Socrates, Lucretius, Camus: Two Philosophical Traditions on Death 0773473696, 9780773473690

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Socrates, Lucretius, CamusTwo Philosophical Traditions on Death By Fred Wilson

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Socrates, Lucretius, CamusTwo Philosophical Traditions on Death

Socrates, Lucretius, CamusTwo Philosophical Traditions on Death

Fred Wilson

Studies in the History of Philosophy Volume 62

The Edwin Mellen Press Lewiston’Queenston’Lampeter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Fred, 1937Socrates, Lucretius, Camus : two philosophical traditions on death / Fred Wilson. p. cm. — (Studies in the history of philosophy ; v. 62) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7734-7369-6 1. Death. 2. Socrates. 3. Lucretius Cams, Titus. 4. Hume, David, 1711-1776. 5. Camus, Albert, 1913-1960. I. Title. II. Studies in the history of philosophy (Lewiston, N.Y.); v. 62. BD444.W53 2001 128’.5-dc21

2001030561

This is volume 62 in the continuing series Studies in the History of Philosophy Volume 62 ISBN 0-7734-7369-6 SHP Series ISBN 0-88946-300-X

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright

©

2001

Fred Wilson

All rights reserved. For information contact

The Edwin Mellen Press Box 450 Lewiston, New York USA 14092-0450

The Edwin Mellen Press Box 67 Queenston, Ontario CANADA LOS 1L0

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT Printed in the United States of America

to my Aunt Margaret

who has taught us how to grow older with dignity, passion, and fun

By the same author

Carnap and Goodman: Two Formalists (with A. Hausman) Explanation, Causation and Deduction Laws and Other Worlds

Empiricism and Darwin's Science

Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy ofJohn Stuart Mill

Hume ’s Defence of Causal Inference The Logic and Methodology of Science in Early Modern Thought

The Logic and Methodology of Science and Pseudoscience

Table of Contents

i

Preface by T. Penelhulm

Prefatory Remarks: 1. by IV. Sweet

2.by Peter Loptson Acknowledgements

iv

vi ix

Chapter One:

Introduction

Chapter Two:

Where Death Is, I Am Not: Lucretius

29

Chapter Three:

Overcoming Death: Socrates and His Successors

77

Chapter Four:

The Epicurean Reply: Hume

Chapter Five:

The Pursuit of Value in a MeaninglessWorld: Camus

Chapter Six:

Conclusions

1

167 245 359

Notes

429

Notes to Chapter One

431

Notes to Chapter Two

437

Notes to Chapter Three

445

Notes to Chapter Four

455

Notes to Chapter Five

469

Notes to Chapter Six

481

Bibliography

485

Index

507

Preface

We should all think about death more than we do; but we have not had very much

help from philosophers. In these circumstances the appearance of Professor Wilson’s deep and carefully-argued study is a most welcome event. It is an authoritative

modem presentation of a classic position about how our awareness of death should

be confronted and integrated into human living. This is the Epicurean view that

interprets death as the mere cessation of the person, and derives the power to accept its inevitability from a scientific understanding of our place in the natural order and from the recognition of human wants and preferences as the only source of value.

The primary source of this position in antiquity is Lucretius Its greatest rival is the rationalist tradition deriving from Plato’s Phaedo and passed on to us through

the Stoics and the neo-Platonists, which finds life’s meaning, as our answer to mortality, in the soul’s alleged power to transcend finitude through the awareness of

timeless and absolute verities in which it can participate through the practice of virtue. A great merit of Wilson’s work is his understanding of the motives and arguments of the rationalist tradition he rejects as well as the Epicurean tradition he recommends to us. The Epicurean tradition finds its greatest modern exemplar in David Hume

Aside from his short essays on immortality and suicide Hume does not write about death directly. But his good cheer in the face of his own approaching end is famous,

and in giving us the first totally secularized epistemology and ethics of modem times, he has provided both the negative and the positive resources for his readers to construct a modem Epicurean response to it. Wilson shows us what these resources

are and how to use them. Negatively, Hume’s epistemology shows that the arguments

11 rationalists give for the reality of absolute standards have no force. Positively, his

derivation of morality from human wants, preferences and social proclivities shows that our values do not need such a transcendent source for our lives to have meaning and to give us contentment.

But what if our craving for transcendent guarantees persists even after his negative arguments have convinced us of their unavailability, and is not assuaged by a less pretentious theory of value? Does this not leave us with the horror of a

meaningless life? This is how Camus saw our condition: we cannot help wanting absolute meaning, yet we can see we live in a world that lacks it. Wilson argues that

Camus is wrong to hold that this craving for transcendent guarantees in inescapable, and he offers an explanation of his error.

If Camus is mistaken, and our longing for unattainable absolute values is

something that can be attenuated, we can live with spiritual ease in a meaningless universe and can find meaningful lives in the satisfaction of our personal and social

needs, and in the development of knowledge derived from scientific reasoning rather

than from a priori speculation. So at least a Humean would say; and so Wilson says. But he has reservations about the depth of the psychology on which Hume bases his

vision of human society. We do, after all, live in a world that has seen dimensions of horror that even an historically-learned man like Hume would have found it hard to envision, and a world in which Freud and his successors have shown us features of our own selves that his age only occasionally recognised. So at the end Wilson has

doubts about our capacity to accept limitations and control our anti-social impulses in the way life in an Epicurean world requires.

It is natural that in a work devoted to philosophical responses to death,

Wilson should follow Hume in subsuming what religion has to say on the subject

under the rationalist tradition, which has indeed been combined with it very commonly in the West since Augustine. One source of the perennial appeal of religion is the fact

that it combines the claim that values have a transcendental origin with the insistence

that we do not of ourselves have the power to embody them. I also incline to think

iii

that we have to look to the changed status of religion for an explanation of the

popularity of the conviction that life is absurd in the middle years of the Twentieth Century. This was a time when religious understandings of life were in sharp decline,

but in which those who abandoned them had been brought up to believe in them and felt their loss in a way that their children and grandchildren, who have not been so raised, do not. The children and grandchildren have no motive to look longingly at the empty sky or to shake a fist at it, so that a contented secularly is not only possible but

common - which is not to say that it does not run the risks Wilson recognises.

A final comment. I would like to see more from Wilson about the

interrelationships between the fear of death and the anxiety of meaninglessness. Tillich, in The Courage to Be, distinguishes them, and even if they cannot be

separated as sharply as Tillich supposes, it is not obviously impossible for someone to live a fully meaningful life and still be afraid of death - even to think of the

fulfillingness of his or her life as a reason for that fear. 1 cannot see this to be irrational, or even that a demonstration that it is would dislodge it.

I have no doubt there are resources here for a response to this and other questions. This book demonstrates that philosophy can confront the most disturbing

human questions with clarity and rigour. It also shows that one mind can combine philosophical skill and scholarship with literary sensitivity and insight. It fills a serious gap in our literature, and I hope it starts a trend.

Terence Penelhum,

Department of Religion,

University of Calgary

Prefatory Remarks

1.

Socrates, Lucretius, Camus-Two Philosophical Traditions on Death is a fascinating study in epistemology and metaphysics. Yet it is far more than a book about death.

While the volume contains a critical discussion of the views held by a number of philosophers about death, Fred Wilson’s work is also about how to do philosophy about the importance of thinking consistently about philosophical problems, about

exploring assumptions and presuppositions, and about following arguments where they lead. Wilson’s professed question is the old question of Socrates - Is death

something that should be feared? - and his answer is a resolute “No.” Wilson traces responses to Socrates’ question, from Aristotle, Seneca, Epictetus, and Lucretius,

through Aquinas, Spinoza, and Hume, to Camus, stopping along the way to engage arguments by Freud, Rudolf Carnap, Heidegger and Thomas Nagel. And as he leads

the reader carefully through the various arguments, Wilson argues for a contemporary version of the Humean response that the wise person need not fear death.

Wilson’s reflections on these authors provide a number of important insights into these texts; these alone make the volume a worthwhile addition to one’s library. But his study is particularly valuable in its exploration of and emphasis on rational

method and explanation in discerning an answer to Socrates’ question and on the centrality of understanding the nature of human being and human motivation in

providing such an answer. Without pretending to canvass all critical opinion on the

authors he discusses, Wilson’s knowledge of the issues is impressive. He explores the arguments with care, and his caution and rigour is a model that students can

emulate and that colleagues will respect. While not its purpose, this is an optimistic book, and it reflects the passionate pursuit of wisdom that its author clearly admires

in Hume and Spinoza.

W. Sweet,

Department of Philosophy, St. Francis Xavier University

vi

2.

Fred Wilson’s new book Socra/es, Lucretius, Camus-Two Philosophical Traditions on Death is concerned primarily with what its title indicates: the exploration of a variety of philosophical themes involving death, focussed on ideas and arguments

developed by a disparate, interesting range of historical philosophers. That range is

quite wide: from Socrates and Plato to Thomas Nagel. And diverse: among the thinkers whose views figure significantly in Wilson’s thanatological odyssey are also

Aristotle, Epicurus and Lucretius, Cicero, Jesus, Plutarch, Hume, Johnson, Tolstoy, Heidegger, Carnap, and Camus. The book’s secondary concerns are with other

fundamental life and eath issues: religion, the ethics of belief and evidence, and moral objectivity.

It is a marvellous book, first-rate throughout. Wilson wears his scholarship

impressively, but also lightly. The texts and ideas are discussed clearly, analytically, and elegantly. The prose flows rapidly, and engagingly. Wilson is certainly anything but neutral He defends what we might call a neo-Epicurean position, according to

which death itsel f is nonbeing and, as Epicurus argued, literally nothing to those upon whom it arrives. Its place in the natural world we are parts of is not inherently tragic, even if individual deaths may be. We can have had - many humans do achieve - a

coherent life of successfully realized life-stages, each with its rhythms and, typically,

its projects, adequate fulfilment of which, coinciding in the end with a right degree

of fatigue, can, and should, make death seem altogether acceptable. Other chapters review Christian and Platonic analyses of death, and the existential attitudes and life-modelling those analyses are intended to encourage. Wilson finds serious limitation in both. Then the later sections of the book analyze,

and promote, Humean positions on religions and other faith commitments in public

•• Vll

as well as private life, together with the prospect of moral objectivism. Much of the ground Wilson is covering is of course well-travelled. What is

particularly special, and admirable, is the synoptic inclusion of so many voices and views, both where Wilson agrees, and where he does not. Wilson’s own stance is naturalist and empiricist; but he brings “continental” thinkers sympathetically into his purview, and finds particular philosophic value in literary texts. The themes are

existential, personal, serious, ethical, but also, expressions of the philosophic

impulse, to want to provide, or examine, reasons that purport to be good reasons to

arrive at conclusions on those deep - and important - themes I have myself defended, in print, a version of the view Wilson assigns, persuasively, to Plutarch, Nagel, and Heidegger, according to which death is indeed a bad thing, and the Epicurean line an evasion. Wilson’s case against this view draws

upon a particularly eloquent text of Cicero’s. It was good to be reminded of how

focussed and effective a philosophical thinker Cicero can sometimes be. And 1 found myself wavering at least a little from the dark Nagel-Heidegger faith -0- which for me has also a Darwinian component - I have otherwise espoused. It is true that the

pleasures and aspirations of one stage of life are not those of another, and that we seldom regret this fact as we travel through and beyond these stages. And it seems clear that one can well give oneself satisfactory marks, as each stage is departed

from, and retrospectively reviewed, for how it went, what was done, and what got done. And one might well - surely, many do - complete such a sequence with the arrival also ofjust the right sort and degree of fatigue. My complaint will remain that, like Aristotelian eudaemonia, a little too much here depends on a luck that one can

have only partly helped engineer, and on a judiciously selective set of one’s pasts. Probably a statistically small proportion of the population even seem to have life

profiles that fit this model, and surely only a fraction of them will have genuinely exemplified the Ciceronian blueprint. In any case, Wilson is a powerful advocate of the views he advances, and, at

least as significantly, he is a good guide and companion for the philosophical reader,

Vlll

of different levels of formal training and breadth of reading, who may have the good

fortune to read this book. The philosophical novice, and the senior academic, and others at locations between, will all find much to ponder, learn from, and enjoy in its pages.

Peter Loptson,

Department of Philosophy, University of Guelph

Acknowledgements

The material in this book has developed out of a number of sources. The most remote

is a set of comments on a paper on existentialism and phenomenology by Christine

Cassin in a colloquium organized by graduate students at the University of Toronto. These thoughts gradually developed into an extended lecture on Camus that I

presented as part of a series of Distinguished Alumni Lectures at McMaster University. I am grateful to my alma mater for the opportunity to participate in that series. Comments on that occasion by Albert Shalom were particularly stimulating.

A later version of the lecture was given to the Anglo-American Club of Provence. Their hospitality I shall always remember. The substance ofthat lecture, much revised,

much elaborated, is included here as part of Chapter Five.

Other material in this essay developed out of courses that I have given over

the years on death and dying and on philosophical attitudes towards death at the University of Toronto and at Glendon College at York University. Many generations

of students have helped form and re-form my ideas. In addition I have used material on the Phaedo and on Lucretius’ De Rerwn

Natura in introductory courses in philosophy and in metaphysics. I have found it

useful indeed to locate technical discussions in ontology within a context of the issue of philosophical, or rational, attitudes towards death. I have also found it useful to

refer to these topics in courses on early modern philosophy that deal with Spinoza and Hume, the only two early modem philosophers who consciously adopted the Greek

ideal that philosophy is the search after wisdom. For many philosophers, both classical and early modem, issues ontological had a direct bearing on those attitudes. We philosophers of late modem times, with the professionalization of our discipline, have,

I think, too often forgotten that such issues as whether universals are known a priori

do have a bearing on these very human concerns. Students, I have found, do appreciate developing their own philosophical skills in the context of a vital issue of this sort; they appreciate that philosophy is not merely technical, but also the search

after wisdom, and that its techniques, however much they seem esoteric in the abstract, do in fact contribute to that search. Readers will find, I expect, that the development of the argument of this essay reflects my experience in presenting

students with ontological issues in the context of thinking about the sorts of reasons

that can be given for a reasonable person to adopt this or that attitude towards death. I would like to thank the many students who have contributed to the development of the ideas in this essay. I will likely continue to teach in and around

these areas until 1 reach the age when my university retires me. I expect that, until

then, my future students will try to use this essay as a source for ideas about what the

teacher in their courses thinks about the subject upon which he is lecturing. I would like to think that these future students will soon, through their questioning, make parts of this essay outdated, at least as a record of my reflections on the topics with which

it attempts to deal. Having said that in a way of acknowledging how my teaching and research in

this area have so often been linked, I should also thank my colleagues, too many to mention, who have helped me develop my thought on the topics I discuss, and in

particular those who have pushed me on Hume and on the relations between empiricism and the rationalist tradition. I hope the discussions that follow will be

useful to them, and of course to the philosophic community at large, as well as to students. 1 should mention two philosophers in particular, however, who have helped,

whether they know it or not.

The discussion of Annette Baier’s work on Hume in Chapter Four developed out of a talk on that topic which I gave at the annual conference of the Hume Society

in Eugene, Oregon, in 1991. James King, on behalf of the Society, organized the

session and was kind enough to invite me to participate, for which he must be

thanked. During her comments. Professor Baier speculated about the nature of the

project upon which I was working; I suspect that the present study is not quite what

she expected. Also important in my thinking on the topics of this essay and on Camus in particular was Herbert Hochberg’s important, but too often ignored, essay on Camus. Those familiar with that essay will recognize its impact on my own ideas.

Material from the following essays has been included. I would like to thank the editors

of the journals for permission to do this.

“Hume’s Defence of Science,” Dialogue, 25 (1986), pp. 611-628

“Hume, Scepticism and Conservativism,” Queen’s Quarterly, 95

(1986), pp. 591-607

Front cover: Paul Cezanne, Nature morte: Crane et chandelier

(See Mary Lewis, Cezanne’s Early Imagery [University of California

Press: Berkeley, 1989] Plate I) Rear cover: Photograph by Kenneth Quinn

XJ1

I probably would not convince many people in saying this Socrates, ... but you must realize that when a man approaches the time when he thinks he will die, he becomes fearful and concerned about things which he did not fear before. It is then that the stories we are told about Hades, which he ridiculed before that the man who has sinned here will pay the penalty there - torture his mind lest they be true. Plato, Republic, 300e

Chapter One

Introduction

Fashion me with a palsied hand, Weak of foot, and a cripple; Build upon me a crook-backed hump, Shake my teeth till they rattle; All is well, if my life remains. Save, oh, save it, I pray you, Though I sit on the piercing cross!

Such was the prayer of Maecenas.'

This great Roman, the companion of Octavian, has been honoured as the original patron of Horace and Virgil. His example has been used to justify the patronage of the arts ever since. Maecenas could do this because of the wealth that

he had accumulated, one way or another, while he was a close associate of Octavian as the latter progressed towards the role of Augustus. Once the position of the Emperor had been secured, however, Maecenas’ services were no longer needed, and

he retired, or was retired, to live in the country, out of the public affairs of Rome, it was during this period of retirement that he secured his enduring reputation as a

patron; for the promotion of literary talent and the dissemination of political and social

opinion by means of the art produced by this talent, he had no equal then, and few subsequently. Typically enough, Augustus recognized the power of Virgil, and made

himself Virgil’s patron.

Maecenas had another side, however, which is perhaps less well-known: this was his fear of death, expressed in the prayer quoted above Pliny notes the fevers and

insomnia that plagued Maecenas,2 Seneca notes that he was “long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumours on chest and shoulders,”’ and Horace records

2 Maecenas’ depression in the ode (“Cur me querelis” (ii, 17)) that he wrote to try to cheer him up:

Why do you stifle me so with complaining? It is neither my will nor that of the Gods that I should die before you, Maecenas, you glory and mighty prop of my affairs.4

But Seneca thought Maecenas not worth cheering up. He refers to “that most

debased of prayers, in which Maecenas does not refuse to suffer weakness, deformity, and as a climax the pain of crucifixion - provided only that he may prolong the breath

of life amid these sufferings.”5 Seneca’s comment is scathing: “There he is, praying for that which, if it had be-fallen him, would be the most pitiable thing in the world! And seeking a postponement of suffering, as if he were asking for life! . ..Is it worth while to weigh down upon one’s own wound, and hang impaled upon a gibbet, that

one may but postpone something which is the balm of troubles, the end of

punishment? Is it worth all this to possess the breath of life only to give it up?”6 What has brought Maecenas to this pitiable state? It is the fear of death, “a

curse,” Seneca says, “which lays a curse upon everything else.”7 Fear is a psychological attitude. It is evoked by some thing or event with a specific characteristic, namely, that of being threatening. The attitude in turn implies

an action that is appropriate to the evoking characteristic, namely, withdrawal so as to avoid the danger that threatens. A baby sees a flickering candle flame; its curiosity

captured, it approaches the flame and extends its hand; but it is burned by the flame, and he or she learns that the flickering that intrigued it means danger; the next time

it sees a flame, it responds with fear, and, reasonably, withdraws to avoid the danger that threatens. The infant’s response to what it has learned about candle flames is

reasonable, but such responses need not be Most spiders are harmless, yet many respond with fear and tend to withdraw. Since there is no danger, there is no reason to feel fear nor any reason to withdraw. In this case, the attitude and the action it

implies are unreasonable; the fear is inordinate. There is an opposite extreme, equally

unreasonable. Suppose one fearlessly attacks a machine gun nest with a sword; in

3

such a case one is not responding reasonably to the danger: one’s fear is too

moderate. Similar points can be made about other psychological attitudes such as distaste, gratitude, welcoming, and so on. One that bears mentioning is related to the

danger that evokes the attitude of fear, namely, courage. Fear involves the disposition

to withdraw, courage the disposition to stand one’s ground and fight the threat

Courage is often reasonable, often more reasonable than fear. But it too has its

unreasonable extremes. One can be reckless, showing too much courage, fighting, like the person who attacks a machine gun nest with a sword, a danger that in fact one

quite obviously cannot overcome with the means available. At the other extreme, one can behave in a cowardly fashion, running from a danger that is either not really a danger or else one that one could easily overcome.

We thus see that psychological attitudes can be appropriate or inappropriate,

reasonable or unreasonable as the action they imply is proportionate to the object So the question can be asked, and the philosopher will ask it, Is Maecenas’ attitude

towards death reasonable or unreasonable? It is clear that Maecenas fears death, and seeks to avoid it. What is so terrible, of course, is that he knows that people are mortal: death is inevitable. With regard to

death, in the end there is no way in which it can be avoided, there is no way in which

attempts to withdraw can ever be successful in avoiding it. The fear in this context of inevitability reduces Maecenas to panic. Some people, unlike Maecenas, of course,

show courage in the face of death Thus, at one point Socrates points out that “If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find

them strange.”8 For, “they all consider death a great evil,” and “the brave among them

face death, when they do, for fear of greater evils.” Thus, Socrates argues, “it is fear and terror that make all men brave. . . Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice.” Socrates’ point is that to characterize people as facing death bravely and

steadfastly is to imply that it is a danger, something as worthy of fear as it is of bravery. Interestingly, Socrates makes an exception: “it is fear and terror that make

4

all men brave, except the philosophers " The philosophers do not see death as a

danger or a threat. So they show no fear, nor is their fearless stand like the bravery

of those who stand up to danger. We shall return to Socrates in due course.9 But the point remains that many, at least, are not philosophers and view death as “a great evil,” as Socrates says, and

something to be feared, “a curse,” as Seneca says, “which lays a curse on everything

else.” So the question we should ask is this: What precisely is it about death that generates fear? what is the characteristic that evokes that attitude? Only if we can

answer this question can we say whether the attitude is reasonable or unreasonable.

What, then, is it exactly that moved Maecenas so to fear death9 What was the vision

of death that made it a curse?

Now, although Seneca does not tell us what it is, we do in fact know pretty clearly what it was. For, we know from Homer the vision that the Greeks and Romans

generally had of death. We are told this in detail in the Odyssey. According to this

epic poem, which was not only a poem but also history for the Greeks and Romans, Odysseus at the urging of Circe sails to the far outer edge of the River Ocean to call

up from the House of Hades the souls of the dead in order to obtain advice from the

seer Teiresias. Odysseus sacrificed and called up the souls from the Underworld. They made an “eerie clamour”10 as they emerged from the “joyless place,”11 the “murky realm,”12 that they now inhabited. After receiving the prophecies of Teiresias, he then speaks to his mother, who gives him her own advice, after which Odysseus moves to

embrace her. But it is in vain. The phantom, alas, slips through his grasp, and

Odysseus bemoans the fact. But,

This is no trick played on you by Persephone, Daughter of Zeus. It is the law of our mortal nature, when we come to die. We no longer have sinews keeping the bones and flesh together, once life has departed from our white bones, all is consumed by the fierce heat of the blazing fire, and the soul slips away like a dream and goes fluttering on its ways.13 •And later he speaks to the shade of Achilles.

5

“And do not you make light of death, illustrious Odysseus,” he replied, “I would rather work the soil as a serf on hire to some landless impoverished peasant than be King of all these lifeless dead.”14

This vision of what death implies is bleak indeed. At death one continues to

live, but it is a life that is devoid of all things that can make life meaningful to one. One is conscious, but looking forward to nothing worthwhile, nothing that can make

one’s existence meaningful As one commentator on the Greek expectations regarding the afterlife has put it, “While largely spared the horrors of a Christian Hell, the dying lacked as well the consolation of a better lot in the hereafter It is therefore difficult to imagine that they can have contemplated their arrival in the world below with a more positive attitude of mind than that of restrained foreboding.”15 With a vision of

death as yielding a life devoid of anything meaningful to make it worth living, there

is little wonder that Maecenas feared it, and, however inevitable it was, sought to avoid it.

Nonetheless, Seneca does not take the response for granted. He approaches

it as a philosopher, and seeks arguments to support the reasonableness, or lack of it, of Maecenas’ attitude. Seneca in fact holds that Maecenas’ fear is unreasonable, and that a different response is appropriate, that is, appropriate from the standpoint of

reason. For this position, Seneca proposes two arguments.

First, Seneca argues, there are things that can happen in this life that make

even death and its unpleasant consequences more attractive. He [Maecenas] asks for the climax of suffering, and - what is still harder to bear - prolongation and extension of suffering; and what does he gain thereby? Merely the boon of a longer existence. But what sort of life is a lingering death? Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all?16

In fact, given that we all must suffer one time or another, it is not reasonable to deny

that “Nature is very generous in making death inevitable.”1

6 Second, Seneca also argues, death is better than immoral behaviour.

Maecenas’ plea is one of cowardice in the face of death - “What does he mean by

begging so vilely for life?” - and death is better than such vice. The passage from the Aeneid where Tumus prefers death to cowardice is quoted: He [Maecenas] cannot ever have heard Vergil read the words:

“Tell me, is Death so wretched as that?”18

Others do even more shameful things, betraying friends or debasing their own children

simply to live a little longer. “The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you

live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.”19 What makes life significant or noble is virtue, not mere length, certainly not length at any expense, and

most certainly not length at the expense of virtue.

On the first argument, the appropriate attitude towards death is not fear but either acceptance, because death is inevitable, or welcoming, because death is a release from pain.

Note, however, that one should distinguish between (a) accepting that death

will occur, that is, accepting one’s mortality, that there is some time or other that one will die, and (b) accepting that death will occur very soon or even right now. Maecenas could not be accepting (b) because he is not accepting (a). Seneca is accepting (a) and also accepting (b). Indeed, given the threat that Nero could devise nastier things than suicide, Seneca was likely not only accepting (b) but welcoming

death as a means of avoiding intolerable pain. The appropriate attitude towards death as such is acceptance, that is,

acceptance (a), goes the argument, because death is inevitable. This fact, like many

others, e g., that one cannot jump to the moon, is one that perhaps in one’s fantasy life one can overcome, but in reality there is no overcoming it: it is inevitable. It is

unreasonable to try to overcome the inevitable; for to struggle against it can result in

nothing more than frustration. To avoid that inevitable pain of frustration, one should face up to reality and stop regretting or trying to avoid the fact of death. For, the only result of the latter, of trying to avoid death, can be further misery. Thus, one should

7

adopt the attitude of acceptance towards death, and get on with whatever it is that we should be doing,

Seneca of course has an answer to the question of what it is that we should be doing. We should, he holds, be living virtuously. It is important to note, however, that one could be accepting (a) but not

accepting (b): one may recognize the fact that death is inevitable and yet regret the

fact that one is dying now rather than at some other time. In that case, one’s attitude towards dying at this point is one of resignation rather than acceptance. The second argument that Seneca offers attempts a defence of the notion that

even resignation is an inappropriate attitude. That is, it argues that the attitude should always be one of acceptance, that death can never be a matter of regret. On the

second argument, death is of no significance because life is of no significance; what is of significance is the virtuous life. Thus, the argument here establishes that a

certain attitude towards death is appropriate to the virtuous person. Death is unimportant to the practice of virtue; it may end virtue but it cannot destroy it.

Equally, mere life is unimportant to the practice of virtue, it makes it possible but neither creates nor sustains it. One’s living now is a fact as is one’s dying later. Within the framework established by these facts one should get on with the task of practising virtue. Living now and death later are equally facts and equally to be accepted as facts. The virtuous person, the person who practices virtue, may reasonably adopt

towards death the attitude of acceptance without regret. If this argument is to justify for all times the attitude of acceptance without

regret, then it clearly it must take for granted an assumption to the effect that mere

prolongation of virtue is unimportant. After all, if what is of significance is virtue, then one may regret death as cutting off one’s efforts to be virtuous. In particular, one may

regret death as cutting off the good that one can do to others; one may regret, for example, that one will no longer be able to contribute in various ways to the pleasure of others. The argument that the correct or appropriate attitude towards death for the

virtuous is acceptance without regret thus presupposes that virtue has a timeless

8

quality, that there is something eternal in the practice of virtue that makes its value

indifferent to its own prolongation or, indeed, its outcome for others. If that which gives life its value is an orientation towards a temporally

indifferent or eternal virtue, then it is clear death is never to be regretted by the virtuous, even when it prevents one from doing, or continuing to do, good. If the sole source of value which a life has is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then death is to be accepted as a mere fact, and so are its consequences. These

are facts indifferent to that which alone can give value to one's life, namely, the

practice of virtue. As the Stoics put it, one, that is, one who would be virtuous, a philosopher or sage, should be apathos towards such facts, apathetic or indifferent.

Equally, however, the virtuous person should never be welcoming towards death. The

suggestion of the first argument was that death is to be welcomed because it relieves one of pain. But the second argument shows that any such pain, too, is a mere fact, to be accepted, but of itself irrelevant to that which alone gives value to life, namely,

once again, the practice of virtue. The philosopher or sage should be equally accepting, equally apathetic, towards all things other than virtue, towards, in

particular, one’s own pleasure and one’s own pain and towards also the pleasures and

pains of others. The second argument thus establishes that the appropriate attitude towards

death for the virtuous person is one of acceptance. It does this by holding that what

makes life worth living for such a person, what gives it significance, is nothing more nor less than the practice of virtue. For, if something else gave life its meaning, some

concern for one’s own welfare or that of others, then the fact of death could at times

be regretted for the good that it has caused one to give up, or welcomed for the pain

that it could enable one to avoid. The apathy towards death that the argument

recommends is appropriate only if the practice of virtue alone gives life its significance and only if this practice consists of an orientation towards a virtue that is somehow

eternal, and temporally indifferent But this argument justifying this attitude towards death also justifies a similar apathy and indifference towards everything in one’s life

9

and those of others, towards the good and evil that befalls one and the good and evil

that befall another. In fact the apathetic attitude requires that one give up any sentiments to the effect that there are things that befall one, or befall another, whether pain or pleasure, which should be called good or evil. For those characterizations -

good or evil - imply attitudes other than indifference.

It is evident that one can raise questions about the second argument that

Seneca offers. It does justify an attitude of indifference towards death, but it does so only at the cost of requiring that the wise man who accepts the argument make

himself indifferent to all human welfare, both his own and that of others. Is this in fact virtue?

To ask this question is not of course to refute the argument. It may well be that the argument is sound, in which case we have to accept its conclusion. But the question does suggest that we look more closely at its implicit premise to the effect that that alone which makes life worth living is some orientation to a temporally

indifferent and eternal virtue. But if that premise be questioned, then we return to the possibility that regret and welcome rather than indifference may sometimes be appropriate attitudes towards death. We shall come back to this point in due course.

Seneca himself was to live at the end of his life more nobly than Maecenas Seneca was implicated in the plot of Gaius Calpumius Piso to assassinate Nero, and was ordered by the latter to commit suicide. Tactitus reports Seneca’s comment

“Surely nobody was unaware that Nero was cruel! -After murdering his mother and brother, it only remained for him to kill his teacher and tutor.”20 Told by a soldier that

he must die, and refused permission to write out his will, Seneca turned to his friends: ‘Being forbidden,’ he said, ‘to show gratitude for your services, I leave you my one remaining possession and my best: the pattern of my life. If you remember it, your devoted friendship will be rewarded by a name for virtuous accomplishments.’ As he talked - and sometimes in sterner and more imperative terms - he checked their tears and sought to revive their courage. Where had their philosophy gone, he asked, and that resolution against impending misfortunes which they had devised over so many years?21

10

After thus urging that his friends find their consolation in the contemplation of his virtue and well-spent life, Seneca opened his veins, and, after considerable difficulty, died. For himself, too, what counted were his virtuous accomplishments. It was not

life that counted, but the virtuous life. Death lacked any significance against the virtue that to him gave meaning to his life. Even his last moments exemplified this virtue that

gave his life meaning: unlike Maecenas, he resolutely faced the fact of death, accepted

it. Except. Tacitus reports that Seneca was not entirely indifferent to the fact of his death; there were clearly things that he regretted.

...Seneca embraced his wife [Paulina] and, with a tenderness very different from his philosophical imperturbability, entreated her to moderate and set a term to her grief, and take just consolation, in her bereavement, from contemplating his well-spent life.22 But Paulina insisted upon opening her arteries also, and dying with him. Tacitus tells us that, “loving her wholeheartedly, he [Seneca] was reluctant to leave her behind to

be persecuted.”23 It seems that after all it is not virtue alone that makes life - and death - meaningful to one. Seneca in death in fact questions the argument that he

offered for indifference towards it.

Seneca clearly intended his death and his manner of death to be well publicized; and Tacitus did a good job of it. We are meant to see, and no doubt do see, Seneca as a noble philosopher. He is surrounded by friends, who lament his fate

in being condemned unjustly to death. As a philosopher, Seneca at once consoles them with his philosophy and exemplifies its teachings through his own resolved and fearless attitude to his own death, thus teaching both by argument and by example.

This portrayal of the dying teacher as a philosopher was no doubt something

of a set piece for ancient biographers. What Tacitus did for Seneca, Plato had done for Socrates and Luke did for Jesus. After the Last Supper, and prior to his arrest,

Jesus “went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives, and his disciples also followed him. ’24 There he awaited his arrest and death, and advised his disciples, as did Seneca.

His advice was that they “Pray that ye enter not into temptation” (Luke, 22, 40). As

11 for himself, he recognized that his death was a duty required by a source of virtue

beyond time, an eternal source - God. It is this vision that enables Jesus to adopt the attitude he does towards death. It is in fact not the attitude of indifference that Seneca suggests is appropriate, but rather an attitude of acceptance: it is right that he should die. For his death is required of him by virtue, by the timeless souice of virtue that alone gives life meaning.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him {Luke, 22, 41-43). The transcendent source from which virtue derives not only justifies his death, but also justifies the attitude towards death: if the death is morally required then it ought to be accepted, as Jesus accepts it But moreover, the vision of the transcendent

source of the good, the angel of God, creates and strengthens in Jesus the attitude that the source justifies. Jesus had elsewhere said more about what virtue demands. In the Sermon on

the Mount he told his followers that

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew, 5,3-5).

Jesus’ points echo those found earlier in the Bible; thus, in the 33rd Psalm we read Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee (Psalms, 33, 18-20).

There is an argument of sorts in what Jesus says. At one level, of course, it is

12

the crassest bribery: Behave thus and so and you will be rewarded - you will inherit the earth. In this sense, the comments of Spinoza are correct.

Most people seem to believe that they are free, in so far as they may obey their lusts, and that they cede their rights, in so far as they are bound to live according to the commandments of the divine law. They therefore believe that piety, religion, and, generally, all things attributable to firmness of mind, are burdens, which, after death, they hope to lay aside, and to receive the reward for their bondage, that is, for their piety and religion, it is not only by this hope, but also, and chiefly, by the fear of being horribly punished after death, that they are induced to live according to the divine commandments, so far as their feeble and infirm spirit will carry them.25 But Jesus’ words can be given a deeper reading. In the first place it is necessary to separate action from motive. The same

action can be done from a variety of motives, and its moral worth often depends upon that motive. Giving money to another may be done selfishly, with a view to a later

return, or it may be given out of generosity, with no sense that there will be a later

return. The action is the same, but the motive differs; and it is this difference in motive that makes the one act selfish and the other generous and morally worthy. Jesus is

talking about motives, not just actions. Mourning is not just the outward signs, the tears and the tearing of hair, but the inward feelings; meekness is not just kowtowing

but the feeling of being meek. That, of course, is the point of Jesus’ remark later in the sermon:

. except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness ofthe scribes

and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5, 20). It is evident in the sorts of other things that Jesus mentions in the sermon:

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God (Matt 5 6-8). The point to be made is that if Jesus’ remarks about “inheriting the earth” and so forth

13

are taken to be bribery, then that assumes that the motives are indeed selfish, as

Spinoza in effect noted when he referred to persons moved by this sort of bribery as acting on their “lusts.” But to take the Sermon as the bribery reading requires, that people are moved by selfish motives alone, contradicts the clear assumption that Jesus

makes that what is being rewarded are motives, not actions, and that the relevant motives are other than the selfish motive of gain: that the relevant motives are

meekness, purity of heart, and so on. It is these motives that are morally proper or right, virtue consists not only in doing the right thing, but doing it for the right reason.

In the second place, we need not read Jesus as arguing that the reward is crassly material: to inherit the earth is not necessarily to be Croesus. One can be

spiritually wealthy in the absence of material goods. The good person leads a more

satisfying life than the merely rich It is they that inherit the earth and acquire the

kingdom of heaven. The virtuous life is the life of a certain sort of person, namely, one who is moved in certain ways rather than others; it is this life, the life of this sort of

person, one who is moved in these ways and not in others, that is worth living. But there is a transcendental source to this virtue: what makes the good life good is that

it conforms to the requirements established by the transcendental source of good,

namely God. The reward is simply the sense - the satisfying sense - that one has done right, that oneself, the motivations that one acts on, are in conformity with what

the transcendent standard requires. But the source of moral rightness is what is called

God, and so the reward, the sense that one has done right, is simply the vision of, or the attachment to, this source: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”26

Thus, for the Christian, as for Seneca, life acquires its significance through the

relationship which it has to a transcendent source of virtue. It is the latter that gives life its value, if it has any, and makes the life one lives worth living, if it is. But the Christian attitude towards death is not that of Seneca. The Christian tradition creates an explicit linking between virtue and death,

or, rather, between vice, or sin, and death, on the one hand, and virtue and life

14

everlasting on the other. The consequence of not conforming oneself to the

requirements dictated by God, the timeless and transcendent source of all virtue, is

punishment: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men... (Rom., 1, 18). The punishment is death: God, the timeless and transcendent source of all virtue, has

so arranged the world that the vicious die. Conversely, the virtuous, through

participating in the virtue of God, become, like Him, eternal. The virtuous, the “pure

of heart,” shall “see God,” and thereby become themselves participants in the eternal:

theirs is everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom., 6, 23).

What is unfortunate, of course, is that we all fall short of perfection; if we

compare our human selves with the perfection of the transcendent standard, then none

of us is without sin:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God... (Rom., 3, 23). Christianity does provide a remedy. God recognizes the fact that we are finite beings incapable of perfection, and has arranged to pay the penalty Himself, by sacrificing

His only Son. All that he requires in turn is that we believe in Him and in the sacrifice that He has made. If we so do, then we shall escape death, the wages of sin, and

achieve the vision of God, eternal life. God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John, 3, 16).

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (John, 5, 24). Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life (John, 6, 47).

We do not have the power to achieve the sinless life ourselves But if we believe, have

15

faith, if we accept Jesus as the son of God, then Jesus - God - will reciprocate and give us the power whereby we can avoid death. If we believe, have faith, then not only shall we escape the penalty of past sins, but we shall be given the power to

overcome our finitude and to live a virtuous life, one conforming to the requirements of God, the eternal and timeless source of virtue. The just shall live by faith (Rom, 1, 17).

We are made just, that is, justified, by our faith in God and in the sacrifice that He has

made.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus... (Rom., 3, 24). It is thus faith that makes us, if we are, “pure of heart,” and, in turn, enables us to “see

God”: Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom., 5,1). It is worth noting what has happened here. We are required to be virtuous, which

means that we are required to be motivated in certain ways. But in order to achieve what is required morally of us, to always be “pure in heart,” to always act from a

good motive, it is necessary that we have faith, that is, have certain beliefs. This

means in turn that having those beliefs is itself morally required. Believing appropriately thus itself becomes a moral virtue; for it is the foundation of all virtue

... to him that...believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Rom , 4, 5). Conversely, unbelief is a sin.

He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God... (Rom , 4, 20). If belief is the source of virtue, it is also the source of hope.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom., 5, 1-2). The hope is that we will achieve the vision of the “glory of God” that is the reward

16

of the virtuous, the “pure in heart ” Our actions have consequences that transcend the world of change and

becoming; they have a significance, a meaning, that is eternal and enduring, not ephemeral This significance has two aspects. The significance derives from the

transcendental source of virtue, which, on the one side, provides that standard of virtue to which we ought to aspire to conform, and which, on the other side, provides a reward for those who so conform. This reward consists in achieving the vision of

God, a connection with the eternal that overcomes death. Conversely, death, too,

acquires a significance in this context: it is the wages of sin. If life, on the Christian scheme, acquires a meaning so also does death. What is the proper attitude towards death?

For the believer, one who exercises the virtue of belief, and, specifically, belief

in God and His sacrifice, then the proper attitude is hope, the reasonable expectation of the promised reward, the overcoming of death in the vision of the transcendent

source of all virtue and goodness. As with Seneca, it is not life that counts but the virtuous life. However, the attitude towards death is different. The Christian is not

indifferent to death To the contrary, death is punishment, and is to be feared and avoided. It is to be avoided by living the virtuous life But one can become virtuous, justified, only through faith, the exercise of the virtue of belief.

Thus, although Jesus, like Seneca, justifies an attitude towards death by appeal to a transcendent source of virtue, it turns out that the attitude is rather different, a

mixture of both hope and fear, rather than one of indifference. The result is. what could have been expected: as Maecenas feared death, so do

Christians. What Seneca ridiculed in Maecenas, so he would have ridiculed the attitude of fear that constitutes in part the Christian attitude towards death. The problem, of course, is the fact that we all fall short of the ideal of virtue,

of perfection, that is established by the transcendental source of value - “For all have

sinned, and come short of the glory of God...”. In the words of the well-known hymn, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a

17 wretch like me!

There is the standard of perfection, laid up in heaven, and then there are the finite mortal humans who aspire to live up to it, but, being human, cannot: we are all

wretches. Moreover, we all know that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot live up to the standard: we know that we are wretches.

Consider a person who has certain aims, and has certain means by which he

or she can achieve those aims. If the means available are such that it is impossible for the person to achieve his or her aims, then the situation may be said to be absurd If a person who attacks a machine gun nest a sword, the likelihood of success is nil: the

means are incommensurate with the end at which the person aims. The situation in

which that person finds him- or herself is absurd21 The point is that the situation in which all persons find themselves is,

according to the Christian, in this sense absurd: on the one hand, they all aspire to the standard of moral perfection towards which Jesus has directed their attention, while,

on the other hand, they all recognize that the means they have available, their own moral efforts, are totally insufficient to attain the necessary purity of heart. That is

why they are wretched; that is why the situation is absurd. And that is why they are anxious. The absurdity of the situation creates anxiety and the fear of death. The absurdity is eliminated only by the grace of God

that is consequent upon faith, the Amazing Grace that justifies one and thereby

eliminates the fear of death. Life acquires its significance through the relationship which it has to a transcendent source of virtue, but that relationship can be attained

only through faith. It is this relationship consequent upon faith that gives life its value, if it has any, and makes the life one lives worth living, if it is. It is thus faith that wrenches meaning out of absurdity, and provides the hope that conquers both death

and the fear of death. It was St. Augustine who put the Christian doctrine into a systematic philosophic order He recognized how he was indeed a wretch, and that to be saved

from this wretchedness he needed that help of God that is consequent upon faith in

18

Him: as he put it, I am poor and needy and I am better only when in sorrow of heart I detest myself and seek your mercy, until what is faulty in me is repaired and made whole and finally I come to that state of peace which the eye of the proud cannot see.28 What is good in life derives from the infinite God: it is towards Him that we naturally

strive. True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the Truth, you my God, my true Light, to whom I look for salvation. This is the happiness that all desire. All desire this, the only true state of happiness. All desire to rejoice in truth.29

Attaining God, we find virtue and goodness; but if we turn away from Him and seek

the tilings of the flesh for their own sakes, no matter how good they seem, they will in fact turn out to be bitter.

Where do all your steps lead you? The good things which you love are all from God, but they are good and sweet only so long as they are used to do his will. They will rightly turn bitter if God is spurned and the things that come from him are wrongly loved.30 We all fear death, and desire immortality: any person, Augustine tells us,

...would certainly be overjoyed to choose perpetual misery in preference to complete annihilation. Why, he asks, ... should men fear to die, and prefer to live in such distress than to end it by dying? The only reason is the obvious natural revulsion from annihilation.31

But “the wages of sin are death” (Rom, 6, 23); unreconciled to God, one cannot achieve the immortality one desires. But how does one save oneself from sin?

Augustine “considered the sorry state to which my sins have brought me,”32 and sought help from various men to act as mediators between himself and God to help

him to attain God. But they could not succeed. Like Augustine, “they were mortal

men and sinners; but you, O Lord, to whom they wanted to be reconciled, are immortal and without sin.”33 There is an infinity to bridge and the mere human cannot

19

attain God, His Truth, and His Goodness, unaided by anything short of God Himself. a mediator between God and man must have something in common with God and something in common with man. For if in both these points he were like men, he would be far from God; and if in both of them he were like God, he would be far from men. In neither case could he be a mediator.34

Fortunately, there is a mediator, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the Mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man [1 Tim ., 2, 5], and he appeared on earth between men, who are sinful and mortal, and God, who is immortal and just.35

Through faith in this mediator we are saved. He “might make null the death of the

wicked men whom he justified," and this justification - this making us good, virtuous, the true image of God - is achieved through faith: “we are saved through faith in the passion he suffered long ago."36 Through faith in Jesus Christ we can achieve the

immortality for which we hope, through faith in Jesus Christ we can overcome the absurdity of our life and overcome the fear of death. It is thus, to repeat, faith that

wrenches meaning out of absurdity, and provides the hope that conquers both death

and the fear of death.

Except that it doesn’t really work that way, or at least not always: if faith is necessary to overcome the fear of death, there is always the fear that one’s faith has been insufficient.

Thus, consider the case of Samuel Johnson.37 While attending university,

Johnson read John Law’s Serious Call to a Holy Life. As Boswell relates, “From this time forward religion was the predominant object of his thoughts; though, with the

just sentiments of a conscientious Christian, he lamented that his practice of his duties fell far short of what it ought to be.”38 From that time on, Johnson regularly suffered from the fear that he had not done enough, or as Boswell puts it, that “constitutional

gloom, which, together with his extreme humility and anxiety with regard to his religious state, made him contemplate himself through too dark and unfavourable a

medium.” Boswell is in fact apologetic, remarking on the unreasonable nature of Johnson’s self-reproaches: “Certain we may be of his injustice to himself in the

20 following lamentable paragraph, which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labours the world is so much indebted: ‘When I

survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders

of body, and disturbances of the mind, very near to madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies.’ ”39 But,

if Johnson’s reproaches are unreasonable, if it is true, as Boswell no doubt correctly

asserts, that Johnson did great good and suffered from some only human failures, then

it is also true that he fell short of perfection, and from the viewpoint of this standard, rather than Boswell’s, the reproaches are no doubt just, no one could live up to the standard of moral perfection. Johnson sees this clearly. Whatever be the theology of

original sin, it is certainly true that we are all human and all fall short of the standard of moral perfection; we are, therefore, in that sense all of us corrupt and vicious: ...whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently and confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth are insufficient to restrain them from crimes {Life, p. 988).

And then, since death is the wages of sin, and Johnson has sinned by falling short of

perfection, it follows that dear is the reasonable attitude to adopt towards death. I never thought [said Johnson] confidence with respect to futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wise or a good man Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing, wisdom impresses strongly the consciousness of those faults, of which it is, perhaps, an aggravation; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and imputing every deficiency to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by penitence. This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among the good9 Such must be his dread of the approaching trial as will leave him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign {Life, p. 1176). Sir John Hawkins made the same points in his life of Johnson. He too reports

on Johnson’s fear of death on account of his own sense of sin, his own sense that he had fallen short of perfection. Johnson, near the end of his life, “told me,” Hawkins

21 reports, “that he had the prospect of death before him, and that he dreaded to meet

his Saviour.” For,

. . . in the estimation of his offences, he reasoned thus - ‘Every man knows his own sins, and also, what grace he has resisted. But, to those of others, and the circumstances under which they were committed, he is a stranger; he is, therefore, to look on himself as the greatest sinner that he knows of .’40 As Boswell, too, makes clear, the only rational attitude in this context is fear, a fear

as great as that of Maecenas: “On one day in particular,... he gave thanks to Almighty God [for the goods and the pleasures that he enjoyed], but added, that notwithstanding all the above benefits, the prospect of death, which was now at no

great distance from him, was become terrible, and that he could not think of it but with great pain and trouble of mind.”41 Mrs. Piozzi saw, as Seneca saw with regard

to Maecenas, that if this attitude is at once rational, given the expectation of the

consequences of sin, it is also unreasonable, and, indeed, unreasonable to the point of being pathological:

No one had however higher notions of the hard task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose daily terror lest he had not done enough, originated in piety, but ended in little less than disease. Reasonable with regard to others, he had formed vain hopes of performing impossibilities himself; and finding his good works ever below his desires and intent, filled his imagination with fears that he should never obtain forgiveness for omissions of duty and criminal waste of time. These ideas kept him in constant anxiety concerning his salvation; and the vehement petitions he perpetually made for a longer continuance on earth, were doubtless the cause of his so prolonged existence...42

So Johnson’s attitude is apparently unreasonable. But what, exactly, are the considerations of reason that justify this judgment? For some,43 the only question is

this: why does God allow some, like Johnson, to become thus irrationally concerned about death? There is, however, the prior question of whether or not Johnson’s attitude is reasonable. Asking why God permits such irrational fear of death makes sense only if Johnson’s attitude is in fact irrational; and that has to be established In

fact, it is not at all clear that Johnson’s attitude really is unreasonable. Why should we

22 not look forward with, if not fear, then with profound regret, to any death that will

prevent us, who are not “pure of heart,” from “seeing the glory of God,” the vision that makes life worth living? Neither Boswell nor Hawkins nor Mrs. Piozzi do

anything to answer this question; and until they provide reasons we in turn have no

reason to judge that their attitudes towards death are more reasonable than that of Johnson.

Moreover, there is a prior question. Johnson’s attitude towards death

presupposes a certain account of death. In this he is no different from Maecenas. But,

is that account of death acceptable? can it bejustified\yy reason? For, after all, if that account of death, if the Christian story of the significance of death, cannot be justified by reason, then we cannot even begin to dispute whether an attitude towards death in that sense is reasonable or unreasonable. Unfortunately, the Christian story of death has little more support than the

stories that Maecenas believed. What the Christian story demands is faith, not reason. That the philosopher cannot accept. What the philosopher requires is not only reasons

why a certain attitude towards death is reasonable or not, but, prior to that, reasons why death is understood in one way rather than another. One’s attitude towards death can be reasonable only if one’s concept of death is reasonable. One may fear a

bogeyman, and, given one’s concept of a bogeyman, that fear may be proportioned reasonably to its object; but if the object, as one conceives it, does not exist, then

there is no basis to one’s fear: objectively it is unreasonable. What goes for bogeymen, goes for death. And in fact, there are philosophers who have argued, contrary to

Maecenas and contrary to Jesus and Paul, that death as these persons conceive it is

indeed a bogeyman. To these philosophers we now turn. In due course we shall turn to look at philosophers who rationally defend a view of death that is close to that of

Jesus and Paul, and justify on that basis certain attitudes towards death. These turn

out, however, to be closer to that of Seneca, perhaps not surprisingly, than to that of Samuel Johnson.

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More specifically, in the next Chapter we critically examine the position developed by Lucretius, who followed his teacher Epicurus in arguing for a metaphysical view of

human being which entails the proposition that where death is 1 am not. Epicurus and Lucretius conclude that fear of death is irrational. This conclusion has been challenged

by some philosophers, notably Thomas Nagel; Nagel’s response to Lucretius is critically examined. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the views of Heidegger on death.

Chapter Three examines the very different position of Socrates and his successors, including Seneca and Plotinus - and Augustine, who appropriated much

of Plotinus for Christianity. These philosophers argue that fear of death is irrational

because death is overcome in achieving in moral action a sort of immortality. They develop a metaphysics that on the one hand supports this position and on the other hand is in radical disagreement with the metaphysics developed by Epicurus and

Lucretius. Chapter Four examines the modem response to the metaphysics deriving from

Socrates. In particular, we examine the views of David Hume as a restatement of the

position of Epicurus and Lucretius. The two traditions that we examine, that deriving from Epicurus and that

deriving from Socrates, come together in an extremely interesting way in the

philosophical thought of Albert Camus. The views of this philosopher, as contained not only in his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus but also in his novel The

Outsider, are examined in Chapter Five. We examine in detail his views on suicide and on the question of whether it is possible rationally to live in a world devoid of

objective meaning and value. Chapter Six draws a number of conclusions In particular, it is suggested that

the tradition of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume and, from one perspective, Camus is the one which a reasonable person will adopt. But it is also suggested that Camus’ views, from another perspective, call into question whether that position can really overcome

24 the fear of death. Or, to put it another way, those views of Camus suggest that

perhaps the fear of death is sufficiently strong to force people, if they are to get on with the task of living, to adopt irrationally some religious position or some version

of the Socratic metaphysics. Perhaps in the end one must conclude, however

reluctantly, that philosophy cannot everywhere conquer the fear of death. No more than it can insist upon people being reasonable.

The present essay attempts to do something that has not been done in the recent

literature concerning death, namely, to link reasons for attitudes towards death to reasons for different metaphysical positions on human being and the place of human

being in the universe. Many of the recent discussions of death either place the topic directly in the context of nothing more than ethical considerations without reference to the deeper ontological or metaphysical issues,44 or place it in the context of

Heideggerian or existentialist considerations.45 The present essay attempts to go deeper than the former sort of discussion, and to provide a broader context than the

latter It does not, however, attempt to canvas the views of all philosophers46 or of all cultural traditions on death.47 In a central way, the discussion that follows is

structured by the thought of Camus. Many have found his philosophical reflections on death and on the absurdity of life in the essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, to be very puzzling, particularly when they are placed in the context of Camus’ novel, The

Outsider, which is clearly intended to shed light on the reflections in the essay. Chapter Five of the present essay attempts to provide a careful reading of both The

Myth ofSisyphus and The Outsider in an effort to clear up the puzzles. Camus’ own

emphasis on the sensuous world of ordinary experience links him to the empiricist tradition, but his own references to Plotinus also link his thought to that very different

tradition. It is the connection of these two traditions to Camus that determines the central choices of philosophers to be discussed The Scots philosopher David Hume

25 is taken to be representative of the empiricist tradition, but Hume’s attitude towards

death goes back to the attitude found in the ancient world in Epicurus and Lucretius.

So we find Hume discussed in Chapter Four and Lucretius and Epicurus in Chapter Two. These discussions detail the empiricist background to Camus. As for the connection to Plotinus, this requires a discussion of the position of Plotinus which

occurs, mainly at least, in Chapter Three. The tradition in which Plotinus is to be

located has its origins in Socrates’ discussion of the appropriate attitude towards death in Plato’s dialogue, the Phaedo. In Chapter Three this tradition is traced from

Socrates, through Aristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus. And then in Chapter Four, prior to the discussion of Hume’s metaphysics, there is a discussion of Spinoza, who brings

the tradition of Socrates and Plotinus into the modem period.48 In each case, the metaphysical positions are laid out as fully as is necessary for

understanding the reasons the philosophers give for the attitudes that they adopt towards death. Moreover, the reasons that are given in defence of these metaphysical

positions are also developed This means, of course, that when we trace out these philosophical positions and arguments we must often move some way from direct involvement with the topic of the appropriate attitude towards death. But, then, it is

the aim of this study to establish the relevance to this topic of those deeper philosophical themes. This is true of all the philosophers discussed, but it is particularly true of

Hume. In examining his position we discuss a very broad range of topics. These

include Hume’s epistemology, his metaphysics, his views on self-identity, on economics, on politics, on philosophy of language, and on religion - as well as his attitude towards death. There are two reasons for this wide ranging treatment of Hume’s thought. The first, more general, reason lies in the fact that Hume is often dismissed as a dead-end sceptic and reactionary' conservative. Our discussion aims to show that this reading of Hume is mistaken. To be sure, relative to the views of

Socrates or Plotinus, Hume is a sceptic. But at the same time, he also argues against those views, and develops his own positive account of the world and of human beings

26 in that world. From this, the perspective that he himself defends, Hume is certainly no

sceptic49 and as well the characterization of him as a conservative is decidedly

misleading. The second reason is more specific to the contrast that is developed between Hume and Camus. Hume’s views on language and on religion are relevant

to the attitude towards death which he defends. His account of language is also, it is

argued, an account of the nature of thought, and once we understand this then we can also understand how people can come to be moved by irrational ideas to adopt

unreasonable attitudes towards death. Camus argues that we have innately a yearning - unfulfillable, and therefore absurd - for the sort of metaphysical unity defended by Plotinus. But if Hume is correct, then there is no such innate yearning, though it is also true that many people are in fact moved by such a yearning. To be sure, on

Hume’s view, such a yearning is in a way incoherent, but his views on language enable us to understand how it is possible that such a yearning can move one in spite of its incoherence. As for Hume’s discussion of religion, this is important because it gives

an explanation sketch of how confused ideas can come to move us. These aspects of Hume’s philosophy are relevant to understanding Camus, as are Hume’s views on

morals and politics, which are relevant to the discussion of Camus’ other significant philosophical essay, The Rebel, in the final Chapter Six.

Another feature of the discussion should perhaps be noted Almost all commentators on Camus’ The Myth ofSisyphus deal with this essay in the context of also discussing the novel The Outsider That means we cannot avoid the latter. But

this requires that we undertake, what most commentators do not undertake, namely, a discussion of exactly how to read a realistic novel in a way that makes it relevant to

the philosophic arguments that we are also discussing. This rationale for taking seriously the relevance of literature to philosophy enables us to look at another novel to illuminate the world that Hume describes. Again, the point is that the discussion of

issues is structured in large part by the motivating interest in becoming clear on what Camus has to say on the topic of death, or, more specifically, on suicide.

Finally, let me say that I have tried to document in texts or translations the

27 interpretations that I have given of the various philosophers that are discussed In no

case, however, have 1 tried to give a survey of “the literature” on these philosophers.

To be sure, I have given references to commentators that I have found most useful. But I have not attempted to give a detailed defence of my interpretations against those

advanced by others. On occasion, where our purposes do not demand anything more, 1 have left things studiously ambiguous. Thus, for example, I have simply left open

whether Plotinus was an emanationist or a creationist in his account of the relation between the ordinary world and the One which is its source?0 For our purposes, it is just not necessary to decide which reading is correct, and so I have simply left it open. Similar remarks hold for my readings of Spinoza, of the Stoics, and of Plato.

But enough of these signposts, warnings and caveats. Let us turn to the first of the philosophic traditions regarding death at which we shall look, that deriving from

Lucretius.

Chapter Two

Where Death Is, I Am Not: Lucretius'

We know little about Lucretius save that he was both a great poet and a great

philosopher. As a philosopher, he was, as we are told by Virgil, who was converted by his poem On the Nature of Things to Epicurus’ philosophy, happy in having

understood the causes of things: Blessed is he whose mind had power to probe The causes of things and trample underfoot All terrors and inexorable fate And the clamour of devouring Acheron. .2

And, as poetry aims both to please and to instruct, Lucretius’ poem aims to instruct

us in this knowledge of causes, but also to make its sometimes “bitter draught” more palatable by the “sweet honey of the Muses” (On the Nature of Things, p. 54). Lucretius’ aim is to provide a remedy for those who share the fears of

Maecenas - and Samuel Johnson. He proposes “to elucidate in my verses the nature of mind and life,” and In so doing I shall drive out neck and crop the fear of Hell which blasts the life of man from its very foundations, sullying everything with the blackness of death and leaving no pleasure pure and unalloyed.

Like Maecenas, most persons, “wherever they come in their tribulation,” turn to

prayer and sacrifice, and “still cling to life.” Indeed,

30 The heavier their afflictions, the more devoutly they tum their minds to superstition (p. 97).

The drive to wealth and power can often be a flight from poverty and ignominy,

which, because there is little joy or pleasure in those states, are seen to be next to death From these fates like death people recoil in the same horror with which they

recoil from death itself, and are driven, often enough, to commit crimes, even

unspeakable crimes, in order to achieve success. “Many a time before now men have betrayed their country and their beloved parents in an effort to escape the halls of

Hell” (p. 98). It is Lucretius’ point that these terrors that lead to misery and to crime are as

reasonable as - or rather as baseless as - the “horrors which children imagine coming upon them in the dark” (p. 218). We fear death because we know neither the nature

of the soul nor the nature of death. Neither do we know the causes of things. This ignorance in tum led people to populate the world with gods whose actions were

supposed to account for things, from the celestial motions to the vagaries of weather and storms. This account amounts to attributing these events to actions analogous to

human actions, motivated too often, so far as one can, in one’s ignorance, tell, by the desire to inflict pain and suffering, since these are often the consequences of natural events. The gods that are invented to explain the phenomena of whose causes we are ignorant are, like people, often vindictive and nasty. “Poor humanity, to saddle the

gods with such responsibilities and to throw in a vindictive temper! What griefs they hatched for themselves, what festering sores for us, what tears for our posterity” (pp. 207-8). We hope to save ourselves from death by appeal to the gods that we have, out

of our ignorance, created for ourselves, but these gods arising out of our superstition only increase our anxiety.

When struck by fear there are several things that one could do. One could, in the first place, act on the fear by retreating from the danger. One could, secondly, try to remove the danger. Or one could, thirdly, respond bravely to the danger, and defy

it And there is a fourth thing one could do. This is to ask whether that to which the

tear is responding really is dangerous. For, if it is not dangerous then, as fear is the response to perceived danger, the fear will disappear, we will no longer be afflicted

by it. Lucretius argues that it is this fourth option that is the correct response to death

and the fear that is felt about death. The solution to the troubles that afflict us on account of our fear of death, and to the ignorance that increases that fear, is,

Lucretius argues, knowledge. By giving an understanding of both the nature of the

world and of the nature of persons who are a part of that world, Lucretius will dispel

those horrors, by showing the fears to be irrational: This dread and darkness of the mind cannot be dispelled by the sunbeams, the shining shafts of day, but only by an understanding of the outward forms and inner workings of nature (ib.).

In his poem, Lucretius proposes a broad range of explanations for natural

phenomena, eg., the weather. These explanations are all naturalistic, in terms of natural causes that exist within the world of ordinary experience, rather than in terms of gods and forces that are external to the world of ordinary experience, controlling

the latter from the outside. Thus, to give one example, Lucretius suggests that one

cause of thunder, “the noise emitted by clouds,” is “the wind blowing through them ” We often see clouds scudding by profusely branched and jagged; and we all know that when a gale blows through a dense wood, the leaves rustle and the branches rattle. It also happens sometimes that the impetuous power of a strong blast shears through a cloud, smashing it by a frontal assault What a gale can do up there is clearly shown by its behaviour down here, where it is relatively gentle, even here on earth it blows over tall trees and hauls them out by the roots (p. 221). He suggests, too, that these are not the only causes of thunder; it can also, he

indicates, be caused by clouds colliding (p. 220), and so on. Concerning these explanations, several things are worth noting.3

First, causes are matters of patterns, and, specifically, patterns that are

universal and, in that sense, timeless. To say that B’s are caused by A’s, eg., thunder by gale force winds, is to say that there is a pattern to the effect that

Whenever A then B and to explain a particular B by appeal to a particular A is to subsume these

32 particulars under the pattern:

Whenever A then B This is an A_______ Hence, This is a B There are, thus, no arbitrary causes; where causes are at work, there are regular

patterns. Indeed, regularity is the hallmark of causation .4

Second, these timeless patterns that define causal relations are patterns about

matters offact in the world that we know by sense experience.5 There are no causes that are not part of the world that we experience, no causes that act on things from

a realm beyond that which we experience by means of our senses. There is no truth

beyond that which can be judged by our senses, either directly or indirectly by

inference from what is directly known. As Lucretius puts it, “the concept of truth was originated by the senses...” (p. 145). In this sense, all causes are natural. More

strongly, all understanding begins and ends in the senses, in the world that we know by sense experience. In this sense, all understanding is naturalistic.

Third, not all things within the world that we know by sense experience are actually experienced. We must, for example, distinguish between our observation of winds and gales on the surface of the earth and winds and gales in the clouds, the

former we have, the latter we have not, or at least Lucretius has not, experienced.

Similarly, we have reason to believe that there are small parts of things that we have

not experienced, parts that are too small for our senses to distinguish. These latter sorts of entity Lucretius refers to as “atoms.” Fourth, where the causes are not directly accessible to our experience, we can

still say that there is no difference in kind between these entities and the entities that we ordinarily experience. For the patterns of causation among these unexperienced

parts of our world are analogous to the patterns among the causes that we do observe. Thus, in the example of thunder, Lucretius suggests that the patterns of

behaviour of winds in the heavens are analogous to the patterns of behaviour of winds

on the surface of the earth. To say that the patterns are analogous is to say that the

patterns themselves share a pattern, that there is a pattern among patterns, a regularity

33 about regularities." Just as one can use patterns to infer causes from effects and effects from causes, so one can use a familiar pattern among known patterns to plausibly infer

that the pattern of behaviour of entities in our world that are inaccessible to us is a pattern of a familiar sort.7

Fifth, the inaccessible parts are inferred in order to permit us to explain what we do observe. Thus, in order to explain the destructive force of the wind, “there

must be indivisible particles of wind which sweep sea and land and the clouds in the sky, swooping upon them and whirling them along in a headlong hurricane” (p. 35). In order to explain what we observe, we attribute certain patterns to the behaviour of these hypothesized particles. These patterns have to be, as we noticed before, analogous to patterns of things that we do observe by sense: “In the way they [the

particles of wind] flow and the havoc they spread they are no different from a torrential flood of water when it rushes down in a sudden spate from the mountain heights, swollen by heavy rains, and heaps together wreckage from the forest and entire trees” (ib). Where the effects are similar, we can reasonably infer similar

causes. Sixth, “there are some phenomena to which it is not enough to assign one

cause: we must enumerate several, though in fact there is only one” (p 238). When we come across phenomena where the causes are inaccessible, it is often necessary

to assign several causes, though we believe there is in fact only one. Thus, where one

sees a lifeless body, one will want to assign a cause of death; but in the absence of further information it could be death by sword or by cold, by sickness or by poison. We do not know, save that whatever happened it must fall into one of these patterns.

In these circumstances where available data do not decide among alternative

hypotheses about causes, all we can do is state the range of possible alternatives and stop at that. We know that the cause will be among these, but without further

information can say no more. We can say, however, that whatever is the real cause,

it is among this range, and, moreover, each cause in this range is a naturalistic cause: there are no possible causes outside the world which we experience by means of our

34 senses. We are, of course, somewhat amused by Lucretius’ actual attempts at explanation. To get things into perspective, we should perhaps ask whether we could

have done better had we no better starting point than he. We have, after all, come a

long way. Be that as it may, the important point is not the details of the attempted explanations that he offers, but the naturalisticframework

This framework Lucretius had taken over, as he acknowledged, from his Greek predecessor Epicurus.8 According to the latter, it is the aim of “the student of the natural world” to “make progress in accordance with the direct evidence of the

phenomena themselves.”9 This evidence is provided by the senses. From the senses we form concepts, where a concept is “a mental picture, right opinion, notion, or

general idea that has been stored up - in other words, the memory of something external that has often been the subject of sensation, as for example the concept that

such and such is a man” {Life ofEpicurus, p. 7). The senses are the starting point for

inferences, concepts are the means by which we make judgments about things not present to us. . . .the bases on which the truth is to be judged are the sensations, the concepts, and the feelings (p. 6).

(The feelings judge of morality; they are not relevant here, though we shall have to

return to them.) Concepts enable us to form conjectures about what we have not yet experienced. This is the idea of “the ‘problem awaiting solution,’ as for example the

problem of the distant tower that awaits our near approach and the ascertainment of its shape when seen from close by” (p. 7). As Epicurus puts it,

...we must use our sensations as the foundation of all our investigations; that is, we must base investigations on the mental apprehensions, upon the purposeful use of the several senses that furnish us with knowledge, and upon our immediate feelings. In these ways we can form judgments on those matters that can be confirmed by the senses and also on those beyond their reach? Those matters that can be confirmed by the senses are those where we infer from a

regularity in what we have experienced to what we expect to appear in the future, if

35

it does appear, if we do in fact come to experience it, then the judgment that the regularity on which the inference is based is confirmed. But not all parts of the world

of sense experienced can be experienced, it also has parts that are “beyond [the]

reach” of the senses. Epicurus holds, as did Lucretius, that the proper method for inferring the nature of unobserved, or non-apparent, entities is analogy: We must search for the causes of celestial phenomena and in general of that which cannot be clearly perceived by first finding in how many ways similar phenomena are produced with the range of our senses...10

Again like Lucretius, Epicurus allows that we may have to be satisfied with several

hypothetical causes, where the evidence of our senses does not allow us to choose between them. In the case of “things above the earth,” that is, astronomy, Each of these phenomena has more than one cause for its creation and more than one account of its nature, all of them in harmony with the evidence of the senses. We must not build up an explanation of Nature according to empty assumptions and dictates, but as phenomena invite, for our life does not have need for illogical and empty opinions, but for an existence free from disturbance. If one is satisfied, as he should be, with that which is shown to be probable, no difficulty arises in connection with those things that admit of more than one explanation in harmony with the evidence of the senses; but if one accepts one explanation and rejects another that is equally in agreement with the evidence, it is clear that he is altogether rejecting science and taking refuge in myth 11

The world in which we live, the only world which we know, is the world that is given to us in sense experience. The events that occur in this world have causes; all of these causes, however, are natural, part of this world. There are no extra-mundane

entities to which appeal must be made if we are to understand the events that we perceive. To be sure, there are unperceived events. Starting from sense experience we can infer the existence of unsensed parts of this world. But they are parts of the

ordinary world, not entities toto caelo different from what we do observe. Lucretius and Epicurus have a clear notion of the human understanding. For us to understand an event is for us to know its cause. To know its cause is to know

the pattern or regularity under which it can be subsumed. Thus, we come to

36 understand when we come to know matter of fact regularities that describe the

behaviour of things. For the ordinary person, explanation is by appeal to the gods, to

entities that lie outside the world of ordinary experience and interfere in its workings. For Lucretius and Epicurus, in contrast, explanation is by appeal to timelesspatterns

of entities within the world of ordinary experience. In this sense, the concept of understanding to which Lucretius and Epicurus appeal is wholly as naturalistic as the world in which we live and of which we hope to come to an understanding. Given that

there are many parts of the world that are beyond our experience, we cannot hope to acquire a complete understanding, but we can hope to improve our understanding.

We do that by means of inference. These inferences are based on observed patterns, and on patterns that we observe hold among these patterns. Where possible these inferences are themselves subject to the test of experience. But even where we cannot

come to a firm conclusion about the nature of the causes of some phenomenon, we

do know at least this much, that whatever cause it has. that cause is natural Given that sense is the starting point and the ending point of our understanding, it could be

no other. It is this understanding that will release one from superstition and from the fear of death. As Lucretius puts it,

As soon as your reasoning, sprung from that god-like mind [Epicurus], lifts up its voice to proclaim that nature of the universe, then the terrors of the mind take flight... (On the Nature of Things, p. 96).

Understanding the causes of things will eliminate the superstitious introduction of

gods, and the anxiety and fear that these imaginary entities create for us. But this is

not the whole story. Now, among the entities that one finds in the world is oneself and one’s understanding. These are entities that we experience as part of the world in which we

live, and they are subject to the same sorts of explanation as other entities in that world, thunder, for example, or celestial phenomena. Again, the details need not

detain us; many of them are now simply quaint. The point is that persons and selves.

37

like other entities, are conceived of as composed of changing parts: just as plants are patterned sets of changing parts, so too the mind and spirit are patterned sets of

changing parts. Again as Lucretius puts it, the mind, which we often call the intellect, the seat of the guidance and control of life, is part of a man, no less than hand or foot or eyes are part of a whole living creature (p. 99). The same is true of what Lucretius calls the “spirit” or living force that moves the body (p. 100), and, in particular in the case of humans, moves it under control of the

mind (p. 108). Lucretius argues in detail that so far as one can tell from one’s experience,

there is nothing permanent or unchanging about mind and spirit. Thus, he concludes, “minds of living things and the light fabric of their spirits are neither birthless nor deathless” (p. 108). It may be that something of mind or spirit survives the death of

the body, but that is not to be identified with the self each person is a body guided

and animated by a mind and spirit. If any feeling remains in mind or spirit after it has been tom from our body, that is nothing to us, who are brought into being by the wedlock of body and spirit, conjoined and coalesced (p. 121).

We die when our body dies, if anything survives, it is not us. Certainly, it is not an

immortal soul - a notion for which there is no basis in experience, and which, in fact, is rather absurd. For, as Lucretius asks, What can be imagined more incongruous, what more repugnant and discordant, than that a mortal object and one that is immortal and everlasting should unite to form a compound and jointly weather the storms that rage about them9 (p. 120)

But of course the fears of a Maecenas, the fears of a Samuel Johnson, are possible only on the supposition that the soul or intellect or spirit is something

immortal and timeless that is tied to, and guides, but is distinguishable from, and in

that sense separable from, the changing and mortal body. Lucretius quite reasonably

draws the conclusion: the fear of death that these persons experience is an unreasonable fear, based on a false view of the nature of human being and on the

38 nature of death. Thus, once we achieve with Lucretius the naturalistic understanding

of mind and spirit as parts of the natural world, changeable and mortal like all other

things in it, tied in their very being to the bodies which they move and guide, then we

shall have exorcised as groundless the base fear of death which is the root of evil and the source ofterror. Understanding the universe exorcises superstition, understanding the mind and spirit exorcises the fear of death. Understanding frees us from the fear

and terror that ignorance creates.

Some have argued that fear of death is not irrational. Thus, F. H. Bradley, in his essay on “Our Fear of Death and Desire for Immortality,”12 argues that

To die and go we know not where, to survive as ourselves, and yet to become we know not what - such thoughts must always bring disquiet (PP 458-9). To be sure, they always must. But we should not allow such thoughts. Such at least is the argument of Lucretius and Epicurus. For, upon that argument, it is simply

wrong to suggest that we go we know not where upon death: we go nowhere, for

there is no we to go anywhere. We do not survive, neither as ourselves, nor as

ourselves become something else. The self simply does not survive. So there is no reason to entertain the Bradleyan thoughts that bring disquiet. His very way of

expressing these things is ruled out by the argument of Lucretius and Epicurus 13 As Lucretius puts it: If the future holds travail and anguish in store, the self must be in existence, when that time comes, in order to experience it. But from this fate we are redeemed by death, which denies existence to the self that might have suffered these tribulations (p. 122).

Like so many, Bradley does not distinguish himself, who does not survive, from the body that is there after death, and as a consequence likely tends to imagine that the

fate that befalls his body - decay or worse - befalls him It does not, but the picture that is there can be painful and can feed the fear of death.

When a living man confronts the thought that after death his body will be mauled by birds and beasts of prey, he is filled with self-pity. He does not banish himself from the scene nor distinguish sharply enough between himself and that abandoned carcass. He visualizes that object

39

as himself and infects it with his own feelings as an onlooker. That is why he is aggrieved at having been created mortal. He does not see that in real death there will be no other self alive to mourn his own decease - no other self standing by to flinch at the agony he suffers lying there being mangled, or indeed being cremated (pp. 122-3).

What is required is that reason control the imagination to prevent such images from creating irrational fears. But reason cannot control the imagination if it permits itself

to be infected by language such as that used by Bradley - “we know not where we

go” - that presupposes there is indeed a survival of sorts of the self after death. Rationally understanding the world, we understand that there is no self to survive, and we must struggle to ensure that the language we use does not implicitly, or perhaps not so implicitly, smuggle in the very ideas that we must exorcise.

Lucretius concludes:

From all this it follows that death is nothing to us and no concern of ours, since our tenure of the mind is mortal... So, when we shall be no more - when the union of body and spirit that engenders us has been disrupted - to us, who shall then be nothing, nothing by way of any hazard will happen any more at all. Nothing will have power to stir our senses, not though earth be fused with sea and sea with sky (p 121).

Here of course he echoes the argument of his teacher Epicurus: Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are.14 The point is as simple as it is impressive. To experience either good or evil, to feel

either pleasure or pain, one must experience. But when one is dead, one does not

40

experience: where death is, I am not. So death cannot be an evil, and there is therefore

nothing to fear in it. If we clearly grasp this truth about ourselves, that when we die we are nothing, then we will recognize that fear is a wholly unreasonable attitude to

adopt towards death, and at that point this fear, this “heavy burden, whose weight depresses” us (p. 128), will dissipate Thus, fear is an inappropriate or unreasonable attitude towards death: it brings us no evil. But in the same sense, it is inappropriate to welcome death as bringing otherwise unavailable goods.

To be sure, death is a fact, and we must take account of it in our projects. It should be accepted as a fact, which it is, but as a fact which is relevant to our plans

and behaviour as we attempt to live a reasonable and decent life. As Epicurus puts it, “Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither

count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be.”1’ Death in itself is neither good nor evil, neither pleasurable nor painful. But it does affect our ability to carry out the projects that we undertake as we attempt to attain good and avoid evil Insofar as it is as a fact relevant to our capacity to attain good and avoid

evil, we must take account of it in our projects. The appropriate attitude is one of calm acceptance of death as a fact. Calmly accepting the fact of death in the sense

ofreckoning it neither good not evil, and therefore something neither to be embraced nor feared, is not to say that one ought to ignore the fact of death; to the contrary,

to the extent that that fact is relevant to our attempts to attain the good and avoid

evil, one must take it into account as we undertake those projects. The conclusion of Epicurus and Lucretius is not that we ignore death, but that

we put it in the right perspective, as something to which in itself we ought to be indifferent but as a fact that is relevant to attaining or avoiding those things to which

we are not indifferent.

41

- II -

It has been argued by some that the conclusion drawn by Epicurus and Lucretius, specifically the conclusion that in death there is nothing to fear, does not follow from

their premises. T. Nagel is such a one.16 He grants, or takes it for granted in his

argument, that death is in fact the end of the person. He grants, too, that death cannot be a positive evil, for the Epicurean reason that where one is not, one cannot

experience evil. Nonetheless, death is an evil, and “a bad end is in store for us all” (p 10).

Death is an evil, Nagel argues, not because of any positive features, but because of what it deprives us of: “if death is an evil, it is the loss of life, rather than the state of being dead, or nonexistent, or unconscious, that is objectionable” (p. 3) By way of analogy, Nagel considers the example of an intelligent and gifted adult

who, as the result of brain injury, is reduced to the state of a contented infant. Such a one is not unhappy, yet we judged him to be unfortunate. It is not that a contented

infant as such is unfortunate. Rather, what is unfortunate is that a gifted and intelligent adult has been reduced to this state (p. 5). There has been a cost This cost is the lost

opportunities. The gifted adult exists no more, but he or she has nonetheless suffered a misfortune: he or she is no longer able to carry out the projects and plans that he or

she had been making. Similarly for the dead person: He or she suffers no pain, experiences no evil. Yet the person has paid a cost in lost opportunities to enjoy the goods of life, and this cost that is paid makes death a misfortune.

Observed from without, human beings obviously have a natural lifespan and cannot live much longer than a hundred years. A man’s sense of his own experience, on the other hand, does not embody this

42

idea of a natural limit. His existence defines for him an essentially open-ended possible future, containing the usual mixture ofgoods and evils that he has found so tolerable in the past. Having been gratuitously introduced to the world by a collection of natural, historical, and social accidents, he finds himself the subject of a life, with an indeterminate and not essentially limited future. Viewed in this way, death, no matter how inevitable, is an abrupt cancellation of indefinitely extensive possible goods. Normality seems to have nothing to do with it, for the fact that we will all inevitably die in a few score years cannot by itself imply that it would not be good to live longer. Suppose that we were all inevitably going to die in agony - physical agony lasting six months. Would inevitability make that prospect any less unpleasant9 And why should it be different for a deprivation9 If the normal lifespan were a thousand years, death at 80 would be a tragedy. If there is no limit to the amount of life that it would be good to have, then it may be that a bad end is in store for us all (pp. 9-10). Others have made the same point. Thus, Jeffrie Murphy expresses it this way: If I am correct that a person is self-defined largely in terms of certain projects - e g. the desire to accomplish something in one’s profession, to provide for one’s family, to achieve certain satisfactions, to redress moral injuries done, etc. - then we can see wherein much of the badness of death lies: Death represents lost opportunity 17

Death is as it were somewhat like the knock on the door that interrupts one’s project

of finally finishing the essay that one has worked on for some time: the creative burst is lost and the essay remains forever unfinished. Death is a bad thing because it

deprives one forever of the possibility of finishing one’s projects. Nor is this response to Epicurus restricted to recent times. Already in the

ancient world, Plutarch had made the same point as Nagel and Murphy. Plutarch argued against Epicurus that

... human nature does not fear the loss of sensation as a beginning of something new, but as costing us the good we now enjoy. For this ‘nothing to us,’ when achieved by the extinction of everything that is ours, is already ‘something to us’ in our thoughts.18 Or, as he also put it, death brings no hope or joy but means the severance of all that is pleasant and good.19

In fact Plutarch, like Nagel, indicates that the loss is great precisely because we can

43 anticipate in death a never-ending loss of desired goods:

...if the limit is non-being, and this has no limit and no exit, we discover that this loss of all good things is an evil that lasts forever, because it comes from an insentience that will never end.20

Epicurus is trying to deny the obvious truth that “the loss of good things is an evil.”21 Now, there is a variety of things that need to be said about this argument that

has derived from Plutarch and has been revived by Nagel and Murphy. It has been suggested by some22 in defence of Epicurus that Plutarch’s and

Nagel’s point is unsound for the reason that “once a person dies, that person no

longer exists, and thus does not and cannot experience the loss,” as one experiences the loss, for example, of one’s business to creditors. Since the loss experienced upon death is unlike more typical cases of loss, Plutarch and Nagel have not made a

convincing argument against Epicurus that death is after all a bad thing 23 This is not convincing, however We are asking what attitude a person now alive ought to take

towards his or her own death. E g., should it be one of fear, as Maecenas feels, or calm acceptance, as Epicurus and Lucretius argue, or regret, as Plutarch and Nagel

maintain And we certainly can now regret the fact that our present projects will not, because of death, be completed. That being so, we will in that situation look on death

as Nagel says, as a bad thing. A comment on Plutarch’s and Nagel’s position that is more important, perhaps, is this, that whatever attitude it justifies taking towards death, it is clear that

this attitude is not fear. For, fear is a response to danger, and while death as characterized by Plutarch and Nagel does involve a loss, at the same time it involves

no danger. Maecenas and Samuel Johnson fear death because they fear what will

happen to them after death. Nagel grants the point of Lucretius and Epicurus that where death is, one is not. Nothing, therefore, can happen to one after death. Even

on Nagel’s view, then, the attitude of fear as felt by Maecenas or Johnson is

unreasonable. Where a danger is to be feared, a loss is to be regretted. The appropriate

attitude towards death is therefore, upon Plutarch’s and Nagel’s position, one of

44 regret, regret at the opportunities that will inevitably be lost. And of course, if one

anticipates a great loss, eg., by a mugging if one is carrying on the street a sack of

diamonds, then one might well take steps to avoid the loss, e g., by insisting on being accompanied by a guard who will deter muggers. Similarly, one might take steps to

avoid death, anticipating the opportunities for life’s goods, including the doing of good, that will be lost. But of course there is no avoiding death: it is the human fate. As Epicurus put it, “It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls.”24 So too, then, the loss

consequent upon death is inevitable, and regret is always the appropriate attitude. The

Epicurean will thus expect that “the wise man will also feel grief...”.25

What this last indicates is that, contrary to what Plutarch and Nagel seem to

suppose, their argument hardly refutes the position of Lucretius and Epicurus on the

proper attitude towards death For what these latter were concerned to destroy was the fear of death, not merely its regret. Lucretius recognizes full well Plutarch’s and

Nagel’s point that death may well be the object of regret. “Now it is all over,” he imagines someone saying to a dead person;

Now the happy home and the best of wives will welcome you no more, nor winsome children rush to match the first kiss at your coming and touch your heart with speechless joy. No chance now to further your fortune or safeguard your family. Unhappy man,...unhappily cheated by one treacherous day out of all the uncounted blessings of life.

