Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant

1 – On the Uses of Philosophy

Do you know the secret of the true scholar? In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him; and in that I am his pupil.

George Bernard Shaw once wrote thus: ‘chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time’. In the same vein, it is easy to dismiss philosophy as a waste of the energies of intelligent men, when you see science constantly advancing and philosophers still stuck on the same arguments as centuries ago. But, as Will puts it, ’this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science […] so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.’ And, indeed, many of the earliest ‘scientists’ were philosophers first, and the term for the sciences was originally ’natural philosophy’.

To put it in simpler terms, in the realm of science, the scientist is partial. He need only ‘describe the fact’; the philosopher is not content with just that, however, as many facets of life are not reducible to simple ‘facts’, and thus he must take up the ‘hard and hazardous task’ of deciphering these areas. For instance, could you reduce human ethics to simple facts? If you could, life would be much simpler, but alas you can not. Thus, science leaves ethics untouched, and renders it the sole domain of the philosophers. Maybe one day we will come upon some mythical technique to reduce morality to fact, in which case it would pass on from being philosophy and into a science (unlikely, however). To put it to an end, ‘science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom’.

Philosophy is generally divided into five fields: logic, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphyics. Logic is the study of reasoning, thought, deduction and induction. Aesthetics deals with the study of form, beauty, or the philosophy of art. Ethics deals with the study of human conduct, good and evil. Politics is the study of social organization. And, finally, metaphysics is the study of reality, the nature of matter and mind and their relation. Though he gives us these categories, Will dislikes utilizing them; he thinks them an attempt at dismembering and formalizing the ‘joy of understanding’. Instead of going topic-by-topic – as you would in a science – he prefers to examine the topic personality-by-personality. “We shall study not merely philosophies, but philosophers”, he says.

2 – Plato

2.1 – The Context of Plato

Greece in the Classical Age was very much a divided land. Shattered and mountainous geography made travel and communication overland (let alone amongst the various islands) dangerous and difficult. But it was this isolation that allowed each city-state to develop its own government, instutitions, language, and culture. In that sense, Classical Greece was very much a playground of ideas. Their exposure to the seas also led to the Greeks, notably the Athenians, developing a maritime flavor.

After the first (successful) war with the Persians, Athens became a center of trade. It become a sort of melting pot, and with prosperity and education came the search for knowledge. The first philosophers focused on the material world (Democritus to begin, and his successors Epicurus and Lucretius), but there was a parallel tendency – the Sophists – who looked within themselves, rather than upon the world. The Sophists divided into two political lines: the first arguing, along the lines of Rousseau, that all men were equal, only divided by institutions, law, and the other gifts of civilization. The other argued the opposite, as Nietzche later did: all men are unequal, that society must (and will naturally come to) be ruled by the strong, essentially arguing in favor of the aristocratic class.

At the time, Athens was hardly a democracy as we know the political system in the modern world. But it did have some limited democratic elements in political decision-making, and the aristocratic class lamented this greatly. During the Peloponnesian War between Athens and its rival Sparta, said aristocratic class secretly admired the rival Spartan system; these aristocrats were exiled during the war, but were brought back when the Athenians surrendered. Post-war, they led a failed revolt against the system that they claimed had lost Athens the war. The revolution was led by a man named Critias, a pupil of Socrates and uncle of Plato.

2.2 – Socrates

Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, the justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known.

Will brings us an interesting perspective on Socrates: we know very little of him – he penned no works, after all – and yet, because all our knowledge of him is informed through Plato (and other writers’) intimate scripts, we know him far better than we know Aristotle or even Plato himself.

The acolytes of Socrates were a diverse crowd, and perhaps the origin of every school of social thought in the West could be traced to his group. The man himself was somewhat of a vagabond, relying on the patronage of his disciples, and his disciples certainly patronized him. He was a modest man, which certainly endeared him to others; his intellectual modesty is captured in one of his more famous anecdotes: the Oracle of Delphi once declared that there was no man living wiser than Socrates. Socrates took this as an affirmation of his principle that ‘I know that I know nothing’ – because he was wise enough to know that he knew nothing, he was wiser than all.

Of the many philosophers preceding – and contemporaneous to – him, Socrates deserves note for first taking on matters of the mind. His predecessors, famous names amongst them like Pythagoras and Parmenides, mostly focused on matter, physics, and metaphysics (the three topics together known generally as cosmology). Where these men focused on the bigger-picture, Socrates was the first to seriously consider the individual and the matters that affected him daily.

This was an important issue at the time. The Sophists had destroyed faith in the Gods, and took the morality and ethics bestowed upon the Athenians by said Gods with them as well. To save Athenian society, it was necessary to develop a new ethics and a new morality, lest everyone simply surrender to their passions and let anarchy reign. This system of morality would be independent of theology such that both the religious and the atheist could abide by it, and come and go what religions might, it would stay.

For Socrates, the highest virtue was wisdom and reason, and his morality took form around this fact. The good man was the intelligent man, who took action by his knowledge, and the evil man an ignorant fool who would do better if he were merely educated. To Socrates, being ‘moral’ was natural. No evil man would ever be happy, only the good man would be truly satisfied in life. Therefore, evildoers must be merely ignorant, stray sheep, who do evil because they do not know better. (But what is good, and what is evil, in his view?)

On a larger scale, an intelligently administered society would be one where the individual will gain more in security than he loses in liberty. With every individual within this society, ideally, intelligent and thus moral, peace and order would be ensured. No one would have righteous motivations in agitating for anarchy, as they did in the Athens of Socrates’ time, since society would be perfect.

But, in fact, Athens was not the utopia that Socrates envisioned. In the chaos of Athenian government, how could we convince people to obey the laws of a state so thoughtless? How could we convince the people that, in the crowd, there was in fact no wisdom to be found? In fact, it is quite the opposite – crowds are often more violent and foolish than men alone. How could we convince people that they need only be led by the most intelligent men amongst them?

Thus, Socrates ‘moral intellectualism’ (the term for his moral philosophy), influenced his – decidedly aristocratic – political philosophy. Many of his disciples were aristocrats themselves, the aforementioned Critias and Plato amongst them, likely attracted to him by his thoughts in this regard.

After the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans restructured Athenian society and government along their lines. An oligarchy called the ‘Thirty’ were installed, and Athenian democracy was dismantled. Amongst the Thirty was Critias, in a group of Five that were the most powerful of the bunch. He was responsible for a sort of post-war Terror – summary executions, property confiscations, etc. Eventually, Critias was overthrown and democracy was restored. Despite his objections (and outright subordination, at one point) to Critias’ conduct, Socrates was essentially dubbed the intellectual leader behind the Thirty, put to (a now infamous) Trial, and executed.

2.3 – The Preparation of Plato

I thank God that I was born Greek and not barbarian, freeman and not slave, man and not woman; but above all, that I was born in the age of Socrates.

Plato had been part of the aristocratic class, as mentioned previously. His name ‘Plato’ referred to his physical vigor – he had been, variously, a soldier and athlete. Eventually, after meeting Socrates, he took an interest in matters of wisdom. He also had an extreme fondness of his teacher which, after his execution, morphed into a hatred of his opponents – the ‘mob’, and its enabling system ‘democracy’.

Socrates was executed in the year 399 B.C., and Plato fled Athens that very same year, likely for fear of his safety. It functioned less an exile, however, and more to greatly broaden his horizons. He sailed to Egypt, Italy, and some say he wandered all the way to the Ganges. Regardless of the specifics, he returned to Athens in 387 B.C. a changed man. Plato was seen as somewhat of a hybrid philosopher-poet-scientist-artist, and his artistic flair certainly showed in his works. His works on Socrates taking the form of dialogues, much like how a dramatist writes out his works, is one example of this. It also served to make his works more easily understandable.

