The present reconstruction retains the otherworldliness that characterizes
Platonism. That is, this reconstructed Platonism retains Plato's two-world
vision:
- This-world, at best an ever-changing mixture of good and
not-good, and
- An "otherworld," populated by perfect Platonic Forms,
deserving of our complete and unreserved loyalty, because it is free of the
imperfections that characterize this world.
To this extent Platonism is like a religion, except that
- It is fully rational, not depending on faith.
- Its otherworldly focus does not turn the attention of
individuals away from this world, but asks them to try to become representatives
of perfect virtue in this world, so far as they are able.
- It is individual not social. Practicing Platonism involves
long-term cultivation of internal virtues in oneself, rather than membership in
an organized church, following its rules, participating in its rituals, etc. To
this extent Platonism is more like a "spirituality" than a "religion" as most
people understand the term, and in fact was the basis for a great deal of the
spirituality of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Middle Ages.
- Religion generally implies standardization, asking all
members to mold themselves on a single set of ideals applicable to all. The
present critical reconstruction emphasizes the individualist character of
Platonism, inviting each individual to choose virtues most attractive to her,
use critical reasoning to formulate a concept of each of these virtues at its
very best, and make these perfect virtue-concepts the focus of her ultimate
loyalties, a loyalty put into practice by cultivating these virtues in herself
and becoming a representative of these otherworldly virtues in this world.
Platonism thus serves some of the functions that religion
fulfills in the lives of believers. That is, it provides a vision of an
"otherworld" that resolves some problems arising from dissatisfaction with the
problems and imperfections of this world.
Platonism also resolves many other problems that often give rise to moral
skepticism, doubt, and cynicism.
Here are some examples that make these points more specific
and concrete:
Jane falls in love with Jim. She finds this a very inspiring and uplifting
experience, making her feel that life is great. She becomes very idealistic
about love, and life in general. But after awhile the relationship with Jim
turns sour and the couple break up. Jane is depressed, but falls in love again.
She is uplifted, but again disappointed. After several such experiences, she
loses faith in love.
Reflecting, she realizes that she was really "in love with
love" -- she loved the experience of being in love. But now she thinks to
herself, "Love doesn't really exist." In the words of the old song: "Falling in
love with love is falling for make-believe." The love she was in love with does
not exist in "the real world." Life does not seem as bright as it used to be.
Jane ceases being idealistic about love and about life, becomes more cynical,
more jaded.
Plato's "two-world" view is very realistic in acknowledging
the cause of Jane's cynicism, but finds a way of remaining idealistic in spite
of it. The uplifting and inspiring love she was in love with is real, not
"make-believe." It just does not exist in what Jane mistakenly takes to be the
only "real world." It exists in a realm beyond the world of specific concrete
experiences, the otherworldly realm of Platonic Forms.
Specific concrete experiences like falling in love with Jim
"participate in" the perfect Platonic Form of love, but Jane should be careful
not to think of this specific concrete experience as "love itself." She should
not mistake an individual concrete experience that participates in Love for Love
itself. This is the cause of her let-down, because when her actual experience of
life with Jim falls short of its early idealistic promise, this leads her to
feel that Love itself has failed her.
Jane can remain idealistic and inspired, feeling that life is
great, despite her disappointing experiences, if she mentally isolates and
separates Perfect Love from any specific concrete experience of love.
This "Perfect Love" is something like a "Platonic Form" of
Love. Plato would advise Jane to regard Perfect Love, and all the Platonic Forms
of goodness, to be the true home of her soul, that to which she can and should
devote herself unreservedly, the focus of her ultimate loyalties. They alone
will never let her down.
This does not mean, of course, that she is devoted to the
Form of Love instead of concrete love-relationships. A good Platonist will look
upon the perfect Form of Love as a "paradigm" to model her relationships on, and
devote herself to making her concrete love-relationships approximate,
"participate in," the paradigmatic Platonic Form of Love as closely as possible.