On the other hand, as Lucretius points out, the dead person does not feel the pain of regret: ..they do go on to say: ‘And now no repining for these lost joys will oppress you any more’ (On the Nature of Things, p. 123).

Nagel, like the friends of Lucretius’ dead person, does not mention this. Nor do Plutarch and Nagel mention the fact that pain of regret can be balanced by the pleasure of remembering the good that has been achieved, the pleasures that one has

enjoyed. “Why do you weep and wail over death?” asks Lucretius; “If the life you

have lived till now has been a pleasant thing - if all its blessings have not leaked away

45

like water poured into a cracked pot and run to waste unrelished - why then. . .do you not retire as a guest who has had his fill of life and take your care-free rest with a

quiet mind” (p. 124). Epicurus makes the same point: We show our feeling for friends, not by wailing, but by meditating,26 that is, not by regretting our loss and expressing this by wailing at their funerals, but

by thinking about them and the good that they did, the pleasure that they gave. Lucretius makes a further point. Even where we have our plans and our

aspirations, and where, therefore, death is appropriately the object of regret, dwelling

on possible future losses can spoil the enjoyment of pleasures and goods present to hand. . ..because you are always pining for what is not and unappreciative of the things at hand, your life has slipped away unfilled and unprized (p. 125). Just as undue fear of death can, as in the cases of Maecenas and Johnson, make one’s

life miserable, so can undue regret of the losses that might occur as a consequence of death. Just as fear can be unreasonable by being too great, as in the coward, or not

great enough, as in the foolhardy, so too the attitude of regret has unreasonable

extremes. One would show scant regard for one’s own projects if one did not feel

regret at the thought that they might fail of completion due to a premature death; but equally one should not show such excessive concern about the fact that one’s projects may be thwarted by death that one can no longer undertake a serious task with any

pleasure. Moreover, the loss consequent upon death may turn out to be small compared to the loss consequent upon some other line of action. Let us suppose a person had

an opportunity to decide between going on living and committing suicide in the

context where going on living would involve little pleasure and constant suffering. Death would then be an evil, but much the less of two evils. In such a case one would likely welcome death, rather than regret it. Such would seem to be the reasonable attitude. Plutarch and Nagel are thus wrong in supposing that it is always reasonable

to adopt the attitude of regret towards death.27

46

Plutarch and Nagel both make the picture more dramatic than is plausible. As persons we all aspire to acquire more and more of life’s goods. We do this planning indefinitely into the future. Our “existence,” Nagel says, “defines for [us] an

essentially open-ended possible future...”. This seems wrong. It is a narrow vision of persons as infinite consumers of goods, a vision no doubt appropriate for the market society of possessive

individualism, but hardly a vision that accords with the reality of human beings. It is

not simply that persons, some at least, become weary and look to an end. Here is how one author describes a situation:

As my mother was dying I recall the simple clarity of the situation. She was old, her body was worn out, and she was ready to die. For virtually everyone else there was a medical solution that was going to solve the ‘problem’. Somehow medicine was to grant her immortality. There was no fear in her, just a desire to die at home and not in a hospital hooked up to grotesque life support systems.28

Those proposing the medical “solutions” assumed, as Nagel assumes about everyone, that this person wanted to go on living, had aspirations that could only be fulfilled if

she went on living. But they were wrong: she simply did not want to go on living. She

was weary and had no further desires to be fulfilled. For her, there are no longer any

desires or wishes that could define an “open-ended possible future...” Nor need this sort of development be a mere matter of weariness. Our desires

change as we get older, and things that moved us when we were young no longer move us. Cephalus makes this point to Socrates in the conversation that is recorded in the Republic. He notes how many persons regret that they have ceased to enjoy the

pleasures of their youth. But,

As it is, I have met other old men who do not feel like that, and indeed I was present at one time when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How are you in regard to sex, Sophocles? Can you still make love to a woman?” “Hush man, the poet replied, I am very glad to have escaped from this, like a slave who has escaped from a mad and cruel master.” I thought then that he was right, and 1 still think so, for a great peace and freedom from these things come with old age: after the tensions of one’s desires relaxes and ceases Sophocles’ words

47 certainly apply, it is an escape from many mad masters.29 This is not a matter of simple weariness, but the point is the same: in a context in

which our desires cease, it makes no sense to suppose, as Nagel does, that our existence defines for us an “open-ended possible future...”

But there is another point to be made. If Sophocles and Cephalus no longer have the bodily impulses that moved them in their youth, Cephalus regretting the fact,

Sophocles not regretting it, it is also true that they are still motivated, now in other ways. They can in fact now, as older men, enjoy the pleasures of conversation and of philosophical reflection. The relevant point is that we change as we grow older: what

moved us in our youth no longer moves, and what moves us now we were indifferent to in our youth Human beings change and develop. We must take this fact into

account when we think of death, and when we try to evaluate Nagel’s thesis, based

on the idea that our existence defines for us an “open-ended possible future

- the

thesis that death is a bad end for us all.

Nagel himself points out that there is a real difference between Keats dying at 24 and Tolstoy at 82: the former, we think, is tragic, the latter not. We so think for the very reason that Nagel suggests: in the case of Keats there is a loss, not only for

us, but for Keats himself, since he has been robbed of the opportunity of contributing to the world still more of the great poetry of which he was still clearly capable. But

correspondingly we have no sense that Tolstoy’s death is similarly the object of regret. Tolstoy had made his contribution, both as an artist and as a social critic and leader. His day was done, as a writer he aspired to do no more, he could do no more,

we feel that upon his death there was no uncompleted project the loss of which is to

be regretted. Tolstoy’s “existence” no longer “defined” for him an “essentially open-

ended future.” Wishing for nothing that death could cut off, death had for him no cost, and was not, therefore, the object of regret. To be sure, Tolstoy had lost

confidence in reason and had turned to religious faith, which provided for him a hope in a world that seemed to him otherwise valueless. We shall look at this move towards

the end of Chapter Four. In any case, the point remains that we do not look upon the

48 death of Tolstoy as tragic, and this for the reason that there were no projects the non­

completion of which involves a loss.

Another whose death we do not look upon as tragic is the Scot’s philosopher

David Hume. We shall look at Hume’s philosophy at length in Chapter Four. The point here is the simple one that he died without regrets, and with no sense that that

would involve a loss, either for him or for the world. As Hume said to Adam Smith, “I have done everything of consequence which I ever meant to do...”.30 This is true

of many. As they grow older their aims change, and at a certain point they/ee/ they

want no more, that their projects have been completed, that they have lived their lives,

and that it is time to go. Cicero put the point well in his essay “On Old Age”: One has had enough of life, in my opinion, when one has had enough of all its occupations. Boys have their characteristic pursuits, but adolescents do not hanker after them, since they have their own activities. Then these too, in their turn, cease to attract the grown-up and middle-aged, seeing that they also have special interests - for which, however, when their time comes, old people feel no desire, since they again, finally, have interests peculiar to themselves. Then, like the earlier occupations before them, these activities fall away; and when that happens a man has had enough of life and it is time for him to die.31

They are, as Lucretius puts it at one point, “ready to retire from life’s banquet filled and satisfied” (On the Nature of Things, p. 125). Seneca in fact makes a contrast

between those who are ready to retire, and those who rather foolishly begin new projects in old age that they can reasonably envision cannot be completed.32 He first

quotes Epicurus on the point, “The fool, with all his other faults, has this also - he is always getting ready to live.”33 Seneca then goes on to his correspondent “Reflect, my esteemed Lucillius, what this saying means, and you will see how revolting is the

fickleness of men who lay down every day new foundations of life, and begin to build

up fiesh hopes even at the brink of the grave. Look within your own mind for individual instances; you will think of old men who are preparing themselves at that very hour for a political career, or for travel, or for business. And what is baser than

getting ready to live when you are already old?”34 The reasonable person recognizes

49 when it is no longer reasonable to engage in long-term projects, projects that would

make it inevitable that regret could be the only outcome: those who are reasonable make themselves ready to retire. Or perhaps persons nearing the end of life, ready to retire, are tired simply because they have not been satisfied but now wish no longer to strive for the goods that they have failed to achieve. Such perhaps is the feeling of

the Cynic philosophers in ancient Greece.3’ In the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus* Socrates purports to quote the sophist Prodicus:

For what parcell ... of our life is not full of wretchedness? Dooth not the babie even taken from the mothers wombe, powre out plenty of teares, beginning the first step of life with griefe: neither afterward hath it once any breathing or resting time from sorrow, being either distressed with povertie, or pinched with colde, or scortched with heate, or payned with stripes; and whatsoever it suffereth, utter once it cannot, but onely with crying dooth show his minde, having no voice but that alone to bewray his griefe: and having through many woes waded to seaven yeares of age, he is yhet afflicted with greater griefs, being subject to the sranny of the Schoolmaister and Tutor And as his yeares encreased, so is the number of his guides and govemours encreased, being afterwards in the handes of Censors, Philosophers and Capitaines. Soone after being waxen a strpling ... For hereupon dooth a troope of evils accrew, as be the exploites of warfare, the bittemesse of wounds, the continuall labour, skirmishes: and then closely creepeth on olde Age, in which are heaped all the harmes that pertaine to mankinde, whether of weaknesse as natural!, or of paine as being extemall. And but if one betimes restore his life as a dew debt to death: Nature every waiting as a greedy user, taketh paynes aforehand, snatching and pulling from this man his sight, from that his hearing, from some both two senses And if any fortune longer then commonly is seene in this life to linger. Nature weakening hir powres, doth loose, land, and bow downe all partes of his body, but they whose bodies in old age long flurisheth, in minde, as the saying is, becomes twise children.37 Shakespeare was to provide a version of these ideas in Jacques’ famous speech in As

You Like It

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

50 His acts being seven ages At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oats, and beared like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modem instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (II, 7, 141-166)38 The argument differs marginally from pseudo-Socrates’. An age has been added (the

Justice) to bring it to more customary seven, and the Lover replaces the studious young man. The result is on the whole a better speech than Socrates’ in Axiochus. Certainly, it is made more effective through the guiding and organizing image of life

as the “wide and universal theatre” in which “one man plays many parts.” As for Socrates in the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus, his speech is placed in the context of Epicurus’ decidedly unSocratic view of death as something that “pertayneth neither to the living nor to the dead.” Axiochus regrets the fact that he will die; this regret is

in vain, pseudo-Socrates argues: ... death toucheth not them that are, and as for those that are departed out of this life, are now no more, and therfore death now toucheth them not: for thou art not yet dead, neither if thou decease, shall it concerne thee, for thou shalt then have no more. There, most vaine is

51

that soorow which Axiochus maketh, for the thing which neyther is present nor shall ever touch Axiochus himselfe. And even as foolish is it, as if one should complaine and be afraid of Scylla, or the Centaure, which were monsters, of Poets broode, which neyther now belong to thee, nor to thy lives end shall appertaine, for feare is conceyved of such things as be: but of such things as be not, what feare can there be939 The idea seems to be that while we have something to regret in the pains of this life,

there is nothing to regret about death.

This is fair enough, but it is surely the case that, besides the pains that pseudo­ Socrates and Jacques emphasize, there are also the pleasures of life: if each age has

its pains, then it is also true that each age has its pleasures. Indeed, each stage has its

own virtues: those of the student differ from those of the justice and both of these differ from those of the soldier. This point was emphasized by Cicero. He even puts

it in the context of the image of the stage that was later used by Jacques. An actor need not remain on the stage until the every end of the play: if he wins applause in those acts in which he appears, he will have done well enough. In life, too, a man can perform his part wisely without staying on the stage until the play is finished. However short your life may be, it will still be long enough to live honestly and directly. If, on the other hand, its duration is extended, there need be no more sorrow than a farmer feels when the pleasant springtime has passed, and summer and autumn have arrived. For spring, the season of youth, gives promise of fruits to come, but the later seasons are those that reap the harvests and gather them in. And the particular harvest of old age ... is its abundant recollection of blessings acquired in earlier years.40 Cicero rejects the argument of the cynics like Jacques and the pseudo-Socrates that in life there are only pains, no pleasures.

For what is the advantage of life? - or rather, are not its troubles infinite? No, there are advantages too; yet all the same there comes a time when one has had enough. That does not mean that I am joining the large and learned body of life’s critics! I am not sorry to have lived, since the course my life has taken has encouraged me to believe that I have lived to some purpose.41 One has had enough not simply because one has had enough of pain but

because one’s life has been “lived to some purpose,” one’s projects are complete.42

52 We have already noted how David Hume viewed death without fear and without regret: his projects were complete. As we saw him put this point to Adam Smith, I

have done everything of consequence which I ever meant to do’’43 From this perspective, death involves no loss: wanting nothing more, there is nothing to lose,

nothing to regret. As Nagel cannot see, for such a one as Hume as he nears the end of his life, death will not reasonably be the object of regret44 Nagel’s narrow

economist’s vision of human being as naturally and infinitely acquisitive prevents him

from seeing this. That the vision of human being that Nagel proposes is false is in fact

clear immediately upon reflection. As Epicurus put it, The flesh believes that pleasure is limitless and that it requires unlimited time; but the mind, understanding the endlimit of the flesh and ridding itself of fears of the future, secures a complete life and has no longer any need for unlimited time. It does not, however, avoid pleasure; and when circumstances bring on the end of life, it does not depart as if it still lacked any portion of the good life 45

It is only with their narrow, and false, vision of human being that Plutarch and Nagel can make plausible their false but dramatic conclusion, so apparently at odds with

Lucretius, that, on the view of Epicurus and Lucretius, as Nagel puts it, a “bad end is in store for us all.”46

In fact, as Lucretius makes clear, the false vision of human being that Plutarch

and Nagel propose itself leads us to feel pain; specifically, it leads us to feel not only the pain of regret, but to feel it to an inordinate degree.

So long as the object of our craving is unattained, it seems more precious than anything besides. Once it is ours, we crave for something else. So an unquenchable thirst for life keeps us always on the gasp (On the Nature of Things, p. 129). But of course we cannot go on indefinitely gaining goods, and so it seems to a person who has such a vision of human being that, as Nagel says, death is a “bad end” that is in store for all of us.” But such a view is false, and the pain and regret that we feel consequent upon that view is inordinate: the loss is never as great as Plutarch’s and

Nagel’s vision of human being implies that it must be. The cure for this inordinate

regret consists in giving up the false picture of human being, that implies that we are,

53

or should be, looking forward to an “essentially open-ended future.” In the end we see that what is wrong with Plutarch’s and Nagel’s notion that

one’s “existence defines for him an essentially open-ended possible future” is that it

does not allow that one can rationally take account of the fact of death This is what the old person does, who is tired, and comes to accept, and perhaps even welcome, the thought of death. This, too, is what the person does who is young and full of

projects, and looks on the possibility of death occurring at this point as something to be regretted, though not regretted enough to prevent him or her from taking pleasure

in getting on with those projects. As a consequence, the attitude towards death that

Nagel aims to justify, a constant and inconsolable sorrow and regret about the fact

that death will occur, is in fact inappropriate. Sometimes, to be sure, regret is appropriate. But not always To think otherwise, as Plutarch and Nagel do, is to have a warped or one-sided view of human being - in Nagel’s case, it is the view of the economists - ; and simply stated, it is to be insufficiently sympathetic towards the

variety of kinds of human being that we are and that we encounter, and to the variety of attitudes towards death that our different situations can justify.

54

- Ill -

What we have just seen is that the attitude which we adopt towards death often does,

and usually ought to, play a role in our life. But that should not surprise us, for an

attitude, eg., fear, as a mental state implies a tendency at least towards certain sorts of action and behaviour. In the case of fear, of course, the tendency is to withdraw from that which, because it is seen as dangerous, evokes the fear. However, once the

attitude is there, there are, usually, various ways in which one can deal with it One

can give in to the fear, and withdraw from the danger; or one can acknowledge the fear and respond bravely to the danger, determined to fight it; or one can even dismiss

it and rashly respond to the danger with the insouciance of the foolhardy In asking whether an attitude is reasonable, one wants to know not merely whether the attitude is appropriate to its object, but also how one is to respond, if at all, in one’s actions and behaviour to that attitude.

Our concern is, of course, with the attitude towards death. Given the account

of the world and of human understanding that is developed by Lucretius, then the attitude of fear towards death is unreasonable. On the other hand, given those

accounts, then regret is often, though certainly not always, a reasonable attitude towards death Not always: for, it is also often enough true that death comes as a relief, and, with no great aspirations towards anything else, there is nothing that is lost, nothing to regret. Of course, given the view of human nature that is proposed by

Nagel, persons as infinite consumers of goods, then regret is always appropriate. But there is little reason to accept that view of human nature. Certainly, it does not take

into account the facts of human development, that one’s aspirations and projects do

55 change over time, partly as a consequence of the biological process of aging, and that

often at the end of a long and fulfilling life one simply wants little else, with death now

hardly to be regretted at all. But where we do have uncompleted projects, then in those circumstances it

is reasonable, as Lucretius recognizes, to look upon the possibility of death with regret. The philosophical question is this: how ought we to fit the awareness of death

into our projects? how ought we respond to the regret that this awareness evokes? What, in other words, is, or ought to be, the role of death in life? What is the

meaning of death? what significance ought it to have for us?

Death, of course, is a fact, a biological fact. Thus, as Rudolf Carnap, when he was a logical positivist, quite rightly insisted, so far as objective fact is concerned, the

question of the meaning of death, the question, that is, of how we ought objectively to define death, is a question for the natural scientist. Any other sort of “riddle of

death” is simply a matter of attitudes and of adjusting attitudes, and therefore not a

genuine matter of concern for philosophy. ...the "riddles of life ” are not questions, but are practical situations. The “riddle of death” consists in the shock through the death of a fellow man or in the fear of one’s own death. It has nothing to do with questions which can be asked about death, even if some men, deceiving themselves, occasionally believe that they have formulated this riddle by pronouncing such questions. In principle, these questions can be answered by biology (though presently only to a very small extent), but these answers are of no help to a grieved person, which shows that it is self-deception to regard them as formulations of the riddle of death. Rather, the riddle consists in the task of “getting over” this life situation, of overcoming the shock, and perhaps even making it fruitful for one’s later life.47

There is a point to these remarks. When a scientist introduces terms, he or she does so because it has been found that such terms are useful in the scientist’s task of stating laws of nature We have found since Newton that the concept Density = defmiIjon

mass per unit volume

is very useful in stating laws of nature. In contrast, the concept

56

Dunsity = dc6nilion

mass liftable by a standard two-year old infant

so far as we know appears in no laws of nature. Since the task of the scientist is to discover laws of nature, we naturally find that the concept of Density appears in the language of science while the concept of Dunsity, though equally well defined, does

not. A concept like ‘density,’ which is useful in stating laws of nature, can be called significant48 A significant concept like ‘density’ will appear in the language science

uses to describe the world, whereas a concept like ‘dunsity,’ which cannot be used to state laws of nature, and which is therefore not significant, will not appear in the

language of science. What science will seek, when (and if) it seeks a concept of death, will be a significant concept. The scientist will, therefore, introduce a concept of death

that he or she finds useful in stating the laws of nature that he or she discovers or is interested in, specifically of course, the laws or regularities that describe the processes

by which living organisms cease to be entities capable of metabolism and reproduction. This is our scientific concept of death.

Carnap is quite correct in holding that this is all that one can say about death

as a concept whose point is to do nothing more than describe objective facts. That is not, however, the last word on the subject. For one can have other concerns. Thus, for example, the concept of death also has a forensic or legal sense. If we characterize a person as dead, then certain consequences follow; one may then,

for example, and only then, dispose of the body. It may well be that death in the forensic sense is based on a criterion that implies a meaning different from that used

by scientists. There is a tendency to define death for legal purposes in terms of some

criterion for brain-death,49 the failure of brain activity. This concept has little

application in the case of lobsters or oysters, yet the scientific community may well have a concept that applies as equally to people as it does to lobsters or oysters. But that should not surprise us, since the purposes for which we use forensic concepts are

different from the purposes for which we use scientific concepts: the latter are used to state laws of nature, the former are used to describe situations in such a way as to

57 ensure that there will ensue certain further actions that will bring about certain further consequences, eg., punishments or rewards. We should not confuse the scientific and forensic uses of terms Thus,

consider a discussion of how one ought to define death for purposes of medical care. The suggestion was made (in the “Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard

Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death”50) that irreversible coma

be used to define death. This new definition was proposed for two practical reasons: first, the relief of patient, kin and medical resources from the burdens of indefinitely prolonged coma; and, second, removal of controversy on obtaining organs for

transplant. These reasons make clear that the notion being proposed is a forensic

notion. It is proposed as a way of determining when certain things should be done and when certain things are permitted. It has to be evaluated in terms of whether those

values are appropriate Hans Jonas has objected to the definition on the grounds that

it is asking what should be done to the patient rather than asking whether the patient is dead. He puts it this way: We do not know with certainty the borderline between life and death, and a definition cannot substitute for knowledge 51

It is clear that what Jonas wants is some research into exactly where the borderline is between life and death. But he is confused even about this What science will tell

us is the laws or regularities that govern the transition from the obviously living to the obviously dead. It is perfectly clear that this will in most case be a process, with no

clear point somewhere in the middle where one can say, “Here, precisely here, is

where death occurred.” In any case, what the scientist will do is define ‘life’ and

‘death’ as seems reasonable to him or her in order to state as felicitously as possible the laws governing this process; the scientist will use only significance as the criterion: is it useful in stating laws of nature? But from this nothing whatsoever follows about

what one ought to do. In contrast, that is the whole point of the forensic notion. After

the scientists have obtained their knowledge of laws, they will then do their defining. Jonas’ suggestion that what we need is knowledge, not definitions, is thus not

58 accurate. Moreover, once the scientists have done their defining, based on the

criterion of significance, it will still be necessary to establish the forensic notion Indeed, it might well turn out that the scientific notion and the forensic notion do not

coincide; if they did, there would be fewer problems overall But they do not coincide, and so there are problems. But in any case, there is still the problem of value, the value judgment that is essential to the forensic concept of death. Jonas’ call for “knowledge” won’t solve this, the value problem: we will still need to define the

forensic notion, even after all the knowledge is in. And in the meantime, while we do not yet have an adequate scientific concept of death, we do need, for the purposes

indicated in the Harvard Report, the forensic notion, so we should get on with the task of defining it Jonas’ remark may have some point within the context of an

Aristotelian metaphysics of Natures and ethics of Natural Law (of which, more later), but in the context both of science and the moral needs of medical practice, it is

nothing more than obscurantist. Besides the scientific concerns about death, and the forensic concerns of both

medical practice and everyday life, there are still others, in particular ours: what

attitude ought one to adopt towards death, and what role ought it to play in our lives?

Carnap quite rightly identified these issues as not scientific, but, with less justice, used this characterization to dismiss these concerns from the realm of philosophy. Even that may be correct, given some conceptions of philosophy. But the term is not worth

arguing over: the point is that, whatever Carnap says, if one is concerned, as were the

classical philosophers, with the issue of how to live wisely, then the questions that we have just asked demand an answer.

Carnap was, of course, concerned to state his position on death to clearly

distinguish what he was about from the sort of thing that was being done by his

contemporary Heidegger?2 Heidegger has discussed the role that death does, and ought to, play in our

human projects. He does so in an obscure style - if Heidegger has a choice between

putting things simply or putting them pretentiously, he invariably chooses the latter,

59 this has the apparent aim of making some genuine insights sound more like deep and profound metaphysics than the commonsense rationality that they really are But his

views are interesting enough that it pays to tease them out of the obscurity of the

language in which they are presented.” We should say, perhaps, that Heidegger does not provide any rationale, as

does Lucretius, for holding that death is indeed a fact. Lucretius provides a

metaphysics and an account of human reason which make it clear that this is so. This was the basis for his argument that the fears of a Maecenas were ill-founded and

unreasonable. Heidegger undertakes no such metaphysics and no such analysis of the nature of human reason. He simply takesfor granted what Lucretius concludes on the

basis of argument, namely, that where death is 1 am not. In this, Heidegger’s work

falls far short of the sort of standard ofjustification to which Epicurus and Lucretius

quite reasonably, as philosophers, aspired But for all that Heidegger is insufficiently conscious of the fact that his positions are at their central points unsupported in the way that philosophers have a right to demand, nonetheless it still is true that what he

does have to say is interesting. Heidegger draws a distinction between the way humans are in the world and

the way in which such things as water pitchers are in the world?4 The former he refers to as “Dasein” while the latter things are said to be “ready-to-hand” (p 98). Things that are ready-to-hand are defined by the functions they serve when we manipulate

them; the term ‘water pitcher’ indicates that directly. When the tool is used by us to serve one of its functions, we make actual one of the possibilities implied in its

description or its essence. Heidegger expresses this commonsensical point in his rather intense prose by saying that when we use a tool or something else that is ready-to-

hand is to “'annihilate the possibility of the possible by making it available to us But the concemful actualization of equipment which is ready-to-hand (as in producing it,

getting it ready, readjusting it, and so on) is always merely relative, since even that which has been actualized is still characterized in terms of some involvements indeed this is precisely what characterizes its Being. Even though actualized, it

60 remains, as actual, something possible for doing something; it is characterized by an

‘in-order-to’ ” (p. 305).

Dasein, in contrast, is not merely ready-to-hand; it is not merely something to be manipulated, used for someone’s ends. Rather Dasein does the manipulating; it defines the ends, that “towards-which” our manipulations aim to achieve when we use

equipment that is ready-to-hand (p. 99). As a person, that is, Dasein defines the “towards-which” it moves from where it is, where the towards-which is not achieved, that is, not yet achieved But, of course, the “towards-which” is there in the sense of

being something before our minds, our consciousness, as something which we aspire to attain. The towards-which is there in Dasein potentially, but it is, as a potentiality, part of what Dasein presently is, part of the being of Dasein. Indeed, Dasein is that

potentiality, since it is actively moving to actualize it, though, insofar as it has not (yet) achieved its aim, it is not (yet) actually that towards which it is moving. In this sense, Dasein in its projects is “ahead of itself’. And, aware of the end that it defines and is moving to actualize, Dasein is of course aware of itself, and specifically, as

aware of itself as a being that is moving itself to become something which it is (as yet) not. Persons are aware of what they are doing ...ontologically. Being towards one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being means that in each case Dasein is already ahead of itself, in its Being. Dasein is always ‘beyond itself. ., not as a way of behaving towards other entities which it is not, but as Being towards the potentiality-forBeing which it is itself (p. 236).

When a person attempts to bring about something, when a person tries to avoid something, even when a person simply perceives something, this person, that is, Dasein, exhibits care.

When we ascertain something present-at-hand by merely beholding it, this activity has the character of care just as much as does a ‘political action’ or taking a rest and enjoying oneself. ‘Theory’ and ‘practice’ are possibilities of Being for an entity whose Being must be defined as “care” (p. 238). Care is the generic way in which Dasein actively orients itself to things in the

world. Willing and wishing are specific forms of care. So is perceiving. The grasping

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of the truth of things is rooted in the fact that “Dasein can uncover entities in

themselves and free them" (p 270). Now, “entities are uncovered only when Dasein

is; and only as long as Dasein is, are they disclosed” (p. 269). That is, truth is a characteristic of our perceptions, and in that sense “ ‘there is’ truth only in so far as

Dasein is and so long as Dasein is” (ib.) In this way even perceiving is an activity and

an instance of care, alongside other activities such as willing: perceiving is the activity the end of which is the uncovering of the entity perceived, and freeing it from what veils it from us. Even self-knowledge is an activity. In aiming at self-knowledge, in aiming at knowledge of itself as a totality, Dasein orients itself to itself. Aiming at self-

knowledge, Dasein discloses itself to itself. In particular, it discovers itself to be

within the world and, because it is full of care, to be actively pursuing its ends within the world - including the end of self-knowledge. In thus aiming at self-knowledge, Dasein itself is one of the objects of care. “In Being-in-the-world, whose essential

structures centre in disclosedness, we havefound the basic state of the entity we have

taken as our theme The totality of Being-in-the-world as a structural whole has revealed itself as care. In care the Being of Dasein is included” (p. 274). Dasein in all its being is thus, according to Heidegger, activity, or, rather,

activities, all of which aim at certain ends. These ends at which Dasein aims are the things that it cares about. Thus, according to Heidegger, to be active towards ends

is the essence of Dasein, the essence of each of us as a human being. This is what is meant by saying that the being of Dasein is potentiality for being, and that the

potentiality for being is directed at what Dasein cares about. For Heidegger, as for Aristotle, all potentiality is the active potentiality of a particular being, and this activity

is directed towards an end that is at once implicitly contained within itself and

constitutes the nature or essence of the being that is acting. In working towards his or her various ends, a person or rather Dasein provides a structure for the actions and behaviours that it exemplifies. These actions and

behaviours jointly instantiate a pattern, namely, that pattern which constitutes a set

of means towards ends and, ultimately, towards the end of achieving what we care

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about. This pattern provides a structure that unifies the being of Dasein, organizes its properties and activities into a whole. This structure is there when the process is

completed, but also in a way is there prior to the completion, and, indeed, must be there prior to the completion, since the structure derives from the aims and intentions that Dasein has when it initiates the process: as long as any Dasein is, "it . . . is already

its ‘not-yet' ” (p. 288). The structure is there in Dasein in the sense that people

anticipate and think about the future that they are planning, through their actions, to bring about. In fact, insofar as acting to bring about a future is characteristic of

Dasein, one can say that when the aim is achieved then Dasein is no more, that is, it is no longer existing in the way that is characteristic of Dasein. Dasein does not have at all the kind of Being of something ready-tohand-within-the-world. The togetherness of an entity of the kind which Dasein is ‘in running its course’ until that ‘course’ has been completed, is not constituted by a ‘continuing’ piecing-on of entities which, somehow and somewhere, are ready-to-hand already in their own right. That Dasein should be together only when its “not-yet” has been filled up is so far from the case that it is precisely then that Dasein is no longer Any Dasein always exists in just such a manner that its “not-yet” belongs to it (p. 287).

Thus, people have projects; they think about the future and act to bring certain

things about. This indeed is what is most characteristic of people. But all our projects are of necessity bounded: they are bounded by the fact that each could be made to end, to be terminated, by one’s death. Death is the “not-yet” that bounds all other “not-yets,” and which Dasein so long as it is, that is, so long as the person is a living,

active and self-directing entity, will never go beyond: death is the limit of Dasein We can thus say that in death “there belongs to Dasein, as long as it is, a ‘not-yet’ which

it will be - that which is constantly still outstanding” (p. 286). When one does die then death as the limit of the activities of oneself as a person also ceases to be: “the

coming-to-its-end of what-is-not-yet-at-an-end (in which what is still outstanding is liquidated as regards its Being) has the character of no-longer-Dasein” (z7>).

Moreover, since it is a fact that (each) Dasein, that is, each person, is mortal,

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it follows that if one is wise one will take into account in formulating one’s projects the fact that each is inevitably bounded by death. One should formulate one’s plans with that idea in mind. .. .just as Dasein is already its “not-yet”, and is its “not-yet” constantly as long as it is, it is already its end too. The “ending” which we have in view when we speak of death, does not signify Dasein’s Being-atan-end, but a Being-towards-the-end of this entity. Death is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is (p. 289).

In insisting that one act always with a view to one’s death, acknowledging it to be a

fact that is relevant to implementing one’s plans and actions, Heidegger is simply following the advice of Epicurus:

...men in general sometimes flee death as the greatest of evils, sometimes long for it as a relief from the evils of life. The wise man neither renounces life not fears its end; for living does not offend him, nor does he suppose that not to live is in any way an evil. As he does not choose the food that is most in quantity but that which is most pleasant, so he does not seek the enjoyment of the longest life but of the happiest. Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be.55 Of course, one can formulate one’s plans with death in mind only so long as one is not (yet) dead: “As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility

of death” (p. 294). The possibility in this sense of one’s own death is peculiar to oneself, for, in this sense, “death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of

Dasein” (zZ>.). All possibilities for Dasein are possibilities for its being, or, rather, for its becoming something, and death is not in any of these possibilities; it is rather the negation of all possibilities for Dasein. Now, what is not so in all possible cases is

necessarily not so, that is, impossible. Death therefore in this sense implies the impossibility of Dasein, in other words, death as a possibility which Dasein confronts,

and thereby takes account of in its projects, is “the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at all” (p. 307). Death is thus not only one’s “uttermost” but, precisely because it and nothing else defines the limits of the totality that is oneself, it is also

64

one’s “ownmost” possibility (ib). Finally, it is also “non-relational’ in the sense that

it severs all relations of Dasein to others (ib.); if Dasein as one relatum of the relationships disappears, so do the relationships. In short, placing death as the limit of all possible projects means in effect that death itself is the outer limit of the structured self that one can actualize through one’s activities. That is, If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility [death], it has been fully assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being (/£».).

Precisely because death is relevant to our projects through placing an outer limit on them, death should be involved in all the ways in which Dasein structures its being,

or, what is the same, in all the ways in which persons structure their actions and

behaviour.

Plutarch and Nagel have suggested that we are such that we are psychologically set to live into an indefinite future. Others have made the same suggestion. Thus, Rosenbaum has remarked that “However we react to the prospects

of our deaths, we try to suppress our thoughts about death, and live our lives as if our time were endless.”56 Heidegger’s point is that in fact we do and ought, if we are

reasonable, not live as Plutarch, Nagel and Rosenbaum suggest we live, but live rather with the thought in mind that our projects may be terminated by our deaths.

It should go without saying, naturally, that for Heidegger death is not an end in the way in which other things are ends, we do not aim to bring about our own

death - at least not usually, if we here leave aside the special case of suicide. As Heidegger puts it, “Being-towards-death. . .cannot have the character of concemfully

Being out to get itself actualized” (p. 305). It is, rather, to be incorporated into our plans and actions as the possibility that the activities through which we implement

these plans and actions will sometime simply cease.

Death, as possibility, gives Dasein nothing to be ‘actualized’, nothing which Dasein, as actual, could itself be. It is the possibility of the impossibility of every way of comporting oneself towards anything, of every way of existing (p. 307).

65 Heidegger’s view of persons, and of the place of death in the life of persons, is, on the face of it, and so far, anyway, more reasonable than that of Nagel, who, as

we have seen, takes it as given that

A man’s sense of his own experience. . .does not embody this idea of a natural limit His existence defines for him an essentially open-ended possible future, containing the usual mixture of good and evils that he has found so tolerable in the past/7 Since death is a fact, it would be unwise and imprudent to make of oneself a being

such as Nagel describes. It would be unwise because, if one did not sometimes take account of the possibility of death, one would suddenly discover, while alive, that

some project that one had undertaken and was of considerable concern to one, was not going to be completed: ignoring the possibility of death, one had failed to take steps to avoid it. It would be imprudent because if one ignores the possibility of death

and fails to take steps to avoid it, one could suffer painfully while dying And it would also be imprudent relative to others in the sense that death could terminate unfinished a project one had undertaken for the benefit of others whom one loves or with whose welfare one is otherwise concerned Plutarch’s and Nagel’s view of human being is

thus both false in fact - many persons do not view themselves as situated with an “open-ended possible future” - and unreasonable as an ideal of the sort of being that

we should aspire to become. Heidegger’s position, that we should anticipate death

when we implement our projects, is the more reasonable vision of the sorts of being

that persons ought to be and ought to conceive themselves as being.

This is not to deny that persons do often ignore the fact of death. In many of our everyday situations we often ignore the fact of death; it simply plays no role in the shaping of our actions and behaviour. Indeed, in these situations persons at once ignore the fact of death while at the same time insisting upon it. The

acknowledgement can be idle, not affecting one’s plans or the way in which one

structures one’s actions and behaviour As Heidegger puts it, a person can agree that “one dies too, sometime, but not right away,” while it is also true that “this ‘not

doubting’ need not imply that kind of Being-certain which corresponds to the way

66 death - in the sense of the distinctive possibility characterized above - enters into

Dasein” (p. 299). When death does not enter into one’s plans, one has not recognized death as a relevant fact about oneself. This is why we cannot take Carnap’s account

of death to be the only one: it is fine to be as clear as we can be on the scientific facts of death, but that by itself is not to take one’s own death to be a fact that is relevant to one’s decisions, plans, and actions. If we take Carnap’s account of death to be the

only one then we simply evade our moral obligation to be as responsible as we can in

our plans and actions, taking into account as many of the relevant facts as we can.

Heidegger takes truth to be the uncoveredness of some entity, and, in particular, the uncoveredness of the entity to Dasein. When the entity is uncovered to Dasein, then it, and it alone, determines Dasein’s being at that point. The entity

viewed uncovered produces conviction. In conviction, Dasein lets the testimony of the thing itself which has been uncovered (the true thing itself) be the sole determinant for its Being towards that thing understandingly (p. 300).

Now, it is one’s end, and the way that one acts to achieve that end, that determines the sort of person one is. Thus, as long as Dasein is, he or she discloses him- or herself to him- or herself in that end, that end which is already in a way

present. But death is that which limits all ends, and we ought therefore to orient ourselves in al) cases to that end of death; we ought to take account of it as a relevant fact in our projects. Dasein thus discloses itself to itself in its orientation, its conscious orientation, towards death. When we self-consciously and actively incorporate the fact

that death will sometime occur into the implementation of our plans and actions, then we are of course conscious that we are a being that is oriented towards death. When

we thus recognize the significance of death, we recognize in a living way, a way that

determines how we structure of our behaviour and actions, a fact about the way we are as human beings: we are mortal. “With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being” (p. 294). Facing death as a fact with which we

should constantly cope, we discover something important about ourselves, namely,

what we are: we are then uncovered to ourselves and disclose ourselves to ourselves.

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Death is Dasein’s ownmost possibility. Being towards this possibility discloses to Dasein its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, in which its very Being is the issue (p. 307). In thus uncovering and disclosing ourselves to ourselves we discover and acquire as

a living truth the truth about ourselves, the nature of our being.

When we do not actively structure our behaviour and actions in the light of the awareness that we are mortal, that death is a fact, then we are in effect denying this fact - denying it in the sense that we are denying that it is relevant to what we are

doing. But of course it is relevant, since, whether we acknowledge it or not, death does constitute the limit of our capacity to maintain and complete our projects, and, moreover, ought to be relevant, since we cannot reasonably act to achieve our human

ends unless we do take this fact into account as one that is relevant to determining outcomes. To deny the fact, as in so many everyday situations we do, is simply

evasion, and amounts to inauthenticity since we are attempting to evade something which really is a fact, an important fact, about ourselves.

...everyday Being-tow'ards-death is a constant fleeing in the face of death \Semg-towards-\hQ end has the mode of evasion in the face of it - giving new explanations for it, understanding it inauthentically, and concealing it (p. 298). It is in this light that we should view persons who are, or who conceive

themselves to be, the sort of being that Nagel assumes we all are. namely, beings who have “an essentially open-ended possible future.” Such a person clearly systematically

ignores the fact that death really is the outer limit of our capacity to actively implement our projects. Such a person is fleeing in the face of death, and living an

inauthentic existence. How, then, according to Heidegger, ought we to comport ourselves towards

death9 what should be our attitude towards death?

Up to a point Heidegger agrees with Epicurus and Lucretius As the latter put it, death is the “time of not-being.”58 For Heidegger, Dasein “as potentiality-for-

Being, ...cannot outstrip the possibility of death,”59 and death is “the possibility of the

absolute impossibility of Dasein” (ibf, hence, where death is, Dasein is not. Now,

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from this Lucretius, following Epicurus, infers that “death is nothing to us.”60 Heidegger, in contrast, does not draw this inference.

To be sure, when Lucretius insists that it is unreasonable to fear death, Heidegger agrees. Lucretius’ point is that “when we shall be no more... - to us, who

shall then be nothing, nothing by any hazard will happen any more at all” (p. 121).

There is no danger, that is, danger to oneself, and therefore no rational grounds for fear. Heidegger expresses the point about danger in this way: “That in the face of

which we fear can be characterized as threatening.”61 The threat of course is a threat to oneself: “That which fear fears about is that very entity which is afraid - Dasein”

(p. 180). What is dangerous is some entity in the world, some thing or some person,

but in any case some entity other than ourselves, that we encounter in the world in which we live: “That in the face of which we fear, the ‘fearsome’, is in every case something which we encounter within-the-world...” (p. 179). Nor is fear reasonable

as an attitude towards death. “The only threatening which can be ‘fearsome’ and which gets discovered in fear, always comes from entities within-the-world” (p. 230), and since death is not an entity within the world, it follows that fear is an

inappropriate attitude. But Heidegger does not draw the further conclusion that “death is nothing to

us.” Rather, the proper attitude towards death is, Heidegger holds, anxiety. Anxiety acknowledges the truth that death is not an object in the world, nor, therefore, an

object towards which fear could be an appropriate attitude. Nonetheless, the object

of anxiety is seen as threatening. That in the face of which one has anxiety is not an entity within-theworld Thus, it is essentially incapable of having an involvement. This threatening does not have the character of a definite detrimentality which reaches what is threatened, and which reaches it with definite regard to a special factical potentiality-for-Being. That in the face of which one is anxious is completely indefinite. Not only does this indefiniteness leave factically undecided which entity within-the-world is threatening us, but it also tells us that entities within-the-world are not ‘relevant’ (p. 231).

Or again,

69 That in the face of which one has anxiety is characterized by the fact that what threatens is nowhere ..that which threatens cannot bring itself close from a definite direction within what is close by; it is already ‘there’, and yet nowhere; it is so close that it is oppressive and stifles one’s breath, and yet it is nowhere (z7>). What is threatening is death, which, as Heidegger has rightly argued, ought to be, as

the not-yet limiting all our projects, reckoned with as we implement our plans and

actions. (It is not clear, however, why Heidegger thinks it is “oppressive” and that it “stifle’s one’s breath” - he providess no argument here.)

In anticipating the indefinite certainty of death, Dasein opens itself to a constant threat arising out of its own “there”. In this very threat Being-towards-the-end must maintain itself (p. 310).

Death threatens Dasein because it makes impossible all Dasein’s projects; it is the possibility of the non-being of all of Dasein’s potentiality for Being. It is death, this threat of nothing, of not-being, that is the object of anxiety:

Thrownness into death reveals itself to Dasein in a more primordial and impressive manner in that state-of-mind which we have called “anxiety”. Anxiety in the face of death is anxiety 'in the face of that potentiality-for-Being which is one’s ownmost, non-relational, and not to be outstripped. That in the face of which one has anxiety is Beingin-the-world itself. That about which one has this anxiety is simply Dasein’s potentiality-for-Being (p. 295). In anxiety we are aware of the threat to ourselves that death poses.

.the state-of-mind which can hold the utter and constant threat to itselfarisingfrom Dasein's ownmost individualizedBeing, is anxiety. In this state-of-mind, Dasein finds itself face to face with the “nothing” of the possible impossibility of its existence (p. 310). Indeed, since death is inevitable, it constantly poses a threat, according to Heidegger. Since death is a limiting of all possible projects, it is in this sense a necessary or

essential feature of being human; death, or the possibility of the impossibility of all projects, can in this way be seen to be part of the human essence. In anxiety Dasein

discloses to itself this essential fact about itself, that it is constantly under threat.

Anxiety in the face of death must not be confused with fear in the face of one’s demise. This anxiety is not an accidental or random mood of ‘weakness’ in some individual; but, as a basic state-of-mind of Dasein,

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it amounts to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end. Thus the existential conception of “dying’’ is made clear as thrown Being towards its ownmost potentiality-forBeing, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped (p. 295). Of course, we often do not take death into account and do not acknowledge it as a threat Or, if we do acknowledge it, then we acknowledge it as something which we

fear, like Maecenas, that is, we see it as a threat to us a Beings, as Beings in the world, and not as a threat to the very possibility of Being and of Being in the world. In fact, Heidegger suggests, this is our everyday attitude; that is, ordinarily we do not take account of the relevance of the fact of death when we implement our plans and

actions. If it is true that Dasein is essentially Being-towards-death, it is also true, as Heidegger sees it, that people regularly in effect try to deny this fact, either by

ignoring it or, as Maecenas, by changing it into something else. The Being of a person is Being-towards-death, yet regularly, in everyday contexts, we turn away from and

attempt to deny the fact of death. . . .everyday Being-towards-death is a constant fleeing in the face of death. Being-towards-the-end has the mode of evasion in the face of it - giving new explanations for it, understanding it inauthentically, and concealing it (p. 298).

Nonetheless, even when we attempt to be indifferent towards death, we are still

oriented towards it, and this towards which we are so oriented is still a threat: anxiety is still the appropriate attitude, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Even in average everydayness, this ownmost potentiality-for-Being [death], which is non-relational and not to be outstripped, is constantly an issue for Dasein. This is the case where its concern is merely in the mode of an untroubled indifference towards the uttermost possibility of existence (p. 299). Only in anxiety do we recognize truly or authentically the nature of death.

Thus, for Heidegger, death is a threat, and an ever present threat. The appropriate attitude towards it is therefore anxiety. We see accordingly that at this

point Heidegger is in agreement with Nagel. To be sure, Heidegger as we have seen disagrees with Plutarch and Nagel in holding that we ought to recognize in our plans

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and actions that the future is not, as Plutarch and Nagel suggest, essentially open-

ended. But at the same time he agrees with Nagel that the attitude of calm acceptance

that is defended by Epicurus and Lucretius is an attitude that is inappropriate for death.

Of course, we argued that the attitude that Nagel recommended as always

appropriate, namely, regret, is not always appropriate, and, moreover, that even

where it is appropriate, it is compatible with the attitude recommended by Epicurus

and Lucretius. What, then, of the attitude that Heidegger recommends? The question we

must ask is this: Is this attitude justified? is it reasonable? To this question, the answer is clear: It is reasonable -provided that Heidegger is also right in his prior claim that death is a threat. Which of course simply raises what is the real question: Is death a

threat?

To answer this prior question, it is necessary that we explore in greater detail exactly what Heidegger can mean when he asserts that death is a threat How, precisely, does death threaten us? Heidegger is explicit, this threat is not that of a dangerous entity, a person,

say, or a natural disaster, that we might encounter on the street or elsewhere in our

everyday life. What death is, according to Heidegger, is the outermost limit of our projects, that is, death places limits on all our projects, or, rather, is the limit of all

possible projects. But our projects are actions and activities that aim at achieving goods in this world. The essence of Dasein is to act towards ends, those ends that it

cares about, and what it cares about is Being, that is, achieving things in this world. Thus, as a Being whose essence it is to act into the future, Dasein projects for itself a future that is essentially open-ended. Nonetheless, that future is in fact not open-

ended, the capacity of Dasein to act into the future is limited by death

Earlier we considered a person who has certain aims, and has certain means by which he or she can achieve those aims. If the means available are such that it is impossible for the person to achieve his or her aims, then the situation may be said to

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be absurd If a person who attacks a machine gun nest with a sword, the likelihood of success is nil: the means are incommensurate with the end at which the person

aims. The situation in which that person finds him or herself is absurd. Now look at the human situation as it is specified by Heidegger. On the one hand, we project for ourselves a future in which we continue to project, an essentially

open-ended future. On the other hand, we are mortal. That means that we cannot

possibly achieve what we aim to achieve, what we project for ourselves. The means

available are incommensurate with the end willed. That makes the human condition absurd Our lives are made meaningful by what we value, or, in Heidegger’s terms, by

what we care for. What meaning we achieve, then, according to Heidegger, can be achieved only in the context of the absurdity of the human condition But we project for ourselves a totality of being that involves an essentially open-ended future; insofar

as we care about this - and we do care about our own being, according to Heidegger - then we cannot achieve what we value. Death thus limits our ability to achieve a life that is fully meaningful relative to our cares and concerns, the cares and concerns of

Dasein. The absurdity of the human condition thus consists in the fact that we aspire to achieve a certain sort of meaning in our lives, the meaning that can be achieved

only in a totality that has an open-ended future, while it is also true that that meaning

cannot be achieved, it is cut off inevitably by death. What meaning we achieve can never be fully satisfying, and must be wrested out of the world for ourselves in the

face of the knowledge that owing to the absurdity of the human condition it can never be fully satisfying. For the Christian, too, life is absurd, or, rather, apparently absurd. It is apparently absurd since we are on the one hand required to meet a divine standard of moral perfection while we are on the other hand merely human and incapable of

meeting that standard: we cannot, and know that we cannot, meet the standard to

which we aspire If this were the end of the story, then human being would be for the

Christian, as for Heidegger, absurd. But for the Christian, the absurdity is only

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apparent. It is only apparent since the Christian also has hope, this is the hope that

comes from the faith that justifies his or her life. But the absurdity which is for the Christian only apparent is for Heidegger quite real: for Heidegger, there is no hope,

there is no faith nor any object of faith that could relieve us of the awareness that we

have of our finitude, of our incapacity to overcome the absurdity of existence and to

lead a fully satisfying life. All this makes clear the case that Heidegger defends for his claim that anxiety is the attitude that we ought most appropriately adopt towards death

Death, according to Heidegger, is the object of anxiety, and it is the object of

anxiety because it is a threat, a threat to the being of Dasein. But this threat is not the threat that justifies the attitude of fear; it is not the sort of threat that is posed by

things that are ready-to-hand, the sort of threat that implies pain, that is, a detriment to our being. But if death is not a threat that is to be avoided because it implies pain,

then what sort of threat is it? It is this question that we have posed and we have now in effect answered it precisely, that is, located precisely the nature of the threat that death poses. Which is to say, we have located the reason why, according to

Heidegger, the appropriate attitude towards death is that of anxiety.

Death limits the projects of Dasein where it is the essence of Dasein to project itself into the future. Given this essence, death implies both the absurdity of the human

condition and the incapacity of any human to achieve a fully satisfying life. It is this

limiting of our capacity to continue indefinitely to act into the future that is the object of anxiety. Thus, it is the limiting of our projects which is the threat Note how it goes:

i)

We are beings whose essence it is to act indefinitely into the future to achieve goods

and ii)

Death cancels our capacity to act

Thus, the threat of death is the threat that we will not achieve the goods that we aim to achieve, and anxiety is anxious about what, with death, we will lose. In other

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words, Heidegger’s claim is essentially of a piece with that of Plutarch and Nagel, that what is important about death is what it prevents one from achieving, and that, since what we project for ourselves is a future that is essentially open-ended, death always involves a loss. For Heidegger as for Plutarch and Nagel, death is always a bad thing, a sad end, because inevitably it involves a loss.

Plutarch and Nagel write in a more sober prose than does Heidegger, one that does not invite us to notice that the human condition as he describes it is one of

absurdity, having an end that is impossible, given the means available, to achieve. Nonetheless, as we now see the vision of human being that Plutarch and Nagel adopt, and that of Heidegger, are of a piece, and imply essentially equivalent attitudes

towards death. But as we concluded when we discussed the views of Plutarch and Nagel, so we can conclude against Heidegger, that the view of human being is false, and that the

attitude towards death implied by that view is inappropriate, or, at least, often

inappropriate. Contrary to what Heidegger suggests, we do not always project for ourselves

a future that is essentially open-ended. Thus, as we suggested, where one wishes for

nothing that death could cut off, death has for such a one no cost, and could not, therefore, be the object of regret. This is true of many. As they grow older their aims

change, and at a certain point they feel they want no more, that they have lived their

lives, and that it is time to go. They are, as Lucretius puts it at one point, “ready to retire from life’s banquet filled and satisfied.”62 Where there is nothing to be lost,

there, in Heidegger’s way of putting it, there is nothing to be anxious about; there is

no threat to anything that one aims to be or to achieve. Failing to be anxious about death may at times be an example of evasion, or, if you wish, inauthentic being. This

is so where we have goals and aspirations, and fail to take account of the fact of our

own mortality when we implement plans and actions to achieve those things that we

care about. But if we have no such goals, if we have come to the end of our lives as active, striving beings, then failing to be anxious about death is not evasion To the

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contrary, in such circumstances, where there is nothing to be lost, anxiety itself is what is unreasonable. We may conclude, then, about Heidegger, what we concluded about Plutarch and Nagel, that he presents a view of persons, a view of human being, that is false,

and which, if adopted, in fact prevents one from dealing rationally with death and adopting a reasonable attitude towards it. Heidegger ostensibly allows one to treat death as a fact that is relevant to the implementation of one’s plans and actions, but

in the end, like Plutarch and Nagel, he assumes a view of human nature that does not allow that one can rationally take account of the fact of death This is what happens in normal human development. It is what happens as one grows older; it is what an aging person does, one who has from his or her point of view fulfilled many or even

most of his or her important aims in life and who has now, perhaps, become tired, and

accepts, perhaps even welcomes, the thought of death This, too, is what the person does who is young and full of projects, and looks on the possibility of death occurring at this point as something to be regretted, though not regretted enough to prevent him

or her from taking pleasure in getting on with those projects. Heidegger treats all persons as if they were like the latter. Such a view is false, and the attitude towards

death that it implies, the attitude of constant and consciously cultivated anxiety, is inappropriate.

The attitude recommended by Cicero is better, more reasonable. We ought to “encourage [ourselves] to regard death as of no account,” since “without such a

conviction we can have no peace of mind.” For we cannot avoid dying: perhaps this very day. Since, therefore, death is an immanent possibility from hour to hour, you must not let the prospect frighten you, or you will be in a state of perpetual anxiety.63

Take account of the fact of death, but don’t worry overmuch about it. If this be “inauthentic existence,” so be it: all that means is that it is okay to be inauthentic.

Chapter Three

Overcoming Death: Socrates and His Successors

Seneca, as we have seen, argued that it is not life that is valuable but the virtuous life, and used this as part of his argument justifying a certain attitude towards death. What

makes life significant or noble is virtue, not mere length, certainly not length at any expense, and most certainly not length at the expense of virtue. What we should fear is not death but rather leading a life that is not virtuous. On Seneca’s argument, death is of no significance because life is of no significance; what is of significance is the

virtuous life. Death is unimportant to the practice of virtue, it may provide a temporal

closure to virtue but it cannot destroy it. Equally, mere life is unimportant to the practice of virtue; it makes it possible but neither creates it nor sustains it. One’s living

now is a fact as is one’s dying later. Within the framework established by these facts one should get on with the task, not of living, but of living well, that is, practising virtue. Living now and death later are equally facts and equally to be accepted as

facts, facts that are in themselves morally indifferent.

Epicurus defended much the same position. “The wise man neither renounces life nor fears its end,” he wrote; for living does not offend him, nor does he suppose that not to live is in any way an evil. As he does not choose the food that is most in

78 quantity but that which is most pleasant, so he does not seek the enjoyment of the longest life but of the happiest.1 But for Epicurus, in contrast to Seneca, what gives life its significance is happiness;

it is not a transcendent virtue but happiness that makes life worth living. Or rather, the limits of good and evil, of virtue and vice, are established by the criterion of happiness.

Epicurus lays it down in his “canon,” or set of rules concerning acceptable methods of proof, that just as “our sensations [are] the foundation of all our

investigations” of matters of fact, so our ethical judgments must be founded “upon

our immediate feelings.”2 Our aims are determined by our feelings: we aim to attain the state of happiness which consists of pleasant feelings on the one hand and freedom

from pain and fear on the other. Thus, “pleasure [is] the beginning and the end of the

blessed life.” We recognize pleasure as the first and natural good; starting from pleasure we accept or reject, and we return to this as we judge every good thing, trusting this feeling of pleasure as our guide.3 Assuming that we do not err in our awareness of our feelings, its follows, as Cicero

was later to put it when he explained the Epicurean position, that “The Ends of Goods and Evils themselves, that is, pleasure and pain, are not open to mistake.” We do not

make mistake about ends but rather about the ways in which to attain them: “where

people go wrong is in not knowing what things are productive of pleasure and pain.”4

But it is also true that pleasures and pains are qualitatively different; some pleasures are qualitatively better than others, some pains qualitatively worse than others. As

Cicero has the Epicurean explain, “we aver that mental pleasures and pains arise out of bodily ones . Yet we maintain that this does not preclude mental pleasures and pains form being much more intense than those of the body...” (zZ>). The greatest of pleasures come from the relationships that we have with our

friends, according to Epicurus: “Of the things that wisdom prepares for insuring lifelong happiness, by far the greatest is the possession of friends.”5 Friendship is instrumental in providing us with pleasures, we derive benefit from it. But it is also

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intrinsically good. Every friendship in itself is to be desired; but the first cause of friendship was a man’s needs.6

This position is commonly thought to be a recommendation to avoid all involvement in society. But such an apolitical stance would seem not to be a correct

reading of Epicurus’ position. The Epicureans do not prohibit in the name of wisdom all forms of social life, but rather those forms that were common in Greek and Roman civil society. The struggle for political office and power is not intrinsically bad, but is

surely an uncertain path to happiness. Men craved for fame and power so that their fortune might rest on a firm foundation and they might live out a peaceful life in the enjoyment of plenty. An idle dream. In struggling to gain the pinnacle of power they beset their own road with perils. And then from the very peak, as though by a thunderbolt, they are cast down by envy into a foul abyss of ignominy. For envy, like the thunderbolt, most often strikes the highest and all that stands out above the common level Far better to lead a quiet life in subjection than to long for sovereign authority and lordship over kingdoms.7 What Epicurus offers in friendship is an alternative vision for the organization

of society. For, we must recall the discussion of Aristotle,8 who pointed out that friendship was the basic form of social cohesion. “It is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living” (1155a4-5). Friends provide each other with mutual support. When one is prosperous, one gives to one's friends; when one is threatened, one turns to one’s friends for support. It provides help to the young

and to the impoverished, and support to those who are old. Friendship involves both sentiment and prudence: we love our friends both for their own sakes and for the

ways in which they can be useful to us.

[Friendship] is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends (1155a29-32). Friendship of this sort thus both includes and transcends social justice, and as such is

the foundation for social cohesion. It was basic, as Aristotle saw it, to the functioning

80 of Greek society, as it was later of Roman society. Friendship seems.. to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need ofjustice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality (1155a22-28).

Epicurus is quite clear that there is a need for the social conventions that define justice.

Natural justice is a compact resulting from expediency by which men seek to prevent one man from injuring others and to protect him from being injured by them.9 But these standards of conduct towards others are conventions, devised because they are convenient, usefril in the service of human happiness, and not some set of timeless

eternal standards of virtue. As conventions they can be adapted to different

circumstances. There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men in their various relations with each other, in whatever circumstances they may be, that they will neither injure nor be injured.10

Such compacts in fact are themselves founded in the sense of friendship, and the

capacity of human beings to feel sympathy for the plight of others. As Lucretius describes the origin of the social compact and of natural justice, it is rooted in utility

and in our feelings that we ought to help others who are in various ways dependent upon us.

...neighbours began to form mutual alliances, wishing neither to do nor to suffer violence among themselves. They appealed on behalf of their children and womenfolk, pointing out with gestures and inarticulate cries that it is right for everyone to pity the weak."

Given the temptations that beset us, especially those that are generated by the fear of death, the result has not been perfect harmony; but on the whole it has worked

It was not possible to achieve perfect unity of purpose. Yet a substantial majority kept faith honestly. Otherwise the entire human race would have been wiped out there and then instead of being

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propagated, generation after generation, down to the present day (zZ>). Thus, for Epicurus, as for Aristotle, friendship both includes and transcends social justice.

Epicurus is not defending an apolitical view of how one should behave in the world, as is often asserted, but rather a view of society that was critical of what he saw about him. He is critical of a society that is not sufficiently securely based in the

sort of friendship that Aristotle describes. What Epicurus is arguing is that a society

more securely founded in friendship and absent thefear ofdeath that is the motive for power and riches would be a better society, one that is more socially cohesive and

more able to lead to happiness among its members.

This Epicurean vision of human being, and the place of human being in the universe, was constantly contested. It was contested in all its aspects: in its view of explanation

and how to understand human behaviour, in its ontology of the world and of human

being, in its view of virtue, and, what is significant for our purposes and consequent upon the other disagreements, its attitude towards death This attack was first articulated in detail by Socrates, who, though Epicurus wrote well after him, was already arguing against the vision of a society based on friendship and convention, against the view that sense is the basis for all knowledge, and against the view that the

attitude appropriate to death can be obtained through an understanding of ourselves

as beings in the world that we know by means of our senses.

This alternative vision of human being and its place in the universe had its first systematic rational defence in the work of Plato, who makes Socrates his

spokesperson. Likely, however, the views that Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates

were in fact in origin also the views of Socrates, notwithstanding Plato's having

developed them further than Socrates himself had done. Certainly, we know from independent sources that Socrates rejected as worthless the sort of knowledge of

82 natural phenomena that Epicurus and Lucretius recommended as essential to an

understanding of the universe and of the place of human beings in it. As Xenophon

related in his Memorabilia of Socrates, ...he [Socrates] strongly deprecated studying astronomy so far as to include the knowledge of bodies revolving in different courses, and of planets and comets, and wearing oneself out with the calculation of their distance from the earth, their periods of revolution and causes of these. Of such researches, again he said that he could not see what useful purpose they served. He had indeed attended lectures on these subjects too, but these again, he said, were enough to occupy a lifetime to the complete exclusion of many useful studies. In general, with regard to the phenomena of the heavens, he deprecated curiosity to learn how the deity contrives them, he held that their secrets could not be discovered by man, and believed that any attempt to search out what the gods had not chosen to reveal must be displeasing to them. He said that he who meddles with these matters runs the risk of losing his sanity as completely as Anaxagoras, who took an insane pride in his explanation of the divine machinery.12

Where Epicurus insists that explanation is to be given in terms of regularities, Socrates insists instead that one must invoke the gods. For, there is evidence of design

in the universe.

. . .are there not. contrivances [asks Socrates] that look like the results of forethought? (ibid., p. 57). He replies with a series of examples such as eyeballs and teeth, and concludes with the

rhetorical question: With such signs of forethought in these arrangements, can you doubt whether they are the works of chance or design? (ib).

Moreover, the apparent design also evidences that the gods have organized things to serve our well-being; Socrates is convinced of “the care the gods have taken to furnish man with what he needs” (p. 299). He cites the way in which the sun provides

heat and light, and respite from these by also providing night, with, however, smaller lights in the moon and stars to provide with at least a little guidance in the dark. His interlocutor on this occasion, Euthydemus, agrees that “Truly these things...show

loving-kindness (ib). In general, the gods are the unseen source of order in the

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universe, including the order that serves our well-being:

...when they bestow on us their good gifts, not one of them ever appears before us gift in hand, and especially he who co-ordinates and holds together the universe, wherein all things are fair and good, and presents them ever unimpaired and sound and ageless for our use, and quicker than thought to serve us unerringly, is manifest in his supreme works, and yet is unseen by us in the ordering of them (p. 305). The good is always good in relation to something - “if you are asking me,” Socrates

said to Aristippus, “whether I know of anything good in relation to nothing, I neither know nor want to know” (p. 219), and specifically in relation to a function or purpose

-“what is useful is good for him to whom it is useful” (p. 341). Thus, doing what is good or just or virtuous consists in fulfilling one’s proper function: it is the latter

which the gods define and make known to us. They do this by means of our reason. Among the gifts the gods have given to

us is that of reason Socrates asks his listeners to note “how they [the gods] have

implanted in us the faculty of reasoning, whereby we are able to reason about the objects of our perceptions and to commit them to memory, and so come to know

what advantage every kind can yield, and devise many means of enjoying the good

and driving away the bad...” (p. 303). But in addition, he held that one could derive

guidance as to what one ought to do from the gods who had thus organized things for the best.

like most men, he [Socrates] believed that the gods are heedful of mankind, but with an important difference; for whereas they do not believe in the omniscience of the gods, Socrates thought that they know all things, our words and deeds and secret purposes; that they are present everywhere, and grant signs to men of all that concerns man (p. 13).

Wisdom consists in heeding these signs of the gods:

...in so far as we are powerless of ourselves to foresee what is expedient for the future, the gods lend us their aid, revealing the issues by divination to inquirers, and teaching them how to obtain the best results (p. 305). What is best is, of course, virtue, so that wisdom consists in knowing the forms of

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justice and virtue ... just actions and all forms of virtuous activity are beautiful and good. He who knows the beautiful and good will never choose anything else...(p. 225).

Virtue consists in fulfilling one’s proper function, and the person who knows virtue will strive to function in that proper way. The divine signs are signs knowledge of which is knowledge of the actions that it is proper to undertake, that is, the forms of virtue and justice; these signs are known by the faculty of reason. This faculty of

reason thus puts us in touch with the divine, the eternal source of virtue and justice. .. .when he [Socrates] prayed he asked simply for good gifts, “for the gods know best what things are good” (p. 45).

In humans, this faculty of reason by means of which we come to know the good and to know what virtue is, is a faculty of the soul, which animates and controls the body, and, precisely insofar as it partakes of divinity, is, like the divine, unseen by our

senses: “the soul of man,” Socrates says, “...more than all else that is human partakes of the divine, reigns manifestly within us, and yet is itself unseen” (p. 307).

We find a picture of Socrates similar to that of Xenophon presented in one of the

greatest works ever of literature as of philosophy, Plato’s dialogue referred to as the Phaedo™ Except: there is one major difference in the two presentations of Socrates.

The Socrates of Xenophon praises reason - it is a gift of the gods - but he does not

in fact provide arguments for the positions that he recommends. In that sense, the portrait of Socrates to be found in Xenophon is not yet a full portrait of Socrates as a philosopher In contrast, the Socrates portrayed in thePhaedo is fully a philosopher.

This dialogue records - or purports to record, for our purposes it does not

matter which - the discussion between Socrates and his friends as they wait together

after Socrates’ condemnation by the courts at Athens for the moment when he must drink the fatal hemlock. Socrates and his companions engage in discussion, and the

85 dialogue ends with Socrates drinking the fatal hemlock. The Phaedo set the style, as it were, for the deaths of philosophers. It was this

scene that we find repeated in Tacitus’ report on the death of Seneca, and in the scene

recorded by Luke on the death of Jesus. In all these scenes, the hero, about to die. is surrounded by his companions. The latter bemoan the impending death, while the hero

invokes his philosophy to console them and to justify his steadfastness in the face of the awaited death. The hero, in other words, invokes his philosophy in order to justify the attitude which he is taking towards death.

However, there remains the important difference between the other scenes, such as those provided by Luke and Seneca, and the model provided by Plato. It is that Socrates not only states his philosophy but also provides a reasoned argument

for it Indeed, as we have already remarked, this emphasis upon the reasoned development of a metaphysics also distinguishes Plato’s Socrates from that of

Xenophon. As might be expected, the metaphysics that derives from argument and

reason turns out to be in many respects different from the more myth-like story of gods that one finds in the Memorabilia of Xenophon.

To be sure, Plato in the Phaedo does represent Socrates as providing a myth about the gods and our relation to them, one that parallels some at least of the things that Xenophon reports. He has Socrates stating that We are told that when each person dies, the guardian spirit who was allotted to him in life proceeds to lead him to a certain place, whence those who have been gathered together there must, after being judged, proceed to the underworld where the guide who has been appointed to lead them thither from here (107d4-e2). The metaphysics is argued for. But this part of the dialogue, the presentation of the

myth, begins with ‘we are told1: it is explicitly given as something deriving from

opinion rather than justified by reason. This myth is that of the transmigration of souls. After persons die, their souls are separated from their bodies, and “they I* are.. judged as to whether they have led a good and pious life” (113d2-3). Those who have been thoroughly wicked during life are hurled into Tartarus “never to emerge

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from it” (113e5); those of lesser crimes are sentenced to Tartarus but are later reborn

as lower forms of being; while those who have been good join the gods in “beautiful dwelling places” (114c4). This story was later taken over by Virgil and incorporated

into the Aeneid. Aeneas, according to Virgil, had, like Odysseus, visited the world of the dead as he travelled from Carthage to Latium to establish the Romans as the descendants of the defeated Trojans. Aeneas, at the urging of a Sybil, entered the

underworld to seek the advice and prophesies of his father Anchises. He entered the underworld through Lake Avemus14 and passed through “Pluto’s substanceless

empire, and past its homes where there is no life within; as men walk through a wood under a fitful moon’s ungenerous light when Jupiter has hidden the sky in shade and a black night has stolen the colour from the world.”15 Here he sees the souls of the

departed punished for their sins, he sees those who have been released from their

torment to travel where they will in the Elysium Fields, and sees, too, those few who are blameless and inhabit the Fields of Joy. Here live the souls of the dead .. until length of days, as time’s cycle is completed, has removed hardened corruption, and leaves without taint now, a perception pure and bright, a spark of elemental fire Now when these souls have trodden the full circle of a thousand years, God calls all of them forth in long procession to Lethe River, and this he does that when they again visit the sky’s vault they may be without memory, and a wish to re-enter bodily life may dawn.16

This myth presents, of course, a moralized version of the Greek and Roman

view of the afterlife. It is a more edifying tale, no doubt, than the view of the afterlife that was entertained by Maecenas. In this respect, it is similar to the Christian view held, e g., by Samuel Johnson But, as Johnson also illustrates, it not unreasonably can

be taken as justifying the attitude of fear towards death. To be sure, Socrates does not fear death. For the pain of punishment that will come after death is reserved for those

who have failed to practice virtue as the gods require. But Socrates has done as the gods require, obeying their commands and signs. No doubt he assumes that he has

succeeded Nonetheless, as the case of Johnson makes clear, where the standard is perfection, how does one know that one has met the standard, and that death will in

87 fact yield the blessedness that one seeks? Certainly, there is for Socrates no sense of

hope in the way that the Christian through his or her faith experiences hope that he

or she is justified, made virtuous. Socrates must, though imperfect, strive after virtue, and must do this in a world that offers no transcendental hope, no hope beyond faith

in his own capacity: in his struggle for virtue Socrates is alone. So Socrates is

probably rather more sure than he ought to be that he need not fear death because he has been virtuous and has done as the gods require. Nonetheless, we find no fear of death in Socrates. But perhaps that should not

surprise us. The story that Plato tells, and which Virgil takes up, concerning the transmigration of souls, and the rewards and punishments consequent upon death, is

explicitly a story, a myth, and, equally explicitly, not something defended by rational argument, that is, by reason. After all, it is introduced not by a reasoned argument but

by the phrase “we are told that...” (107d4). And earlier the view that “souls arriving

there [in the underworld] come from here, and then again that they arrive here and are

born here from the dead” is characterized as an “ancient theory” (70c3-5). In both cases, the point is that the story that is told is not argued for This myth may

determine an attitude towards death, one of fear for the wicked and vicious, one

without fear for the virtuous, but in the absence of reasoned argument, these attitudes cannot yet be characterized as reasonable, at least in the sense in which a philosopher

would seek a reasonable position, one justified by reason.

It is in fact the reasoned philosophical position that is crucial for Socrates’

attitude towards death; it and it alone is what we should look at when we consider the

rationality of the attitude towards death that Socrates defends. The myth should be understood in terms of the philosophy, not conversely. What, then, is this reasoned metaphysical position that Socrates defends?

The argument that Socrates develops is an argument concerning the nature of the

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soul. The resulting account of the soul is one that is radically different from that which we have seen defended by Epicurus and Lucretius. In fact, Socrates’ account is

developed specifically against the sort of view defended by Epicurus. As it turns out,

contrary to what we might expect if we considered the myth of transmigration alone,

this anti-Epicurean account of the soul will give Socrates the hope that he needs in order to face death steadfastly. As one of the interlocutors, Cebes, points out early on in the discussion, the hope that Socrates aims to provide is inconsistent with the

doctrines later to be defended by Epicurus. Socrates, [Cebes] said, everything else you said is excellent, I think, but men find it very hard to believe what you said about the soul. They think that after it has left the body it no longer exists anywhere, but that it is destroyed and dissolved on the day the man dies, as soon as it leaves the body; and that, on leaving it, it is dispersed like breath or smoke, has flown away and gone and is no longer anything anywhere. If indeed it gathered itself together and exited by itself and escaped those evils you were recently enumerating, there would then be such good hope, Socrates, that what you say is true; but to believe this requires a good deal of faith and persuasive argument, to believe that the soul still exists after a man has died and that it still possesses some capability and intelligence (69e4-70b3).

Socrates also disputes the notion of Epicurus that morality is founded on

interest and friendship. In an earlier dialogue, the Crito, Plato has explained that Socrates’ friends were in a position to help him escape to Thebes in Boeotia. They argued that it was

in Socrates’ interest to remove himself to Thebes; that way he would escape death And they pointed out that, as friends, they were prepared to help him escape. Socrates

argued, however, that it was morally wrong for him to flee to Thebes and avoid the sentence of death that had been passed upon him by the courts of Athens. The details of this defence need not concern us: the point is that Socrates argues that it would be

contrary to justice or virtue to avoid that to which he had been sentenced. It is

Socrates’ awareness of his duty, and not his interest that moves him to stay. As he puts it in the Phaedo, ...it seemed best to me to sit here and more right to remain and to

89 endure whatever penalty they [the Athenians] order For by the dog, I think these sinews and bones could long ago have been in Megara or among the Boeotians, taken there by my belief as to the best course, if 1 had not thought it more right and honourable to endure whatever penalty the city ordered rather than escape and run away (98e 1 -99a2). What Socrates does in the Phaedo is develop a pattern of explanation and a corresponding view of human reason. It is in terms of these that he defends a certain

ontological account of human being and its place in the world, and further defends,

as a consequence of this, the appropriateness of his attitude towards death. The schema of explanation that Socrates defends is radically different from that of Epicurus. For the latter, our cognitive aim of understanding is fulfilled when we have discovered patterns or regularities among the diverse particular things in the world that we experience. For Socrates, in contrast, one explains a diversity by locating it

in a deeper unity; this unity is not the unity of a pattern but the unity of a thing or

entity, some entity beyond, or over and above, the entities that it unifies; in grasping this unity one grasps the reason why apparently separable parts are in fact together. This schema, first articulated by Socrates, has had a powerful influence on philosophy. It, together with the assumption that the universe is rational in the sense

required by the schema - the assumption that there are unifying entities that provide

the reasons for things - leads, as Plotinus was later to see, fairly directly from Plato to neo-Platonic mysticism. We shall see this in due course. For now, however, our task is to see the arguments that Socrates developed

In any case, it is in terms of this schema or pattern that Socrates makes his

case against Epicurus and in defence, as Socrates sees it, of a genuine morality, one that is based on true and substantial justice and not on mere expediency and prudence. It is, moreover, in terms of this schema or pattern, and this concept of reason, so

different from that of Epicurus’, that Socrates justifies his attitude towards death. Early on in the conversation, Socrates expresses his attitude towards death,

the one that he is going to defend as the conversation progresses. What Socrates asserts is that

90 ...those who practise philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men (67e4).

This strikes his interlocutors as paradoxical; they, like other people (including Nagel), “all consider death a great evil” (68d4). And it is indeed that, given the views that they

happen to hold about the soul, life and death. All are agreed that it is the soul that brings life to the body; it is that which moves or animates the body (70c3, 80a 1,

105c5). On the ordinary view, such as that of Homer and the Greeks who still, in

Socrates’ time, took Homer for gospel, this soul survives only to lead a miserable existence. Death is therefore to be feared. The same is true on many philosophical views of the soul. Thus, it is Simmias’ view that the soul is a harmony of the body,

akin to the harmony of a lyre (85e4). Such a view of the soul may well not give one reason to fear death, but, given the obvious dependence of the harmony of a lyre upon the lyre (93a5), it is difficult in the extreme to think of any reasons why the soul, so

conceived, ought always, as Socrates maintains, to be thinking of death. Socrates’ task is to convince rationally his interlocutors of the truth of his proposal about the

correct attitude towards death by developing an adequate account of the soul, an account that will in turn imply that his attitude towards death is indeed justified.

Socrates has already, prior to Simmias’ presentation of his view of the soul as a harmony, succeeded in obtaining Simmias’ agreement, first, to the existence of a

realm consisting of Forms or Ideas, and, second, to the existence of our knowledge of these Forms The Forms are entities which account for the similarities of particular

things in the world: two things are similar just in case that they participate in the same Form. Thus, two things are equal just in case that they participate in the same Form

of Equality, or the Equal itself. These Forms are not known by sense experience. In the world of sense experience we are aware of things that are roughly equal, but not

things that are exactly equal, all the equals that we know in sense experience “fall short'’ of exact equality (74d3). But to say the latter is to say that sensed equals are

not exact equals. Now, to have the concept of not-X, one must have the concept of X; to have the concept of not-red, one must have the concept of red This is non-

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controversial. Hence, Socrates argues, if we are to judge that things are not exact

equals, then we must have the concept of exact equality. Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants to be like some other reality but falls short and cannot be like that other since it is inferior, do we not agree that the one who thinks this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so9 (74d5-e2) But we have never been aware ofexact equality through our sense experience. Hence,

our knowledge of the concept of exact equality must be prior to all sense experience (75al). We must possess knowledge of the Equal before that time when we first saw the equal objects and realized that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this (74e5-75al).

We thus have knowledge of the Forms, and this knowledge is a priori. We should note that the same argument that is made concerning equality

applies equally to such geometrical concepts as that of a triangle What we are aware of in sense experience is inexact triangles; we are never presented with a perfect

triangle. But to judge that these sensed triangles are not perfect, we need the concept

of a perfect triangle. The latter, it is admitted, cannot be derived from the triangles we

have experienced; it must therefore be a priori Similarly, the persons whom we meet in our everyday life are none of them, alas, morally perfect. Not even Socrates:

Socrates without his touch of arrogance would not be Socrates. Yet we judge all of

them to fall short of the standard of perfect justice. So to judge we must have the concept of perfect justice; it must therefore be a priori. Now that Socrates has at hand this agreement on the existence of the Forms

and on our a priori knowledge of them, he can dispose of Simmias’ view of the soul,

show it to be unreasonable and therefore not such as could call into question the

attitude towards death that Socrates has proposed. The point is that the soul exists in the state of knowing the Forms prior to, and therefore independently of, its existence

as embodied in the world of sense experience. But the soul as a harmony of the parts is nothing independently of those parts (92b 1). Socrates thereby convinces Simmias

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that the soul is not a harmony of the body. The appeal to a priori concepts is not the only argument that Socrates uses

to show that Simmias has an inadequate concept of the soul. Thus, Simmias has also

agreed that the soul animates the body, and this a harmony cannot do (93 a4). So

again, on these grounds too Simmias’ view must be rejected. But to reject Simmias’ view, and others like it, merely shows that the

interlocutors have no grounds for rejecting Socrates’ proposal about the appropriate attitude towards death. It does not show that Socrates’ attitude is justified. For the

latter, Socrates must present a positive account of the soul. In particular, Socrates must develop an argument for the simplicity of the soul The simplicity, and therefore the immortality of the soul, does not follow from the fact that the soul animates the body; after all, Lucretius agreed on this point, and yet held that the soul or mind is not a simple entity, but is, rather, complex, and develops and

changes over time, and likely dissolving in important ways once death severs the tie to the body Siding with Socrates against Simmias, Lucretius argues that “you must

understand that there is also a vital spirit in our limbs and the body does not derive its sentience from harmony.”1 Mind and spirit are changeable; they are “composed

of matter” (On the Nature of Things, p. 101). Mind and body change together, our

sentiments, thoughts and feelings, indeed our very reason itself, developing as we grow from children to adults and then into old age; mind and body “grow up together and together decay” (p 109). Thus, Lucretius concludes, “minds of living things and

the light fabric of their spirits are neither birthless nor deathless” (p. 108). Indeed, What can be imagined more incongruous, what more repugnant and discordant, than that a mortal object and one that is immortal and everlasting should unite to form a compound and jointly weather the storms that rage about them? (p 120).

