Miss Buddha (91 page)

“Far truer.”

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

“True,” his student replied.

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

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

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

“Yes, certainly.”

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

“Certainly.”

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

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

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

“Yes, he would.”

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

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

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

“To be sure.”

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

“No question,” he said.

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

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

“I agree,” he answered. “As far as I am able
to understand you.”

“Moreover,” said Socrates. “You must not
wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling
to descend to human affairs; for their souls are never hastening
into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of
theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.”

“Yes, very natural.”

“And is there anything surprising in one who
passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man,
misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are
blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding
darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other
places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and
is endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet
seen absolute justice?”

“Anything but surprising,” replied his
student.

No wonder the powers that be assumed their
world would be safer with one less Socrates in it.

Plato

Plato, who, our records show, lived from
around 428 to 347 BCE, was a more systematic thinker than Socrates,
but his writings, particularly the earlier dialogues, are usually
seen as a continuation and elaboration of Socratic insights.

Like Socrates, Plato regarded ethics as the
highest branch of knowledge and stressed the intellectual basis of
virtue, identifying virtue with wisdom—virtually a Buddhist
concept—leading to the so-called Socratic paradox that, as Socrates
(according to Plato) asserts in the Protagoras, “No wise man does
evil voluntarily.”

The foundation of Plato’s philosophy is the
theory of Ideas, sometimes referred to as the doctrine of Forms.
The theory of Ideas, as expressed in many of his
dialogues—particularly the Republic and the Parmenides—divides
existence into two realms: an “intelligible realm” of perfect,
eternal, and invisible Ideas, or Forms, and a “sensible realm” of
concrete, familiar objects.

Trees, stones, human bodies, and other
objects that are perceived and known through the senses are for
Plato unreal, shadowy, and imperfect copies of the Ideas of tree,
stone, and the human body, which can only be seen by the inner
eye.

He arrived at this conclusion through his
high standard of knowledge, a standard that attains to all genuine
objects of knowledge be described without contradiction.

Because all objects perceived by the senses
undergo change, an assertion made about such objects at one time
will not be true a second later, if for no other reason than that
it is now in a different moment.

According to Plato, sensible realm objects
are therefore not entirely real and any beliefs derived from
experience of such objects are vague and unreliable; whereas the
principles of mathematics and philosophy, discovered by inner
meditation on the Ideas or Forms, constitute the only knowledge
worthy of the name.

This view is represented by the Socratic
cave (see above), where humanity is shown as imprisoned in a cave
with a fire burning between them and the opening of this cave, and
mistaking shadows on the wall for reality. Plato saw the
philosopher as the person who penetrates to the world outside the
cave of ignorance and, who by entering the world of sunlight
achieves a vision of the true reality, the realm of Ideas.

Plato’s concept of the Absolute Idea of the
Good, which is the highest Form and includes all others, has been a
main source of pantheistic and mystical religious doctrines in
Western culture.

Plato’s theory of Ideas and knowledge formed
the foundation for his ethical and social idealism according to
which the realm of eternal Ideas provides the standards or ideals
according to which all objects and actions should be judged. The
philosopher—rising above sensual pleasures, and so refrains from
them, instead searching for knowledge of abstract principles—finds
in these ideals the basis for personal behavior and social
institutions.

According to Plato, personal virtue springs
from a harmonious relation among the three parts of the soul:
reason, emotion, and desire. Social justice likewise is made up of
harmony among the classes of society. The ideal state of a sound
mind in a sound body requires that the intellect control the
desires and passions, as the ideal state of society requires that
the wisest individuals rule the pleasure-seeking masses.

Truth, beauty, and justice all meet in the
Idea of the Good; therefore, art that expresses moral values is the
best art.

As a result, Plato did support censorship of
art forms that he believed corrupted the young and promoted social
injustice; perhaps not a bad idea if you consider what passes for
art these days.