Suppose I look up to some famous figure as an inspiring concrete
representation of some particular admirable personal quality, for example,
Mother Theresa as a model of selfless compassion for suffering humanity. This
inspires in me an idealistic desire to imitate her. Suppose I then read a
newspaper story showing that the actual Mother Theresa is not as selfless as her
public image presents her to be, and I become disillusioned with the ideal of
selfless compassion itself, losing my desire to become selflessly compassionate
myself. This outcome could have been avoided if I had been able to mentally
separate the concept or Form "selfless compassion" from the concrete person
Mother Theresa, and made this Platonic Form the focus of my idealism. Instead of
defining my moral identity as an "imitator of Mother Theresa" I could have
defined my moral identity in relation to a concept of selfless compassion
abstracted from this concrete person.
We sometimes take other people as "role models," and try to
be like them. A good Platonist instead takes pure and perfect virtue-Forms as
"models" (paradeigmata) for imitation). A high-school basketball player taking a
professional player as a "role model" might not expect to actually achieve the
same level of play. The professional player who is the role-model serves as an
inspiration, and also provides an image of very specific skills to try to learn,
in order to approximate the skills of the role-model -- Plato would call this
"participating in" the play and skill-level of the professional. These are good
analogies to the function of Platonic Forms in the personal life of the ideal
Platonist.
Many people associate moral norms with norms of their own society, as
enforced by social pressure. But today social pressure, "what our culture
teaches us," is most often thought of as a negative force whose unfortunate
influence is an object of constant and widespread criticism. In some cases this
disenchantment with society's teachings leads to a general moral skepticism. In
other cases it leads to the feeling that there is some kind of moral crisis in
our times because our society is unique in its failure to teach its citizens
true values.
The model of Platonist thought developed here suggests a
different and more radical perspective for viewing this problem. That is, it
seems in the nature of social pressure that it should focus on simple
definitions of what is good and not good, defined in terms of externally visible
conduct. Only my closest long-term friends can know my internal invisible
virtues and vices. The general public can only judge me by my external conduct,
and can only pressure me to conform to relatively external standards connected
to visible conduct. Thus the problem of social pressure as a negative force is
not a problem unique to our society which might be resolved by widespread social
reform. There never can be a society in which social pressure comes close to
representing pure goodness deserving of unreserved commitment. Alienation from
conventional social norms should be regarded as the normal condition of all
individuals with a sense of true values.
The solution to this problem is individual, not social,
requiring that an individual define her moral identity in relation to
transcendent concepts of True Goodness separated from all reference to visible
conduct that could be the object of social pressure.
This need not be separated from efforts at social reform. The
aim of someone devoted to transcendent Platonic Forms of Goodness should be to
shape her own personality, and the social life around her, in such a way as to
participate in and approximate these Forms to an ever higher degree.
Some difficulties arrive through focusing on moral dilemmas, and expecting
that there should be a rational solution to these dilemmas.
One student described the following situation that presented
her with a dilemma:
Suppose a friend in need asks me to give him a room to stay in for awhile. Kindness seems to require that I let him stay with me for awhile. On the other hand, giving a friend a room to stay in for awhile may cause the friend to gradually become lazy in finding another job. My kindness may cause my friend to develop an unhealthy dependence on me. My kindness may also result in the loss of my own privacy, if my friend has many other friends and relatives he has to communicate with regularly.
"Giving my friend a place to stay" is concrete visible behavior. This example shows that concrete visible behavior is often a mixture of some things admirable and some things not admirable. Following some rule couched in terms of concrete visible behavior ("Always give friends a place to stay," or "Never give friends a place to stay"), will as Plato says, "Sometimes amount to doing what is right, sometimes doing what is not right." This will be true whenever we try to precisely define moral goodness in terms of some rule for external behavior. (A politician can always follow any rule you give her, for the purpose of gaining people's confidence so she get elected and take advantage of them.)