Nonetheless, Socrates argues that what animates the body must be simple. This he does by reference to the doctrine of the Forms that he has just established. The point

is that, for Socrates, the soul animates the body by strivingfor the Form, such at least is the position for which he is argues.

93 Insofar as the soul strives for the best, it must know the best. It does this when

it grasps the Form, and strives for the best when it strives to imitate this Form in the

sensible world. But such knowledge is prior to sense experience, and in such knowledge we are linked to a Form of things that is outside the world known by

sense, the world of change. But for the soul to thus come into contact with the Form

it must itself go outside the world of time and of sense experience. But then, insofar

as the soul is outside time, it must be simple, like the Forms, for otherwise there would be the possibility of change. In other words, insofar as the soul touches the

Forms as it strives after virtue it must be immortal. ...when the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in the same state as it is in touch with things of the same kind, and its experience then is what is called wisdom... (Phaedo, 79d 1-5). However, this is metaphor and not yet argument. What Socrates proceeds to

do in the dialogue is develop a positive argument for the claim that the soul is simple

and therefore unchanging and immortal.

Socrates develops this positive view through an account of explanation that

incorporates the two notions that the soul animates the body and that it has a priori knowledge of certain non-empirical concepts. This account of explanation is

developed through a contrast with that of Anaxagoras. What Socrates demands as a criterion of adequacy for any account of explanation is that it provide an explanation for why he is in prison in Athens about

to drink the hemlock rather than running off to Thebes as his friends had previously proposed. Socrates refers to Anaxagoras (97c 1), whom we know from Xenophon had been ridiculed by Socrates. Anaxagoras had suggested that the things that we observe

can be explained by “Mind that directs and is the cause of everything” (97c2) Mind or nous is an active principle that causes or accounts for generation and destruction, for change Mind does this by aiming at the best, and in so striving for the best it orders in the best possible way the ordinary events the coming-to-be and passing-

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away of which the activity of nous explains. However, Socrates complains, while

Anaxagoras introduces nous, all that he talks about is bones and flesh (98b5), that is, what we have in common with animals and material objects. But if Socrates behaved like a dog or a horse, concerned only with bodily needs, then he would be in Boeotia

(98c4). Since Socrates is not in Boeotia, but rather in Athens about to drink the hemlock, it follows that Anaxagoras’ account of explanation is inadequate (99b2). The problem with Anaxagoras is that he talks about nous but not about what

nous aims at, namely, the best (97c4; 99a 1). Socrates aims not at bodily well-being,

but at virtue or justice, that is, he aims to behave as each person ought to behave and as each person ideally does behave. The nous which is Socrates aims at imitating in this life the form of a morally ideal person. This moral ideal, short of which no doubt

all fall, and which is therefore known only a priori, is, of course, what Plato would

refer to as the Form or Idea of humanity. To call those things [bones and sinews] causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause (99a2-b2). Socrates proceeds to make a three-fold distinction. There are, FIRST, souls.

These are active entities that animate the body; it is the soul that, “present in a body,

makes it living’’ (105c5). There are, SECOND, the Forms (100b4); these are going to be the entities that provide the explanations that Anaxagoras failed to provide. “If you grant me [Socrates] these [the Forms] and agree that they exist, I hope to show you

the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal” (100b6). Note, by the way, the contrast to Epicurus: explanation is in terms of entities rather than patterns, and

in particular, it is in terms of entities that lie outside the realm of sense experience. Finally, there is in the explanation-scheme that Socrates proposes a THIRD sort of entity that we have hitherto not noticed, namely, phenomena (102), that is, the

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sensible characters that are present in souls and which take the name of the Forms in which they participate (102e2, 103b4).18 As Socrates says, “It is not, surely, the

nature of Simmias to be taller than Socrates because he is Simmias but because of the

tallness he happens to have” (102b6-c2).

Simmias is taller than Socrates. But he is so not because Simmias, the soul, participates directly in the Form tallness but rather by virtue of the height which is

present in Simmias. This height, this sensible character, is different from the height that is present in Socrates. Simmias is taller than Socrates, and this means that the

height in Socrates falls further short of the Form of tallness than does the height of

Simmias. Similarly, Socrates is more virtuous than, say, Euthyphro. The observable actions of both are those of persons; those actions, those events, of which we are

aware by means of our senses, participate in the Form of humanity. But those of Euthyphro fall further short of that ideal than do those of Socrates.

Generation, or coming-to-be, and passing-away, are the coming-to-be and

passing-away of the properties of characteristics of concrete individual things (103b3). That is, change consists in the coming-to-be and the ceasing-to-be of

properties in souls (105c 1). The coming-to-be and passing-away of the sensible properties of things is explained by the striving of the soul, and more specifically by the STRIVING of the soul to imitate in its outward life a Form, to wit, the Form in

which the observable properties participate and after which they are named.

When the soul grasps the Form, that is, has a rational intuition of it, the soul simply is acting to imitate it in its outward life, in the actions it performs in the world of sensible experience. Thus, built into the Socratic model of explanation is the

apparently paradoxical thesis that to know the good and to do it are one and the same thing.

We may compare and contrast the model of explanation that Socrates develops in the Phaedo with that which was used by Epicurus and Lucretius. ONE.

Both agree that what requires explanation is the changing world of sensible appearances,

two.

Epicurus and Lucretius explain the world of sensible appearances

96 in terms of patterns of things. In contrast, Socrates appeals to entities, Forms and

souls. THREE. In both cases, one explains the temporal and changing order in terms

of the timeless. In the case of Epicurus and Lucretius explanation is in terms of

timeless patterns, while in the case of Socrates the explanation is in terms of timeless

entities. FOUR. For Epicurus and Lucretius explanation is in terms of timeless patterns of things that are in the world of sense experience. In contrast, for Socrates, explanation is in terms of entities that are outside the world ofsense experience. FIVE.

Epicurus and Lucretius require no form of knowing other than sense experience, together with inferences from given sensible experiences to other entities in the world

of sense. Socrates, in contrast, requires another form of knowing, namely, the

grasping, or rational intuition, of the Forms. SIX. The different models of explanation presuppose very different accounts of human reason. For, human reason is the

capacity to understand, and the two models defend very different accounts of what it is to understand. Upon the Epicurean account, human reason consists in our

capacity to form on the basis of our sense experience judgments about the regularities that hold in the world. Upon Socrates’ account, in contrast, reason consists in the

capacity to grasp the Forms; it is the capacity to have a rational intuition of entities that stand outside and transcend the world of sense experience.

There are two other related points that are worth making. SEVEN. Upon Socrates’ position, value judgments are objective, or absolute, whereas for Epicurus and Lucretius they are relative. This contrast between

judgments that are objective and those that are relative is important A judgment that

a is F is objective just in case that its truth or falsity depends only upon a and the properties that a has. Thus, the judgment that Socrates is snub-nosed is objective because its truth or falsity depends only upon Socrates and the shape of his nose. So,

too, is the judgment that Socrates has an aquiline nose. In this sense, all judgments of fact are objective. On this point both the traditions, that deriving from Epicurus and Lucretius and that deriving from Socrates, are in agreement. But further, Socrates’

pattern also holds that judgments of value are objective. Thus, the judgment that

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Socrates is virtuous, upon the Socratic patterns, depends only upon Socrates and the Form of virtue. Not so for the Epicurean tradition. A judgments that a is F is relative

just in case that its truth or falsity depends not only upon what it is about but also upon who utters it. Thus, the judgment that Socrates is virtuous is relative upon the Epicurean tradition since what is means is that the contemplation of Socrates and his

actions gives pleasure to the speaker.19 Whereas for the Socratic tradition, there are objective values that determine whether value judgments are true or false

independently of who makes the value judgment, for the Epicurean tradition there are

no values beyond the value judgments that people actually make, no independent or

objective standard. Whereas for Socrates there are objective standards of value, for

Epicurus and Lucretius there is nothing to value beyond the valuings that people actually make.

EIGHT. The Epicurean tradition explains events by appeal to regularities. This applies as equally to people as to stones. The causal regularities that explain human behaviour include as relevant explanatory factors the values that people have, or,

much more accurately, the value judgments that people make - it is more accurate

since, as we have just noted, there are no objective values for the Epicurean tradition, only the value judgments that people actually make. These value judgments are facts in the world we experience, facts among facts. And, as facts among facts, they enter

into explanations. The point to be made is that while for the Epicureans value

judgments enter into explanations, values as such do not In contrast, for Socrates there are no explanations independent of the Forms, that is, independent of (objective) values. For Epicureans, and, more generally, those accepting empirical science as the

cognitive standard, explanations are valuefree, in contrast, for the Socratic tradition, explanations are value laden.

We have now delineated the Socratic schema or pattern or model of explanation and

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his defence of it. This we have contrasted to the model of explanation that we found defended in Lucretius. Clearly, the metaphysics of these two accounts of explanation are very different. Not surprisingly, therefore, the attitudes towards death are different

- though not, in the end, as different as the differences in metaphysics would seem to imply, and certainly more similar to each other than they are to the popular attitudes

that one finds in Maecenas and Samuel Johnson.

What we must now emphasize with respect to the basic Platonic model of explanation that we have just delineated is that once it is adopted, a number of bold consequences follow immediately.

Socrates has laid down a criterion that a model of explanation must fulfil if it is to be acceptable. This is that it must explain the observable fact that his being

condemned is followed by his being about to drink the hemlock rather than enjoying his leisure in Thebes, and, moreover, explain this fact in terms of Socrates’ striving for the best. It is clear that Socrates’ model of explanation fulfils this condition, where

that of Anaxagoras does not. On the latter, the sequence of events remains

unconnected, and therefore unexplained; philosophers like Anaxagoras “do not believe that the truly good and ‘binding’ binds and holds them together” (99c4). The

truly good, that is, the Form, provides through the striving of the soul that is Socrates a link, a necessary connection, that implies that the sequence of observable events

could not have been otherwise.

On the model of explanation that Socrates is defending, change is a matter of a property ceasing-to-be and being replaced by a different property, its opposite, or

contrary, which thereby comes-to-be (103bl). So far as sense experience is

concerned, the observed properties are merely different, they are separable and unconnected. Explanation consists in showing that the difference, separability and unconnectedness are mere appearances arising from the limitations of our sense to

provide knowledge. In reality, the apparently different properties reflect an underlying unity. This unity is constituted by the soul the activity of which explains the change

from one property to the other. The apparently separable and unconnected events are

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in fact unified by the activity of the soul that accounts for the change, this activity

provides a necessary connection among the apparently separable events such that, given the first, it could not be otherwise than that it is followed by the second.

The model of explanation enables us to understand why Socrates has remained

in prison and is about to drink the hemlock rather than escaping to Boeotia The sequence is as it is because Socrates, his soul, is striving to imitate in his outward life a certain Form, the Form of morally ideal humanity, the Form, in other words, of

virtue, human virtue.

Socrates’ virtue, the virtue that is present in him, is an observable

characteristic It is an instance of (human) virtue because it participates in the Form of (human) virtue. On account of Socrates’ virtue participating in this Form, he

imitates this Form in his outward life, though he likely falls short of exactly imitating the Form of morally ideal humanity; in any case, it is on account of his virtue

participating in the Form of virtue that Socrates is said to be virtuous.

This account of virtue is, of course, incompatible with the Epicurean account of the good, and of the good or valuable life. In particular, it shows why the argument

that Epicurus gives concerning the appropriate role of friendship in the good life will be rejected by those who adopt the Socratic, or Platonic position. The starting point of the argument is based on the doctrine, established by the Epicurean appeal to our

feelings, that pleasure is the end human conduct. Socrates (Plato), in contrast, appeals to a very different standard, to wit, the transcendental Form of the Good. And if,

indeed, the argument for the existence of Forms is correct, then the Socratic objection to the Epicurean position is sound Further, where Epicunis offers an argument based

on pleasure to justify a specific role for friendship, Socrates has to put such

relationships on a very different basis. This is explained by Socrates in another dialogue, the Lysis.20 Whatever pleasure another person gives one, whatever benefits

the other confers, such a person cannot be a friend, cannot instance the virtue of

friendship, unless he or she is good: only a good friend can be a true friend. Only if Lysis becomes wise, that is, both useful and good, can anyone genuinely love him and

100 count him a friend. . . .if you become wise, my boy, all will be your friends and all akin to you - for you will be useful and good. But if you don’t, no one else will be your fri end... (Ayszs, 21 Od 1 -4).

As one strives to imitate the good, the transcendent Form of human virtue, one will

feel and behave appropriately to others: one will not merely feel towards the friend, and provide him or her with benefits, but one will do this in those ways, and in only those ways, that are right or virtuous. This will be the upshot of one’s striving to be

virtuous, that is, striving to instantiate as completely as possible the transcendent Form of human virtue.

In brief, for Socrates, friendship, like any virtue, is determined relative to the

Forms, not relative to pleasure; Epicurus’ account of the nature and role of friendship as a virtue therefore cannot be correct. Furthermore, the sorts of goods that Epicurus looks for in friendship, namely, social and emotional security, simply will not be forthcoming, if Epicurus is correct —

such at least is the case that Socrates makes. For in fact there will be no stability in the social relationships, nor, more generally, in the conventions of social order, if they are grounded solely in pleasure. Even the Epicureans admit as much. On the whole

the system of social conventions has worked fairly well in providing pleasure and

security to humans, but nonetheless, there is nothing certain and these benefits cannot

absolutely be counted on. Given the temptations that beset us, especially those that are generated by the fear of death, the result has not been, nor ever will be, perfect

harmony. The intelligent knave will always find now and again ways to violate the conventions without being caught out; and the powerful few will find ways to use

them to their own advantage and to the disadvantage of others. As Lucretius puts it

concerning social conventions, It was not possible to achieve perfect unity of purpose. Yet a substantial majority kept faith honestly.21

But however inevitable such uncertainty might be, it is still something that is

in principle undesirable. It is Socrates’ [Plato’s] argument that what is needed to

101 eliminate such uncertainty is knowledge, that is, specifically, knowledge of virtue.

Socrates, in the dialogue called the Meno,n raises the issue of whether “true opinion

is as good a guide as knowledge for the purpose of acting rightly” (Meno, 97b6), and

goes on to explain “why knowledge should be prized so much more than right opinion. .” (97d2). The point he makes is that a moral judgment, like a statue of

Daedalus, is “if. .untethered,...not worth much: it gives you the slip like a runaway slave But a tethered specimen is very valuable...” (97el-3). It is the judgments of

reason, that is, the judgments constituted by our grasp of the Forms, that are tethered,

which is to say, certain, so beyond all doubt that they are unchangeable. True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man’s mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reasons.... Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable That is why knowledge is something more valuable than right opinion. What distinguishes the one from the other is the tether (97e3-98a6).

What distinguishes knowledge from opinion is certainty, the certainty that one

does not err To doubt is to allow the possibility that one’s judgment might be erroneous; it is to allow the possibility of change. But knowledge is unchanging. So

knowledge is certain, when we know, then the certainty is such as to exclude all

possibility of doubt.

Knowledge of this sort cannot be derived from sense experience. The world of which sense makes us aware is a world of changing appearances. As Socrates puts it in the Phaedo, “the many beautiful particulars, be they men, horses, clothes, or other such things, or the many other equal particulars, and all those which the same name as those others [the Forms the Beautiful itself and the Equal itself]... never in any way remain the same as themselves or in relation to each other” (Phaedo, 78d6-

e4). In the dialogue named after him,23 Theaetetus proposes that “knowledge is

nothing but perception” (Theaetetus, 15 lei) The term aesthesis that is translated as ‘perception’ is so explained (156b) that it covers sensible perception (sight, hearing,

smell), sensations of heat and cold, pleasures and pains, and even emotions of desire

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and fear. Plato elsewhere suggests that all these are located in the sentient part of the

soul, which is inseparably connected with the body {Timaeus, 42a). The world that perception in this sense presents to us is a world of ever-changing appearances; it is

Heraclitus’ world of flux.

All the things we are pleased to say ‘are’, really are in process of becoming, as a result of movement and change and of blending one with another. We are wrong to speak of them as ‘being’, for none of them ever is; they are always becoming (Theaetetus, 152d6-e2). The observed sequence of events is a sequence of properties which are not only

different but contrary, these events are thus separable. That is, in themselves the

events which are given to us in the world of sense experience are independent of each

other, and none of them implies the existence of any other. Judgments to the effect that A’s are B’s will therefore be uncertain; for there is nothing, so far as our sense

experience is concerned, about A’s that guarantees that any A will be a B and

certainly not that the next A will be a B. Sense may therefore yield opinion, and perhaps even true opinion, but it can never yield judgments which have the sort of certainty - the cognitively and practically desirable sort of certainty - that is

characteristic of knowledge. That is reserved for the knowledge that we have of Forms, the rational intuition of Forms, or, as it is called in the Phaedo and the Meno, in recognition of its a priori nature, the “recollection” of the Forms. For the Forms are unchanging and immutable. As Socrates asks in the Phaedo,

. . .are they [the Forms] ever the same and in the same state, or do they vary from one time to another; can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each thing in itself, the real, ever be affected by any change whatever? Or does each of them that really is, being simple by itself, remain the same and never in any way tolerate any change whatever? The reply is expected:

It must remain the same, said Cebes, and in the same state, Socrates (78dl-5).

When we let ourselves be turned away from the Forms, there is no stability in our judgments: ..when the soul makes use of the body to investigate something, be

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it through hearing or seeing or some other sense - for to investigate something through the senses is to do it through the body - it is dragged by the body to the things that are never the same, and the soul itself strays and is confused and dizzy, as if it were drunk. . .(79c 15). Thus, reason’s grasp of the Forms yields knowledge where the senses grasp of our

ordinary world does not: the objects of the former are entities that are simple and unchanging, the objects of the latter are changing patterns of separable parts. We acquire knowledge, then, when we grasp the Forms in a species of rational

intuition. This knowledge is absolutely certain, by virtue of the entities that it is about

it is such as to exclude all possibility of doubt. Knowledge of the Forms is in this sense “tied down” or “tethered,” and can therefore provide the stability that mere

opinion, even if true, cannot. In particular, of course, knowledge of the Form of virtue

will enable the philosopher to be certain about the proper ways in which to act and to behave towards others. All that is required for stable social cohesion is a form of

social organization which will permit the philosophers to so act that they can ensure

the habitual conformity of the many to the transcendent standards of virtue that the

philosophers alone know. Plato, of course, went to great lengths to describe such a society in his dialogue, the Republic, We need not go into the details of how Plato proposed a form of social organization that would ensure that the philosophers could

guarantee that the opinions of the many and upon which the many acted were in fact unchangingly true, that is, in conformity with the vision of the Good that the

philosophers alone were capable of acquiring. Suffice it to say that the vision was quite at odds with the sort of social order based on sentiment and friendship that was envisaged by Epicurus and Lucretius, since (a) sentiment itself could never lead to

permanent social stability (as Epicurus and Lucretius knew), and (b) friendship itself

had to be regulated to conform to the transcendent standard of virtue. We claimed above that once the basic model of explanation that Socrates

develops is adopted, a number of bold consequences follow immediately. We have

just seen that these include a criticism of the theories of knowledge and of social

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justice of the sorts that were defended by Epicurus and Lucretius. But there is more. In particular, there follows directly from the model certain principles about the nature

of the soul, and, consequent upon that, the claim that a certain attitudes towards death is appropriate. But perhaps this should not surprise us, since the whole of the Phaedo

aims to justify the attitude towards death that Socrates himself displays in his own person as he prepares to drink the hemlock.

The Forms are unchanging and immutable, outside time. It is clear that the same must be true of the souls. If the alteration of sensible appearances is temporal, then souls cannot but be beyond, or outside, that temporal order of appearances. Like

the Forms, souls must be outside time and therefore intrinsically changeless; indeed,

it is that intrinsic unalterability that means that souls are, like Forms, divine - in the way in which the immortals on Olympus are divine, that is, unchanging and immortal

when compared to mere men. The Forms are “pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging,” and it is to these entities, “invisible to human eye,” that the soul is “more alike and more akin” than it is to the “visible” things given to us in sense experience.

In order to see that this is indeed so, and follows from the basic model of explanation that Socrates is going to articulate and rationally defend later in the

dialogue, let us begin by noting that, if life, that is, the animating activities of nous, and death are opposites or contraries in the way in which observable properties of

things are opposites, then dying is the passing-away of life and the coming-to-be of death. But this is a transition that surely must be explained. After all, if it is not

explained because it is unexplainable, that is, inevitably inexplicable, then that part of the world remains not understandable, and that change remains uncaused and therefore irrational, one that occurs for no reason. However, if we assume that that change is not irrational, that it does occur for a reason, then that reason must be

located in a further soul the activity of which accounts for the change of characters from life to death, and then its activity in turn will be a characteristic the presence of

which will require an explanation in terms of a further active soul; and so on. That is, a regress looms, one which is not only infinite but vicious.

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The vicious nature of the regress is easily recognized if one recalls that noils

always, according to the Socratic model, acts for an end: its activity aims at the best. Now, if an activity is a consequence of a deeper activity then the former is a means to the end at which the latter aims. Hence, if there were a non-terminating regress of

activities, each activity would exist as a means, but precisely because there is no first

activity that determines the end at which the series aims, the series of activities is a series of means without any end.24 But the notion that something is a means where

there is no end is self-contradictory. For this reason, an infinite regress of activities is vicious: if such a regress exists, then, upon the Socratic model, nothing is explained.

It is necessary therefore, upon the Socratic model, that there be an ultimate activity,

an activity that cannot cease being an activity, a soul that cannot as a living thing perish. In this respect, as that which accounts for change, it must in its own intrinsic

nature be immutable and unchanging.25

For similar reasons the Forms, too, must be immutable. If a Form F changes, then that change must be accounted for by an appeal to a soul. F itself must be taken

to be a soul, with the changing character F coming-to-be and passing-away in it. Why

the change occurs will be a matter of the soul which F now is striving for some Form

F' distinct from F. Hence, if all Forms are mutable then we again have a vicious

regress. Thus, Forms as well as souls constitute an unchanging, imperishable, immutable realm. The general reason why this must be so should be clear. Both the souls and

the Forms are entities that explain change. If they themselves were entities that

changed, then their behaviour would in turn require explanation, and appeal to a deeper soul and a deeper Form. The regress is infinite and vicious - nothing would ever get explained - unless we come to a level where the souls and Forms are

intrinsically unchanging. There is no reason why this should not be the first level. Socrates puts this point by saying that explanation needs a starting point that is “acceptable” (Phaedo, lOlel). A proposed starting point - Forms, or souls - may­

be challenged (101 d2), that is, it may be taken hypothetically, as needing further

106 reasons to account for it. But these reasons will be reasons of the same sort that

Socrates delineates in his model of explanation, that is, the reasons will have to constitute an explanation in terms ofnous striving for the best, which, as Socrates has

argued (99c6-8), is essential to any adequate account of explanation. If the reasons

are of this sort - nous striving for the best - then this implies that there must in the

end be a starting point that is “acceptable” and “unhypothetical.” In the Republic (510b7, 511 b6), this necessary unhypothetical starting point is identified with the

Form of the Good, recognizing that the need for such a resting place in the search for reasons derives from the fact that nous always strives for the best.

Just as Forms are unchanging but determine contraries, that is, that the

characteristics that fall under them exclude each other, so also the soul is unchanging, and the characteristic that it brings to objects, namely, life, excludes its opposite

death. The soul itself is deathless, and when it is present in things death is excluded. The soul is therefore immortal, and when death strikes the body what this indicates is not that the soul too is dead but that the body has ceased to be animated by it; the

soul has retreated as it were from the body. .. it is impossible for the soul to be destroyed when death comes upon it. For it follows from what has been said that it will not admit death or be dead, just as three, we said, will not be even nor will the odd... (Phaedo, 106b2-4).

Then when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but his deathless part goes away safe and indestructible, yielding the place to death (106e2-5).

Thus, once the Socratic model ofexplanation is adopted, the immortality of the soul follows immediately26

Death, of course, is now re-interpreted once the model of explanation establishes the immortality of the souk death is simply the separation of the soul from

the body, and, more generally, the sensible. But the philosopher is one who aims at the best, that is, strives after certain Forms. The Forms, however, are not entities

known by sense. The philosopher is thus continually turning away from, separating

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him- or herself from the world of sense experience. The “purification” which the philosopher seeks requires him or her to “separate the soul as far as possible from the body and accustom it to gather itself and collect itself out of every part of the body

and to dwell by itself as far as it can both now and in the future, freed, as it were, from the bonds of the body” (67c5-dl). Such a person has during his life “ignored the pleasures of the body and its ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him

more harm than good”; he has, rather, “concerned himself with the pleasures of

learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth .(114e 1 -115a 1). The world is divided into “two kinds of existences, the visible and the invisible” (79a4), the body

and the world of sensible experience is the visible, the Forms are the invisible.

Wisdom consists in knowing the Forms: ...when the soul [turns away from the body] and investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so, it ceases to stray and remains in the same state as it is in touch with tilings of the same kind, and its experience then is what is called wisdom (79dl-4).

Since it is precisely such a turning away from the world of sense experience that occurs in death, Socrates has shown that his proposal, with which the dialogue began, that the philosopher is always thinking of death, is justified: “practising philosophy in

the right way [is], in fact, training to die easily Or is this not training for death9”

(81al). It is important to note how Socrates characterizes the Forms: they are “pure,

every existing, immortal and unchanging,” as indeed they must be, if, as we have seen, they are to play the role in the metaphysics of explanation that Socrates ascribes to

them To know the Forms is for the soul to “make its way to a region of the noble and pure and invisible”; in fact, it is, Socrates immediately continues, for the soul to make its way “to Hades, to the good and wise god...” (80d4-5)27 To be “immortal

and unchanging” is to have the characteristics that Homer and Greeks ascribed to the

gods; the Forms are in other words, as Socrates says, “the good and wise god.” To

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die is to join the divine. But the soul, when it attains wisdom, joins the Forms, the divine Thus, the soul, when it attains wisdom, is already in the beautiful dwelling

place of the gods, that is, in mythical terms, Hades. The soul, when it attains wisdom is already dwelling with the gods: it has already achieved immortality. That is, when

the soul achieves wisdom by coming into contact with the Forms it achieves

immortality in the sense of transcending the ephemera! world of sensible appearances, the world of ordinary space and time, passing beyond it to enter the

timeless world of the Forms2* But the soul, in coming into contact with the Forms, is through that contact imitating in its outward life the Forms that it has grasped

That, however, is to behave virtuously: virtuous action simply is action that imitates the Form of (human) virtue. Thus, in achieving virtue the soul has passed from the

temporal to the timeless world of the Forms, it has passed from the world of time and

change to the timeless eternity of the Forms In other words, in achieving virtue the soul has passed from the temporal to the timeless world of the Forms, the soul at that

point shares in the eternity of the Forms. In short, what Socrates is arguing is that the immorality of the soul consists in its becoming eternal; and that is achieves this immortality when it grasps the Form in virtuous action2'’ But wisdom is something

that can be achieved in this life, in the present. That means that in the relevant sense

of immortality, the soul achieves the immortality that removes the fear of death not

by existing for all time but in its present life as it lives virtuously. It follows from this that the immortality that frees one from fear of death can be attained in this life,

without any disengagement from the body. To be sure, it involves a turning away from the body towards the Forms. But it does not involve abandoning the body. As

Socrates says, The soul of the philosopher achieves a calm from such emotions [the pleasures and pains of the body]; it follows reason and stays with it contemplating the true, the divine, and what is not the object of opinion. Nurtured by this, it believes that one should live in this manner as long as one is alive... (84a2-b 1).

What is required of one is discipline in the interests of virtue. The purity required for

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immortality can be achieved while one allows oneself to experience the pleasures and

pains of the body.30

We can gather some other aspects of Socrates’ (Plato’s) doctrine of souls and Forms

if we turn to another of the great Platonic dialogues, the Symposium

This dialogue

has a complex structure It takes place at a banquet, and various guests in turn give speeches about love. Plato clearly intends the reader to draw lessons from the

different speeches and from the sorts of rhetoric that they involve. For our purposes,

those implications can safely be ignored. What is of central interest for us is the speech of Socrates and what we can learn from it about Socrates’ account of explanation.

Socrates’ speech divides into two parts. The first involves a dialogical interchange with another guest, Agathon The second part consists of Socrates

relating a dialogue he has had with a priestess, Diotima, in which she taught him what

he knows about love The two parts are not to be sharply distinguished the first in fact seamlessly merges with the second. In particular, the argument that is developed

begins in the first part, in the interchange with Agathon, and continues in the second part, in the dialogue with Diotima.

In the interchange with Agathon, Socrates first establishes that love is a form

of desire; it is always love of something (199e). As Socrates would have it, love loves something rather than nothing (199e6). But in that case, if we love then we lack the

object of love, “any case of desire is necessarily desire for something which is lacking”

(200a6). Or, at least, Socrates goes on, if we do have it, eg., health as the object of our love, then we want to continue to have it (200d) Now, Agathon had previously argued that love loves things that are beautiful, it is not possible to love the repellant.

“It follows,” Socrates points out, “that Love needs and lacks beauty” (201 b3). As

Socrates now has Diotima go on to point out, it does not follow that love, though

110 lacking beauty, is repulsive. Just as there is a medium between ignorance and

knowledge, namely, true opinion, so there can be a medium between the beautiful and the repulsive (201a): love is clearly implied to fall into this category (204b2). Moreover, Diotima proceeds to point out, love is not so much for beauty as for goodness (205d 1). Indeed, people not only want goodness but “there’s also the fact that they want goodness to be theirs for ever” (206a5). However, to want goodness

for ever is to desire immortality.

Given our agreement that the aim of love is the permanent possession of goodness for oneself, it necessarily follows that we desire immortality along with goodness, and consequently the aim of love has to be immortality as well (206e8-207a2). However, given that we all change all the time, there is an important sense in which

immortality, in the sense of changelessness, is impossible. . the continued existence of any mortal creature does not involve its remaining absolutely unchanging all the time - only gods do that (208a5-7). We merely give the impression of identity. In fact we are constantly replacing one

generation of traits, features, and so on, with another generation.

... a person in fact never possesses the same attributes, but is constantly being renewed and constantly losing other qualities ... (207d6-7). The impression of identity arises because the second generation resembles the

preceding generation. [For any mortal creature,] .. . as its attributes pass away and age, they leave behind a new generation of attributes which resemble the old ones (208a8-b2).

But a sort of immortality can be achieved through the generation or production of

works of art. In particular, the best sort of offspring to produce is “virtue, and especially wisdom,” where “the most important and attractive kind of wisdom by far” is “the kind which enables people to manage political and domestic affairs - in other

words, self-discipline and justice” (209a3-7). Thus, “the object of love is not beauty” (206el); it is, rather, “birth and procreation” (206e3). Now, Diotima has argued that

Ill one cannot be creative in a medium that one finds repellent (206b8). It therefore

follows that, more correctly understood, the object of love “is birth and procreation in a beautiful medium”(206e3). What is procreated is virtue, the person achieves this

by working in a certain medium appropriate to the task. What is this medium? The medium is, of course, the realm of the Forms.

... anyone who has been guided and trained in the ways of love ..., who has viewed things of beauty in the proper order and manner, will now approach the culmination of love’s ways and will suddenly catch sight of something of unbelievable beauty - something ... which in fact gives meaning to all his previous efforts. What he’ll see is, in the first place, eternal; it doesn’t come to be or cease to be, and it doesn’t increase or diminish. In the second place, it isn’t attractive in one respect and repulsive in another, or attractive at one time but not at another, or attractive in one setting but repulsive in another, or attractive here and repulsive elsewhere, depending on how people find it. Then again, he won’t perceive beauty as a face or hands or any other physical feature, or as a piece of reasoning or knowledge, and he won’t perceive it as being anywhere else either - in something like a creature or the earth or the heavens. No, he’ll perceive it in itself and by itself, constant and eternal, and he’ll see that every other beautiful object somehow partakes of it, but in such a way that their coming to be and ceasing to be don’t increase or diminish it at all, and it remains entirely unaffected (210e2-211 b3). Diotima describes the education of youth as the mind rises from the sensible individuals that imitate the Forms to the Forms themselves (21 Oa-212a). There are,

basically, four stages. First, there is physical beauty; then there is mental beauty; then there is the beauty of “intellectual endeavours” (211 c8); and then there is the “final

intellectual endeavour,” the vision of the Forms (ib .). The mind uses the things of this world as “rungs of a ladder” (211 c4) by which to ascend to the highest and most beautiful level, the level of the Forms. “What else,” Diotima asks Socrates, “could

make life worth living ... than seeing true beauty?” (211 d 1) The telos of the Forms,

their beauty, naturally draws the soul upwards as it strives to obtain ever higher, less imperfect, kinds of beauty. It is the grasping of the Forms that gives meaning to one’s

life, and this meaningful life is the life of virtue.32 The description by Diotima of the life of reason and eros in the realm of the

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Forms makes clear the import of her earlier remark that “It’s a divine business; it is

immortality in a mortal creature, this matter of pregnancy and birth” (206c5-6), where, of course, the best sort of pregnancy and birth is, as we have seen, the life of virtue: in achieving the knowledge of the Forms that makes the creation of a virtuous life possible, one achieves therein the immortality to which love aspires.

This story of the life of reason and eros that we have here is much of a piece with the philosophical account of explanation that Socrates develops in the Phaedo.

We do obtain in the Symposium, however, a clear sense that the soul is not merely

reason On the account in the Symposium, we achieve immortality by procreating, creating in our own persons the life of virtue. This procreation of the life of virtue is

achieved through wisdom, and this in turn is achieved by going through an

educational process that culminates in “that final intellectual endeavour, which is no more and no less than the study of that beauty...” (21 lc5-7) which is the Beautiful

itself- the vision, in other words, of the Forms. The soul has a love of the Forms; this love moves one to create virtuous behaviour in conformity with the standards set by

the Forms In turn, the Forms have a beauty that draws the soul towards them, they determine the teleology of the soul. The soul is thus both reason and love; the two are

inseparable. But this is just to say that the soul is an activity that has a certain

direction, namely, towards the Forms. In grasping the Forms the soul enters the realm of the divine and achieves the sort of immortality that is possible for human beings:

as we saw Diotima put it, “it is immortality in a mortal creature, this matter of pregnancy and birth.” We thus see that the Symposium confirms our reading of the

Phaedo.

What we find in the Phaedo, in those parts of the Phaedo that are devoted to

philosophy, is a metaphysics in terms of which we are to read and interpret the

mythical parts of the Phaedo This includes in particular the myth of the

1

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transmigration of souls.

This myth is introduced in order to help Simmias see the point of what Socrates’ argument was about. To be sure, Socrates had defended that metaphysics by reason, and, for those who understood, no myth would be necessary. But Simmias,

alas, did not understand fully:

Certainly, said Simmias, I myself have no remaining grounds for doubt after what has been said, nevertheless, in view of the importance of our subject and my own low opinions of human weakness, I am bound still to have some private misgivings about what we have said (107a6bl).

So Socrates proceeds to provide the story about the transmigration of souls to help Simmias get a glimpse of the truth by way of metaphor where reason has been unable to complete its task. Socrates at the end of his relating of the story, repeats the point that what he has related is myth and not a reasoned philosophical position:

No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief - for the risk is a noble one - that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale (114d 1-5). In introducing the myth Socrates presents his reasons: “It is right to think then, gentlemen, that, if the soul is immortal, it requires our care not only for the time we

call our life, but for the sake of all time, and that one is in terrible danger if one does not give it that care” (107cl-3). The point is repeated after the telling of the myth That is the reason why a man should be of good cheer about his own soul, if during life he has ignored the pleasures of the body and its ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him more harm than good, but has seriously concerned himself with the pleasures of learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth, and in that state awaits his journey to the underworld (114d6115a2).

In the Phaedo, the gods play an interesting role. They appear at the beginning, in the introductory part of the dialogue, where we are told that men have been placed

114 on the earth by the gods, that the gods look after us, and that a philosopher who has purified himself will join the gods after death (62b, 73c, 67a). The gods are in effect

absent throughout the philosophical discussion of immortality. They then re-appear in the myth where they serves as guides for souls after death. The gods and the Forms do not appear together. Now, Plato never calls the

Forms gods; the term ‘god’ is restricted to more personal beings, active and somehow

more than human, in whom we can find guidance in living the good life.33

Nonetheless, the gods and the Forms share certain characteristics: in particular they are both immortal. That is why Socrates can refer to the Forms as “divine.” This

suggests that we read the myths of the Phaedo so as to treat the gods as the

metaphorical representation of the Forms. As Grube has put it, in locating a

connection between the gods and the Forms, “we have to say that the gods appear to be the mythical representation of that eternal world which the Ideas describe in a

different manner.”34 The gods are the Forms represented in a way that enables someone like Simmias to glimpse the point of what someone who is more the

philosopher can see with greater clarity by means of reason. As well, of course, we can use the rationally justified metaphysics to interpret

the Socrates that is described by Xenophon. This is the Socrates who is told by his

god, his daimon, to undertake philosophy. As Socrates put it in the Apology, his playing his role as a “gadfly” was demanded by “a divine sign from the god”35, it has “been enjoined upon me,” he says, “by the god, by means of oracles and dreams, and

in every other way that a divine manifestation has ever ordered a man to do anything”

(33c4-7). The daimon, it would seem, provides Socrates with knowledge of what he ought to do. It would thus appear that there are two sources of knowledge for Socrates, reason on the one side and divine revelation on the other. The problem with

this Socrates is that he seems, on the one hand, to value reason, but, on the other hand, accepts traditional incursions by the divine. How are we supposed to bring

together Socrates who defends reason with the Socrates who accepts apparent

religious irrationalism?36

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It has been suggested that the daemonic injunctions are to be taken as signs

that are to be interpreted by reason. One such suggestion is that they provide “foreknowledge that an intended course of action will lead to unbeneficial results,” and that the knowledge claim, that such signs are reliable, “rests on Socrates’

experientially warranted presupposition that daemonic warnings and his interpretation of them are always accurate, [and] is taken by him to be only a practical, thus fallible,

certainty.”3. However, since knowledge, for the Socrates of the Meno and the

Phaedo, must be “tied down” or “tethered,” that is, must be absolutely certain and incorrigible, this would mean that the sign of the daemon could not constitute

knowledge. But such signs are knowledge: as Socrates puts it in the Apology, “surely he [the god] does not lie; it is not legitimate for him to do so” (21b5). For the sign to be knowledge, it must be interpreted by means of the knowledge which is the subject

of discussion by the rational or philosophical Socrates of the Phaedo This means that the divine signs from the daemon are not a separate source of knowledge. One must

distinguish the sign and its interpretation,38 and the commitment to reason, on the one

side, and the daemonic sign, on the other, “cannot conflict because only by the use of his own critical reason can Socrates determine the true meaning of any of these signs.”39 But, surely, this is to say that the daemon is after all not an independent

source of knowledge.40 To the contrary, in order to know what is the correct meaning of the sign, one has to have access to the truth about virtue, about what is right. This

truth about what is right, about what ought to be done, is secured by the reason that Socrates describes in the philosophical portions of the discussion in the Phaedo.

More specifically, it is secured by a knowledge of the Forms, the Form of human virtue in particular.

Note, however, that these Forms are divine - not, to be sure, literally gods but the divine insofar as reason discloses to us entities that are reasonably characterized as divine - perfect and eternal. This suggests that it is possible to read

the tale of Socrates’ daemon as a myth, in the way in which we have suggested that the story about the transmigration of the souls after death is to be understood as a

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myth, a way of providing a glimpse of the truth of things to those who cannot through

reason grasp that truth. Once again, we have to return to the point that “we have to

say that the gods appear to be the mythical representation of that eternal world which the Ideas describe in a different manner.”41 Thus, Xenophon’s Socrates, the defender of reason, listens to the signs of the

gods. And this is what Socrates tells the ordinary Athenians in the jury in the speech

recorded in Plato’s Apology. But it is the Forms that are divine. Understanding these in terms of myth, it is they that are the gods to which Socrates is listening. To receive a sign from them is simply to know them, to grasp them in one’s rational intuition. The listening to the gods, then, is nothing but a rational intuition of the Forms

expressed in a mythical or metaphorical way, rather than in such terms as the rational philosopher would from the viewpoint of reason more appropriately express it. Plutarch was to put this point in this way,42 that ... the understanding may be guided by a higher understanding and a diviner soul, that lays hold of it from without by a touch, which is the way in which it is the nature of thought (Xoyoc;) to impinge on thought (Aoyov), just as light produces a reflection.43

With this reading as myth of the portrait of Socrates as someone who listens to the gods, when we listen to the gods what we are doing is striving after the Forms.

But, as Socrates makes clear in the philosophical discussion of the Phaedo, when we are striving after the Forms then we are striving for the best - and thus is achieved the teleological order, the arrangement of things for the best, that was emphasized by

Xenophon’s Socrates and which Socrates explains in non-mythical terms in the argument against the physicists that occurs in the Phaedo. Hackforth has pointed out that of course the myth is not to be taken literally.

Thus, “there are not and cannot be any oiKijoeu; [dwellings] for discarnate souls, since an immaterial being cannot occupy space.”44 His own solution is the suggestion

that “what the myth has done ... is to present the immaterial in a material form, to suggest the invisible ‘world’ through the medium of language literally applicable only to the visible ”45 The myth, in other words, is metaphor. Dorter has added to this the

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suggestion that the myth “presents] the timeless in a temporal form, or the implicit

present in an explicit future.”46 The interpretative suggestion is, then, that in general, as lovers of wisdom, we

must interpret the myths about Socrates, and the myths that he himself uses, in terms of the philosophy that he uses reason to defend In particular, the timeless or eternal is presented in a temporal form. One might note in this context that the punishments endured in Hades by those

who are vicious in this life can be seen as consequences that do happen in the present

rather than in a mythical future. Those who are deemed to have committed great but curable crimes, such as doing violence to their father or mother in a fit of temper but who have felt remorse for the rest of their lives, or who have killed someone in a similar manner, these must of necessity be thrown into Tartarus, but a year later the current throws them out, those who are guilty of murder by way of Cocytus, and those who have done violence to their parents by way of the Pyriphlegethon. After they have been carried along to the Acherousian lake, they cry out and shout, some for those they have killed, others for whom they have maltreated, and calling them they then pray to them and beg them to allow them to step out into the lake and to receive them. If they persuade them, they do step out and their punishment comes to an end; if they do not, they are taken back into Tartarus and from there into the rivers, and this does not stop until they have persuaded those they have wronged, for this is the punishment which the judges imposed on them (113e4-114b5). If this is taken to be a metaphorical portrait of the consequences of vice in the present,

then it can easily be seen to be making the point that these souls cannot rest content

until they have repented and, further, have been forgiven by the injured person, or, in the case of the murdered person, by his friends and relatives.17 Similar remarks can be made with regard to the punishments suffered by those who are vicious in other ways. The pious, those who are perhaps like Simmias in not grasping the uncovered truth of philosophy but who from habit do lead a good life, lead an untroubled

existence on the earth:

Those are deemed to have lived an extremely pious life are freed and

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released from the regions of the earth as from a prison, they make their way up to a pure dwelling place and live on the surface of the earth (114b6-c2).

Finally, there are the philosophers who have succeeded in grasping the Forms and in structuring for themselves a life of virtue in imitation of these: Those who have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy live in the future altogether without a body; they make their way to even more beautiful dwelling places which it is hard to described clearly (114c2-5)

That is, hard to describe clearly to someone who, like Simmias, has not yet been able to achieve a rational intuition of the Forms, though their beauty and perfection is

apparent to someone who has in fact succeeded in grasping them. In any case, this life

of the virtuous, of the philosopher, among the Forms, too, can be seen as a

consequence of what happens in the present rather than in a mythical future. The immortality of the philosopher, the immortality that is achieved by the virtuous, therefore, on this reading, is the eternity that is achieved when the soul does reach out

to, and grasps, the Forms. This, at least, is the point to be made when we accept the interpretative

principle argued for, above, that in general, as lovers of wisdom, we should read the

myths that Socrates uses, in terms of the philosophy that he uses reason to defend. In particular, the timeless or eternal is presented in a temporal form For our purposes, the significant conclusion is that, specifically, we must so

interpret the notion of immortality. The Phaedo is often read in such a way as to understand Socrates as defending the transmigration of the souls, and therefore as

understanding “immortality” to mean “omnitemporality.”48 But with the interpretative

principle just indicated, we are not to take the story of the transmigration of souls

literally but rather as myth. It is a myth that is to be understood as providing a glimpse

of the deeper truth revealed by reason But this deeper truth is that the soul is like the Forms, achieving their eternity when, striving to be virtuous, it grasps the Form of

ideal human virtue. We must say, therefore, that the immortality of the soul does not consist in the fact that it endures forever in a migration from one incarnation to

119 another but rather in becoming eternal through knowledge of the divine, the

unchanging and immutable Forms which are the source of virtue. Indeed, since the soul is the activity which accounts for the bodily changes that we observe by means

of our senses, it, too, must, if it is to play the role in the metaphysics of explanation

that Socrates ascribes to it, be unchanging, immutable and invisible Thus, “one part of ourselves is the body, another part is the soul” (Phaedo, 79b 1), and “the soul is

more like the invisible than the body, and the body more like the visible” (79el). Socrates asks, “which do you think is like the divine and which like the mortal?” (80a2), and the answer is clear: the soul is like the divine, “ever existing, immortal and

unchanging.” It is, in short, immortal.

Immortality is thus achieved for Socrates not by means of everlasting existence but by achieving eternity, that is, timelessness Immortality is achieved by turning away from the body and coming to grasp the Forms, entities which transcend

the world of sense experience but which are the immutable and unchanging source of

all virtue. What is important is not life but the good life. To lead the good life one must tum away from the world of sense experience to the world of the Forms In grasping the Forms, one escapes this world, the world of change, and of death, to

eternity. Thus, in leading the good life, one infact therein achieves immortality and overcomes death: in such a life there is no death. Death, therefore, should be nothing to us, at least insofar as we are virtuous: it is a fact to be accepted. Not only is fear

an inappropriate attitude, but so is resentment. We resent or regret death when we see

it as producing a loss of goods that we must forego. But in death one, or, rather the philosopher, foregoes nothing, on Socrates’ view In dying one foregoes only states of one’s body, and these will inevitably fall short of the standards of the Forms. In

contrast, in grasping the Forms, one grasps whatever is of value in one’s actions and behaviour. Thus, in grasping the Forms the soul grasps timelessly and for eternity whatever is valuable in one’s actions. In dying, then, the philosopher loses nothing

It is only the non-philosopher, one who has not succeeded in turning away his or her

body, that resents or regrets death

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...any man [says Socrates] whom you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or of honours, either or both (68b6-cl). As we noted previously in our discussion of Seneca in Chapter One, the

argument, that the correct or appropriate attitude towards death for the virtuous person is acceptance without regret, presupposes that virtue has a timeless quality,

that there is something eternal in the practice of virtue that makes its value indifferent to its own prolongation or, indeed, its outcome for others. If that which gives life its

value is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then it is clear death is

never to be regretted, even when it prevents one from doing, or continuing to do, good. If the sole source of value which a life has is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then death is to be accepted as a mere fact, and so are its consequences These are facts indifferent to that which alone can give value to

one’s life, namely, the practice of virtue. What we now see is that Socrates develops

a metaphysics of explanation in terms of active souls and eternal Forms which justifies the claim that there is something eternal in the practice of virtue that makes its value indifferent to its own prolongation and implies that death is, for the virtuous

person, to he accepted without regret as a mere fact.

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- II-

Socrates provides a metaphysics of explanation that yields a rational source of hope, the hope that we will achieve the vision of the good that is for the virtuous both the

cause of their virtue and their reward, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one is bringing about the best For the Christian, such as Augustine, it is faith that at

once justifies, makes one virtuous, and is the source of hope. For Socrates, in contrast, it is reason that provides the account of virtue and is the source of hope. This, of course, is the difference between philosophy and religion. But where one proceeds by reason, one can also be subject to rational

criticism. This has been so in the case of Socrates’ model of explanation, the metaphysics of explanation that he attempts to defend rationally against those who would in contrast defend the Epicurean picture of the world and the place of human

beings in it. These problems were to lead over the years to a number of important

changes, and indeed improvements, in the Socratic schema. We must look at these.

On the Socratic account, soul or noils is an animator. It animates via its vision of the Forms. Thus, for Socrates, animator and a vision of the good go together; they

are inseparable. Indeed, it is Socrates’ objection to Anaxagoras that the latter

separates nous from the vision of the good. But in fact the Socratic model of the Phaedo insists on the distinction between souls and the Forms 49 There are, on the one

hand, souls and, on the other hand, Forms; and it is clear that one can always ask why a soul is striving after form F, rather than, say F2. Why does Socrates’ noils strive

after human virtue, the Form of humanity, rather than, say, doggie virtue, the Form

of doggieness? In the model, the soul is simply a striving, a bare activity, and so this

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sort of question cannot receive an answer Now, understanding upon the Socratic model consists in finding connections,

connections that unify through entities. If, then, there is an irreducible separateness, then that lack of connection means that here is something that eludes all

understanding, the world at that point is simply irrational. Suppose that one attempts to eliminate the irrationality that is the separation of Socrates’ nous and the Form F

of humanity by invoking the model. Socrates striving after F accounts for why

Socrates is human. If the model is to account in the same way for Socrates striving after F, then there has to be a further form F1 the striving after which accounts for

Socrates having present in him the characteristic of striving after F We thus have not only Socrates the man, and the ideal Form of humanity, but also a Third Man. But the

third will need a fourth, the fourth a fifth, and so on: the vicious regress we noted

previously re-appears. Aristotle draws our attention of this difficulty (Metaphysics, 1079al3, 1039a2). Aristotle accepts that souls explain and what is categorially characteristic of souls is life or activity (De Anima, 413a21).50 Moreover, the striving of a soul is

directed, for Aristotle, the movement of the soul, as Socrates had already insisted, has a terminus ad quern (De Anima, 406a25). This striving after an end explains the

changes in the observable characteristics of things (De Anima, 412a 19). In Aristotle’s terminology, the soul is & substance (De Anima, 412a20; Categoriesf 1 b2); and the

sensible characteristics are present in it (Categories, 1 a24-7). Aristotle thus accepts the basic framework of the Phaedo in taking explanation of sensible characteristics

and their coming-to-be and passing-away to consist in locating them in an underlying unity that effects a real necessary connection among the apparently separable characteristics. In particular, Aristotle accepts the two Socratic ontological

categories of souls, on the one hand, or, in Aristotle’s terms, substances, which are the active elements that move or animate things, and, on the other hand, sensible

properties present in souls. What Aristotle rejects is the Socratic category of separate Forms. He

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emphasizes that so long as Forms are separate from souls, it is not possible for them to play the dynamic role of accounting for the direction of the soul’s striving

(Metaphysics, 991 b5, 992a26; 1079b 15) In effect Aristotle collapses the distinction between souls and Forms. For him, souls are no longer bare strivings, bur rather

strivings of a specific sort. Substances are not just activities but Natured activities;

the Nature of a substance is but the Socratic Form collapsed into it, and rendered

inseparable from it (De Anima, 412b 11). The Nature is not present in a substance, as

sensible characteristics are; it is, rather, predicated ofthe substance (Categories, 1 a20, 3>d6, Physicsf 192b33). Unlike sensible characteristics, substantial species or Natures

do not have contraries (Categories, 3b24, 4a 10). Although Socrates may cease to be

white (when he is sunburned) and remain Socrates, he cannot cease to be human and remain Socrates. Thus, substances or souls are inseparable from their Natures.

Explanation is then in terms of the Natured strivings that are substances. By virtue of its striving the substance comes to have sensible characteristics present in it.

Those characteristics express in the world of sense experience the Nature and the substance that lie outside that world (Physics, 193b8, bl4). In Spinoza’s useful

terminology, we thereby distinguish natura naturans, the active Nature, Nature begetting, and natura naturata. Nature begotten, the appearance in the world of sense

of the active Nature. The apparently separable characteristics observed by sense are explained by showing them actually to be connected into a unified whole by the

underlying activities of the substance. Understanding, for Aristotle as for Plato, consists in finding those substances the unifying activities of which constitute objective necessary connections among what are to sense totally distinct and separable

characteristics. Where Aristotle differs is his insistence that a unifying activity is

always of a specific sort of Nature But when he insists upon this, he is correcting a vitiating defect in the original Socratic explanation schema of the Phaedo.

When Plato separates souls and Forms, he not only opens the question as to why a soul, say Socrates, strives after a Form, in this case the Form of humanity, but also why Socrates ought to strive after that ideal. Once Aristotle puts the Forms into

124 the souls, this question, too, acquires an answer.

For Aristotle, the soul is an active idea or Form, that Form, or Nature, determines the end for which the soul strives (De Anima, 414a28). At the same time

it is also true for Aristotle that that for which we ought to strive, that which is worthy of pursuit for its own sake, that which is the chiefgood, is afinal end (Nichomachean

Ethics, 1097a27-34). In other words the end that human Nature determines is the end that persons ought to pursue. But why ought we to aim at what our Nature

determines us to aim at? The crucial point is that our Nature is inseparable from us (De Anima,

412b 11); we must, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, aim at the ends that our Nature determines. Suppose, now, that we proposed to ourselves an end that required us not to pursue one of our Natural ends. We could not, of course, successfully

pursue such an end; our Natural inclinations would always thwart us. For this reason,

there can be no question but that we ought to pursue our Natural ends. Aristotle notes

that “we deliberate about things that are in our power and can be done” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1112a30), and for this reason “we deliberate not about ends

but about means” (ibid., 1112b 13): our (final) ends are not within our power - those we pursue as a matter of metaphysical necessity, and therefore we do not deliberate

about them. To put it another way, to aim to frustrate our Nature, to say we ought not to aim at what we Naturally, or of necessity, aim at, is simply foolish: “...choice

cannot relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he would be thought

silly...” (ibid., llllb20-2). The argument is as clear as it is reasonable: since it would be silly not to make

a virtue ofnecessity, MUST implies OUGHT; but as a matter ofmetaphysical necessity, we must aim at our Natural ends; hence our Natural ends are those that are worthy ofpursuit. In this argument, the link between “is” and “ought” is effected by the converse

of the familiar principle that ought implies can, namely, the principle that must implies

ought As for accepting this principle, the reason is that it would be unreasonable to

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deny it: it is silly not to make a virtue of necessity; if one did not do that then one

would be committed to saying that it was either permissible or obligatory to do the

impossible, m either case implying that people might undertake a line ofaction that would inevitably lead to pain, at the very least the pain offrustration. With this must implies ought principle as a premise, Aristotle establishes that human Nature constitutes an ideal worthy of pursuit. By making the Form that which persons pursue

as a matter of metaphysical necessity, Aristotle effects a connection between humanity striving and an ideal humanity that establishes that the latter ought to be the goal of

the former.

Thus, within the Aristotelian framework, human Nature plays both an

explanatory role and a normative role; it not only explains why things are, but establishes what they ought to be. It is in this way that the Aristotelian patterns

provide the basic structure of natural law theories in ethics, theories that attempt to

ground norms about what we ought to do in some metaphysically basic human Nature.53 We should note that the Aristotelian model of explanation provides a way around the apparently paradoxical claim that to know the good and to do it are one

and the same thing. On the Aristotelian model, human Nature is one thing, to know

it is another. Human Nature constitutes a Natural tendency to do the good; this is an in-built direction to the becoming of human being. However, it is one thing to tend

instinctively towards the good and another thing to know that good and to strive consciously towards that end. One can therefore hold on the one hand that one can

do the good without knowing it. And provided that one allows for slip-ups between knowing an end and acting on that knowledge, eg., by failing for some reason to

choose appropriate means, then one can also hold on the other hand that one can know the good and yet not do it. Socrates held that we ought to obey the inscription

over the Delphic oracle to “know thyself.” He held that “through self-knowledge men come to much good, and through self-deception to much harm. For those who know themselves, know what things are expedient for themselves and discern their own

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powers and limitations.”54 It is a little hard to see how this should be so on the explanation scheme that Socrates lays out in the Phaedo. For, on that view, what one

needs to know is the Form of virtue, and this is separate from the soul. But "know

thyself" is precisely what the Aristotelian view requires: to best achieve the good one must come to know one’s own human Nature

Aristotle’s argument justifying the claim that human Nature constitutes a

moral standard, based on the principle that must implies ought, is a standard form of argument used by other philosophers to justify different claims as to the nature of the

good. It is, for example, used by Epicurus, who, we learn from Cicero, defended the claim that pleasure is the ultimate end by noting the instinctual nature of our striving

to attain pleasure and to avoid pain. We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is bom, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it.... Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, besides pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?55

Aiming to gain pleasure and to avoid pain is instinctual, and we cannot avoid judging

our actions in these terms. Since we cannot avoid aiming to gain pleasure and to avoid pain, since, in other words, we must so act, these are therefore the chief good and

chief evil respectively: since we must seek pleasure and avoid pain, these are the ends that we reasonably judge to be worthy, morally worthy, of pursuit and avoidance As

for Aristotle, so for Epicurus: must implies ought Epicurus’ argument is of a piece with Aristotle’s, save for a different basis for the claim of necessity. Where Aristotle

locates the necessity in metaphysical necessity, the ontologically necessary

inseparability of human Nature from the person, the Epicureans locate the necessity

in a simple matter-of-fact regularity about human beings: whatever the details of the

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causal process, the world and the human beings in it are just so organized that the

latter are invariably and unavoidably so structured that they invariably and

unavoidably seek to gain pleasure and avoid pain. For the Epicureans the issue is not whether to seek something other than pleasure, but only the means by which that is achieved. The knowledge of means

towards pleasure will, of course, sometimes lead us to avoid certain pleasures. For the very reason that pleasure is the chief and the natural good, we do not choose every pleasure, but there are times when we pass by pleasures if they are outweighed by the hardships that follow; and many pains we think better than pleasures when a greater pleasure will come to us once we have undergone the long-continued pains.56 Attaining the best and most enduring pleasure involves knowing not only the causes

of pleasure and pain, but also the sorts of desires the satisfaction of which yields

pleasure. You must consider that of the desires some are natural, some are vain, and of these that are natural, some are necessary, others only natural. Of the necessary desires, some are necessary for happiness, some for the ease of the body, some for life itself. The man who has a perfect knowledge of this will know how to make his every choice or rejection tend toward gaining health of body and peace of mind, since this is the find end of the blessed life (ib., p. 55).

This leads to the same conclusion to which Aristotle’s views led, namely, that what the philosopher requires is self-knowledge.

We must not resist Nature but obey her. We shall obey her if we satisfy the necessary desires and also those bodily desires that do not harm us while sternly rejecting those that are harmful 57 Except, where Aristotle requires us to transcend the world of sense experience to discover the Form or Nature that lies behind the sensible events and explains them.

Epicurus requires us to do no more that find out empirically, through experience, the sorts of beings that we are.

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- Ill -

We find the same must implies ought inference in the other great post-Aristotelian school of philosophy: Stoicism.58 The Stoic position is that moral virtue consists in wisdom, bravery, honour, and so on, while moral vice consists in the opposites, in a dissolute or frivolous life,

and so on (Cicero, De Finibus, p 257). These moral goods together constitute virtue,

which is the Chief Good. The argument, once again, is that these ends are native or innate to us. As Cicero puts it, ...who is there, or who ever was there, of avarice so consuming and appetites so unbridled, that, even though willing to commit any crime to achieve his end, and even though absolutely sure of impunity, yet would not a hundred times rather attain the same object by innocent than by guilty means? ... nothing is less open to doubt than that what is morally good is to be desired for its own sake, and similarly what is morally bad is to be avoided for its own sake (ib., p. 255-7). The Stoic teacher Epictetus makes evident the innateness of virtue on the Stoic scheme.

just as it is the nature of every soul to assent to the true, dissent from the false, and to withhold judgement in a matter of uncertainty, so it is its nature to be moved with desire towards the good, with aversion towards the bad, and feel neutral toward what is neither evil nor good... The instant the good appears it attracts the soul to itself, while the evil repels the soul from itself. A soul will never refuse a clear sense-impression of good, any more than a man will refuse the coinage of Caesar. On this concept of the good hangs every impulse to act both of man and God.59

We discover these facts about our human nature and discover therein the facts of

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moral virtue and vice. Once again, must implies ought

The Nature to which the Stoics appeal is of a piece with the human Nature to which Aristotelians appeal. There are, of course, differences between the two schools, and these were of significance in the ancient world; but for our purposes we may largely ignore them.60 What is important for us is the metaphysical differences

between Aristotle and the Stoics. For in fact, even after Aristotle removed the basic incoherencies in the Socratic pattern of explanation, it remained the case that there

were serious problems in the ontology. In particular, there remained the problem of interaction among substances. This problem, unresolved by Aristotle, was tackled by the Stoics.

First, the problem: It is clear that ordinary things do interact. Aristotle himself recognized this point. Thus in discussing the formation of political society, Aristotle

indicated how people do interact to form social groups.

When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, whom Homer denounces - the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts (Politics,61 154a2-18).

People by nature - by their metaphysical Nature - interact to form society. But a person is a substance, and substances are independent. The point is that since ordinary

things, people among them, are construed as substances, it follows that substances apparently interact. At least, there is a correlation between the pulling of the horse -

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explained by the striving of the horse - and the movement of the cart - resistance to

which is explained by the striving of the cart. Or there is a correlation between two people shaking hands or making love. But a mere correlation does not yield

understanding on the Aristotelian-Socratic account of explanation. Rather, understanding on the latter account requires the events in question to be located in an

underlying substance or soul that connects into an inseparable unity the apparently

separable events. Without such a substantial unity, the fact of interaction will remain inexplicable, without reason, and irrational. Some, such as Leibniz, were content to

let it go at that - Leibniz held that apparent interaction was indeed mere correlation, and that the closest that we could come to understanding those apparent ties was to

recognize that they follow from a “pre-established harmony” among substances. Aristotle is less forthcoming On the one hand, he clearly wants substances to interact

with one another, while, on the other hand, he holds that substances are separable

from each other. But he can’t have it both ways, or at least he can’t have and also have the correlated events explained, that is, explained on the Aristotelian-Socratic

account of explanation.

It was the Stoics who saw clearly that these two Aristotelian claims are incompatible with each other, given the Aristotelian-Socratic account of explanation in terms of the striving of a substance. These philosophers held that ordinary things

- bodies, in their terminology - do interact, and that one cannot, therefore, treat them

as separable substances. On their view the world consists of bodies, which have active

dispositions to interact with each other When they interact, a genuine unity exists between the bodies. The Aristotelian-Socratic model of explanation requires that any genuine unity consists of the two bodies being but aspects of an underlying substance that, through its activity, effects a real connection between the two events. The Stoic philosophers accepted this model, and correctly concluded that ordinary bodies are

only relatively substantial, and really only aspects of an underlying substance. In fact,

since each body is interacting with some other body, and this chain extends throughout the universe - there is a sympathy and tension that binds together all

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objects throughout the universe62: The world , .forms one united whole. This is a necessary result of the sympathy and tension which binds together things in heaven and earth (DL, p. 245).63 The real unity extends to embrace the universe: the universe itself is the ultimate, and

only complete, unity; it is a Whole that embraces all apparently separable substances

within it There is, on the one hand, “the cosmos...as the individual being qualifying the whole of substance, or. . . a system made up of heaven and earth and the natures in them.” This is natura naturata. On the other hand, there is the soul of this world: “the

whole world is a living being, endowed with soul and reason...”. It is the activity of this soul or reason that structures the world as we know it “The world , is ordered

by reason and providence

This is natura naturans, otherwise known as God:

“God is one and the same with Reason, Fate, and Zeus” (DL, pp 241-3). This unity

itself is active - “the active is the reason inherent in this substance, that is God” (DL,

p. 239) -, but this activity, as Aristotle insisted that such activity must be, is Natured, that is, has a certain inbuilt direction that provides a teleological order to the events that it creates: “God himself, the individual being whose quality is derived from the

whole of substance , is indestructible and ingenerable, being the artificer of this orderly arrangement ..” (DL, p. 241), or, as it is also put, “the world is a living being,

rational, animate and intelligent...” (DL, p. 247). In short, the universe itself is the ultimate, most basic substance, and whatever happens is to be understood in terms of its creative activity. As for ethics, as we have seen, “virtue is the goal towards which nature guides us” (DL, p. 195); hence, “the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature,”

where we recognize that this means “in accordance with our own human nature as

well as that of the universe” (ib.). Human Nature is not the Nature of an independent substance, as in Aristotle, but the Nature of an entity that is part of a larger entity

which is the only true substance, and where human Nature is but part 'of a larger Natural order. As in Aristotle, the Nature of a substance both explains and is

normative. For the Stoics, the relevant Nature is that of the single universal substance;

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it is this that defines the norms by which we must live: the virtuous life is one in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason which pervades all things, and is identical with this Zeus,

lord and ruler of all that is” (DL, pp. 195-7). And the “right reason” that is our human Nature includes people in relation to each other - “by the rational is directly implied

the social as well,” as Marcus put it.64 Thus, our innate Natural impulses include Natural tendencies to conform to the various standards that are essential to human being. Where Epicurus and Lucretius made social norms a matter of convention, the

Stoics made them a matter of innate human Nature. If virtue is rooted, for the Stoics, in our innate human Nature, it is also shaped

by reason: “reason supervenes to shape impulse scientifically” (DL, p. 195). The end is “to act with good reason in the selection of what is natural” (DL, p. 197). The

human reason by which we understand things and through which we shape our innate impulses consists in grasping the reasons of things. These reasons are the Natures of things. This means, in the first instance, grasping one’s own human Nature; it also

means, in the end, the grasping of the universal Nature, “the right reason which

pervades all things”; and it means grasping one’s own Nature as a part of that

universal Nature. “Not to stray from Nature and to mould ourselves according to her law and pattern - this is true wisdom,” Seneca tells us.65 Knowledge of this Nature provides a solid and unshakeable basis for virtue: it is “something that is good in more than appearance - something that is solid, constant, and more beautiful in its more

hidden part. ” (jb., p. 105). Striving to make actual this Nature, that is, conforming

to, or imitating it, is or constitutes the good and happy life: “the happy life...is a life that is in harmony with its own nature...” (ib. p. 107).

From this follows the justification of the Stoic attitude towards death. When death occurs, there is nothing to fear, nothing to regret.

In the first place, there is nothing to regret. Any external thing, if lost, is no great loss, and therefore, contrary to sorts of things that Nagel has said, and, indeed,

contrary to what we saw in Chapter One that Seneca himself at times suggested, no

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such thing is to be regretted. Or, rather, the fear of loss is itself painful, and will

therefore render any good less valuable, unless the person acts, so trains him- or herself, that he or she no longer fears the loss. The philosopher must train him- or herself to recognize that the loss of any apparently good thing constitutes no threat to one’s well-being, to one’s capacity to lead a virtuous, and therefore, happy life.

One can reconcile oneself to the possibility that any apparently good thing might be lost; one ought therefore to do this, if one is wise, for otherwise the fear of loss will

be painful and spoil the apparent good that the thing gives one when one does have

it. Nor, when an apparently good thing is lost, will one be happy if one regrets its loss. For, regret is also painful. One will therefore, if one is wise, discipline oneself so as to enjoy an apparent good while one has it but not to regret its loss when it is gone.

One ought therefore, with respect to any apparently good thing, neither fear its loss

in the future nor regret having lost it.

No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed. Therefore, encourage and toughen your spirit against the mishaps that afflict even the most powerful66 In the second place, virtue, the good life, does not depend in any way upon

such external goods, goods that might be lost It consists rather in living in conformity to Nature, and this can neither be acquired nor lost

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own .. Praise the quality in him which cannot be given or snatched away, that which is the peculiar property of the man. Do you ask what this is? It is soul, and reason brought to perfection in the soul. For man is a reasoning animal. Therefore, man’s highest good is attained, if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth. And what is it which this reason demands of him? The easiest thing in the world, - to live in accordance with his own nature (Seneca, “On the God within Us,” Epistle XLI, ib., pp. 277-9). The virtuous person is one who has grasped his or her own Nature and that

of the universe of which he or she is a part and aims to conform to that standard. But

this Nature that is the standard, and which the wise person has grasped, is itself

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outside the temporal order: it is the permanent, the immortal, the divine. 1 hus, in

living the good life, the wise person or philosopher is in touch with divinity, he or she

has returned to the divine Nature of things which is the ultimate source of his or her being.

When a soul rises superior to other souls, when it is under control, when it passes through every experience as if it were of small account, when it smiles at our fears and at our prayers, it is stirred by a force from heaven. A thing like this cannot stand upright unless it be propped by the divine. Therefore, a greater part of it abides in that place from whence it came down to earth. Just as the rays of the sun do indeed touch the earth, but still abide at the source from which they are sent; even so the great and hallowed soul, which has come down in order that we may have a nearer knowledge of divinity, does indeed associate with us, but still cleaves to its origin, on that source it depends, thither it turns its gaze and strives to go, and it concerns itself with our doing only as a being superior to ourselves (ib., p 275). Hence the conclusion that the appropriate attitude towards death is always acceptance without regret.

The argument that this is the correct or appropriate attitude towards death presupposes, as we saw in Chapter One, that virtue has a timeless quality, that there is something eternal in the practice of virtue that makes its value indifferent to its own prolongation or, indeed, its outcome for others. If that which gives life its value is an

orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then it is clear death is never to be

regretted, even when it prevents one from doing, or continuing to do, good. If the sole source of value which a life has is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then death is to be accepted as a mere fact, and so are its consequences. These

are facts indifferent to that which alone can give value to one’s life, namely, the

practice of virtue. As the Stoics put it, one should be cipathos towards such facts, apathetic or indifferent. Equally, one should never be welcoming towards death The suggestion of the first argument was that death is to be welcomed because it relieves one of pain But the second argument shows that these pains and their relief, too, are

mere facts, to be accepted, but of themselves irrelevant to that which alone gives value to life, namely, once again, the practice of virtue. One should be equally

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accepting, equally apathetic, towards all things other than virtue, towards one’s own pleasure and one’s own pains and towards the pleasures and pains of others. We thus see how the argument that the characteristic Stoic attitude towards death is

reasonable or appropriate follows directly from the ontology that they defended. This ontology is similar to the Platonic ontology that Socrates outlines in the

Phaedo. In both there is an orientation to the Forms or Natures, the entities that are outside the world of experience and which provide the eternal and unchanging

standards of (human) virtue. But in the Stoics, these Forms or Natures, human Nature in particular, are themselves argued to be parts of a deeper or more encompassing

Nature, the Nature of the universe itself, the divine Form that moves everything and finds its expression in everything. Thus, for Plato the soul grasps the Forms which are

in isolation from each other. But for the Stoics, when the soul grasps the Nature to which it ought to conform, what in the end it is grasping is the one eternal soul of the

universe itself, the god of the universe which is also the god within us.

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- IV -

When Aristotle finished correcting Plato’s, or Socrates’, explanation scheme in terms of an active striving and Forms, by ending the separation of the latter from the former,

gaps still remained: so long as the resulting substances were separable, then there remained aspects of the universe that were inexplicable and irrational. These could be

eliminated only by making all ordinary objects into aspects of a single underlying substance. This monistic solution was developed by the Stoics. The doctrine had an immense influence in the ancient world, and, in its moral teachings at least, also in the early modern period But as a monism, it was less influential than one of its

successors. This was neo-Platonism, first formulated by Plotinus, and explained in his

Enneads.^ Neo-Platonism has many similarities to Stoicism. Plotinus accepts the position

of Socrates in the Phaedo, adopted by the Stoics, that to explain is to unify. Plotinus

accepted the Socratic argument of the Phaedo that our capacity to recognize virtue among the imperfect exemplifications of it of which we are aware in the world of

sense experience presupposes a standard or Form of virtue that is outside the world

of sense experience: Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good - for reasoning is an inquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that - there must exist some permanent Right, the source and foundation of this reasoning in our soul, how, else, could any such discussion be held? (V, 1, 11, pp. 378-9).

But unlike Plato, Plotinus insists that the Forms are themselves active: he refers to

them as “Intellectual moving principles” (V, 1, 9, p. 378), and indicates that these

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“Divine Beings are unceasingly about their act” (V, 1, 12, p. 379). Plotinus,

moreover, accepts the Stoic position that the universe is rational through and through

For Plotinus, there is no ultimate separability in the universe and it is therefore everywhere rational, everywhere unified: “the leading principle of the universe is unity

- and one that is sovran without break...” (IV, 4, 10, p. 295). Thus, Plotinus attacks the view of Forms present in the Phaedo that each of these is an entity that is

separable from all others: “if we are told that they [the Forms] are self-standing entities - the distinct beings Justice and Good - then . .the Intellectual Realm will not

be a unity nor be included in any unity: all is sundered individuality” (V, 5, 1, p. 404). He also attacks, assuming as a premise the Socratic thesis that to explain is to unify,

the Aristotelian doctrine that the active substances are separable form each other: “there must be one cause, and this must operate as an entire, not by part executing

part; otherwise we are brought back to a plurality of makers” (VI, 5, 9, p 537). Thus,

both Stoicism and neo-Platonism were monisms designed to eliminate the problems that remained even after Aristotle had made his brilliant corrections to Plato But

there was a serious flaw in the Stoic metaphysics, and this was in turn corrected by

Plotinus.

This flaw consisted in the fact that the Stoics were consistently materialist. To be sure, they held, as did both Plato and Aristotle, that the structured world of characteristics given in sense experience is a consequence of something other than

that world, namely, an active soul. Thus, we are told by Diogenes Laertius that “They [the Stoics] hold that there are two principles in the universe, the active principle and

the passive. The passive principle, then, is a substance without quality, i.e. matter,

whereas the active is the reason inherent in this substance, that is God” (DL, p. 239).

This active principle is corporeal. As Seneca put it, “...the good is active: for it is beneficial, and what is active is corporeal. The good stimulates the mind and, in a

way, moulds and embraces that which is essential to the body; the goods of the body are bodily; so therefore must be the goods of the soul. For the soul, too, is corporeal.”68 More generally, God, the active power that moves the world, is also

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material: for the Stoics, “the ruling power of the world..is the purer part of the

aether, the same which they declare to be pre-eminently God and always to have, as

it were in sensible fashion, pervaded all that is in the air, all animals and plants, and also the earth itself, as a principle of cohesion” (DL, pp. 243-5). The problem is, of

course, that once the soul and God are made material then the problems of certainty that confronted Plato once again can be raised. For Plato, the world of sense

experience is uncertain because it has parts and is constantly changing, with no unity

apparent in it. To provide for unity and the certainty of immutability, souls and Forms were introduced But these could provide the unity and the certainty only by being beyond sense experience and outside the world of change. Aristotle saw this point as

well as Plato. Though he collapsed the Forms into the souls to make the structure of the world of sense experience derive from the Natured activity of substances, he nonetheless continued to hold that the substance as such, the Natured activity, was

outside the world given in sense experience and was accessible only to rational intuition consequent upon acts of abstraction But when the Stoics made the Natured soul material they recreated the problem that the Socratic model of explanation was designed to solve. This was the fundamental objection of Plotinus to Stoicism.

Plotinus accepts, as we saw, the basic Aristotelian criticism of Plato’s

separation of the Forms and the Stoic criticism of Aristotle’s separation of substances: the world is a unity, there is no ultimate inseparability, no uneliminable irrationality.

But he then takes this principle and uses it to attack the Stoic metaphysics.

Fundamentally, his point is that, in accepting materialism, the Stoics accept an ontology which is inconsistent with the Socratic model of explanation by unification, a model that they also adopt and defend against the Epricureans. What Plotinus does

is accept that model, together with the Stoic assumption that the universe is everywhere rational and the consequent monism, and reject the materialism. The

resulting metaphysics that he develops is in the end considerably different from that of the Stoics. 1 he Stoics identified substance, including the Nature that moves substances,

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with body: the universe is material through and through. If that is so, however, then

it has separable parts. In that case, Plotinus argues, unification and therefore rationality has not been achieved As Plotinus puts it in the Enneads, . . .of what nature is this sovran principle [the Soul of man]? If material, then definitely it must fall apart ; for every material entity, at least, is something put together (IV, 7, 2, p. 342).

Body can yield no genuine unity, since unity must derive from that which is both without parts and active. And so, Plotinus argued (IV, 7, 2-3) against the Stoics, as

well as against the Epicureans, the body could not out of its complexity produce the unity of the soul:

Anyone who. . . holds that either atoms or some entities void of parts come together to produce soul, is refuted by the very unity of soul and by the prevailing sympathy as much as by the very coherence of the constituents. Bodily materials, in nature repugnant to unification and to sensation, could never produce unity or self-sensitiveness, and soul is self-sensitive.... Perhaps we will be asked to consider body as a simple entity... [and] that the Matter is brought to order under Forming-Idea. But if by this Forming-Idea they mean an essential, a real being, then it is not the conjoint of body and Idea that constitutes soul: it must be one of the two items and that one, being (by hypothesis) outside of Matter, cannot be body: to make it body would simply force us to repeat our former analysis. If on the contrary they do not mean by this Forming-Idea a real being, but some condition or modification of the Matter, they must tell us how and whence this modification, with resultant life, can have found the way into Matter: for very certainly Matter does not mould itself to pattern or bring itself to life (IV, 7, 3, p. 343). In a similar way Plotinus argued (IV, 7, 6) against the Epicurean account of the soul, that if the latter was correct, and the soul was not a simple entity, then different sense

impressions would belong to different consciousnesses, and, as the last is absurd, consciousness must be an immaterial unity.

It is easy to show that if the Soul were a corporeal entity, there could be no sense-perception, no mental act, no knowledge, no moral excellence, nothing of all that is noble. There can be no perception without a unitary percipient whose identity enables it to grasp an object as an entirety.

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... Either the object is unified or - supposing it to have quantity and extension - the centre of consciousness must coincide with it point by point of their co-expansion so that any given point in the faculty will perceive solely what coincides with it in the object: and thus nothing in us could perceive any thing as a whole. This cannot be: the faculty entire must be a unity; no such dividing is possible. .. If the sentient be a material entity. . ., sensation could only be of the order of seal-impressions struck by a ring on wax... (IV, 7, 6, pp. 346-7). Like Plato, Plotinus infers (IV, 7, 12) from this simplicity that the soul is immortal: the soul can “not change and so come to destruction” since “the change that destroys annuls the form but leaves the underlying substance: that could not happen to anything except a compound” (p. 356).

These souls are the substantial unities the activities of which explain the bodily

activities of which we are aware by means of our senses. But the substances which these souls animate apparently interact. The souls must have these appearances built

into their natures. Where a so acts that it apparently affects b by evoking some

reaction on b’s part, it must be built into a’s Nature that it so act, and into b’s Nature

that it so react: b’s reaction is not caused by a’s action, but rather is accounted for by

it being part of b’s Nature so to react just when a, in accordance with its Nature, so acts. But since a and b are separable substances, b and its reaction could continue to exist even if a were to disappear; there are no reasons in their separate Natures which would prevent this. If, to the contrary, there are to be reasons why these appearances

occur as they do, then the apparently separate substances must be the products of an underlying substantial unity, just as those substances provide a unity underlying the

apparent diversity of body. The substantial Natures of a and b must themselves be the products of an underlying unifying Nature, that is, a form that constitutes the

necessary connections among the souls, and enables us to understand the separate

substances as parts of a (more) substantial unity. And so, for Plotinus, the world exhibits a hierarchy of unities. At the bottom.

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there is the diversity of body, or, rather, of all the various bodies that, in their diversity

constitute the universe that we know by sense experience. Behind this diversity of body are the individual souls of, say, individual men and women. These individual souls are the intrinsic active Forms of individual persons. These souls produce

through their activities the actions of the individual persons whom they animate These activities are directed activities; they produce outwardly the Form that is within them. But this Nature within them is also a Nature that is outside them

...the Soul has the distinction of possessing at once an action of conscious attention within itself, and an action towards the outer It has thus the function of giving life to all that does not live by prior right, and the life it gives is commensurate with its own; that is to say, living in reason it communicates reason to the body - an image of the reason within itself, just as the life given to the body is an image of Real-Being - and it bestows, also, upon that material the appropriate shapes of which it contains the Reason-Forms (IV, 3, 10, pp. 269-70). It should be noted that each soul has its own individual Idea or Form. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal archetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other human being go back to the Intellectual, every (living) thing having origin and principle There. If Socrates, Socrates’ soul, is eternal, then the Authentic Socrates - to adopt the term - must be There; that is to say, the individual soul has an existence in the Supreme as well as in this world. If there is no such permanent endurance - and what was Socrates may with change of time become another soul and be Pythagoras or someone else - then individual Socrates has not that existence in the Divine (V, 7, 1, p 419). Just as the corporeal is created by the soul imitating the Form within the soul, so the

soul itself imitates its own Form or Nature, the Form or Nature that is its source.

...what is this that gives grace to the corporeal? Two causes in their degree: the participation in beauty and the power of Soul, the maker, which has imprinted that form (V, 9, 2, p. 435). The soul imitates its Form by virtue of having within it a Form or Nature which directs its activities in conformity with that Principle. At the same time, as it creates

the body to conform to the Form or Nature that constitutes the direction of its

142 activities, so also the soul itself is created by the causal activity of the individual Form

or Nature of the soul. The Idea, impartible, gives nothing of itself to the Matter; its unbreaking unity, however, does not prevent it shaping that multiple by its own unity and being present to the entirety of the multiple, bringing it to pattern not by acting part upon part but by presence entire to the object entire (VI, 5, 8, p. 537).