The author makes mention of Plato’s hypocrisy: He complained of poets as myth-makers, when he himself has quite a few myths to his names; he complained of priests, but even moreso than most philosophers, he could be taken for a preacher; he condemned the Sophists, and yet his arguments were not always as sound as you’d think.

But Plato’s works, the Republic most of all, remain the cornerstone of Western philosophy.

2.4 – The Ethical Problem

The Republic begins with a discussion of morality. As in all the dialogues, Socrates questions Cephalus (in whose house this discussion is taking place). Socrates questions him about the value of wealth. Cephalus believes that wealth enables one to be generous, honest, and just, and says as much (falling into Socrates’ trap). Socrates then asks him what he means by ‘just’ and ‘justice’.

Cephalus struggles in vain against, essentially, a trick question, but is eventually prodded into vocalizing a morality: ‘might is right, and justice is the interest of the mighty,’ he says. This proto-Nietzchean sentiment was common in these times and is shown in many of Plato’s other dialogues, and in general Greek literature of the time. For instance, Thucydides recording ’the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must’ shows the manifestation of this idea in foreign policy. The idea of a slave-morality used to chain the strong was seen in contradiction to actual virtue: the hero-morality, based on intelligence and courage rather than any justice; though one could say that this is amoralism rather than any ‘hero-morality’.

When asked on his answer to the aforementioned question, Plato has Socrates dodge the question. Instead, he has us examine the community as a whole. After all, justice and morals do not exist in a vacuum. We can only be just to other people, kind to other people, e.t.c. A top-down deconstruction of morality, community, society, among other topics; that is the Republic.

2.5 – The Political Problem

As to the people, they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them. – (Protagoras, 317)

Plato begins by describing, essentially, the Garden of Eden. Where man lives in harmony with nature. A life of peace, vegetarianism (brought up in the context of a healthy diet), and family. This sort of Utopia is religious in nature; where man lives simply, with ‘praises of the gods on their lips’, and with his family by his side. But Plato destroys this idea with as much ease as he brings it up. If this Utopia were so satisfactory to man, then why is it so hard to find on Earth? In reality, man is not content with a simple life. He oft succumbs to greed and luxury, as in the Fall of Man, where Adam succumbed to temptation and condemned us all from this Utopia.

Regardless of the reasons, Utopia is not the lot of man; we compete with each other out of selfish greed, take from others as they take from us. We learn trade and finance, and from there the City develops, in which we find even worse divisions. Of this, Plato says “Any ordinary city is in fact two cities, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich, each at war with the other; and in either division there are smaller ones – you would make a great mistake if you treated them as single states” (423). Eventually, the merchants of the city overtake the landowners of the countryside in wealth and aristocracy gives way to oligarchy.

Whereas in aristocracy men were ruled by the few, resulting in a narrow-minded and out-of-touch elite, oligarchy ruins states by inordinate greed. Both produce the same end, however: revolution. And thus comes democracy, where the people have an equal share of freedom and power. But democracy has its share of flaws. It gives the people power over their fate, but people are fickle and easily-deceived. Eventually, we come upon Tyranny; the mob is easily riled, and with great powers given to the mob, we often see it support a Dictator into power. The Dictator is not competent, he is merely eloquent and speaks only of what people want want to hear. This is a natural consequence of democracy, Plato argues, where men invite not the skilled but the cunning into government. To ensure rule by the competent is the main issue of Political Philosophy, in Plato’s opinion.

2.6 – The Psychological Problem

Like man, like state. – (575)

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. – (473)

Plato’s indulges in historicism in the above chapter, but he does not forget about Man, the Individual, and his nature. He does not commit the fallacy that asserts the State as independent of the people it rules over. Men are the building blocks of the State, and their collective nature – culture – shapes the State, regardless of whether they actually have any influence over politics. For Plato, men are motivated by either desire, emotion, or knowledge. Desire and emotion are different in that desire represents the baser, animalistic parts of men, and emotion can contain noble parts like spirit, ambition, e.t.c. In every man, all three are present, but to varying proportions.

In Plato’s estimation, the men of desire are those who reign over the material world. Your aforementioned oligarchs, aristocrats, and politicians. The men of emotion care not so much for the spoils of war, as for the thrill of the fight. Your generals and admirals. And finally, the men of knowledge, philosophers like Plato. When the men of desire or the men of emotion reign over the State, they attempt to use it to their ends, and bring it to ruin in so doing. The ideal arrangement would be one in which the men of desire would reign over the market, the men of emotion over the battlefield, and their efforts would be harnessed and coordinated by the men of knowledge in office – the infamous “philosopher-king”.

2.7 – The Psychological Solution

To begin this process of Utopia-ification, Plato suggests that we begin with the next generation. We seize for the city all children, and banish their parents to the country so that we may begin from a clean slate. The children must then be put through an education. For the first ten years, this will take the form of physical exercise. This will ensure their health in perpetuity and finally end the physicians of their miserable professions. This can be considered part of the ’nurture’ side of eugenics.

A philosopher-bigman himself, Plato knew strength was not all there was to life. In fact, prize-fighters, athletes, and weight-lifters were not great examples of the gentle nature that Plato wished to imbue everyone with. He comes up with an interesting idea to counteract any accrued brute-ness: music. Plato gave great weight to music; he thought it moulded character, with its rhythms and harmonies. “Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws,” he says. Music offers access into the mind, unlike any other. If there were a medicine for diseases of the mind, then it would be music.

Going with the psychological theme, Plato invents a sort of proto-psychoanalysis. He brings attention to dreams, notably, to study mans’ desires and instincts, for sleep time is when a man’s basest desires seep out. “In all of us, even in good men, there is such a latent wild beast nature, which peers out in sleep.” (572).

But too much music, like too much exercise, would make you a dandy. After a certain age, the individual practice of music must be abandoned; though communal music (and communal games), would continue. Plato urges the use of music in tandem with the more dreary studies of the sciences and history to make them easier to consume, but also cautions against forcing these subjects onto the unwilling student.

With healthy bodies and healthy minds, we now turn to rearing their spirits and hearts. We must remind them that they are part of a community, and what better way to do this than religion? More specifically, a God, and not some metaphysical-cosmic-higher force. It must be a personal God. Even more specifically, this God must offer us some sort of personal immortality, to reward us for our good deeds and suffer us for our sins. And it will surely do us no harm if this God were false, to believe regardless.

At the age of 20, the children will be subject to a trial the likes of which the word ’examination’ would do no justice. It will test every faculty; those who would fail would be consigned to handywork and other sorts of lower-works (see: men of desire). After ten more years of training, another test will occur at age 30, for those who did not fail the first. However, this is where religion will come to play; for, what would satisfy those consigned to the lower classes (those of silver, brass, and iron), other than God? You may be incompetent, but to do well and do good and you shall surely be rewarded in the afterlife.

Philosophy is all well and good, but for the young it merely manifests as a game of skepticism. In reality, philosophy is: metaphysics, to think clearly; and politics, to rule wisely. To put philosophy to use, they must learn the doctrine of Ideas, the theory of Forms. But what is an Idea? The meaning is vague; the Idea of a thing may be the general class (i.e. human, plant, animal, gun) it belongs to, or it may be the laws it operates according to (i.e. natural laws, the laws of physics). It may be both; the ideal, and the mechanisms behind the surface. One thing is for sure: an Idea is permanent; the particular manifestations of the Idea do not encompass all of the Idea. You may eat an apple, you may eat all the apples, but the idea of an Apple goes on. Whether that be the surface image or taste of an Apple, or the inner workings, the atoms, of an Apple, or both.