The moral of the story for Plato is that we can get precise definitions
describing something only and always admirable, unmixed with anything not
admirable, but we can only get this by defining abstract concepts of
invisible/internal virtues, not rules for concrete/visible behavior.
That is, concrete/visible behavior (giving a friend a room to
stay in) rarely represents something completely good unmixed with anything not
good. Following general rules for concrete behavior ("Always give friends a
place to stay") will result in sometimes doing the right thing and sometimes not
doing the right thing. We should not expect any concrete behavior, or any rule
for concrete behavior, to precisely represent only-goodness.
This does not deny that dilemmas exist and must be faced. On
the contrary, Platonism suggests that only in the "other world" of Forms can we
grasp clear and pure goodness unmixed with anything else. The concrete social
world we live in is full of "gray areas," where we should not expect there to be
purely good or purely bad concrete courses of action.
Example #5.
Sue is preparing a surprise birthday party at her apartment for Sheila, who
is a plumber. Sue misleads Sheila by telling her that her sink is plugged up, in
order to get her over to the apartment for the party.
Jane is a con-artist. She misleads her poor grandmother Mary
into investing her life-savings in a non-existent company, then skips town with
the money.
Kimberly is a maid for a millionaire. In December her
children are starving, so she brings them some leftover food from the
millionaire's refrigerator, without permission.
Jane lied and Sue lied, neither told the truth, neither was
being honest. Jane stole and Kimberly stole.
But it is difficult to hold that the "white lie" Sue told to
her friend is equal in badness to the manipulative lie that Jane told, or that
Kimberly's stealing for her starving children is equal in badness to Jane's
stealing from her poor grandmother. Cases like this are often the source of
moral skepticism, doubts as to whether there exist clear norms of goodness and
badness, or whether we can have reliable knowledge of goodness and badness.
Doubts raised by examples like this are central to Socratic
questioning. They can be resolved, but only by abandoning the attempt to define
goodness in terms of simple and concrete rules like "tell the truth," or "don't
steal." People will always be confused about moral goodness so long as they try
to define goodness in these simple and concrete terms. Rules for concrete
visible behavior are always ambiguous with respect to true goodness. We can only
define moral goodness in a very clear, precise, unambiguous way by formulating
definitions that are abstract, separated from anything concretely visible, and
that refer to internal "virtues," parts of a person's personality that manifest
themselves in visible conduct, but are not in themselves directly visible from
the outside.
This principle addresses common problems arising from the
fact that different societies impose different rules on their members as to what
is allowable and not allowable in terms of external conduct, rules for example
concerning what kind of killing is allowable and not allowable (killing animals
but not people; prison officials killing a convicted murderer but not a private
citizen killing a burglar stealing a lawn-sprinkler off your lawn; allowing
killing enemies in war, but not allowing capital punishment, and so on).
"Killing" is a visible external action. Platonism asserts that we should never
expect any rule for visible conduct to invariably tell us the difference between
right and wrong, admirable and not-admirable conduct.
One could begin resolving problems associated with concrete
rules about killing, by shifting one's focus from external rules "Do not kill"
to a related internal virtue, consisting of an admirable habitual attitude to
take toward others, as for example, the fundamental attitude we might describe
as "respect for human life." An individual can think that it is obviously OK to
kill a murderer attacking an innocent person, and still think that in general
"respect for human life" is an admirable attitude. The task for this person
would be to try to formulate a more abstract, difficult to define, description
of the internal virtue of "respect for life" that would not necessarily prevent
one from killing a murderer on such an occasion.
*****
All these problems can be cast in terms of the question: What
should we think of as "the real world"?
The concrete visible world surrounding us is overwhelmingly
present, and overwhelmingly powerful in the impression it makes on our senses
and in its effects on our emotions. This is why we tend to think of it as "the
real world."