In contrast to Plato, Plotinus does not hold that the Forms or Ideas are

separate or separable entities. The entities to the contrary themselves constitute jointly a single unified entity, the whole that is the “Intellectual Principle” of the universe. No

individual Form or Nature is isolated; it is part of this single Intellectual Principle,

Mind or Intelligence. The Intellectual-Principle entire is the total of the Ideas, and each of them is the (entire) Intellectual-Principle in a special form (V, 9, 8, p. 439).

This Intellectual Principle is a unity of differences, a “manifold” (V, 1, 4, p. 373).

There must be Difference...among the objects...compared one with another; and Identity in the self-identity of each, and, again, in the common ground of their diversity - the diversity which constitutes Difference (ib). Or, as Plotinus puts it elsewhere, the Intellectual-Principle is all Being in one total - and yet not in one, since each of these beings is a distinct power which, however, the total Intellectual-Principle includes as the species in a genus, as the parts in a whole (V, 9, 6, p. 438). The Forms jointly within the Intellectual Principle form an inter-related whole: “Being

thus at once Collective Identity and Collective Difference, Intellectual-Principle must reach over all different things; its very nature then is to modify itself into a universe”

(VI, 7, 13, p. 571),

Note that the Forms that jointly constitute the Intellectual Principle are “powers.” Thus, for Plotinus, agreeing with Aristotle and disagreeing with Plato, the

Forms or Ideas or Natures are active, indeed, the Intellectual Principle itself is a living thing, creating within itself both the multiplicity of Forms and their inter-relatedness.

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On the one hand, “because this Principle [the Intellectual-Principle] contains Identity with Difference its division is ceaselessly bringing the different things to light” (VI, 7, 13, p. 572). On the other hand, we are also told, “the content of that living thing [the Intellectual Principle] must surely be alive”; in the collective Intellect “all must

be teeming, seething, with life” (VI, 7, 12, p. 570). This life is the life of a creative unity of interacting Forms that jointly produce the individual souls.

This universe is a living thing capable of including every form of life; but its Being and its modes are derived from elsewhere; that source is traced back to the Intellectual-Principle: it follows that the allembracing archetype is in the Intellectual Principle, which, therefore, must be an intellectual Cosmos...(V, 9, 9, p. 440). The Intellectual Principle is thus both a diversity of parts in an inseparable unity and also the productive power by which the Forms of ordinary things are created in

apparent separation both from Intelligence itself and from one another. The Intellectual-Principle is in one phase the Form of the Soul, its shape; in another phase it is the giver of the shape - the sculptor, possessing inherently what is given - imparting to Soul nearly the authentic reality while what body receives is but image and imitation (V, 9, 3, p 436). The Intellectual Principle, while a unity, is not the ultimate unity. For the

Intellectual Principle is a unity of diversities, and a unity, to be ultimate, must be

beyond all diversity: it must be pure identity, one. The argument here is simply a

consistent application of the model of explanation developed by Socrates in the

Phaedo. to understand rationally is to unify. Assuming that the Intellectual Principle can itself be understood - assuming, that is, that the Intellectual Principle itself does not contain any irrationality, i.e., separation - then we must understand it by locating

an entity outside it the activity of which serves to unify it - just as we understand the world of sense experience by discovering the reasons for it in the active entities

outside it that serve to unify it and give it form.

That which engenders the world of sense cannot itself be a sense­ world, it must be the Intellect and the Intellectual world; similarly, the prior which engenders the Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual world cannot be either, but must be something of less multiplicity. The

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manifold does not rise from the manifold: the intellectual multiplicity has its source in what is not manifold; by the mere fact of being manifold, the thing is not the first principle: we must look to something earlier. All must be grouped under a unity which, as standing outside of all multiplicity and outside of any ordinary simplicity, is the veritably and essentially simplex (V, 3, 16, p. 398). The world of sense experience is explained by souls; these in turn are explained by the

Intellectual Principle; this in turn is explained by the ultimate unity which, through its

causal power, creates the lower levels, beginning with the Intellectual Principle, in all their increasing diversity. From the First entity “follows immediately the Principle which is at once Being and the Intellectual Principle. Third comes the Principle, Soul”

(V, 1, 10, p 378) The First entity, while creative of diversity, contains within itself no diversity; it, in itself, is simply identical with itself This ultimate creative unifying principle is the absolute One: and so, Plotinus tells us, “there exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One...” (ib).

Plotinus accepts the Stoic assumption that the universe is a unified whole: In our universe, a coherent total of multiplicity, the several items are linked each to the other, and by the fact that it is an all every cause is included in it: even in the particular thing the part is discernibly related to the whole, for the parts do not come into being separately and successively but are mutually cause and caused at one and the same moment (VI, 7, 2, p. 561).

It is “an all not chance-ruled” (ib). So too the Intellectual Principle is “no result of chance” (ib). Plotinus clearly accepts and deploys in a systematic way the model of

explanation that Socrates lays out in the Phaedo, that to understand is to unify, or, more specifically, to find a unifying entity that lies outside the apparently separable

entities. Plotinus thus assumes that the universe is throughout rational, and that the

rationality is to be discovered in the activities of a unifying entity. It follows immediately that the ONE exists.

But how does one justify the assumption that the universe can be understood fully in terms of the One? The answer to this must be: EXPERIENCE, that is, individual

experience. One must discover for oneself, somehow grasp, the unifying entities

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which the model of explanation requires. Plotinus suggests that such experience can be attained, that we can grasp the One which explains all. Not surprisingly, this connects to the attitude towards death that Plotinus aims, like Socrates, to justify. Already in the Meno and the Phaedo, Plato had made thr ee crucial points

about knowledge. This first is this: knowledge, unlike opinion, is “tethered,” tied down, it is incorrigible and unshakeably certain. This incorrigible knowledge is

provided by the Forms; when we grasp the Forms we grasp things that are unities, and therefore unchanging. Plotinus agrees that knowledge is tied down and stable, “stability is the goal of intellection,” he tells us, and “the Form-Idea has Stability

(VI, 2, 8, p. 478). The Form has stability because it is a unity, inseparable from itself, and therefore unchanging: where we have stable knowledge of an entity, that entity

must be “always self-gathered, never in separation, not partly here and partly there, not giving forth from itself...” (VI, 5, 3, p. 534). The second point about knowledge is that it is the soul that has it. Knowledge

is of the Forms - they alone are stable, and sufficient to tether knowledge - and it is

the soul that knows the Forms. These Divine Forms, the Divine without us, are known by the soul, the Divine within us. Thus, as Aristotle put it, “like, they say, is known by like” (De Anima, 405b 15). Plotinus accepts this point. When an object is known, there is a distinction to be drawn between the knowing soul and that object,

but at the same time the soul grasps the object fully by becoming, not just like, but

identical to it.

...difference there must be if there is to be any intellection; but similarly there must also be identity (since, in perfect knowing, subject and object are identical) (Enneads, V, 1,4, p 372). This of course solves a problem that confronts Plato, if the soul is indeed separate

from the Form it knows, why should that knowledge be stable? Why should the separability of the soul not make it possible for the soul to separate itself from the

Form and thus render its relation to the Form - the knowing relation - unstable, subject to change? The answer is that Plato has no answer. In order to eliminate this

source of instability it is necessary to end the separability of the soul and the Form.

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This Plotinus does by making the knowing situation one in which the knower and the known identical.

This doctrine applies in particular to the knowledge which the One has of itself Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, argued (1074b) that divine thought is thought thinking on thought, and (1075a) that since thought is not material it must be simple. The act of thinking is identified with its object, and together they form a simple unity. But when the soul as intellect becomes identical with the Form as known, there still

remains a distinction between subject and object. The intellective power,...when occupied with the intellectual act, must be in a state of duality...: the intellectual act will always comport diversity as well as the necessary identity...(Enneads, V, 3, 10, p 392). There is identity of thinker and thought, but nonetheless the thought and the being

thought are distinguishable in apprehension. However, since there is a duality here,

a diversity or difference, it follows that we are not at the level of the One: the act of knowing intellectually, “'being thus dual, could not be primal

(V, 6, 2, p. 416).

Beyond this is the absolute unity of these two, subject and object, in which the One

grasps itself as itself, wholly identical with itself. The One, as transcending Intellect, transcends knowing. ..(V, 3, 12, p. 395).

Except, of course, the One, through its causal power, creates the lower levels,

beginning with the Intellectual Principle, and descending, in all their increasing diversity to the level of the material.

The third point that Plato makes about knowledge - stable, incorrigible,

absolutely certain knowledge - is that this knowledge is to be sought by turning away from the world of sense experience to Ideas, the Forms of things, that are innate in us.

Knowledge is to be attained by turning inward, and locating it within ourselves: the slave boy attains truth only when he is forced to attend to the Forms which are prior to sense experience. All knowledge becomes the object of the dictum carved over the

portal to the temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Know thyself.”

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Plotinus agrees with this point. Knowledge is, primarily, of Forms, and is innate:

Knowledge in the reasoning soul is on the one side concerned with objects of sense, though indeed this can scarcely be call knowledge and is better indicated as opinion or surface-knowing; it is of later origin than the objects since it is a reflection from them: but on the other hand there is the knowledge handling the intellectual objects and this is the authentic knowledge; it enters the reasoning soul from the Intellectual-Principle and has no dealing with anything in sense (V, 9, 7, p. 438). We obtain this knowledge by turning within ourselves, away from the world of sense experience and all its multiplicity, towards unity.

When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is the one head. If a man could but be turned about - by his own motion or by the happy pull of Athene - he would see at once God and himself and the All. At first no doubt all will be seen as one whole, but when we find no stop at which to declare a limit to our being we cease to rule ourselves out from the total of reality; we reach to the All as a unity - and this not by stepping forward, but by the fact of being and abiding there where the All has its being (VI, 5, 7, p. 536). Each of us is a whole, a unity. This unity accounts for the unity of our experience. But

looking outward, to the world we perceive in sense experience, we forget our unity.

When we turn back into ourselves - seize ourselves in the Cartesian cogito - either of our own accord or as seized upon as the goddess seized the hair of Achilles, we

behold ourselves as the unifying principle of our experience. Yet, while each of us is a whole, a unity for him- or herself, we are not pure Cartesian egos, isolated in our

individuality from all others. In fact, each of us is, in Iris or her own nature, inseparable from all others: as we attempt to grasp the unity of our own selves, we pass beyond them to the recognition that each and all of us are together in the deeper

unity, the Intellectual Principle, that is the reason for us all. Not only does the Intellectual Principle, the soul of the whole, have all things in itself, but so, ultimately,

does the soul, the mind, of each.

To Real Being we go back, at that we have and are; to that we return,

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and to its first offshoot (Soul). Of what is There we have direct knowledge, not images or even impressions; and to know without image is to be; by our part in true knowledge we are those Beings; we do not need to bring them down into ourselves, for we are There among them. Since not only ourselves but all other things also are those Beings, we all are they; we are they while we are also one with all: therefore we and all things are one (VI, 5, 7, p. 536).

Mind knows its objects not, as in sense perception, as separate entities and as a “mere handling of the external” (V, 5, 1. p. 403), but as internal to itself, and therefore as inseparable. And within its own indivisible unity, it discovers the Intelligible archetype of the whole sensible world - what is, what was, and what is yet to be. All knowledge thus becomes self-knowledge. But if the self is ultimately to be understood as the expression of the One, then that unifying principle must be found within the self.

When the mind grasps the Intelligible archetype of the sensible world, then, provided that the mind explores the connections of Forms that it finds within itself, it will at its

very centre discover and grasp the supreme unity. And at that point, where the

distinction between known and unknown disappears, the mind discovers at its very centre the knowledge of the supreme unity; that is, as the self is absorbed in the One,

it discovers a knowledge that goes beyond the self-knowledge to which the mind, in

its quest for understanding, is led, like the slave-boy of the Meno, to explore in

greater and greater depth. In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later in the very idea, the self put out of mind in the contemplation of the Supreme. . .(VI, 9, 7, p 621). In grasping the One, the self loses itself in the One.

...you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part, you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying ail such determination aside, you become an All (VI, 5, 12, p. 541),

This knowledge is beyond self-knowledge, for it is beyond knowledge: “the One, as transcending Intellect, transcends knowing.. .” (V, 3,12, p. 395). One knows the One in a knowing in which the distinction between subject and object disappears

in a deeper unity, the full identity of knower and known.

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We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it, but so as to be able to speak about it. And we can and do state what it is not, while we are silent as to what it is: we are, in fact, speaking of it in the light of its sequels; unable to state it, we may still possess it (V, 3,14, p. 396).

This knowledge, or rather “grasp,” is certain, absolutely certain, that is, as Plato said, “tethered” or tied down, or, as Plotinus said, stable. Error, according to Plotinus,

agreeing with Plato, comes from the distraction and multiplicity of the senses. And so the further the soul retreats from sense experience into itself and towards the One that is within it, the further the soul retreats from the possibility of error. When the soul

achieves unity with the One it grasps the ultimate reason for all things; in becoming identical with the One the soul grasps that reason in its fullness and entirety; the One is fully present to the soul which has become one with it; and that ultimate reason is

grasped with a clarity and distinctness and an absolute certainty from which all

possibility of error is excluded.

This knowledge, or “grasp,” cannot be expressed or stated. We affirm or state propositions, and propositions involve a distinction between subject and predicate.

But in the One there are no distinctions, and when we grasp the One we grasp it as a unity devoid of difference or distinction, simply identical with itself.

...The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but ‘all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind’ - this is the only true description, since it does not make it a thing among things, nor name it where no name could identify it: but we try to indicate, in our own feeble way, something concerning it (V, 3, 13, p. 395). The is that can be applied to the One is not the is of predication, an is, that is, that predicates being of some sort or other of the subject; rather, the only is that can be

applied to the One is the is of identity.

...this ‘He is’ does not truly apply: the Supreme has no need of Being: even ‘He is good’ does not apply since it indicates Being: the ‘is’ should not suggest something predicated of another thing; it is to state identity. The word ‘good’ used of him is not a predicate asserting his possession of goodness; it conveys an identification. It is not that we

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think it exact to call him either good or The Good: it is that sheer negation does not indicate; we use the term The Good to assert identity without the affirmation of Being (VI, 7, 38, p 591).

Language and thought, that is, discursive thought, is incapable of expressing the

knowledge that we have of the One when we achieve the mystical union with it. But that knowledge is also the grasp of the ultimate reason for things, the entity that

accounts for the unity of all. Thus, in the end our understanding of the universe is an understanding that cannot be put into words. We experience the One, grasp it, but

that experience is inexpressible. This, then, is the sort of experience the attainment of which can justify the

assumption made by the neo-Platonic metaphysics that the universe can be understood fully in terms of unifying entities, and, in particular, in terms of the One. The

justification of the assumption must, as we suggested above, lie in EXPERIENCE, that is, individual experience. One must discover for oneself, somehow grasp, the unifying

entities which the account of explanation requires. Plotinus, we now see, argues that

such experience can be attained, that we can grasp the One which explains all. If we turn within ourselves, away from the body, we will achieve it. . . .you will always be able to move with it - better, to be in its entirety - and so seek no further, denying it, you have strayed away to something of another order and you fall; looking elsewhere you do not see what stands there before you (VI, 5, 12, p. 541). We achieve the One, the unity with the One in which one becomes identical with the

One, the All, for it is there, within us. By the lessening of the alien in you, you increase. Cast it aside and there is the All within you; engaged in the alien, you will not find the All. Not that it has to come and so be present to you; it is you that have turned from it. And turn though you may, you have not severed yourself; it is there; you are not in some far region: still there before it, you have faced to its contrary (ib). And when we do attain the One, we recognize that we have arrived at the stable

resting place of the intellect that aims to discover the unifying entities that constitute the reasons for things.

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But supposing you do thus ‘seek no further’, how will you ever be convinced of attainment? In that you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part; you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying all such determination aside, you become an All (ib). This is the monistic interpretation of the human desire to know and to

understand. Plotinus quite consciously connects this ascent to the One with the ascent described by Diotima to Socrates in Plato’s Symposium.69 “But what must we do9”

Plotinus asks. How lies the path9 How come to vision of the inaccessible Beauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts, apart from the common ways where all may see, even the profane? He then enjoins: He that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away for ever from the material beauty that once made his joy (I, 6, 8, pp. 62-3).

It is the eye of the mind that will enable us to see “the mighty Beauty”; but it can do

so only if the mind has been purified: “never can the Soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful .”

Therefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful who cares to see god and Beauty. So, mounting, the Soul will come first to the Intellectual-Principle and survey all the beautiful Ideas in the Supreme and will avow that this is Beauty, that the Ideas are Beauty. .. What is beyond the Intellectual Principle we affirm to be the nature of Good radiating beauty before it. .. The Good, which lies beyond, is the Fountain at once and Principle of Beauty, the Primal Good and the Primal Beauty have the one dwelling-place and, thus, always, Beauty’s seat is There (I, 6, 9, p. 64). No doubt this account of eros and reason harks back to that of Plato, but it has become a mysticism. But that, very likely, is the inevitable consequence of the monistic interpretation of the human desire to know and to understand. In any case,

this monistic interpretation of the human desire to know and to understand is also the interpretation of human being’s other hopes and desires. Thus, not surprisingly, this connects to the attitude towards death that Plotinus also aims, like Socrates, to justify-

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Consider virtue. Socrates is in prison. The reason for this, for his being here

rather than in Beoetia, is his striving to imitate in his incarnate state the Idea or Form of virtue, the moral ideal of the true Form of humanity. Striving in accordance with

this Form, Socrates imposes a unity upon his bodily actions that imitates that Form. ...all life...is an activity, and not a blind activity... Life...aims at pattern as does the pantomimic dancer with his set of movements; the mime, in himself, represents life, and, besides, his movements proceed in obedience to a pattern designed to symbolize life (III, 2, 16, p. 174). Evil consists in not successfully imitating that Form. For Plotinus, as for Plato, good and evil, right and wrong, are determined by the Form or Idea that the soul is

striving to embody. Soul and life are traces of Intellectual-Principle, that principle is the Term of Soul which on judgement sets itself towards IntellectualPrinciple, pronouncing right preferable to wrong and virtue in every form to vice...(VI, 7, 20, p. 578).

It is of course inevitable that any attempt to embody a pure Form in the impurity of the world of sense experience will not be fully successful; in this sense, evil is

inevitable.

So moral good, so far as it is achieved, consists in successfully imposing one’s higher Form upon the world. To do this, one must grasp the Form, and grasp it

distinctly and clearly. When that is done, when the Form is grasped, one will be moved by it: as Plato said, and as is implicit in the explanation-scheme of the Phaedo, to know virtue is to do it. The question thus becomes, What principle is the giver of wisdom to the soul? and the only answer is ‘The Intellectual-Principle’, the veritably intellectual, wise without intermission and therefore beautiful of itself (V, 9, 2, p. 435).

Hence, to achieve moral good in this life one must once again tum away from this life to the world of the Forms. Moreover, to grasp fully one’s own Form, one must grasp

it in its interconnections to all other Forms, and, ultimately, as flowing from the One which is the source of all unity. The unity that I achieve, or that Socrates achieves.

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derives in the end from the One; our own creative acts of imposing Form on our lives are ultimately parts of the activity of the One in creating the diversity of the world in

the unity which it imposes. What are commonly called evils, eg., poverty and disease,

Plotinus continues to assert with the Stoic tradition already present in Socrates, are

nothing to those who possess the true good which is virtue. . . .this is the evil of man; man includes an inner rabble - pleasures, desires, fears - and these become masters when the man, the manifold, gives them play. But one that has reduced his rabble and gone back to the Man he was, lives to that and is that Man again, so that what he allows to the body is allowed as to something separate (VI, 4, 15, p. 531).

In fact, in the perspective of the whole, these things, these various cares and concerns,

the worldly aspects of our life, are not useless, they too have their place in the ultimate unity.

Murders, death in all its guises, the reduction and sacking of cities, all must be to us just such a spectacle as the changing scenes of a play; all is but the varied incident of a plot, costume on and off, acted grief and lament. For on earth, in all the succession of life, it is not the Soul within but the Shadow outside of the authentic man, that grieves and complains and acts out the plot on the world stage which men have dotted with stages of their own constructing. All this is the doing of man knowing no more than to live the lower and outer life, and never perceiving that, in his weeping and in his graver doings alike, he is but at play; to handle austere matters austerely is reserved for the thoughtful: the other kind of man is himself a futility (III, 2, 15, pp 174-3).70 It is not the inward soul, the Reason that grasps the Form of virtue, the reasons for

doing things, but rather the outward shadow of a man that groans and laments over the things of life Of virtues, even the highest, the cause is the One which is also the Good, and which is in reality above all good. Each of us will achieve the good insofar

as we grasp and act at one with the One. But this we do when we achieve mystical

union with the One What holds for all other griefs and laments holds for that which is apparently

the greatest of all, at least according to Maecenas, namely death. The soul is immortal

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for Plotinus, as it was for Plato: “... dying is but changing a body as the actor changes a costume, or even an exit from the body like the exit of the actor from the boards

when he has no more to say or do” (ib., p. 173). So death is but a separation from the

body. Why, then, is it to be feared? “What is there so very dreadful in this transformation. . .” (ib). Death, indeed, is a respite from the cares of the world.

Their [the souls of men] initial descent [into their bodies in the world of sense experience] is deepened since that mid-part of theirs is compelled to labour in care of the care-needing thing into which they have entered. But Zeus, the father, takes pity on their toils and makes the bonds soluble by death and gives respite in due time, freeing them from the body, that they too may come to dwell there where the Universal Soul, unconcerned with earthly needs, has ever dwelt (IV, 3, 12, p. 271).

Death is therefore to be accepted without regrets. In short, Plotinus ends by justifying the same attitude towards death that we found in Socrates and in the Stoics such as Seneca. But that perhaps should not surprise us: their metaphysics are much of a

piece, building on the metaphysics of explanation of the Phaedo, and arguing that virtue consists of a relation between ourselves and an eternal Form of virtue,

immutable and stable beyond the world of sense experience.

Now, to acquire knowledge and understanding of things requires that we turn away from external things - we must “sever soul from body” (V, 1, 10, p. 378): “one

certain way to this knowledge [of the One] is to separate first, the man from the body

- yourself, that is, from your body” (V, 3, 9, p. 390). In thus turning away from our body we shall discover in the Forms how we can rightly, that is, with virtue, care for ourselves, and for others: when we speak of severing the soul from the body, we do

not mean spatially, the sort of separation that occurs in nature, but refer rather . . .to use of our thinking, to an attitude of alienation from the body in the effort to lead up and attach to the over-world, equally with the other, that phase of soul seated here and, alone, having to do with body, creating, moulding, spending its care upon it (V, 1, 10, p. 378).

So, for Plotinus as for Socrates, the philosopher is always in training for death.

As we noted previously in our discussion of Seneca, the argument that the

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correct or appropriate attitude towards death is acceptance without regret presupposes that virtue has a timeless quality, that there is something eternal in the practice of virtue that makes its value indifferent to its own prolongation or, indeed, its outcome for others. If that which gives life its value is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then it is clear death is never to be regretted, even when

it prevents one from doing, or continuing to do, good If the sole source of value which a life has is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then death is to be accepted as a mere fact, and so are its consequences. These are facts

indifferent to that which alone can give value to one’s life, namely, the practice of

virtue. We saw that Socrates develops a metaphysics of explanation in terms of active souls and eternal Forms which justifies the claim that there is something eternal in the

practice of virtue that makes its value indifferent to its own prolongation and implies that death is to be accepted without regret as a mere fact. This metaphysics is

developed and elaborated by the Stoics and by Plotinus, but on this point it remains of a piece with the Socratic original. That is why, in the end, the attitude towards death that we find justified by the neo-Platonic metaphysics, or mysticism, is much the

same as that which we find justified by the metaphysics of Socrates and that of the Stoics.

But there is a difference, a difference of flavour at least. In Socrates one turns

away from the world in order to return to it. One turns to the Forms in order to

discover what actions one ought to perform in the world. So also for Aristotle. He

argues that “human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1098al6-17), where virtue is defined by the Form of

humanity, and that this “final good is thought to be self-sufficient” (1097b8). But, ...by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship (1097b8-l 2). The same, moreover, holds for the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius held with the other Stoics that virtue consisted in conformity to Nature:

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Remembering always what the World-Nature is, and what my own nature is, and how the one stands in respect to the other - so small a fraction of so vast a Whole - bear in mind that no man can hinder you from conforming each word and deed to that Nature of which you are a part.71 But the point of virtue for Marcus is, as it is for Socrates and for Aristotle, to act, that is, act in the world of ordinary experience:

Give your heart to the trade you have learnt, and draw refreshment from it. Let the rest of your days be spent as one who has whole­ heartedly committed his all to the gods, and is thenceforth no man’s master or slave.72 Indeed, as we saw, for Marcus ‘'by the rational is directly implied the social as well”73, action is always action within a social context. But for Plotinus one turns inward - and never returns. In the pursuit of happiness and of the ultimate virtue, society has no place; the wise person of the neo-

Platonists is in an important way a self-contained monad The attainment of virtue

involves no social good, as it did for Socrates, no solidarity of man with man, as it did for the Stoics, no friendship of one for another, as it did for the Epicureans. What is required is nothing more than a turning more and more deeply into oneself to find there, in the source of all virtue, in the One with which one becomes one, the salvation

that one seeks.

This turning inward to the One also provides hope. The virtue that is defined by the Forms is an ideal standard, the standard of perfection. But, as we have asked

before, where the standard is perfection, how does one know that one has met the standard, and that death will in fact yield the blessedness that one seeks? Certainly, there is for Socrates no sense of hope in the way that the Christian through his or her

faith experiences hope that he or she is justified, made virtuous. Socrates must, though imperfect, strive after virtue, and must do this in a world that offers no guarantee that his hope will be fulfilled, no hope beyond what one might call faith in

his own capacity: in his struggle for virtue Socrates is alone. For Plotinus the soul seeking salvation is also alone; but it is not lonely.

157 For Plotinus, salvation is achieved when the individual becomes conscious of

what he or she already is in his or her own inmost nature, where the Intellect that is within one and lies beyond virtue identifies itself with the fullness of being, with the

true reality, the One, that unifies everything, [The Soul] bringing itself close to the divine Intellect, becoming, as it were, one with this, it seeks still further: what Being, now, has engendered this God, what is the Simplex preceding this multiple...? (V, 1, 5, p. 373) The answer is, of course, that “we seek the vision of that great Being within the Inner Sanctuary - self-gathered, tranquilly remote above all else” (V, 1, 6, p. 374), in other

words that One that is everywhere, both without us and within us, and, where it is, wholly there, wholly everywhere without us and wholly here within us.

In venturing an answer, we first invoke God Himself, not in loud word but in that way of prayer which is always within our power, leaning in soul towards Him by aspiration, alone towards the alone (ib.). Since reality, including the reality of one’s own life, that is, the unity that one

succeeds in imposing upon that life, derives ultimately not from our human being as

such, but only from the One, one will find the reality of one’s hopes in becoming one with the One. Thus, not only does the soul, in the final obliterating experience, fulfil

its desire to comprehend, but it achieves salvation, the real fulfilment of all possible hopes.

To ‘live at ease’ is There; and to these divine beings verity is mother and nurse, existence and sustenance...(V, 8, 4, p. 425). 4 The sense of the One that is within us thus provides a guarantee that our hope

for salvation will be fulfilled. For, that inner leaning in the soul towards the One

moves us towards the One with the assurance that it is within our power, and our power alone, to achieve it. No need here for the external sacrifice of Jesus to provide

the hope that we can be justified: the hope is already within us, the justification already achieved. Indeed, the salvation, union with the One, is already actual, if only

latent within us. It is a strange hope, however, a strange salvation. For the salvation consists

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of becoming one with the One, one with an entity that wholly transcends the world that we know. One obtains stability and contentment, but it is a stability and

contentment in which one has wholly lost oneself. You know that you have attained salvation when

...you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part; you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying all such determination aside, you become an All (VI, 5, 12, p. 541). The One provides a haven as well as explanation. Thus, the absolute good is the One

...The Good is without parts (VI, 7, 18, p. 577). and the One is as well the absolute good as it is the absolute reality. The human

being’s final aim, then, is to flee this ordinary world of ours and turn towards the Absolute. One’s life is and can be meaningful only insofar as one prepares oneself for

this salvation, only insofar as one strives to comprehend the necessary structure of the universe and rise through the chain of being to the One, the ultimate source of all

being and all value. But, of course, in grasping this One that is the source of all being

and all value one loses oneself as it draws one into identifying with it. Thus, the soul, starting out by attempting to understand the ordinary world, ends by discovering both its own insignificance and that of the ordinary world It discovers the need to flee from the world that it is in to something higher and better,

something transcending the world of ordinary experience which, when it welcomes

the self that is striving to attain it, destroys that self in its smothering embrace. This, the ultimate unity of things, is, for Plotinus, both our salvation and the ultimate meaning of our life.

*

It is important to distinguish two views which we may refer to as (V1) and (V2). On (VI) virtue, and it alone, gives life meaning. On (V2) one seeks to be virtuous in

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order to achieve immortality. On (VI), it would seem, immortality is irrelevant, while, on (V2), virtue (or, at least, apparent virtue) is not sought for its own sake but only

as a means to immortality. It would seem, then, that contrary to what we have been

arguing, either virtue gives meaning to life and immortality is irrelevant or one seeks immortality and it is not virtue that gives meaning to life. But here one should recall the discussion of Chapter One. In respect of (V1), the basic point about the tradition

of Socrates and Plotinus (and also Spinoza, as we shall see) - and Christianity - is that in attaining virtue one has come in touch with the eternal form of virtue, the

eternal source of unity, and insofar as one has done this, one has achieved

immortality in the sense of timelessness, transcending the ephemerality of ordinary world of change and achieving eternity. So virtue and immortality go together on (VI), contrary to what the objection suggests. As for (V2), one should recall the

discussion of the Sermon on the Mount that appeared in Chapter One. For the

Christian, the Sermon cannot be interpreted as offering us a bribe to be virtuous. That

is, virtue cannot be seen as a means to some other end, either the pleasures of this life,

as an initial reading of the Sermon suggests, nor simply immortality as the proposed objection suggests. The point is that virtue must be sought for its own sake, and only

if it is soughtfor its own sake and not as a means, will immortality be achieved. If one is to introduce the means-end distinction here it is important to recognize that, if anything is the means to immortality, then it is the fact that one becomes a virtuous

person, that is, that one seeks virtue for its own sake. The relevant means are the forms of discipline which, if practised, enable one to achieve self mastery, to become

someone who acts for the sake of virtue itself. It is in so acting that, on this view of

Socrates and Plotinus, immortality is achieved. For, in acting virtuously, we are in touch with the transcendent source of virtue. It is when we are in touch with this

source of virtue that we achieve the timeless existence of immortality. It was the work of Plotinus that presented Augustine with much of the philosophy that he was to use to make the Christian position one of recognized

philosophical respectability. He explicitly refers to Plotinus in describing our

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obligation to worship God,

[Are we not to believe] ... those who say that all this worship is due to God, the sole creator of all things, and who teach with true piety that it is to be rendered to him, the contemplation of whom gives them the happiness which they promise it will bring to us in the future. From this vision of God is a vision of such beauty and altogether deserving of such a love, that Plotinus (Enn, 1, 6, 7) says without hesitation that a man who fails of it is altogether unfortunate, no matter how richly endowed he may be with other kinds of goods.75 To love God and to be virtuous are in fact one and the same. Augustine here makes reference to Plato - or at least to the Plato that Plotinus had described.

...Plato defined the Sovereign Good as the life in accordance with virtue, and he declared that this was possible only for one who had the knowledge of God and who strove to imitate him, this was the sole condition of happiness. Therefore Plato has no hesitation in asserting that to be a philosopher is to love God, whose nature is immaterial.76 In his Confessions he makes the point that it was Socrates’ argument of the Phaedo that convinced him of the existence of a transcendent realm of more perfect beings

ending in the most perfect being God. ...I wondered how it was that I could appreciate beauty in material things on earth or in the heavens, and what it was that enabled me to make correct decisions about things that are subject to change and to rule that one thing ought to be like this, rather than that. I wondered how it was that I was able to judge them in this way, and I realized that above my own mind, which was liable to change, there was the never changing, true eternity of truth.77

His thoughts turned away from the world of sense and the world of change to the unchanging realm of the Forms, and ultimately to God This power of reason, realizing that in me it too was liable to change, led me on to consider the source of its own understanding. It withdrew my thoughts from their normal course and drew back from the confusion of images which pressed upon it, so that it might discover what light it was that had been shed upon it when it proclaimed for certain that what was immutable was better than that which was not, and how it had come to know the immutable itself. For unless, by some means, it had known the immutable, it could not possibly have been certain that it was preferable to the mutable. And so, in an instant of awe, my mind attained to the sight of God who

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IS.78 Augustine interprets this as a striving to be. just as God IS, so we aim to BE This he

places in the context of an Aristotelian teleological view of the universe and of things in it: all things are substances and all strive to be, that is, be after their own kind.

...even the irrational animals, from immense dragons down to the tiniest worms, who are not endowed with the capacity to think on those matters, show that they wish to exist and to avoid extinction. They show this by taking every possible action to escape destruction. And then there are the trees and shrubs They have no perception to enable them to avoid danger by any immediately visible movement; but they send up and shoot into the air to form their crown, and to safeguard this they fix another shoot into the earth to form their root, so that they may draw their nourishment thereby, and thus in some way preserve their existence. Even material objects which are not only bereft of sense-perception, but lack even reproductive life, shoot up aloft or sink down to the depths or hang suspended in between, so as to secure their existence in the situation to which they are by nature adapted.79 It is this continual striving to be that is the source of our fear of death As Augustine

sees it, any person “...would certainly be overjoyed to choose perpetual misery in preference to complete annihilation.”80 Why, he asks, should people think and feel like

Maecenas? Why “...should men fear to die, and prefer to live in such distress than to end it by dying? The only reason is the obvious natural revulsion from annihilation.”81 Striving to be is striving after one’s kind to imitate God. It is this which all desire.

True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the Truth, you my God, my true Light, to whom I look for salvation. This is the happiness that all desire. All desire this, the only true state of happiness. All desire to rejoice in truth.82 There is an innate striving to attain God, or, in Plotinus ’ term, the One, and in this One is the truth and goodness of all things.

There is of course a central difference between Plotinus and Augustine For Plotinus any person can be a philosopher and, with the correct discipline, can attain the vision of God, of the One. But for Augustine, each person is infinitely far from

God and so involved with the things of this world, the world of sense experience, the

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world of the flesh, that it is impossible that he or she can alone bridge the infinite distance between him- or herself and God. God him- or herself must intervene.

1 am poor and needy and 1 am better only when in sorrow of heart I detest myself and seek your mercy, until what is faulty in me is repaired and made whole and finally I come to that state of peace which the eye of the proud cannot see. I am poor and needy and 1 am better only when in sorrow of heart 1 detest myself and seek your mercy, until what is faulty in me is repaired and made whole and finally I come to that state of peace which the eye of the proud cannot see.83

From Augustine’s perspective, Plotinus did not recognize the need for the

Incarnation. Having said that, it remains true that the basic philosophical framework for

Augustine’s philosophically reasoned Christianity is that of Plotinus. For many purposes, and certainly ours, they are of a piece. In particular, they both stand

together in contrast to the position of Epicurus and Lucretius. From this perspective, that of Augustine and Plotinus, the position of Epicurus and Lucretius, that death is annihilation, makes of death a threat, and therefore

something to be feared. What it is important to see is that, contrary to Augustine, it is of course not

the view of death as total annihilation nor the view of death as followed by some sort

of eternal existence that creates the fear of death. The fear of death does not depend

upon either annihilation or upon eternal life. To be sure, the ordinary fear of death,

as we find in Maecenas or Samuel Johnson, does depend upon eternal life, but more

must be added in order to generate the fear. In the case of ordinary Greeks and Romans it was certain religious views; the same is true of Christianity, Augustine’s in particular, which presents a view of human life in which we are all, as we recall

from the old hymn, “wretches,” and who therefore should rightly fear eternal

damnation But for our purposes, the important point now to note is that those who think that a meaningful life can be obtained only through contact with a unifying transcendent entity will find that the annihilation view of Lucretius, where there is no

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unity, yields a view of death that is to be feared On Lucretius’ own view, of course,

death is indeed not a threat. But if one rejects Lucretius’ view of the ontological

structure of the universe and substitutes for it the views of Socrates or Plotinus (or

Augustine), then Lucretius’ view of death does give a picture in which death is a threat. Annihilation is a threat to those who demand unity, for it represents not just the loss of such unity but its impossibility. Thus, Plutarch, speaking of the Platonic view of the world, notes the “multitude of noble prospects, magnificent and divine,” which it presents. These

divine prospects are of course the timeless Forms that provide the moral and ontological structure of the world. It is the grasp of these Forms which, on the one

hand, makes the life of the philosopher meaningful, and, on the other hand, enables him or her to share the divine immortality and timelessness of the Forms It is this sort of universe,

... with pleasures so ample, pleasures of such magnitude that the surgery of Epicurus cuts out of our lives. .. [This surgery] thus constricts our nature and casts it down into a narrow space indeed and not a clean one either, where the mind delights in nothing but the flesh, as if human nature had no higher good than escape from evil.84 The view of Epicurus and Lucretius eliminates all hope:

... the doctrine of Epicurus promises the wretch no very happy relief from adversity, the extinction and dissolution of his soul, but from the prudent and wise and those who abound in all good things it eradicates all cheer by altering their condition from blissful living to not living or being at all.85 Thus, the Lucretian view of death is one that poses a threat to our most noble aspirations, our innate inclinations to reach out from this world to the world of the

Forms and truly human virtue. But, Plutarch can so argue only if there is in fact a world of the sort described by Socrates or Plotinus, one with entities that transcend the ordinary world of space and time and change. Lucretius denies that there is such a world; more strongly, he provides an argument that such a world do.es not exist.

Moreover, while he allows that some do in fact wish that the universe were of the sort described by Socrates or Plotinus, he denies that such a longing for a unity that

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transcends the world of sense is innate. To the contrary, since he argues that, where that sort of longing does exist, it can be attenuated by the arguments that he provides,

he specifically holds that such a longing for a transcendentally unified world is not innate.

The Lucretian account of reason and of the ontological structure of the world - views for which he provides arguments - is argued to be a solution to the fear of death From Lucretius’ own perspective, then, that metaphysics, and what Plutarch calls its “surgery” should not be seen as yielding a threat to the attempt to overcome

the fear of death. It is a threat only if one antecedently holds that there is a craving for

metaphysical unity. The Lucretian metaphysics and account of rationality would seem to preclude this craving as irrational, and so again there would seem to be no threat,

since, as rational persons, we aim to avoid having irrational beliefs and desires. But

the world is not so simple. Some people - Plutarch is clearly among them, and so is Augustine - do have the desire for a universe unified by transcendent entities. So, we

shall see, does Camus - though, as we shall also see, he also accepts the arguments

that defend the Lucretian metaphysics and account of reason.

Before turning to Camus, however, we shall look in the next chapter at the philosophy of David Hume, who restates in the modem period the classical views of

Epicurus and Lucretius. The views of Hume are of course interesting in their own right as a re­

statement of the classical position. But we will also be using our discussion of Hume to try to understand the views of Camus, and in particular the rather paradoxical

position that Camus adopts, that the world is in fact just as Lucretius and Hume describe it but that we all innately desire that it be as Plotinus (or Augustine)

described it. It is this apparently paradoxical vision of the world and of human being

in that world that enables Camus to describe the human condition as one of absurdity. For, he argues that we desire the end of locating a neo-Platonic unity in the world without the means to achieve that end, for world lacks such unity and we perforce

lack the capacity to grasp it. And aspiring to an end without means commensurate

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with its attainment is the mark of absurdity.

We will be arguing that in fact Lucretius and Hume are correct and Camus and

Augustine are wrong, that there is no innate desire that the world be as Plotinus described it. Such a desire does exist in some people - eg., as we have just seen, Plutarch, or, as we also saw, Augustine - but it is not innate and therefore if it exists,

it is capable of attenuation. But if such a desire exists even though irrational, it is incumbent upon us to

try to provide an explanation, or at least an explanation sketch, of how it is possible for people to come to have such irrational desires. We shall take up this issue in a discussion of some other aspects of Hume’s philosophy, his psychological account of

how it comes about that people form irrational, or confused, ideas. We shall argue,

following Hume, that the emotional life of people can generate unreasoning

acceptance of irrational or confused ideas. Hume’s own discussion is general, it does not point directly to the confused idea of metaphysical unity, nor to an irrational

craving to attain it For the latter, a more specific explanation is required This we take up in Chapters Five and Six. In the discussion of Camus in Chapter Five it is argued that in his case at least it is certain political concerns that led him to the

confused belief that all persons have a craving for metaphysical unity. Finally, in the

concluding Chapter Six, it is submitted, building upon Hume and some apergus of Freud that such irrational pressures are perhaps not as escapable as the view of human

beings as enlightened rational agents suggests. If this submission is plausible, then we come to recognize that the Epicurean view of death as annihilation will continue to

be viewed as a threat.

But let us now turn to Hume’s defence of the Epicurean and Lucretian

metaphysics and account of reason

Chapter Four

The Epicurean Reply: Hume

The Scots philosopher David Hume, while on his deathbed, was visited by James Boswell, acting out his usual role of the busybody. It was on 7 July 1776 - Hume died

August 26 - and he found Hume alone, reclining in his drawing room on St. David’s

St. “He was lean, ghastly, and quite of an earthy appearance. He was drest in a suit of a grey cloth with white metal buttons, and a kind of scratch wig. He was quite

different from the plump figure which he used to present. He had before him Dr. Campbell’s Philosophy ofRhetorick.['] He seemed to be placid and even cheerful He said he was just approaching to his end. I think these were his words ”

Boswell went mainly to satisfy his curiosity: could it be true that one

approaching death really disbelieved in immortality? could it really be true that one approaching death could do so without fear? It did not seem possible to Boswell, and so as soon as seemed permissible Boswell brought up the topic of his visit. The

philosopher refused to confirm Boswell’s suspicions.

[Hume] said he never had entertained any belief in Religion since he began to read Locke and Clarke. I asked him if he was not religious when he was young He said he was.. .He then said flatly that the Morality of every Religion was bad, and, I really thought, was not jocular when he said ‘that when he heard a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal, though he had known some instances of very good men being religious.’ ...I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and

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from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered It was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not bum; and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that we should exist for ever. . .I asked him if thought of Annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes....! tried him..., saying that a future state was surely a pleasing idea. He said No, for that it was allways seen through a gloomy medium, there was allways a Phlegethon or a Hell... The truth is that Mr Hume’s pleasantry was such that there was no solemnity in the scene; and Death for the time did not seem dismal. It surprised me to find him talking of different matters with a tranquillity of mind and a clearness of head, which few men possess at any time. Two particulars I remember: Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which he recommended much, and Monboddo’s Origin ofLanguage, which he treated contemptuously. I said, ‘If I were you, 1 should regret Annihilation. Had 1 written such an admirable History, I should be sorry to leave it.’ He said, ‘I shall leave that history, of which you are pleased to speak so favourably, as perfect as I can.’ ...He said he had no pain, but was wasting away.2

One can think of other things one might wish on a dying person than to be confronted with Boswell’s morbid curiosity, but there is little reason to suspect that Hume was

upset by the interview. It is pretty clear that Hume was, in part, amusing himself at Boswell’s expense, titillating Boswell with unbelief was no doubt good fun. Equally, however, there is little doubt that Hume was being perfectly honest about his own

beliefs. Indeed, the beliefs expressed had to be honest, else they would not have served the end of gently upsetting Boswell’s certainties. But Hume did succeed in unsettling, for a moment at least, the pious Christian certainties that Boswell shared with Johnson: “1 left him,” concluded Boswell, “with impressions which disturbed me

for some time.”3

This is not the death scene of Socrates, nor of Jesus, nor of Seneca, if only because Boswell is not relating it as a disciple. For all that, it is a moving scene of a

philosopher, who has lived out his life decently, facing death with neither fear nor regret. We see Hume arguing, not by means of syllogisms or demonstrations or

inductive logic, but simply by his own example, that Epicureans need not fear death.

169 Hume’s view of the world was much of a piece with that of Epicurus and Lucretius, so was his attitude towards death. What we see him arguing through the example of himself is that one can shape one’s attitudes on the basis of a view of the world, and

the place of human being in it, in which it makes no sense to say, with Nagel, that “a bad end is in store for us all.”

Hume made the same point to others. Adam Smith reports that Hume’s death would produce no loss that either he or Hume could regret. He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before, Lucian '^Dialogues of the Dead,['\ among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. ‘I could not well imagine,’ said he, ‘what excuse 1 could make to Charon, in order to obtain a little delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I therefore have all reason to die contented.’ He then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them. ‘Upon further consideration,’ said he, ‘I thought I might say to him, “Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time that I may see how the public receives the alterations.” But Charon would answer, “When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.” But I might still urge, “Have a little patience, good Charon, if 1 have been longer, J may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.” But Charon would then lose all temper and decency. “You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue.” ’5 Needless to say, perhaps, but the true believers were loath even to conceive

that Hume might be right. Thus, John Wesley was a few years later convinced that Hume was at that time repenting of his views while burning in hell.6 Preaching on the

text of Jeremiah, 17, 9 - “The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and

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desperately wicked: who can know it?” - Wesley simply asserts that Hume was

deceiving himself about himself when he appeared to die peacefully. For Wesley, of course, as for Augustine and as for all Christians, the situation in which all persons

find themselves is one of absurdity: on the one hand, they all aspire to the standard of moral perfection towards which Jesus has directed their attention, while, on the other hand, they all recognize that the means they have available, their own moral efforts,

are totally insufficient to attain the necessary purity of heart. That is why they are

wretched; that is why the situation is absurd. Jesus is the only hope for overcoming this absurdity. So, given the wickedness, the desperate wickedness, of every human heart, and Hume’s in particular, a desperate wickedness that Hume deceives himself

into thinking does not exist, it follows that death can be no time for laughter, no time

for jokes about Charon.

Did Mr. David Hume [Wesley preached]... know the heart of man? No more than a worm or a beetle does. After “playing so idly with the darts of death,” do you now find it a laughing matter? What think you now of Charon? Has he ferried you over Styx? At length he has taught you to know a little of your own heart! At length you know, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Another Reverend, William Agutter, felt that the only real question for him was why God allows a disbeliever whom He is going to punish to die peacefully, while a person of genuine faith and goodness, such as Samuel Johnson, is permitted

to suffer the torments consequent upon a fear of death.7 In fact, according to Agutter,

Hume, or anyone else who feareth not God, is either totally ignorant on the subject

of futurity or else actually fears but allays those fears through the “subterfuge of

doubt .” So the tranquillity of the disbeliever can be no argument against the claims of those that religious belief alone can provide hope against fear at the time of death. Nor does the righteous person “oppressed with infirmities and beset with anxieties”

(as was Johnson) argue that religious belief is inapt to lead to a mind peaceful about the possibility of death. Rather, what we learn, Agutter suggests, is that this could

well be part of God’s design, for all we know, to (for example) allow patience to make her work perfect, faith to gain a complete victory, and the power of piety to be

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more fully displayed. Nor was Agutter alone in suggesting that in reality Hume did not die

peacefully, without fear of death. Samuel Johnson was another who could not accept Hume’s argument from example. Thus, Boswell relates that once, “When we [he and

Johnson] were alone, I introduced the subject of death...”. In this conversation, Johnson “endeavoured to maintain that the fear of it might be got over...”, using the example of Hume.

I told him [Johnson] that David Hume said to me, he was no more uneasy to think that he should not be after his life, than that he had not been before he began to exist. JOHNSON. “Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed, he is mad, if he does not think so, he lies. He may tell you, he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has.” BOSWELL. “Foote, Sir, told me, that when he was very ill he was not afraid to die.” JOHNSON. “It is not true, Sir. Hold a pistol to Foote’s breast, or to Hume’s breast, and threaten to kill them, and you’ll see how they behave.”8

Hume’s friends are no doubt more reliable: thus, Joseph Black could write that “He continued to the last perfectly sensible & free from much pain or feelings of

distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience but when he had

occasion to speak to the people about him always did it with affection & tenderness . When he became very weak it cost him an effort to speak and he died

in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could have made it better.”9 What arguments did Hume develop to justify philosophically his attitude

towards death? In effect his arguments were those of Epicurus and Lucretius, but coupled with a strongly stated negative, or, if you wish, sceptical, case against the

metaphysical doctrines deriving from Socrates. The model of explanation that Socrates used to justify his attitude towards

death - the doctrine that to understand is to unify, in the sense of grasping an entity that unifies - remained standard from Plotinus through Augustine and then right

through the Middle Ages to the early modem period. There were, to be sure,

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variations. Some versions were closer to Aristotle, some closer to Plotinus, and most had elements of both, as one would expect for a period in which philosophy was

subordinate to the faith required by monotheistic religions. It was not until the early

modem period that the model was once again challenged, and the essentials of the ontology and models of explanation and understanding proposed by Epicurus and

Lucretius were once again defended in detail. In this Chapter we look at this modem restatement of the Epicurean position, and at the justification of the attitude towards death that it provides. It was Hume who provided the most comprehensive

restatement of the empiricist position.

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-I-

Now, Hume is often characterized as a sceptic. There is indeed truth in this: Hume was a sceptic, in his own way at least. Indeed, from the viewpoint of the Platonist,

Hume is unavoidably a sceptic, denying knowledge and existence of any realm of being or source of value that transcends the empirical For all that, however, Hume also argues vigorously against such Platonism, and moreover, far from being a merely

negative sceptic, he to the contrary undertakes to defend the rationality of empirical science and of history against the more radical scepticism of Pierre Bayle, the

Pyrrhonist .10 In morals, too, Hume saw himself as less than a sceptic, attacking not only the rationalistic, or, more explicitly, the Platonistic ethics of Samuel Clarke and Joseph Butler11 but also the radical denials of morality as opposed to mere prudence

in Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Mandeville.12 If we are to judge fairly Hume’s views on death, it is absolutely essential that we locate as precisely as we can his positive views about reason, about morality, about human being, and about human being in the

world.13 However, it is in the first place the negative theses that must be considered.

Here he attacks those who re-asserted the Socratic philosophy in the early modern

period, the rationalists such as Descartes and Spinoza For these philosophers, as for Socrates, or at least Plato’s Socrates, there are three crucial points:

Pl)

the reasons for things in the world of sense experience are given by entities

that unify the entities of this world; these reasons, and therefore the truth of the world of sense experience, transcend sense experience;

174 P2)

the grasp of truth is absolutely certain, infallible and incorrigible;

P3)

the entities that constitute the truth are entities that define both the is and the

ought of things.

But it was Spinoza, alone among the early modern philosophers adopting tills

perspective, who insisted that philosophy was not merely ontology, not merely

epistemology, not merely the justification of the new science - though, to be sure, it was all of those - but also the search after wisdom, that combination of knowledge

both theoretical and practical that has as its end the leading of a good life.14 In particular, Spinoza contends for a particular attitude towards death. What

Spinoza argues, in his major work, the Ethics,15 is that

A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life (IV, 67). After Socrates’ assertion in the Phaedo that .. those who practise philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men (67e4).

we are struck not only by the apparently paradoxical nature of Spinoza’s claim but by

the seeming blatant contradiction between this view and that of Socrates.

This contradiction becomes puzzling when we recognize that Spinoza not only holds this apparently anti-Socratic thesis but also at the same time argues strongly the Socratic case for Pl) - P3).

Thus, for Spinoza, as for Socrates, knowledge is “tethered.” That is, he

argues, with Socrates, that knowledge is of the self-evident and incorrigible: “It is not

in the nature of reason to regard things as contingent, but as necessary” (II, 44). He distinguishes three sorts of knowledge. The first level of knowledge is provided by

our senses. At this level, we are aware of things by sense experience, and of the regular patterns of things. “I have settled,” he says, “to call such perceptions by the

name of knowledge from the mere suggestions of things” (II, 40, Note II), using here,

no doubt consciously, a Baconian turn of phrase. This is the sort of knowledge that

craftsmen and tradesmen gather of things; it is the level of empirical rules. Also at this

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level is “knowledge from symbols,” that is, knowledge based on testimony, either oral or written. Knowledge at this level is “opinion” (ib). At this level, we are aware of the world as consisting of separable parts; the ideas are “fragmentary and confused” at this level of knowledge (V, 28, Prf), and the connections wholly contingent. Thus, at this level falsity enters: “Knowledge of the first kind is the only source of falsity,

knowledge of the second and third kinds is necessary” (II, 41). At the higher levels is knowledge based on “adequate ideas of the properties of things” (ib). These ideas

are, in the first instance, ideas in God’s mind: “In God there is necessarily not only the

idea of his essence, but of all the things which necessarily follow from his essence” (II, 3). The order of things is a consequence of the order of ideas in God’s mind; thus, “the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things”

(II, 7). These ideas (or Forms) in the mind of God are at the same time the ideas that are in the (finite) mind of the individual when he or she thinks of particular things. Or, rather, to put it more accurately: the finite mind thinks of a particular tiling; it does

so by means of an idea, the thing thought of, and the idea by means of which it is

thought, are the finite expressions of one and the same idea or Form in the mind of God.

Hence it follows, that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind... (II, 11, cor ). Thus, when we know things it is by virtue of our being aware of the eternal Form or

idea of that thing in God’s mind: “It is in the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of eternity” (II, 44, cor. ii). Because the ideas of which we are aware and the objects of those ideas are both expressions of one and the same idea in God’s

intellect, it follows that each of our ideas is adequate or true: “All ideas, in so far as

they are referred to God, are true” (II, 32). Knowledge of the second kind consists in knowing the interconnections of things; such knowledge is acquired through

knowing the interconnections of the ideas of those things. Thus, where the craftsman

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or tradesman knows certain things by empirical rules, the geometer can deduce them from Euclid’s axioms; that is, for the geometer they are self-evident rather than

learned from experience since he or she has deduced them by self-evident steps from premises which are self-evident There is a necessary unity among the true ideas, and this unity reflects the necessary unity of things, since both our ideas and those things are expressions of the same ideas in God’s intellect. In this second kind of knowledge we come to know the regularities and patterns among ordinary things not merely by

means of sense experience, in which there is no real unity, but more deeply by means

of the necessary connections among the properties that define those things.

Knowledge of this sort Spinoza refers to as “reason” (11, 40, Note II). By going beyond sense experience to reason we attain knowledge of the necessary unities of things. However, knowledge of this second sort is not yet perfect, that is, a perfect

grasp of unity: there is still a distinction between the things that are related. At this

level we are aware that the ideas, or, in parallel with the ideas, the things, are

inseparable or necessarily connected, but we are not yet aware of them as entities

whose very being is constituted by an underlying unifying entity. In the third kind of knowledge, “which we call intuition” (z7> ), we grasp things not as separate but as part of, or expressions of, such an underlying unity, and specifically as unified by the idea

in God’s mind from which they flow:

This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things (ib). In the third kind of knowledge we go beyond discursive thought to the level of pure

intuition. This intuition is of those ideas or Forms in God’s mind which are the causes

of the things of which we are aware in sense experience. The third kind of knowledge grows out of, and perfects, the second It cannot arise from the fragmentary and

separable ideas of the first kind of knowledge, but only from the unifying ideas of the second; and, because it makes the unity more complete, it completes the search after knowledge that begins at the second level (V, 28). “The highest endeavour of the

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mind, and the highest virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge”

(V, 25). Every idea that is adequate leads to a unification, and ultimately to a unification in the essence of God which provides the final reason for things; the “eternal and infinite essence of God ..is equally in the part and in the whole” (II, 46,

Prf.) and “Every idea of every body, or of every particular thing actually existing,

necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God” (II, 45). Every idea implies, in the end. the infinite essence of God; and this idea of God, since it flows from God, must be adequate (II, 46). Furthermore, since this idea of God is implied

by every idea, it follows that every person, since perforce they must have ideas, has - whether he or she is fully aware of it or not - an adequate idea of God (II, 47, and

II, 47, Note). It is of course the individual person, a finite being, who thus knows God. This individual person is in the first instance not a substance, not a simple unified entity. He or she is rather a complex, a collection of properties, or, more accurately, a temporally and lawfully ordered set of properties. As Spinoza puts it, “The being of substance does not appertain to the essence of man - in other words, substance does

not constitute the actual being (Forma) of man” (II, 10). The individual is defined by the properties which, collected, constitute it; its essence simply is this collection of properties. Of course, these properties are all unified by, and derive their being from

God Hence, “the essence of man is constituted by certain modifications of the

attributes of God” (II, 10, cor). But at the same time, it goes without saying, this essence or idea is an idea in God’s intellect: “that essence...is something which is in

God, and which without God can neither be nor be conceived...” (ib.) Thus, to think of one’s identity as a person is to have present in one’s mind this idea. This essence

or Form of oneself is not only in one’s own mind but also in God’s intellect. As the latter, it has its expression not only in the mode of thought as a collection of ideas but also in the mode of body, or, as Spinoza’s physics would have it, in the mode of

extension. Thus, when one thinks about oneself one is thinking not only of oneself as a conscious being but also oneself as an entity that is incarnate: “The object of the

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idea constituting the human mind is the body, in other words a certain mode ot extension which actually exists, and nothing else" (II, 13). Thus, all thought involves

an awareness of one’s body. In this way, one’s identity is indeed constituted by one’s

body. To be sure, the mind can think not only of its body, but also reflect upon itself, upon its own ideas: “The human mind perceives not only the modifications of the

body, but also the ideas of such modifications” (II, 22). The mind is aware of its own states, that is, of the ideas present in it, by means of ideas, that is, ideas of ideas. But these ideas of ideas will also have parallel bodily states: “The mind does not know

itself, except in so far as it perceives the ideas of the modifications of the body” (II, 23). For, when the mind knows itself it will be in a certain state which expresses its

essence in God’s intellect, but this essence will also find expression in a parallel modification of the body.

This view of the identity of the self as constituted by the identity of one’s body is, of course, very different from that of Plotinus and the Christians, and from

Spinoza’s immediate philosophical predecessor, Descartes, as well as his Jewish

predecessors as described by H. A. Wolfson,16 all of whom regard the soul as separable from the body. To be sure, some have so read Spinoza. Thus, the notion that the soul is somehow separable from the body has been proposed by Wolfson.17

The mind, he suggests in his reading of Spinoza,

...in its thinking essence ... comes from above,... it is a mode of the eternal and infinite attribute of thought. That part of the mind existed from eternity prior to the existence of its particular body, and it remains to eternity even after the death of the body.18

This is not a just reading, however. To the contrary, the mind, for Spinoza, taken as a whole is the idea of the body: taken as a whole the mind is the expression in the

mode of thought of the idea of the person in God’s mind as the body is the expression in the mode of extension of the same idea in God’s mind. The mind is not separable into parts. Wolfson’s notion is that the intellectual part of the mind is separable from the other parts. Wolfson suggests with regard to the mind that “some of its functions.

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like imagination and memory, which are dependent upon sensations, must disappear with the disappearance of the body” (p. 291). The reference here is to Spinoza’s

proposition that “The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past while the body endures” (Ethics, V, 21). Now, imagining is the act of forming of images of, in the first place, things present to the body, and. in the second place, derivatively

from these, the act of forming images of non-existent things (11, 17, Note), while

memory consists in the association of ideas of the nature of things outside the body according to the order and association of the modifications they cause in the body (II, 8, Note). Imagining and remembering are therefore processes which occur in time. They do not, therefore, exist as such, that is, as temporal, except insofar as the body

exists. Nor could they as such, as temporal, exist in the eternal idea of the person in

the mind of God, for, as Spinoza puts it, “in eternity there is no when, before or after" (I, 33, Note II). But in that eternal idea are the eternal ideas of these processes. These

latter ideas will contain within themselves, timelessly, all the imaginings and rememberings that occur to the person as he or she appears in existence in time 19

Wolfson is misleading, then, to suggest that for Spinoza it is intellect alone and not

our memory and imagination that appear in the immortal, i.e., eternal part of the human being.

Wolfson is wrong, too, when he suggests that for Spinoza the soul somehow “comes from above,” whatever non-metaphorical meaning that might have. Nor does

it somehow exist “from eternity prior to” entering the body. It is, to be sure, eternal, but this does not mean that it exists prior to entering the body. After all, as Spinoza put it, “eternity cannot be defined by time or have any relationship to it” (V, 23,

Note).

Even more misleading as a reading of Spinoza is Wolfson’s remark that The pre-existence of the mind and its immortality make the short tract of time during which it is encased in a body only an episode in its history During that episode, indeed, “the mind is subject to emotions which are related to passions”[20] .... but these passive emotions, among which there are all sorts of bodily and sensitive loves, are not of the nature of the mind itself, they appear with the body and

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disappear with it.21 The part of us that is immortal is eternal. It is therefore not in time, and hence has no

history. In turn, neither does it pre-exist the body nor post-exist it. Nor is the period

during which the body exists an episode in the history of the immortal, i.e., eternal part of the person. Nor is the eternal part of the person in the person insofar as the

person is in time. Again, eternity is not temporal. The soul is not, then, somehow “encased” in the body; so to speak completely misconstrues the mind-body relation

in Spinoza, if only by wrongly implying that the soul is in space - what else could

‘encase’ imply?

Nor, contrary to Wolfson, but as Savan has emphasized, is the mind devoid of passions.22 As Spinoza indicates, “... it must be especially remarked, that the

appetite through which a man is said to be active, and that through which he is said to be passive is one and the same” (V, 4, Note). If we tried to eliminate the passions

entirely we would be trying to eliminate interaction with other parts of nature, to as

it were unhook ourselves. But we cannot unhook ourselves from nature unless we are destroyed: to exist is to exist as part of the greater whole When we are active, we are

acting with clear understanding; when we are passive, we are acting from the passions. Understanding and the passions go together, the latter limiting the former and the former controlling the latter. The immortal part of a human being, then, is not

as Wolfson has described it, merely rational and excluding the passions. Spinoza’s view of the immortal part of the person is therefore different from that of his predecessors, whether neo-Platonic, Christian or Jewish, as well as

philosophers such as Descartes. Nonetheless, for all the significance of this difference, the basic pattern of Spinoza’s metaphysics is of a piece with that of Plotinus: for both,

as for Socrates of the Phaedo, to understand is to unify, and to unify is to unify

through an active entity. In Spinoza’s case, this active entity that provides the unity of the person is the idea of the self in God’s intellect. This is the active Nature or

essence of the individual, and it is this which provides, as we shall see, the ground for the claim that Spinoza makes, parallel to similar claims in Socrates and Plotinus, that

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the soul, one’s essential individuality, partakes of the eternal, and, in that sense, partakes of the immortality - or, rather, the eternity - of the gods.23 Spinoza put it this

way: “Every idea of every body, or of every particular thing actually existing,

necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God” (II, 45). The eternal ideas of tilings are those ideas by which we understand things. “It is in the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of eternity (sub quadam aeternitatis specie)”

(II, 44, Cor II). Savan has made the point this way: “Each thing is, in its essence, its

own singular species or form of God’s eternity. This is what Spinoza meant by his

famous phrase, sub specie aeternitatis.”24 It is the idea of the self that is in God’s intellect that provides us with a correct

understanding of the union of mind and body: “We thus comprehend, not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also the nature of the union between mind and body” (II, 13, Note). This union is a parallelism: “The human mind is capable of

perceiving a great number of things, and is so in proportion as its body is capable of

receiving a great number of impressions” (II, 14).It is through both mind and body being expressions of one and the same idea in God’s intellect that mind is united to

the body and conversely.25 Mental states, that is, ideas, are united one to another by the necessary connections of thought, and similarly bodily states are united one to

another by the necessary connections of physics; but there are (as Descartes

understood) no necessary connections by which one can infer a mental property from a physical property or conversely. The unity of mind and body is constituted by

something deeper, to wit, the idea or essence in God’s intellect of which both mind and body are the expression, one in the attribute of thought and the other in the

attribute of extension.26 This fact of expressing one and the same Form or idea in

God’s intellect guarantees a parallelism of mental states and bodily states even though

there are no direct connections that enable one to deduce mental states from physical states as one can deduce one idea from another via the laws of logic or deduce one

mode of extension from another via the laws of geometry 27 It is God that provides the ultimate unity of things. The idea of God is that of

182 a simple, unitary being: “The idea of God, wherefrom an infinite number of things

follow in infinite ways, can only be one” (II, 4). All things are dependent upon God for their existence: “Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived” (I, 15). God, and, derivatively, ideas in God’s intellect, provide the

reasons for things. And so, to understand is to grasp these ideas in God’s intellect, and, beyond that, to grasp God himself. That we do, of course, in the third kind of

knowledge. Spinoza identifies potentiality with power, that is, the active power to produce

what is said to be potential. “The potentiality of non-existence is a negation of power, and contrariwise the potentiality of existence is a power...” (1, 11, Prf #3). The idea

of God is the idea of a being with sufficient power to produce all things - including himself. It follows that the idea of God is the idea of a being sufficiently powerful to guarantee its own existence. “As...a reason or cause which would annul the divine

existence cannot be drawn from anything external to the divine nature, such cause

must perforce, if God does not exist, be drawn from God’s own nature, which would involve a contradiction” (I, 11, Prf #2). Hence, “God, or substance, consisting of

infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists” (I, 11 ).28 Among all our ideas, that of God alone guarantees its own truth; for,

it is the idea of a being sufficiently powerful that nothing can prevent it from existing. All other ideas, if clear and distinct, are true; they are true, however, not because they can guarantee their own existence but because their existence is guaranteed through

the activity of God making all his ideas actual. Plotinus had long before pointed out that in the Socratic metaphysics, under

the assumption that the universe is everywhere rational, the ultimate source of unity

must be self-sufficient: The sovranly self-sufficing principle will be Unity-Absolute, for only in this unity is there a nature above all need whether within itself or in regard to the rest of things. Unity seeks nothing towards its being or its well-being or its safehold upon existence; cause to all, how can it acquire its character outside of itself or know any good outside? The good of its being can be no borrowing: This is The Good (Enneads,

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VI, 9, 6, p. 620),

Spinoza takes this notion of a self-sufficient being, one whose power is sufficient to guarantee its own existence, and as it were brings it up to date. He fits it into the

notions of the new science and the new physics. But the upshot is much the same: for

Spinoza, as for Plotinus, “God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all

things” (Ethics, I, 18). Moreover, everything in the universe can thus be explained by, and understood in terms of, God’s infinite activity: “Nothing in the universe is

contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature” (I, 19). Contingency and separability are only apparent; once we pass beyond the first level of knowledge, their necessity, the

inseparability of everything from everything, becomes more and more evident, and fully evident in the vision of God which is the final goal of the third kind of

knowledge.

God, God’s intellect, and the ideas in God’s intellect, are all outside the temporal realm of change and finite beings. They are, in that sense, eternal understanding eternity to mean timelessness rather than, as in “men’s general

opinion,” “duration” (V, 34, Note). Each person’s mind depends upon his or her

body; indeed, they are, as we have seen, in a way identical to each other - that is, identical insofar as they both express the same eternal idea in God’s intellect. So, like the body, the mind perishes. Nonetheless, “in God there is necessarily an idea, which

expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity” (V, 22). This idea - this eternal idea - is also both the Form of, and within, the mind. Thus,

insofar as the mind becomes part of eternity in thinking this idea, it itself in that respect is eternal: “The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal” (V, 23). Moreover, insofar as the

mind knows itself by means of this eternal idea, it knows God, since every idea in God’s intellect is connected inseparably with all other ideas therein, including the idea

of God itself “Our mind, in so far as it knows itself and the body under the form of

eternity, has to that extent necessarily a knowledge of God, and knows that it is in

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God, and is conceived through God” (V, 30). Such knowledge of God’s intellect and

of God himself is, at its best, of the third sort; in achieving such knowledge, the idea in God’s intellect is the idea that it has in itself of itself. Thus, in the third kind of

knowledge, the mind becomes identical with its object, which is that aspect of it which is eternal, and thereby becomes itself in that respect eternal: “The third kind of

knowledge depends on the mind, as its formal cause, in so far as the mind itself is eternal” (V, 3 1). However, since the idea of the self is inseparable from the ideas of God’s intellect, from God's intellect, and from God, it follows that ultimately the

vision of God which is the culmination of the third sort of knowledge is a union of the individual with God, the self-sufficient and unifying One that is the source of all being. Thus, for Spinoza, as for Plotinus, the quest for knowledge and understanding in

terms of unifying entities leads to a mystical union with the One in which all individuality is ultimately lost.29 The idea of oneself in God’s intellect is the Form that explains one’s own

being; it is through the activity of this idea that oneself becomes actual through time. For Spinoza as for Aristotle this Form or idea not only explains one’s being but also

constitutes the moral standard of virtue for oneself. The idea of oneself in God's intellect is not only explanatory but normative. Thus, “virtue is nothing else but action

in accordance with the laws of one’s own nature” (IV, 18, Note). Because the Form or idea is the cause of one’s being, it follows that there is an important sense in which acting virtuously and acting to preserve one’s being is one and the same thing: “the foundation of virtue is the endeavour to preserve one’s own being, and. . .happiness consists in man’s power of preserving his own being...” (ib). And. of course, to grasp

this Form or idea of oneself in God’s intellect is to grasp the reason for one’s being.

Thus,

To act absolutely in obedience to virtue is in us the same thing as to act, to live, or to preserve one’s being (these three terms are identical in meaning) in accordance with the dictates of reason on the basis of seeking what is useful to oneself (IV, 24).

This notion, that virtue consists in conforming one’s actions at once to the

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requirements of Nature on the one hand and of one’s own self-interest on the other is by no means new in Spinoza. Aristotle makes much the same point. He argues that

‘human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1098a 16-17), where virtue is defined by the Form of humanity that is present in each of us. But that means that people act to gratify' their

own appetites. In that sense all act out of self-love. Nonetheless, “people criticize those who love themselves most” (1168a27). This is an unjust reprimand for the

person who practices virtue, however; for, “at all events he assigns to himself the

things that are noblest and best, and gratifies the most authoritative element in himself and in all things obeys this” (1168b28-31). One’s highest interest is thus conformity

to the Nature within us that both moves us and is the standard to which we ought,

morally, to conform. And so, to achieve one’s interest requires, as the Delphic oracle and Socrates both emphasized, self-knowledge. As Spinoza puts it, “Wherefore of a man, who is led by reason, the ultimate aim or highest desire, whereby he seeks to

govern all his fellows, is that whereby he is brought to the adequate conception of himself and of all things within the scope of his intelligence” (Ethics, IV, App. iv).

And so as Aristotle also said, If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything (Nichomachean Ethics, 1177b301178a2)

Except, for Spinoza, this self-knowledge involves, necessarily, as we saw, knowledge of God and of the totality of things with which it is interconnected: “Our mind, in so far as it knows itself and the body under the form of eternity, has to that extent

necessarily a knowledge of God...” (Ethics, V, 30). And so, for Spinoza, since the highest form of knowledge is the third, it follows that such knowledge coincides with the fullest practice of virtue: “The highest endeavour of the mind, and the highest

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virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge” (V, 25).

We thus see that for Spinoza as for Socrates, and Seneca and the Stoics, and

Plotinus, that which gives life its value is an orientation towards a temporally

indifferent virtue. It follows, as we have seen, that death is never to be regretted, even when it prevents one from doing, or continuing to do, good. If the sole source of value which a life has is an orientation towards a temporally indifferent virtue, then death is to be accepted as a mere fact, and so are its consequences. These are facts

indifferent to that which alone can give value to one’s life, namely, the practice of virtue. As the Stoics put it, one should be apathos with regard to such facts, apathetic

or indifferent; as Spinoza puts it, with an orientation towards eternal virtue, one

recognizes the necessity of all facts, those that can be avoided as well as those that cannot, and acquiesces. “From this third kind of knowledge arises the highest possible

acquiescence” (V, 27). Equally, one should never be welcoming towards death Spinoza agrees: we thus see the point of his dictum that “A free man thinks of death

least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life” (IV, 67).

It is wrong to think that death might be welcomed because it can relieve one of pain that one is experiencing. The argument here of Spinoza, like the similar argument in

Seneca, shows that such pain, too, is a mere fact, to be accepted, but of itself

irrelevant to that which alone gives value to life, namely, once again, the practice of virtue One should be equally accepting, equally apathetic, equally acquiescent,

towards all things other than virtue, towards one’s own pleasure and one’s own pain and towards the pleasures and pains of others.

Spinoza’s argument concerning virtue thus establishes that the appropriate

attitude towards death is one of acceptance or acquiescence. It does this by holding that what makes life worth living, what gives it significance, is nothing more nor less than the practice of virtue. For, if something else gave life its meaning, some concern

for one’s own welfare or that of others, then the fact of death could at times be

regretted for the good that it has caused one to give up, or welcomed for the pain that it could enable one to avoid. The apathy towards death that the argument

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recommends is appropriate only if the practice of virtue alone gives life its significance and only if this practice consists of an orientation towards a virtue that is somehow

eternal, and temporally indifferent Having made that point, however, one must not

infer from this that one has no obligation towards one fellows, or towards oneself. To the contrary, it may be part of the Form or idea of virtue that such behaviour is indeed required by virtue. The point is that such actions should be done because they are

virtuous and not out of some non-moral motive, a non-moral sense of benevolence,

say, or mere prudence, or even just because they are enjoyable.

We did of course previously note that Spinoza’s dictum that “A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life” is in apparent conflict with Socrates’ assertion in the Phaedo that “...those who

practise philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least

of all men” (67e4). We now see that this conflict is more apparent than real Socrates’

point is that philosophers, to be virtuous, turn away from this world, the world of sense experience and of change, towards the unchanging, necessary and eternal world

of the Forms. But the eternal Form of virtue is precisely what moves the soul and

therefore moves the body. Save for making the Form active, it is the view too of Spinoza that we are what we are through the active idea or Form of the self in God’s

intellect, and that virtue consists in living in accordance with the law that it constitutes. To orient ourselves towards virtue is therefore to meditate on life, on that which at once gives us life and gives us the standard by which we are to live. It is this

that removes the fear of death, and permits the appropriate attitude of acquiescence towards it: “In proportion as the mind understands more things by the second and third kind of knowledge, it is less subject to those emotions which are evil, and stands in less fear of death” (V, 38). Thus, although apparently at odds, Spinoza and

Socrates are in fact making much the same recommendation concerning the appropriate attitude towards death, and arguing for the reasonableness of that attitude

on the basis of much the same metaphysics. In each case what is crucial is that, first, what gives life meaning is virtue, and

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that, second, virtue consists in an orientation towards an eternal Form of virtue, a

Form that is outside the world of sense experience and of change. The argument is that when the soul or self so orients itself to the eternal Form that gives life its meaning and significance, it achieves through that union an immortality, or rather an

eternity, that parallels that of the Form; or, more exactly, the argument is that the soul

or self could so orient itself to the eternal Form of virtue only if it too had an aspect that was eternal. Immortality is not something that happens after one ends this life, but

rather something that one achieves in this life by transcending it, to attain the Form

of virtue. Thus, for Spinoza as for Socrates, in the practice of virtue one achieves immortality. But the orientation towards virtue that achieves this immortality is

precisely what justifies the attitude towards death common to Socrates and Spinoza.

It is the immortality achieved through the practice of virtue that justifies acquiescence as the appropriate attitude towards death In other words, for Socrates,

Plotinus, Spinoza, and, indeed, Jesus, the fear of death is removed by achieving immortality. The point is, of course, that this is not so for Epicurus or Lucretius. For

them, there is no immortality, and the appeal to immortality that is made possible by the ontology of Socrates cannot be used to justify an attitude towards death. For Epicurus and Lucretius, the removal ofthefear ofdeath is consequent upon precisely

the opposite claim, namely, that there is no immortality, not even in the special sense implied by the ontological account of explanation that Socrates develops in the Phaedo. What holds for Epicurus and Lucretius, holds also for Hume. What Hume did, in his major philosophical works, the Treatise Concerning Human Nature™ and Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning

the Principles of Moralsf was, on the negative side, to challenge the metaphysics, deriving from Socrates, that in the way just indicated justified the attitude towards

death of both Socrates and Spinoza. Hume used arguments deriving ultimately from

the Greek sceptical opponents of any ontology, including the ontology of Socrates, that introduced entities that were beyond the world of sense experience. The Greek

sceptics advanced their sceptical arguments to defend, with some success, the

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following theses, each of which denies the corresponding thesis of the Socratic

ontologies:

P’l)

the reasons for things in the world of sense experience are given by patterns

of entities in this world, these reasons are this-worldly, and there is no truth

beyond sense experience; P’2)

P*3)

the grasp of the truth of sense experience is fallible;

there is no ought beyond the pleasures sanctioned by felt motives.

There are three parts to Hume’s sceptical arguments against the metaphysical position that begins with Socrates’ model of explanation. This position involves the claims that beyond the world of the separable entities of sense experience there are

entities that constitute objective necessary ties that unify things into inseparable

wholes, and that these unifying entities not only explain how things do hang together but also how they ought to hang together. There are two arguments proposed by

Socrates and his successors to justify these claims. There is, first, the argument that

because we judge actual things to be imperfect, we must have an a priori idea of perfection. And there is, second, the claim that we do in fact experience such entities, these objective necessary connections. Hume, FIRST, deals with the argument that we have a priori ideas of non-empirical entities by reference to Locke’s argument that we have no innate ideas. Having thus disposed of the claim that we know objective

necessary connections a priori - “the principle of innate ideas being allow’d to be false” (T, p. 160) - , Hume argues, SECOND, that such objective necessities are not given in ordinary experience. Finally, he argues, THIRD, that no matter of fact, whether

empirical or a priori, nor, therefore, any such fact as proposed by rationalists from Socrates to Spinoza, could establish any ought. We shall deal with Hume’s sceptical points in turn, or, rather, with Locke’s point, which is the first, and then Hume’s two points.

Locke argues at length against the notion that we have a priori or innate

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ideas.32 Socrates, in the Phaedo and the A/eno, argued that we have an a prion idea

of perfect attributes, since we judge all perceived attributes as falling short of perfection. Similarly Augustine and after him Spinoza, all following Plotinus, argue that we all have within us an a priori idea of God or the One: we all have ideas which,

if grasped fully, lead us, via necessary connections which hold among them but are not given in sense, to the ultimate unifying entity. And so, as Spinoza says, “the infinite

essence and the eternity of God are known to all” (Ethics, II, 47, Note). To claims of this sort, Locke makes two replies. The first is that as a matter of fact the ideas that men have establish that they

do not have a priori ideas of perfection. For, (a) our idea of morality is such that no moral principle is taken to be established a priori, to the contrary, “there cannot be any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason”

(Essay, I, ii, 4). Moreover, (b) “where is that practical truth that is universally

received, without doubt or question, as it must be if innate?” (I, ii, 2). It is sometimes objected to Locke on this point, that a principle might well be innate but neither universal nor certain owing, e g., to the great complexity of practical affairs. However, given the Socratic position that true virtue flows from knowledge of the

Forms and that such knowledge is incorrigible and certain, Locke’s argument is surely

sound. Finally, (c) moral enormities are constantly practised without remorse, and yet could not be if the idea of virtue were truly innate and certain (I, ii, 9). As for the idea

of God, (d) in general far from being the idea of a perfect being it is instead the idea of an imperfect being, and, at that, one that invariably bears some resemblance to the

idea of God had by one’s teacher (I, hi, 13). In the second place Locke offers an account of the origin of our ideas of perfect beings that, on the one hand, does allow us to judge that things are, relative

to those standards, imperfect, but, on the other hand, does not require those ideas of

perfection to be a priori. ...if we examine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find. . .that the complex ideas we have both of God, and separate spirits, are made of the simple ideas we receive from

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reflection, v.g. having, from what we experiment in ourselves, got the ideas of existence and duration; of knowledge and power; of pleasure and happiness; and of several other qualities and powers, which it is better to have than to be without; when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our idea of infinity; and so putting them together, make our complex idea of God (II, xxiii, 33). It is evident that the other sorts of ideals to which Socrates appeals, eg., perfect virtue, perfect equality, or perfect triangularity, can all be handled in much the same

way, as ideas formed by extrapolating from a variety of instances of“roughly ...”, eg., “roughly equal”, of which we are aware in ordinary experience.

So much, then, for the argument that we somehow must have certain a priori ideas. This, therefore, can be no source for knowledge of the entities that are supposed to render inseparable what is presented in sense experience as separable.

But, Hume goes on to argue, neither do we in ordinary sense experience or

inner awareness obtain any idea of an objective necessary connection. He states his

case with reference to the rationalists whom he had read, and Malebranche in particular. Malebranche argued that there are no objective necessary connections other than those of God’s causal activity: “les causes naturelies ne sont point de

veritable causes. ... II n’y a done que Dieu qui soit veritable cause, et qui ait veritablement le puissance de mouvoir les corps.”33 Hume refers to this “Cartesian”

doctrine (T, p 159), and argues that it is untenable: if, as these philosophers hold,

there are no objective necessary connections established among bodies by active

agents because we have no impression of such a connection or agent, then neither do we have any idea of it - ideas being derived from impressions - and therefore we

cannot have an idea of God that includes within it the idea of causal power or activity.34

...if every idea be deriv’d from an impression, the idea of a deity proceeds from the same origin; and if no impression, either of sensation or reflection, implies any force or efficacy, ’tis equally impossible to discover or even imagine any such active principle in the deity. Since these philosophers, therefore, have concluded, that matter cannot be endow’d with any efficacious principle, because ’tis

192 impossible to discover in it such a principle; the same course of reasoning shou’d determine them to exclude it from the supreme being (T, p. 160). We therefore have no idea of an objective necessary connection - nor of any of the

entities that purport to be designated by terms that are more or less synonymous with

it: “efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connexion, and productive quality” (T, p. 157).