It is worth noting that Plato’s conception of inner workings were intrinsically mathematic; since most modern sciences sprouted from mathematics, mathematics and science were one and the same to the Greeks. And what is science if not the search for inner workings? As Galileo once said, ‘Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe’. That is why Plato placed, over the doors of his Academy, the words ‘Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here’.

It is the nature of man, when he encounters new things, to look for similarities in things he already knows. If it weren’t for these Ideas, we would not be granted that leisure, if everything were unique and unmeaning. The beginnings of science were in categorization, classification, and investigation of Ideas instead of just observing surface reality and the manifestations of Ideas. Instead of looking at a rotten apple as distinct from a regular apple, we figure that they are of the same Idea and ask ‘what caused this apple to rot, that did not affect this other apple?’. This is science, the beginnings of the scientific method.

Five years of training in these forms follows for those students of ‘gold’ that passed the last two examinations. But their work (thirty-five years counting) is not done yet, for now they are to spend fifteen years living in the world they have learned so much about with only their accumulated thirty-five years of learning. Those that survive this trial by fire shall be the rulers of the state.

2.8 – The Political Solution

Democracy means the perfect equality of opportunity, but it should not be to the detriment of merit. It should not mean rotation, but ascension. In this sense, public officials must not be chosen by voting, but by their merits and achievements; the ‘democratic’ element here is the fact that every man, equally, has an opportunity to be tested for public office. ‘But’, you might say, ‘is this not in fact aristocracy?’. You would be right, but Plato makes a valid point: if aristocracy would lead to the ‘best’ outcome, why should we not embrace it? Do not let words scare you, let reality do the talking.

Still, words have connotations and histories, and aristocracies’ history is checkered; Plato’s aristocracy is assuredly not the middle-ages, feudal hereditary aristocracy. It is a ‘democratic aristocracy’. There is an elite, but the elite is open to all; all classes, all castes, all people. It has only one criterion to entry: competence. There are no pretensions, and this democracy is thus more honest than any other, including the elective democracies.

An objection is raised: philosophers you are training our young leaders to be, but are not philosophers utterly unpractical? Do they not obsess over trivial questions, and become ‘strange beings’? Are they not truly useless to the world? (Ouch.) Plato does not truly deny the accusation (of philosophers having their heads in the clouds), but that the last stage of their training will ensure they are men of action, not merely of thought.

To prevent from corruption and other moral faults, Plato argues that the officials have no property beyond necessity; they will live like, and with, the commoners. They will not indulge in worldly luxury, for God will endow them a reward more satisfactory than any you could find on Earth. They will also have no family; their devotion must solely be to the community. They will have children, but they shall be taken from their mother at birth. On the note of women, Plato makes a case for complete equality in this political and educational system of his.

Of course, Plato also makes an argument for eugenics. He expands the example of selective breeding of animals to the selective breeding of humans. “education should begin before birth” (Laws, 789). Offspring born of unlicensed matings, or deformed, are to be left to die. The best of the ‘flock’ must mate with the best, and the inferior with the inferior.

The community must not ignite war with external enemies, but sometimes the flames reach you regardless. In this case, it is necessary to have a soldier class. But precautions must be taken to avoid war: by means of restricting overpopulation, and by avoiding foreign trade (Plato is curiously in complete opposition to the idea that trade restricts war, asserting the opposite). He makes a case for the city being inland, landlocked, to avoid the vices of navies and merchants. Finally, he makes a case for a pan-Hellenic league of the whole Greek race, to prevent the most common of wars (the civil war).

This society would be perfectly structured: the aristocratic class at the top, austere, dedicated to community, and supremely competent; below them, their adjutants; finally, the handymen and the lowest. But all will be satisfied, and none will be impoverished regardless of class. This is the just state.

2.9 – The Ethical Solution

If we are to have a just state, we must first have an understanding to what constitutes ‘justice’. Plato’s definition is: “Justice is the having and doing what is one’s own” (433). Meaning something like the golden rule, but a bit more practical and general. Essentially, justice (in a society at large) is when each man produces as much as he receives, and when he performs the function he is most fit for. Thus, Plato’s emphasis on a perfectly ordered society with an advanced division of labor.

On an individual level, the same definition holds. Justice is coordination, where each element of a man makes an equal, harmonious contribution to his behavior. Let any desire, emotion, or idea take hold to the detriment of others, and man shall fall into chaos (and injustice). All evil is disharmony. An individual may be stronger for embracing his desires completely, or shutting them out completely; but, he will not survive the death of personality that results. Nature will punish him for his injustice, towards himself and to others.

2.10 – Criticism

Plato’s Republic was in fact, and in some measure, realized in the Europe of the middle ages. Society at large was then classified into three groups: the laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The clergy functioned as the sort of ruling class that Plato desired: austere, educated, cultured, chosen on merit not by the poll. They were even celibate. Much else of the Church in Rome was influenced by Plato; their curriculums, their cosmology, and the more prominent ideas of Christianity were publicized on account of Plato’s expectations of religion (see: the popularity of heaven & hell, salvation, etc). With this, the Church exercised an influence over such vast swathes of Europe. The Church as an institution is still alive, more than a thousand years on. Many examples of modernist groups, from the Soviets to the Ayatollahs of Iran, each promising Utopia, take much inspiration from Plato, whether they realized it themselves or not.

Critics of Plato argue on a couple points. First, the differences that make humanity unique would be smothered completely by this Republic. The individuality of each man would be put down completely by his communism. Aristotle makes this argument. More practically, certain ideas of his, like abolishing monogamy, were seen as impractical and perhaps delusional. Certainly, abolishing the family can be written about, but actually putting the idea into practice might have undue effects that even Plato couldn’t foresee. Will asserts these criticisms as pointless, because it is only the aristocratic class that will have to bear the smothering of individuality, the absence of family. The majority will be unaffected.

But this leads to some problems. If we hand all the economic power to the lowest of the three classes, would that not incite revolution? Like when the merchant middle-classes, growing wealthier than the aristocrats, took up arms against the ancien régime?

This practical objection is perhaps the greatest. Going back to the Church’s example: the Church did in fact prosper for centuries, but that was only when most of Europe was agrarian. Will makes the case that farmer populations are more inclined to superstition on account of their lack of control over their harvests, and their dependence on the elements. When commerce and industry – and with them a class of more realist men – began to prosper, the Church very quickly collapsed.

Thus, the greatest argument against Plato’s Republic would be that it is firmly opposed to change. So strictly structured, any change that would come to the Republic would be change that it would only accept after collapse. As Sparta collapsed, as the Church’s authority collapsed, and as the Soviet Union collapsed – all because they refused to accept change, so too would this Republic eventually collapse.

Granted, Plato’s Republic was purely theoretical, and he himself never expected it to be put perfectly to practice. In an anecdote, Plato received an invitation from Dionysius, the ruler of Syracuse, to turn his city into a Republic. Plato agreed, but found himself lost at the first step: Dionysius wished to be king, sole ruler, while Plato’s Republic was not a monarchy. Either Dionysius would become a philosopher, or he would cease to be king. Dionysius had Plato sold into slavery. This experience certainly affected his more conservative later works, like Laws.

At the age of eighty, Plato was invited to the wedding feast of one of his pupils. Tired after the merry-making, Plato retreated to a corner and took a nap. When the feast was over, revellers attempted to wake him, only to find that he had passed peacefully, in his sleep.

3 – Aristotle and Greek Science

3.1 – The Historical Background

Aristotle was born in the year 384 BC at Stagira, 200 miles north of Athens in Macedonia. He was brought up in a family of physicians. He later arrived at Plato’s Academy and became the great man’s pupil; Plato lavished him with praise – he was the Nous of the Academy. But the relationship between the two was contentuous and, according to certain sources, Aristotle started rebelling against his master towards the latter end of his life.