But only very inexperienced or very naive people can ignore
the fact that, from the point of view of moral values, this real world is
grossly imperfect at best. All the problems described above provide the basis
for the feeling some people have that "goodness does not exist" -- because to
"exist" is to be part of the "real world," understood in the above sense.
People keep trying to find some person, institution, or cause that deserves
their unreserved admiration, that they can commit themselves to unconditionally.
But this quest seems due to be continually frustrated, particularly today in the
face of media whose primary function is exposing the faults of prominent
individuals and powerful institutions. One does not want to be "taken in" by
false pretensions to goodness that are not really admirable.
If "alienation" describes a situation in which individuals
feel that the forces actually prevailing in their society do not deserve their
respect, then "alienation" is rampant in the US today in almost all sectors of
society, all social classes, among people of all political persuasions.
Platonism regards such alienation as normal to the human
condition, a fundamental feature of human social life, not fundamentally
remediable by social reform. Every person with refined moral sensitivities
should feel alienated. There never can be a society in which the forces that
prevail in society deserve our unreserved respect, and in which conforming to
"what society teaches us" will invariably mean leading a truly admirable life.
******
Plato sometimes expresses his solution to the problem of
alienation by advocating a change in what should be regarded as "most real."
Perfect Platonic Forms constitute a metaphorical "world" of their own. These
Forms are apt to feel very unreal in the sense that the perfect goodness they
represent wields so little power in "the real world." The Forms can only be
grasped by abstract and ethereal concepts removed from anything visible and
concrete, therefore from anything really powerful in social life.
From a Platonist point of view, the basic problem here is this:
Concrete visible reality makes the strongest impression on
our minds and emotions, but it is what least deserves to be taken as a context
for self-definition and self-evaluation, determining the meaning of life and
what finally matters.
Consequently, for purposes of deciding these "ultimate" questions, the ideal
Platonist regards the Forms alone as constituting what is "really real" (ontōs
on), the really real context in which to see herself and evaluate her life.
Concrete visible reality is not completely un-real, in the sense that it
completely lacks goodness. In one colorful phrase Plato describes the visible
world as "rolling around between being and not-being." In the Parable of the
Cave (excerpted below), he uses the metaphor of "shadows" cast on a cave wall by
"real things" crossing the cave-entrance. Platonic Forms alone have the full
"reality" of goodness. Good things in the world are good insofar as they
participate imperfectly in the goodness of the Forms, just as shadows
imperfectly represent the real objects that are casting the shadows.
This is the "otherworldliness" of the ideal Platonist. For
purposes of self-definition, self-evaluation, and deciding what finally matters
in life, she overcomes the natural human tendency to be swayed most by what
prevails in the concrete social world around her, and regards the world of
perfect but abstract Platonic Forms as what is most really real.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Plato's view of the relation between imperfect concrete reality and the abstract perfect Platonic Forms is presented in a famous Parable of the Cave. This is a fictional story in which people are chained inside a cave facing inward, and can only see shadows cast on the cave wall by figures passing by the entrance of the cave behind and above them. In the parable, the "real world" outside the cave represents perfect Platonic Forms, as for example the perfect Form of Courage. The cave-shadows represent concrete reality -- e.g. concrete courageous people or concrete acts of courage.
One cave-dweller who breaks free of his chains, and manages to escape the cave into the "real world" outside the cave. This represents the Platonic philosopher who manages the mental ascent from the imperfect concrete world to the world of Perfect Platonic Form. The other cave-dwellers, remaining chained in the cave, represent concrete-minded people who do not realize that there is any other world. They think that the cave-shadows are the real world. That is, they tend to identify "reality" with concrete, visible objects and events, and they get used to thinking in concrete images.