If we have really an idea of power, we may attribute power to an unknown quality: But as ’ tis impossible, that idea can be deriv’d from such a quality, and as there is nothing in known qualities, which can produce it, it follows that we deceive ourselves, when we imagine we are possest of any idea of this kind, after the manner we commonly understand it. All ideas are deriv’d from, and represent [sense] impressions. We never have any impression, that contains any power or efficacy. We never therefore have any idea of power (T, p. 161).

Objectively considered, then, there is no distinction between an accidental generalization and a causal generalization: both are of the simple form ‘all A are B’

This is Hume’s first definition of “cause”: “An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac'd in like relations

ofprecedency and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the lattef (T, p. 172; italics in original). This is “cause” defined as a philosophical relation (T, p. 94, p.

170) But there is a distinction between post hoc and propter hoc. As Hume says, “there is a NECESSARY CONNEXION to be taken into consideration” (T, p. 177; cf.

p. 155). In the tradition following Socrates’ model of explanation the distinction is grounded objectively: connections propter hoc are a matter of objective necessities,

connections post hoc are not. But, as Hume has argued, there are no objective necessary connections. The distinction between post hoc and propter hoc therefore cannot be objective; it is rather, Hume argues, subjective. This is the thrust of the

second definition of “cause”, which asserts that a generalization is causal just in case we are prepared to use it in counterfactual assertions and in predictions: “An object

precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it in the imagination, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the

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impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other” (T, p 172; italics in

original). This is “cause” defined as a natural relation (T. p. 97, p. 170). The idea of necessary connection then, which is an ingredient in the idea of cause, is the

propensity of the mind to make inferences in the case of causal connections which is

absent in the case of accidental generalities (T, p. 167).35 Such determination, it should be noted, is itself a case of causal determination,

and is also, of course, subject to the Humean analysis (T, p. 169).36 The idea of “cause” is really two abstract ideas, one of a natural relation, one

of a philosophical relation. Now, for Hume, an abstract idea is a resemblance class of

ideas and impressions with which a general term has become associated (T, p 20). Furthermore, if two ideas closely resemble each other we are naturally liable to

confuse the two (cf. T, p. 146); in fact, the resemblance between a resemblance

among impressions and an act of surveying such a resemblance is sufficient to lead to a confusion between the two resemblances (T, p. 204n) This is what happens in the

case of the two ideas of causation: the resemblance between them leads to their being confused with each other, and fused into a single (incoherent) idea of an objective

necessary connection. This is the origin of the “obscurity and error [that] begin

to

take place ... when we transfer the determination of the thought to external objects,

and suppose any real intelligible connexion betwixt them; that being a quality that can only belong to the mind that considers them” (T, p. 168). The rationalists and the

Aristotelians - the philosophers in the tradition deriving from Socrates

then, by a

natural tendency of the human mind,3 are led to form the confused idea of an

objective necessary connection. On this basis they convince themselves that absolute certainty is attainable: once we grasp the objective necessary connections, we will have knowledge of causal connections that is infallible, excluding all possibility of

doubt. Clear philosophy (Hume’s, for example) carefully distinguishes among ideas, even those that we naturally tend to confuse. Once this is done we recognize that objective necessary connections are non-sense, that all causal judgments are therefore

fallible, and that the Socratic and, latterly, Cartesian standard of absolute, infallible,

194 and incorrigible certainty is an illusion, a cognitive standard that is humanly unattainable. Finally, Hume argues that facts, whether ordinary or transcendental and a

priori, cannot establish any ought. There is, Hume argues, a gap between is and ought that cannot be bridged, even where the is concerns a transcendental Form known a

priori. Hume does this by arguing, first, that any ought, if it is in fact to be genuinely

normative, genuinely constraining on human action and the human will, must move the will. “If morality had naturally no influence on Human passions and actions, ’twere in vain to take such pains to inculcate it, and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts, with which all moralists abound” (T, p.

457). Hume then argues, second, that no matter of fact, not even a transcendental

fact, can by itself move the will, that is, the empirical will of ordinary human beings in ordinary, everyday life. “Reason,” he argues, “is the discovery of truth or falsehood” (T, p. 458), whether this truth be empirical or a priori, and “truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact” (zfr ., his italics). For our ideas there is

such agreement or disagreement, but, Hume argues, this is not the case with our passions, that is, the states that move us to action.

...’tis evident our passions, volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and realities, compleat in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions, and actions. ’Tis impossible, therefore, they can be pronounced either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to reason (ib ) In this sense, “reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals” (zfr). Hume is here referring, of course, to empirical reason, the processes of thought of which we are aware in our ordinary

experience, and not to the reason of Socrates, Plotinus or Spinoza The latter is

indeed active, for it moves the body, activates it, according to the pattern of the transcendent Forms that it grasps. But, Hume has already argued in detail, there is no

such unanalysable causal activity, nor any such transcendent unifying Forms. In fact.

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Hume argues, what moves us is the desire to attain pleasure and avoid pain. He draws the Epicurean conclusion that morality, if it is to be a set of standards that actually move us, must be located in the context of these motives:

Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behaviour (T, p. 469). Among the entities that are eliminated by the argument against objective

necessary connections is the simple self.38 The latter was, of course, part of the Socratic model of explanation - souls, like Forms, are divine and unchanging - and

was maintained in a central role in metaphysics by Socrates’ successors Plotinus, and, in the early modem period, Descartes. The active soul, or substance, provided

necessary connections among our states of mind, the conscious states of which we are

aware in our ordinary experience - “perceptions” as Hume called them. The point here, as in the case of causation in general, is that we are not aware in ordinary experience of any such simple self, empirically, rather, a person is “a bundle or

collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement” (T, p. 252).39 We do attribute an identity to the self; this identity is analogous to that which we attribute to plants and animals, where, too, an identity of sorts is attributed to an ongoing and changing

process (T, p. 254, p. 259). The idea of the self by which the various separable parts are unified is, like the idea of necessary connection, not derived from awareness of an

entity in experience, but is, rather, the result of various psychological processes; in particular, Hume suggests, it arises through associational processes based on various

relations:

’Tis, therefore, on some of these three relations of resemblance, contiguity and causation, that identity depends; and as the very essence of these relations consists in their producing an easy transition of ideas; it follows, that our notions of personal identity, proceed entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along a train of connected ideas, according to the principles above­ explain’d (T, p. 260).

196 This identity of the self is a bringing together of the perceptions that constitute the self into a whole, but it does not deny the separability of the parts: “’Tis evident, that the

identity, which we attribute to the human mind, however perfect we imagine it to be, is not able to run the several different perceptions into one, and make them lose their

characters of distinction and difference, which are essential to them” (T, p. 259). The

idea of the self as a simple substance is like the idea of an objective necessary connection, an illusion that can be explained in terms of natural, but irrational, workings of the human imagination: we “imagine something unknown and mysterious connecting the parts beside their relation” (T, p. 254).

Hume does, upon reflection, see that his psychological account of personal identity is not as solidly based as his psychological account of the origin of our idea

of necessary connection. “I cannot discover,” he was to tell his readers in an Appendix to the Treatise, “any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head.” But these

second thoughts do not suggest that he must give up the general thrust of his account For my part, 1 must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding. I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutely insuperable. Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflexions, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions (T, p. 636).

Certainly, the fact that we have, as yet, no adequate psychological theory of the origin

of our idea of the self is no grounds for supposing either that we have no such idea

or that the idea that we have is the idea of a simple substance. For, of course, we do have an idea of the “self or that succession of related ideas and impressions of which we have an intimate memory and consciousness” (T,

p 277), an idea of “self or that individual person whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious” (T, p. 286).

[This] idea, or rather impression, of ourselves is always intimately present with us, and our consciousness gives us so lively a conception of our own person that tis not possible to imagine that anything can in this particular go beyond it (T, p 317) There is no reason, however, to conceive of this as anything but a bundle of separable

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parts: what is given in experience is “that connected succession of perceptions which we call self’ (T, p. 277).

Hume is clear that the self, this ordinary empirical self, is dependent upon the body, thus, he speaks of “the qualities of our mind and body, that is, self’ (T, p. 303).40 Later empiricists were to make the same point. Thus, A. J. Ayer noted that “a

self, if it is not to be treated as a metaphysical entity, must be held to be a logical

construction out of sense-experiences. It is, in fact, a logical construction out of the sense-experiences which constitute the actual and possible sense-history of a self”

This self, whatever the details of the “logical construction,” whatever the account of the psychological origins of this idea, cannot be separated from its body.

...if we ask what is the nature of the self, we are asking what is the relationship that must obtain between sense-experiences for them to belong to the sense-history of the same self. And the answer to this question is that for any two sense-experiences to belong to the sense history of the same self it is necessary and sufficient that they should contain organic sense-contents which are elements of the same body.41

There is, of course, more to the self than simply belonging to a certain body. As Hume insists, the self, through its sentiments and actions, is bound up with social

interactions; this is why he speaks of the “self or that individual person whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious” (T, p 286). Of this notion of the self as a social entity, we shall have more to say directly. But however that tale goes

- it simply means that the psychological theory that accounts for the origin of our idea of our self is more complicated, as indeed Hume saw, than could be dealt with by

Hume’s elementary associationist psychology. It does not contradict the basic Epicurean notion of the self that Hume develops. And the point for us is that there is

no reason to suppose that the self, at least as we know it, does not survive death As Ayer puts it,

...it is self-contradictory to speak of a man as surviving the annihilation of his body. For that which is supposed to survive by those who look forward to a ‘life after death’ is not the empirical self, but a metaphysical entity - the soul And this metaphysical entity, concerning which no genuine hypothesis can be formulated, has no

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logical connexion whatsoever with the self.42

Hume’s sceptical arguments against the Aristotelians and the rationalists, or, more generally, those in the tradition of Socrates, thus lead to a doctrine of the self that

justifies the attitude towards death defended by Epicurus and Lucretius, and which

Hume exemplified in his own life.

When Hume offers his sceptical arguments, he has in mind the Cartesians and Malebranche in particular, they were the closest incarnation of the opposition to the

empiricist point of view that had first been developed by Epicurus. But his point

applies equally to any philosopher - e g., Plotinus, Spinoza - who adopts the model set down by Socrates in the Phaedo and the Meno, the patterns Pl) - P3) that we indicated above. What Hume argues is that the notion of entities that provide objective necessary connections among the experienced separable parts of things, whether other things or our own selves, is an illusion. So too is it an illusion that we experience these objective connections. To be sure, an experience of necessity occurs,

but this experience is an experience of our own feelings misinterpreted as entities in the world without us. A combination of logical and psychological analysis establishes these claims. A similar logical and psychological analysis can be made of the mystical feelings of which Plotinus and Spinoza speak. No doubt such experiences occur. But

there is no reason to suppose that they are in fact experiences of a single unifying entity, the One. For, there is no such entity, as Hume’s argument against objective

necessities shows, and the feeling of oneness with all that the experiences involve can be understood psychologically as a projection onto reality without us of basic human

feelings. To feel that we have reached the womb at the top is no doubt a good feeling;

but that is no ground for supposing that is it anything other than our own feeling misinterpreted as an entity without us but also enveloping us. Socrates provides a metaphysics of explanation that yields a rational source of hope, the hope that we will achieve the vision of the good that is for the virtuous

both the cause of their virtue and their reward, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one is bringing about the best Of course, the virtue that is defined by

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the Forms is an ideal standard, the standard of perfection. As we have noted before,

where the standard is perfection, there is always a question, as the case of Dr Johnson

makes clear, concerning how one knows that one has met the standard, and that death

will in fact yield the blessedness that one seeks. Certainly, there is for Socrates no sense of hope in the way that the Christian through his or her faith experiences hope

that they are justified, made virtuous. Socrates must, though imperfect, strive after virtue, and must do this in a world that offers no guarantee that one’s hope will be

fulfilled, no hope beyond faith in his own capacity: in his struggle for virtue Socrates is alone. The thoroughgoing monists, Plotinus and Spinoza, offer more. For them, the sense of God or the One that is within us provides a guarantee that our hope for

salvation will be fulfilled. For, that inner leaning in the soul towards the One moves us towards the One with the assurance that it is within our power, and our power

alone, to achieve it. No need here for the external sacrifice of Jesus to provide the hope that we can be justified: the hope is already within us, the justification already

achieved. Indeed, the salvation, union with the One, is already actual, if only latent

within us. In any case, whether one simply hopes, with Socrates, or has a guarantee that one’s hope will be fulfilled, as with Plotinus and Spinoza, there is, for those who follow the Socratic patterns of explanation, hope, the hope that is provided by our access to the unifying Forms and entities that transcend the ordinary world of change

that we know in sense experience. For Hume, there are no such entities, no such world beyond that of sense experience, and therefore no hope, to live in a Humean world is to live in a world without hope. But of course, the ordinary world is a

Humean world: the world that Socrates, Plotinus, and company claim exists is the ordinary world viewed through the illusion of misinterpreted feelings. To live in ordinary world without illusion is the same thing as living in a Humean world In other words, to live in the world without illusion is to live without hope.

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- II -

If Hume’s is a world without hope, it would also seem to be a world without

knowledge. After all, is that not what Hume’s scepticism implies? And if it is a world without knowledge, then why not believe? Why not believe in something that will,

after all, give hope? One will then at least be happy.

Support for such a line of thought would seem to be found in Montaigne’s defence of Raymond Sebond which is, no doubt, the most odd of all defences.

Montaigne addresses the charge that Sebond’s “arguments are weak and unsuited to

what he wants to demonstrate...”.43 What Montaigne sets out to do is to “try and see. . . whether a man has in his power any reasons stronger than those of Sebond -

whether, indeed, it is in man to arrive at any certainty by argument and reflection.”44 The conclusion at which Montaigne arrives is that “Human reason goes astray

everywhere, but especially when she concerns herself with matters divine.”45 The

reasons given by the opponents of Sebond are all as weak as the reasons that he gives;

and Sebond’s reasons are as strong as, or as weak as, those of his opponents. There is a parity between the believer and the objector. So we can be as justified in accepting

Sebond’s propositions as we can be of any opponent’s propositions. Montaigne has not been alone in offering this sort of argument - it has been

called the parity argument46 - in defence of religious belief, and the hope that it gives. One finds it, for example, in F. R. Tennant47 who argues for a parallel lack of support

for belief in God on the one hand and, on the other hand, the belief in the regularity

of nature which underlies all natural science. Hence, if science is defensible, so is

religion. Alvin Plantinga48 has made a similar case that neither belief in God nor belief

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in other minds can be proved, and since it is apparently rational to believe in other

minds under these circumstances it is equally rational to believe in God.

But in fact Montaigne goes beyond this; not only does he argue that, given scepticism, we can believe, but he also argues that if we let such belief be grounded not in reason but in faith then we have for ourselves a sure foundation for hope, a guarantee that our hope is not in vain. He accepts the traditional notion of knowledge

as incorrigible, that is, as scientia. This is the view that nothing is knowledge that is not, as Plato said, “tethered” or “tied down,” that is, so intrinsically evident as to exclude all possibility of doubt. What the sceptical arguments establish is that reason can discover no such knowledge: any attempt to establish a criterion for such

knowledge leads either to a circle or an infinite regress, failing in either case to establish a criterion.19 It follows that “The soul can never find a sure footing; she is too confused and weak for that.”50 The solution Montaigne offers is faith. Nor may any man mount above himself or above humanity: for he can see only with his own eyes, grip only with his own grasp He will rise if God proffers him - extraordinarily - His hand; he will rise by abandoning and disavowing his own means, letting himself be raised and pulled up by purely heavenly ones 51 Religious faith will give us the firm footing that we need in order to get on with the task of life.

Hume has often been given a similar reading, except that nature and our animal faith replaces God and religious faith as the basis for the firm footing - or fairly

firm footing - we need if we are to get on with the task of life. Upon this reading, Hume’s scepticism aims to destroy all reason; it eliminates rational support for all

beliefs. Any reason is as good, or as bad, as any other. So all propositions, however internally inconsistent, or none, must be accepted. But a person cannot live unless he or she has a set of basic firm beliefs, eg., in the regularity of nature or in the existence of body. Here our animal nature rescues us from our scepticism: the beliefs we must have in order to survive are so rooted in our animal nature that we cannot avoid

accepting them; in spite of our scepticism we discover that psychologically we must

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accept them. Where reason has eliminated itself and can play no role, these beliefs that we cannot avoid, our animal faith, enable us to get on with the task of living.5' It has been argued further by some that the conclusion of Hume’s Dialogues concerning

Natural Religion* is that belief in God is in the same sense an unavoidable natural belief.54 The parity argument thus is argued to appear in support of religion in Hume

as in Montaigne, Tennant and Plantinga. Annette Baier argues in A Progress of Passions,55 with eminent success, that

it is profoundly wrong to hold that Hume is a sceptic with the aims attributed to him by this standard interpretation To the contrary, she argues, Hume’s aim is not to dethrone reason but to enlarge our conception of it, and, in particular, to make it social and passionate (p. 278). In Book I, Part III of the Treatise, Hume enlarges the notion of reason beyond that of the rationalist’s demonstration to include induction, and in Book III he enlarges it still further to include practical reason. The reason that

leads us to agree concerning the artifices of property, contract and political legitimacy is not “pure” (in Kant’s sense) but is guided by wide sympathies and by the pleasure we all take in mutually beneficial cooperative schemes (p 279). Such a reason is a

reflective reason, and “Successful reflexivity is normative,” according to Baier (p. 99).

Reason itself passes the test of reflection only when it becomes not just the lively love

of truth but also a moral virtue, that is, only when it comes to incorporate shared

sentiments and a shared love of truth (p. 287). For the sceptics, to attempt to achieve the cognitive ends of Socrates, and

other rationalists down to Spinoza, is to attempt the impossible. Hume repeated and

strengthened this case. To be sure, sceptics themselves disagree about the aim or motive for

undertaking philosophical investigation; and this divides them into Pyrrhonian and academic sceptics. Hume identifies himself with the latter and opposes the former.56 For the Pyrrhonists the aim is to live an unperturbed life. All other aims are subordinate to this, and if they are cultivated or acted upon it is only because this is a means to the final end of an unperturbed life. These other aims subordinate to the

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ultimate goal include our cognitive aims. The cognitive aims of Plato necessarily perturb, so those cognitive goals are rejected. But what of other cognitive aims? For

the Pyrrhonist, these are minimal, the minimum required to achieve the goal of an unperturbed life. Idle curiosity was not to be cultivated; one would aim at knowledge only for application, and

even then at just enough knowledge to get on

unperturbedly. For example, the Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus tells us that we can rely upon knowledge of natural signs such as smoke being a sign of fire for our getting on

in the world; and this would include the Hippocratic medicine that Sextus himself

practised. On the other hand he insists that such knowledge not be affirmed with certainty, nor even ought one to affirm with certainty that such knowledge is probably

true.

As for non-cognitive goals, the Pyrrhonist recipe is that one should cultivate

just those that enable us to live unperturbably with our fellows, and suppress those

that perturb. The recommendation to conform to custom follows directly. Again the point is that our aims should be minimal. Why minimall Because any other aim, that

is, any longer path from present actuality to desired end would be more perturbing and would require a greater effort to achieve. In contrast to all this, the academic sceptic holds that the goal of the

philosopher is not the unperturbed life, but the truth. For the academic, the basic motive is idle curiosity, truth for its own sake, which contrasts to the Pyrrhonist whose motive for knowledge is always some pragmatic interest. The academic

Arcesilaus and, following him, Cicero, argued that this goal of truth was compatible with the sceptical thesis that certainty is never attainable. That scepticism entails that

the Platonic goal of knowledge transcending sense experience is impossible to

achieve, and so is the Platonic goal of absolute certainty; as a consequence these

cognitive goals are rejected as unattainable. But scepticism, as Sextus as well as Cicero saw, is compatible with the claim that fallible knowledge of the world of sense

experience is attainable. So the latter soil of fallible knowledge can be aimed at for its own sake. There is of course no ultimate justification for this aim; that is part of

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the scepticism. Except, one must say, first, that aim is part of the good life for at least

some, and, second, pursuing that aim provides knowledge that turns out to be useful for achieving other aims. Thus, for the good life, it is useful to cultivate a disinterested

concern for matter-of-fact truth, but only a concern that does not seek to go beyond

our fallible limits. Of this, we shall have more to say later. For now, the point is the sceptical arguments against the position deriving from Plato’s Socrates of the Phaedo

and the Meno.

For Socrates and his successors, the aim is to achieve infallible certainty; that alone, it is held, can be conducive to the good life. Hume the sceptic argues that such a cognitive goal is impossible to attain; between the world as we know it, which in

fact has no transcendent dimension to it, and our faculties, whose ideas are limited to

the world of sense experience, we simply lack the cognitive capacity to achieve such a goal. The arguments that Hume marshals derive from the Greek sceptics, but are,

of course, oriented towards the version of the Socratic metaphysics developed in the

early modern period by the rationalists such as Descartes, Malebranche and Spinoza. In any case, the point is that the cognitive standard proposed by Socrates and

defended from him onwards through Aristotle and Plotinus to Descartes and Spinoza is not one that we, ordinary human beings, can ever meet. What, therefore, are we to

do? We may keep the standard, and then constantly feel frustrated at ourselves because, as necessarily we must, we fall short of our cognitive goals. This, however, is hardly reasonable, why should we put ourselves in a state of constant frustration? The reasonable person does otherwise. Such a person puts the Socratic-Cartesian

cognitive standard aside; to do otherwise is to court frustration, or, worse, the self­

deception that one has attained it. Our cognitive ends must be adapted to the means available. Fallible knowledge, probability, must substitute for certainty. But not only

that: it can substitute. Contrary to the Platonist view, probability can provide a

perfectly adequate guide to life. I do not need absolute certainty to play backgammon, I do not need absolute certainty to prepare a decent meal, I do not need absolute certainty to enjoy conversation with my friends, I even do not need absolute certainty

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for doing empirical science and for getting on with the achievable - because modest,

and adapted to our capacities - cognitive task of improving our knowledge of the world in which we live - including our knowledge of ourselves. The last is of crucial importance in recognizing Hume’s central contribution to the sceptical tradition The

good life is achievable only in a social context (life otherwise, as Hobbes quite rightly

said, is nasty, poor, brutish and short) and Plato, in the Republic, had claimed that unless our knowledge of fact and value were tied down in absolute certainty social

controls would eventually disintegrate and the possibility of the good life disappear in the ensuing anarchy of egoistic individualism.

Sceptics such as Sextus had argued that the response to Plato with respect to both certainty and social glue was custom. Our knowledge of causes is not knowledge of transcendent entities which through their own clarity and distinctness infallibly

secure the knowledge of themselves in our minds; it is, rather, simply fallible knowledge of matter-of-fact regularities like “water when heated boils” which is

secured in thought as a customary habit of inference induced in one by the repeated observation in the past of the singular conjunctions that are its instances. At the same

time, social convention provides the framework for people to live together and provides a context in which they may achieve the good life as they see it; and these conventions become so habituated, so customary, that they can provide the bonds that curb the egoistic impulses that are always threatening to tear society apart.

Sextus, the Pyrrhonist, aims only at minimal knowledge, and at conformity to

the customs of the society in which one finds oneself. Hume, the academic sceptic,

aims at more: so far as knowledge is concerned, he aims at truth, and so is prepared to go beyond the minimum and try to improve our knowledge - within fallible limits,

of course. Unlike Sextus, Hume proposes a method to improve knowledge, a set of “rules by which to judge of causes and effects,” which are, in effect, the best

statement of the canons of experimental science between Francis Bacon, who discovered them, and John Stuart Mill, who gave his name to them? Nor does Hume only propose, he defends: he argues that, so far as we can tell, within our fallible

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limits, this method, the method of modem science, ought to be adopted as the most efficient means to satisfying our cognitive goal of curiosity. Science, in contrast to superstition or just muddling through on what we learned at our mother’s knee, is

rational. Motivated by curiosity, Hume can now turn to humanity itself. Persons are patterns of behaviour. Their customs and habits, be they social or cognitive, are such

patterns. Almost all of them are, it is clear, acquired or learned. How are they learned?

This is the question Hume posed, and tried to answer. He was the first to develop systematically, and even crudely test - tests in an immature science are always crude

- a scientific theory of learning. This theory, what we now call associationist psychology, was elementary and even simplistic, and much work had to be done to

transform it into modern learning theory, and even that is not as powerful or complete

as many of the professionals hope or pretend - though it is rather better than phenomenologists and other last ditch defenders of the spiritual like to admit. But that is not the point Rather, what Hume did was propose such a theory in the context of a rational method for its improvement As a consequence, one can begin to think of

coming systematically to know the conditions under which the various patterns of behaviour are acquired. This includes our cognitive habits. We can explore the conditions under which we come to make causal inferences. Then, given that our aim is curiosity, we can better train and discipline ourselves in such a way that our thought conforms to those

patterns, the rules of science by which to judge of causes and effects, conformity to which is the best way of satisfying the aim of curiosity. Knowing the science of human nature can help us become better scientists. It can also help us to understand why we come also to think non-scientifically, that is, why we have all sorts of non-rational

beliefs, eg., prejudice, superstition, and religion in general - or a belief in an objective necessary connection or even a belief in an afterlife. In particular, Hume suggests,

religious beliefs, including a belief in immortality, are acquired in the context of various non-cognitive aims, the emotion of fear being a major one.58 At the same time

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he also argues that social institutions, such as a church with a priesthood or a theocratic monarchy, can through a formal and informal system of education maintain

and reinforce a system of beliefs that rationally cannot withstand critical scrutiny.

These beliefs may not satisfy the cognitive aim of curiosity, love of truth, but they satisfy other emotional needs, and provide for some societies some of the customary glue that holds them together.

Hume’s theory of learning also proposes a systematic answer to the question of how we acquire concepts. Sceptics had previously criticized Platonic claims to know entities that lie beyond the world of sense experience. If the Platonists are

correct, and truth transcends sense experience, then to grasp the truth our concepts must at their best be a priori. Since it is through them that we grasp the truth, such

a priori concepts of transcendental entities should play a regular role in our judgments. But they seem to play no such role. Indeed, not only do we not seem to

find them where the Platonist says we will, but also, so the sceptic argues, these supposed concepts involve intolerable ontological and logical difficulties - difficulties

that would be there were we to have such concepts but which seem always to be

absent in our ordinary dealings with the world. We therefore have no such concepts, the sceptic concludes. This, however, while merely negative does suffice for one like

Sextus who is not concerned to develop positive theories more than is strictly

necessary. But for the curious, one also needs a positive theory of concept formation

Hume provides this for the first time in the sceptical tradition. Hume applies his associationist psychological theory To think we must apply general terms. Things become associated with each other in thought if they stand in

certain relations. Thus, if things are conjoined in experience they come to be habitually

conjoined in thought; it is in this way that observed constant conjunctions generate our habits of causal inference. Another relation by which association proceeds is that

of resemblance. General terms come to be general through the mechanisms of

association via resemblance. Through association we acquire the habit or disposition of applying a term to any member of a class of resembling particulars. In this way the

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term becomes general. On Hume’s account, then, an abstract general idea is not some transcendent Form or a priori idea that logically precedes language; it is, rather, simply the acquired disposition to apply a term in a general way. For thinkers from

Plato to Locke, ideas are non-linguistic; rationality is prior to discourse. For Hume, in contrast, an idea is a disposition to use a word, and since discourse thus is thought, discourse is prior to rationality. What happens in learning is that people come to conform to the settled

conventions for the use of a sign. Through learning, the conventions are passed on

from older to newer members of a linguistic community. Thus, for Hume, social being

is prior to rationality, in contrast to Plato for whom rational thought, that is, the

grasping of the transcendent reasons for things, is prior to all (human) discourse, and the rational animal is prior to the political animal.

Plato’s reason is, of course, a reason that grasps the ought as well as the is of

things It is a reason that grasps a transcendent standard that determines which among the human conventions and customs is the true morality. For Hume, in contrast, there is no ultimate justification that a set of conventions which is customary in some

societies is morally superior to the set which is customary in another society: virtue is what people call virtue. As Hume puts it at one point in the Treatise. “It belongs to Grammarians to examine what qualities are entitled in the denomination of virtue'''

(T, p. 610). Of course, some sets of conventions are more conducive to human happiness than others, but the point is, there is no standard for the acceptability of

social conventions beyond human interest. Variable human interests differ from age to age and from place to place, though there are also constants of human nature - the

needs for food, shelter, sex, and so on, but also the basic sociableness or sympathy

that we tend to feel for others - that place constraints on any system of morality that

has any hope of becoming customary. Hume the moral philosopher, like Hume the ontologist-epistemologist, is also often viewed as an irrationalist, someone who has rigidly excluded reason from any

place in morals. If there is any morality in Hume, then it is a self-interested

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utilitarianism or a contractarian theory much of a piece with that of Hobbes,59 David Fate Norton60 has argued against such a narrow interpretation, and Annette Baier

extends this argument, rightly emphasizing the role of sympathy in creating and sustaining the moral structure of society. Hume moreover extends the scope of reason to include this practical side of our human being. Finally, Baier rightly sees that Hume

has a positive theory of the self, not as a simple substance of the sort defended by

Descartes and demanded by the Christians, but as a psychological and social

construction. Sympathy and reason are situated within a picture of man, that is, of persons, that locates them firmly in this world and views them in terms of a socially

and humanly created complexity.

On Annette Baier’s plausible reading of Hume, Humean reason is reflective reason, a reason that can reflect upon itself and on its own operation, and that such reflection reveals man to be an amiable and social creature, one who, through

experience, discovers, and implements a concept of reason that fits the human

condition - a creature, in short, who is, and ought to be, reasonable about society, about him- or herself, and about reason too.

The thrust of this argument is one which has been presented recently by others such as Pall Ardal61 and Don Livingston.62 It is one with which I too am in substantial

agreement.63 The general basis of Baier’s argument that locates the Humean view of

persons as thoroughly this-worldly is the emphasis, quite correct I think, upon the role

of language not only as expressing thought, that is, thought that is prior to and

independent of language, but in contrast language as constitutive of thought Language enters, Baier notes (p 31), as the very structure of thought: for Hume,

abstract ideas - that is, the very medium of thought - consist of ideas and impressions

such that (i) they are associated one with the others on the basis of some relation of resemblance, and such that (ii) a general term, that is, a sound or mark, has become

associated with things that resemble one another in the relevant respect. Our habits of thought “follow the words” (T, p. 23).

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The patterns here are both causal, that is, the result of association, and

semantic, that is normative. The patterns are artificial, in the sense of being on the one

hand learned and of serving, on the other hand, fundamental human needs with

respect to communication. But conventions that serve fundamental human needs are converted through the mechanism of sympathy into norms. So the learned linguistic patterns that are abstract ideas, the syntax of language, and the standards of causal

inference (“the rules by which to judge of causes and effects”) all become converted into shared rules of language and inference, exactly as the norms of property and contract become converted into the shared rules of artificial virtue.

All these conventions can be altered through deliberate choice in order to satisfy interests that we have. Some changes in syntax and semantics occur slowly, and unconsciously. But others are deliberate. Poets regularly make syntactical

innovations to achieve new effects. Semantic rules are changed quite regularly. If one

has a cognitive interest in matter-of-fact truth, then that will lead one to discipline one’s thought to conform to the rules by which to judge of causes and effects. Or so

Hume argues, and so Baier correctly reads him. What the need to communicate generates is the general interest that there be conventions of language The fact that

one is bom into a linguistic community gives the accepted rules of that community an advantage at the gate over possible alternatives; but since we learn them so early, they

become so deeply ingrained that one can think only of modifying them piecemeal,

never of their total replacement. Neither political constitutions, as Livingston has argued,64 nor our ethics of belief, nor even the logical syntax of language, can be evaluated from an a priori perspective and the possibility of revolutionary change

contemplated. At least, they ought not to be so evaluated: for, if Hume is correct,

there is no Plato’s heaven where we can find either an ideal republic, or an objective necessary causal tie, or any other sort of object for our transcendental Reason to

grasp. 1 he crucial move consists in construing thought as something essentially

linguistic. Hume saw this himself when he wrote in his correspondence that “in much

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of our own thinking, there will be found some species of association. ’Tis certain we

always think in language, viz. in that which is most familiar to us; and ’tis but too

frequent to substitute words instead of ideas.”65 It is this theme that Baier understands fully, and in this she may be contrasted to many other commentators, e g., Peter

Jones. Jones has remarked on the passage just quoted that Unfortunately, the view that we think in language is left unsupported; unless he means by it that the expression of thought requires language, Hume did not mention any such view in lais earlier philosophical work, and it may reflect his reading subsequent to it.66

But of course Hume did support the view that thought is language: the argument is

constituted by his doctrine of abstract ideas on the one hand and his account of

linguistic conventions on the other. Perhaps because these occur respectively in Books

I and III of the Treatise, Jones has failed to make the connection Jones locates Hume’s views on language in the context ofFrench thinkers like Lamy, du Tremblay, and du Marsais, who held that linguistic conventions serve human needs.67 These thinkers were, however, of a piece with the old tradition, also found in earlier thinkers

such as Descartes and Locke, in which language derives its signification from its

expressing thoughts which are both non- and pre-linguistic. Always eager to locate Hume within a set of precursors, Jones misses Hume’s break with the precursors

when he makes the radical innovation that thought does not precede but is language, and instead attributes to Hume the view of the old tradition with which Hume broke,

that the role of language is merely that of expressing thought, and that language acquires its signification through expressing thoughts, that is, thoughts which must

be prior to the language that merely expresses but does not constitute them Jones in fact attributes to Hume the position of Descartes and Locke, that we clarify speech

by turning to the thoughts or ideas which lie behind it, and give it its signification:

No matter how many problems Hume leaves unexplored, his own position is moderately clear: talking is distinct from thinking, and most talk expresses thought; when confused by talk, we have to struggle to identify the thought behind it, and in the rarefied regions of philosophy we often find that such thought is itself confused or incoherent6X

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Now of course, thought is different from talking, i.e., overt verbal behaviour or, if you wish, speech acts. Hume agrees: for a thought to be expressed in overt

behaviour, an act of volition is, often at least, required. It does not follow, however,

that since thought is not talk, i.e., speech acts, therefore it is not linguistic. It is also true that when we are attempting to communicate with others, and we are presented

by another with a speech act the meaning of which is unclear to us, then the first step in attempting to understand that event consists in attempting to identify its immediate

causes, that is, the belief and the desire or intention that triggered the volition that

produced the speech act. For Hume, however, there is a second step that is required

if we are to grasp the signification of language: we must trace out the conventional

or habitual links which it has to entities in the world that is given to us in sense experience. ’Tis impossible to reason justly, without understanding perfectly the idea concerning which we reason, and ’tis impossible perfectly to understand any idea, without tracing it up to its origin, and examining that primary impression, from which it arises (T, p. 74-5). What this means is that where the programme of Socrates, of Plotinus, of

Descartes, and of Spinoza, endorsed on this point by Locke, requires one to turn inward to discover the signification of language, Hume requires one instead to turn

outward, to the world that language, through its syntactical and semantical conventions, tries to describe. For Hume we must examine not the fit of our language to our ideas but the fit of our language to the world. Jones refers to the passage we just above quoted,69 but he fails to recognize its significance. As a consequence he

ignores the second step that Hume prescribes for grasping the signification of what is said, that is, the tracing out of the habitual or conventional ties of semantics that

link terms to what they designate, and instead Jones attributes to Hume the Cartesian and Lockean view that to grasp the sense of what a person says it suffices to turn to the "thought behind it.” But when Jones locates Hume in this tradition of Locke, Descartes, Aristotle and Plato, in which the meaning of language derives from thought

which is non- and pre-linguistic, he simply fails to recognize that in Hume the

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transition from the other-world of Plato and Aristotle, of Descartes and Locke, to naturalism is finally complete,

Annette Baier, in contrast, fully recognizes the leap that Hume has made

beyond the previous tradition: “without language.. .there would be no generality, no abstraction...” (p. 100). These conventions are part of the natural causal order, resulting by means of the associative mechanisms from natural causes. At the same

time, these conventions are normative, where this normativity also has a naturalistic explanation. Baier emphasizes this naturalism of Hume in her discussion of Hume’s account of causation (p 89ff). According to this, as we know, there are two

definitions of cause. The first idea of cause is constant conjunction The second is that

of a determination of the mind to pass from the idea of the cause to that of the effect.

Hume offers these definitions after an elaborate causal analysis of the origin of our

idea(s) of cause. The causal analysis itself exemplifies the patterns mentioned in the two definitions. “Causal inferences are what enable us to trace and recognize constant

conjunctions, and their effect on us. Hume’s double definition of the causal relation itself displays a meta-causal relation, and that is what gives it its authority” (Baier, p 91). Hume’s definition of the concept of cause is not confused, unlike those of the

rationalists, precisely because he has traced out the causal ties, which are also

semantic rules, which link the concept to things which actually occur in our ordinary

experience of the world In fact the causal and semantic analysis of our concept of ‘cause’ not only exemplifies the patterns stated in Hume’s two definitions of ‘cause’, but it also exemplifies more specific patterns, to wit, those identified by Hume as the “rules by

which to judge of causes and effects,” that is, in effect the rules of eliminative induction. Hume examines the many causes of true belief and error, and concludes that on the whole true beliefs are the causal upshot of inferences that conform to these

rules, while other patterns of inference, those of “unphilosophical probability,” generally, or at least too often, have error as their upshot.70 Causal reasoning in

conformity to the rules shows us that conformity to those rules is the best means we

214 have for achieving our goal of truth, that is, satisfying the passion of curiosity. The rules are “reflexivity-tested human norms' (Baier, p. 100). They are "products of our

reflection” (p. 100), not a priori standards deriving from God or a world of Forms.

Our cognitive standards are here being judged practically, they are in fact

conducive to satisfying our cognitive interest in truth, the passion of curiosity, and are, therefore, rationally acceptable. There is no pure reason, that is, reason that is somehow self-evident and self-justifying. One can justify a set of cognitive norms as

rationally acceptable only if conforming to them satisfies some passion or other. “Where reason is lively,” Hume argues, “and mixes itself with some propensity, it

ought to be assented to” (T, p. 270). Specifically, of course, when we are concerned with truth, the relevant propensity is that of curiosity, the love of truth. The

philosophical enterprise, the search after truth, is a way of indulging the sentiments'1: “I am uneasy to think that I approve of one object, and disapprove of another; call one

thing beautiful, and another deform’d, decide concerning truth and falsehood, reason

and folly, without knowing upon what principles I proceed,” and if 1 do not indulge

these sentiments, then “I feel 1 should be a loser in point of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy” (T, p. 271).72 The search after truth takes its place in the

larger search after happiness that provides the full structure of one’s life. And the

epistemic norms that a “just” philosophy adopts are those conformity to which, experience tells us, will in general lead in a human way to my satisfying my human

curiosity. For as superstition arises naturally and easily from the popular opinions of mankind, it seizes more strongly on the mind, and is often able to disturb us in the conduct of our lives and actions. Philosophy on the contrary, if just, can present us only with mild and moderate sentiments, and if false and extravagant, its opinions are merely the objects of a cold and general speculation, and seldom go so far as to interrupt the course of our natural propensities (T, pp. 271-2).

Reason thus comes to take its place among the (natural) virtues (Baier, p. 280): “ ’Tis impossible to execute any design with success, where it is not conducted with

prudence and discretion; nor will the goodness of our intentions alone suffice to

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procure us a happy issue of our enterprizes. Men are superior to beasts principally by

the superiority of their reason... All the advantages of art are owing to human reason”

(T, p. 610).73 By focussing on human ends and human means of achieving those ends, including our cognitive ends, Hume eliminates the non-human, or rather inhuman,

standards of traditional epistemology. Hume abandons the chase after self-evident principles and instead contextualizes the norms relative to human interests and human

wants, and relative to human means, tested in human experience, for satisfying those

interests and wants.

There are hints of Hume’s position about the human contextualization of

epistemic norms already in Montaigne. In the Apology’for Raymond Sebond we find a systematic sceptical attack on reason. We cannot judge from appearances, we are told. “It is like a man who does

not know Socrates; if he sees a portrait of him he cannot say whether it resembles him or not.” The problem with the senses as with reason is that there is no criterion, and

therefore no knowledge. But supposing, nevertheless, that anyone did wish to judge from appearances, he cannot do so from all of them, since (as we know from experience) they all mutually impede each other because of contradictions and discrepancies. Will he select only some appearances to control the others? But the first one selected will have to be tested for truth against another one selected, and that one against a third: the end will therefore never be reached 74

Montaigne came to mitigate this scepticism, however. The purely sceptical rejection of reason is moderated by a suggestion that there are contextual standards

conformity to which we discover, through experience, does lead to our satisfying our human needs to know. Thus, in the essay “On Physiognomy” Montaigne points that “it requires some skill to distinguish the gentle from the silly, the stern from the

rugged, the malicious from the sad, the scornful from the melancholy, and between

other such closely related qualities. There is a beauty that is not only haughty but sour; there is another that is gentle but insipid too.”75 Here is what Montaigne says:

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‘7/ requires some skill " These words clearly do imply that it can be done, though

perhaps only with difficulty, and certainly not infallibly. In fact, Montaigne quite clearly has asserted already in the essay that it can be done because it has been done.

It grieves me that Socrates, who was a perfect pattern of all great qualities, should, as reports say, have had so ugly a face and body, so out of keeping with the beauty of his soul. . .76 The ugly physiognomy is but first appearance and we do have the skill to go beyond first appearances to discover the truth We can go beyond the first appearance of

ugliness and discover the true beauty of Socrates. We do have the tool, however imperfect it is, to grasp the truth. As nature has provided us with feet for walking, so she has given us wisdom to guide us through life; a wisdom less subtle, robust, and spectacular than that of the philosopher’s invention, but correspondingly easy and salutary, which actually performs very well what the other only promises, for anyone lucky enough to know how to use it plainly and properly, that is to say naturally.77

This tool is experience. There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. We try every means that may lead us to it, When reason fails us, we make use of experience, Per varios usus artem experientiafecit: exemplo monstrante viam. [7S] which is a feebler and less worthy means. But truth is so great a thing that we ought not despise any medium that will conduct us to it.79

Montaigne’s picture is this We have a certain cognitive goal: discovery of the truth. This is at the least a pragmatic interest: we must have some definite access to

the truth about the world, others, and ourselves if we are to get on with the task of living. Philosophers have proposed reason as the means to satisfying that cognitive

interest; the case that the sceptic makes establishes that this tool is useless Montaigne therefore suggests that we turn to a tool that is available to us, and which, while not perfect, and while certainly not as exciting as the reason of the philosophers, has nonetheless shown itself in experience to be a tool that does work and upon which we

can reasonably rely. This tool, with which nature has provided us, is experience itself.

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Give up, therefore, the standard of reason; grant, therefore, that relative to that standard one will invariably be ignorant; and grant, too, that relative to the realms

philosophers aim to penetrate one might as well simply give up being curious. And settle for something that we find does in fact work reasonably well: experience.

The more simply one entrusts oneself to nature, the more wisely one does so. Oh, how soft and pleasant and healthful a pillow, whereon to rest a prudent head, is ignorance and lack of curiosity!80

But why should we refashion our epistemology in this way? Why should we

adopt these epistemic standards rather than those of the traditional concept of reason9 Because, answers Montaigne, we can in this way live a better life. “I bid my soul,” he

tells us, “look upon pain and pleasure with the same level gaze. ..and with the same firmness, but to greet the one cheerfully, the other austerely, and, in so far as it can, to try as hard to cut short the one as to prolong the other.”81 We adapt our norms to

this end: “Of philosophical opinions I embrace for preference those that are most substantial, that is to say most human, and most natural to us.”82 Thus, according to Montaigne, when we discover on the basis of sceptical arguments that the traditional doctrine of reason and of infallible knowledge (scientia)

is bankrupt, then the proper thing to do is not to give up the search for truth but

rather to re-fashion our epistemology. Specifically, we should make the starting point of thought not reason or intuition but experience. And why should we do this?

because we have discovered - through experience - that we can discover truth, and

satisfy, if not all our cognitive interests, then at least those that are relevant to getting on with living as decent and happy a life as we can. We choose our cognitive goals

and cognitive standards on the basis of experience as those that best fit with our being

able to achieve as reasonably a happy life as we can. Descartes attempted to reply on behalf of the reason of the tradition.83 Pascal renewed the sceptical attack. His attack was based on the same sort of argument as

Montaigne offered, attacking reason on the grounds that there is no criterion for & knowledge: The strongest of the sceptics’ arguments, to say nothing of minor

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points, is that we cannot be sure that these principles are true (faith and revelation apart) except through some natural intuition. There is no certainty, apart from faith, as to whether man was created by a good God, an evil demon, or just by chance, and it is a matter of doubt, depending on our origin, whether these innate principles are true, false or uncertain.84 Nor do natural principles offer any solution to the dream problem.85 The only strong point of the dogmatists is that “we cannot doubt natural principles if we speak

sincerely and in all good faith.” But the sceptics have a reply: we do not know by

whom we are created, a good God or an evil demon? . . .uncertainty as to our origin entails uncertainty as to our nature. The dogmatists have been trying to answer that ever since the world began.86

Nonetheless, though reason can support no belief, it is also simply not possible to give

up all belief. Can one really doubt whether one is wake, whether one is being pinched

or burned, whether one is doubting or whether one exists? Life demands belief, and nature intervenes and causes us to believe where reason demands we cease. “...I

maintain that a perfectly genuine sceptic never existed. Nature backs up helpless

reason and stops it going so wildly astray.”87 The first principles upon which we live and act come, therefore, not from

reason but from nature, and reason tries in vain to cause us to reject them. “We know

the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.”88 But the parity argument works here: the heart is moved to

accept not only the principles we need to live but also to accept the basic principles of religion. As in Montaigne, so in Pascal: the sceptical arguments open the way to

religious faith. ...those to whom God has given religious faith by moving their hearts are very fortunate, and feel quite legitimately convinced...89

Moreover, again like Montaigne, Pascal recommends that in the face of the sceptic s critique of reason in the traditional and Cartesian sense we should not

abandon the search for truth but rather refashion our epistemology, the norms of our

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ethics of belief. One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. Some men run counter to these three principles, either affirming that everything can be proved, because they know nothing about proof, or doubting everything, because they do not know when to submit, or always submitting, because they do not know when judgement is called for.90 One must set our epistemic standards at a reasonable level, for otherwise they become

open to the attack of the sceptic. But just what is the appropriate level? Montaigne gave an answer of sorts:

choose rules for judgment and belief that enable one to get on with the task of living. Pascal goes much beyond this. A person is concerned not just with his or her life here, in this, the ordinary world we know by sense experience, but with his or her eternal

state. Indeed, experience shows that concern with his or her state is natural to a person.

Nothing is so important to man as his state: nothing more fearful than eternity. Thus the fact that there exist men who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of any eternity of wretchedness is against nature. .. Man’s nature must have undergone a strange reversal for him to glory in being in a state in which it seems incredible that any single person should be. Yet experience has shown me so many like this that it would be surprising if we did not know that most of those concerned in this are pretending and are not really what they seem.91

This places Pascal in the tradition of Augustine, which locates a longing for immortality as an innate part of human nature. What is relevant, then, to determining

our epistemic norms is not simply getting on with a decent and reasonably happy life as Montaigne seems to suppose, but rather our eternal happiness. One needs no great sublimity of soul to realize that in this life there is no true and solid satisfaction, that all our pleasures are mere vanity, that our afflictions are infinite, and finally that death which threatens us at every moment must in a few years infallibly face us with,the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched it • O? throughout eternity. “

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We need norms such that conformity to them will be conducive to attaining not just this-worldly happiness, as in Montaigne, but in attaining eternal happiness.

All our actions and thoughts must follow such different paths, according to whether there is hope of eternal blessings or not, that the only possible way of acting with sense and judgement is to decide our course in the light of this point, which ought to be our ultimate objective.93 Pascal thus follows Montaigne in reacting to the sceptic’s challenge to the traditional doctrine of knowledge by arguing that we should replace those standards and that concept of reason by something that is more reasonable, that is, more

reasonable relative to certain ends. These ends are not just cognitive, but in the final analysis embrace the whole of our selves. Indeed, we embrace the cognitive ends and

cognitive norms that we do, not because they are somehow self-evident, as Descartes claimed, but because by adopting these we can get on with living as happy a life as we reasonably can. Except, of course, for Montaigne the life with which we are

concerned is primarily life in this world, where for Pascal it is our life eternal of which our this-worldly existence is but a minor part. And so for Pascal, the cognitive standards we set will require us to accept the existence of God and to accept His saving grace that will ensure our eternal happiness.

Hume’s programme in response to the sceptical attack on traditional reason and scientia is that of Montaigne and Pascal. Except, as Annette Baier brings out, it

is much more radical. Hume argues as do they that the norms for the acceptance of

beliefs must be made relative to human ends. The rules by which to judge of causes and effects are justified by reference to the end of curiosity or love of truth: conformity to these rules is the best means, experience tells us, for achieving our end.

But Hume goes far beyond Montaigne and Pascal. The latter both take for granted the meaningfijlness of the traditional discourse about God and His providence. While they

both rely upon experience to test the epistemic norms that they recommend, they do

not turn the test of experience upon the conceptual content of the propositions that they are disposed to accept. Unlike Hume, they undertake no causal-semantic analysis

221 of the concepts this discourse requires. It is the latter, of course, that marks Hume’s

great break with the philosophical tradition When Hume asks precisely how language functions in experience, what he discovers is that notions like that of an objective necessary connection or that of a necessary being turn out to be either meaningless

or self-contradictory The very language of theology and religion is corrupt from the

beginning, and incapable, save as illusion or delusion, of being accepted. Hume thus excludes the fideistic justification of religious belief that one finds in Montaigne and Pascal. Experience itself firmly fixes the limits of discourse to this world, and we may

not, if we are to be reasonable, stray beyond it. And even those broad limits must further be restricted: propositions about the world are to be believed only if their affirmation is a product of inference habits that conform to the rules by which to judge

of causes and effects. Even when Hume makes the moves made by Montaigne and Pascal, moves that they used to make a place for religion, that place disappears when

Hume more strictly applies the test of experience to which they appealed. A “just” philosophy thus rigidly excludes the superstition of Port Royal (T, p. 272).

Of course, superstition is also part of human nature, and the causal rules that

lead to an understanding of conformity to the causal rules also lead to an understanding of superstition. Just as causal reasoning reveals the patterns that lead to true belief, so the same sort of reasoning reveals the patterns that lead to

superstitious belief, e g., reasoning in conformity with the rule that we will believe it to be true if we wish it to be true. As Annette Baier points out (p. 23), natural

curiosity concerning causes will, according to Hume, lead us into superstition; short of real evidence, we will be inclined to (try to) satisfy our curiosity with the illusions

of wild hypotheses, e g., about gods and spirits as the forces behind natural

phenomena. But a “just” philosophy will curb the tendency of the mind to accept the wild hypotheses of superstition; it will substitute a reasonable set of rules forjudging of causes for the unjustified set that leads to superstitious belief.

These rules are, however, justified only relative to the passion of curiosity, the love of truth. The point is that not only curiosity about causes, but also terror at the

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unknown can lead us to accept hypotheses. The fear of the unknown, fear of death, causes us to believe that there are certain causal forces at work which, if they really

were operative, would show that the fear is unjustified, and so, to eliminate the fear we accept those hypotheses as true. Hume argues that human beings, in their earliest

state, were not led to ideas of religion by curiosity to a “contemplation of the works

of nature”. Human beings were, rather, barbarous, necessitous beings, without leisure, moved by urgent practical interests. It is these latter interests from which religion arose, “from the incessant hopes and fears, which actuate the human mind,”9'1 or, as

he put it later, “The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly from an anxious fear of future events; and what ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible unknown powers, while men lie under dismal apprehensions of any kind, may easily be

conceived.”95 As Hume, in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, has his

representative Philo say, “both hope and fear enter into religion.”96 Indeed, this is the explanation why religion operates only in fits and starts: in everyday affairs a person

is moved neither by excessive hope nor excessive fear, nor therefore by the religion

appropriate to either, that is, respectively enthusiasm and superstition.97 In civilized society, then, religion is more pathological than normal In barbarous times, however,

fear and hope are normal, and the religious response is therefore normal too. It must necessarily. . .be allowed, that, in order to carry men’s attention beyond the present course of things, or lead them into any inference concerning invisible intelligent power, they must be actuated by some passion, which prompts their thought and reflection; some motive which urges their first enquiry. But what passion shall we here have recourse to, for explaining an effect of such mighty consequences? Not speculative curiosity, surely, or the pure love of truth. That motive is too refined for such gross apprehensions; and would lead men into enquiries concerning the frame of nature, a subject too large and comprehensive for their narrow capacities. No passions, therefore, can be supposed to work upon such barbarians, but the ordinary affections of human life; the anxious concern for happiness, the dread of future misery, the terror of death, the thirst of revenge, the appetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by hopes and fears of this nature, especially the latter, men scrutinize, with a trembling curiosity, the course of future causes, and examine the various and contrary

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events of human life. And in this disordered scene, with eyes still more disordered and astonished, they see the first obscure traces of divinity 98 In barbarous times one is ignorant of real causes, one only knows that there are unknown and unpredictable powers at work.99 These become the objects ofhopes and

fears, which tum them into the deities of the polytheists. Hume later quotes the maxim that “Ignorance is the mother of devotion.”100 The normal response in a barbarous age

to ignorance and necessity thus generates beliefs in unknown powers - the deities of

the polytheists - that are supposed, by the fearful and the rapturous alike, to affect the course of human events.10' These are then invested with human powers by the

universal tendency of the human mind, which we encounter elsewhere at work, eg., in the ancient philosophy of the Peripatetics,102 namely, the tendency of the mind to attribute its own qualities to external things.103

We have, then, two patterns of inference concerning the formation of beliefs,

namely, the rules by which to judge of causes and the rules that lead to superstition. Which set of rules do we choose? Relative to curiosity, or love of truth, experience

tells us that we ought to choose the rules by which to judge of causes. But curiosity is not the only passion that moves us It is not the end-all of life, and must take its

place alongside our other ends. Just how it will be situated will depend upon reason

and experience. Experience to inform us how well it serves those ends. And reason,

that is, reason in its practical sense, to place those ends in the appropriate context.

This context is, of course, our whole life, and reason in the relevant sense is the capacity to consider our whole life and evaluate the best means for achieving an

overall happiness, where this implies shaping and disciplining our own selves in such a way that we can lead a generally happier life.

In this context, Hume understands reason as a calm reflective passion. “By reason we mean affections of the very same kind with the former [passions, that is];

but such as operate more calmly, and cause no disorder in the temper...” (T, p. 437).

This notion of reason is not to be identified with the reason that treats of truth, whether it be by demonstration, proof, or probability: the calm passions are

224 mistakenly taken to be “determinations of reason, and are suppos’d to proceed from the same faculty, with that, which judges truth and falsehood” (T, p. 217). Reason in this sense takes a “distant” view of one’s own interests (T, p 438), understanding ‘interest’ in the general sense to include our altruistic and sympathetic feelings, that is, the pleasures we take in the well-being of others.

But as we have seen, people are subject not only to pleasures but also to

terrors. Reason is a calm reflective passion taking into account all our passions, both our desires and our aversions, from the long-term or “distant” perspective. It will place our epistemic norms in the context of the passion of curiosity in the first place, but it must take a more distant view, locating these norms and this passion within the

broadest framework of our long-term well-being or pleasure. It is clear that if the terrors that motivate religion are violent and, relative to curiosity, strong and

uncontrollable, then the calm passion of reason will assign a greater priority to their satisfaction than to the satisfaction of curiosity. The calm passion of reason may

therefore argue for the adoption of epistemic norms that control the restless terrors

of religion even though they are contrary to norms that satisfy our curiosity, our cognitive interest in truth. Given the passions that motivate religion, then Hume’s

contextualization of epistemic standards slides back into that of Pascal and Port

Royal: it is no longer possible categorically to eliminate superstition as irrational.

When one comes to the end of Annette Baier’s book, the picture of Hume that has emerged is very much one with which I am in sympathy. It is Hume who is the defender of the values of the enlightenment. His Scottish friends understood him to

be that, and it is only our own more immediate predecessors who were too easily influenced by anti-empiricists such as Kant who convinced too many that Hume was

nothing more than a negative sceptic in both epistemology and morals. But if Hume is the defender of enlightenment values, he is at the same time also an objective student of human nature. Indeed, to undertake such a study of human nature is to act

on those enlightenment values. And the objective student of human nature must attend

not only to human rationality but to human madness - some of which Hume had seen

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in quite close quarters - , not only to those who are reasonable but those who are superstitious. If Hume, in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, understands the rationality of Philo, he also understands the pathology of Philo’s religious

opponent Demea And if, in the end, Hume finds that it is unreasonable to be a person of the same sort as Demea, at the same time his dialogues exemplify a greater

sympathy for this sort of person than one ever finds in, say, Helvetius, or, for that matter, John Stuart Mill or Bertrand Russell. Hume, the defender of the enlightenment, recognizes, where many other defenders of the enlightenment do not, that in general people do not exemplify enlightenment rationality. Hume, the defender

of the role of sympathy and fellow-feeling in the functioning and stability of society, recognizes, where many other defenders of human sociability do not, that very often people have passions, fears, and terrors that run contrary to their feelings of sympathy

and are very often dangerous to the order of society. Annette Baier gives a picture of the enlightenment Hume. But in her study we see much less of the Hume, the student

of human nature, who understood the darker side of our selves, and the passions that

motivate religion. Moreover, when Baier considers the case made by reflective reason for the rationality of the rules by which to judge of causes and effects, she does not

show how Hume rules out, what he clearly wishes to rule out, norms akin to those of Pascal that lead to the acceptance of religious belief. If indeed epistemic rules are to be contextually judged as more or less rational to the extent that they contribute or not to our long-term well-being, then the success of such rules in satisfying our

amiable passions does not preclude the success of contrary rules in eliminating our

fears and terrors.

Not so long ago in my city a young girl of 3 /i disappeared from an enclosed playground of her apartment building. The parents after a few days of increasingly despairing hope and fear resorted to psychics to help them try to find their cliild. We

know objectively that such help is valueless: no one has psychic powers. Yet would we deny the parents their belief that this might help? Surely we would be deficient in

our own human sympathy if we were to expect them not to resort to such means, and

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to put their faith in them. Such solace as those beliefs will provide is surely neither to

be derided nor forbidden. A contextualization of epistemic norms of the sort Hume

proposed must allow for that. In the end, Baier, it seems to me, ignores the negative side of human nature

of which Hume is fully aware and does not recognize the implications of this for the

justification of epistemic norms. But Hume too, a person of his age, was also perhaps

less than fully aware of the implications of his objective view of human being for his epistemology: the fact recognized by Hume that human beings often fail to conform

to the enlightenment standard of amiability and sociability may well imply, what is

perhaps not recognized so well by Hume, nor, it seems to me, by Baier, that conceivably not all persons are fit for the reasonable epistemology of the

enlightenment.

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- Ill -

The arguments that Hume used to bring himself to the attitude towards death that we

saw him exemplify in his own person were undoubtedly those that he used to justify to Boswell his attitude towards death. Certainly, the latter flow directly from the

Epicurean philosophy that Hume defended with such skill.

We find those same arguments deployed by Hume in his discussion of suicide. The topic goes back at least to Socrates. Already in the Phaedo he had

discussed the issue. Socrates there argues that “this seems to me well expressed, that

the gods are our guardians and that men are one of their possessions.” His interlocutor Cebes agrees, and Socrates goes on:

And would you not be angry if one of your possessions killed itself when you had not given any sign that you wished it to die. ..?

Again Cebes (we are not surprised) agrees. Perhaps then, [Socrates continues,] put in this way, it is not unreasonable that one should not kill oneself before a god had indicated some necessity to do so, like the necessity now put upon us (Phaedo, 62b4-c5). The necessity, of course, turns out to be moral necessity, that which is required by

duty. As for the gods, that which is divine, these turn out to be the Forms, those

entities that not only explain why things turn out as they do but also tell us how tilings ought to be. They guard us in the sense of informing us of what is for the best; and we are their possessions in the sense that when we grasp them it is they who

determine how we behave and act. We receive a sign from them precisely when we grasp them. In grasping them we understand, and act to realize, our moral duty. And

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so, for the gods to indicate that there is a necessity to kill oneself is simply to know that it is one’s duty to do so. Seneca puts the point in this way: To live such a life [a life that has fretted and harassed one],...one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well. Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.. . [The wise man] holds that it makes no difference to him whether his taking-off be natural or self-inflicted, whether it comes later or earlier. He does not regard it with fear, as if it were a great loss, for no man can lose very much when but a driblet remains. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill.104 The point, once again, is that it is the virtuous life that counts, and neither life itself

nor death. ...it is not poverty that we praise, it is the man whom poverty cannot humble or bend. Nor is it exile that we praise, it is the man who withdraws into exile in the spirit in which he would have sent another into exile. It is not pain that we praise, it is the man whom pain has not coerced. One praises not death, but the man whose soul death takes away before it can confound it. All these things are in themselves neither honourable nor glorious, but any one of them that virtue has visited and touched is made honourable and glorious by virtue; they merely lie in between,[l05] and the decisive question is only whether wickedness or virtue has laid hold upon them. For instance, the death which in Cato’s case is glorious, is in the case of Brutus [106] forthwith base and disgraceful. For this Brutus, condemned to death, was trying to obtain postponement; he withdrew a moment in order to ease himself; when summoned to die and ordered to bare his throat, he exclaimed: “I will bare my throat, if only I may live!” What madness it is to run away, when it is impossible to turn back! “I will bare my throat, if only I may live!” He came very near saying also “even under Antony!” This fellow deserved indeed to be consigned to Zz/e!107

Nonetheless, if it is reasonable and honourable to die at certain times, it is not in the same way honourable to hasten death for no reason. There is no point ordinarily for

helping death on its way. Certainly there is no point in helping the executioner in his task: It is folly to die through fear of dying. The executioner is upon you; wait for him. Why anticipate him9 Why assume the management of a

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cruel task that belongs to another9 Do you grudge your executioner his privilege, or do you merely relieve him of his task? Socrates might have ended his life by fasting, he might have died by starvation rather than by poison But instead of this he spent thirty days in prison awaiting death, not with the idea “everything may happen,” or “so long an interval has room for many a hope” but in order that he might show himself submissive to the laws and make the last moments of Socrates an edification to his friends. What would have been more foolish than to scorn death, and yet fear poison?108

Later thinkers were not to be as liberal as Socrates and Seneca in permitting suicide, or, at least, self-inflicted death Aquinas'09 repeats Socrates’ argument that “life is God’s gift to man, and is subject to His power. Who kills and makes to live.

Hence whoever takes his own life, sins against God, even as he who kills another’s slave, sins against that slave’s master, and as he who usurps to himself judgment of

a matter not entrusted to him” (p. 103). But Aquinas makes clear that he intends more

than does Socrates: for Aquinas it is never the case that one ought to commit suicide:

“It is altogether unlawful to kill oneself...” (p 103). Thus, he quotes Augustine110 to

the effect that suicide is forbidden by the divine commandment, which we are bound to obey, that “Thou shalt not kill”:

Hence it follows that the words “Thou shalt not kill” refer to the killing of a man; - not another man; therefore, not even thyself. For he who kills himself, kills nothing else than a man (Aquinas, p. 103). It is in fact less than clear that the Biblical text is to be given this exegesis, but in any

case one can always ask for a reason for the rule. As Locke insisted, “there cannot be any one moral rule proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason” (Essay.,

I, ii, 4). Unless there are reasons why suicide is wrong, then God had no business forbidding it. Be that as it may, Aquinas clearly adopts the Augustinian reading, and we must read his arguments against suicide in this light.

Aquinas has two other arguments against suicide. One is that it injures the community: Suicide is forbidden . . .because every part, as such, belongs to the whole. Now every man is part of the community, and so, as such, he belongs to the community. Hence by killing himself he injures the community

230 (Aquinas, p. 103). The third argument is this: Suicide is forbidden because everything naturally loves itself, the result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being, and resists corruptions so far as it can. Wherefore suicide is contrary to the inclination of nature, and so charity whereby every man should love himself. Hence suicide is always a mortal sin, as being contrary to the natural law and to charity (ib).

This latter argument clearly depends upon the substance metaphysics deriving from Socrates’ model of explanation. When the soul grasps the Forms it grasps the reasons for things; indeed, in grasping the Forms, it is moved to imitate those Forms in its own being in time in the world of sense experience. The soul in grasping the Forms is

active in establishing its own being in the world. For it to move towards its own non-

being by committing suicide would, in effect, be for it to turn away from reason and the natural law which ought to move it. For Aquinas, such turning away is a sin. For

others, it is for the soul to be moved contrary to reason by external forces. In a case of suicide, save perhaps in exceptional circumstances, the soul, the seat of reason, would have to be moved by, say, the passions, by something in any case other than reason, that is, the reason that grasps the reasons for things. Such at least is suggested

by Plotinus: ...when a man contrives the dissolution of the body, it is he that has used violence and tom himself away, not the body that has let the soul slip from it. And in loosing the bond he has not been without passion, there has been revolt or grief or anger, movements which it is unlawful to indulge (Enneads, I, 9, p 78).

Spinoza makes much the same point, duty consists in striving to be in accordance with one’s Nature, the Nature or Form or idea that actively constitutes one’s identity, and suicide, acting to not be, must be contrary to one’s Nature. As he puts it, suicides are weak-minded, and are overcome by external causes repugnant to their nature (Ethics, IV, 18, Note).

Aquinas second argument also depends upon the substance metaphysics, though as modified by subsequent thinkers such as the Stoics A person, for Aquinas,

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in contrast to Aristotle, is not a separable substance. Rather, he or she is part of a broader substance, that of the community. This relation is part of the nature of the

person: it is human being to be social. Since it is part of human nature to be social, it follows that we ought to be social, that is, that we have an obligation to be a functioning member of the community. Suicide is contrary to that obligation.

Hume’s essay “On Suicide”1" is perhaps the most notorious of the defences of the rationality of suicide It is, however, certainly not the only defence of its age.

Charles Blount (1654-1693) was infamous in the 17Ih century for his having

committed suicide by reason of his being unable to marry the woman he loved Blount was a Hobbist, a deist, a free-thinker - he attacked the early chapters of Genesis in

his Oracles ofReason (1693) - and a strong Whig. When his wife died he fell in love with her sister. Marriage in such circumstances was forbidden by law, though Blount

wrote a tract defending its legality But he came to despair of fulfilling his wish, and in this despair inflicted upon himself a wound that proved mortal. Though he survived

for some time - refusing to take food from anyone but his sister-in-law - he

eventually succumbed, and died in August 1693.

Miscellaneous Works (1695)112

included a defence of Blount’s action by Charles Gildon (1665-1724), a hack writer and dependent of the Whigs, and successively a Catholic (he trained for the

priesthood at Douay), deist (while a friend of Blount) and Anglican. This essay, “Of the Author,” signed “Lindamour,” argues against the case that Aquinas had

constructed.113 Thus, with regard to the argument that suicide harms the society of which one is a part, Blount’s defender argues that “ ’tis evident from the practice of all Nations,

that every man is the Disposer of his own Person, for no body yet denied but a Man that’s bom in one Country might transplant himself to another; and become a Natural free Denizen of a strange and foreign Land” (p. 12). But if this is permitted, then there

is no reason to suppose that it is morally wrong to quit a country by means of suicide.

Now if I can leave any one particular Body Politick, I have the same right to leave another, and so on through all those of the World, and then by consequence I offend not, if by my Death I take my self away

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from all (p. 13). Blount’s defender also counters the charge that suicide is contrary to “the first Law of Nature, Self-preservation, imprinted in all mankind,’’ which is supposed categorically to forbid suicide 113 Lindamour argues that this law has exceptions, for

example, those who lay down their lives for the public good. The problem then becomes that of judging when to permit the exception. Lindamour then invokes

another law, namely that “every man is sui Juris, that is Judge, or rather disposer of himself...” (pp. 8-9).

This of course won’t do in the context of Aquinas’ metaphysics. On this latter view, virtue consists in imitating the Form of virtue or, what amounts to the same,

striving to be in accordance with one’s Nature. Virtue consists in striving to be

virtuous, where the emphasis must be on both the striving to be and on the virtuous the Socratic model involves both the striving after the Form or Nature, on the one hand, and the Form or Nature, on the other. The former requires one to strive to be:

this is the law of self-preservation, and it is this that forbids suicide. The Form of virtue requires one to do one’s duty, in particular, it may require one to engage in

deadly combat for the public good, with the consequence, sometimes, of dying for

one’s country or for the safety of one’s family. What is required is that one be a defender of the public good; this is what one is striving to be. Death, coming to not be, is a by-product of this striving to be. In contrast, suicide is the striving to not be.

The Socratic-Aquinian model of explanation and Natural Law can thus invoke an

important distinction - that between what is intended and the by-product of what is intended - to argue that there is a manifest and morally important distinction between

the cases of suicide and laying down one’s life for one country. But this distinction depends upon the Natural Law ethics and the Socratic

metaphysics of explanation which supports that ethics. Although Blount’s defender invokes the notion of Natural Law, it is clear that he in fact rejects the Natural Law

ethics, at least insofar as that ethics is founded on the substance metaphysics deriving from Socrates. For, the defender rejects the moral importance of the distinction

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between what is intended and the by-product of what is intended, which is crucial to the argument that there is a law of self-preservation that categorically forbids suicide.

These arguments are so far negative They establish that suicide is not wrong But they do not provide reasons that could justify Blount’s suicide. Lindamour does

provide such reasons, however. These reasons also make clear the rejection of the Socratic models and the Natural Law ethics.

Blount’s defender interestingly also invokes the principle of self-preservation

as justifying Blount’s action. But he gives a justification for that principle that is very different from that of Aquinas, that is, the justification that is grounded in the Socratic

metaphysics of explanation. On this different justification it turns out that suicide can be justified by appealing to that (now re-interpreted) principle.

...the first Principle of Self-preservation is founded on the Good that the Judgment observes in Life, for the Will is necessarily born to what the Judgment esteems Good, that is in the choice betwixt evident Good, and evident evil, but in the choice of two Goods, it often takes the Apparent Good for the Real, so that when Life ceases to be or appear to be Good, the Principle of Self-preservation ceases to be of force, for ’tis not consistent with our Nature to desire the continuance of what appears to us an Evil. But when my Friend, possess’d with the justest and most violent of Passions, found no hopes of obtaining, and in the dist of Despair found Life would be but a perpetual Evil, without Astrea, he did but according to the precepts of Nature and Reason, in doing what he did, and by consequence did nothing unworthy of a Philosopher, that is as to the Action (p. 10). In general, suicide is an action and actions are to be judged on the basis of their consequences in bringing about good and eliminating evil:

...I think there is none so reasonable as the easing our selves of an unavoidable Pain, for since Life is only eligible for the Good it brings, ’tis to be rejected when it offers nothing but Evil (p. 12).

Hume in a similar way invokes considerations of consequences in his argument

that suicide can at times be justified 114 His argument has the form of a direct reply to Aquinas, as Beauchamp has plausibly argued.115 But, as Beauchamp also argues, there is an important sense in which Hume and Aquinas simply talk past each other. For, Aquinas’ position depends, as we have seen, on the natural law ethics deriving from

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the substance tradition and the Socratic model of explanation. Hume, like Blount’s

defender, simply takes for granted that this position is mistaken. Hume understands the ‘nature’ of‘natural law’ to mean nothing more than the empirical universe, and the ‘law’ of‘natural law’ to refer to matter-of-fact regularities in the universe. And

it is quite true that once the metaphysical basis for Aquinas’ arguments concerning suicide are eliminated, those arguments lose most of their force. When Hume examines these Thomistic arguments from his own naturalistic perspective, which

was, for all intents and purposes, also that of Epicurus and Lucretius, he finds them to be, not surprisingly, uncompelling.

As for the Thomistic argument that “Life is God’s gift to man, and is subject to His power,” Hume replies that God exercises His power through natural causes,

and that taking one’s own life is simply one natural cause among others, it cannot, therefore, run counter to God’s power. In fact, the argument is absurd, since it would

equally argue against the protection of our lives from threatening natural causes. Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroachment of his right for men to dispose of their own lives, it would be equally criminal to act for the preservation of life as for its destruction. If I tum aside a stone which is falling upon my head, I disturb the course of nature, and I invade the peculiar province of the Almighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period which by the general laws of matter and motion he had assigned it (“On Suicide,” p. 107). Where you have a distinction between natural causes, those that flow from the

Natures of things, and unnatural causes, those that act contrary to the Natures of things, then Aquinas’ point can be made, but no such distinction is available in the

empiricist philosophy of Hume and Epicurus that denies that there are any such entities as the Natures of things Hume, therefore, from this perspective rightly rejects

this Thomistic argument against suicide. The next argument that Hume considers is the Thomistic argument that in

suicide a person harms the community. But, Hume argues, “a man who retires from life does no harm to society; He only ceases to do good; which, if it is an injury, is of

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the lowest kind.” Hume is prepared to allow that we do have obligations to the society in which we live; but there are limits, and other considerations, in particular

those of self-interest, may on occasion override those duties towards others.

All our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society and therefore ought to promote its interests, but when I withdraw myself altogether from society, can I be bound any longer? But, allowing that our obligations to do good were perpetual, they have certainly some bounds; I am not obliged to do a small good to society at the expense of a great harm to myself; why then should I prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me? If upon account of age and infirmities I may lawfully resign any office, and employ my time altogether in fencing against these calamities, and alleviating as much as possible the miseries of my future life: Why may I not cut short those miseries at once by an action which is no more prejudicial to society? (ib., pp 109-10). For Aquinas, of course, removal from society is contrary to human Nature which establishes us to be essentially social, and suicide therefore constitutes an injury to society; but that argument assumes the doctrine of Natures which Hume rejects

Hume, therefore, from the empiricist perspective rightly rejects the Thomistic

argument that suicide is always, of its nature, injurious to society. Once that general conclusion is withdrawn, it is easy for Hume, like Blount’s defender, to counter, on

the basis of considerations of utility and self-interest, that suicide does not always

constitute a blameable harm to others with whom we are bound up through our social relations into larger social units. Indeed, Hume goes on, when life has become an

intolerable burden, suicide itself may acquire social utility. For, in that way I relieve society of the burden of supporting me:

...suppose that it is no longer in my power to promote the interest of society; suppose that I am a burden to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable (ib., p. 110).

Indeed, in such circumstances suicide is “...the only way that we can then be useful to society, by setting an example, which, if imitated, would preserve to everyone his

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chance for happiness in life and would effectually free him from all danger or misery’ (ib).

In general, Hume concludes, with Blount’s defender, “That suicide may often

be consistent with interest and with our duty to ourselves, no one can question who allows that age, sickness, or misfortune may render life a burden, and make it worse

even than annihilation... .If suicide be supposed a crime ’tis only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid

ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burden” (ib.). Thus, contrary to Plutarch and Nagel, death is not always an evil, and we cannot conclude that “a bad end is in store for us all.”

Hume notes also that we often have reasons not to commit suicide, reasons for wanting to go on living, things we want to do and ought to do. “I believe that no man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping. For such is our natural horror

of death that small motives will never be able to reconcile us to it...” (ib).116 A premature death that prevents one from fulfilling his or her potential or aims or

commitments may well yield grounds for regretting that death. To that extent, death may at times amount to a “bad end.” But where a person has fulfilled their hopes, as

for the most part Hume himself had when he felt death approaching, there is nothing to regret. Once again, it is simply not true that death is a “bad end” that awaits us all. The enlightenment philosophy of David Hume thus argues eloquently that the

attitude towards death that he himself exemplified - the attitude of Epicurus and

Lucretius - is the attitude that reasonable persons in such circumstances will adopt. But as we saw, it is entirely possible that not everyone can live up to those

perhaps austere standards that the enlightenment and the empiricist philosophy of Hume defend. From the point of view of Socrates, Hume’s sceptical arguments destroy all objective value. The result can be described by Socrates as a case of moral scepticism

which eliminates all value from the world. To be sure, from Hume’s point of view, from the point of view of the metaphysical position that he defends, this charge of

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scepticism is not fair, since he has deliberately set out to show that there are no objective values, no Forms, of the sort that Socrates defended. If one argues that

there are no such values, and that the only values are the relative ones defined by

ordinary human interests and sentiments, one cannot be charged with scepticism with

regard to value. The point is that neither Socrates nor those who agree with him had adopted the empiricist standard in either morals or epistemology. And from the view­ point of the Socratic standard defined by the points Pl) - P3), Hume’s position, like

that of Epicurus and Lucretius, can only be judged as sceptical. For a person who has adopted the Socratic position, Hume’s conclusion is in effect a conclusion that nothing really matters Now, some have argued that it never

makes sense to say that “nothing matters.” R. M. Hare, for example, has argued as

follows.1'7 ...the function of the expression “matters” is to express concern, and [since] concern is always somebody's concern, we can always ask, when it is said that something matters or does not matter, “Whose concern?” The easiest case is when the speaker expresses his or her own concern. But we may also say that “It doesn't matter to him'' referring thereby to another person’s

concerns. But If we said “It doesn’t matter,” and left out the words “to him,” it could be assumed in ordinary speech, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, that the speaker was expressing his own unconcern (p 243).

From this Hare draws the conclusion that, given persons as they actually are, it is

logically impossible for it to be true that nothing matters. For, people do have concerns, values, motives: all these ensure that there are things that do matter. .. .you cannot annihilate values - not values as a whole. As a matter of empirical fact, a man is a valuing creature, and is likely to remain so (p. 247).

Others have made similar points. Thus, Kurt Baier discusses the claim that

science, that is, the enlightenment science of Hume, has taken the purpose out of life 118 Now of course science does do that - in the sense that the claims made from

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Socrates on that there is a transcendental entity that defines the end of human beings are contrary to the Epicurean-Humean world view of which science is a part. But

science still leaves purposes', that is, as a matter of fact people do have their (relative)

purposes, ends, values, and these do as a matter of fact give point to one’s life. For a person to have a purpose in this sense is, as A. J. Ayer has put it, “a matter of his

[or her] intending, on the basis of a given situation, to bring about some further

situation which for some reason or other he [or she] conceives to be desirable.”"9 Kurt Baier suggests that those who think that science robs life of its purpose commit

a logical mistake:

They confusedly think that if the scientific world picture is true, then their lives must be futile because that picture implies that man has no purpose given him from without. But this is muddled thinking, for . pointlessness is implied only by purposelessness in the...sense [that his wishes and desires and aspirations and purposes are to count for little or nothing], which is not at all implied by the scientific picture of the world. These people mistakenly conclude that there can be no purpose in life because there is no purpose of life, that men cannot themselves adopt and achieve purposes because man, unlike a robot or a watch dog, is not a creature with a purpose.120

Kai Nielson,121 too, thinks that it is a confusion to seek a transcendental purpose to life, a transcendental validation of our human purposes and values. In asking “What is the meaning of Life?”. . . this question is in reality a question concerning human conduct. It asks either “What should we seek9” or “What ends (if any) are really worthwhile?”.. the answer to our question [“Why is anything worthwhile?”] is that, of course, there are things we humans desire, prefer, approve of, or admire. This being so, our question is not unanswerable. Again we need not fly to a metaphysical enchanter.122

Human values, human purposes, do give meaning to life; the demand for

transcendental values is simply confusion. The difficulty is that the values to which Hare, Baier and Nielson all refer are

those values, concerns, etc., that each of us feel, and which do in fact move us in

various ways. But these, while they do exist, are not absolute, they are not objective. And so, for those who look on the world from the Socratic perspective, yet find only

239 a Humean world and only those relative values therein, it will be as if there are no

values, as if their lives and actions have no foundation. For them it will seem truly to be the case that NOTHING MATTERS. Hare makes his point only if he assumes the

correctness of the Humean position. That may in fact turn out to be the position that reasonable persons adopt, so that for reasonable persons it will make little sense ever to say that nothing matters. But why should we expect people to be reasonable9 Why

should we expect acquiescence in the fact that Humean world in which we live is a world without meaning, without value, and without hopel Surely such a thought

could, at the very least, cause distress. Surely it is not to be dismissed lightly, as beneath notice, as Hare, Baier and Nielson all seem to do. Shakespeare has put the relevant point movingly in Macbeth’s speech The

loss of faith in absolute values can often render everything meaningless to one. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (Macbeth, V, vi, 11. 19-28)

And we have such a person movingly pictured by Tolstoy in his essay, My

Confession.™ Tolstoy relates how he came to feel that the world was without value because he could give no ultimate answer, no foundational answer to the question of why he should do any thing or be concerned about anything. Before attending to my Semara estate, to my son’s education, or to the writing of a book, I ought to know why I should that. So long as I did not know why, I could not do anything. I could not live. .. I felt that what I was standing on had given way, that I had no foundation to stand on, that that which I had lived by no longer existed, and that I had nothing to live by.... (p. 10).