Regardless, Aristotle led an active life after the academy. Most famously, he tutored the great Macedonian king Phillip’s son, Alexander (to be the Great). This was no mean posting; Phillip was looking for the greatest teacher in all the world, for his son who was to become ruler of all the world, and Aristotle clearly fit his criterion. Soon after, Phillip would unite the Greeks at Chaeronea, and Alexander would eventually conquer the world. Though Alexander sung his master great praise, one could say Aristotle clearly failed to rein in the barbarian in Alexander.

While Alexander was having his adventure, back home at Athens, the Athenians were having none of it. Not ones for being subjugated (for very long, at least), the city was split amongst a pro-Macedonian party and a pro-independence party led by Demosthenes, the famed orator. When Aristotle returned to the city, finished with tutoring Alexander, he took the pro-Macedonian side. During his next twelve years in Athens, Aristotle wrote most of his works.

3.2 – The Work of Aristotle

Aristotle established the Lyceum when he was 53, and it was (obviously) popular. The school was different from Plato’s mathematical and politics-based Academy; Aristotle’s was focused on biology and the natural sciences. Aristotle’s influence over these fields can not be exaggerated. Most of this was boosted by Alexander, who often granted Aristotle’s requests regarding funds, research (as in an expedition to the source of the Nile), and who probably sourced of most of the flora and fauna Aristotle documented.

Regardless, no amount of funding could make up for the fact that, back then, basically none of the equipment we take for granted in the modern sciences existed. The Greeks, for all their glory, were near disdainful of these elements that are so necessary to science nowadays. Aristotle was trekking uncharted territory, and he had to create his own compasses along the way.

Aristotle was certainly a magnificent polymath; His works covered logic, rhetoric, the sciences, to the ethic and politics of his predecessor, and so much more. He was certainly a jack of all trades, with an emphasis on the ‘master of none’ part. His works contained many mistakes, though perhaps that was only natural; to harness such vast swathes of knowledge efficiently, one would have to ascend to a higher plane of existence first. Though, there are some questions of authorship, and only a fraction of his output survived, those are questions beyond this book.

3.3 – The Foundation of Logic

Aristotle was the forefather of the field of logic; logic being the art and method of correct thinking. It is both abstract and scientific; it can be reduced to simple rules, but it concerns our thoughts so it is naturally chaotic. Plato and Socrates paid some attention to the concept of logic, otherwise they would have no consistency, but it did not take form till Aristotle. Of utmost importance to logic are definitions, since words (and their definitions), are the smallest part of any argument, and thus the things we must pay most attention to.

To Aristotle, definitions consisted of two parts: a class to which the object belongs (ring any bells?), and the specific characteristics that distinguish it amongst the aforementioned class. Aristotle makes an example of man: he is an animal (his class), but his specific characteristic is that he is rational.

But Aristotle didn’t just borrow from Plato’s concepts. He differed on the concept of universals: a universal is a member of a class, not a class itself, but it in itself is a subjective and not objective reality. For instance, man is part of the animal class, but there is no one ‘man’; men exist, but there is no ‘universal man’. ‘Man’ is merely a term we use. Plato held these universals as an objective existence, however, and more important than the individuals, also called particulars; of man a particular would be you or me, the term we would use for that particular would be ‘manhood’ or ‘personhood’. Remember: ‘You may eat an apple, you may eat all the apples, but the idea of an Apple goes on.’

This is where Aristotle disagrees, and he disagrees quite vehemently. Aristotle believed that these abstractions, present throughout Plato’s works, and practically the basis of the Republic, was false. Plato was so obsessed with the universal, that he completely ignored the particular. But Will brings us to the fact that Aristotle criticized Plato because he was so alike him: ‘as only similars can be profitably contrasted, so only similar people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest variations of purpose or belief’. Aristotle, despite his criticisms, was also fond of the tool that is the abstraction.

For example, the syllogism: a syllogism is a trio of propositions, the first two propositions are used to concede a truth in the final proposition (All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is a mortal). Mathematically, we can express this as: A = B; C = A; therefore, B = C. The problem here is that the first premise, here that ‘all men are mortal’, takes for granted the point to be proven. Meaning, it is not impossible for Socrates to be immortal, and Socrates may in fact be immortal, but Socrates being irrational would mean that man is not universally mortal, and the syllogism takes this for granted. By taking for granted any first premise, Aristotle denies particularity in favor of universality.

3.4 – The Organization of Science

3.4.1 – Greek Science Before Aristotle

Science for the pre-Aristotlean Greeks, and their predecessors and neighbors, was indistinguishable from theology. Everything was the design of God, or even that everything was itself a God. Astronomers were the first of the scientists. They figured that all of the universe had started as one, separated over time. From there, they understood the beginnings of the Earth, the beginnings of life on Earth, and the nature of matter. Greek science was very philosophical; Heraclitus, for instance, took lessons from the nature of matter. That all of matter was the result of strife, and where there is no strife there is decay. Order was the only constant. Democritus and Leucippus took their predecessors to their natural, materialistic conclusion. All of nature was chaos, made up of atoms and the void. There was no God, only the machine that is nature and the universe. The exact details these scientists often got wrong; with no scientific equipment, they had to make do with theorizing.

3.4.2 – Aristotle as a Naturalist

We owe much of our knowledge of the pre-Socratics to Aristotle. Namely, to Aristotle’s desire to disparage and disprove them. Aristotle got some things wrong: he believed that the earth was the center of the universe, against Pythagoras’s view of the Sun as the center. But he also made striking observations, correctly understanding the cycle of rainfall. From there, he understood all of history to be a cycle. Old continents and oceans would disappear, and new ones would appear. Of man going from dark age to enlightenment, only to be struck back down by nature, forever its slave.

3.4.3 – The Foundation of Biology

He who sees things grow from their beginning will have the finest view of them.

Aristotle understood life on earth as a spectrum: from the lowest organisms to the highest, from the dead to the living. He considers this because there are species on earth that share as many similarities as they do differences. One thing he marks as certain is that life has grown in power, in intelligence, and in complexity. Despite this sound exactly like evolution, a concept Aristotle’s predecessors elucidated upon, Aristotle rejects this, however, one of his many mistakes. A good example of Aristotle’s cluelessness in some regards is that he thought woean had fewer teeth than men!

But, despite these mistakes, and in true Aristotelian fashion, he essentially fathered the science of biology. He understood the importance of diet in behavior, discerned similarities in many species, and made some frighteningly sharp anticipations: for example, he understood that features common to the genus appeared first, after that features common to the species, and finally features common to the individual; he also understood that, the more complex and specialized a species, the fewer the number of its offspring. These are very specific features, ‘disproven’ by his contemporaries and successors, only rediscovered and proven in modernity. Most notable were Aristotle’s observations on embryology: he raised important questions (such as heredity) and disproved some common myths of the time.

3.5 – Metaphysics and the Nature of God

Aristotle’s metaphysics, as mentioned before, was influenced by his thoughts on natural science. He believed matter would grow to become something greater than itself, it would take up a form. Matter originates not; it existed originally as a void, only considered because it had the possibility of taking up a form. In biological terms, the embryo would be the matter, and the baby its form. The adult would be the form, and the child the matter. And so there is a constant progression in nature. The final destination of this progression, the final cause or entelechy, determines the nature of the progression. What determines the final cause? The internal, natural structure of the matter; as a human child can not become a bird, nor can a baby bird become a human adult.