Aristotle

Aristotle, who in 367 BCE began his studies
at Plato’s Academy at age 17, was Plato’s most illustrious pupil
and also ranks with his teacher among the most profound and
influential thinkers of the Western world.

After studying for many years at Plato’s
Academy, Aristotle went on to become the tutor of Alexander the
Great. That task done, he then returned to Athens to founded the
Lyceum, a school that, like Plato’s Academy, for centuries remained
one of the great centers of learning in Greece, if not in the
world.

In his lectures at the
Lyceum, Aristotle defined the basic concepts and principles of many
of the sciences, such as logic, biology, physics, and psychology,
and in delineating and founding the science of logic, he developed
the theory of deductive inference—the process of drawing
conclusions from accepted premises by means of logical reasoning.
His theory is exemplified by the
syllogism
—a deductive argument having
two premises and a conclusion.

But Aristotle was not above disagreeing with
his illustrious teacher, and in his metaphysical theory, Aristotle
took more than one shot at Plato’s theory of Forms. Aristotle
argued that there was no such thing as matter-less forms; that such
forms could not exist by themselves but could only exist in
particular things—things which always are composed of both form and
matter.

He understood substances as matter organized
by a particular form. Humans, he pointed out as an example, are
composed of flesh and blood arranged to shape arms, legs, and the
other parts of the body. In other words, he held that there is not
ideal human Form without the actual human to represent it.

Nature, for Aristotle, is an organic system
of many things whose forms, be they simple or complex, make it
possible to arrange them into classes comprising species and
genera. He held that each species has a form, a purpose, and a mode
of development by which it can be defined.

The aim of science, he went on to profess,
is to define the essential forms, purposes, and modes of
development of all species and to arrange them in their natural
order in accordance with their complexities of form, the main
levels of which, in his view, were the inanimate (such as rocks and
water), the vegetative, the animal, and the rational (i.e., man—who
he saw as the highest order of nature on Earth).

While Aristotle defines the soul as the form
of the body—in truth, for him the soul or spirit does not really
exist. While bot Socrates and Plato held concepts that we might
call other-worldly, Aristotle was firmly anchored in Terra Firma:
if you couldn’t touch it, or measure it, it simply did not exist,
Socrates and Plato notwithstanding.

Speaking of other-worldly, Aristotle held
that the heavenly bodies—which he saw as composed of an
imperishable substance (ether) and as moved eternally in perfect
circular motion by God—were a higher order of nature than
humans.

This hierarchical classification of nature
was later adopted by many Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians
of the Middle Ages as a view of nature consistent with their
religious beliefs.

Aristotle’s political and ethical philosophy
also grew out of a critical examination of Plato’s principles
(where would Aristotle have been without a Plato to negate?). The
standards of personal and social behavior, according to Aristotle,
can only be derived from a scientific study of the natural
tendencies of individuals and societies, and can never be found in
a heavenly or abstract realm of pure forms—again displaying his
non-comprehension of Socrates’ and Plato’s knowledge of the
soul.

As a result, Aristotle was less insistent
than Socrates or Plato on a rigorous conformity to absolute
principles. In fact, Aristotle regarded ethical rules only as
practical guides to a happy and well-rounded life.

It might well have been that Aristotle
developed his principles with one ear to the Platonic ground and
the other to the popular views of the time, especially since his
emphasis on happiness—as the active fulfillment of natural
capacities—expressed the attitude toward life held by cultivated
Greeks of his time.

In political theory, Aristotle finally
agreed with Plato that a monarchy ruled by a wise king would be the
ideal political structure, but he also held that societies differ
in their needs and traditions and so maintained that a limited
democracy is usually the best compromise.

When it came to knowledge, Aristotle again
rejected the Platonic notion that knowledge is innate and instead
insisted that knowledge can only be acquired by generalization from
experience.

Finally, he saw art as a means of pleasure
and intellectual enlightenment rather than an instrument of moral
education.