Tolstoy found that he no longer enjoyed the pleasures of his family, nor the pleasures

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of his work as a writer. He no longer thought that these pleasures had any value; at least, he could not see that they did have value. For Tolstoy it was true to say that

NOTHING MATTERS. Kai Nielson has suggested that the problem is not one of objective values:

...if a sensitive and reflective person asks, “Is anything worthwhile, really?” could he not be asking this because, (1) he has a certain vision of human excellence, and (2) his austere criteria for what is worthwhile have developed in terms of that vision? Armed with such criteria, he might find that nothing that man can in fact attain under his present and foreseeable circumstances worthy of attainment. Considerations of this sort seem to be the sort of considerations that led Tolstoy. . .to come to such pessimistic views about life.124

But this is not Tolstoy’s point. His, rather, is about objective values, the point that for

the world of Hume and of modem science there is no objective foundation for any value, however austere we might want that value to be, or however permissive. As Tolstoy puts it, reason can provide no surefoundation outside his own experience for his concerns. It is from this that he therefore concludes that from the standpoint of

reason, nothing matters. The sort of concerns to which Hume pointed, when he indicated that many of us have reasons to go on living, could not move Tolstoy; for, they are only relative values, without any secure foundation: they are not “tethered.”

Of course, it was equally true that the values that Hume cited that might move one to

suicide would be equally non-compelling; for, they too would be only relative values, also without any secure foundation It is clear that Hare’s point, that we do have

concerns even if there is no objective foundation for them, and that therefore something does, after all, matter, could be of no help to Tolstoy. Nor was Tolstoy’s

reason any help It merely established that there were no objective, foundational values. The reason to which Tolstoy appealed was the reason of science and the

enlightenment, the rationality of Hume, and it simply denies that there are any sure

foundations for value, and argues that all the values there are the relative values we

each feel but which have no sure foundation in the objective world. The result was despair, but equally there seemed to be, for some at least, a remedy. This remedy that

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worked for some, Tolstoy found, was faith. This, Tolstoy discovered, did provide

some people with a sense of foundation, with a sense that there was an objective sanction for their concerns and their values. Unfortunately, reason indicated that that

faith, too, must be rejected as unreasonable. The rational knowledge in the person of the learned and the wise denied the meaning of life, but the enormous masses of men, all humanity, recognized this meaning in an irrational knowledge. This irrational knowledge was faith, the same that I could not help but reject. That was God as one and three, the creation in six days, devils and angels, and all that which I could not accept so long as I had not lost my senses (p. 15).

What Tolstoy began to do was question the rationality of reason: “There resulted a contradiction, from which there were two ways out: either what I called rational was

not so rational as I had thought; or that which to me appeared irrational was not so

irrational as I had thought” (ib). His inability to find a basis in terms of which he could get on with the task of living, led Tolstoy to begin to revise Ns cognitive

standards. No longer would he insist that belief, to be acceptable, must meet the standard of enlightenment science. Rather, with the aim of getting on in life, he would

adjust his cognitive standards to something more reasonable, something that would permit him to accept as justified the sorts of belief that, in his view, alone could make life possible, alone could justify living according to his very human sentiments of love and affection.

Thus, outside the rational knowledge, which had to me appeared as the only one, I was inevitably led to recognize that all living humanity had a certain other irrational knowledge, faith, which make it possible to live. All the irrationality of faith remained the same for me, but I could not help recognizing that it alone gave to humanity answers to the question of life, and, in consequence of them, the possibility of living.

No matter what answers faith may give, its every answer gives to the finite existence of man the sense of the infinite, - a sense which is not destroyed by suffering, privation, and death. Consequently in faith alone could we find the meaning and possibility of life What,

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then, was faith? .. .that faith was the knowledge of the meaning of human life, in consequence of which man did not destroy himself, but lived. Faith is the power of life. If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe that he ought to live for some purpose, he would not live. If he does not see and understand the phantasm of the finite, he believes in that finite; if he understands the phantasm of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith one cannot live.. . (p. 17).

Tolstoy portrays himself, no doubt correctly, as a person who is incapable of living in a world that is recognizably Humean There is, as Tolstoy discovered, for those who follow the Socratic patterns of explanation, hope, the hope that is provided

by our access to the unifying Forms and values that transcend the ordinary world of

change that we know in sense experience. For Hume, there are no such entities, no

such world beyond that of sense experience, and therefore, as we have seen, no hope to live in a Humean world is to live in a world without hope But of course, the

ordinary world is a Humean world: the world that Socrates, Plotinus, Spinoza and Tolstoy claim exists is the ordinary world viewed through the illusion of

misinterpreted feelings. To live in the ordinary world without illusion is the same thing as living in a Humean world In other words, to live in the world without illusion is to live without hope. Yet Tolstoy cannot live in such a world; he cannot live without

the illusion ofhope. Would we deny him that illusion? Would decent human sympathy deny him the faith that enables him to live? Surely we would be deficient in our own

human sympathy if we were to expect Tolstoy not to resort to such cognitive means, and to allow himself a set of cognitive standards that permit him to receive the faith that alone will give his life meaning and make it, to him, worth living. Such solace as

those beliefs will provide is surely not to be derided or forbidden, illusions though those beliefs are Far from insisting upon a rigid attitude towards life, and towards

death, a contextualization of epistemic norms of the sort Hume proposed must allow

for persons to resort to the cognitive standards that Tolstoy proposed, and adopted,

for himself We see that Hume was indeed correct in recognizing the fact that just as

human beings often fail to conform to the enlightenment standard of amiability and

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sociability so also not all persons are fit for the reasonable epistemology of the

enlightenment. In one sense the attitude that Tolstoy adopts, that of faith, is not philosophical,

because it runs counter to reason. In another sense, however, he has made it

philosophically appropriate For, in effect, he redefines reason, that is, the standards of what is to count as reasonable belief. With this redefinition of his cognitive

standards, his religious beliefs do become reasonable, however much they constitute, from the Epicurean-Humean perspective, an illusion

It is perfectly reasonable for the Humean to suggest that the demand that

Tolstoy makes for objective value, and for incorrigible certainty, is pathological.12’ That, after all, is what is implied by characterizing Tolstoy’s belief as an “illusion.”

Nielson has suggested that any demand to go beyond relative values in search of

objective certainty is an error: as Epicurus and Hume have stated, there are no such values.

It is not the case that there is some general formula in virtue of which we can say what the meaning of life is, but it still remains true that men can through their purposive activity give their lives meaning and indeed find meaning in life in the living of it. The man with a metaphysical or theological craving will seek “higher standards” than the terrestrial standards that I have utilized.126 If this higher standard simply means that one is seeking a more comprehensive view

of human life as a desirable thing, then Nielson, quite reasonably, is prepared to allow one to adopt such a standard. But if the proposed standard constitutes a

“metaphysical craving of the transcendental sort,”127 then it is not allowed, since,

rationally, there is no such standard. And since the demand for such a standard in a world where it does not exist is irrational, it is rightly also to be characterized as

pathological. The rationality here, of course, is that of Hume; it is only within this

context that the charge of pathology makes sense. Nielson quotes the anthropologist Weston LaBarre’s remark that “Values must from emotional necessity be viewed as absolute by those who use values as compulsive defences against reality, rather than properly as tools for the exploration of reality”128; and then comments:

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The point is, that someone who persists in these questions, persists in a demand for a totally different and “deeper” justification or answer to the question “What is the meaning of Life?” than the answer that such a question admits of, may be expressing his own insecurity. The heart of rationalism is often irrational.12v

This may indeed be so, but nonetheless such solace as a transcendental metaphysics or religious faith may provide for such a one as Tolstoy is surely not to be either derided or forbidden, illusions though those beliefs may be. As we have argued, following Hume, far from insisting upon a rigid attitude towards life, and towards

death, a contextualization of epistemic norms of the sort that Hume proposed for the

Epicurean-Humean world must allow for persons to resort to the cognitive standards that Tolstoy proposed, and adopted, for himself. Epicurus and Hume may smile at Tolstoy’s cognitive standards, and at the needs that made his illusions a necessity for

his getting on with life, but that smile must be tempered by compassion. Because thou

art virtuous, there will be no more cakes and ale?

Chapter Five

The Pursuit of V alue in a Meaningless World: Camus

The picture of the world defended by Epicurus and Hume in which all value is relative

has been defended more recently by E. D Klernke1: For as long as I am conscious, I shall have the capacity with which to endow events, objects, persons, and achievements with value. Ultimately, it is through my consciousness and it alone that worth and value are obtained, it is a vital and sensitive consciousness that counts. Thus there is a sense in which it is true, as many thinkers and artists have reminded us, that everything begins with my consciousness, and nothing has any worth expect through my consciousness (p. 173). He rejects the claims of those from Socrates onwards that there is a transcendental

source of value: “If the transcendentalist’s claim sounds plausible at all, it is only because he continues to confuse objective meaning with subjective meaning” (p 172). Klernke takes as his basis for this Hume’s argument that facts alone, whether

empirical or a priori, cannot move the will: ...really, [subjective meaning] is the only kind of meaning worth shouting about. An objective meaning - that is, one which is inherent within the universe or dependent upon external agencies - would, frankly, leave me cold. It would not be mine. It would be an outer, neutral thing, rather than an inner, dynamic achievement (ib}2

But this fact, the impossibility of an objective value having the power to move one, is itself more than a fact; it is also, Klernke claims - from his own (relative) perspective - something to be valued. From Klernke’s own moral point of view, to recognize that there is no transcendent source of value, far from making life valueless.

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“a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” is to the contrary

to confer greater moral significance upon human beings.

It is true that life has no objective meaning. Let us face it once and for all. But from this it does not follow that life is not worthwhile, for it can still be subjectively meaningful....!, for one, am glad that the universe has no meaning, for thereby is man all the more glorious. I willingly accept the fact that external meaning is non-existent (or, if existent, certainly not apparent), for this leaves me free to forge my own meaning (ib.).

This is getting carried away in rhetoric, but it no doubt does express Klemke’s own value. And no doubt, too, it is a perspective that many share with Klemke. From this moral perspective, Tolstoy’s retreat to faith, while perhaps from

sympathy acknowledged with compassion to be something psychologically required of him, is also felt to diminish him morally. If Tolstoy’s retreat into faith is from the Humean perspective a cognitive vice, we now see that in its way it is also a moral defect. While in general we cannot say that error is a moral vice, it is nonetheless true that in this instance the cognitively questionable is also the morally questionable.

It is wrong, though, to suggest as Klemke does that the lack of objective meaning and objective value means that one is free to forge one’s own meaning. To

put it that way is to make it seem as if it were simply a matter of decision, a matter of choice, about what meaning one’s life will have. Not so. One is simply not free to give one’s own life whatever meaning it shall have. The basic notion of freedom is simply that of doing what one wants. And, of

course, the contrast to freedom in this sense is bondage, where one is prevented from

doing what one wants. However, one can be free in this sense and yet not feel that one is free. The bank manager who takes money from the vault and gives it to the

criminals who are threatening the lives of her husband and children is no doubt doing

what she wants, and in that sense her act is freely done But she hardly feels free, nor would anyone consider her act, or any act done under threat, to be a free act for

which one could be held morally responsible. The point is, of course, that she is

moved by a desire, namely, that of giving over the money in order to protect her

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family, that she does not want to have. We may well be moved, as is this bank manager, by desires we do not want to have, and if that is so then we feel constrained.

Thus, if our actions are to be free, then they must flow from desires and motives that we want to have.

Now, it is clear that we do choose some values that we have. We reflect upon

ourselves, comparing ourselves, perhaps, to some more ideal self, or looking, perhaps, towards some more distant end and recognizing that if we changed our values, our goals, our motives, we could better achieve that more distant end, becoming, we would no doubt like to think, happier persons. As we saw, Hume fully acknowledged the importance of such longer term or “distant” considerations as we attempt to achieve happiness. Nor did Epicurus overlook them: otherwise his advice about

cultivating certain values rather than others would make no sense. In any case, as we reflect upon ourselves in this way, we can act to transform ourselves into something

closer to the ideal or something that better serves the more distant end. We cannot of course choose between values in the way we can choose between using a hammer or a screwdriver, or between two kinds of toothpaste, or between whether we will speak

rudely to the shopkeeper or not. But we can discipline ourselves, and train ourselves to desire some things and to be averse to others. It was the claim of Hume’s

associationist theory of psychology, that this would be a matter of either building up

- reinforcing - or breaking down the relevant associations, i.e., habits or customs.

There is clearly something to this theory, but the details are not important What matters is, first, that many desires and aversions, if not almost all, are learned or acquired, and, second, that we ourselves can act on ourselves to cause ourselves to

unlearn old, and to learn new values. We can, in other words, in the light of more distant ends decide so to discipline ourselves that we acquire new values that are

rendered desirable by those more distant ends. And in this sense we can choose our values. Thus, we can choose to become a different sort of person as a means towards

more distant ends. Naturally there are sentiments, values, emotions that we cannot, as a matter

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of fact, choose to eliminate. Thus, for example, there is the emotion of fear. Situations of danger will always, without doubt, continue in a way quite

uninfluencable by our will to evoke the emotion of fear and, as part of that emotion,

the impulse to flee the danger. But if the emotion and the associated impulse cannot

be eliminated, it can in fact be influenced by the will guided by reason. In the first place, one can train oneself to respond with fear to only those situations where there is indeed danger. Where the object of the emotion is not in fact dangerous, reason can so discover. Since acting on the impulse to flee in such circumstances can at best lead

to no good, concern about one’s longer run well-being can lead one to attempt to restrain and repress the fear such circumstances initially evoke. Through an effort of

will one can begin to restrain the emotion and eventually suppress the fear evoked by

situations which are not, by reason’s estimation, dangerous. Thus, one can train

oneself not to respond with irrational fear to, say, mice; or, again, one can train

oneself not to fear death. In the second place, where the situation is one which is in fact dangerous, one need not let the impulse move us willy nilly. One can, rather,

restrain the impulse and choose a line of action which is rationally appropriate for defending oneself from the danger One might choose to stand and, bravely, face the

danger, alternatively, one might cautiously retreat; but in any case the line of action is chosen in the light of the details of the situation of danger in which one finds

oneself. Spinoza argued this case carefully. “He who is led by fear,” he argued, “and

does good in order to escape evil, is not led by reason” (Ethics, IV, 63). Though good is done, the person is not virtuous, since he or she was led by fear rather than by

reason, that is, the vision of the good. And so, if we do good out of fear of

punishment after death, we do not do good.

Superstitious persons, who know better how to rail at vice than how to teach virtue, and who strive not to guide men by reason, but so to restrain them that they would rather escape evil than love virtue, have no other aim but to make others as wretched as themselves; wherefore it is nothing wonderful, if they be generally troublesome and odious to their fellow-men (IV, 63, Note).

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Fear is but one case of the general category of emotions, according to Spinoza; the

emotions in general, like fear in particular, are impulses to action, and, in general to self-preservation. But the mind, constituted primarily by its awareness or idea of the

body, is aware of these bodily impulses. So an emotion is also a mental impulse as

well as a bodily impulse; the experienced idea is felt as an impulse towards pleasure or away from pain “By an emotion I mean modifications of the body, whereby the active power of the said body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such modifications” (III, Def 3). These impulses can be restrained or

controlled by reason. For, with reason guiding us we can sacrifice and endure a short term loss in order to achieve a greater good in the future: “We may, under the

guidance of reason, seek a greater good in the future in preference to a lesser good in the present, and we may seek a lesser evil in the present in preference to a greater evil in the future” (IV, 66) In particular, we can come to understand the causes of our

emotions, and thereby bring them under our control: “The mind has greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto, in so far as it understands all things as

necessary” (V, 6). This understanding gives us a clearer and more distinct idea of these passions. Once we do that we cease to be merely passively moved by the

emotion and are moved instead by ourselves as rational beings concerned with what we ought to do. In other words, rather than reacting passively to the emotion - to the

passion - we respond actively to the situation of which the emotion is a sign: “An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof’ (V, 3). In this respect, then, we can choose the sort of person we are going to be. We can choose to be a person who simply responds passively, and

irrationally, to felt emotions. Or we can choose to be a person who controls one’s emotions, and treats them as signs to be used as we rationally interact with our

environment, that is, treats them in the words of Weston LaBarre as they “properly,”

i.e., rationally, should be treated, “as tools for the exploration of reality.”3 The former

sort of person will be moved by things other than him- or herself; the latter sort of person will be moved by him- or herself. The former sort of person will, in Spinoza’s

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terminology, be in bondage to his or her emotions; the latter sort will be free. Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse (Ethics, IV, Preface).

For Spinoza, of course, the causes and effects of our emotions, through

knowledge of which we can leant to control them and become rationally active beings, is in the end a knowledge of necessary connections. But there is no need to treat the

patterns of thought and feeling of which he speaks in that way, as objectively necessary. The connections to which he points can be understood simply as Humean regularities. To that extent, there is no reason why someone who accepts the

Epicurean-Humean view of the universe should not find acceptable this Spinozistic wisdom. To be sure, we should probably recognize the limited nature of Spinoza’s

scientific grasp of the emotions. For, it is largely commonsense given a scientific aura

by being based primarily in nothing more than Cartesian speculative physiohgy. There is an element of associationism in this theory - thus Spinoza tells us that “If the mind

has once been affected by two emotions at the same time, it will, whenever it is afterwards affected by one of the two, be also affected by the other” (III, 14). He also appeals, like Hume, to the mechanism of sympathy: “Simply from the fact that we

conceive, that a given object has some point of resemblance with another object which is wont to affect the mind pleasurably or painfully, although the point of resemblance

be not the efficient cause of the said emotions, we shall still regard the first-named object with love or hate” (III, 16), and hence, “He who conceives, that the object of

his love is affected pleasurably or painfully, will himself be affected pleasurably or painfully. ’ (III, 21). These points Spinoza takes over from a long tradition, going back to Aristotle at least, of reasonable human self-knowledge. Like Spinoza, Hume

takes over these points. However, Hume goes forward and elaborates these insights

into a much more adequate psychological theory of learning, one which can provide a considerably more effective causal account of the emotions. To be sure, we must

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recognize the limitations of Huine’s psychology too; his classical associationist

learning theory, even when supplemented by the mechanism of sympathy, is still very imperfect, far short of the sort of exceptionless body of laws that we would, as a

cognitive ideal, prefer to have. But for all that, we must also acknowledge that his psychological theorizing is a considerable improvement on that of Spinoza, and is

therefore more useful to anyone who does wish to attempt to make a better person

of him- or herself And of course, all the improvements of psychological theory since then, especially those of Freud, have continued the process of providing the self-

knowledge that is important for self-formation. For Spinoza, moral values are given by reason, the insight that we have into the Natures of things, Natures that both explain and are normative We therefore do

not find him treating moral values in the way in which he treats the emotions, that is, “as tools for the exploration of reality.” But Hume argues that any sort of objectivist account of our moral sentiments, including Spinoza’s, is mistaken, and that the moral

sentiments, too, are simply a sort of emotion. So these too can become the concern of practical reason, and can be changed if we choose, in the light of long term considerations of our own happiness, to discipline and modify them. In this sense, our moral sentiments can be conceived as tools which guide people in their interactions with others. If experience tells us that we can live a better life by changing those tools,

that is, by modifying our values, then concern for that better life will prompt us so to change ourselves.

Having said all this, however, we must also recognize that any choice of values always presupposes some other values on the basis of which the choice is made. In order to choose one set of values, desires, or sentiments, over another, it

must be because the chosen set is more valued, and to say that one set is more valued than another is already to have a set of (higher order) values that does that ranking. If we can choose a set of values then we can do that only because we already have a

set ofvalues which are themselves not chosen. This must be emphasized: every choice of values presupposes a set of values that is not chosen. For Hume, the ultimate value

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to which we come is the desire for long-run happiness; many other values may be

chosen but this one is not: it is, rather, just as a matter of fact how human beings are. For Spinoza, as for Aristotle and the Stoics, there are further forms of behaviour built

naturally into human beings; for these philosophers we must as a matter of metaphysical necessity develop as moral beings. Hume rejects the metaphysical claims about objective necessity; the only causal necessity is that of matter of fact

regularities. But he could still accept that moral rules are somehow - though only as a matter of contingent fact - built into human nature and human psychology. He

argues, however, that there are no such innate tendencies to morality. Rather, these

sentiments arise, as we saw, from conventional behaviour justified by self-interest and made moral, that is, the objects of our moral sentiments, through the mechanism of

sympathy. But in any case, the point remains that at some point one will come to a

stop at some set of values and sentiments that are built into one by nature, and which one cannot successfully eliminate or change no matter how hard one tries. To be sure,

it may well be that this point at which we arrive of uneliminable values will not consist in a set of values that are innate, but rather a set that we have learned, but where the

learning has so deeply made it part of our human being that we can never succeed in unlearning them: they are imprinted upon us as a second nature, as it were. In any

case, however, it is still true that we arrive at something that we must be. Here choice

of self comes to an end. We should of course seek the self-knowledge that tells us where these limits

of choice are, the knowledge that tells us which among the things that we are we must

be. In general, the wise person seeks to find out what is and what is not within his or

her control. Causal connections being what they are, whether for Spinoza or Hume, there is in fact a necessity there, and that necessity means there is no point in trying to change those values: if A causes B, then if A is given, then B must be, and there is

no point in trying to change that course of events. To say that there is no point is simply to say that if we try, we will fail. And so, if it is our aim to change that sequence, then the aim will be frustrated. Assuming with Hume that our long-run aim

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is happiness, we will not set it as our goal to change that sequence - if we do, we will

inevitably suffer the pain of frustration. Given that we cannot alter (genuine) causal

relations, all we can do is change the initial conditions. If we want to avoid B, we cannot do so if A occurs; but if we can prevent A, then we will thereby not have to suffer B. But in order to prevent A from happening we will have to intervene.

Sometimes we will be successful. Other times we will not. Perhaps the causal texture of reality is such that there is nothing we can do to prevent A; perhaps we simply lack

the power to effect the change. In such circumstances no matter what we do, A will

happen. Again, there is no point in trying to change A, nor, therefore, B: if we try, we will fail. And so, if it is our aim to change A or change A in order to prevent B, then the aim will be frustrated. Again assuming with Hume that our long-run aim is happiness, if A cannot be avoided, then we will not set it as our goal to change A, or

prevent B by changing A - if we do we will inevitably suffer the pain of frustration.

In general, where something is beyond our control, then, given that our long-run aim is happiness, we will not set it as our goal to change that thing. Or, if it is our goal to

change the inevitable, then, given that our long-run aim is happiness and given that all that will result in trying to achieve the goal is the pain of frustration, it follows that

we should make every effort to change our values and give up that goal. We should

acquiesce in the inevitable, and accept that what must be ought to be. As Spinoza

puts it,

...human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes, we have not, therefore, an absolute power of shaping to our use those things which are without us. Nevertheless, we shall bear with an equal mind all that happens to us in contravention to the claims of our own advantage, so long as we are conscious, that we have done our duty, and that the power which we possess is not sufficient to enable us to protect ourselves completely; remembering that we are a part of universal nature, and that we follow her order If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist (Ethics, IV, Appendix, 32).

254 In particular, this rule of reasonable persons, that we ought to acquiesce in the inevitable, applies to ourselves. In choosing the sort of person we ought to be, we inevitably come upon certain limits, the limits that define what we are through what

we must be. Once again, in this case as in others, in the case of our own selves as in

the case of things external to us, where something is beyond our control, then, given that our long-run aim is happiness, we will not set it as our goal to change our self.

Or, if it is our goal to change our self to something other than what inevitably it is, then, given that our long-run aim is happiness and given that all that will result in

trying to achieve the goal is the pain of frustration, it follows that we should make every effort to change our values and give up that goal of trying so to change our self.

The rational person acquiesces in what he or she must be. Spinoza argues that “In so far as a thing is in harmony with our nature, it is necessarily good” (IV, 31); it

follows that the person who is not in harmony with his or her nature, one who is trying to change what they naturally, or inevitably, are, is living a life that is less than

good, one filled with pain, the pain of frustration at trying to change the inevitable.

Life in harmony with oneself, life in conformity to one’s nature, is the same as life in conformity to reason; but life in conformity to reason is the virtuous life; and so reason approves the life that is in harmony with itself: “Self-approval may arise from reason, and that which arises from reason is the highest possible” (Ethics, IV, 52). If someone desires to be a sort of person other than what he or she as a person

must be, then he or she has desires, motives, emotions, values, that he or she does not want to have. Such a person will feel coerced, not free. Such a person will feel that

he or she is coerced by a self that is unavoidable, bound by a self that is hated or despised. Inevitably the life of such a person will be unhappy, full of the frustration

of unfulfilled desire and self-hatred. One releases oneself from the pain and frustration of such bondage by coming to value as acceptable and as what ought to be that which one inevitably is.

The release from such bondage requires, first, self-knowledge, once again as enjoined by Socrates and, before him, by the Delphic oracle. One requires knowledge

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of what one is, both what one must be and what one can be.

And the release from bondage requires, SECOND, that the person be

reasonable, someone who adapts means to ends, in this case his or her own values to the more distant goal of happiness. In this case, of course, what one adapts are ends,

doing so because these ends serve as means towards more distant or longer run ends, e g., long run happiness. Since one cannot change what it is inevitable that one be, then, given that

one’s long-run aim is happiness, it follows that one should strive so to discipline

oneself that one gives up the goal of trying to change one’s self in that respect. One should try so to discipline oneself that one accepts what it is one’s fate to be. One

may conclude that in this sense, AND IN THIS SENSE ALONE, one can choose oneself one can choose oneselfnot in the sense of trying to change the inevitable but in the sense of making a virtue of necessity and recognizing that what one unchangeably

is is what the reasonable person accepts as what ought to be. This is the clear sense that can be given to the claim by some existentialists,

and echoed by Klemke, that existence precedes essence, and that what one is is the

result of what one has chosen to be. The absence of any objective value may well be something that, as Klemke says, “leaves me free to forge my own meaning ” But in

the end, even in a Humean world with no objective value, no objective meaning, there are values, sentiments, emotions of mine, that I do not forge. I merely find that I have been so forged that these are, now unavoidably, my values, willy nilly, whether I want

them or not. Those values 1 forge only in the sense that, if I am wise, I will accept

them as my own I forge them only in the sense that whatever self I forge, whatever meaning I give to my life, that self will contain these values and that meaning will be determined, partially at least, by these values.

One can certainly argue that one ought to accept as one’s own those values that one unavoidably has. This is so not only because failure to do this cannot but lead

to frustration and unhappiness with one’s self. It is also the case because it means that

one accepts responsibility for the consequences of actions that flow from those values.

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The bank manager who took money from the safe and gave it to others when her

family was threatened rightfully argues that, as her action was coerced and not free,

she is not responsible for it. So someone might try to argue that his or her actions were not free because they flowed from an aspect of his or her personality over which

he or she had no control and which he or she did not choose; what he or she did was not his or her action because it arose from what he or she was fated to be, not from

what he or she freely chose to be. The world is a better place when people do not in this way attempt to avoid responsibility for what they do. It is therefore a better place

if they learn to accept as their own those values that are unavoidably theirs. In this sense, it certainly is morally better, as Klemke claims, to forge one’s own meaning

to life, provided that this is understood as including the acceptance as one’s own those values, those meanings, that are unavoidably part of one’s self.

In an Epicurean-Humean universe, unlike that of Socrates and his successors,

there are no values beyond one’s own self that determine what is right and wrong and

bind one to do this rather than that. In this sense, in such a universe one is indeed free to forge one’s own meaning to life. Nor is it just that one is free to forge one’s own meaning, it is also true, as we just saw, that one ought to forge one’s own meaning.

This is surely part at least of what Klemke is claiming when he holds that his life becomes more meaningful by virtue of the fact that his values are his to choose - that

is, to choose in the qualified way we have indicated But what if it now turns out that the craving, exemplified by Tolstoy, for a

metaphysical absolute - some Form, or Nature, or unifying One - that can bind one morally, is something that is an inevitable part of human nature9 What if we do

innately demand metaphysical unity and absolute value, as Augustine argued? Clearly, for such a one to discover that the universe is, as Epicurus and Hume argued, without

objective value and meaning would be for that person to be at war with the universe. He or she cannot change him- or herself to get rid of the desire for objective meaning;

we are assuming the craving is an inevitable part of his or her being, part of the human

fate. Neither can that person change the universe to put objective meaning into it; we

257 are assuming that the universe is Humean and that he or she is not God. Klernke may

find it exhilarating to live in a universe without (objective) meaning But if the craving for the absolute is in fact part of our human being, then this is at best a lack of self-

knowledge on Klernke’s part and at worst simple self-deception. As for someone who

seriously believes that he or she lives in a meaningless universe and also that his or her craving for objective meaning and value is inescapable, for such a person life must

constantly be one of despair and frustration, one of hatred directed both at the universe in which he or she is forced to live and at him- or herself for not being able to adapt to this universe. If, as we suggested previously, a situation is absurd if it is

one in which there is an incommensurability between an aim and the likelihood of its

fulfilment, then for such a person life is indeed absurd, inescapably absurd. Nagel has suggested that this is not much of a problem.4 The source of this perhaps troubling but really minor problem is the fact that the universe is Humean: a

world without objective value is the world of a moral sceptic. Such moral scepticism is a very human thing, according to Nagel: “like scepticism in epistemology, it is

possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight - the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought” (p. 23). We all have the capacity to as it were stand outside not just the situation in which we find ourselves at present, but also as it were outside

ourselves totally and raise the question from this quite external and valueless perspective whether those present values are legitimate. Here we look upon ourselves

and question the being of that seif, the values that constitute it, from the outside “In viewing ourselves from a perspective broader than we can occupy in the flesh, we become spectators of our own lives” (p. 20). From a broader perspective we ask for

justification of the values we discover in ourselves. For some of these values we can find others in terms of which they can be justified. But then we can take a yet broader perspective and question these, too, asking for their justification What we discover

as we continue to question from broader and broader perspectives is that in the end, looking at all our values from outside of ourself, there is no justification for our basic values. At the end of the quest we discover the truth defended by Epicurus and Hume,

258 that there is no reason in the universe outside our own reasons that can justify those values. The result is a moral relativism which is implicit in our very humanity: “...it

results from the ability to understand our human limitations” (p. 23).

Those who are disturbed by this moral relativism - moral scepticism, if you

wish - try to escape from it by finding a point of view or perspective which provides

an ultimate and unquestionable starting point: “One may try to escape the position by seeking broader ultimate concerns, from which it is impossible to step back. ” (p. 16). However, the attempt is doomed to failure: “...any such larger quest can be put in

doubt in the same way that the aims of an individual life can be, and for the same reasons” (ib). Just as we can stand back from and question any one of our particular

values, so we can stand back from and question any proposed ultimate value, any

supposed stopping point that would validate all other values.

There does not appear to be any conceivable world (containing us) about which unsettlable doubts could not arise (p. 17). But this is simply not so. The universe of Socrates is a universe in which there

is a firm and unquestionable stopping point. For knowledge of the Forms is

knowledge of objective value, and is knowledge which is tied down or “tethered,” so clear and distinct as to be incorrigible. So also the universes of Aristotle, Plotinus and

Spinoza. If Hume is correct, these universes may well result from some sort of confusion, but having said that, at the end of the argument one should equally well

admit that they have in fact had a certain plausibility and force that many have found persuasive and attractive, sufficiently attractive to make it important that one argue

against them! And so, when Nagel argues that there are no universes that could

provide the sort of ultimate answer which some questioners seek, he is simply asserting that the Epicurean-Humean universe is the only one that can be conceived,

but unfortunately he is not arguing for, but merely asserting that position. Once the point is made, however, that the Epicurean-Humean universe is the

only sort that can be conceived, it of course follows that “Consequently the absurdity of our situation derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world,

259 but from a collision within ourselves” (p. 17) The absurdity of our situation arises from a conflict between our knowledge that there is no ultimate answer to our

questions about value and our desire to have answers to the questions ofjustification

that we, with our ability to question ourselves, can always raise. Nagel suggests that the solution is simple What we should do is settle down to stop always raising such questions; we should settle down and recognize that it is unimportant that our

questions in the end receive no answers. Recognizing that it is unimportant whether

or not we receive ultimate answers, we will stop desiring those answers. And, not

desiring answers, we will no longer raise the questions. This will put to an end the conflict within ourselves, and with it the sense of the absurdity of our life.

Nagel’s solution is thus the recommendation that anyone who feels life is absurd because there are no objective values, no objective meaning, should modify his

or her desires in such a way that he or she no longer wants such value or meaning. Nagel suggests a way in which we can in fact discipline this desire. We can do so, he suggests, by convincing ourselves that it is simply not important that it be fulfilled. The knowledge that we have that the universe is in fact Epicurean and Humean and

contains no objective value or meaning provides one with the tools that show that the

desire for such objective value and meaning is not important. The way in which we come to recognize the unimportance of the answer to any question about ultimate

justification is to recognize that in an Epicurean-Humean universe, all issues -

including this one - are, objectively, unimportant. If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair (p. 23).

I leave it to others to decide how effective this can be in attenuating the desire

for ultimate meaning. The important point is that it presupposes that such a desire can

be attenuated.

Others have made the same suggestion. Thus Kurt Baier has suggested5 that the realization by the religious person that the scientific, i.e., Humean, worldview is

true “may be felt as a keen disappointment, because it shows that the meaning of life

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cannot lie in submission to [God’s] will, in acceptance of whatever may come, and in

worship.”6 The correct response, Baier argues, is that one give up the desire that the

non-scientific worldview be true. If that desire is given up, or at least attenuated, then there is nothing about which to feel disappointed, nor any reason to feel that the

scientific world view has robbed life of possible meaning. For, of course, even if there is no objective meaning, there are still the subjective values that can, for any human

being, make his or her life meaningful. ...[the scientific worldview] does not imply that life can have no meaning. It merely implies that it must have a different meaning from that which it was thought to have. Just as it is a great shock for a child to find that he must stand on his own feet, that his father and mother no longer provide for him, so a person who has lost his faith in God must reconcile himself to the idea that he has to stand on his own feet, alone in the world except for whatever friends he may succeed in making.7 But what if it can’t be attenuated9 What if one, no matter what the self­ discipline, cannot reconcile oneself to the absence of objective meaning? What if it is

unavoidably part of human nature to crave an ultimate justification? Nagel does not tell us. Neither does Kurt Baier.

So we must return to the issue of someone who seriously not only believes but deeply feels that his or her life is absurd. On the one hand, this person believes that

he or she lives in a meaningless universe. On the other hand, he or she not only most strongly feels the need for the universe to provide objective meaning and value but also believes that this desire is inescapable, an unavoidable part of what it is to be

human. For such a person, Nagel’s nostrums notwithstanding, life must constantly be one of despair and frustration, the despair and frustration that derives from a deep-

seated desire in respect of which one fully recognizes there is no chance of fulfilment. For such a person, his or her life will be one of constant hatred directed both at the universe in which he or she is forced to live and at him- or herself for not being able

to adapt to this universe.

Russell once defended such a position.

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That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple ofMan’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of the universe in ruins all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only with the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.8

According to Russell the universe is apathetic to our concerns. But this, surely, is wrong, at least from the point of view of Epicurus, Lucretius and Hume. Something can be apathetic only if it is the sort of thing that can have concerns. People have

concerns, the universe as such does not. People can be apathetic, the universe cannot. People can be indifferent, the universe cannot. People who are apathetic or indifferent

lack certain attitudes; they are the sorts of thing, however, that could have such attitudes. The universe lacks those attitudes, too, but it is because the universe is the

sort of thing that does not have attitudes. We might well despair of every changing someone from being apathetic. The despair makes sense because the person is the sort of thing that could have certain attitudes. But such despair makes no sense in the case of the universe: it is not the sort of thing that could have attitudes. But for all that,

Russell still views the universe as indifferent to our concerns, and, worse, as contrary to our concerns.

Russell, quite clearly, has adopted a certain attitude towards the universe: the universe ought to preserve human achievements beyond the death of the sun, it ought to preserve the individual from the grave. It is this that leads to the unyielding despair

of which Russell speaks. But note that if we despair of something then we certainly ■ think that it ought not to be but give up any hope of changing it. The “is” of the way the world is, is confronted by an “ought,” but at the same time we concede that the

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“is” is unchangeable and that the “ought” can never be achieved. The world and our

deepest needs conflict, our being in this world yields absurdity, and unforgiving

despair is the consequence. Now, one who takes the arguments of Hume seriously will reject this line of thought. There simply is no objective value. Why on earth, then, should we adopt the attitude Russell adopts? Why on earth should we choose the value that the universe

ought to be something that is concerned about our concerns? Indeed, since the universe cannot be changed into one that does what Russell wants it to do, since its

supposed indifference is something that is unavoidable, the reasonable person, as

Nagel in fact suggests, would try to stop being concerned about the fact; he or she would try to train him- or herself not to fret or worry about it. That way one will no

longer feel the useless pain of despair. Suppose, however, that the feelings that Russell expresses are in fact

somehow innate. Suppose that some person does share Russell’s attitude that the

universe ought to be concerned about us. Suppose that this person feels and believes that this attitude, this value, this aspiration for being, is innate. And suppose also that

this person knows what Russell knows, that the universe is not concerned about us. For such a person, as apparently for Russell, the despair is objectively justified; from

his or her point of view it is not pathological. Now, what does one do in the face of hopeless despair and the pain of

constant frustration9 Suicide, Hume argued, is always an option in a Humean universe. Here, in the face of hopeless despair, it is clearly a reasonable option. For

the sort of person we are supposing, then, the question will be only this: why not commit suicide? what reason have I for going on living?

In the Humean universe, death is not to be feared. But equally, there is no hope. And if the craving for objective value and meaning is deep-seated and inescapable, innate, then that absence of hope creates a despair to which suicide seems

the only reasonable response. In the meaningless universe of David Hume, it seems, death is not to be feared, but neither can life be lived.

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That this question - why not commit suicide9 - could be real is ignored by Nagel

Albert Camus faces it squarely.9 As it turns out, he gives two rather different answers. One is surprisingly like that of Aquinas: it is never right to commit suicide. Camus attempts to show that this is so even in a meaningless universe. The other is more like

Nagel’s: the metaphysical craving is not innate. And so, if it is not innate then we can so discipline ourselves that we are no longer moved by it, and, if not moved by it, then

no longer living a life that is absurd, and, if no longer living a life that is absurd, then no longer living a life filled with the despair that justifies suicide. Suicide ceases to be a reasonable option. The point is that Camus, unlike Nagel, does recognize that the

important issue is whether the craving for metaphysical certainty and objective value is somehow innate in human being. Only ifthis question is faced can we clearly decide whether it is possible to live in a Humean universe as free from hope as from the fear of death.

Or, if it is true both that the universe is Humean and meaningless and that we have an innate and inescapable craving for objective meaning, then perhaps the correct

attitude is to face up to, and accept, this craving that we have - after all, “must”

implies “ought”. If suicide is not an option, as Camus also argues, if it is wrong even in a meaningless universe, then the only option is to live heroically in the face of this

fate that we have accepted as our lot. It is this dramatic characterization of the human condition that Camus suggests is the only position that we can reasonably adopt. But is it9

We must examine these issues carefully. It is therefore to Camus that we now

turn

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-I-

Albert Camus sought, in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus,'0 to establish the absurdity of the human condition, and to derive therefrom, in some way, an ethic that is wholly

and genuinely human, an ethic for men and women that is compatible with the fact of

absurdity. Specifically, he attempted to derive an ethic that will provide a reason against suicide in the face of the despair created by the fact of absurdity, and to

provide reasons for getting on with the task of living - living without illusion in a world without hope. And in the novel. The Outsider," that parallels The Myth of

Sisyphus, he attempts to show us the fact of absurdity and to show us what it is to live

the ethic of the absurd person.

Now, the world for which The Myth of Sisyphus argues is a dramatic world,

above all. It is full of absurdity; in it life is meaningless; it demands constant revolt; and this without hope but with perfect lucidity. It is a world, it would seem, that is much more dramatically charged than our ordinary world, the world we sense and experience and act into in our everyday lives. Indeed, it would appear that it is a

world that is much more dramatic in important ways than even the world that is

shown to us in The Outsider. To be sure, certain dramatic events take place in The

Outsider, but drama is not the pervasive feature of the world of The Outsider and of its inhabitants, in the way in which The Myth of Sisyphus suggests that the world is

pervasively dramatic.

This is puzzling. The world shown us in The Outsider is clearly the real world, the world we all experience and live in. The world of The Myth of Sisyphus is too

dramatic; it is not the real world. Yet the novel is plainly supposed to show what the

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essay argues for. To become clear on Camus’ position, it will be necessary to explore

this puzzle. The world of the novel is clearly a Humean world, the ethic it recommends

clearly a Humean ethic; moreover, the author of The Myth of Sisyphus clearly accepts that the world is Humean: that is one of the sources of the absurdity of the human condition. Why, then, must the author of The Myth ofSisyphus think that the Humean

ethic makes sense only within a pervasively dramatic world and a pervasively dramatic way of being in the world9 But here one must pause, for, after all, The Outsider is not nearly so clear as I have just suggested. There are puzzling, almost unexplainable,

aspects to it - aspects that are present in sufficiently interesting ways that a

considerable literature has developed about them.121 think these difficulties with The Outsider are connected with what is puzzling about The Myth of Sisyphus, and what I propose to do in the remainder of this chapter is to try to use each to illuminate the other.

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- Il -

For Camus, there are two aspects to “the absurd.” These both have to do with the

relationship that a person has between him- or herself and the universe, the ordinary

universe in which he or she lives and of which he or she is a part. Camus repudiates any attempt to minimize this ordinary world in which we

live out our lives: “...here are trees,” he says in The Myth of Sisyphus, “and I know their gnarled surface, water and 1 feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at

night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes...” (MOS, p 18). And in an essay on

“Summer in Algiers,” he tells us that In Algiers no one says ‘go for a swim’ but rather ‘indulge in a swim’. The implications are clear. People swim in the harbour and go to rest on the buoys. Anyone who passes near a buoy where a pretty girl is sunning herself shouts to his friends: T tell you its a seagull.’ These are healthy amusements. They must obviously constitute the ideal of those youths since most of them continue the same life in the winter, undressing every day at noon for a frugal lunch in the sun. . .they are simply ‘comfortable in the sunlight’ (MOS/e, p. 105).

Moreover, In Algiers one loves the commonplace: the sea at the end of every street, a certain volume of sunlight, the beauty of the race (MOS/e, p. 104). Camus repudiates any attempt to minimize the pleasures of the senses, the possible

joys that attach to our being in this world. And he repudiates any attempt to minimize the worth of the persons who live and act in this ordinary world. And, finally, he

repudiates any attempt to evade the fact that all is not harmonious between persons and the world in which they live. A person’s relationship to that world is not always

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what that person might have wished for: In Italian museums are sometimes found little painted screens that the priest used to hold in front of the face of condemned men to hide the scaffold from them. The leap in all its forms, rushing into the divine or the eternal, surrendering to the illusions of the everyday or of the idea - all these screens hide the absurd. But there are civil servants without screens and they are the ones of whom I mean to speak (MOS, p. 67).

Persons relate to and are related to the world in two ways: that of knowledge

or science and that of practice or action. As for knowledge, a person’s reason is a fallible reason. “It is essential,” Camus tells us, “to consider as a constant point of reference in this essay [MOS] the regular hiatus between what we fancy we know and

what we really know...” (MOS, p. 14). We do not know and cannot know the world

as a whole The best that we can do is make more or less informed guesses about what lies beyond what is in our immediate ken, but there is no guarantee that the universe will not - what in fact it often does do - show even our best and most informed guess to be false. And the universe may frustrate us in action also: we do not

always achieve what we aim at: there is no guaranteed happy ending. The impossibility of success, both in reason and in action, is what constitutes

the absurd for Camus: “If I see a man armed only with a sword attack a group of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd. But it is so solely by virtue of the

disproportion between his intention and the reality he will encounter, of the contradiction I notice between his true strength and the aim he has in view” (MOS,

p. 22). Persons are inevitably fallible, and persons inevitably lack the strength and

capacity necessary so to arrange things that all their actions will be guaranteed to be successful. This is where the absurd is located: “...the Absurd is not in man...nor in the world, but in their presence together” (MOS, p. 23). Thus, as Camus goes on to say, “Living is keeping the absurd alive.” The act of living, living fully, accepting

oneself as one inevitably is, fallible and weak, is the act of revolt. The theme of permanent revolution is thus carried into individual experience. . .It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. . .It challenges the world anew each second Just as danger provided man the unique opportunity of seizing awareness, so

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metaphysical revolt extends awareness to the whole of experience. It is that constant presence of man in his own eyes. It is not an aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it (MOS, p. 40). Now, here in this last passage, we see the dramatization of something very

ordinary: that we are fallible, that we are weak, that, still, we do act. The dramatization rises out of Camus’ characterization of these facts as cases of “absurdity,” or, more accurately, as cases which inevitably involve an extreme

disproportion between intention and reality encountered. The reality encountered is our fallibility and our weakness vis a vis the world in which we live. What is the intention that is disproportionate to that reality? What is it that human beings aim at

that contradicts this reality? The answer that is given in The Myth of Sisyphus comes out clearly in this

passage: The mind’s deepest desire, even it its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feelings in the face of this universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity. Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to the human, stamping it with his seal... If man realized that the universe like him can love and suffer, he would be reconciled. If thought discovered in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing themselves up in a single principle, then would be seen an intellectual joy of which the myth of the blessed would be but a ridiculous imitation That nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse for the human drama (MOS, p 13).

This is the great goal, the great impulse, that makes human life the constant drama that it is. It is the desire for an incorrigible knowledge of the ultimate unity of the universe, and the desire for an absolute ground for the rightness and success of our

actions. But alas, “the fact of that nostalgia’s existence does not imply that it is to be immediately satisfied” (MOS, p. 13). And indeed, given on the one hand the universe

in which we actually live, and given on the other our own fallibility and weakness, this

impulse cannot be fulfilled. It is here that is located that extreme disproportion between impulse and reality that Camus calls the “absurd.”

269 It is on this intention that is so disproportionate to reality that it cannot be

fulfilled that we must focus. As The Myth of Sisyphus makes clear, The world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said But what is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart (MOS, p. 16).13

This aim is that of knowing the multiform universe in which we live as deriving from an underlying unity, of knowing that unity and grasping therein and fully the meaning of our lives It is the aim of so knowing the world that we recognize that our failures

do, after all, have a meaning in the greater scheme of things - of knowing, in other words, that our failures when viewed sub specie aeternitatis are not really failures.

The aim is that of knowing the whole as a unity and recognizing therein that there

really is a guaranteed happy ending. But all this too is rhetorical over-dramatization

rather than clear argument, and we should try to give the idea a somewhat better run for its money.

To grasp seriously Camus’ notion of the absurd, we must contrast it to what is in the background to his thought, the metaphysical system deriving from Plotinus.

That this is in the background, motivating his thought, is made clear by his reference,

above, to the “nostalgia for unity,” and by his own comments (MOS, p. 36) on Plotinus. Upon Plotinus’ account, as we have seen,14 the world is an hierarchy of

different sorts of entity. The lowest level is that of the sensible world in which we live our ordinary lives, and the hierarchy rises from this to the One or Absolute. Plato, as we know, through the mouthpiece of Socrates, has explained the changing world of

ordinary experience in terms of the eternal and unchanging Forms, essences

transcending ordinary experience, but which could, according to Plato, be grasped by a non-ordinary way of knowing that he called “reminiscence.” Plotinus accepted such

Forms, but argued, again as we know, that they were not the ultimate reality. For, those Forms were still diverse, and diversity must be explained in terms of some more

basic unity - or, at least, it must be if one accepts that formula which has fascinated philosophers from Parmenides through Plotinus to, of course, Camus. This formula

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is that of the monist, deriving from Socrates of the Phaedo. as Camus expresses it, “/o understand is above all to unify" (MOS, p. 13). When any diversity remains, the

relationships among the diverse entities require explanation in terms of some unifying entity. The search for an explanation can come to rest, according to this formula embraced by Camus, only when some final all-embracing unity is reached, a unity

which allows no distinctions within itself, a unity which accounts for all the diversity

that there is while itself being a unity without diversity and therefore a unity requiring no explanation. So, for Plotinus, reality is a chain of being reaching to a Reality, the

One, which is beyond Socrates’ Forms. The One is a plenitude From it all diversity

flows. All the reality this diversity has derives from the connections that the diverse facts have with the One. All apparently separable facts are connected with each other, for each such fact is connected to the One. Moreover, these connections to the One are necessary, rather than contingent. For, if the connection of something to the One was merely contingent then that connection could be undone - that is what is meant

by ‘contingent.’ But if it could be undone, then the One and the something would be separable. And if they are separable, then they are distinguishable. But the distinguishable are distinct: they are two. So, if the connection were contingent, the

One would not be the One. So, everything is necessarily connected to the One and thereby in tum necessarily connected to everything else. Among the diversities of the world are persons. And persons attempt to

understand not only the world but themselves: as the Delphic oracle continues to

remind us, “Know thyself.” Upon the monistic scheme of Plotinus, in order to understand oneself, one must retrace the path by which he or she has descended from the One One must retrace, in one’s thought, the necessary ties that connect oneself to the One and which alone give one whatever reality one has. As the knower reaches

the One, the distinction, characteristic of rational thought, between knower and

known, disappears in the ultimate union which is the One. As we have seen, on this view the soul, in experiencing and comprehending the Absolute, becomes “one with the One One finally escapes diversity and gains comprehension by being absorbed,

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mystically, into the Absolute.

Now, it should go without saying that the human soul does strive after unity. Intellectually, what motivates us is to find some unity to account for the diversity we find in the world we experience. We want, if only for practical purpose, but, often

enough, also for purposes of pure curiosity, to know how things hang together And as do-ers, that is, actors, people strive to fulfil their hopes, attempting to make them a reality But that is to establish relations to other things and other persons where

none existed before. If necessary, a person will even create the things to which he or

she then relates him- or herself In any case, in achieving one’s hopes, either cognitive or practical, one creates an order, a structure, a pattern of relationships - a joining together or uniting - where one previously existed. We cannot deny these facts', we cannot deny that the human soul does strive after unity. What is at issue is not these

facts, but the interpretation given to them by the monist. We have just characterized the monistic interpretation of the human desire to

know and to understand. What of a person’s other hopes and desires? Since reality

derives ultimately not from an individual human being as such, but only from the One, a person will find the reality of his or her hopes in becoming one with the One. Thus,

not only does the soul, in the final obliterating experience, fulfil its desire to

comprehend, but, as we have also seen, it achieves salvation, the real fulfilment of all possible hopes. Starting out by attempting to understand the ordinary world, the soul

thus ends by discovering its own insignificance and the need to flee from the world in which it ordinarily exists to something higher. The One provides a haven as well as

an explanation. The One is the absolute good as well as the absolute reality. A

person’s final aim, then, is to flee this ordinary world of ours and turn towards the Absolute. One’s life is, and can be, meaningful only insofar as one prepares oneself

for this salvation, only insofar as one strives to comprehend the necessary structure

of the universe and rise through the chain of being to the One, the ultimate source of all being and all value. And the ultimate refuge, the ultimate refuge from the ordinary

world that it itself renders paltry and trivial.

272 Camus rejects this world of Plotinus: 1 don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it.[15] What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me?[16] I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me - that I understand (MOS, p. 38).

With this last point Camus is, in effect, adopting a version of “empiricism.” The latter is an ambiguous term But one theme which, since Hume, has been associated with that term is that the only world that exists is that one of which we are aware in our

ordinary experience, and that there is no extraordinary form of experience, from the grasp ofnon-empirical necessary connexions to mystical union with the Absolute, that

has any ontological significance. As Camus puts the point, “This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that

it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction” (MOS, p. 14) One motive behind Camus’ embracing empiricism is the value he attaches to the

ordinary world which is the delight of our senses. One of the paradoxes of the

Plotinian scheme is that, while it attempts to give a point or purpose to life and the world in terms of a transcendent Absolute, it does so only by deprecating the world

of ordinary experience. In giving value to the world and to life, the Plotinian pattern minimizes both. In confronting the world as an empiricist, “The heart learns thus that

the emotion delighting us when we see the world’s aspects comes to us not from its depth but from their diversity” (MOS, p. 70) If one rejects the Plotinian scheme,

then, Camus says, agreeing with Klernke, The body, affection, creation, action, human nobility will ... resume their places in this mad world (MOS, p. 39).

But why, one must ask, is it a "mad world”? Of course, from the neo-Platonic point of view, to restrict ourselves to the world of ordinary experience, is to restrict

ourselves to a world that is intrinsically, in terms of itself, incomprehensible — a world

that is intrinsically without reason or meaning, a mad world, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But why, one asks again, is it a “mad

world 9 Given that we have adopted the empiricist position, it makes no sense to say

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of this world that because it is meaningless it is “mad.” This surely is to over­

dramatize the ordinary. The point of the question, why call this ordinary world “mad”? is simply: why look on this world from the neo-Platonic point of view, given

that one has already accepted empiricism? Why use that point of view to interpret the world as “mad” when, in adopting empiricism, we have rejected that point of view as

false or meaningless? The answer that Camus gives is that, like it or not, we do adopt

that point of view, we do aim to achieve a Plotinian salvation and a Plotinian understanding of the world. And this aim conflicts with his empiricism. Here we find

that disproportion between aim and reality that makes it reasonable to characterize man and his situation vis a vis the world as “absurd”: .. these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I ... know I cannot reconcile them (MOS, p. 38).

That we all have such an aim as Camus supposes is a view shared by others

besides Camus. It was, of course, the view of Augustine. Or, to take another example at whom we have already glanced, consider the view - also Augustinian - of Pascal.

On this view, a person is concerned not just with his life here, in this, the ordinary world we know by ordinary sense experience, but with his or her eternal state. Indeed, experience shows that concern with his or her state is natural to humankind.

Nothing is so important to man as his state: nothing more fearful than eternity. Thus the fact that there exist men who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of any eternity of wretchedness is against nature. .. Man’s nature must have undergone a strange reversal for him to glory in being in a state in which it seems incredible that any single person should be. Yet experience has shown me so many like this that it would be surprising if we did not know that most of those concerned in this are pretending and are not really what they seem.17 As Augustine suggested, there is an innate, or natural, appetite for the Absolute.

Or take another example. In a little book on Hegel’s philosophy, a philosophy

which is deeply in the neo-Platonic tradition, G R G. Mure explains that evil is simply the absence of reality, ultimately mere appearance, and comments that “If we

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are repelled by talk of pain as privilege, war as a counter to stagnation, sin and

punishment as somehow furthering the true destiny of man, we should ask ourselves

whether by any other line of thought we can make sense at all of error, evil, and contingency, and whether if we cannot, we can rest content to accept a world in

which whole masses of fact have in principle no meaning.”18 But the concepts of

meaningful and meaningless used here make sense only after one has accepted the neo-Platonic framework. Rejecting that framework, one does not end up saying the

masses of fact are objectively meaningless; rather, one is rejecting the very idea that

it makes sense to say of facts that they are either meaningful or meaningless in the way required by the neo-Platonic framework. If Mure is right we cannot rest content with a meaningless world; that is, we all desire to understand the world as Plotinus

said we ought and therefore we all desire the world to be as Plotinus said it was.

Or consider yet another case. The great Canadian educator and classicist, Maurice Hutton, once wrote,

To face the desperate creed ... that the world is an accident or a “deed”; or the ship of a prentice God ... requires, I imagine, more courage than to face, after the old fashioned way, the prospect of the Day of Judgment and of the fires of Hell: neither of which prospects are especially Christian or recent, but come freighted with instincts and traditions of classical and pre-classical antiquity.19 Hutton’s account of the “desperate creed” is not Humean or empiricist: it is stated in

terms - “accident” - that make sense only within the neo-Platonic framework. And only within the context of those terms can the prospect be made to appear “desperate”. The empiricist - the Epicurean and the Humean - rejects the whole

framework, however. Once that is done there is no reason whatsoever why human prospects should be couched in terms so dramatic and emotionally loaded It seems

to many, including Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume, Nagel, Kurt Baier, and Klemke, that

what should be said is that, once one accepts the empiricist thesis, that there are no entities that are transcendent unifiers ofthe world, and therefore that the neo-Platonic

worldview is false or meaningless - once one accepts empiricism, then one should give up the aim of understanding the world in neo-Platonic terms. If the empiricism

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of Epicurus and Hume is correct, such an aim is impossible to fulfil. Recognizing its impossibility, one should give it up - just as it is silly to want to jump to the moon:

the impossibility of doing so makes it an unreasonable aim, one we should discipline

ourselves to attenuate, at the least, abandon at the best. Empiricism defines the limits

of the world, and the limits of human reason. We should not sit about brooding about

our inability to transcend those limits - self-pity is as unpleasant here as elsewhere one should simply get up and go about doing things one can do. One should relegate

the desire to go beyond the limits of the world to the status of a wish, a residue from a more infantile stage of our development.

David Hume, the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher whom we have already discussed, saw this very clearly. As we have seen, he systematically developed and defended empiricist philosophy; neither science nor

morals were spared All remnants of the neo-Platonic scheme were exorcised. Thus, to recall the central example, consider causation. The desire is to distinguish propter

hoc and post hoc, real from apparent causal connections. Non-empiricists draw the distinction in terms of non-empirical objective necessary connection. There is a necessary tie present where the sequence of events is propter hoc, an objective tie that

is absent where the sequence is simply post hoc. On empiricist grounds, Hume rejects

the idea of an objective necessary causal connection (T, I, IV, iii).20 It does not follow

that all sequences are post hoc, that causation is eliminated from Hume’s world -

though, to be sure, that is how it will appear to the non-empiricist. But Hume rejects the very terms in which the non-empiricist formulates the issue. For Hume, there is a distinction between post hoc and propter hoc,2' only it is not one made in terms of

objective necessary connections transcending ordinary experience; rather, it is a

distinction drawn within the world of ordinary experience. Without once again going into details, what Hume argues is that those sequences are properly called causal that

have been verified by the rules of the scientific method. The distinction between post

hoc and propter hoc becomes relative. Whether a sequence is properly called causal is a judgment relative to the sort of evidence available for its truth. Moreover, this

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evidence is, if the Humean is correct, inevitably incomplete. A causal judgment always implies a regularity: A causes B implies that, ceteris paribus, whenever A then B. We only observe some A’s, never all A’s. Even if all observed A’s are B it does not follow

all A’s are B. Some swans are white does not entail all swans are white. This is no problem for the non-empiricist: for such a philosopher the mind can rise above the world of sensed particulars and grasp the objective necessary connection that obtains between A and B when A causes B. For the non-empiricist, his or her objective

necessary connections provide a bridge to close the gap between sample and population. Being able (he or she thinks) to transcend experience, he or she can (he

or she thinks) affirm causal propositions with certainty. But not so the Humean. For the latter, his or her empiricism commits him or her to there being an inevitable and logically necessary gap between sample and population. All we ever observe is a

sample. Every causal statement implies a judgment about a population. Hence, even the best evidence can never be conclusive. Causal judgments are never certain. Man

as knower is inevitably fallible. Camus refers to this empiricist reason as part of the

traditional critique of rationalism; “humiliated thought,” he calls it (MOS, p. 17). It is “thought in which abstract powers have been humiliated” (MOS, p. 86). It restricts

itself to, and thereby exalts the divsersity and separability of the world of sense. “Any

thought that abandons unity glorifies diversity” (MOS, p. 86). For Hume the point about the fallibility of human reason is a simple one: once

one accepts the empiricist position, this is no problem to overcome but a fact to be accepted22 And if we still lust after objective necessary connections, or Plotinian

unities, then such lusts should be abandoned. In the “Introduction” to his Treatise on Human Nature, Hume makes the point which, as we have seen, was later taken up by Nagel, Kurt Baier and Klemke:

...we are no sooner acquainted with the impossibility of satisfying any desire, than the desire itself vanishes. When we see, that we have arrived at the utmost extent of human reason, we sit down contented; tho' we be perfectly satisfied in the main of our ignorance, and perceive that we can give no reason for our most general and most refined principles, beside our experience of their reality; which is the

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reason of the mere vulgar, and what it required no study at first to have discovered for the most particular and most extraordinary phaenomenon. And as this impossibility of making any farther progress is enough to satisfy the reader, so the writer may derive a more delicate satisfaction from the free confession of his ignorance, and from his prudence in avoiding that error, into which so many have fallen, of imposing their conjectures and hypotheses on the world for the most certain principles. When this mutual contentment and satisfaction can be obtained betwixt the master and scholar, I know not what more we can requires of our philosophy (T, p xxii).

Now, as we said before, human beings do strive after unity. It is perfectly true that when a person seeks to understand, he or she desires to find some unity to

account for the diversity in the world that we experience. That human beings are so motivated, no one can deny, and Hume, just as much as Plotinus, recognizes this

point. What Hume proposes is not to deny the desire to understand, but to redirect it. What he suggests we abandon is not the desire to understand, but the desire to

understand in the monist’s way. When one recognizes that the world we live in does not conform to the monistic picture, and therefore that we cannot achieve an

understanding of the sort the monist aims to achieve, one should redirect one’s attempts to understand, and attempt to understand in the empiricist’s way.

All change implies diversity. Hence, for the monist, the unifying entity which explains the diversity of experience, must be an unchanging entity outside the world of experience. What Hume proposes we give up is seeking to understand by searching for an unchanging entity that lies outside the diverse world of experience but in which

that diversity finds its necessary unity. The reason he proposes this is that the diversity in experience is irreducible: there are no objective necessary ties among the entities in experience by the tracing of which the mind can rise from this world of change to

an abiding entity that is outside it but explains it Hume argues, instead, with Epicurus and Lucretius, that in seeking to understand we should search for the unchanging

patterns in experience. These patterns are mere regularities, contingent and not necessary. Understanding the diverse events of the world will no longer be a matter of relating them to the One but of finding the patterns into which they fit.

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Understanding why this thing is B consists of noting that it is also A and that A s regularly are B. This does not deny that there are two events, that the thing is A and

that the thing is B In other words, it does not deny the diversity of the world. On the other hand, such a mode of understanding does give structure and pattern to the diverse events of experience; and in this sense relates them to each other and unifies

them. Only, to repeat, the relations are only contingent, not the necessary ties of the monist. At the same time, however, this is not to say that the patterns we use to

explain and understand, that is, the causal regularities, are not necessary. It is just that the necessity is only relative, relative to our human experience, and, if we are rational,

relative to certain normatively structured sorts of evidence that we have and that tend to support the judgment that the pattern we are trying to use to explain really is

permanent If the evidence is good and sound that a regularity really does obtain then

that pattern is properly called causal and properly used in explanations. However, even this relative necessity is uncertain and subject to change. For, the evidence on

which such judgments of relative necessity are based is always fallible, and as we

correct our errors, the necessary connections we use to structure and understand the world must also change. How unlike the necessary ties to the One by which the

monist hopes to understand the world! But monist’s hope is vain: the objective

necessary ties such a one aims to find simply do not exist. But Hume’s point is stronger. For, as we have seen, when Hume asks

precisely how language functions in experience, what he discovers is that notions like that of an objective necessary connection or that of a necessary being turn out to be

either meaningless or self-contradictory. The very language of theology and religion is corrupt from the beginning, and incapable, save as illusion or delusion, of being accepted. Hume thus excludes the fideistic justification of religious belief that one

finds in Montaigne and Pascal - or Tolstoy. Experience itself firmly fixes the limits of

discourse to this world, and we may not, if we are to be reasonable, stray beyond it. The hope of the monist is thus in fact irrational nonsense. It is not just that the aim cannot be fulfilled, but more deeply that the aim in fact has no legitimate object: there

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is no real idea that could describe the aim. Any such idea would have to be an idea of objective value grounded in a metaphysical unity that transcends our ordinary sense experience. But, Hume has argued, on empiricist grounds, that our ideas, if they are to make sense, must be tied to sense experience. Thus, given the Humean critique of

the traditional metaphysics that attempts to establish propositions about entities lying outside the world of sense experience, the idea of objective value as grounded in

metaphysical unity is simply non-sense. This establishes in a deep and radical way that the aim of the monist is indeed vain. And since the hope is vain, we should give it up,

and substitute for it the modest but achievable goal that Hume proposes. And what better way of convincing ourselves to settle for the modest goal than recognizing that

our impulsive desires for objective value and metaphysical unity are delusion and

confusion! But is the Humean goal of fallible knowledge sufficient for our needs? At one

point in the Treatise, Hume does raise the problem of a person confronted with the fact that he or she is fallible, that he or she does not know, that is, know with the

certainty that, for example, the non-empiricist says we should aim at.23 The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return9 Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread9 What beings surround me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, inviron’d with the deepest darkness, and utterly depriv’d of the use of every member and faculty (T, p 268).

But such despair is in practice unreasonable. Hume continues: Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. 1 dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when

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after three or four hours’ amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther (T, p. 269). As with Montaigne, Hume discovers that experience does provide us with sufficient

knowledge to get on with the task of living. To admit human fallibility, to adopt the

Humean end of making our cognitive standard require no more than fallible knowledge, thus does not conflict with my hoping to satisfy my human needs, my needs relative to life in this world. Even without the knowledge for which the monist

lusts, and even if our knowledge is inevitably fallible, nonetheless it can still truly be said that I do know enough to enjoy my friends, to play backgammon, even to do

empirical science. It is reasonable to adjust our cognitive standard to require no more than fallible knowledge. To be sure, it is not knowledge as the non-empiricist defines

‘knowledge’; it is not “tethered.” But what we come to recognize is that it is

unreasonable to condemn what we do have and can achieve by appeal to such an impossible standard. Put this impossible standard aside, says Hume, adopt a

reasonable concept of reason, and get on with the business of life, whether that business of yours be that of an empirical scientist such as Newton, or of a man of

affairs, or of a good British gentleman-fanner.24

It isjust this putting aside of the monist's standard ofknowledge that Camus,

following Augustine, insists that we cannot do. . . .here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes - how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine (MOS, p. 25). Not even the scientific knowledge of a Newton or Einstein will do. At its best, science, as Hume also insists, yields only fallible hypotheses, not certain truths (MOS, p. 25). It is not certain, not “tethered,” so it can assure me of nothing. Moreover,

science doesn’t explain, it merely describes (MOS, p. 15), that is, from the viewpoint of the monist, science is content to describe, not explain, since explanation requires one to transcend the empirical phenomena to which science restricts itself. And in any

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case, it cannot make the world wholly mine, it cannot bring about my unity with the One that is the Plotinian ideal of understanding.

I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot for all that apprehend the world. Were I to trace its entire relief with my finger, I should not know any more. And you give me the choice between a description that is sure but teaches me nothing and hypotheses that claim to teach me but that are not sure (MOS, p 15). Camus believes that people cannot do as Hume recommends, viz., give up the

desire for a monistic understanding of the universe, this craving for the metaphysically Absolute, for the unity of Plotinus, for the God of Augustine, is an innate and

unavoidable part of human nature. “I can negate everything of that part of me that lives on vague nostalgia, except this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion” (MOS, p. 38). Camus agrees with Augustine who argued

that True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the Truth, you my God, my true Light, to whom I look for salvation. This is the happiness that all desire. All desire this, the only true state of happiness. All desire to rejoice in truth.25 And he agrees with Pascal, Augustine’s 17th century follower, that

Nothing is so important to man as his state: nothing more fearful than eternity. Thus the fact that there exist men who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of any eternity of wretchedness is against nature....26 That means, then, that there is an inevitable gap between what we aim for - monistic

understanding of the world - and reality - the world and human being are such that only a Humean understanding can be achieved And because there is this inevitable gap between intention and reality, the human being’s inevitable fate is to be absurd But Camus in fact is ambivalent about the claimed innateness of the craving

for the One. It turns out that a careful reading of his novel The Outsider reveals that

Camus recognized that the longings can after all be given up if one reflects carefully upon the impossibility of their fulfilment. The central character of the novel.

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Meursault, at one point finds galling the idea of the life that he will miss through his imprisonment and execution (OUT, p 112), but, by reflecting upon the fact that death

would in any case eventually happen, he comes to recognize that such regret is

pointless:

. . .I could argue myself out of it, by picturing what would have been my feelings when my term was up, and death had cornered me. Once one’s up against it, the precise manner of one’s death has obviously small importance (OUT, p. 112).27 Such considerations lead one to recognize the absurd, and this recognition “restores to remorse its futility” (MOS, p. 65). And when its futility is recognized, one

abandons it: “When I’d succeeded, 1 had earned a good hour’s peace of mind, and that, anyhow, was something” (OUT, p. 113). .. .really, there’s no idea to which one doesn’t get acclimatized in time (OUT, p. 113).

It is just the last, Humean point that Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus does not recognize. If the argument of that essay is correct, then we never get acclimatized to the idea that there is no absolute certainty; we can never give up the desire for such

an understanding. The question is, who is correct, Hume and Meursault, on the one side, or

Camus, on the other? If the former are correct then, interestingly enough, Camus lacks an insight that one of his characters attains. Or, in other words, there would be a curious self-deception in Camus, both recognizing a fact and yet centrally basing

The Myth of Sisyphus upon denying that fact. It will be the thrust of our argument that Hume and Meursault are correct, that there is such a self-deception in Camus, and, finally, that this self-deception is no accident. We may approach from another direction Camus’ view that human beings

inevitably aim for a monistic understanding of the world. Hume was the first of the

modern philosophers to argue systematically for an empiricist or Epicurean position on values. The essential point is that the world we live in is a world without values.

As a later philosopher put it, “The world is everything that is the case.” Or as Hume

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himself put it, In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, 1 have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and established the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs, when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses a new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it should be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it (T, p. 469).

There is no necessary connection between “is” and “ought”. If there were, then oughtstatements could be derived from ^-statements. Moreover, the world would not be

everything that is the case, but would also include values, what ought to be the case. For, what ought to be the case would be necessarily connected to and inseparable from what is the case, and would therefore be as much a part of the world as the

latter. Moreover, the truth or falsity of a judgment of fact depends only on what it is about, not upon who happens to make the judgment. In this sense, what is the case

forms an absolute or objective, rather than a relative standard for the correctness of

our judgments of fact. And in exactly the same way, the values that are necessarily

implied by those facts will form an absolute or objective standard for the correctness of our value judgments. In denying that “is” follows from “ought” Hume is denying

that the world - everything that is the case - provides an absolute or objective standard for the correctness of our value judgments. Values, in other words, are relative.

What Hume argues is that values are in the world only because we value things. Or to put it another way, there are no values, i.e., absolute values, only value judgments. We want certain things, we hope for certain things, we esteem certain

things, we feel certain things ought to be. It is because, and only because, we value things, that those things are valuable. In this sense, all values are relative to those who make value judgments: there is no absolute or objective standard.

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This thesis on the relativity of values will not, of course, satisfy the monist, since for such a one all value flows from the One in whom (or in which) all hopes are

most fully satisfied The One provides an absolute standard of what is best, a standard for evaluating the correctness of our value judgments. If our hopes and aims, our

value judgments, do not find fulfilment in the One, that is because they as& false values. And if they are false values then they both cannot and ought not to be fulfilled.

Reference to the One thus provides an objective and absolute standard in terms of

which to decide to do one thing rather than another. From this perspective, Hume’s thesis that all values are relative deprives one of any possible reason for acting - or not acting. If there are no absolute values then everything is permitted, or nothing is

permitted - one may indulge every whim or one should commit suicide - and even then, there is no way of deciding between these two!

Yet one must say, what Hume importantly also said,2* that, even if there are

no absolute values, it does not follow that there are no values. For, even if there are no absolute values, there are relative values29 And relative values can provide reasons for my doing one thing rather than another. I want the piece of chocolate cake and you want the cookie. Those provide perfectly good reasons for my eating the

cake and your eating the cookie. There is no need for them to be judged correct by

some absolute standard for our wants to provide perfectlygood reasons for our doing what we do. The suggestion of the monist is that denying absolute values amounts to

depriving one of all reasons for acting: without absolute values, life becomes totally meaningless. But this suggestion is correct only if you grant him or her that a “reason for acting” has to be a value that is judged correct by the absolute standard. It is

precisely this, of course, that Hume denies. Just as Hume refused to identify the concept of understanding with the monist’s concept of understanding, so Hume

refuses to identify the concept of reasons for acting with the monist’s concept of reasons for acting And just as Hume argued that since the world cannot be

understood in the monist’s way one ought to give up the desire to conform one’s understanding to the monist’s concept, so also he argues that, since there are no

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absolute values, one ought to give up the desire to have them as the reasons for one’s

actions. One should recognize that, since the world is not such that life can be

meaningful in the monist’s sense, therefore one should give up searching for such meaning, and settle for what we, as humans, can attain: that is, settle for the meaning

that comes to life through fulfilling our hopes and through the - relative - values that we impose upon the world; settle for the meaning that comes to life through the goals we set ourselves. In short, one should give up the task of trying to find some absolute

standard to judge one’s actions and instead get on with the task of living! Now, with much of this Camus agrees! He agrees with Hume that there is no objective or absolute value:

...strangeness creeps in: perceiving that the world is ‘dense’, sensing to what degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, and with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us. At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise (MOS, p. 11).30

This means that, objectively, “everything is permitted” (MOS, p. 50). There are only relative values, no qualitative - i.e., objectively valuable - distinctions among them. All one can do is aim to act on one’s values, recognizing that, objectively, Don Juan, who aims at a maximum quantity of sensual pleasure, is as valuable as the saint, who aims at objective value. “What Don Juan realizes in action is an ethic of quantity,

whereas the saint on the contrary tends toward quality. Not to believe in the profound meaning of things belongs to the absurd man” (MOS, p. 54). On the other hand, we

do feel duties; and they are as important as other values. “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Everything is permitted does not mean nothing is forbidden. The absurd merely confers an equivalence on the

consequences of those actions. It does not recommend crime...” (MOS, p. 50). This

sense of duty may well lead one to heroic action, or saintly action, perhaps even to an early death. To affirm that there are no qualitative distinctions is not to imply, as

Adele King wrongly suggests, that “sixty years of life is a greater accomplishment for

286 the rebel than forty years.”31 The absurd does not establish that that is a greater accomplishment; it does not establish that a longer life is objectively better. To the contrary, since the recognition of the absurd is the recognition that there are no

objective or absolute values, it follows that a longer life is a greater accomplishment

to me only if I in fact value that. But I may well value something that requires a

shorter life more than I value a long life - such is the hero - and in that case a long life would be a failure, not an accomplishment. As Camus puts it, “the mistake is

thinking that the quantity of experience depends on the circumstances when it depends

solely on us” (MOS, p. 46). Camus’ point about quality is the simple one that objectively there are no qualitative distinctions among values. Camus’ conclusion, like Hume’s, is that, rather than irrationally worrying about the objective worth of one’s values, one should get on with the task of living according to the values one has: ...if all experiences are indifferent, that of duty is as legitimate as any other. One can be virtuous through a whim. ...What rule ... could emanate from that unreasonable order? The only truth that might seem instructive to him is not formal: it comes to life and unfolds in men. The absurd mind cannot so much expect ethical rules at the end of its reasoning as, rather, illustrations and the breath of human lives (MOS, p. 50).

The absurd does not eliminate duty, nor the distinction between duty and interest. Only, it deprives duty of an objective justification; duty, like all other values, turns out

to be relative - though, from the monist’s viewpoint, to say that is to say duty is a

whim, with no justification sought or needed for it: but Camus, accepting relativism,

responds that, very well, it is a whim, but that does not make it any the less duty! The aim, as we get on with the task of living, is to ...know how to live in harmony with a universe without future and without weakness. This absurd, godless world is then peopled with men who think clearly and who have ceased to hope (MOS, p. 68).

But to live without hope is to live without expecting to find the world giving meaning to life [ 1 he typical act of eluding... is hope. Hope of another life one must ‘deserve’

or trickery of those who live, not for life itself, but for some great idea that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning, and betray it” (MOS, p. 7).] For one to live

287 harmoniously in such a universe, one must bring one’s aims into line with one’s intellect: one must attempt to achieve a unified sensibility. And that means that if one

knows the world is meaningless then one must not only stop expecting it to be meaningful but also stop wanting it to be meaningful. It is, of course, just such a desire for objective values that Hume, followed by others such as Nagel, argues should be given up, just as we should give up trying to understand the universe in the way the monist proposes. But, as we saw, Camus thinks we cannot give up the latter, and, equally, he thinks we cannot give up the former either. In fact, given that one

aims for a monistic understanding of the world, it is evident why, if we cannot give up that desire, then we also cannot give up the desire for absolute values: the two desires are essentially one and the same; they both have as their goal union with the

One, and to achieve a monistic understanding of the world is to discover in fulfilling them which of one’s hopes are true and justified by the objective standard ofthe One.

So human beings, for Camus, can give up neither the desire for absolute knowledge nor the desire for absolute values, even though he knows neither desire can be satisfied. Which is, of course, the inevitable absurdity of the human condition. I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me - that is what I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them (MOS, p. 38). If Camus is correct, human beings are inevitably incapable of a unified sensibility. That

alone means that, even though Camus would like it to be so, human beings cannot live in harmony in the universe. In turn this suggests a dissociation in Camus’ own

sensibility: he is unable to bring into harmony his desire for men to learn “how to live in harmony with a universe without future and without weakness,” on the one hand,

and, on the other hand, his intellectual conviction concerning the nature of man and

the universe, that the former inevitably longs for a meaningful universe and that the

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latter is meaningless throughout. In fact, 1 propose to take this suggestion of a

dissociation in Camus’ sensibility very seriously, and shall be pursuing it throughout the remainder of this chapter, and through the next.

To begin this task, I would like to suggest that, ironically enough, Camus avoids noticing this dissociation in his sensibility through hoping, “the typical act of eluding” (MOS, p. 7) in which he puts a meaning into the meaningless universe, and claims an absolute validity for its judgments, which one then tries to fulfil.

If one is to live in harmony with a meaningless universe then one must just

accept as a fact that values are relative, and then get on with the task of living in

accordance with the relative values one infact has. But if one desires absolute values, then one will inevitably desire some judgment to be passed on the absolute validity

of this or that value judgment. Thus, as long as one has the desire for absolute values, one cannot just get on with the task of living in accordance with one’s relative values.

Hume’s solution, taken up by Nagel, Kurt Baier, and Klemke, is that we give up the

desire for absolute values, suppress it as unreasonable because unfulfillable. But Camus claims that one cannot give it up it is unavoidably a part of what it is to be human. If we are to get on with the task of living in accordance with our relative

values, then that desire for absolute values must somehow be satisfied, since on the

one hand, it cannot be suppressed, and, on the other hand, it interferes, so long as it remains unsatisfied, with our getting on with the task.

One obvious solution is to suggest that the task of living in accordance with our relative values is itself an absolute value This is Camus’ solution. He attempts

to argue that there are absolutely valid reasons why one ought not to commit suicide.

In the Humean universe, death is not to be feared. But equally, there is no hope. And

if the craving for objective value and meaning is deep-seated and inescapable, then

that absence of hope creates a despair to which suicide is the only reasonable response. As we said before, in the meaningless universe of David Hume, it seems, death is not to be feared, but neither can life be lived. But, if Camus is correct, then

there are, even in a Humean universe objectively valid reasons for not committing

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suicide. Moreover, he argues, those same reasons why one ought not to commit suicide are equally good reasons for living our life, or, in other words, for accepting our relative values as facts about ourselves and getting on with the task of living in

accordance with them. If this argument were successful, then the dissociation in Camus’ sensibility

that I have suggested is there, would not really exist. However, as it turns out, his

argument is quite incapable of establishing the desired conclusion. In reality, then,

Camus is disguising from himself the dissociation in his sensibility, disguising it by creating an illusion to convince himself that it does not exist, or, in other words, by

creating an illusion that will give him hope. What, then, of Camus’ argument that suicide is absolutely wrong? Camus’ central premise for this argument is that “If I judge a thing is true, I

must preserve it” (MOS, p 23). Once this justifies not committing suicide, the step is relatively easy to getting on with the task of living in accordance with the relative

values that we have. For, we in fact have them - that is a truth, and truth must be preserved

. belief in the absurd is tantamount to substituting the quantity of experiences for the quality. . .what counts is not the best living but the most living. It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable. Once and for all, value judgments are discarded here in favour of factual judgments (MOS, p. 45).

This ethic he illustrates with Don Juan getting on with the task of living in accordance with his relative values:

[Don Juan] has but one reply to divine wrath and that is human honour: ‘I have honour,’ he says to the Commander, ‘and I am keeping my promise because I am a knight’. But it would be...an error to make an immoralist of him. In this regard, he is ‘like everyone else’: he has the moral code of his likes and dislikes. Don Juan can be properly understood only by constant reference to what he commonly symbolizes: the ordinary seducer and the sexual athlete. He is an ordinary seducer. Except for the difference that he is conscious, and that is why he is absurd. A seducer who has become lucid will not change for all that. Seducing is his condition in life. . . Yet it can be said that at the same time nothing is changed and everything is

290 transformed. What Don Juan realizes in action is an ethic of quantity, whereas the saint on the contrary tends towards quality. Not to believe in the profound meaning of things belongs to the absurd man (MOS, p. 53-54).