Plato thinks that true Goodness in itself cannot be identified with any concrete reality or concrete image, consequently this concrete mindedness is an obstacle to grasping pure Goodness in itself. People who are concrete minded become easily disoriented when they try to deal with non-concrete Forms. This is represented in the cave story when the one person who breaks free is blinded by the light he encounters at the cave entrance. Concrete minded people are also very attached to the idea that reality consists of concrete objects, and are very resistant to any criticism that undermines the security they find in their concrete world. This is represented in the cave story when the freed person returns to the cave and tries to free the others by convincing them that what they are looking at is only shadows of the real world outside the cave. Their reaction is rather drastic -- they kill the person who tries to free them. This undoubtedly reflects Plato's view of the fate of Socrates, condemned to death by fellow-Athenians on the charge of "corrupting the youth" by teaching them to question conventional social norms and replace them with more perfect virtue-Forms created and discovered through Socratic/Platonic reasoning.
The following is a translation of Plato’s passage presenting this parable. ML
Imagine men living in an underground cave-like dwelling place, which has a way up to the light along its whole width, but the entrance is a long way up. The men have been there from childhood, with their neck and legs in fetters, so that they remain in the same place and can only see ahead of them, as their bonds prevent them turning their heads. Light is provided by a fire burning some way behind and above them. Between the fire and the prisoners, some way behind them and on a higher ground, there is a path across the cave and along this a low wall has been built, like the screen at a puppet show in front of the performers who show their puppets above it.
See then also men carrying along that wall, visible over its top, all kinds of artifacts, statues of men, reproductions of other animals in stone or wood fashioned in all sorts of ways.
[These men] are like us.
Such men could not see anything of themselves and each other except the shadows which the fire casts upon the wall of the cave in front of them? And is not the same true of the objects carried along the wall?
If they could converse with one another, do you not think that they would consider these shadows to be the real things? Such men would believe the truth to be nothing else than the shadows of the artifacts.
Consider then what deliverance from their bonds and the curing of their ignorance it would be if something like this naturally happened to them. Whenever one of them was freed, had to stand up suddenly, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, doing all that would give him pain, the flash of the fire would make it impossible for him to see the objects of which he had earlier seen the shadows. What do you think he would say if he was told that what he saw before was foolishness, that he was now somewhat closer to reality and turned to things that existed more fully, that he saw more correctly? If one then pointed to each of the objects passing by, asked him what each was, and forced him to answer, do you not think he would be at a loss and believe that the things which he saw earlier were truer than the things now pointed out to him?
If one then compelled him to look at the fire itself, his eyes would hurt, he would turn round and flee toward those things which he could see, and think that they were in fact clearer than those now shown to him.
And if one were to drag him thence by force up the rough and steep path, and did not let him go before he was dragged into the sunlight, would he not be in physical pain and angry as he was dragged along?
When he came into the light, with the sunlight filling his eyes, he would not be able to see a single one of the things which are now said to be true.
I think he would need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above; at first he would see shadows most easily, then reflections of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. After this he would see objects in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, the light of the stars and the moon more easily than the sun and the light of the sun during the day.
Then, at last, he would be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or in some alien place, but the sun itself in its own place, and be able to contemplate it.
After this he would reflect that it is the sun which provides the seasons and the years, which governs everything in the visible world, and is also in some way the basis of those other things which he used to see.
What then? As he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, of the wisdom there and of his fellow prisoners, would he not reckon himself happy for the change, and pity them?
And if the men below had praise and honors from each other, and prizes for the man who saw most clearly the shadows that passed before them, and who could best remember which usually came earlier and which later, and which came together and thus could most ably prophesy the future, do you think our man would desire those rewards and envy those who were honored and held power among the prisoners, or would he feel, as Homer put it, that he certainly wished to be "serf to another man without possessions upon the earth" and go through any suffering, rather than share their opinions and live as they do?
If this man went down into the cave again and sat down in the same seat, would his eyes not be filled with darkness, coming suddenly out of the sunlight?
And if he had to contend again with those who had remained prisoners in recognizing those shadows while his sight was affected and his eyes had not settled down - and the time for this adjustment would not be short - would he not be ridiculed? Would it not be said that he had returned from his upward journey with his eyesight spoiled, and that it was not worthwhile even to attempt to travel upward? As for the man who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow lay their hands on him and kill him, they would do so.