Aristotle conceived of God as a ‘mover’. The origin of motion that begins the natural progression outlined above, and also its end; the final purpose of all things. But this leaves a lot of missing pieces in the puzzle of God; his abstraction of God leaves Aristotle to explain God’s action as a contemplation of the essence of things. Therefore his God, as the origin of all things and essence, is condemned to forever contemplating himself.

3.6 – Psychology and the Nature of Art

Aristotle left his mark on psychology as well. He laid the foundations of the law of association, for instance. One the more abstract issues of psychology, such as free will, we find a mixed bag. He attempts to strike down determinism, but his arguments are full of holes. His definition of the soul is also influenced by his biology: the soul is the sum of the powers of the body. A personal soul can exist only in its own body, but the soul is not material, and dies with the body. Part of the soul, the active reason, goes on though; it is the universal, as opposed to the particular element that dies with the body.

Aristotle also wrote famed works on esthetics. Art is our outlet for emotional expression and the form of art is as a mirror of nature. Art is not superficial reflection, however, as in the representation of inner workings does it shine. In this way, the best art appeals to the human intellect and emotion and, channeling his Schopenhauer, Aristotle acknowledges this art as the highest form of joy we can experience. Art should aim at unity, the focus of form. In the realm of emotions, the true power of art is in catharsis, the purging of unhealthy emotions. All art should strive to achieve catharsis in their consumers.

3.7 – Ethics and the Nature of Happiness

The supreme question, that we see even philosophy as a means to, is ultimately ‘how do we live a happy life?’. Morals, ethics, esthetics, logic, all are pathways on our journey to answer this question. Happiness is the main goal of life. To answer this question, Aristotle figures we must start at what differs man from other creatures – it is the power of reason, rationality. Happiness in life must be attained by the full function of this unique feature. Aristotle pays more attention to the practical features of ethics; he argues that what is right depends on context. There are some general guidelines he provides, however, in the form of the golden mean. The golden mean is the ‘middle-road’ between two extremes; for instance, between cowardice and recklessness, we find courage, our golden mean. This is generally the correct attitude, but for action context is important, and part of virtue is learning to do good in all situations. In that sense, good is a habit.

There are also external aspects to happiness. For instance, Aristotle does not advocate ascetism and acknowledges that, not only do worldly goods grant us happiness, they also save us from unhappiness (as in the tenant who worries over rent payments, and the homeowner who is free from such problems). Perhaps the most important external aspect is friendship: friends are a multiplier on happiness, and friendship is more important than justice on account of the fact that friendship makes justice unnecessary (if all the world was your friend, you would never do any wrong to anyone). But again, Aristotle warns against excess: “he who has many friends has no friend”. He also gives us details on what friendship consists of: friendship implies equality and stability of character on both sides, though Aristotle does argue that unequal relationships (such as that of debtor and creditor) have a degree of friendship like, perhaps, that of a mother for her child.

Ultimately, however, the path to happiness lies in the self. Not in sensual pleasure, not in power, but in the mind; in the pursuit of the truth.

3.8 – Politics

3.8.1 – Communism and Conservatism

Aristotle’s philosophy was not so different from his predecessors, inclined as it was towards aristocracy. But he had reasons beyond his association with the emperor; Athens was far more anarchic in Aristotle’s time than even Plato’s. Aristotle’s conservatism is displayed in a few of his ideas: for one, he believed that faults within the state or the ruler, so long as they were minor, were better tolerated than changed. For the power of the law rested in its stability and tradition, and change in these laws must not be taken lightly. The accumulation of the knowledge of generations upon generations, in a country’s laws, are not irrational or without reason. This is the chief of Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Republic, which he partly agreed with and partly disagreed with.

His critique of Plato’s ascendance of universals, the Republic, over the particulars, the individuals that make up the Republic, make an appearance. No state could flourish when it would suffocate its brightest (the aristocratic class). His psychology also comes into play on the communal nature of the Republic: ‘he who has many friends, has no friend’, and in the same way the whole of a city can not be a community. Neither will love, which emerges when ‘a thing is your own, or that it awakens real love in you’, flourish in the Republic where children are taken away by the state, parents do not know their significant others, and all property may as well be the community’s property.

More practically, Aristotle argues that dividing society into three stratums so unequal in economic, martial, and numerical power would only put people down; it would disincentivize and prevent men from striving for better. “This is my class, this is my fate”. The communism of his Republic further demotivates the populace; if you will not get anything for your work, and will not get more for the more work you put in, then you will see little value in work. And if people don’t work, then you can kiss civilization goodbye.

The allure of utopia comes from ‘optimism’; utopianists think that human’s are not at fault for society’s ills, but that private property or some function of the state (or lack thereof) is responsible. The reality is that evils in society, and in the state, arise out of the wickedness of human nature – a conclusion the good-natured find hard to come to. Ultimately, Plato’s Republic, despite his attempts at social engineering, will not change the inherent nature of man at large. It will only, temporarily, change the situation man finds himself in.

Now, despite his argumentation for the golden mean, Aristotle clearly subscribes to the opposite side of the extreme Plato; to the optimist, the pessimist. He believes that most men are, essentially, worthless, and trying to save or preserve them will invite ruin upon the others who aren’t so worthless. “From the hour of their birth some are marked out for subjection, and others for command.” This is a reflection of a common Greek attitude against manual laborers, and generally against industry, for it extends even to the merchants. Aristotle argues quite viciously against usury for instance, and includes merchants and financiers in his class of slaves.

3.8.2 – Marriage and Education

Aristotle’s conservatism also shines in contrast to Plato’s radicalism on the issue of womens’ rights. Aristotle, quite simply, believed women to be the inferior of men, and only fit as the slaves of their betters. He urges men stay away from women until their late thirties, to take advantage of their freedom in the meantime, and then to marry a women of twenty-some years. By this measure, both male and female will lose their desire and ability to bear children at the same time, and thus avoid quarrels over off-spring. It is also partially motivated by pseudo-science and various myths on reproduction around the time. Aristotle recommends that the State take responsibility for ensuring these ‘maximum’ and ‘minimum’ ages of marriage, and even the rates of population growth. Granted, the Greeks had good reason to worry about population, since they didn’t have the technology, as we do, to make gold out of sand.

He also urges the State oversee education. He agrees with Plato on the importance of education on the individual, society, and thus the State. “The citizen should be moulded to the form of government under which he lives.” It is also only through a State-provisioned education that a common unity can be achieved, even among ethnic heterogeneity. He urges education as a means to social engineering, to condition man to control his savage nature. Also to develop social habits, for in isolation does man’s evil nature develop; As Nietzche summed up, “To live alone one must be either a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both – a philosopher”.

This is all for the purpose of his conservatism, to avoid revolution. For, Aristotle argues, revolution brings about many consequences; the direct of which are calculable, but the indirect of which are not and will, more often than not, prove disastrous. He also aspires to Plato’s cynical use of religion, ‘[A ruler] should appear to be earnest in the worship of the gods; for if men think that a ruler is religious and reveres the gods, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands, and are less disposed to conspire against him, since they believe that the gods themselves are fighting on his side’.

3.8.3 – Democracy and Aristocracy

Aristotle figured that, if his previous conditions were fulfilled, any form of government would suffice. Still, he had a preference for tyranny: he believed that, as Homer put it, “Bad is the lordship of many; let one be your ruler and master”. This likely because of his association with Alexander and Phillip. For this one man, the law would not apply, for he would exist beyond the law. “Only a ridiculous person would try to make laws to govern the [ruler, for he] would probably respond as did the lions in the story of Antisthenes when the hares harangued the assembly, holding that everyone was to be considered of equal worth: ‘Where are your claws?’”