But of course, the first step in Camus’ argument is the crucial one, so let us

look at that. Camus knows that human being is inevitably absurd. This absurdity consists in “the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call

echoes in the human heart” (MOS, p. 16). Absurdity is thus a relation between human beings and the world, and it cannot exist if either disappears. In particular, “the absurd

depends as much on man as on the world” (MOS, p. 16). This leads directly to a characterization of life-. “Living is keeping the absurd alive” (MOS, p. 40). But the absurdity of the human condition is a fact: it is a truth. And, by the premise previously noted, truths that 1 know must be preserved. Hence, the lucid man who recognizes his

absurdity must preserve it, keep it alive, which is to say that he must keep on living.

The meaningless universe thus demands not suicide, but the affirmation of life. “[The

problem] was previously a question of finding out whether or not life has to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning” (MOS, p. 39-40).

But why accept the central premise that truths must be preserved?

Camus’ answer is that to fail to preserve a truth is to deny or negate it -

“Negating one of the terms of the opposition on which he lives amounts to escaping

it” (MOS, p. 40) - and to deny what one recognizes to be a truth is to contradict oneself which is unacceptable to the intelligence, present in me, that aims to

understand the world. “If I attempt to solve a problem, at least I must not by that very

solution conjure away one of the terms of the problem” (MOS, p. 40). Such is Camus’ argument that we ought not to commit suicide. It can be

stated more briefly: If man removes himself, he destroys his situation and the absurd condition. Since that condition is a fact the suicide denies this fact. But one who denies a fact denies the truth. And to deny the truth,

291 recognizing it to be such, is to contradict oneself. Recognizing a truth, one ought as a rational person to preserve it, not deny it. So one ought not to commit suicide, though the universe is meaningless.

Now we may agree with this conclusion, but if so then one must hope that Camus’ argument in support of it is not the sole barrier to suicide. For the argument

is doubly fallacious.

There is, first, the play on “preserving” or, what is the same, the play on denying a truth or fact. It is one thing to deny a fact by stating that it is not so, and a different thing to deny the fact by bringing about its non-existence. As Hochberg has

put it: “...it is quite one thing to deny that someone has a wart by stating that it is not

so; it is quite another thing to ‘deny’ that fact by removing the wart. Of course, in Camus’ case one removes the disease by removing the patient, but the point is still the

same.”32 In the second place, Camus jumps as the neo-Platonist would, but as Hume showed the empiricist cannot, from “is” to “ought”. Camus moves from the factual premise, that man’s way of being in the universe is absurd, to the normative

conclusion that this state ought to be preserved. His empiricist attack on the monist’s

claim that metaphysics can justify values precludes any attempt to appeal to an “is” to justify an “ought”, and in particular the inference from “such and such is true” to

therefore “it ought to be preserved.” Camus’ play on the word ‘preserve’ - “preserve the truth” as not denying it in judgment and “preserve the truth” as so acting that

what isjudged about continues to exist - provides the verbal bridge that obscures this

fallacious move. Camus’ metaphysical argument against suicide thus simply begs the question.

It might be objected that this is to illegitimately criticize Camus since it

deploys reason when Camus has rejected reason, accepted irrationalism. But the reason Camus rejects is the reason that leads to the divine and to soothing hope

(MOS, pp. 48-9); it is the reason of the monist, of the neo-Platonist, it is the reason that demands understanding through unification. What recognizing man’s absurdity

does is repudiate this reason, but not all reason: “The absurd is lucid reason noting

292 its limits” (MOS, p. 49). To recognize the absurd is to recognize that the monistic

view is false, that there is no transcendent realm of meaning and of absolute value, accessible by some sort of non-empirical reason. This is compatible with accepting a role for an as it were limited rationality, a rationality which, like Hume’s, limits itself to this world: “...if I recognize the limits of the reason, I do not therefore negate it,

recognizing its relative powers” (MOS, p. 30). Indeed, from this, the empiricist’s viewpoint, it is the God that empirical reason can never attain that is irrational: “that god is maintained only through the negation of human reason” (MOS, p. 31). In attacking the reason of the monist, Camus is, like Hume, defending a human reason.

Of course, from the monist’s viewpoint, to say that reason is limited, that it is human and cannot reach the divine, cannot transcend the realm of the empirical, is to negate

reason, the only reason that understands, grasps the real reasons for things. Negating that reason that aims at understanding by grasping transcendent necessary connections

ought to lead me to despair of all reason, the monist suggests, and to tum, as

Kierkegaard suggested, to irrationalism. But the irrationalism does not follow: “I

merely want to remain in this middle path where the intelligence can remain clear If that is its pride, I see no sufficient reason for giving it up” (MOS, p. 30). So to accept

such a reason is but part of getting on with the task of living while recognizing there is no absolute understanding and no absolute value: “It is a matter of living in that state of the absurd” (MOS, p. 30). As for “despair,” then if rejecting the reason of the

monist requires one to despair, so be it - but, do not let such despair play a serious role in one’s life, do not let it interfere with, or be an excuse for not undertaking, the task of getting on with life: “the absurd mind, rather than resigning itself to falsehood, prefers to adopt fearlessly Kierkegaard’s reply: ‘despair’. Everything considered, a

determined soul will always manage” (MOS, p. 31). Camus thus rejects an

irrationalism that precludes appeal to rational argument. We are, therefore, fully

within our rights to appeal to reason in criticizing Camus’ argument concerning suicide.

Camus is not the only one to propose this argument. Heidegger has given a

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somewhat similar case against suicide, though it is phrased in more tortured prose

than that of Camus. Manifestly Being-towards-death...cannot have the character of concemfully Being out to get itself actualized. For..., death as possible is not something possible which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand, but a possibility of Dasein’s Being. So to concern oneself with actualizing what is thus possible would have to signify, “bringing about one’s demise”. But if this were done, Dasein would deprive itself of the very ground for an existing Being-towards-death (Being and Time, p. 305). If Dasein, that is, a person, were to set about bringing about its, i.e., his or her, own

demise, then Dasein would be setting about to end the activity of Dasein as Being-

towards-death. But Being-toward-death is the truth of Dasein. So the suicide

contradicts him- or herself. Of course, one cannot refute the suicide; for in contradicting the truth about him- or herself, Dasein ceases to exist. The suicide is like

a sceptic who denies that there is any truth “A sceptic can no more be refuted than

the Being of truth can be ‘proved’. And if any sceptic of the kind who denies the

truth, factically is, he does not even need to be refuted. In so far as he is, and has understood himself in this Being, he has obliterated Dasein in the desperation of

suicide, and in doing so, he has obliterated truth” (p. 272). The truth of Dasein is Being-towards-death, and Dasein therefore cannot live its truth and also be a suicide, one who obliterates that truth.

But the same ambiguity is here as in Camus. It is one thing to deny the proposition that the truth about Dasein is that it is Being-towards-death, and another

thing to destroy or obliterate that fact. Denying the truth in the first sense,

contradicting oneself, does not imply denying it in the second sense. Nor, conversely, does denying the truth in the second sense imply that one is denying it in the first sense. Dasein does not therefore commit the logical sin of contradicting itself when

it commits suicide. Suicide is after all not contrary to reason. Unless, of course, one has a different concept of reason. Recall the argument

of Aquinas that suicide is forbidden because it is contrary to its natural inclination of

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a substance to bring itself into being:

...everything naturally love itself, the result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being, and resists corruptions so far as it can. Wherefore suicide is contrary to the inclination of nature, and so charity whereby every man should love himself. Hence suicide is always a mortal sin, as being contrary to the natural law and to charity ” As we noted before, this argument clearly depends upon the substance metaphysics deriving from Socrates’ model of explanation. When the soul grasps the Forms, or as Aquinas would put it, the Natures of things, it grasps the reasons for things; and in

grasping its own Form or Nature, it is moved to imitate that Form in its own being in

time in the world of sense experience. The soul in grasping its Form is active in establishing its own being in the world For it to move towards its own non-being by committing suicide would, in effect, be for it to turn away from reason and the natural

law which ought to move it. For Aquinas, such turning away is a sin. For others, as we saw, it is for the soul to be moved contrary to reason by external forces. In a case

of suicide, save perhaps in exceptional circumstances, the soul, the seat of reason, would have to be moved by, say, the passions, by something in any case other than reason, that is, the reason that grasps the reasons for things. Any reason that dictated suicide would at once be moved by a Form of Nature

towards both its being and its non-being. So it contradicts itself, formally, in

obliterating itself. It is thus formally self-contradictory to say that it is right and in conformity to reason that one commit suicide. This is apparently close to what both

Camus and Heidegger are trying to get at. But it depends upon a notion of reason

deriving from the Socratic tradition, rather than the reason that is acceptable in a Epicurean-Humean universe But for Camus, the universe is as Epicurus and Hume

describe it, and there is no reason of the sort to which Socrates and Aquinas appeal.

A similar point can be made about Heidegger. For Socrates, a person can become whole and reach his or her end by grasping the Forms, that is, what is not human, not

Dasein, and, indeed, what is superior to it. But Heidegger’s analysis of the end of Dasein argues that Dasein is oriented towards no other entity than itself. In fact, for

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Heidegger, as we saw, the whole that would be the completion of Dasein is always a “not yet”, and is certainly not the completeness that would come from fully

grasping, and therefore instantiating in one’s own life, the Form or Nature that defines one’s being. The reason that is available for Dasein is not the reason of the tradition

deriving from Socrates but the reason that allows Dasein to orient itself in a world that is partly its own making, partly one into which it is simply thrown. That is, the reason available to Dasein is the reason that aims to grasp the patterns of the world of human experience, the reason of Epicurus and Hume. So for Heidegger, as for

Camus, there can be no argument against suicide as self-contradictory that is based on a reason like that to which Aquinas appeals. And short of such a reason, restricted to the empirical reason of Epicurus and Hume, the Heideggerian argument against

suicide is no more successful than that of Camus.

So Camus’ argument that there are absolutely valid reasons why one ought not to commit suicide is not sound, and neither, therefore, is his claim consequent

upon that, that the task of living in accordance with our relative values is itself an absolute value. We may therefore conclude that Camus has not succeeded in

reconciling his desire for people to learn to live in harmony with a meaningless universe and his conviction that it is humanity’s inevitable fate to desire absolute knowledge and absolute values. But don’t we still have to give reasons for not committing suicide? Indeed we

do. But they don’t have to be absolutely valid reasons; relatively valid reasons will

do the job quite well, thank you, as Hume argued. Thus, for example, Stendahl reports in his Memoirs ofEgoism that

In 1821 it was only with the greatest difficulty that I resisted the temptation to shoot myself. 1 used to draw the picture of a pistol in the margin of a paltry love-story I was scribbling at the time (it was when I was living in the Acerbi house). It seems to me that what prevented me from ending it all was my curiosity in political matters. Perhaps too, without my suspecting it, I had some fear of hurting myself.34 Interest in the fate of Charles X and fear of pain, these are reasons sufficient to

296 convince one not to commit suicide! In short, and once again, relative values can be quite sufficient injustifying to one that one ought not to commit suicide. The point is, however, that neither

Camus, nor anyone who is convinced as Camus is that there is in human beings an

innate craving for absolute values and objective meaning, e g., Augustine or Pascal or Tolstoy, can be satisfied with those reasons. For such a one believes that it is humanity’s lot to aim to find and act on absolute values, and therefore humanity’s lot to be dissatisfied with merely human passions and sentiments, merely human values that are not justified objectively by some non-contingent standard. Since Camus also

admits, with Hume, that there are no absolute values that could possibly satisfy this craving, he is hard put to argue effectively against suicide - relative values won’t suffice and there are no objective or absolute values to offer in the alternative. In fact,

it seems that Camus is so hard put to argue effectively against suicide that he must offer his obviously bad argument. Hume, in contrast, has no such problems. Since the desire for absolute values is not inevitable, it can be given up. Hence, human beings can achieve a unified sensibility, as they cannot for Camus. And once the desire for

absolute values is abandoned, relative values can provide perfectly valid reasons why one ought not to commit suicide, as they cannot for Camus.

Thus, (1) Camus is convinced that human beings crave absolute values and

objective meaning for their lives; (2) he offers an argument to provide an objective

basis for our human values; (3) this argument is fairly obviously unsound; it is in fact (4) so obviously invalid that its being thought compelling can only be the result of illusion and self-deception; whence, it is plausible to suggest, (5) Camus offers his

unsound argument because, on the basis of his feeling and conviction that people want objective value and meaning, he so very strongly wants it to be sound. If, of course, the belief that human beings unavoidably crave the absolute could at least be attenuated, then Camus would not be inclined to pass off as

convincing an obviously bad argument designed to satisfy that craving. But Camus is convinced, presumably somehow within himself, that the craving for unity cannot be

291 either eliminated or attenuated. In this respect, he is, like Pascal, an Augustinian If

Camus is correct, then the hope that he offers us, the illusory argument against

suicide, can hardly suffice. In that case the craving for unity in a meaningless universe can result only in despair, a despair that mere relative values cannot dissipate, a

despair for which the only remedy, so it after all seems, is suicide. But is Camus correct that that belief is inevitable, that it cannot be attenuated?

Is the Augustinian tradition correct? Or is Hume in the alternative correct in holding

that once we do in fact realize that the craving cannot be satisfied in the only universe that we know then we will give it up?

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- Ill -

We have once again clearly identified the core of the significant disagreement between

Hume and Camus. The two agree that the monistic account of the universe is false: the world is an irreducibly diverse set of contingent facts and events. And the two

agree that there are no absolute values: the world is everything that is the case. But, for Hume, human beings can achieve a unified sensibility,35 while it is precisely this

that it seems human beings cannot do, according to Camus. For the latter, there is always a disharmony in human being, an inevitable conflict between aim and reality.

Human beings are always damned by the world to failure, damned by the gods to a tragic fate, for a fault in their being for which they were not responsible. Humanity’s fallibility condemns it relative to its perpetual and god-given hopes, and condemns it “without appeal” (MOS, p. 39, p. 45, p. 59), for all that human beings feel innocent. “To tell the truth, that is all he feels - his irreparable innocence” (MOS, p. 39). The

human being is Sisyphus It is this, I suggest, that is the source of Camus ’ dramatization of man, of the world and of humanity's being in the world. It derives from his view that human

beings crave, as Plotinus craved, for a certain sort of understanding of these things,

an understanding that turns out to be impossible to achieve. Camus’ dramatization of everyday life thus stems from his view that a unified sensibility is impossible for

human beings to achieve. Who, here, is correct, Hume or Camus? For myself, I agree with Nagel, Kurt Baier and Klemke, and think that Hume is. It is difficult to bring this out by a direct

argument, however. What I shall try to do, therefore, is illustrate a world in which

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such a unified sensibility obtains. Or rather, provide you with an illustration, not really to create such a world myself, for I am no novelist. I shall look at a novel - a novel

that attempts to be, and, indeed, succeeds in being, realistic - a novel in which the persons are very much themselves Humeans, and in which the novelist, too, would seem to have accepted the Humean vision of the world and of human being, a world in which it was perhaps for the last time possible for more than, as in Lawrence, the

heroic few to achieve this integrated mode of being in the world.

We shall have to justify, of course, the use of a novel - a fiction and therefore an untruth — to illustrate and make plausible a philosophical point. This justification will take some time. But another point should be made: in discussing Camus’ views

on the absurdity of life, one cannot avoid referring to his own novel, The Outsider,

which is correctly read as attempting to create a world in which a character illustrates

in his life the absurdity defended philosophically rather than novelistically in the essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Since we have to discuss Camus’ novel, and have to justify the way we shall be using it in our argument, it makes sense to also use a novel to

illustrate a world in which an integrated sensibility can in fact be achieved. Perhaps you have guessed already that I refer to the world ofJane Austen, and

in particular to Emma* Lionel Trilling has suggested that Emma is “the closest approximation of an idyllic world that the genre of the novel will permit” (E, p. xxi), but if he means by this (he leaves his meaning unclear) what Hume meant when he

spoke of a “golden age” (T, p. 493) as a world in which “avarice, ambition, cruelty,

selfishness, were never heard of: cordial affection, compassion, sympathy, were the only movements, with which the human mind was yet acquainted” (T, p. 494), - then

Trilling is undoubtedly wrong. To the contrary, the world of Emma is a very human world - a world with births and deaths; a world with nasty people and decent people,

and people of very mixed character, too; a world with life’s ordinary triumphs and

life’s ordinary tragedies. Indeed, as Douglas Jefferson has argued,” Jane Austen’s triumph as a novelist was her writing a novel that was not about extreme situations, but about ordinary situations. In this, she diverged from her predecessors and put the

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genre of the novel into a new line of development. Jefferson points out that ‘[The]

earlier works of fiction depend to an extraordinary extent on extreme

situations. ..Extreme events were necessary to the eighteenth century novelist” (pp.

10-11), and continues: One way of ensuring that a novel is a history of ceaseless trial is to inflict on the heroine an impossible guardian or limit her freedom by an absurd will under which she must lose everything if she marries in the wrong circumstance (p. 11). One thinks immediately of Jane Austen’s two great predecessors, Richardson and Fielding: Clarissa Harlowe is subjected to the most extreme pressure by her family to

marry a thoroughly odious suitor, and so is Sophia Western, though without the same tragic consequences. But Jefferson suggests (pp. 11-12) that the prize should go to

Fanny Burney’s Cecilia, the heroine of which has three odious guardians, loves a man

of whom her family disapproves, and in any case cannot conform to the terms of the

will by which she inherits her fortune. She is subjected to intolerable torments and agonies until left destitute and raving, before, at the very end, being reunited with her lover and achieving a sort of subdued happiness. The worlds of Cecilia, of Clarissa, and of Tom Jones are above all dramatic. It is precisely here that there is the most

obvious contrast to Jane Austen’s novels: they in no way depend upon extreme

elements in the plot, and, comparatively, are quiet and ordinary. As Jefferson explains, just this was Jane Austen’s achievement: The eighteenth century novel was not a vehicle for representing life as most people experience most of the times, life in which the tensions and preoccupations are of the dimensions of the ordinary world Jane Austen did more than anyone else to develop it in this direction (Jefferson, p. 13).

Emma begins, as earlier novels did not, with the central character doing

nothing more than living her life, a recognizably ordinary situation Dinner is over, her father dozes, Emma dwells on the events of the day, tea is served, a neighbour visits.

On that day there had occurred, but prior to when the novel begins, a crucial event: Mrs. Weston’s marriage But however crucial it is, it is ordinary, an event of the sort

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with which we are all familiar. The plot will unfold, with its tensions and mysteries, and events will occur, which are both touching and moving,

. .but they will arise out of those everyday activities in which the characters have little more to do than respond to the familiar facts of their world. The familiarity of it all is an ever-present fact throughout the book. In Emma, all events, including the climactic ones, come about in the course of everyday living, and partake of its tone (Jefferson, pp. 15-16).

No tragedy occurs in Emma, though there is sorrow: in the very first chapter we discover that Mrs. Weston’s marriage has been a sorrow to Emma, through that event she has lost a close companion. But tragedy does threaten. Emma has her

defects - the narrator tells the reader right at the beginning of “the power of having rather too much of her own way and a disposition to think a little too well of herself:

these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived that they did not by any means rank

as misfortunes with her” (E, I, 1). Self-knowledge will come to Emma through her recognition of the tragedies which her own defects almost precipitate. Through

Emma’s meddling, Harriet almost fails to marry Robert Martin, the man most

obviously suited to her: but a tragic outcome does not occur, it is after all avoided. And whether or not the marriage of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill will succeed is

left in doubt at the end of the novel: a tragic outcome here remains a very open

possibility. These may not be the grand dramatic tragedies of Clarissa, but they are or would be tragedies in the lives of those involved: ordinary tragedies, familiar and

everyday, but tragedies nonetheless. And the character defects in Emma that almost precipitate Harriet’s tragedy are human defects. Similarly, the virtues ofthe characters

are human virtues. Moreover, no character is wholly virtuous - Emma is no Clarissa

- nor wholly vicious - Mr. Elton is not nice, indeed he is thoroughly odious, but he does not have the vicious amorality of Blifil in Tom Jones. Emma herself has the

defects to which Jane Austen directs our attention right at the beginning of the novel. She also has her virtues. Emma is not without a moral sense. In the moment of selfknowledge when she discovers the true state of Harriet’s hopes, and realizes that for

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a second time poor Harriet has been her dupe (E, III, 11), Emma could recognize “how inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling, had been her

conduct,” and “the blunders, the blindness of her head and heart” that had led her on. Even at the same time, however, Emma remains concerned for her own self-respect,

and with “apparent” kindness she endures, through her own mental turmoil, Harriet’s conversation: “she listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.” But when Robert Martin’s name is mentioned, Emma cannot avoid being abrupt and rude. Emma’s goodness is revealed in this chapter, but it is, to repeat, no ideal goodness; it is a very human and mixed goodness. Which is, perhaps, why it is all the more appealing.

Gilbert Ryle has cogently argued38 that this human view of human beings that one finds in Jane Austen derives from Shaftesbury. This moralist influenced Hume

too, both directly and through Hutcheson.39 Concerning the Treatise, Hume wrote to

Hutcheson: “I desire to take my Catalogue of Virtues from Cicero's Offices, not from the Whole Duty ofMan',w, and in the second Enquiry he quotes the Peripatetics with approval: “A due medium...is the characteristic of virtue.”41 Aristotle puts the point

thus: “a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this - the intermediate not in the object but relative to us” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1106b9), and the point is one we find also explicitly made in Emma.

In feeling fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain, one can feel too much or too little: and both extremes are wrong. The mean and the good is the feeling at the right time, about the right things, in relation to the right people, and for the right reasons, and the mean and the good are the task of virtue (E, II, 6).

Ryle remarks that In the eighteenth century, and in other centuries too, moralists tended to belong to one of two camps. There was what I shall call, with conscious crudity, the Calvinist camp, and there is what I shall call the Aristotelian camp. A moralist of the Calvinist type thinks, like a criminal lawyer, of human beings as either Saved or Damned, either Elect or Reject, either children of Virtue or children of Vice, either heading for Heaven or heading for Hell, either White or Black, either Innocent or Guilty, either Saints or Sinners. The Calvinist’s moral

303 psychology is correspondingly bi-polar... In contrast with this, the Aristotelian pattern of ethical ideas represents people as differing from one another in degree and not in kind, and differing from one another not in respect of a single generic Sunday attribute, goodness, say, or else wickedness, but in respect of a whole spectrum of specific weekday attributes... A person...is not blankly Good or Bad, blankly angelic or fiendish, he is better than most in one respect, about level with the average in another respect, and a bit, perhaps a big bit, deficient in a third respect. In fact he is like the people we really know, in a way in which we do not know and could not know any people who are just Bad or else just Good (Ryle, pp. 176-7).

And he places Jane Austen firmly in the Aristotelian camp. Which is where Hume

should also be placed. Certainly, Hume recognized clearly the complexity of human nature. Thus, for Hume benevolence is not merely a virtue, not merely to be enjoined;

for he also noted its excesses, and comments that

...even its weaknesses are virtuous and amiable; and a person, whose grief upon the loss of a friend were excessive, wou’d be esteem’d upon that account. His tenderness bestows a merit, as it does a pleasure, on his melancholy (T, p. 605). He notes, similarly, the complexity of the passions:

We are not...to imagine, that all the angry passions are vicious, tho’ they are disagreeable. There is a certain indulgence due to human nature in this respect. Anger and hatred are passions inherent in our very frame and constitution. The want of them, on some occasions, may even be a proof of weakness and imbecility (T, p. 605).

And, especially, he recognizes that each human being is a part of an organic community of people with whom he or she interacts: “We consider him with all his relations in society; and love or hate him, according as he affects those, who have any

immediate intercourse with him” (T, p. 606). The source of the social cohesion of the organic community is sympathy: “...we have no...extensive concern for society but from sympathy...” (T, p. 579). Sympathy is found in all persons. It is the source of the

uniformity of temper in people of the same nation (T, p. 317). And it is the source by

which the judgments of others influence us: .. nothing is more natural than for us to embrace the opinions of others

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who admire us; both from sympathy, which renders all their sentiments immediately present to us; and from reasoning, which makes us regard their judgment, as a kind of argument for what they affirm (1, pp. 320-1).

Hume goes on to remark that “These two principles of authority and sympathy influence almost all our opinions; but must have a peculiar influence, when we judge

of our own worth and character” (T, p. 321).

Here we cannot but recognize the closeness of Jane Austen to Hume Recall especially, the incident of the picnic on Box Hill (E, III, 7). The overly talkative Miss Bates provides Emma with the opportunity for a witty but cutting remark: “Emma could not resist.”

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning, but when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush showed that it could pain her. Emma, with “the power of having rather too much her own way and a disposition to

think a little too well of herself,” is not sufficiently in sympathy with Miss Bates to feel pained at the thought of being witty at the expense of someone who merits a smile,

perhaps, but certainly compassion and kindness. And when they are alone, Mr.

Knightley did not hesitate to remonstrate with Emma. She could not look at him as he spoke: “...the feelings which had kept her face adverted and her tongue motionless , were combined only of anger against herself, mortification, and deep

concern.” She was most forcibly struck. The truth of his representation there was no denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal, so cruel, to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill opinion in any one she valued!

Hume emphasized how both stability and interest play a role in the maintenance of society:

...however single acts of justice may be contrary, either to public or private interest, ’tis certain, that the whole plan or scheme [the conventions of justice that secure stability in the possession of property] is highly conducive, or indeed absolutely requisite, both to the support of society, and the well-being of every individual. ’Tis

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impossible to separate the good from the ill. Property must be stable, and must be fix’d by general rules. Tho’ in one instance the public be a sufferer, this momentary ill is amply compensated by the steady prosecution of the rule, and by the peace and order, which it establishes in society (T, p. 497).

It is sympathy which is the glue that makes the system work. ...when the injustice is so distant from us, as no way to affect our interest, it still displeases us; because we consider it as prejudicial to human society, and pernicious to every one that approaches the person guilty of it. We partake of their uneasiness by sympathy; and as every thing, which gives uneasiness in human action, upon the general survey, is call’d Vice, and whatever produces satisfaction, in the same manner, is denominated Virtue; this is the reason why the sense of moral good and evil follows upon justice and injustice. And tho’ this sense, in the present case, be derived only from contemplating the actions of others, yet we fail not to extend it even to our own actions (T, p 499). Emma, in the incident with Miss Bates, showed herselfto be deficient, at times at least, in this glue that is essential to holding society together. But her response to

Mr. Knightley showed that she could acquire self-knowledge and even overcome

those temptations to show off her excellence that overcame her natural sympathy.

When Emma is brought into conformity with the injunction of the Delphic oracle “Know thyself’ - she at the same time becomes, through her released sympathetic

feelings, a more reasonably sociable creature. She emerges more fully to participate in the workings of a structured society - a society structured by interest and

sympathy. We need not pursue the themes of interest and sympathy creating an

organically unified society into the details of Hume’s historical and political writings;

his emphasis - Tory, if you wish - upon the organic nature of society is too wellknown to need documentation. And in all this, he is not seriously to be distinguished from Jane Austen. We must, above all, 1 think, see her characters, and, in particular,

the characters ofEmma, as belonging to a community - a stable community, through a person which develops, and one in which a person can grow and find happiness.

Tom Jones and Sophia Western find happiness in their marriage, but, for all that

306 Fielding has rhetorically opposed the Squires Allworthy and Western, we do not see in the joining of their estates an event in the development of the community. But the

Highbury of Emma is a community that changes and endures - it changes, and changes crucially as events such as marriages and births and deaths occur - it endures,

as, after much upset, unrest, and hectic activity, the marriages, especially of Emma and Mr. Knightley, bring a stabilization and return to routine. Highbury has an organic

life and history.

Indeed, the physical environment conforms to the moral criteria of the novel, or at least symbolizes it. Mr. Knightley’s home, Donwell Abbey, exemplifies the reasonableness that is, overall, the characteristic virtue of both Hume and Jane

Austen.42 Its “respectable size,” its absence of“fashion” or “extravagance,” its quality of being “just what it ought to be, and looked what it was,” all inspire an “honest pride” (E, III, 6). It is “the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted in

blood and understanding.” To be sure, “Some faults of temper Mr. Knightley had...,” but the underlying motif is that the reasonableness, if it does not pervade, will at least

prevail at Highbury. Yet, one must emphasize, if Highbury is settled and “traditional,” it is not a

world without change and mobility. Indeed, many of the sources of the action in all of Jane Austen’s novels lie in the general change and mobility that was affecting landed families in England at that time.43

...it must be clear that it is no single, settled society, it is an active, complicated, sharply speculative process. It is indeed that most difficult world to describe, in English social history: an acquisitive, high bourgeois society at the point of its most evident interlocking with an agrarian capitalism that is itself mediated by inherited titles and by the marking of family names. . . An openly acquisitive society, which is concerned also with the transmission of wealth, is trying to judge itself by an inherited code and by the morality of improvement.44

Mr. Knightley is old and settled, he owns Donwell Abbey, and Robert Martin, one of the new gentleman farmers, is his tenant. The Woodhouses have little land, but Emma stands to inherit £30,000 “from other sources.” Mr. Weston belongs to a “respectable

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family which for the last two or three generations had been rising into gentility and

property”; he marries, through the militia, the daughter of “a great Yorkshire family,”

and when she dies enters trade and purchases “a little estate.” The Coles live quietly, on an income from trade, but when this improves become “in fortune and style of living, second only to the Woodhouses, in the immediate neighbourhood.” The social confusions and conflicts generated by the equally felt concerns for both traditional

standards and for improvement are the source of many of the problems of conduct

and values that face the characters of Jane Austen. In Emma, Harriet’s near tragedy arises from the spirit of improvement leading her to aim to marry too far above her

station. Traditional stations may be altered by mobility, but not by too much: the change can only be slow and gradual, at a pace that is compatible with the

preservation of the organic community. Of course, the fault is not Harriet’s alone, or even primarily Harriet’s. To the contrary, it is Emma’s. Emma is used to the power

of “having rather too much her own way” and is disposed “to think a little too well

of herself ” She aims to improve Harriet, and in an act of obvious self-deception she convinces herself that Harriet is in fact well-born: “There can scarcely be a doubt that

her father is a gentleman - and a gentleman of fortune” (E, III, 8). Thus Emma justifies to herself her aim of discouraging Robert Martin’s courtship of Harriet, and

of marrying Harriet to Mr. Elton. Ultimately the tragedy is avoided - Robert Martin is fortunately perhaps more patient than might normally be expected - and Harriet, finally revealed as the daughter of “a tradesman, rich enough,” marries her gentleman

farmer, and Emma, now with greater self-knowledge and having come to know Robert Martin, “had no doubt of Harriet’s happiness with any good-tempered man;

but with him [Martin], and in the home he offered, there would be the hope of more - of security, stability, and improvement” (E, III, 19). The world that Jane Austen described was not to last much longer. But it was

a world which, for a moment at least, persons could feel settled in, and be confident

in, through all the conflict and change. It was a world in which not just the heroic few,

as in D. H. Lawrence, could achieve a unified sensibility. It was a world in which even

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an ordinary inhabitant like Emma could come “to understand, thoroughly understand, her own heart...” (E, III, 11). If Trilling is wrong in characterizing the life at Highbury

as idyllic, yet he is undoubtedly correct when he says that to represent [as Emma does] the possibility of the control of the personal life, of becoming acquainted with ourselves, of the community of ‘intelligent love’ - this is indeed to make an extraordinary promise and to hold out a rare hope.

- a hope, anyway, that Camus did not share. Emma argues that Camus was wrong.

Alice Kaminsky has pointed out that the subject-matter of a novel is, in effect,

expressed in a series of subjunctive conditionals: “if A were to occur, then B would

occur.” She adds that “it is precisely because the novelist works with this formula” that “veracity for him has to be a flexible rather than a rigid notion.”45 About this last,

I am not so sure that it is that simple: Oscar Wilde has a point when he says that “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” The tension here is between the aim of a novelistic text to imitate or mirror life and the tools that the reader brings to

the text as the latter is, to use Ingarden’s terms, concretized by the reader.46 The point

of Kaminsky’s remark is, of course, that novels are fiction, not about reality, but

rather contrary to fact. These contrary to fact events are linked, however. It is this linkage which reflects reality, at least if the novel is realistic. The point about causal

laws is that they support the assertion of subjunctive conditionals. Recall Hume’s two definitions of cause. The first definition of “cause”is this: “An object precedent and

contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are plac’d in

like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects, that resemble the latter”

(T, p 172) But there is a distinction between post hoc and propter hoc. As Hume says, “there is a NECESSARY CONNEXION to be taken into consideration” (T, p

177). In the tradition following the Socratic model of explanation the distinction is

grounded objectively: connections propter hoc are a matter of objective necessities,

connections post hoc are not. But, as Hume has argued, there are no objective necessary connections. The distinction between post hoc and propter hoc therefore

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cannot be objective; it is rather, Hume argues, subjective. This is the thrust of the

second definition of “cause”, which asserts that a generalization is causal just in case we are prepared to use it in counterfactual or subjunctive assertions and in

predictions: “An object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it in the imagination, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the

other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other” (T, p.

172). Thus, if we have the regularity that “Whenever A then B,” then it will be causal just in case that both, when we observe an A (“have an impression”) we predict on

the basis of the regularity that this will also be a B, and, when we suppose (contrary to fact) that something is an A (“have an idea”) we are led to suppose further, on the

basis of the regularity, that this is also a B. We have the prediction “Since this is an

A it will be a B” and the subjunctive conditional “If this were an A it would be a B.” In each case, both in the prediction and in the subjunctive conditional, there is a linkage between events that is supplied by the regularity. And if we are rational

persons, then we will so use a regularity to make predictions and support the assertion

of subjunctive conditionals only if the evidence that we have that the regularity is true is scientific, that is, gathered in conformity to the “rules by which to judge of causes

and effects” (T, I, III, xv). Thus, our counterfactual assertions will be “true to the world” just in case that the regularities that support them are evidentially well-

supported by empirical evidence.47 In the case of a realistic novel, the subjunctive

conditionals which, as Kaminsky says, are the novel are backed by ordinary, matterof-fact regularities, the sort which empirical science investigates. The novel is concretized by the reader when the latter brings to bear when he

or she reads it a common store of common knowledge concerning matter-of-fact regularities to interpret the contrary-to-fact assertions found in the novel. The reader

thus supplies the linkages that make sense of the novel. The text of course provides

clues as to which linkages are to be imposed on the text. To the extent that the novel

induces us to use linkages from our common store of matter-of-fact knowledge about people and things the novel is realistic. We see here, in fact, the real point of Wilde’s

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remark that the novel mirrors the mind of the reader as much as it mirrors reality.

What Wilde misses, however, is that what is in the mind of the reader itself mirrors

reality, or, at least, it does so only if the regularities which are used to provide the linkages in the novel are solidly based in empirical evidence.

It should be the assumption of an author that his or her readers take up the text intelligently, that is, that they do bring genuine knowledge to bear when they

concretize it. If they do not, then of course they will be led to misinterpret it. Take an example. In The Outsider the central character Meursault attends his mother’s funeral.

Though some others who are present weep, Meursault does not. One reader, S. D

Ross, tells us that Tears are normal at a funeral. Only Meursault is odd because he has none to give. Yet surely it is as odd here for others to cry as for him not to care. Meursault’s gaze is valueless: if he is estranged it is precisely because he doesn’t have any values - he simply doesn’t care. Beneath the gaze of such a man, human values seem barbarous and weird, particularly when one notes how they are manifested.48 See how the reading goes. Tears are normal at a funeral. The lack of them confirms

the hypothesis that Meursault is a person without values, someone who simply doesn’t care. Hence, because he does not care, the values of others must seem

barbarous and weird. For such a one it is others who are monstrous and not him. The

prosecutor at Meursault’s trial for murder does the same thing, concluding that

anyone who could act so cold-bloodedly as not to weep at his mother’s funeral could only be himself an uncaring monster: ‘“In short,’ he [the prosecutor] concluded,

speaking with great vehemence, ‘I accuse the prisoner of behaving at his mother’s funeral in a way that showed he was already a criminal at heart’” (OUT, p. 97). G. Bree gives a different reading. Meursault does not cry because all are condemned to death and there is nothing to regret: “Why cry at his mother’s funeral? Why lament

his own death9 After all, he is no different from any other human being: all are

condemned to death just as he is...”.49 Meursault’s lack of tears here receives a philosophical explanation: it is grounded in his consciousness that we are all

condemned to death.

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Now, this, like the other two interpretations, turns upon the shared assumption

that each of the three interpreters brings to bear that tears are normal at a funeral.

But are they? That is more or less the conventional picture, to be sure. But it is clearly not something that happens universally. And moreover, any knowledge of human being that goes beyond the conventional platitudes would indicate that often enough

grief expresses itself as much in a lack of tears as it does in excessive weeping and carrying on. The pictures of Meursault that Ross, and the prosecutor, and Bree all

create are totally without substance; indeed, as we shall argue below, if we read the novel carefully we soon discover that it is quite wrong: Meursault is, contrary to what they assert, a person who, as Ross would say, “cares.” Meursault does have values.

How, then, do they arrive at their worthless interpretation ofMeursault? By beginning from a piece of wisdom that is conventional but false, to the effect that one feels grief

only if one sheds tears. We may understand why the prosecutor should not go beyond the standard conventions about appropriate behaviour at funerals, though such

understanding does not excuse the behaviour. But we are less able to understand why

someone like Ross who is supposed to know enough that he could write a book on literature and philosophy, and Bree, who has written books on Camus, are not more sensitive in their reading. They just get it all wrong. The common store of knowledge that the reader brings to bear when he or she

approaches a text consists, we should note, of regularities which are generic rather than specific. They are not patterns which apply specifically to the individuals in the

novel. Here the author must help the reader. He or she may do this by telling, in more or less subtle ways, or by showing, putting the character in a situation and letting us observe the response. This experiment enables us to eliminate many of the specific

hypotheses permitted by the generic knowledge of persons that we bring antecedently to bear on the text. It is an instance of the process of eliminative induction, a

particular use of Hume’s “rules by which to judge of causes and effects.” There is, in other words, a close connection between Kaminsky’s point about novels and Zola’s conception of the “experimental novel.”50

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These remarks apply in fact to Camus’ novel The Outsider as much as to Jane Austen’s Emma. The latter, to be sure, is in terms of character and plot a more complex novel that the former. However, it is also the case that Emma is

epistemologically simpler, as we shall see. Now, people have certain settled dispositions and capacities?' Such

dispositions and capacities are the basis of character. Like any disposition, the evidence for the presence of these is, in the first instance, the fact of their

actualization. These dispositions and capacities are revealed in the action of the novel.52 As Henry James put it,

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is either a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look at you in a certain way; or if it be not an incident I think it will be hard to say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character. If you say you don’t see it (character in that - aliens doncl), this is exactly what the artist who has reasons of his own for thinking he does see it undertakes to show you... the only classification of the novel that I can understand is into that which has life and that which has not.53

The point of Kaminsky’s remark is that if we know that a disposition is present then we can say that such and such would occur were certain other tilings to occur. In a

novel the relevant dispositions are those of a person’s character.

Now, among the capacities persons have is the capacity to come to know

others, and to adapt our responses in the light of this knowledge. And another of our capacities is that of self-knowledge. We may, for example, like Emma have the

tendency to think a little too well of ourselves, but if we know this about ourselves we can correct for it, and respond more reasonably to situations in which we find

ourselves. Finally, of course, we have the capacities to develop such capacities. Self-

knowledge is one such capacity. It is one we may well lack. But even if it is absent, the capacity to acquire self-knowledge may be present, and in the appropriate circumstances may come to be actualized In Emma we wonder if Emma will acquire

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the self-knowledge she so obviously lacks at the beginning. The novelist performs an experiment on Emma - this is the incident at Box Hill and its upshot in the

conversation with Mr. Knightley The situation is chosen carefully and Emma is put into it, we see the self-knowledge that comes to be acquired. In The Outsider, too,

the central character comes to acquire self-knowledge. In both cases, the interpretations - inferences - go something like this. We wonder if B can happen to

Emma or to Meursault, B does happen, so it can; and if it happens in situation A,

where A is relevant, then the appearance of B is not an accident, because we know that, under appropriate assumptions, whenever A then B. We have causal knowledge

of human beings, knowledge justifying our saying that if A were to occur then,

normally, B would occur. It is, as we have suggested, this common store of causal knowledge that the reader brings to bear and which the novel mirrors. Of course,

other particularizing assumptions must be made about the characters. For a person to acquire self-knowledge, he or she must have a certain sensitivity to others, the sort of sensitivity that Hume referred to as sympathy. The generality, whenever A then B, is restricted in its application to the person in which this latter capacity is present. We

must know if it is present in Emma, therefore, before we can apply our general causal knowledge of human beings. We know this initial condition to be fulfilled because we have seen this particular capacity actualized in Emma - even though it is at times also

defective, as it was relative to Miss Bates in the incident at Box Hill. The characters in Emma come to know each other as we all get to know our

fellows. They observe; they interpret, i. e., make assumptions and bring to bear

hypotheses, as required. These problems are actually discussed at one point by the characters (E, I, 18). Emma and Mr. Knightley discuss the case of Frank Churchill.

Mr. Knightley has on several occasions observed Frank Churchill’s behaviour in social situations, and passes a negative judgements on his character: F. C. has not behaved

in a way that is (socially) appropriate to one in his position, and (what is part of that position) to one wishing to secure his own advancement in the world. Emma responds

that this is unjust: to know a person we must observe his or her behaviour much more

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closely, as in family situations. It turns out that Emma is correct: Frank Churchill’s behaviour can be explained by his secret marriage to Jane Fairfax, a marriage which

is kept secret through his fear that his mother might remove his expectations. But, of

course, Mr. Knightley is correct too, there remains an ambiguity in Frank Churchill, both for the characters, and for the reader: in spite of his capacity to inspire love in

such a one as Jane Fairfax, Frank Churchill may, nonetheless, still be a cad. Hume was a fallibilist. His scepticism was not Pyrrhonian or excessive but

rather mitigated and academic - a reasonable scepticism, recognizing the fact that people are fallible, a fact denied by those like Socrates who insist that there is

knowledge that can be “tethered.” In this respect Jane Austen’s characters are Humean. They are all fallible, and inevitably so: this is part of their essential humanity.

We see this when we recognize that the setf-knowledge that Emma acquires consists in her recognizing this fact that she is fallible, that she must cease thinking rather too

well of herself. But life goes on - as, indeed, does death. Tragedies occur - indeed, tragedies which result from the inescapable fallibility of human judgment, as well as those which result from the illusion that fallible judgments are somehow infallible -

tragedies such as that which almost occurs as a result of Emma’s meddling in

Harriet’s life. But stable relationships also occur. And the fulfilment, too, which such

stability makes possible. Jane Austen’s readers, too, are Humeans Even in the end, we do not know

for sure that Emma has matured

According to Camus, we cannot achieve a unified sensibility because we cannot eliminate a craving for objective values and meaning that transcend the world

of ordinary experience. The point to be made with Emma is that, on the one hand, here we have a realistic portrait of ordinary people living in the world of ordinary

experience, and that, on the other hand, here we have a portrait of ordinary people

who live without any craving for the absolute There are to be sure religious ceremonies depicted in Emma But these scenes have to do with such things as

weddings, that is, ceremonies that serve as performances that create such social

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relationships as husband and wife, much as, according to Hume, saying ‘1 promise’ creates both the felt obligation to do what was promised and the felt moral expectation that it will be done These ceremonies never require their participants to express any desire for a relationship to an entity, a moral Form, say, or a God, that is outside the world of ordinary experience. The only person professing a relationship to God in the whole novel is Mr. Elton, the local minister, but he is so thoroughly a

bad sort that it is clear that he can have no relations to any such external source of value and moral worth. Moreover, the characters so realistically portrayed in Emma

are, on the one hand, regularly moved to ordinary actions in an ordinary world by ordinary motives, while, on the other hand, never are moved by, nor even express, any

longing for the absolute Nor, finally, are their ordinary motives covered over by the

despair that would be consequent upon the realization that the ordinary world in which they live is a world without hope, the realization in other words that the craving

that these values receive some sort of objective sanction can never be fulfilled. If we take for granted that the persons portrayed in Emma are realistic, then

what we have is an accurate picture of persons who lack the craving for the absolute that Camus asserts to be our fate, and live a life of unified sensibility that Camus claims, rightly, to be impossible where we both crave the absolute and also live in a

Humean world It would follow from this portrait that it is in fact possible, contrary to Camus, to live a life free of any craving for the absolute. The portrait of this world

argues, then, that such a craving is after all, quite as Hume, Nagel and others claimed, not innate, it can be attenuated, and perhaps even eliminated.

We asked if it is Camus (following Augustine) who is correct in the beliefthat

the craving for the absolute is inevitable, that it cannot be attenuated? Or is it Hume

(followed by Nagel et al.) in the alternative who is correct in holding that once we do in fact realize that the craving cannot be satisfied in the only universe that we know

then we will give it up9 We have now given our answer, it is Hume who is correct,

the craving for objective value and meaning can be attenuated and rejected: we can

achieve a unified sensibility.54

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We have argued for this answer by looking at Emma to supply us with a

realistic example of persons who live life without the sort of metaphysical craving that

Camus insists is innate. But the case can be strengthened. As we shall now go on to

argue, Camus himself gives the same answer in his novel The Outsider here too we find an example of a person who lives life without any craving for metaphysical absolutes or ultimate unity.

However, in order to see this example clearly we must read the novel

carefully, more carefully in fact than is usually done. With respect to Emma, both the reader and the characters are Humean. But

the reader has a source of evidence that the characters do not have. This is the

narrator. The narrator reveals to us responses, in particular Emma’s responses, that are not revealed to the other characters in Emma’s overt behaviour: the narrator

shows us Emma’s private responses, we are taken inside Emma’s mind. The narrator is given an authoritative omniscience. Our judgments about the character of Emma

are therefore different from those any other character makes about Emma. Moreover,

the narrator presents us with pieces of information about Emma that other characters

lack. Sometimes it is direct: we are told authoritatively right at the start that it is a

character-trait of Emma that she tends to think rather too well of herself. At other times it is indirect. Behaviour can be ambiguous as to what trait it evidences; the narrator sometimes tips the reader’s judgment through subtly ironic comments. Nor

is the omniscience of the narrator restricted to Emma herself. To be sure, much of the

story of Emma is told from the point of view of particular characters, Emma,

especially. But the narrator does not hesitate to shift the view. Then came Henry James.’5 Striving to find a centre or focus for his stories, he

devised the solution of eliminating the omniscient narrator and framing the action

inside the consciousness of one of the characters within the plot itself. Clearly, whether a novelist chooses to write from the point of view of an omniscient narrator,

as does Jane Austen, or from a more restricted point of view, as does Henry James,

depends upon the effect to be achieved. Thus, Conrad achieves his special effects by

317 handing the task of narration over to another, Marlowe, a witness who speaks in the first person. Dickens, in Great Expectations, restricts himself even more closely, to

an “I” who is a protagonist. In stream-of-consciousness even the “I” disappears; there is a return to a kind of omniscience: what happens in the mind of the character is transmitted directly to the reader. In The Outsider, Camus has chosen to narrate the

novel from the point of view of a central consciousness, Meursault. How does the reader approach characters that constitute a central

consciousness? As we approach all characters in novels: with our common store of common matter-of-fact knowledge about human beings. In this case, however, to puzzle out the story we must also or especially puzzle out the central character. This

makes the problem of puzzling out the novel more complex than it is in the case of a novel with an omniscient narrator. But it is not essentially different. And so, whether

the novel has an omniscient narrator, as does Emma, or is narrated in the first person,

by a protagonist, as is The Outsider, makes no crucial difference for what we are here

about. But now we must recognize that there may be more that we bring to bear than

simply our knowledge. We may also bring, for example, superstition. Hume saw this

point clearly. Not all causal judgments are justified, he argued; only those made in

accordance with the “rules by which to judge of causes and effects,” the rules of the scientific method. But there are other rules that people might - and, alas, often do -

follow. For example, there is the rule embodied in the notion that the wish can be father of belief, the rule that we assert to be true what we wish to be true (T, p. 153).

Or we may be guided by prejudice (T, p. 146f), or education and mere authority (T,

p. 117). All these things may lead us to assert subjunctive conditionals, “were-would” connections, that, from the Humean standpoint of empiricism and the scientific method, are rationally unjustified. Hume discusses these modes of reasoning in detail

in a chapter of the Treatise entitled “Of Unphilosophical Probability” (T, I, III, xii).

Among the modes of unphilosophical probability he includes religion and religious metaphysics - superstition - ; and as he later points out, “errors in religion are

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dangerous, those in philosophy only ridiculous” (T, p. 292). Now, no doubt all of us, no matter how much we try to be good scientific empiricists, are subject to such

pressures as give rise to judgments of unphilosophical probability. And others accept explicitly non-empiricist metaphysics. Among the latter are some novelists. Such a

novelist may also believe that others, implicitly at least, accept the same metaphysics that he or she does. He or she will therefore believe that any reader of his or her texts

will bring these beliefs to bear, unconsciously anyway, when he reads and concretizes the text. Joyce illustrates this well As we work deeper into the stream of consciousness, syntax becomes more and more broken, meaning more and more

elusive. The “were-woulds” of the unconscious are grounded in metaphor and simile, synecdoche and metonymy. If the novelist has a philosophical theory about what people are like, down to the depths, then he or she may expect his or her readers to

bring this with themselves to his text. Joyce reads Vico, and knows, he thinks, that we all know, deep down, the truth that Vico has seen, and that we will respond to his

(Joyce’s) text in terms of this knowledge, not of mere causes and effects, but of the rhythm of the universe. And so, in the penultimate paragraph of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen announces that he is going to “encounter for the

millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

Stewart Sutherland has put the point this way: “The literary aspect of Camus’ task is that he must present to us a picture which is coherent. He must show to us

how we may integrate in our understanding Meursault and his actions, how we may connect them together: that is to say he must both lead us to imagine as he has

imagined and also persuade us that what he claims to have imagined is a coherent,

intelligible possibility....[HJowever, the task, in this case, is not only literary: it is also philosophical. The articulation, the sensitivity, are not ends in themselves, which can

be adequately assessed, or appreciated, without paying regard to content, to what is said or shown. The point here is that if Camus succeeds in the literary task, then ipso

facto he succeeds in the philosophical one If he succeeds in the literary task, then it

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is possible to imagine ‘someone acting like that and seeing nothing shameful in it’ without accepting either the plea of insanity or the prosecuting counsel’s construction of what happened. If it is possible so to imagine, then Camus has succeeded in

demonstrating what we may call, perhaps too grandly, ‘a possibility of human life’.56 We may well, then, bring philosophical theories to bear to concretize a text,

especially if they are theories we are all expected, deep down anyway, to know. Especially if the point of the text is to make us suddenly conscious of this knowledge

that we are supposed to have. Now, Camus wrote The Outsider as a parallel to the essay The Myth of

Sisyphus. The latter argues that, deep down, we all have an unavoidable craving for absolute value and absolute unity. We may therefore expect that the text of The Outsider will be best interpreted on the supposition that the connections therein are

established by this tendency or disposition of human beings, not only the readers but also the characters since the novel is realistic. However, as we have suggested, far from requiring such a reading, the novel in fact presents a character whose actions and

discourse we discover have to be interpreted as those of a person who has no such

metaphysical craving. What a careful reading reveals is that Meursault, the central character of The Outsider, is no more moved by a metaphysical, but unfulfillable, lust

for absolute value and absolute unity than are the characters of Emma.

In fact, if we suppose, as we reasonably should, that Camus did write The Outsider as a parallel to the essay The Myth ofSisyphus, then this argues that Camus thought that there was more in the text of the novel than is in fact there. Camus

thought that the novel was an argument for the thesis of The Myth of Sisyphus, that there is an innate but unfulfillable craving for absolute unity, when indeed, if I am correct, the novel does no such thing, arguing in fact to the contrary that there is no

such innate craving, and that if there is such a craving there is no reason why one cannot, as Hume argued, attenuate it. So we will eventually have to answer the

question of how Camus could so seriously misread his own text! As to why so many have trouble reading The Outsider, and get it wrong, I

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would suggest that they approach the novel with Camus’ philosophical theory at hand,

expecting to find - insisting on finding - absurdity and a craving for absolute unity. The latter are not in the text, but an insistence that they be there demands that they

be found - and found they are, even if it means misreading the text. And misread the

text these readers often do! As has been said, the epistemology of The Outsider is more complicated than

that of Emma The Outsider is narrated in the first person, by a protagonist, but, one

must note, only after he has become a witness. The point of view is fixed: we see

nothing that has not come through the consciousness of the narrator and central character Meursault But it is also fixed more sharply than that: Meursault tells us the exact perspective from which he is remembering: “I have just refused, for the third

time, to see the prison chaplain” (OUT, p. 107; italics added). Meursault narrates his tale after his execution has become inevitable, and after recognizing with lucidity in

his conversation with the priest whom he now refuses to see, that so far as the world is concerned his life is, and in fact always has been, meaningless - “nothing, nothing had the least importance, and I knew quite well why...” (OUT, p

118). This

perspective from which the role is narrated must be kept in mind. The person

Meursault the narrator talks about is Meursault. This person whom the narrator talks about - this earlier Meursault that the present Meursault recollects - this person is

not cold, emotionless, or indifferent, so far as the reader can see. We have indeed been told by one commentator that

. . .we can gain no coherent hold on the notion of his character at all because the descriptions given hint at neither backward- nor forwardlooking reasons, nor indeed at reasons at all for doing this rather than that We never seem in a position to see the point or purpose of his actions.57 We have also been told by another commentator that [Meursault] acts in a human situation as though human relationships, and therefore responsibilities, do not exist...58

But this seems to be quite wrong The person Meursault remembers does have feelings, does have motives, does have reasons for acting. Meursault remembers him

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being fond of his mother - as he relates, “I could truthfully say I’d been fond of

Mother,” and that “I’d rather Mother hadn’t died” (OUT, p. 69). He is loyal to

Raymond, whom he likes in spite of his rather unsavoury reputation - he recalls that he wrote a letter for Raymond, and explains it by appeal to his values, “I wanted to satisfy Raymond, as I’d no reason not to satisfy him” (OUT, p. 40). He is kind to Salamano, in spite of the latter’s unpleasant streaks. He is not indifferent to Marie, he

is concerned to give her pleasure, though he is also honest enough to say that is no

grand passion - “I explained [to Marie] that it [marriage] had no importance really but, if it would give her pleasure, we could get married right away” (OUT, p. 48); he is in like rather than in love. He is satisfied with his life - “my present life suited me

quite well,” (OUT, p 48). He does well enough on his job to merit promotion, but is

sufficiently unambitious not to be tempted to move to Paris - his employer stated, he remembers, “that I lacked ambition - a grave defect, to his mind, when one was in business” (OUT, p. 48).59 The person Meursault remembers is indifferent to promotion and to other obvious bourgeois values. But he is not a person to whom

everything is indifferent, as, for example, Sartre has suggested.60 We have already noted some examples. Here is another: when out swimming with Marie, he

remembers, “we were both in the same mood, enjoying every moment” (OUT, p. 56). To be sure, there is no grand or engulfing passion or virtue which structures his whole life and transforms him into a hero. He is an ordinary person, and fairly decent, but

by no means perfect. He does have values, enjoyments, pleasures, moods, which give

his life meaning, and make it worth living, values in terms of which we are able to explain, as the later Meursault explains, his actions. There is to be sure also the plain and emotionless fact-stating language which the narrator uses. This style of telling

creates a sense of disengagement, a sense that the narrator is distant from his subject. But we must distinguish, as too many critics do not, the disengagement of the narrator from any suggestion that the character being talked about, the Meursault of the past,

was disengaged and emotionless. In fact, as we have just suggested, as we follow the

narrative, what we find is that Meursault is in fact a person who is sympathetically

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engaged with others: he tends to want things precisely because those are the things

that others want. This is true of his relations with both Marie and Raymond. Nor should this sympathy be interpreted as yet another example of Meursault’s supposed “passivity” commented on by Bree and Guiton, who speak of “Meursault’s passive ‘friendship,’ with a rather shady character involved in a feud

with some Arabs,” which is, they also say, one of “a series of highly irrational circumstances,” another one of which is “the effects of the midday sun,” that is, the

shooting of the Arab.61 So the case is built up. Meursault is first, without any sound

basis in the text, falsely seen to be indifferent to his mother. So he has no values. So he is moved by others, not by himself. So he is also moved by the environment. So he is moved to kill the Arab. All irrational, but because they form a pattern, we can use

the pattern to understand Meursault: he is a passive person, and that explains all. But

just as the point about his feelings towards his mother on her death is mistaken, so is the notion that his relationship with Raymond is merely passive. What was Raymond’s

view? “We were the best of pals, as they say,” is the way Raymond expresses it at the trial (OUT, p. 97). “Pals” do things together, they are involved with each other, they respond to each other as friends, and it is usually not true that one pal is merely passive the other wholly active in the relationship. Rather, the relationship is one of sympathy, where one feels for the other, motivated to do as the other does because that makes oneself but also the other happy: each finds his or her own happiness is

created by the happiness of the other. One is moved by one’s own motives, one is not

passive; it is just that those motives consist of a sympathetic concern for the other pal. Bree and Guiton confuse being passively moved by another with being actively moved

by one’s own concern where that concern is for the welfare of another. They also seem to think that, if one of the characters is “shady,” then the other, if at all decent,

must be passively entrapped. It is clear that they, are not very familiar with the world. And now, finally and especially, let us turn to the murder of the Arab. This is, so far as I can see, not gratuitous, as Sartre suggests, inexplicable and without reason.

Nor is it “merely necessary,” as Carruth has suggested.62 1 say especially because

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others, not only the prosecutor in the novel, have tried to make the case that Meursault is an odd sort of person precisely because he can perform an act of murder

that is purely gratuitous. In fact, the truth is much to the contrary: the murder can in

fact be perfectly well understood, that is, understood in Humean terms on the basis of plausible regularities about human behaviour.

Here is the murder as the later Meursault remembers it: It struck me that all I had to do was to tum, walk away, and think no more about it. But the whole beach, pulsing with heat, was pressing on my back I took some steps towards the stream. The Arab didn’t move. After all, there was still some distance between us. Perhaps because of the shadow on his face, he seemed to be grinning at me. I waited The heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks, beads of sweat were gathering in my eyebrows. It was just the same sort of heat as at my mother’s funeral, and I had the same disagreeable sensations - especially in my forehead, where all the veins seemed to be bursting through the skin. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and took another step forward. I knew it was a fool thing to do; I shouldn’t get out of the sun by moving on a yard or so. But I took that step, just one step, forward. And then the Arab drew his knife and held it up towards me, athwart the sunlight. A shaft of light shot upwards from the steel, and I felt as if a long thin blade transfixed my forehead At the same moment all the sweat that had accumulated in my eyebrows splashed down on my eyelids, covering them with a warm film of moisture. Beneath a veil of brine and tears my eyes were blinded: I was conscious only of the cymbals of the sun clashing on my skull, and, less distinctly, of the keen blade of light flashing up from the knife, scarring my eyelashes, and gouging into my eyeballs. Then everything began to reel before my eyes, a fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift. Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver. The trigger gave, and the smooth underbelly of the butt jogged my palm. And so, with that crisp, whip-crack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I have been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing (OUT, pp. 63-4). Note how Meursault was on the one hand struck by the thought that he could turn

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and walk away, while, on the other hand, “the whole beach, pulsing with heat, was

pressing on my back.” Note, too, how he knew that taking the step forward was “a fool thing to do” but took it anyway since he “couldn't stand it [the heat] anymore.’ He - his ego - was no longer wholly in control, in spite of what he thought, he was

being moved in certain ways willy nilly by the oppressive environment, the unshaded

sun and the heat deadening his awareness and his ego and their capacity to affect his behaviour. The vague menace of the Arab is suddenly translated into the knife which

in turn reflects the oppressive sunlight. The threat is made worse by his own body cooperating as it were to make it worse: his sweat pours into his eyes to blind and

sting him, enhanced in its effect by the tears that the salt produced. Nature herself attacks him: the sun clashes on his skull. And already without yet touching him the

knife that had already wounded his pal Raymond is striking at him dangerously: “the keen blade of light [was] flashing up from the knife, scarring my eyelashes, and

gouging into my eyeballs.” Surely all this taken together is quite sufficient to explain in Humean terms - though no doubt it does not morally justify - the murderous act

We should not be surprised at the notion here that the environment could so

affect a person that he or she is moved quite independently of any higher self to commit monstrous acts. Meursault would not be the first who was prompted by nature to act in morally unacceptable ways. Thus, to take another example, in

Conrad’s Lord Jim, it is impossible to conceive Jim jumping off his ship, the Patna, loaded with passengers, without the contrast between, on the one hand, “A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of

their rays, seemed to shed upon the earth the assurance of everlasting security,”63 which held before the Patna struck the submerged object, and, on the other hand, the suddenly emerging squall: “It had come over pitch dark.. .The ship began a slow

plunge; the rain swept over her like a broken sea; my cap flew off my head; my breath

such driven back into my throat. I heard as if I have been on the top of a tower

another wild screech, ‘Geo-o-o-rge! Oh, jump!’ She was going down, down, head first under me.”64 To be sure, in Jim’s case it is not merely nature that causes him to

325 act; there is also a human element. But I shall argue in a moment that neither is that element absent in Meursault’s case.

Sartre suggests65 that Meursault’s world is Humean, by which Sartre means

without causal connections and without value. This is not a correct view of Hume66: Hume’s world does have causal connections and values; it is just that they are relative,

rather than absolute. That is, Sartre describes Hume’s world not as an empiricist would describe it, but as a neo-Platonist would. And once we see this we also see that

Sartre’s description of Meursault’s world is just wrong. One who reads The Outsider from Sartre’s neo-Platonic perspective cannot but find the shooting of the Arab a gratuitous act - completely free and without connections to any other. But if we

concretize The Outsider with another, more appropriate, set of philosophical theories

- Hume’s - then we can recognize that, although there is no necessary tie between

Meursault’s act and what went before, nonetheless the act had perfectly adequate naturalistic causes, and can be understood in terms of them, that is, understood in the Humean way - though not, to repeat, in the monist’s way that Sartre looks for.

It isclearthat Meursault’s world is not “Humean” in Sartre’s sense. There are

causal connections. For example, at one point Meursault jumps on the back of a truck, that could not happen in a world devoid of causal connections. In fact, Meursault remembers himself some of the casual connections that were relevant to his experience that day:

I was the first to catch up with the truck. I took a flying leap, landed safely, and helped Emmanuel to scramble beside me. We were both of us out of breath and the bumps of the truck on the roughly laid cobbles made things worse (OUT, pp. 33-4). Not only are there causal connections in the world that Meursault remembers, there are values, too. For example, as we have noted, Meursault is fond of his mother, he

likes Marie, he is loyal to Raymond, he is satisfied with his present life. He also lacks

certain values which others do not, e g., ambition. Others shared moods and pleasures with Meursault; as he recalls, when swimming with Marie, “we were both in the same

mood, enjoying every moment” (OUT, p. 56). So Sartre has simply misdescribed the

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world as is it described in the novel; he has not read it carefully enough. But at the same time, one must also recognize the textual basis for Sartre’s

thesis: the presentation is very much of facts, after the technique of Hemingway, and the connectives used often suggest conjunction and disjunction, rather than causal and

purposive and emotional ties, a point to which Sartre explicitly appeals to support his claim that Meursault’s world is in his sense “Humean,” that is, one without causal

connections and without value.67 Why is this so? Why is the world presented as one that lacks the causal and emotional ties that would make it humanly relevant? Is it

because there are no such ties? That is Sartre’s suggestion. But that suggestion is just wrong, as we have just argued. There must be some other reason, then. One can get at the relevant point, I think, if we recognize the way in which the

presentation is also not in the style of Hemingway: contrary to Hemingway’s practice, the facts are not directly presented but presented instead through a consciousness, in particular through the memory of Meursault. This memory is a passive memory, the

mind of which it is a part finds no meaning or significance in the facts recalled, as Sartre quite correctly indicates.68 But from the fact that the recalled facts have no significance to the mind that recalls, it does not follow that the earlier mind, the one

that is remembered, is a merely passive mind, nor does it follow that the facts recalled had no significance to the mind remembered. Sartre does not recognize this.

But be that as it may, we should also realize that the facts remembered do have a sort of significance to the mind that is remembering It is, however, of a very odd sort. These remembered facts have no meaning to Meursault sitting in his cell remembering beyond that of being facts that he can remember as a way of amusing

himself in his cell.

It is the central consciousness, that of Meursault the narrator, that we must first interpret, try to understand.67 Only then can we begin to obtain a real

understanding of the earlier Meursault the events of whose life the narrator is presenting. What is narrator up to? Why is he telling this tale? Such interpretation requires that we bring to bear our store of common knowledge of human beings. But

327 to apply this knowledge we need clues from the behaviour and actions of the narrator,

not the person the narrator is talking about, we need to obtain from the narrator clues

as to what he is doing when he is narrating. In fact, the narrator indicates to the reader what he is up to. He does make it

clear that he is systematically remembering his past. We know that the tale that is being told is a remembering of Meursault’s life since the death of his mother; for, recall that the narrator tells us that his telling is taking place after refusing for the third

time to meet the priest:

I have just refused, for the third time, to see the prison chaplain (OUT, p. 107; italics added). To be sure, there are time references to ‘today’, as when the novel opens: Mother died today. [70] Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure (OUT, p 13)

This opening reference to ‘today’ gives a suggestion of the “here and now.”7' But there is also a hint, in the past tense of‘died,’ that this “today” is already past. This

qualification on the “here and now” suggested by ‘today’ is soon confirmed, as we read into the novel; as we pick up the indications of the character of the narrator, we

find that this ‘today’ does not refer to the present in which the narrator himself exists. In two paragraphs we find the narrator saying that “Afterwards it struck me that...”. So the narrator is telling the story from a perspective later even than this, the “afterwards” when it struck him, and certainly later than the “today” referred to in the

opening sentence 72 So this reference to ‘today’ is to be read as the words of a person

who is remembering back to a certain day, the day he is calling “today,” that is, “this day in which I am now through my memory placing myself.” And this person now

proceeds to remember forward from that day to where he is now 73 We are confirmed in this understanding by those points in the narration where the retrospective nature

of the account comes out quite explicitly: I even had the impression that the dead body in their midst meant nothing at all to them. But now I suspect that 1 was mistaken about this (OUT, p. 21).

Or again,

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I was questioned several times immediately after my arrest (OUT, p 67). At times there is a mixture of the times, the moment remembered is remembered as

the present by the Meursault remembered and as past by the later Meursault remembering that earlier moment. Thus, Meursault expresses the memory of his past

self reporting to his employer his satisfaction with his life in this way:

...my present [life] suited me quite well (OUT, p. 48). is the narrator doing this? Why is he recalling his past history? Does he

have a motive? Can we understand what he is up to? Again, there is no omniscient authorial voice to tell us; we must infer what the narrator is doing, we must interpret the patterns of his consciousness, from the clues that he gives us. But clues he does give us. We have a train of memories, one fact after another. The narrator in fact tells

us about other trains of memory that he has deliberately constructed. We are left to

conclude that the present narration is the latest in a series of such narrations or, rather,

trains of things remembered We are left to infer that the narrator is recalling the events of his life in just the same way and for just the same reason that he has earlier

systematically remembered the furniture of his bedroom: ...fin prison] I wasn’t too unhappy. Yet again, the whole problem was: how to kill time. After a while, however, once I’d learnt the trick of remembering things, I never had a moment’s boredom. Sometimes I would exercise my memory on my bedroom, and, starting from a comer, make the round, noting every object I saw on the way. At first it was over in a minute or two. But each time 1 repeated the experience, it took a little longer. I made a point of visualizing every piece of furniture, and each article upon it or in it, and then every detail of each article, and finally the details of the details, so to speak: a tiny dent or encrustation, or a chipped edge, and the grain and colour of the woodwork. At the same time I forced myself to keep my inventory in mind from start to finish, in the right order and omitting no item. With the result that, after a few weeks, I could spend hours merely in listing the objects in my bedroom I found that the more I thought, the more details, half-forgotten or malobserved, floated up from my memory. There seemed no end to them (OUT, p. 81). What Meursault is doing now is coping with boredom by relating one after another

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the events of his life, including this remembering of how he discovered the knack of remembering in order to escape boredom. Meursault is not the first to have discovered this way of passing time. William

Godwin has his character Caleb Williams make the same discovery when he is locked

away in prison: I found out the secret of employing my mind... I tasked the stores of my memory .... I amused myself with recollecting the history of my life. By degrees I called to mind a number of minute circumstances which but for this exercise would have been for ever forgotten. I repassed in my thoughts whole conversations, I recollected their subjects, their arrangement, their incidents, frequently their very words. I mused upon these ideas till I was totally absorbed in thought.74

Meursault, then, is coping with boredom by relating one after another the

events of his life. This is his, the narrator’s, intention, and we must interpret the narration in the light of this intention: we must read the narration as carrying out, and embodying, that intention And so, when John Fletcher writes that “The novel must...,

I think, be accepted as a retrospective attempt to understand, to explain and, above all, to justify Meursault’s life and action,”75 we can, I think, on the basis of the text,

infer that all three are wrong, and especially the third: none of these is the narrator’s

intention.

We can also say that Roger Quilliot’s remark, that “This man [Meursault] who has no certainty, who lives in indifference, is yet anxious to have us share his

experience of indifference and his certainty that the truth lies in indifference”76, is largely wrong. It is true that Meursault has no certainty, at least none beyond that

fallible certainty that alone is possible in a Humean universe. It is not true that he lives

in a state of moral and emotional indifference, as we have seen. He is certain that the truth lies in indifference only in the sense that he recognizes that it is true that the

universe is Humean, that there are no objective values, and that the universe is

therefore indifferent to human beings, or, rather, that the categories “good”, “bad” and “indifferent” - the latter now taken in a moral sense - simply have no application

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here.

As for being “anxious to have us share his experience”: Meursault can correctly be described as being anxious to relate his experience, but he is simply

relating it. He is not even relating it to himself. Rather, he is relating it simply for his own amusement, to relieve his own boredom. Certainly, he is not relating it to us, who are reading it, nor to the world. Nor is he anywhere shown as trying to share it with

us. But, as the conventions go, the readers do overhear the narration, and in that sense we do share it.

And so, whatever meaning the recalled facts had to Meursault, whatever

meaning he remembers them as having had, they do not have that meaning to him now. The facts are the facts of the life of, as Sartre quotes from The Myth of

Sisyphus, “the stranger who, at certain moments, confronts us in a mirror,”77 in this case the mirror of memory. And this is the reason why Meursault reports the meaning that the facts had to him but does not make us feel that meaning, for, he himselfMeursault the narrator, Meursault who is in prison and amusing himself by remembering - does not feel that meaning, he only remembers it. Meursault does not

now aim to understand that world, so he attributes few patterns or connections to it - though he does remember how the remembered Meursault understood it. Nor is the narrator emotionally attached to the world that he remembers, so he finds no value

in it - though he remembers the values the remembered Meursault found in it. The only value that the remembered world now has for Meursault the narrator is as a set

of facts to be remembered serially So that is how they are narrated - serially and without further connection attributed to them. However, we, the readers of The Outsider, do have the aim of understanding Meursault’s world. Hence, as we read the

novel we can bring to bear on it, in order to concretize it, our basic causal knowledge of human beings, and we can use this knowledge in order to try to understand causally

why Meursault acted as he did in shooting the Arab. This is just what we did in reading Emma The situation is not significantly different in the case of The Outsider,

it is just more complicated. For, we must first understand the central consciousness

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through which we view the events that we are trying to understand. We must bring our common knowledge of human beings to bear on this consciousness. Only after we have understood it, and its patterns of thought, can we extract from those a

picture of the events that we are trying to understand, and only then can we try to understand those events. We must approach the world described through the perspective of the central consciousness of the narrator, a consciousness that is not,

as we are, attempting to understand that world. And once we recognize this complication, this epistemological complication beyond that ofEmma, and allow for it, then I think that we can recognize with little difficulty that, contrary to Sartre,

Meursault’s act of shooting the Arab was not gratuitous, that it can adequately be

explained - adequately, anyway, from the perspective of the Epicurean-Humean worldview. Sartre does not see this because he confuses a feature of the narration -

its purely serial and emotionless nature - for a feature of the world that the narration is about. And he fails to see this because he has not carefully enough interpreted the

character of the narrator, something that is absolutely essential in any novel that is written from the viewpoint of a central consciousness. Sartre should have pondered Henry James a little more. But, then, James wrote in English. In any case, S. D Ross

makes the same mistake as Sartre. He quotes the opening words of The Outsider, “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure”; and then comments:

Meursault explains that the telegram is ambiguous; but the tone of the novel is set. He simply does not care.78

But the Meursault who does not care is the Meursault who is remembering. The tone is definitely one of not caring; to that extent Ross is correct. But in fact there is

nothing actually said that indicates Meursault does not care, or, better, did not care

- that is, did not care at the time his mother died, which may, for all we know at this

point in the novel, be earlier than “today.” And as we later find out, Meursault was indeed fond of his mother, so we can infer from our common store of common

knowledge about people that he probably “does care,” or, rather, did care. Of course, the distinction between the Meursault remembered and the Meursault who is

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remembering is one that begins to become clear only as we continue on in the novel.

Those are the sorts of problems that arise when we read a novel written from the viewpoint of a central consciousness. But when the distinction does become clear it

is incumbent upon the reader to revise his earlier, and now falsified, conjectures about

the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of the protagonist who is the central consciousness, and also the conjectures that the reader has made about the events

presented by the protagonist’s narration. The constant revision of conjectural interpretations is required as we read any novel; it is especially required when we read a novel presented from the viewpoint of the consciousness of one of the characters.

Sartre and Ross seem to have ignored this important hermeneutical point.

So, in order to interpret Meursault’s behaviour we need nothing more than our common body of common knowledge of human behaviour. These patterns alone suffice to interpret Meursault’s actions, it would seem. In particular, we do not need any hypothesis about some innate craving for objective value and absolute unity,

contrary to what the author of The Myth of Sisyphus might have intended

However, we have not yet finished with our reading of the novel. We have still to deal with the Meursault who is narrating. Meursault is, as we have emphasized, not

just a narrator, but also a character, and in fact it is Meursault, the character who narrates, that is, the character that the text clearly intends for us to be most concerned

with. Perhaps it is here that we can discover the central point made by The Myth of

Sisyphus, that there is an unavoidable craving for absolute unity that flavours the lives of all of us. Perhaps the Meursault that is remembered is a person who was less than lucid about his own being, and simply did not recognize the truth that there was in him

this innate lust for the absolute. Perhaps the life recalled is a life full of illusion and bad faith. We must, therefore, raise this question: what meaning now attaches to

Meursault’s life, in prison, awaiting, with boredom usually, interrupted only by intrusive chaplains, the inevitable execution?

None from God, for God, so far as the novel is concerned, does not exist. Meursault, like his mother, it seems “had never given a thought to religion in her [his]

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life” (OUT, p. 15). In fact religion oddly enough plays very little part in the novel As in Emma, there are priests, but they play roles in community rituals, officiating at funerals, providing last rites for those who are to be executed. There is no sense

anywhere of people being moved by any innate craving for God or for metaphysical unity, no more than there is in Emma Odd indeed for a novel that is apparently

intended to illustrate the thesis of The Myth of Sisyphus that such a craving does in

fact exist. If there is no sense of the absolute to give meaning to life, could Meursault derive any meaning from the only alternative, namely relative values? It would seem

that this, too, is difficult to maintain. For, those things that he did value in the past no longer give meaning to his life, that is, his present life. In being condemned to

execution, Meursault has been detached from his past. All that remains to make his

days meaningful is the desire which has grown in him and which he has accepted, the desire to die with dignity as a human being before the audience jeering him as a convicted criminal. As he tells us, it was after his angry outburst at the priest that ...gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained was to hope that on the day of the execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration (OUT, p. 119).79

Camus himself suggested that Meursault does not lack sensibility, which is true, but also that he is motivated by “a passion for the absolute and truth.”80 Unfortunately,

the text won’t support this interpretation. Meursault becomes lucid and recognizes that there is no objective justification for his values - that even duty can be done on

a whim -

I’d been right, I was still right, I was always right. I’d passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I’d felt like it. I’d acted thus, and 1 hadn’t acted otherwise; I hadn’t done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean? That, all the time, I’d been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn,

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tomorrow’s or another day’s, which was to justify me. Nothing, nothing had the least importance, and I knew quite well why (OUT, p. 118). Far from lusting for absolute unity and objective meaning, far from having such a

metaphysical craving that could make his life absurd and create within him an inevitably dissociated sensibility, Meursault discovers that he has rapport with the

meaningless Humean universe: “I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.” Nor does his final resolve to die with dignity as a human being have any ultimate sanction: the “great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope...” (OUT, p 119) He was “ready to start life over again” (OUT, p 119). There

is no desire for absolute unity or for objective value motivating Meursault. In fact, to start life over, Meursault has no need of Camus’ argument against suicide, all that

he needs to make his life once again meaningful is the desire, the relative value, that he finds in himself, to be dignified at his execution. It is not a desire for the absolute

that motivates Meursault, but a human desire of human origin. The same point is made near the end of The Myth of Sisyphus.

At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man who is eager to see, who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling (MOS, p 91). “The human origin of all that is human”: that is the point. The meaning of human life

derives from no absolute, no One. But nonetheless, “he is still on the go”: for human life to be meaningful, no absolute sanction is needed The task is to get on with the

life even though there are no absolute sanctions. It is this that dawns on Meursault in

his anger at the priest, in acting in the past on his felt values he had acted in a way that was in no way condemnable in terms of some set of absolute values - for there are no

absolute values - , nor was he wrong in finding the meaning in his life that he now found in it. ...I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure

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of my present life and of the death that was coming. That, no doubt, was all I had; but at least that certainty was something I could get my teeth into - just as it had got its teeth into me. I’d been right, I was still right, I was always right. I’d passed my life in a certain way, and 1 might have passed it in a different way, if I’d felt like it. I’d acted thus, and I hadn’t acted otherwise; I hadn’t done x, whereas I had done y or z And what did that mean? That, all the time, I’d been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn, tomorrow’s or another day’s, which was to justify me. Nothing, nothing had the least importance, and I know quite well why (OUT, p. 118).

To repeat, for human life to be meaningful, no absolute sanction is needed: as Hume and Epicurus insisted, one must simply live as the person one is and that can make life meaningful81

This is something that Sisyphus sees clearly. It is something that Meursault sees clearly. For Camus, it is indeed considerably less obvious. As we have seen, he even offers an argument why one ought to go on living, an argument that, because

it is absurd, life is an absolute value, an argument that suicide is absolutely wrong. Unfortunately, as we also saw, it is a very bad argument. But fortunately, as both Meursault and Sisyphus recognize, no such argument is needed to justify one’s going

on living: ...Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. The universe henceforth without a master henceforth seems to him neither sterile nor futile...The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy (MOS, p. 91).

A unified sensibility can be achieved. This is the lesson of both Meursault and Sisyphus. If Camus the philosopher is correct, then such a unified sensibility cannot be achieved. For, on the one hand we recognize that there are no absolute values, while,

on the other hand, we lust after them. The only way the unified sensibility could be achieved would be if some absolute value could be found even in a meaningless universe. But it cannot; and Camus’ argument that it can be found in an objective

injunction against suicide and in support of getting on with the task of life is a very

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bad argument, quite incapable of doing what Camus requires of it. But Meursault and

Sisyphus get on with the task of life in a universe they recognize as meaningless

without any support of this argument. They have no need for it. That means in turn that they have no craving for absolute values that can satisfied only if this argument

is sound. There is no evidence that such a craving for the absolute moves either Meursault or Sisyphus. But as we have come to understand them, we also recognize that, since they have no need for Camus’ argument, or something like it, they cannot have as an innate part of their human make-up the craving for the absolute that

Camus thinks is there in every human being. So Camus does after all recognize that

such a craving is NOT part of what it is to be human 82 In fact, Camus provides, through his characters Meursault and Sisyphus, a systematic argument for this claim He thus defends the point of Hume - and of Hume’s successors such as Nagel, Kurt Baier and Klemke - against Augustine and Pascal, that if such a craving exists then

it is within the power of human beings to attenuate it to the point where it no longer affects our thought or action. Life after all is not absurd.

Camus is so convinced that human beings strive after absolute value and objective meaning that he fails to recognize the insights of his own creations. They see that

there is no craving for the absolute, anc/that in life meaning is achieved through acting on our own (relative) values. Camus himself cannot read the texts which he has written to present these characters without distorting the meaning of those texts. Nor is this the only consequence of his failure to recognize that there is no craving for

absolute unity. Another is the fact that he attempts to argue from the supposed absurdity of life which this innate craving (were it to exist) would create, to the claim that this absurdity provides an objective value to life. Camus has through his

characters more insight than he himself recognizes. But it is an insight that, using techniques of bad argument and textual distortion, he prevents himself from

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recognizing.

But this is just another part of that puzzle about Camus that we are trying to probe

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- IV -

Return to Meursault. Why does this decent, ordinary fellow find himself thus, in prison and about to be executed? The answer is easy enough: it is through his

humanity. Circumstances have caused him to kill unintentionally. Evidence as to his

character is misperceived and misinterpreted; judge and jury are fallible too. The humanity of Jane Austen’s characters leaves open the ever-present possibility of

tragedy - and even for her human tragedy does occur; Meursault is another such tragedy. What is the absurd? It is, as we have seen, the contradiction between human

striving to attain (monistic) understanding and (objective) value, and the impervious universe which thwarts that striving (MOS, p. 22). Those who are religious answer that the world is not absurd: there is hope, there is a guaranteed happy ending.