This whole image... must be related to what we said before [about the perfect Forms of Goodness discussed in earlier books of the Republic]. The realm of the visible should be compared to the prison dwelling, and the fire inside it to the power of the sun. If you interpret the upward journey and the contemplation of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the realm of Understanding,
[ton no‘ton topon] you will grasp what I’m suggesting.[Note: Noesis/Understanding is a technical term in Plato referring to the mind's ability to understand abstract ideas, separated from anything visible to the senses. No‘ton topon means literally "the Understood Place" -- the place of the Platonic Forms which can only be grasped if a person is able to conceive of them separated from anything visible to the senses -- as for example grasping the essence of courage as an abstract idea separated from any visualizable image of a specific person acting courageously. ML.]
In the realm of pure Understanding [en tÇ gnÇstÇ] , the Form of the Good is the last to be seen [horasthai], and with difficulty. When seen it must be reckoned to be for all the basis [aitia] of all that is right [orthos] and beautiful, to have produced in the visible world both light and the fount of light, while in the realm of Understanding [en no‘tÇ] it is itself mistress of truth and understanding [nous], and he who is to act intelligently in public or in private must see it.Do not be surprised that those who have reached this point are unwilling to occupy themselves with human affairs, and that their souls are always pressing upward to spend their time there, for this is natural if things are as our parable indicates.
Is it at all surprising that anyone coming to the evils of human life from the contemplation of the divine behaves awkwardly and appears very ridiculous while his eyes are still dazzled and before he is sufficiently adjusted to the darkness around him, if he is compelled to contend in court or some other place about the shadows of justice or the objects of which they are shadows, and to carry through the contest about these in the way these things are understood by those who have never seen Justice itself?
Anyone with intelligence would remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, coming from light into darkness as well as from darkness into light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, whenever he sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he will not laugh mindlessly but will consider whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed because unadjusted, or has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is filled with a brighter dazzlement. The former he would declare happy in its life and experience, the latter he would pity, and if he should wish to laugh at it, his laughter would be less ridiculous than if he laughed at a soul that has come from the light above.
If these things are true, [then] education is not what some declare it to be; they say that knowledge is not present in the soul, and that they put it in, like putting sight into blind eyes
Our present argument shows that the capacity to learn and the organ with which to do so are present in every person's soul. It is as if it were not possible to turn the eye from darkness to light without turning the whole body; so one must turn one's whole soul from the world of becoming [gignomenon] until it can endure to contemplate reality and the brightest of realities [to on kai tou ontos tou phanotaton], which we say is the Good.
["The world of becoming" is contrasted with the world of "being." That is, the concrete world visible to the senses -- concrete persons and institutions, for example -- cannot be relied on to be always good, but are always changing from being good to being not-so-good. ML]
Education then is the art of doing this very thing, this turning around, the knowledge of how the soul can most easily and most effectively be turned around; it is not the art of putting the capacity of sight into the soul; the soul possesses that already but it is not turned the right way or looking where it should. This is what education has to deal with.
The virtue of Understanding [phronesis] belongs above all to something more divine [theios], which never loses its capacity but, according to which way it is turned, becomes useful and beneficial or useless and harmful.
Have you never noticed in men who are said to be wicked but clever, how sharply their little soul looks into things to which it turns its attention? Its capacity for sight is not inferior, but it is compelled to serve evil ends, so that the more sharply it looks the more evils it works.
Yet if a soul of this kind had been hammered at from childhood and those excrescences had been knocked off it which belong to the world of becoming and have been fastened upon it by feasting, gluttony, and similar pleasures, and which like leaden weights draw the soul to look downward – if, being rid of these, it turned to look at things that are true, then the same soul of the same man would see these just as sharply as it now sees the things towards which it is directed.