Aristocracy is still preferable in practice, however, since finding the qualities of perfection required in a single ruler would be near-impossible, or at least too rare to be practicable. The problem with the aristocratic class is that it changes, not with merit, but with money. And thus, the highest offices become open to the highest bidders, not the most capable. When these aristocrats diminish themselves in this infighting, they lose power and democracy arises, where the lower classes assume power. Democracy also has its advantages; Aristotle appraises the crowd more fairly than Plato, and he sees clarity and incorruptibility in it. It takes greater power to corrupt a crowd, and the many likely have a clearer, less biased view of an issue than the few. And yet, it is not impossible to do either, so he still argues aristocracy as superior, as Plato did, on account of the stupidity of the masses. If the people were smarter, more virtuous, and less easily misled, there would be no problem, but alas.

Thus, Aristotle ends up at the exact same conclusion as Plato: a hybrid of democracy and aristocracy is necessary, and it would be the ideal state, but he does it with his own twist. This is constitutional government, where we do not assume men to be greater than they are, nor do we embrace a utopian constitution – a golden mean. What should be the ruling class of this state? The class which does not rule in either numbers, nor in nobility, but in combination of both; the middle-class, another application of the golden mean. Aristotle essentially describes the modern form of the state, or we could say invents it, couched in his naked conservatism.

3.9 – Criticism

Of his philosophy, Aristotle is quite clearly no radical. He is a measured realist, and the exact opposite of Plato; he is, ironically, not the golden mean to Plato. But this makes him a brilliant complement to Plato, and he flattens for us, or leads us to flatten, Plato’s faults. But let us criticize him regardless.

First, Aristotle’s logic is flawed; he starts from a premise, and thus finds a conclusion. No man really thinks like this, and this is certainly not the scientific method; we start from a hypothetical conclusion, and attempt to prove that conclusion. But Aristotle is the father, and giant of logic, and these criticisms are merely whittling away at a giant wall.

Derived from his logic, the fault in Aristotle’s scientific method leaves his work with a lot of faults; he makes a lot of general mistakes, and where he succeeds is in observation, classification, and categorization. When he spends his imagination, it leads him further into mistakes (and brilliancies), completely uncoordinated and diverse as his thought was.

His ethics is also derived from his logic, in the sense that it is completely dry. As Will puts it, ‘He gives us a handbook of propriety rather than a stimulus to improvement’. He attributes this to Aristotle’s foreign origin, unrelated to the unruliness and freedom of Athenian thought. “He realized too completely the Delphic command to avoid excess: he is so anxious to pare away extremes that at last nothing is left. He is so fearful of disorder that he forgets to be fearful of slavery; he is so timid of uncertain change that he prefers a certain changelessness that near resembles death”.

3.10 – Death

At the ripe age of 62, in 322 B.C., Aristotle was forced to flee Athens. Alexander had perished, and Athenians had risen up. Aristotle was to be tried, much as Socrates was, as the ideologue of the Macedonians, but he fled the city to avoid the fate of his master’s master. He arrived at Chalcis, but so stricken by his exile, died either by poison or some other illness. In one of the cruel ironies of fate, the same year at the same age, Demosthenes, the firebrand of Greek independence and opposite of Aristotle in this regard, drank poison to save himself from his Macedonian pursuers. Athens, and the Greeks by extension, would fall into discord and infighting, until finally subsumed by the Romans.

4 – Francis Bacon

It will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds, and as it were grades, of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their power in their native country; which kind is vulgar and degenerate. The second is of those who labor to extend the power of their country and its dominion among men; this certainly has more dignity, but not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition is without doubt both a more wholesome thing and a nobler than the other two.

4.1 – From Aristotle to the Renaissance

Alexander’s goal in the conquest of Asia was primarily to spread the glory of Greece unto the senile Orient. There were a few faults in this plan:

1. Greek thought was no doubt profound, but Eastern civilization was not so baseless as to be its inferior.
2. Even if the above were false, people would need more than subjugation to absorb Greek values.

But most of all, Alexander was not of firm grounding in Greek civilization himself. The Macedonians were barbarian invaders, and the spirit of Macedon could be considered in opposition to that of Greece. So, when he conquered Persia, he ended up absorbing as much Persian culture into Greece as he spread Greek influence into the East. Mostly, this was to suit his political regime, best shown in his proclaiming himself God.

Will has a harsh view on this line of thought: he believes Eastern thought as defeatist, apathetic, fatalist; that of the enslaved finding solace in his subjugation. In that sense, he argues, it suited the now subjugated, and dying (if not dead) Greek civilization. Though, he reminds us, thought of this line was always present in Greece, as exemplified by the Stoics.

The Epicurean and Stoic schools, further influenced by Roman subjugation, continued this process of ‘pessmizing’ Greece. It was also popular in Rome, of course, when the entirety of Greek thought was concentrated in that direction, and the Romans thought little on their own. For instance, the ruthlessly pessimistic Lucretius believed: heaven and hell did not exist; the Gods (if they even existed) didn’t care much for humans; all world is merely matter, atoms, space, united by laws; everything dies, leads to death. An analogy about Epictetus, a notable Stoic, is recounted by Origen, and displays this attitude quite grimly:

Might you not, then, take Epictetus, who, when his master was twisting his leg, said, smiling and unmoved, ‘You will break my leg;’ and when it was broken, he added, ‘Did I not tell you that you would break it?’

These attitudes were quite influential in preparing Rome for Christianity, Will asserts. The collapse of the Roman state, a slow and grinding process, also allowed the Church to come to the fore; first under the patronage of the Emperors, and later itself patronizing them. By the thirteenth century, Rome was but one facet of the Church that had influence, exceeding that of the Romans, over most of Europe.

Faith triumphed reason, and no philosophy was necessary for its timelessness and universality. Faith would never need change, for it was already perfect. When Arab and Jewish scholars translated the Greeks into their languages, and these translations spread to Christian lands, the Church responded merely by assimilating Platonic and Aristotelian thought into Christianity; as if they were Christians before Christ. Here we see Will’s belief in the clash between the theologians and actual, secular philosophy. He devotes little time to figures such as Aquinas or Augustine.

A combination of circumstances brought ‘real’ philosophy and the Greek sciences back into the minds of the Europeans. The Crusades restarted contact with the Orient, and thus lead to an inflow of ideas and goods – like cheap paper. The printing press followed, and boosted the spread of ideas. Naval missions, astronomical observations, and other efforts combined to challenge the Church’s dogma. Defeatism and fatalism were purged; men started believing conquering your fears, rather than letting them conquer you, was preferable.

Into this fertile plain, enter, Francis Bacon.

4.2 – The Political Career of Francis Bacon

• Francis was of distinguished lineage; his father was notable himself – as the Keeper of the Great Seal – though overshadowed by his son. His mother was related to the Lord Treasurer, and her father had been a linguist. His mother’s education was no doubt influential in his thought.
• The English rise to power, a result of trans-Atlantic trade overshadowing trade over the Mediterranean, also played an instrumental role in developing and spreading his thoughts.
• Francis knew from a young age that his goal was ’the discovery and development of the arts and inventions that tend to civilize the life of man’, and everything towards that end. Politics put a hinder on his plans; his father’s death left him penniless, and he had to rise up on his own merit rather than human relations. This took a lot of effort, and a lot of time, and his penchant for oratory and charisma carried him well throughout it.
• Francis was quite a devout monarchist; when his friend the Earl of Essex, who even gifted him an estate, rebelled against the Queen, Francis wrote letter after letter to convince him otherwise. When the Earl was imprisoned, he wrote letter after letter, to the Queen this time, that he be released. The Earl was released, but rebelled again soon after, and this time Francis did not ask that he be pardoned, but took active part in his prosecution.
• After hard work, and quite a few mistakes along the way, he managed to obtain the office of Lord-Chancelleor at the age of fifty-seven.

