 552: Wordsworth, "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," vol.
v.]
Exiled from the true home of the spirit, imprisoned in the body,
disordered by passion, and beclouded by sense, the soul has yet longings
after that state of perfect knowledge, and purity, and bliss, in which
it was first created. Its affinities are still on high. It yearns for a
higher and nobler form of life. It essays to rise, but its eye is
darkened by sense, its wings are besmeared by passion and lust; it is
"borne downward, until at length it falls upon and attaches itself to
that which is material and sensual," and it flounders and grovels still
amid the objects of sense.
And now, with all that seriousness and earnestness of spirit which is
peculiarly Christian, Plato asks how the soul may be delivered from the
illusions of sense, the distempering influence of the body, and the
disturbances of passion, which becloud its vision of the real, the good,
and the true?
Plato believed and hoped this could be accomplished by _philosophy_.
This he regarded as a grand intellectual discipline for the purification
of the soul. By this it was to be disenthralled from the bondage of
sense[553] and raised into the empyrean of pure thought "where truth and
reality shine forth." All souls have the faculty of knowing, but it is
only by reflection, and self-knowledge, and intellectual discipline,
that the soul can be raised to the vision of eternal truth, goodness,
and beauty--that is, to the vision of God. And this intellectual
discipline was the _Platonic Dialectic_.
[Footnote 553: Not, however, fully in this life. The consummation of the
intellectual struggle into "the intelligible world" is death. The
intellectual discipline was therefore meletê thanatou, _a preparation
for death_.]