4.3 – The Essays

• Francis’s goal, mentioned above, took a a practical form in his striving towards becoming a ‘philosopher-statesman’. He attempted to maintain a balance between his more contemplative, withdrawn philosopher side, and his active political side. His admiration for philosophy was inarguable, and he figured death as preferable to, as Socrates would put it, an ‘unexamined’ life. However, he rated his political and military achievements above his literary and philosophical works.
• In The Essays, Francis condensed, with his unmatched prose, ideas inspired heavily by the Epicureans.
• He criticized the Stoics harshly; in preparing man for death, and reducing his life to but a progression to death, they increased his fear of death, and wasted his life on Earth. He also considered the end goal of the Stoics ultimately unattainable: “Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished”. He believed the Stoic, in his veneration of restraint, no different from the Hedonist tending only to his desires. He advocated a sort of golden mean. Further, he criticizes the philosopher who devotes himself only to knowledge, and with a somewhat pessimistic undertone asserts:

Men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.

• In all this, Francis deviates from the Christian line of thought so prevalent in his time; he attributes this to Machiavelli. He was quite open to the thoughts of such heretics who asserted that ’the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust’. The tolerance of Francis’ thought, and his open-mindedness, is best expressed by himself:

We are beholden to Machiavel, and writers of that kind, who openly and unmasked declare what men do in fact, and not what they ought to do; for it is impossible to join the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove, without a previous knowledge of the nature of evil; as, without this, virtue lies exposed and unguarded.

• Francis was still pious, however, and his philosophy did not make him less pious, but in fact the opposite:

A little philosophy inclineth a man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.

• Will asserts Francis’s true wisdom in psychology, however. He had a lot to say on the topic of love and marriage: he thought marriage a waste of enterprise, and did not put much stock in love. He himself married late in life. He valued friendship more, though he rushes to remind us that ’there is little friendship in the world’.
• On age, he has this to say:

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business; for the experience of age in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things abuseth them.

• Continuing the Greek trend, Francis bemoans industry, however, he does it for the exact opposite reason as Plato and Aristotle. Where the two were pacifists who merely believed that such worldliness was above philosophers, Francis believed that the fault in commerce was that it was a detriment to militarism. In fact, he completely breaks from his predecessors in denouncing pacifism, asserting peace as unbefitting of, and dulling man. Here we can see a good example of Francis’s major breaks with both his Christian and Greek predecessors, and his embrace of more practical and worldly Machiavellian thought.
• A conservative through and through, Francis was both a monarchist and opposed revolution for the same reasons as Aristotle. To prevent revolution, he advocated a Kingdom lead by a philosopher-king, administered by a learned aristocracy, and worked by a yeomanry of farmers.

4.4 – The Great Reconstruction

• Francis’s goal was a sort of reconstruction of philosophical thought in the Western tradition. This ‘Instaurationis Magnae’ (Great Instauration) took the form of a six-step plan/works:

  1. Introductory Treatises on the decline of Western philosophical tradition and how to revive it.
  2. Classification of the Sciences to ease understanding and provide a broad view of the sciences.
  3. An elucidation of his Interpretation of Nature.
  4. His attempt at applying the above in the Phenomena of Nature.
  5. Ladder of the Intellect as a representation of the giants whose shoulders have led us to knowledge.
  6. Anticipations of scientific results to expect from his method.
  7. Second (or Applied) Philosophy as an illustration of a Utopianist society which would result from following this method and everything therein.

• Francis’s grand, Aristotelian-in-scale work would lay the foundations of modern science.

4.4.1 – The Advancement of Learning

• The sciences are the pathways to Utopia, and to luminate these roads, Francis seeks to ‘seat the sciences each in its proper place’. This is The Advancement of Learning, and in writing it, Francis has ’taken all knowledge to be my province’.
• Francis stresses the importance of physiology and medicine, but laments how the physicians of his day practice completely individually, uncoordinated; he encourages them to collaborate, to understand their practice by means of experimentation and standardization. More practically, he vouches for euthanasia where death can only be delayed at the cost of pain; he also urges doctors to attempt to elucidate the art of prolonging life, rather than focus merely on the science of treating the ill.
• His understanding of psychology is as the study of human behavior. He claims that “chance is the name of a thing that does not exist” and that “what chance is in the universe, so will is in man”. But he does not elaborate on his concepts in this regard.
• Francis near-invents sociology:

Philosophers should diligently inquire into the powers and energy of custom, exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, company, friendship, praise, reproof, exhortation, reputation, laws, books, studies etc.; for these are the things that reign in men’s morals; by these agents the mind is formed and subdued.

• Francis vouches for the study of supernatural and other psychical phenomena, if only for practical reasons:

Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they, by digging, found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light.

• Francis also writes on the ‘self-help’ genre of the time, inspired by Machiavelli. He urges us, most of all, to seek knowledge; of ourselves and others: first know thyself, for without knowing ourselves we can not know others, and knowing ourselves would be useless if not as a means to know others. His view on friendship is somewhat cynical: friends are a means to power, and friendship must be completely calculated. His thoughts in this regard express a fear of betrayal, and beg one to ask if this paranoia was caused by, or the cause of, his time in prison. He urges prideful display, for “ostentation is a fault in ethics rather than in politics”. In conversation, even with friends, do not let slip your inner thoughts; question, rather than express; and speak of facts, data, and information more than beliefs and judgments.
• Francis also calls to attention the disordered state of not only the sciences, but also efforts in the sciences. Without a dedicated goal to strive towards, disorder in effort is a matter of course. To resolve this issue, he urges the creation of a philosophy of sciences; as if the philosophy of a science were a sheperd guiding disordered scientific progress onwards. A unitary thread.
• Ultimately, Francis expresses a love for philosophy as like a religion; he recommends philosophy as a cure for all sorts of ailment, from politics to the sciences. But he understands the importance of science especially well, and he expresses in his works both the particulars (his ‘Baconian’ scientific method, for instance) and the general way to ‘do’ science, such that his ideas influenced much of how universities and other centers of learning operate. Francis is refreshingly optimistic about the future of mankind, and is willing to ‘stake all on the victory of art over nature in the race’.

4.4.2 – The New Organon (Novum Organum)

• But, is his confidence not unfounded? Little progress had been made past where the Greeks had left the sciences, so why did Francis hold so much hope? Well, because he would lead the vanguard of this restoration with his New Organon. Francis held hope for the future of the sciences, because the future was in his hands.

• His main critique comes against the Greeks, thus the name ‘New Organon’. Namely, he criticizes the Greeks for spending too much time on theory, and too little on observation; they attempted to make up for what they lacked in observation with thought and logic, but such an effort is either inefficient or impossible. Thought should be the aide of observation, and putting thought above observation is foolhardy.

• These errors in our lines of thinking have led us to false ‘idols’. Francis determines a number of these idols:

  • Idols of the Tribe: ‘Man is the measure of all things’, which is to say that our senses may deceive us in observation, or we can not harness their powers successfully. This results in a distorted observation. For example, Francis gives us: “the human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and regularity in things than it really finds … Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles”. Another manifestation of this fallacy is working from the conclusion to the justification or, as Francis puts it, “the human understanding, when any proposition has been once laid down (either from general admission and belief, or from the pleasure it affords), forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation”; our innate biases, basically.
  • To fight against idols of these sort, Francis recommends that every ‘student of nature’, whenever his mind comes to a satisfactory conclusion unprompted, hold that particular conclusion in extreme suspicion; for, it is likely, that this is merely our biases acting. Furthermore, we must make our efforts towards a conclusion even and clear, and hang the wings of our imagination with weights ’to keep it from leaping and flying’.
  • Idols of the Cave: If the Idols of the Tribe are common amongst all humanity, Idols of the Cave are peculiar to the individual. “For every one … has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature”. Some people are inclined entirely towards conservatism, some towards progress; a scientist must maintain, however, the golden mean.
  • Idols of the Marketplace: Essentially, misunderstandings from the misuse of language.
  • Finally, Idols of the Theatre which are other people’s caves migrating into our minds; namely, philsophers. Which is to say, other people’s biases that influence our thought; we can call them second-hand biases.

• With all the fluff out of the way, Francis gives us his scientific method of inquiry: first, there is simple experience (empirical) which can be accidental; planned experience involves first ’light[ing] the candle’ (our hypothesis) and using it to illuminate the way (our arguments and experimentations); finally, we arrive at axioms, which we can use in further experiments to establish more axioms.

• However, to have too many axioms would be pointless or worse. We must have a means, within the scientific method of induction, to cancel out the various hypotheses until only one, true conclusion remains.

  • One useful technique that Francis makes an example of is the ’table of more or less’. Essentially, if we have multiple phenomena that we hypothesize are causally related, we can prove this by tracking them in a table; we increase or decrease the quantum of one phenomena, and see if the other phenomena change in response or not. If they do, the phenomenon are causally related, otherwise they are not. In applying this method, Francis discovers (one of his few specific contributions to science) that heat is a form of motion, as when heat increases the only other phenomenon to increase with exact elasticity is motion.

• To Francis, like Plato, the forms of the phenomenon he studies are the laws that govern them. They are the foundation of theory and practice; where either is useless without the other.

4.4.3 – The Utopia of Science

• Bacon envisioned in the New World, a fertile ground for his Utopian idea of a society arranged on science. ‘New Atlantis’, as he called it, because the Americas were seen as that sunken continent; not sunken, merely undiscovered.
• In his work, explorers come upon this lone island of New Atlantis. They happen upon, not savages, but intelligent men. They see not a society of barbarism, but one of intelligent arrangement. Political power over the island rests in ‘Solomon’s House’, a sort of parliament, but without the politicians. The island is administered in a most libertarian way, and efforts are expended more towards conquering nature than man.
• These administrators focus on astronomy, medicine, physics, engineering, and other such bland sciences, rather than corrupt politics. The people here have imitated the flight of the birds, and can fly in the air; they have ships that can go underwater.
• The people of this island do not busy themselves with war or trade (as Plato or Aristotle, seen as the same thing). They consume only what they produce, and produce only what they consume. Ideas flow into the island not through trade; instead, explorers from the island are sent to every corner of the globe, to observe civilized societies and their innovations in all manners, and return within 12 years with everything documented.

5 – Spinoza

5.1 – His Life and Times

Spinoza was the child of Sephardim who fled Spain after the Reconquista and the Inquisition. The Jews were still a homeless and persecuted people at the time, and his orgins reflected this. He was born in Amsterdam, in the Dutch Republic; one of the few places to offer refuge to the expelled.

As a child, Spinoza was devout. No doubt, as he thought of the trials of tribulations of his ancestors, persecuted and chased around for their faith, his faith only strengthened. His father was a merchant, but he had no such inclination – instead, he spent his time at a synagogue in Amsterdam (known as the Esnoga), the most grandiose in Europe at the time.

He was well-educated in the theology and history of his people. He moved quickly from the Bible, to commentaries, and then to prominent Jewish philosophers. But this did not indoctrinate him into religious dogma – instead, as Will notes, clever apologia of religion often provokes as much doubt as it puts down.

And so it was for Spinoza who, not satisfied with the thoughts of his people, and examined Christian thought as well. He studied Latin, which opened to him Greek thought. But most pronounced was the influence of Descartes. Descartes was what we would call a ‘rationalist’, one who thought that reason was the best tool to decipher truth and reality. This line of thought is in contrast to Bacon who, as explained before, preferred observation and experience (’empiricism’). The contest between these two schools took up the minds of the brightest philosophers for generations to come.

The logic of rationalism was simple: all humans view the world subjectively, as not all minds think similarly. What we perceive (sensory experience), which is the basis of empiricism, is thus possibly ’tainted’ and can not be trusted. The mind can only know itself objectively (‘I think, therefore I am’), and thus, only that should be relied upon in philosoophy (the pursuit of truth).

But this did not interest Spinoza. He preferred Descartes’ speculations on the nature of reality instead. Descartes thought that all matter was made up of an underlying, abstract, and immaterial substance, and that the same was true of the mind. He also thought that everything obeyed mathematical and/or mechanical rules. Everything everywhere moved according to these rules, but inside the body (where the soul resides), and outside the Universe (the kingdom of God).

Spinoza developed on his thoughts in this regard, and for this he was excommunicated. Part of this was because his heresies struck at Judaic orthodoxies, and the other part was because they struck at Christian orthodoxies with equal force. Spinoza, already an alien in an unfamiliar land, was robbed of what little community he had. His father disinherited him, and other tragedies followed.

It became intolerable, however, when a fanatic attempted to murder him. He took on an adopted name and isolated himself. He earned little, and carefully accounted for what he spent (living paycheck-to-paycheck, as the kids would say). His living was ascetic, or if you wish to be harsh, slovenly.

Spinoza only published two works in his lifetime: ‘The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy’ and ‘A Treatise on Religion and the State’; the reception of the latter, by no means welcoming, likely influenced his decision not to publish his other works. These were posthumously discovered.

What little popularity and what few admirers Spinoza had, he usually rejected. Many sought to patronize him, but he rarely accepted their generosity – instead, he was content to live simply. He was influential, however, and not universally disliked or disregarded. It was simply that he did not care much for such things as fame.

Spinoza died at 44, in the lodging he had lived in for years now. His sedentary lifestyle no doubt contributed to his sufferings, as he was ill for quite some time till his death.

5.2 – His Works

Spinoza’s ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’ is a scathing critique of religion. The ideas expressed within are common enough to be unoriginal now, but it is no wonder he was so persecuted in his times.

He takes particular issue with how religion is crafted for the popular mind; in so doing, scripture employs the human imagination, rather than reason. The near-universal religious emphasis on miracles, individuality, and especially the glorification of a specific people are examples of this.

Spinoza does not necessarily take issue with the conception of a God, insofar as he thinks that God and Nature are one. Religion appeals to a human conception of God, with personal attributes (the forgiving, just, e.t.c). In reality, God is a mover, and one who only moves in accordance with his nature, not for some human virtue.

Furthermore, Spinoza advocates a sort of Abrahamic unity. He praises Jesus as a paragon of virtue, and his ethics as the most wise of all. In his view, if you were to strip the parables and miracles, Judaism and Christianity are composed of the same ‘core’.

In his ‘The Improvement of the Intellect’, Spinoza regales us with the story of why he began his ascetic-esque lifestyle: in his words, ’experience had taught me that all things which frequently take place in ordinary life are vain and futile’. He elaborates that wants, desires, fears, and joys are only extant so long as the mind allows them to exist. This sort of reflection led him to a conclusion: if he could instead turn his mind to finding pleasure in intellectual enterprise, to the accumulation of wisdom (a pursuit ’eternal’, as opposed to worldly desire), then he could also be eternally happy.

But what is wisdom? How do we seek knowledge? Spinoza addresses this question, first, by categorizing the various forms of knowledge:

1. Hear-say knowledge, as in rumours and gossip.
2. Vague experience, as in intuition.
3. Immediate deduction, as in phenomenon explained by logic but not empirically proven.
4. Knowledge deduced and empirically proven, as in the laws of physics.

• Philosophy