Plotinus provides a metaphysics which purports to prove just that. It is pride which prevents people from seeing God and God’s guarantee, a pride for which one ought

therefore to feel guilty - as Emma comes to feel guilty for thinking rather too well of herself. But one does not feel guilty, not for insisting that there is no reason that can

establish the existence of God as absolute and, with that, the existence of hope. But neither is it something to be proud of, that one is fallible. It is simply a fact to be

recognized, but neither a fact of which to be proud nor a fact about which to feel guilty. So one does not feel guilty; rather, one feels innocent (MOS, p. 39) - just as,

contrary to what the priest asserts, Meursault feels no guilt (OUT, p. 115). What, then, does one do, in the face of the inevitable absurdity of one’s strivings? One

revolts (MOS, p. 40), that is, acts anyway, gets on with the task of living. The

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argument against suicide is thus an argument in favour of revolt. How, then, does one revolt, according to Camus? As Camus goes on to argue in The Rebel,*3 the only way in which one can revolt, get on with the task of living, is in solidarity with others. In a world without meaning the basis of moral choice

cannot be abstract ethics, nor can it be a worship of history: neither can provide any absolute value. It is found in revolt itself. That is, the values on the basis of which to choose are those we discover move us as we get on with the task of living.

According to Camus, the values that we discover are values that relate us to others. As he puts it, the initial moment of revolt creates a sense ofcommunity among

people - “I revolt, therefore we are” - based on the realization that one rebels in the

fell name of a dignity common to all persons. This community extends to all persons. Revolt must stop short of murder. This, of course, is what led to the break between

Camus and Sartre, the latter rejecting such “bourgeois concerns.” That it must stop

short of murder follows directly from Camus’ argument against suicide. That argument establishes (or, rather, purports to establish) that life has an absolute value, not just the life of the person who thinks of suicide but of the life of others. Thus, in

confronting another person, if one is rational then one accepts the truth that the

person exists; that fact cannot be denied. But to murder the person is to deny that

fact. Hence, murder is forbidden on pain of inconsistency.84 It is clear, however, that

this argument is as equally unsound as the parallel argument against suicide. There is, first, the ambiguity on ‘deny’ or ‘negate’: it is one thing to deny, even wrongly deny, a proposition by holding that it is false, and it is another to deny something by causing

it not to exist. And second there is the illegitimate move from ‘is’ to ‘ought’. So we must also reject Camus’ argument against murder and terror.

In short, if there is no objective prohibition of suicide, neither is there a system

of objective or absolute values that judges Stalin evil from the standpoint of eternity.

No doubt Stalin was evil. But that judgment receives no absolute sanction from the universe. Moreover, when Camus suggests that revolt guarantees community, he fails

to recognize the fallibility of human judgment and human effort, that is, the very

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feature that leads him to declare the absurdity of human being’s position in the universe: there is no guaranteed happy ending. The human interest in the whole of

humanity is often, no doubt too often, circumscribed by the limits of the tribe; that is, our human sentiments of benevolence extend only to those limits, and our rational

self-interest is too often so restricted that it does not see beyond those limits. Thus,

it in fact happens that the community of all simply does not exist in the minds of human beings. Camus’ illusion that he has a clear case against suicide and in favour of the objective value of life amounts to the illusion that he has a clear argument

establishing objectively the community of all people. Camus is imprisoned in a delusion that simply attempting to get on with the task of living in a world without

absolute values will guarantee that one will live in harmony with one’s fellows, or, better, in solidarity with them, that is, in a solidly founded community, without

injustice and with each respecting each. The solidarity established by rebellion has an ontological status, Camus claims,

midway between an historical principle and an abstract ethic. Solidarity is not an abstract virtue because it is discovered in the midst of reacting to an unjust historical situation, but solidarity implies a human nature that transcends particular historical

circumstances. Solidarity implies a communication among persons; dialogues are not possible between masters and slaves; therefore slavery, or any injustice that enslaves

some persons, must be rejected. And so forth.85 But, of course, this is equally true of backgammon - master and slave cannot fairly play backgammon. We now see that Camus, again like Hume, recognizes that

care for others, sympathy for others, can motivate social and moral behaviour, and can create and provide the emotional cement for those social structures that alone

make human dignity and fulfilment possible. This is no absolute value, but, as Hume saw, it need not be so to be a value. The difference between Hume and Camus is that

the latter makes the point with language considerably more dramatic than the former

uses: “revolt”, “absurd”, etc., emotively loaded terms that would no doubt have offended the much more determinedly reasonable Scotsman What we must recognize.

341 however, is that even with the best of will, a social system may fail. Solidarity does imply communication, and does preclude the injustice that would enslave all to some. But as Hume points out, sympathy almost inevitably has only limited extent:

. our natural uncultivated ideas of morality, instead of providing a remedy for the partiality of our affections, do rather conform themselves to that partiality, and give it additional force and influence (T, p. 439).

Thus, solidarity, sympathy with our fellows, does not guarantee that one will act to

eliminate slavery. However, even if our sense of solidarity extends to all members of

the community, there is still no guarantee that tragedy will be avoided and wrongs

eliminated. Those who are in solidarity with each other are, after all, fallible human

beings. And this, I think, is one of the things that we learn from Meursault’s tale. Meursault, his judge, his jury, his lawyer, his prosecutor, the witnesses, all may reasonably be supposed to have the best of will at the trial But there is a complete

breakdown of real human communication and understanding, and a failure, in the end, to understand Meursault and Meursault’s act of shooting the Arab. This is not to say

that Meursault can be excused, to the contrary; what he did was wrong. There are

two points. First, what he did can be understood, even if not excused. (To understand all is not to excuse all.) And second, what he did is understood neither by the

prosecutor nor by the jury. Meursault was compelled to do what he did; that is why

he feels innocent. But people ought not to let themselves be so compelled. So Meursault is guilty, just as we convict people acting under the influence of alcohol:

they are moved by things that are beyond their control, but they ought not to have let

themselves be in a state where things would be beyond their control. But Meursault was wrongly convicted: the reasons accepted by the prosecutor and jury - and also

by Bree and others, as we have seen - for his guilt do not establish it. In this respect,

he too suffers injustice. So there are failures all about the place! It is this combination offailures that leads to Meursault’s conviction and condemnation. This condemnation

is unjust from the point of view of the values shared by all the persons in the

courtroom and by we, the readers. But, we know it to be unjust, and so does

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Meursault. However, through the breakdown in human communication, the others at

the trial do not know this. Whence Meursault’s tragedy.86

There is another lesson to be drawn from Meursault’s tale, however. What Meursault comes to recognize is that, even if tragedy occurs, even if life is deprived

of all its normal meaning through a breakdown in the social relationships that bind people together into a community, even then life can be meaningful, and even then a

unified sensibility is possible: even then there need be no craving for absolute value and objective meaning. There can be atheists in foxholes. What Meursault illustrates at the end of The Outsider is that, even in an extreme situation, a person can achieve

what the characters in Emma achieve in a normal situation: a unified sensibility. The attitude towards death is one of acceptance; it is a fact and an inescapable

fact. Above all, it is not a fact that is depressing, one that generates despair. If Camus

the philosopher were right, that there is an unavoidable craving for absolute unity, then, since the world is as meaningless as Epicurus and Hume correctly argued, we

would unavoidably fall into despair. But as Camus’ characters argue, there is no such craving, nor, therefore, any grounds for such ultimate despair, the sort of pessimism that the existentialists made fashionable. But if one could not face death in any serious

way without creating a lust for absolute unity, that is, a lust to escape death, then death would still be something feared, and, with the recognition that there is no such

ultimate meaning, would create despair in anyone facing death. For such a one the

unified sensibility would not be possible. But, given that the world is as Epicurus and Hume describe it, there are no grounds for despair: for there is nothing to fear.

Acknowledging the fact of death therefore need not bring on despair; even in the face

of death in a meaningless universe a unified sensibility is possible. It is possible to live - and to die - without fear of death Hume, in his own person, argued for this, though

he did not convince Boswell. We should also see that throughMeursault Camus also argties for this point Once Meursault is condemned, he cannot but recognize his own humanity: consciousness of it is forced upon him by the inevitableness of his execution. Nor can

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he fail to identify the one remaining possibility for endowing that last event with meaning for himself the human interaction, solidarity if you wish, with those who

believe, wrongly, but, in their humanity, not unwisely, that he deserves execution. The Meursault that the narrator describes for us in Part One of The Outsider has been described as a “natural man,” that is, one who is “...unconscious of himself and of his

death, who lives from hour to hour and day to day. . .as long as he is provided with the

necessities of life, he his happy.”87 This is not wholly accurate: after all, helping

Raymond arrange things so that he can beat up his Arab girl-friend can hardly be

counted among the necessities of life, nor can we so describe sitting down to provide some solace to Salamano on the death of his dog. But it is certainly true that Meursault is not, until after the visit of the priest in Part Two, conscious of himself

as a mortal being; only with the visit of the priest does he become someone whose being is being-towards-death. Of course, this is perhaps not surprising. Most people

do not morbidly dwell on the fact of their own mortality - nor should they, in spite of

what the gloomier of the existentialists such as Heidegger seem to tell us. Moreover, most people, most of the time, are not especially self-conscious - which is also as it should be: narcissicism is hardly a virtue But self-knowledge as a capacity is a

capacity one ought to have, that is, ought to have if one is to do one’s best in coping with oneself and with the world - as Emma came to discover. The universe is as

Hume described it, and tragedy, even premature death, is therefore always a possible outcome: there is no guaranteed happy ending. This fact, this fact of his humanity and

of his being-in-the-world, had not been recognized by Meursault. If he cftz/know it, then the narrator never tells us of the exercise of this disposition. Perhaps there was in Meursault an element of self-deception: he hid from himself the self-knowledge that

he had. On the other hand, the Meursault that the narrator describes did not deceive himself by hoping, by substituting an illusory alternative: if the fact of his humanity

and mortality never entered Meursault’s consciousness, then neither did the denial of

that fact, the assertion that he must, inevitably, be fully fulfilled, enter Meursault’s consciousness.

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And we may be sure that Meursault the narrator is being as clear and truthful

and complete as he can about the Meursault who is being described. We must recognize, as we have said, that where a novel is written from the viewpoint of a central consciousness, the narrator himself has patterns of thought for representing

reality - and perhaps deforming it. To get at that reality, we have to get at these patterns and infer the reality from them, correcting them if necessary, not so much on

the basis of what we know of the world they portray but on the basis of the clues that the consciousness provides concerning its illusions and how to correct for them. The

text of The Outsider is such that we immediately draw the conclusion from the narrative that the central consciousness of the novel is simply trying to tell the truth;

this is a point that has struck all critics, Camus included. The simple fact-stating language conveys that point directly, right from the first words. And of course, later

we find that Meursault is really just simply remembering, engaged in an exercise the

whole point of which is to get the things remembered just right and in as much detail

as feasible. Since the central consciousness is, we come to realize, simply striving to remember (a) as completely as possible and (b) as correctly as possible, we can

conclude that what he is telling us is the truth, not his own illusions, and the whole truth We are given a portrait of a person, and the motive of a craving for the absolute is not part of that portrait. Since the portrait is to be complete, the whole truth, and since it is free from illusion, we may infer that the fact that this detail was left out

means that it was not there, that is, it means that Meursault really is a person who is not moved by a deep metaphysical craving for absolute value and objective meaning.

This we can be sure was true of Meursault. However, it may be that that only reflects a lack of any conscious reflection

on, or even awareness of, certain of his motives on the part of the earlier Meursault, the Meursault that is being remembered. Perhaps But one can safely say that,

whatever was true of Meursault, he is self-conscious after the visit of the priest, fully

aware of himself and his motives. Faced with death, faced with the spurious

consolation of the priest, Meursault, like Emma after a similar shock, comes to

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exercise his capacity for is self-knowledge: he certainly does recognize that death and failure are real possibilities, that in this universe, which is the only universe, there is often a gap between is and ought and a gap between aim and reality. What this self-

knowledge enables Meursault to do is recognize that life cannot be rendered

meaningless by failure. What this self-knowledge enables Meursault to do is recognize that even in dying an unjust death life can be meaningful. Even in a world in which failure is perhaps inevitable, an integrated sensibility is possible. As for

those without self-knowledge, failure is intolerable, and fear of failure renders even their best efforts meaningless to them. So gods are invented to ensure success and restore meaning. Thus, Samuel Johnson composes a prayer:

Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, I beseech thee, that in this my undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation both of myself and others. Grant this O Lord for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. Lord bless me. So be it.81 I mention Johnson simply to recall to you the difference between his tormented soul

and that of Hume, the anxiety of the one, and the equanimity of the other, in the face of death.

But here we come up once again against the paradox of Camus. Once more we have

argued that an important truth is to be found in The Outsider. This is the truth that

there is no craving for an absolute unity that will yield immortality in the face of death, and that there is nothing to fear in death It is the truth that even in an EpicureanHumean universe, a universe without hope, a unified sensibility is possible 82 But as

we have also noted, ironically enough, Camus also holds that it is the unavoidable fate

of human being that he or she cannot have a unified sensibility. In other words, Camus cannot recognize the insights of his own characters'. This is the puzzle about

Camus that we are trying to resolve. Another part of this puzzle about Camus is his

346 over-dramatization of the universe that we noted in our discussion of The Myth of

Sisyphus. This other aspect of our Camus puzzle is also obvious in The Outsider. At least, it is obvious once we recognize not only Meursault’s humanity but that the text

intends him to be human, that it intends each of us to recognize him- or herself as Meursault and to recognize his or her position in life as Meursault’s position in life. Meursault is everyman, and his world is the world of everyman. Meursault is in prison, condemned to death, and in coming to accept that fact he achieves lucidity and

recognizes that “nothing had the least importance” (OUT, p 118). But, according to

The Myth of Sisyphus, all persons are mortal (MOS, p. 14). The lucid person who

knows this, who recognizes the inevitability of his own death, is a slave without freedom (MOS, p. 44); such a person accepts a meaningless universe, and draws strength from it (MOS, p. 44). Just as Meursault finds meaning in a life lived to a death from which there is no successful appeal (OUT, p. 112), so also life in a

meaningless universe is a life “without appeal” (MOS, p. 45), or, in other words, the life of a condemned person (MOS, p. 44). “But the point is to live” (MOS, p. 48) -

as was recognized by Meursault, who, attaining lucidity in the encounter with the priest, “felt ready to start life over again” (OUT, p 119). Adele King suggests that, in a meaningless universe, “Because there is no tomorrow, there is no point in setting

goals, in choosing a role that in any way restricts one’s freedom of action.”83 But, as both Camus and Meursault point out, this is the wrong conclusion to draw. Meursault chooses, though it is without (objective) point, the role of dying a dignified death.

Sisyphus chooses the role of affirming human dignity - “he knows himself to be the master of his days” (MOS, p. 91) - , as does the absurd person in general:

Having started from an anguished awareness of the inhuman, the meditation on the absurd returns at the end of its itinerary to the very heart of the passionate flames of human revolt (MOS, p. 47). We need not pursue the analogies. Quite obviously, Meursault illustrates, and merely

illustrates, the general thesis about the nature of human being that Camus spells out in The Myth of Sisyphus Each reader is meant to find him- or herself in Meursault.

Implicit in each of us, as in Meursault, is the disposition to recognize our own

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humanity. It is this “knowledge” upon which Camus comes to rely upon when he

constructs the “were-woulds” of the fictional story of Meursault. It is this “knowledge” he believes we have that Camus expects us to bring to bear as we

concretize the text of The Outsider The thrust of our discussion is that the

appropriate suppositions to bring to bear are those of the Humean. But Camus

expects more. We are to see not just a person in an unusual situation, but humanity in the usual situation, in the situation of everyman, a situation in which we are all

condemned to an inevitable and unjust death. Meursault is innocent humankind, at the mercy of accident, destined, while loving this world, to perish cruelly and unjustly

while young. Meursault’s real enemy is not the bourgeois society of Algiers but the inevitable force of death in the universe All this The Myth of Sisyphus makes clear.

Meursault’s position is supposed to be the position of any person who recognizes the Humean truth about the universe, that the world is not such as can be known in the way of Socrates and the monists Meursault’s position can truly be said to be full of

tragedy, but the same is not true of life at Highbury which includes tragedy, to be

sure, but much more too. If Camus is correct in identifying Meursault with everyman, then the life of anyone who recognizes and lives with the Humean truth must be as

fully tragic as Meursault’s. But this is simply not so. Meursault’s world is full of

tragedy because facts have so structured and confined it that it can contain nothing else. The world at Highbury is not so confined, however, and the inhabitants, though

recognizing and living the Humean truths, can encompass much more. In fact, they

live an ordinary life. It is a life that includes ordinary tragedies, but much else besides - comedies, weddings, childbirth, and so on. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, humour,

such as the grave diggers in Hamlet, functions to re-assure the audience that world is not an unrelieved tragedy. In The Outsider there is a bit of such humour - for

example, the relation between Salamano and his dog that have grown to look like each other but nonetheless detest each other (OUT, p. 34). But in The Myth of Sisyphus Camus forgets this: in this essay, humanity’s lot is unrelieved tragedy - the

situation of everyman is that of Meursault of the trial and prison; the situation of

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Meursault before the trial is that of everyman prior to his becoming lucid, prior to his

recognizing the truth about his situation in the universe. When Camus implies that the descriptions of Meursault’s situation during the trial and in prison - someone innocent

who is condemned to death - apply equally to everyone, including in particular the

inhabitants of Highbury, then he simply misdescribes the world. And this misdescription is, of course, simply once again Camus’ dramatization of the Humean

world. It is that dramatization of the world that derives from Camus’ belief that there is an inevitable disharmony in the human soul, a conflict between an inescapable aim for the neo-Platonic One and a knowledge, the self-knowledge, that this our aim is

inevitably unfulfillable.

Which brings us back to the question that our discussion has all along been aiming to answer: Why does Camus insist upon dramatizing the Humean truth? Emma and Mr. Knightley recognize the Humean point also, but go on to form what they not

unreasonably - within the Humean limits - hope will be a stable relationship. Meursault recognizes the Humean point, and nonetheless finds meaning in what life

is left him But for the Camus of The Myth of Sisyphus, such human hope of

satisfactorily achieving meaning in one’s life is impossible. What he insists upon in that essay is that it is impossible to achieve that integrated sensibility that Jane Austen, and, as we have argued, Meursault also, shows to be possible. What Camus has to

offer us by way of explanation of that impossibility is his CLAIM that each of us has an inescapable longing for the world to be a neo-Platonic unity and a neo-Platonic

haven. But his explanation is obviously inadequate: there is no reason to believe such

longings are inescapable; to the contrary, the Humean point remains, that we all can and ought to put them aside. Moreover, Camus knows that the such cravings can be

put aside and that an integrated sensibility can be achieved: both Meursault and

Sisyphus confirm the Humean point. And since Camus thus knows that his CLAIM is

false, this CLAIM cannot reasonably be supposed to be the real reason for his overdramatizing the universe and holding that an integrated sensibility is impossible.

Camus recognized Hume’s points so well - we see him recognizing them when we see

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Meursault and Sisyphus recognizing them - it is therefore beyond words to conceive

that Camus’ real reason for supposing that an integrated sensibility is unachievable is a belief that we are all unconscious neo-Platonists. It is so difficult to conceive this

that one is driven to demand another, more plausible, answer. I would like now to suggest that something much more mundane than a metaphysical longing lies behind

Camus’ belief that an integrated sensibility is impossible - something Camus himself could not escape, but which he could not face, and, in order not to face it, transformed it into a metaphysical lust for the One.

One can bring out what is relevant, I think, if one looks carefully at the

contrast between the world of Emma and the world of The Outsider, the world in

which Emma lives and the world in which Meursault lives. The world of Emma is given and more or less stable, its inhabitants are generally benign, and evil is fairly

controllable. There are, to be sure, persons to be feared. Harriet is assaulted by the

gypsies (E, III, 3) But these are from outside the community, and are soon expelled

Their threatening presence is easily removed, and the community can once again live

without fear. In contrast, the world of Meursault is pervaded by fear. There are

strangers who threaten the world in which Meursault lives, stranger who cannot be expelled: for, they are not from outside the community but part of it. These

threatening strangers that cannot be expelled so that the community can live without fear are, of course, - the Arabs.

The Arabs of the Algiers that Meursault describes are not persons: they are

enemies. They never appear in the novel save as threats. Meursault himself is

indifferent to them, as he would be to a poisonous snake, Arabs are nothing more than such objects of fear: “...all of a sudden, the Arabs vanished; they’d slipped like lizards

under cover of the rock” (OUT, p. 62; italics added).84 And as you would be

indifferent to the fate of a lizard you shoot out of fear, so Meursault is indifferent to the Arab he shoots: “.. .one might fire, or not fire - and it would come to exactly the

same thing” (OUT, p. 62). I mentioned before that in trying to understand why Meursault shot the Arab we would have to take into account not only the

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environmental factors that were at work, but also the human relationships, just as both played a role in Jim’s abandoning the Patna. At that point I did not say what these

were: I now have just done so. Given the social structure of Algiers, it was perfectly

natural for Meursault in the circumstances to shoot - and to repeatedly shoot - the Arab, as one would a lizard that had surprised and threatened you. One of the arguments sometimes used to establish that Meursault murdered deliberately and not

simply through coercion by the environment is that he shot not once but repeatedly.

This is used by the prosecutor in Meursault’s trial to show that the shooting was

deliberate and murder rather than self-defence. Again, D. Lazere has indicated that “Although he [Meursault] is by nature a harmless person,[85] once circumstances

have caused him to murder, he is prepared to accept the consequences of his act - as he has shown by firing four deliberate shots into the Arab’s body after the first accidental one - but not to admit that it was wrong.”86 None of these points is correct, the first as a reading of the novel, the others as interpretations of Meursault’s action.

But we can understand - in terms both Humean and human - why Meursault did repeatedly shoot the Arab: the repetition was evoked by something that was at once threatening and of indifferent value. And of course Meursault does not admit that it was wrong: is it wrong to kill a snake that is threatening you? This doesn’t justify

Meursault’s action, but it does enable us to understand it. As for the Arabs themselves, they are in much the same position as Meursault. If Meursault cannot see them as persons then neither do they see Meursault as a

person. “They [the Arabs] were staring at us silently, in the special way these people have - as if we were blocks of stone or dead trees” (OUT, p. 54). The relations

between the pieds noirs, the settlers, and the Arabs - or, for that matter, the relations between Highbury and the gypsies - were as relations Disraeli described in another

context between “Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners.

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and are not governed by the same laws.”87 But the world of Meursault is intended to be the world of everyman. Camus

thus conceives the world of everyman to be a world pervaded by fear. And Meursault is everyman. But Meursault is the colonist, living in a society based on fear, in which

ofcourse an integrated sensibility is impossible. Meursault - everyman - is the master

denying solidarity. He is a master in a society based on fear, a society totally at odds with itself. Except that it is not Meursault who makes himself everyman, nor does everyman live in Meursault’s world. It is rather Camus who conceives the world of

The Outsider as the world, and as the world in which each person is “condemned” to live. Camus cannot conceive the world - the world of us all - save as the world of a master denying solidarity. He cannot conceive the world save as a colonist. He cannot escape that portion of his past.

To be sure, one cannot ignore Camus the humanitarian. Indeed, he is essential

to the story we are telling. Consistently Camus the humanitarian proposed a society

in which decent human relationships are possible. Reading many of the essays of Actuelles and translated as Resistance, Rebellion and Death™ makes this evident

enough. He insisted that he could “not approve a policy of preservation of oppression in Algeria,”89 and argued that “military combat and repression have, on our side, taken

on aspects that we cannot accept...The facts that such things could take place among us is a humiliation we must henceforth face.”90 But he was equally opposed to the

terror of the F.L.N. barbarians: “...to be both useful and equitable, we must condemn

with equal force and in no uncertain terms the terrorism applied by the F.L.N. to

French civilians and indeed, to an even greater degree, to Arab civilians. Such

terrorism is a crime that can neither be excused nor allowed to develop.”91 He had a humane vision of the society that should be in Algeria:

...I have long been alert to Algerian realities and cannot approve, either, a policy of surrender that would abandon the Arab people to an even greater misery, tear the French in Algeria from their centuryold roots, and favor, to no one’s advantage, the new imperialism now threatening the liberty of France and of the West .92

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It was not to be. The Arabs were abandoned to their new masters from the F.L.N.,

who proceeded to butcher the “collaborators” in even greater numbers and then set

about repressing the Berber language in the name of the Arabic that had supposedly been suppressed by the French. The pieds noirs were torn from their century-old

roots, and forced to re-settle in France proper. The new Algeria became the ally of

Stalin’s heirs. So Camus’ vision came to nought.

But, as Conor Cruise O’Brien has persuasively argued,93 there was always something odd about Camus’ vision of a stable society of Arabs and French in

Algeria. It was in fact always a vision that, as O’Brien convincingly argues, in many ways, ignores the fact of the Arabs. O’Brien takes his text from a 1937 lecture of

Camus: North Africa is one of the few countries where East and West live together and at this confluence there is no difference between the manner of life of a Spaniard or an Italian of the quays of Algiers and the Arabs who are around them. The most essential element in the Mediterranean genius springs perhaps from this encounter unique in history and geography bom between East and West . . .This truth of a Mediterranean culture exists and manifests itself on every point: one, linguistic unity, facility of learning one Latin language when one knows another; two, unity of origin, prodigious collectivism of the Middle Ages, order of knights, order of religious feudalities, etc.94

O’Brien comments, justly, on this as follows: The point here is not that Camus was acting in a wicked or hypocritical way On the contrary, as his articles in Misere en Kabylie and elsewhere show, he was honourably insistent that France in Algeria should live up to her professions, and this insistence more than once got him into trouble. The point is rather that in the position of the left wing colonist there are unusually strong elements of estrangement, unreality and even hallucination: when a brilliantly intelligent and well-educated man, who has lived all his life surrounded by an Arabic-speaking population, affirms the existence of a form of unity, including the Arabs and based on the Romance languages, it is not excessive to speak of hallucination. . .Camus is a stranger on the African shore, and surrounded by people who are strangers in that France of which they are legally supposed to be a part.95

O'Brien’s point can be repeated from other essays by Camus. Thus, to

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mention only one, the essay on “Summer in Algiers” describes at length the life of the

youth of Algiers. But the youth described are none of them Arab. The nearest that Camus comes to acknowledging the presence of the Arabs is when he remarks that “Above the harbour stands the set of white cubes of the Kasbah” (MOS/e, p. 106).

There is thus indeed an “Arab town” (MOS/e, p. 106), and there are Arabs who sell lemonade (MOS/e, p. 107). But the significance, in this context, for Camus, of the Kasbah lies simply in the fact that it

w. -t of the landscape, like the beach on which

the pied noir youth sunbathe, interesting because its whiteness provides a contrast to the tanned bodies increasingly bronzed as the summer progresses (MOS/e, p 106). As for the Arabs who sell lemonade, they are part of the furniture. The trial of Meursault is, of course, the crucial test, as O’Brien indicates. In

the first place, Meursault is not innocent, in spite of what he himself feels, and in spite

of what many commentators seem to think. To be sure, he was impelled by circumstances beyond his control to shoot the Arab. But that no more can count as

an excuse than can drunkenness; at best that can constitute mitigating circumstances. It is true that Meursault feels no guilt. Indeed, it is this that makes him parallel to Sisyphus, and therefore crucial to the allegory between Meursault and everyman that

Camus aims to portray. That is, it is crucial to Camus’ philosophical argument. But at the same time it is something that occurs in a realistic novel. In that context we can understand why Meursault feels no guilt: in his mind he killed a lizard, not a person.

At the same time, however, to feel no guilt in such circumstances would, we would

hope, be unusual; we expect that persons who participate sympathetically with others in society would feel guilt and remorse at having caused, even inadvertently, the death

of a fellow citizen. But as we have seen, the Arabs are in fact “strangers” in the

country of their citizenship, the country in which Meursault is a citizen. For Meursault, as for the colonists in general, the Arabs are not people; they are outside the circle of beings that count as persons, as fellow-citizens. Precisely for the same

reason that Meursault pulls the trigger repeatedly, he also feels no guilt or remorse

over the death of the Arab.

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But if we can thus understand why Meursault feels innocent, we can also see

that the novelistic realism of The Outsider breaks down. For, precisely because the judge, the prosecutor, and the members of the jury are also colonists, and viewed the

Arabs precisely as Meursault viewed them, they would not have convicted Meursault: they too would have judged him to be as innocent as he feels.

We thus confirm Camus’ own ambivalence. On the one hand, his colonist

vision leads him to portray realistically the fact that Meursaultfeels innocent, while on the other hand, his humanitarian vision leads him recognize that Meursault is

indeed guilty and to suppose that the settlers' court would convict him of murder. Again, one must emphasize that the self-deception about his feelings as a

colonist is but one side of Camus.96 There is his consciously cultivated humanitarianism and his social democrat commitment. Some, like Germain Bree, have argued from the latter against O’Brien’s portrait.97 But at best all that so arguing

succeeds in doing is righting the balance that O’Brien perhaps tilts too far. But it does

not establish the injustice of the latter’s basic point, that in a very important way, and in a way that Camus himself did not acknowledge, “Camus is a stranger on the

African shore.” Camus is at war with himself. It is he himself - the colonist - that prevents himself- the humanitarian - from achieving the society he so passionately desires. It

is he himself- the colonist - that maintains the society of masters and slaves that he himself - the humanitarian - aims to abolish It is he himself - the colonist - that

prevents himself from achieving what he himself - the humanitarian - aims at: a decent and unified social system, in which both he and the strangers about him could

achieve the integrated sensibility that he could so successfully portray as the achievement of even a Meursault. in The Myth of Sisyphus Camus held that no such unified sensibility is

possible, that there is an inevitable disharmony at the core of human being. Once one

accepts - as Camus did - the Humean or empiricist worldview, then such a

metaphysical disharmony no longer makes sense: one can accept the Humean

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worldview and also achieve an integrated sensibility. This our examination of Emma

made clear. So did our examination of The Outsider. Camus projects upon the

universe a drama and upon the human condition an absurdity that are not there. The conflict that he finds is not really metaphysical. But, then, what is it? It is, I am

suggesting, a feature of Camus himself it is the failure of the humanitarian to exorcise his colonist past.

Meursault’s world, that of the colonists, is an unstable world. It is pervaded by fear and exploitation, and such a world cannot be stable. For all that, the colonists

did want a stable and permanent society in which they could get on with the task of living. At least, they tried to live that sort of ordinary life that requires a stable and

permanent community. As Camus tells us in his essay on “Summer in Algiers”:

There is not much love in the lives I am speaking of, I ought to say that not much remains. But at least they have evaded nothing. There are words that I have never really understood, such as ‘sin’. Yet I believe these men have never sinned against life. For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and including the implacable grandeur of this life. These men have not cheated (MOS/e, p. 113).98 Camus is also a colonist. He, too, shares this aim of the colonists for a stable and permanent society in which they could get on with the task of living.

Unity is expressed here [in Algiers] in terms of sun and sea. The heart is sensitive to it through a certain savour of the flesh, which constitutes its bitterness, no eternity outside the sweep of days. These paltry and essential belongings, these relative truths are the only ones to stir me (MOS/e, p. 112). Camus clearly identifies with the persons of Meursault’s world: what moves them, moves him, too; what they value, he values. Yet their values cannot be achieved, their lives cannot be lived to the fullest, without a stable and permanent society - which in

the colonial situation in Algeria is precisely what they do not have! The stable world

that the colonists desired could be achieved only by expelling the presence that threatens, as the gypsies were expelled from the neighbourhood of Highbury in Emma. But the Arabs, the threatening presence, could not be expelled from Algiers.

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Of course, they could be wished away, as Camus often wished them away, as when

he writes on “Summer in Algiers” without mentioning the Arab presence; as when in the same essay he speaks of the men of Algiers as forming a race without noticing that there were, in reality, two races; and as when he dreamed of a Mediterranean

community based on the Romance languages without noticing that Arabic was the language of most north Africans. But all that is illusion: the Arabs cannot be got away

from, and as long as they are there they threaten the colonists’ society, making it

impossible to achieve the stable society they want and need and wish for. Moreover, the colonists recognize that this stability they want and need and wish for is something they cannot have: “Everything that is done here shows a horror of stability and

disregard for the future” (MOS/e, p. 111). And if the colonists all, implicitly at least, recognized the instability of their

world, then Camus, the liberal humanitarian, above all did. In the colonists, then, and

above all in Camus, there is an inevitable incongruity between aim - a stable society - and the reality they confront - the impossibility of their society becoming a stable one. Now, according to Camus, the absurd consists of an incongruity between aim and desire. The absurd may not be the condition of human being, but it is the

condition of Camus and the colonists.

We have argued that Camus projects upon the human being and the universe a metaphysical absurdity that is not really there. This is why his Humean world is

overly dramatic. This is not to say that there is no absurdity, however And Camus knows about it! The real conflict is the conflict between his aims as a colonist and what he recognizes both as a colonist and as a concerned liberal humanitarian. What

he does, I am suggesting, is project this conflict onto the universe, disguising his own conflict as a metaphysical one In fact, Camus himself connects his longing for a stable

society in Algiers with the longing of Plotinus for a metaphysical unity:

To feel one’s attachment to a certain region, one’s love for a certain group of men, to know that there is always a spot where one’s heart will feel at peace [ - the essay is “Summer in Algiers,” and it is Algiers and its race that he is talking about! - ] these are many certainties for

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a single life. And yet this is not enough. But at certain moments everything yearns for that spiritual home. ‘ Yes, we must go back there - there, indeed.’ Is there anything odd in finding on earth that union that Plotinus longed for? (MOS/e, p. 112).

So, what Camus does is disguise his colonist wish for a stable society as a metaphysical yearning for Plotinus’ One. He knows that the stability for which the

colonist wishes cannot be achieved But now, at least, he does not have to face up to the conflict in himself between his liberal values and those of his colonist past. For,

he can now argue, in effect, that the conflict is not one that he must face and solve, since the conflict is really the inevitable metaphysical fate of humanity. That is, I am

suggesting that Camus’ finding a human being’s relation to the universe to be

inevitably absurd is really a failure of Camus the liberal humanitarian to face up to and exorcise his colonist past. This, I think, locates the source of why Camus would think

that the reasonable ethic of The Outsider made sense only within a pervasively dramatic world and a pervasively dramatic way of being in the world: the

cosmological melodrama that Camus constructs for humanity is the projection of his

own tragedy.

I •

Chapter Six

Conclusions

«BB ■* j

If Camus were correct in holding, on the one hand, that the world as we ordinarily

experience it is devoid of objective value and meaning - that the world is, in other words, as Epicurus and Hume describe it - and in holding, on the other hand, with

Augustine, that there is an innate craving for absolute value and objective meaning,

then Tolstoy’s attitude of despair and helplessness would indeed be reasonable. In the

face of a fate so bleak, few would have the courage to face the future. For most, suicide would truly be a reasonable response. For most, then, in such conditions if they are to get on with the task of living, there is a need for hope. As Tolstoy saw, in

the meaningless universe of Epicurus and Hume, if there is a craving for objective

meaning, then the required hope can come only through faith. But if we allow that our cognitive standards can be contextualized to human needs, then we can perhaps allow

that in such circumstances the retreat to faith is not merely that but also cognitively

reasonable. To be sure, we may allow, with Klemke, that to be a person of that sort may not be as morally virtuous as being a person who courageously faces the truth, however bleak, with unbending honesty and courage. Nonetheless, it can, as we have

suggested, be reasonably argued, if only on the basis of human compassion, that it would be unreasonable and unjust to hold everyone to the high standard of cognitive virtue of Epicurus and Lucretius, of Hume and Camus.

360 We have now seen, however, that Camus - as well as Augustine - is wrong:

there is no innate craving for absolute value and objective meaning. This places the

whole matter in a different light. If the craving is not innate, then it is possible not only to live without it, but, if it is present, then it is possible so to discipline oneself as at

least to attenuate it, if not to eliminate it, as a factor that moves one.1 At least, one can do so if one is so moved, that is, if one is motivated to shape one’s cognitive

standards to the Humean standard of the Enlightenment

Ought one so to be motivated?

Hume both poses the question and defends an answer.

As we have seen, Hume offers a detailed defence of the thesis that the norms of scientific inference, that is, the “rules by which to judge of causes and effects”, are

reasonable rules to follow in forming our beliefs. Conforming to these rules in its formation of causal beliefs is a strategy the understanding employs in order to satisfy

the end of curiosity (T, p. 271). Science is reasonable because, so far as we can,

within our fallible limits, discover, it is the strategy of belief formation that is the best means of achieving our end of truth, insofar as the latter is, again within our fallible limits, attainable. Human beings have a cognitive interest in causal judgments. They are needed to improve the human lot - this our pragmatic interest in them, but we can

be idly curious about them too (T, pp. 270-1, p. 273). In any case, curiosity about matter-of-fact regularities, i.e., causal generalizations, is a fact about human beings

(T, II, 111, x). This end of curiosity that justifies science as reasonable is the only end that moves the academic sceptic.2 But there are other relations besides constant conjunction, such as contiguity

and resemblance (discussed by Hume in Treatise, Bk I, Part III, sec. ix) that yield

law-beliefs. It is clear, however, that these law-beliefs can satisfy the passion of curiosity at best only accidentally. Credulity (T, p. 112-13) is a matter of basing law­

beliefs on relations other than observed constant conjunctions, e g., contiguity (which is often part of the cause of belief in miracles (T, p 110)), and resemblance (T, p.

113). From the viewpoint of the desire for solid causal knowledge, i.e., from the

361 viewpoint of curiosity, the standards of credulity are unreasonable: such beliefs ought to be subjected to the test of experience, but are not (T, p. 113). And, as resemblance

or similarity can generate beliefs which do not satisfy the desire for sound causal knowledge, so dissimilarity or want of resemblance can undermine sound reason (T,

p. 113): it can overthrow custom, so that it is imagination and rhetoric rather than custom, that is, observed constant conjunctions, which sway us in our judgment (T,

p. 114). Thus, not only do the principles of credulity not lead to beliefs that satisfy curiosity, but if those principles are relied upon then they interfere with the practical

work of invention and discovery of matter-of-fact truth. Indeed, those principles can interfere so much with sound reason as to lead those who think in conformity to them to accept inconsistencies (T, p. 115)!

This, however, raises the question of how one could maintain such beliefs.

After all, if one is guided by curiosity, which is a passion that comes naturally to us,

would we not discipline ourselves to avoid them? Hume proceeds in the Treatise to point out that other passions, equally natural, also affect our beliefs. Such passions are further factors that are causally relevant to maintaining and increasing the strength of

our law-beliefs. These Hume explores in sec. x (“the influence of belief’). He points out that “As belief is almost absolutely requisite to the exciting of our passionsp], so

the passions in their turn are very favourable to belief, and not only such facts as

convey agreeable emotions, but very often such as give pain, do upon that account become more readily the objects of faith and opinion” (T, p. 120). Thus, passions such

as cowardice, admiration, surprise, etc. (T, p 120), influence belief. Indeed, the passions may so excite the mind as to completely overrule its rational capacities,

causing it to degenerate into madness (T, p. 123). But these passions are also natural

(T, p. 275f). If they are to be corrected and counteracted, it can only be by a contrary passion that is stronger (T, p. 413), or, perhaps, the recognition by reason that in the

long run they can be adequately satisfied only if curiosity is satisfied (T, p. 416-7).4

As self-interest curbs itself and creates the artificial virtues to do that curbing (cf. T,

p. 492), so it is self-interest that curbs those passions that lead us to make law­

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assertions contrary to those that satisfy the passion of curiosity.5 The point that we derived from Tolstoy, however, is that long-run self-interest

might well dictate that it is reasonable to accept certain law-beliefs even where these

do not conform to the rules that aim to satisfy the passion of curiosity. The point is

that we are not only moved by curiosity but also by the fact that we want to feel comfortable in the face of such things as natural terrors.6 Moreover, we wish to have a stable social order: as Hume has the religious moderate Cleanthes remark in his

Dialogues on Natural Religion, “Religion, however corrupted, is still better than no

religion at all”; for, “the proper office of religion is to regulate the hearts of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order and obedience; its

operation ... only enforces the motives of morality and conduct” (pp. 219-220). In

order to achieve either of these, it may well be that, as Tolstoy suggested, we should

cultivate religious beliefs which, however, are not justified by scientific evidence. When these other desires are added to that of curiosity (which, as Hume points out,

they really are so to be added7), it may well be that strategies of belief formation other than the scientific may be more reasonable to adopt. Perhaps superstition will turn

out, after all, to be more reasonable than science. Peter Jones has noted that Hume

aims to argue against the extremes of superstition and religious belief.8 He notes that the beliefs Hume is concerned to argue against have their roots in the imagination (pp.

175-6). Philosophy, i.e., science, “which contents itself with assigning new causes and principles to the phaenomena, which appear in the visible world” is much less “bold in its systems and hypotheses” than superstition which “opens a world of its own, and

presents us with scenes, and beings, and objects, which are altogether new” (T, p.

271). Hume “makes bold to recommend philosophy, and does not scruple to give it preference to superstition of every kind of denomination” (T, p. 271). However, superstition remains a species of causal inference where scientific inference is another

species. But of course Hume wants to defend science against superstition. Just how does he do this? What rational defence can he give? Or, rather, what defence ought to be given?

363 The argument thus far makes it clear that answering the question why we

ought to accept science rather than superstition is equivalent to answering the question, why let curiosity alone provide the guide to life? To this question Hume

proposes, and defends, a particular answer. He tells us that “Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some propensity,

it ought to be assented to” (T, p. 279) and curiosity is such a propensity (T, pp. 2701). But while the understanding can be mixed with this passion, there are others with

which it might also be mixed. Hume contrasts in particular the sentiments of spleen and indolence (T, p. 270) with the passion of curiosity (T, pp. 270-1). It is the latter

that justifies philosophy (T, p. 271). Religion, in fact, is largely a matter of the sentiments of our spleen and indolence:

in matters of religion men take a pleasure in being terrify’d, and . . . no preachers are so popular, as those who excite the most dismal and gloomy passions. In the common affairs of life, where we feel and are penetrated with the solidity of the subject, nothing can be more disagreeable than fear and terror; and ’tis only in dramatic performances and in religious discourse, that they even give pleasure. In these latter cases the imagination reposes itself indolently on the idea; and the passion, being soften’d by want of belief in the subject, has no more than the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind, and fixing the attention (T, p 115; italics added). What science (philosophy) requires is discipline, not indolence (T, p. 175). It

might well be, however, that the sentiments of our spleen and indolence will be more

conducive to the good life than the discipline required by the passion of curiosity, the love of truth. It may well be true that “while a warm imagination is allow’d to enter

into philosophy, and hypotheses embrac’d merely for being specious and agreeable, we can never have any steady principles, nor any sentiments, which will suit with

common practice and experience” (T, p. 272). But perhaps nonetheless other ends

(e g., religious) will be served, those higher interests the ministering to which cannot

but contribute to our well-being. Hume in fact provides an answer to the question that is here implied. The answer, not surprisingly, is in the Ciceronian style delineated by Peter Jones8: Tolstoy

364 notwithstanding the alternatives all make for a poorer life than the principle of

accepting that what is good for curiosity so far as belief and inference are concerned is good enough for life. In the Treatise this answer is presented in bare outline, more

asserted than argued for: as superstition arises naturally and easily from the popular opinions of mankind, it seizes more strongly on the mind, and is often able to disturb us in the conduct of our lives and actions. Philosophy on the contrary, if just, can present us only with mild and moderate sentiments; and if false and extravagant, its opinions are merely the object of a cold and general speculation, and seldom go so far as to interrupt the course of our natural propensities. The CYNICS are an extraordinary instance of philosophers, who from reasonings purely philosophical ran into as great extravagances of conduct as any Monk or Dervise that ever was in the world. Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous (T, pp 271-2). Hume elaborates on these points elsewhere One place is in his essays. Jones {Hume's Sentiments) concentrates on Hume’s four essays which fit the Ciceronian

types of the De Finibus and the Academica, namely the essays on the “Epicurean”,

the “Stoic”, the “Platonist”, and the “Sceptic”. These are the philosophical types. Equally important for Hume’s case, however, which Jones does not adequately

emphasize, is the essay “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm”.9 A second place in which Hume brings out the relevant point is in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. And finally, there is the History of England'0 The last is neglected - unduly so - by

philosophers. But neither it nor the other two sources deserve neglect in any case that

can be made for a Hume committed to the Ciceronian doctrine of the subservience of theoretical to practical reason. Superstition consists of rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices, etc., aimed at

preventing imagined threats and terrors. “Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are

the true sources of Superstition” (“Superstition and Enthusiasm ”

p. 146). Enthusiasm responds to an imagined world of glorious spirits with emotional raptures and feelings of divine inspiration. “Hope, pride, presumption, a warm

imagination, together with ignorance, are... the true sources of Enthusiasm” (p 147)

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Thus, these two species of religious belief and behaviour arise from a mixing of a propensity other than curiosity with the understanding. This is true of religion in general (Natural History, p. 27, p. 29).11

Hume has in fact explained the relevant mental processes in the Treatise. Passions can enliven an idea, creating a belief out of it, even contrary to what the rules

of science might require (T, p. 115, p. 120). A lively imagination very often degenerates into madness or folly, and bears it a great resemblance in its operation. ... When the imagination, from any extraordinary ferment of the blood and spirits, acquires such a vivacity as disorders all its powers and faculties, there is no means of distinguishing betwixt truth and falsehood, but every loose fiction or idea, having the same influence as the impressions of the memory, or the conclusion of the judgment, is receiv’d on the same footing, and operates with equal force on the passions (T, p. 123). As Jones correctly argues, both Cicero and Hume following him saw enthusiasm and superstition as threats to the social order essential for human happiness. Enthusiasm produces the most cruel disorders in human society; but its fury is like that of thunder and tempest, which exhaust themselves in a little time, and leave the air more calm and serene than before. ... Superstition, on the contrary, steals in gradually and insensibly; renders men tame and submissive; is acceptable to the magistrate, and seems inoffensive to the people: till at last the priest, having firmly established his authority, becomes the tyrant and disturber of human society, by his endless contentions, persecutions and religious wars (“Superstition and Enthusiasm,” p. 149).

In the Dialogues one must contrast the philosophical attitude of moderate

Christian Cleanthes with the religious attitude of the dogmatic Demea. Both are concerned to defend propositions about God. Both, as Hume’s representative Philo shows, are in error. But Cleanthes’ philosophical attitude (p. 220) guarantees that his

disagreement with Philo does not poison their social relations (p. 214, p. 221, pp.

227-8). Demea, in contrast, is a dogmatist, and it is his emotions, not reason, that

control his argument and dictate which premises to adhere to, and with what strength.

When the argument leads in a direction uncongenial to his commitments, he quits the party with some ill-grace (p. 213). Demea’s “argument a priori”, Philo remarks,

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has seldom been found very convincing, except to people of a metaphysical head, who have accustomed themselves to abstract reasoning, and who finding from mathematics, that the understanding leads to truth, through obscurity, and contrary to first appearances, have transferred the same habit of thinking to subjects where it ought not to have place. Other people, even of good sense and the best inclined to religion, feel always some deficiency in such arguments, though they are not perhaps able to explain distinctly where it lies. A certain proof, that men ever did, and ever will, derive their religion from other sources than from this species of reasoning (pp. 191-2).

To which Demea’s immediate and revealing reply is “It is my opinion, I own,

that

each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast” (p. 193), citing hopes, fears, misery, wretchedness, and terror as the feelings that prompt the acceptance of religious belief (p. 193). So strong is Demea’s commitment to his

position that it is evident that if given the opportunity and need he would not restrict himself to reason but use all means to protect religion, and religious belief, including

the force of the civil magistrate. When Philo later points out the role of hope and fear

as inclinations that generate popular and non-rational religion (p. 225), we are no

doubt expected to read this into Demea’s character. Once again it is emphasized that the problem with such non-philosophical beliefs is that they lead to unreasonable and

immoral behaviour (p. 222), and socially pernicious practices (p. 223). Cleanthes, to

be sure, as we saw, holds the contrary view (p 219), but that is not Philo’s view (p. 220ff), nor Hume’s (Natural History, p. 70ff).

In the History of England, Hume argues that the upshot of the Puritan

revolution was the constitution and liberty that England in his age enjoyed. Hampden “has merited great renown with posterity, for the bold stand which he made in defence

of the laws and liberties of his country” (vol. VII, p. 213), and the Long parliament, too, in its first reforming phase, deserves such merit as the achievements “so outweigh their mistakes, as to entitle them to praise from all lovers of liberty” (VII, p. 361). The

changes were not, however, effected without unpleasant excesses: “if the means by

which they obtained such advantages savour often of artifice, sometimes of violence; it is to be considered, that revolutions of government cannot be effected by the mere

367 force of argument and reasoning” (VII, p. 362). Both the changes and the excesses are not to be understood apart from the religious fanaticism that motivated the

reformers, the “infusion of theological hatred” (VII, p. 315), that “great tang of enthusiasm in the conduct of the parliamentary leaders, which, though it might render

their conduct sincere, will not much enhance their character with posterity” (X, p.

187). The Commons’ encroachments on the royal authority in 1641, which led to the first Civil War, would not have been “in the power, scarcely in the intention of the

popular leaders ... had it not been for the passion which seized the nation for

presbyterian discipline, and the wild enthusiasm which at the time accompanied it” (VII, p. 393). The new plan for liberty that was proposed involved an experiment, a

regular limited monarchy, shorn of all discretionary power, an arrangement hitherto unheard of in the history of government and wholly untried. Since, as Hume says in

the essay “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm”, “superstition is an enemy to civil liberty, and enthusiasm a friend to it” (p. 149), we are not surprised at the outcome.

Nonetheless, though in the event, in spite of some “sensible inconveniences”, the new plan has been found to work {History, VII, p. 360), “It must... be confessed, that the

experiment here made by the parliament, was not a little rash adventurous” (VII, p.

360) As he puts it in the essay on the “Original Contract”, the innovations of Charles I’s reign “were derived from faction and fanaticism”, and while they “have proved

happy in the issue”, they nonetheless “were long the source of many disorders”.12 If the issue in the long run proved happy it was more an accident than any intention or

policy: It is an observation by all history, and by none more than by that of James and his successor, that the religious spirit, when it mingles with faction, contains in it something supernatural and unaccountable, and that, in its operations upon society, effects correspond less to their known causes than is found in any other circumstance of government (History, VI, p. 569). Enthusiasm is not to be trusted, rulers are warned not to innovate lightly in “so

dangerous an article” (VII, p. 569). It is disruptive to the fabric of society, as in 1630 when “the spirit of enthusiasm being universally diffused, disappointed all the views

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of human prudence, and disturbed the operation of every motive which usually influences society” (VII, p. 171). In general then, the message is that non-rational religious belief is conducive to human happiness and an improved social order at best

only accidentally. Once again the case is made for the Ciceronian conclusion that reason as

guided by curiosity rather than superstition and enthusiasm is to be valued as the best means for getting on with the task of living

We want therefore to discipline our own mental habits so as to curb the

capacity of any passions other than a concern for the truth to determine our law­

beliefs. As long-run self-interest curbs itself and creates the artificial virtues to do that curbing (cf. T, p. 492), so it is long-run self-interest that curbs those passions that lead us to make law-assertions contrary to those that satisfy the passion of curiosity: as we

saw Hume put the point succinctly, “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are

dangerous, those in philosophy only ridiculous” (T, p. 272). Of course, there will

likely often be those like Tolstoy who are unlikely to be moved by considerations of this sort That is a fact about their psychology: while the passions that require them to accept religious beliefs if they are to get on with the task of living are not innate, they are in fact so deeply ingrained that no rational argument will induce that sort of

person to give them up. Sympathy demands that we treat such persons with

compassion. So long as they do no harm, it is clear that our humanity demands that they be tolerated But of course it is equally true that their lives would be better, as

would those of others, if they were not that sort of person and could in fact give up the passions that demand of the person that he or she believe in absolute value and objective meaning. We should, therefore, attempt so to organize the institutions through which persons learn their values that they do not become this sort of person

These institutions will ensure that persons are such that the (non-innate) passions that

demand religious belief are either not learned or, if they are, then learned in such a way that reason can lead to their attenuation; and, moreover, these institutions will also ensure that persons are also such that the passions of curiosity and long-run self­

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interest are sufficiently strong that they can motivate one so to discipline him- or herself as to attenuate those beliefs that do not satisfy curiosity and to attenuate those

passions that lead him or her to accept beliefs that do not satisfy the cognitive

standard set by curiosity. We should, in other words, attempt so to organize the institutions through which persons learn their values that they conform to

Enlightenment standards and accept, without regret and without hope, and without the need of hope, that the world in which we live is the (objectively) meaningless world of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume and Camus. Such is the case against the demand of those such as Tolstoy that it is

cognitively appropriate, given their needs, to affirm, even in an Epicurean-Humean

world, the existence of absolute value and objective meaning: persons with such needs and such beliefs cannot lead the best of lives.

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- II -

We have seen that for Camus personally the demand for a cosmic order, a cosmic

unity, amounts in reality to a disguised demand for political order, and, more specifically, a political order which demands that one part of the community be subject to another part - the Arabs of Algiers to the colons The metaphysics that satisfies that demand for order provides what purports to be an objective justification of the

values that will ensure that that order prevails: it is an ideology for the superior group, justifying its attempts to impose unity by denying rights to the inferior group. Recall Weston LaBarre’s remark that “Values must from emotional necessity be viewed as

absolute by those who use values as compulsive defences against reality, rather than

properly as tools for the exploration of reality .”13 Camus rightly recognizes that it is not possible to have any metaphysics that

satisfies the demand for cosmic unity. There is therefore no objective value, nor therefore any objective justification of the political order that subjects some to others. All such metaphysics are illusions, prompted by the hope for social and political order

and by fear of its demise. Camus himself, we argued, disguised such hopes and fears from himself by transforming them into a desire for a cosmic, neo-Platonic unity; his

claim, that there is an innate craving for a neo-Platonic unity, is but a longing that he could not or would not admit to himself for the social order that the colons had so

imperfectly imposed on Algeria Recognizing that the injustice of that order could not be justified, he nonetheless, perhaps unavoidably, shared in the desire of the pieds

noirs, of the colonists, that that order be maintained. But precisely because he was sufficiently humane to recognize the injustice of the order, he could not fully admit

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that, even if only nostalgically, he wanted to have it maintained, and he therefore disguised that longing from himself, transforming it from a desire for political order to a desire for cosmic order

An ontological construction that supposedly satisfies the craving for cosmic unity is thus an objectification of political and social values. It is an attempt to make

the latter secure by disguising them as the objective demands of a morally structured universe. If this is indeed the objective order, then who could object to those values?

To be sure, it may appear to some, say the oppressed, that inequality abounds. But

such inequality will not really be such, since its existence will be justified by the

objective moral order of the universe. The rebel must be a metaphysical rebel who “protests against the condition in which he finds himself as a man... he declares that

he is frustrated by the universe” (The Rebel, p. 23). Those in power claim the right,

objectively asserted, to treat the rebel inequitably; that is what the universe requires. Thus, the rebel “denies that [his or her master] has the right to deny him, a slave, on

grounds of necessity” (zfr). But, if those who are treated inequitably object to such treatment and revolt, they will be recognized as falling into sin rather than as trying

to end their own oppression, they will be treated as evil beings, even as devils,

opposed to the objective and absolute moral values of the universe. The rebel, as

Camus says, “is inevitably a blasphemer” (The Rebel, p. 24). Rebellion, if it is to be

successful, must escape this taint. To do that it will have to reject the metaphysics that declares such rebellion sin and proclaims the oppressive social order sanctified. Thus, “human rebellion ends in metaphysical rebellion” (p. 25).

Conversely, those who argue systematically against the metaphysics of unity and objective value, the metaphysical rebels, will in effect be political rebels, seeking the end of social oppression in the name of equality and justice, seeking to eliminate the inequitable social order for which the illusions of metaphysics purport to provide

an objective justification. Hume was such a rebel, and effected a real change in the whole idea of political disagreement. In a world of objective value, political disagreement is not

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merely that but is transformed into blasphemy and sin. In the world of Epicurus and Hume, where there is no objective moral order, political disagreement cannot be so transformed, and people must respond very differently to the clash of demands in the social context.

As we have seen, Hume argues that science, in contrast to superstition or just

muddling through on what we learned at our mother’s knee, is rational. This point

in hand, Hume, motivated by curiosity, can now turn to humanity itself. Persons are patterns of behaviour; their customs and habits, be they social or cognitive, are such

patterns. Almost all of these patterns are, it is clear, acquired or learned. And, if Hume

is correct, they are learned in conformity with the laws of the associationist, or, more generally, the scientific theory of learning, which explains the conditions under which

the various patterns of behaviour are acquired.

Among these habits are our cognitive habits We can explore the conditions

under which we come to make causal inferences. Then, given that our aim is curiosity, we can better train and discipline ourselves that our thought conforms to those

patterns, the rules of science by which to judge of causes and effects, conformity to

which is the best way of satisfying the aim of curiosity. Knowing the science of human nature can help us become better scientists. It can also help us to understand why we come also to think non-scientifically, that is, why we have all sorts of non-rational

beliefs, eg., prejudice, superstition, and religion in general. In particular, Hume

suggests, religious beliefs are acquired in the context of various non-cognitive aims, the emotion of fear being a major one. At the same time he also argues that social

institutions, such as a church with a priesthood or a theocratic monarchy, can through a formal and informal system of education maintain and reinforce a system of beliefs that rationally cannot withstand critical scrutiny. These beliefs may not satisfy the

cognitive aim of curiosity, or love of truth, but they satisfy other emotional needs, and

provide for some societies some of the customary glue that holds them together. As we have seen, Hume’s theory of learning also proposes a systematic

answer to the question of how we acquire concepts. Sceptics had previously criticized

373 claims of Socrates and his followers to know entities that lie beyond the world of sense experience. If the Platonists are correct, and truth transcends sense experience,

then to grasp the truth our concepts must at their best be a priori. The negative

arguments of Sextus and other sceptics such as Montaigne serve to demolish these claims. This, however, is merely negative and thus suffices for one like Sextus who is not concerned to develop positive theories more than is strictly necessary. But for

the curious, one also needs a positive theory of concept formation. Hume, as we

suggested above, provides this for the first time in the sceptical tradition.

Hume applies his associationist psychological theory. This theory is used to

explain how general terms acquire their meaning, how terms - sounds and marks on

paper - can become general in their signification. Things become associated with each other in thought if they stand in certain relations. General terms come to be general through the mechanisms of association via resemblance. Through association we

acquire the habit or disposition of applying a term to any member of a class of

resembling particulars, and the term in this way becomes general. On Hume’s account, then, an abstract general idea is not some transcendent form or a priori idea that

logically precedes language; it is, rather, simply the acquired disposition to apply a term in a general way. For thinkers from Plato to Locke, ideas are non-linguistic,

rationality is prior to discourse. For Hume, in contrast, as we have already argued, an idea is a disposition to use a word, and since discourse thus is thought, discourse

is prior to rationality.

What happens in learning is that people come to conform to the settled conventions for the use of a sign. Through learning, the conventions are passed on

from older to newer members of a linguistic community. Thus, as we see once again, for Hume, social being is prior to rationality, in contrast to Socrates and Plato for

whom rational thought, that is, the grasping of the transcendent reasons for things, is prior to all (human) discourse, and the rational animal is prior to the political

animal.

Socrates’ reason is, of course, a reason that grasps the ought as well as the is

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of things.14 It is a reason that grasps a transcendent standard that determines which among the human conventions and customs is the true morality. For Hume, in

contrast, there is no such objective and ultimate justification that a set of conventions

which is customary in some societies is morally superior to the set which is customary in another society: virtue is what people call virtue. Of course, some sets of

conventions are more conducive to human happiness than others, but the point is, there is no standard for the acceptability of social conventions beyond human interest.

Variable human interests differ from age to age and from place to place, though there are also constants of human nature - the need for food, shelter, sex, and the basic sociableness or sympathy that we tend to feel for others - that place constraints on

any system of morality that has any hope of becoming customary.

A view of human needs that is basically biological and the learning theory of associationist psychology provide Hume with a thoroughly naturalistic explanation,

or rather a plausible explanation sketch, of human morality in all its customary diversity. As part of this he has a theory of political obligation that, unlike Locke’s,

has a legitimate place not only for the British constitution but for the absolute monarchy of France and for the other “civilized monarchies” of Europe. Locke’s theory of consent argues that objectively the British constitutional conventions are

legitimate while those of the French are not; Hume’s naturalistic account of legitimacy reduces Locke’s account to a provincial pretension. For Hume there was among the

constitutions of Europe no objective moral difference as there was for those, like Locke and others who, in Hume’s eyes, excessively admired the British form of

government. Hume shows us how ought is derived from is, not in an attempt to find in the latter an absolute standard to justify some of the former, but in order to

understand as natural facts the facts of human values. In the famous “is/ought” passage of the Treatise (T, III, II, i, p. 469f), Hume complains of the “vulgar moralists” as well of the classical moralists, the natural law

theorists like Samuel Pufendorf whom he studied as a youth, and Locke, Butler and Francis Hutcheson. He thought that they all derive an ought from an is, not properly,

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as he will do, but in a way that has the ought appearing suddenly and “imperceptibly” so that it is neither “observed” nor “explained.” In the systems to which Hume is

objecting, one finds certain basic facts about humanity emphasized, the propensity for self-preservation, for example, or sexuality, only to discover in due course but quite suddenly that these facts are also duties. In fact, in these systems human nature is not taken as it comes, its structure discovered after an empirical investigation. It is, rather,

taken as structured prior to all experience in accordance with a very specific value system. Ought in fact precedes is, and human nature is not an empirical fact but an essence deriving its reality and moral force from a transcendent form which human

reason can grasp and which therefore places reason at the apex of the structure of

human nature as superior to, and in moral control of, ordinary human feelings and interests. The claimed is of human nature turns out to be a rational and reason-

dominated essence that constitutes an ought in a God-governed system of rational

beings who, grasping their essence, recognize their obligations as moral agents.

Behind the facts of people in society one discovers in these moralists that there is a prior “society” of rational agents which is the real source of duty, obligation, and

justice. In Hume’s predecessors Locke and Pufendorf this in fact appears as a “state

of nature” prior to all society and language in which people are at once totally unbound to each other with respect to any customary or conventional ties, including those of language, but in which they are morally bound and morally obliged to each

other through the rational recognition of their common essential humanity. The rational animal precedes the political animal.

But all this makes sense only if there is a graspable human essence that transcends ordinary experience. From a truly empirical standpoint, the state of nature

prior to ail custom and convention in which all ordinary bonds did not exist would be a state devoid not only of all justice and all obligation but devoid of all human

discourse, of all rationality, of all reflective thought including self-consciousness, because this too presupposes concepts and language, and finally devoid also of all sense not only of humanity but also of self. For, empirically, a person’s sociability

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precedes their rationality; the social bonds that we know derive from the society we

know and from the feelings that Platonists and vulgar moralists reckon to be “lower.” Which is not to say that “higher” feelings cannot emerge from those that are

“lower.” Through processes of association, pleasure that was originally biological can

come to be associated with “higher” objects, e.g., knowledge to give the motive of disinterested curiosity, or liberty to give the love of the British constitution. And if

those things are valued strongly enough, people will set out deliberately to attain

them. Such actions could include self-discipline; for example, the self-discipline that is necessary to ensure that our causal inferences conform to the canons of the

scientific method rather than the fancies of superstition. Or recognizing order as a precondition of liberty, including the liberty to strive after such an end as knowledge,

such actions could include the self-discipline that is necessary to control impetuous impulses or selfish inclinations that would violate the customary rules of one’s society. Such actions could also include educating others to value the liberty that permits us to seek knowledge disinterestedly. We could then teach others to discipline

themselves to conform to the order that makes such liberty possible. Such actions might even include social and political action to change the social order in a direction that fits one’s aspirations. Hume is well aware of the virtues and

defects of different constitutions. Excessively admiring the British constitution to make it the ordained-by-God Platonic ideal of government, such thinkers as Locke rendered themselves incapable of disinterested comparisons and assessments of

different forms of government. But Hume’s science of human nature - his genuinely empirical science of human nature - drew no normative distinctions among

governments; it eliminated such facile ideology as the distinction between English freedom and French slavery. As a consequence, not only did Hume develop a theory of political legitimacy that could encompass both the British constitution and the French monarchy, but he was also in a position where he could bring out in his Essays

the advantages and the disadvantages of the “matchless” constitution of Great Britain. In the light of such evaluations, policy recommendations for improvements become

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possible, where they are not if one views a constitution as the temporal embodiment of a Platonic form. Nor did Hume himself eschew policy recommendations; he was

active in defending and promoting the directions in which Scotland had moved since the Union of Parliaments of 1714. These policy recommendations were, however, more economic than political, since he had concluded that the political arrangements

were, on the whole, pretty good. In addition, however, economics did occupy a central role in his thought Where Locke and Pufendorf saw humans as bifurcated between a reason which cognized one’s duties and “lower” feelings, and held that political obligation flowed

from the former, they tended to view society as having politics and law as the central structures, and other aspects, e g., the economy or the family that served the “lower”

feelings, as subservient to politics and law in society, as feeling is subservient to

reason in humans. For them, the nature of society, like human nature, is an is which is derived from an ought. But for Hume, just as no part of a person has an absolute

moral value over any other, so no part of society stands somehow superior to any other: all aspects must be fit into the picture, and fit into the naturalistic picture of

human nature that is given in the psychological theory of learning.

There were two consequences to this. The first was that Hume applied the method of science not only to politics but also to economics. The result was the science of economics, a study which, as a natural science, is largely Hume’s invention.

It was on the basis of this science that Hume was to make his policy recommendations in economics. The other consequence was that history was no longer simply the

history of political institutions but included economics and, more importantly, explored the causal role which economic factors played in historical change, in social development, and in political stability and instability.

As a consequence of his attention to the role of economic factors in history,

Hume concluded that the liberty which he himself truly valued was the achievement not of Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, as it was depicted in Whig

historiography, but rather of European civilization in the transition from a

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feudal/military order to a commercial society. This change in economic structure was, for Hume, a far surer guarantee of liberty than any merely political revolution or

particular type of government. Many of the policy recommendations that Hume tried to get implemented in Scotland turned upon making the commercial society there

function better. At the same time, the fact that both the sciences of economics and politics were located by Hume within the context of the science of psychology meant that he

recognized that patterns of economic and political behaviour are a consequence of

learning and, more specifically, of learning which occurs in a social context. If, as Hume argues, and his theory of learning, or indeed any theory of learning, asserts, we are creatures of acquired custom, then nothing in society or in the soul can begin de

novo15, there is a burden of history that must be accommodated as a starting point for,

and as yielding a set of limitations upon, any change, personal or social, that one might propose. It is true that the reasonable person adapts means to ends, but it is also true that ends must be adapted to available means and contingent but irreversible and

limiting historical circumstances. There is no a priori beginning either in knowledge or in politics. So far as social policy recommendations are concerned, there is always a burden of history that is simply given and which places constraints on the amount

and direction of change that can be made to occur. Thus, while Hume is in his soul,

as Rousseau said, a republican, for him it was a purely academic hope, because the

republican form of government, although in ideal circumstances the best, was also, as he saw the historical context, simply not realizable in his Britain. The facts of history meant that Hume’s republican dream ought to remain just that, and that he ought to

adopt more reasonable ends at which to aim. Instead of aiming at radical change, he strove for moderation in party politics as his major political objective. Party politics

were inevitable under the British constitution, given its mixture of monarchist, aristocratic, and popular forms, and given human nature and its diversity of interests. But the politics of Whig and Tory were something else. Both parties were backward­

looking, and the issue that divided them so rancorously was the relatively trivial one

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of dynastic succession - trivial, that is, from the perspective of securing the social

order necessary for liberty. Hume’s love of liberty was no less than that of the Whigs, yet his genuine historical understanding was destructive of favourite Whig idols and

prejudices, including the central role of 1688 in securing liberty and the contrast between British freedom and French slavery. This was not just bad history and bad political science, it was an ideological commitment that Hume argued was destructive

rather than supportive of the constitution that secured the liberty they all cherished. And the political theories of the two parties were equally to be combatted, not only

the divine right and passive obedience of the Tories, but also the “fashionable system”

of contract, the latter because it induced people to invoke too readily the right of

resistance in a way that in the post-1688 period was uncalled for. It was also potentially destructive of the very constitution it was invoked to support. In fact, though Hume’s critique of the contract theory is separate from his examination of the “religious hypothesis” that underlay the Tory theory of divine right as well as the vulgar morality, the “fashionable system” of consent equally presupposed a grasp of

transcendental reality and ground of duty. The Whig sanctification of the historical and contingent solution of 1688 which is derived from a purely rational and Platonic

or divine exemplar is as efficacious as Tory reaction in preventing anyone from working toward further, perhaps equally advantageous, change. Hume’s object, in his Essays and in his History of England was to get both Whigs and Tories to leave

behind their ideology and face the present and the future - a new age that was secular, in which science would provide the knowledge that would lead to further

improvement, and in which growth would come from the seizing of economic opportunities and from the meeting of economic challenges that had emerged. What

was needed was not the politics of intolerant ideology but the politics of accommodation and compromise to achieve the perceived interests of the citizens.

To his opponents ever since, of course, Hume’s sort of attack on ideology in favour of moderation seems, as it seemed to his contemporary Whig opponents, to be a case of undermining and destroying the very thing that he wanted to save, the

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British constitution and commercial society, by adapting it to the needs and spirit of the age. If Hume was no friend of the Tories, still they were the only friends that the

Whigs would allow that he could have. It is in this context, too, that we must see

Hume’s attempt to give a truly empirical foundation to the science of human nature.

This was perhaps the most dangerous move of all, since it meant the exclusion of ideology and of the “religious hypothesis” from the science of politics. What indeed could be more dangerous to ideology than the recognition that reality, bare and brute

fact, may not be, and may never be able to become, as it is a priori determined that

it ought to be? What could be more dangerous to ideologists than the demand that they face the facts honestly and be open to the possibility that they will have to give

up their moral imperative and adapt their ends to fit the reality that is given to them? If it was Hume’s achievement to exclude religion and ideology from the science of

politics, it is one that still cannot be taken for granted, for ideologists are still with us and empirical science is still a threat to them.

All the same, why must transcendent metaphysics and the “religious hypothesis” always be attacked? Why not indulge the cognitive concerns of the Platonist for infallible certainty and absolute value? Hume of course argues that, just

as it is useful to cultivate a disinterested concern in matter-of-fact truth, so equally it is useful to suppress the Platonic concerns. For these cannot be fulfilled and are

therefore themselves incompatible with the good life. Moreover, these motives drive the mind to create the illusions of metaphysics which, when wedded to those of religion, are positively dangerous, positively threatening, to the good life. Scepticism

shows that there is little indeed in religion that can intellectually satisfy our cognitive concerns for the truth. If religion is asserted, then it is because other aims, e g., fear

of death, lead us so to assert. But then, why not? Why insist upon a puritanical ethics of belief that restricts us to believing only what fits our cognitive standards? Why not assert at least some things because we want them to be true, even if there is no

evidence that they are true? Cicero did not in fact see much wrong with the latter approach. Why not participate in the religious cults of one’s society? In Rome, as

381 Gibbon put it, religions were for the philosopher all equally false, for the people all

equally true, and for the magistrate all equally useful. So for Cicero, in spite of his academic philosophy, there is no radical rejection of religion. But then he had not yet

seen the triumph of barbarism and religion. In contrast, after some 1700 years of Christianity, Hume was, as we have seen,

prepared to argue that, while errors in philosophy were ridiculous, those in religion were dangerous - with a subtext that all religion is error. Where it is not dangerous,

it is only because the believer is sufficiently reasonable to be able to control the sentiments that generate the religious belief and prevent it from degenerating into dangerous enthusiasm; or because social conditions, such as a constitution enshrining

principles of freedom and tolerance, keep in check the vested interests, eg., a priesthood, that too often produce dangerous superstitions; or because social conditions are so bad that certain forms at least of religious institutions and habits of

thought provide some conditions of the order that alone make possible any tolerable chance one might have of leading a reasonably decent life. In fact, in the History of England when he discusses the medieval period

Hume speaks well of the church; and, in spite of having condemned the “monkish

virtues” as useless in the Treatise, he explains how, in that barbarous age, the church and the monasteries in particular provided a refuge for learning and a source of social

stability and order absent elsewhere in the society. In the feudal/military society of the

age the “monkish virtues” were indeed virtues. But times had changed and those patterns of behaviour had ceased to be useful in the commercial society that had

replaced the former barbarism. In fact the religious forms of both enthusiasm and superstition were more directly threatening to the social order and its improvement

than supportive of it. So Hume encouraged his ecclesiastical friends in the Church of Scotland, the progressive party of the so-called Moderates, to redirect the Kirk away

from the harshness of Calvinism to moderation and tolerance and an accommodation with the secular, scientific, and commercial age that was bringing for the first time prosperity and learning to Scotland. As Hume saw it, it was incumbent upon those

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who wished to improve the well-being of humankind that they work gradually to move people towards institutions that both restrain the intolerant and help create in

all the disposition to tolerance. Hume himself, if not his friends in the Kirk, perhaps foresaw the continuing gradual alteration of religious belief and sentiment in the

secular age and commercial society that had come to be, and of which, because of its

capacity to fulfil human needs, Hume approved. But as Hume appeared to the Whigs so the progressives in the Kirk appeared to their opponents, as selling the fortress of

faith to the spirit of the age and the powers that be. But why work toward the attenuation of religious belief if it can in fact be useful? What harm does it do? Why not let Tolstoy have his comfort? In the end the

point is a simple one, as we have seen: nothing is more dangerous than someone who

knows (believes he knows) with infallible certainty what is objectively good for you Such persons are not only prepared to coerce you for your own objective good to do what you subjectively don’t want to do, but they are also often, under the illusions of religion, prepared to kill you in very painful ways in the name of God, God’s

Goodness, and Truth - and in the name of the oppressive political order for which God and God’s values appear to provide an objective justification. As we saw Camus

put it, the rebel inevitably ends up as the blasphemer in any society that lives within an order defined by an ontology of objective value. But further, when the godly, the enthusiastic, and the superstitious implement their policies, since the latter are known infallibly to be correct, there is no need to recognize brute facts that might render the

prescriptions inapplicable or lead to unanticipated but monstrous results. As the

Albigensian crusade, the Thirty Years War, Stalin, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Iran and

the Algerian war of liberation all show, there is little that could be more destructive of civilization than the unleashing of an infallible morality.

Thus, in the last analysis, not only is religion or ideology or even Platonism

false or meaningless, and therefore to be rejected by the academic sceptic who is

concerned for truth, but they are also dangerous threats to Hume’s political goal of moderation in politics. Moderation is indeed useful - it makes it possible for people

383 to live together - and the Treatise therefore reckons it a natural virtue (T, p. 578), but

in politics it is a reasonable goal only if all parties are capable of being tolerant of

differences. In politics the exercise of moderation presupposes the other civic virtue of tolerance, a virtue the practice of which is directly the opposite of what is practised

by ideological politics, be it that of Hume’s century - whether Calvinist or Jesuit,

Tory or Whig - or of our century - whether Marxist or religious fundamentalist.

Now, this virtue of tolerance is a modem one. one searches in vain for it in Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Ethics or Cicero’s Offices. It received its first major defence in Bayle (Pensees sur la comete, 1682), who argued that morality is

independent of religion, and in Locke (Letter concerning Toleration, 1689), who argued both that force can compel compliance but not belief so that it is therefore ineffective in bringing one to salvation, and also that it is incorrect to equate

obligation to the church with obligation to society and to hold that society will lapse into anarchy if dissent is tolerated. Since Bayle and Locke, intolerance has been considered a moral defect16 allied to arrogance and narrow mindedness and, in private

life, to impatience. Toleration may be compared to the political values of liberty,

equality, and fraternity. Tolerating others is certainly less than treating them fraternally, and less even than treating them as equals: toleration is always mere

toleration. As for liberty, no criticism is implied of those who exercise it in speech or action; the latter are taken to be either good or at least ethically neutral. But those we tolerate - heretics, dissenters, atheists, or communists - are taken to be wrongdoers: to tolerate is to condemn and then put up with. It is the policy of patient forbearance

in the presence of something which is disliked or disapproved of.

Bayle the Pyrrhonist,17 and Hume after him, was able to recommend tolerance

on the basis of utility because as a sceptic he of course accepted a non-traditional view of the state of human being. For Hume, custom was the cement of society; unlike his predecessors, he took the commonwealth to be based on a set of conventions that served human interests, and conformity to these conventions is justified solely by this utility in serving these interests rather than by reference to

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transcendent absolute values and divine ordination. It is habit and perceived interest

that secure conformity to the conventions, not religion. The latter is thus not essential to cement those relations nor to support their moral foundations Or at least, it is not needed provided that (most) people are reasonable Older conceptions of society were

hierarchical, with intellectual strength increasing as one proceeded upward, placing

upon the higher levels the necessity of protecting the lower. Bayle and Locke, and

Hume after them, rejected this paternalism; they accepted the basic intellectual equality of people, and defended the obligation and responsibility for each individual to formulate and defend beliefs independently of any authority. But above all they

attack the cognitive arrogance which underlies, when it is not sheer habit, so much

prejudice and intolerance The New Testament distinguishes belief from unbelief, grouping in the latter

both suspension of judgment and disbelief. This is misleading since failure to

distinguish them leads to many errors. But furthermore the New Testament habitually implies that it is morally obligatory to believe - faith, as well as charity, is a virtue while unbelief is wicked Couple this with the assumptions of the divine or religious roots of civil society and of the moral weakness of human beings, then tolerance

almost immediately becomes intolerable. Couple this with the cognitive assumption that one has infallible knowledge of what the true values are, then accommodation,

compromise, and living with have no place: the way of the persecutor is opened. Locke (in his Essay concerning Human Understanding), and more radically Bayle (in his Historical and Critical Dictionary), who were followed in this by Hume,

both emphasized the limits of human knowledge, and the fact that human cognitive

faculties are inevitably fallible. This of course undercuts the arrogant assumption of infallibility that alone can relieve the persecutor of the responsibility for the selfrighteously committed horrors that he or she inflicts in the name of virtue Human fallibility also implies that the New Testament position that belief is virtuous, unbelief

wicked, is one that poisons reason at its source Reason - human reason - requires

an ethics of belief contrary to that of the New Testament: it is that one ought to seek

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reasons for and against each proposition, and proportion one’s cognitive altitude to the weight of the evidence, assenting, dissenting, or suspending judgment as appropriate in each case. Far from reckoning as wicked disbelief or doubt as such,

what reason holds, or at least what a reasonable conception of reason holds, is that

it is wicked to adopt one’s cognitive altitude in disregard of available reasons. The revised estimate of the capacities of human reason, and the ethics of belief which that implied, is as essential to the undermining of the case for intolerance as is the revised

conception of the grounds of civil society and the revised evaluation of humanity’s

capacity to think rationally and behave responsibly. It is scepticism that leads to the revised estimate of our cognitive capacities. It is scepticism that leads to the revised view of society that sees custom and not the infallible grasp of transcendent values as the cement that keeps it together. And it is scepticism that generates the respect for

faults that is necessary for one to recognize that the capacity to think rationally is a

learned habit: if we are irrational that is not a sign of sin or of an objective moral defect but of a deficiency in the social conditions in which our habits of thought are

acquired, a deficiency which perhaps might, with patience, be rectifiable. It thus turns out that the philosophical programme of Hume the academic sceptic is inseparable from the political programme of Hume the policy scientist. The natural virtue of moderation in politics can be promoted only in the context of the virtue of tolerance, and the latter is in the last analysis made possible only if the

academic sceptical case can be made to deflate the cognitive arrogance of the Platonists and those who practice ideological politics. Scepticism thus generates and

supports a vision of politics that is in fact revolutionary: politics is, or rather ought to

be, the art of compromise and accommodation. This, instead of the traditional politics of a priori designed constitutions and divinely ordained social orders together with apodictic strategies of ruthlessness and intolerance for their implementation. No longer will one pursue the Calvinist politics of the English revolutionaries of the

seventeenth century and of the Scots covenanters; no longer will one pursue the

intolerant demands for conformity of the counter-reformation, of the France of the

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Sun King, of the England and Scotland of the restoration period; and, of course, no longer will one pursue the similar politics of Robespierre or Lenin or Jerry Falwell.

In contrast, one will pursue the modest political goals compatible with moderation in

politics. This is not a wholly passive enterprise, however. Perhaps for the Pyrrhonist like Bayle it suffices to make one’s political goal tolerance for diversity in what is not

essential to the customs that provide the cement for society and, beyond that,

conformity to those customs as they are historically given to one. But Hume is no Pyrrhonist, and his scepticism commits him to no quietist policy of accepting and

conforming to custom as he finds it. Hume recognized that one’s own well-being can best be served not only by conforming to custom but by attempting, within moderate

limits, to improve upon given custom in such a way as will improve the well-being of

all others as well as oneself and, indeed, of oneself because of others. He therefore supported modest reforms in established governments, while his scepticism implied a rejection of the utopian politics of both revolution and reaction. He was wary of the

latter, of utopias based on the nostalgia that consists in criticizing the present and admiring the past. And he was even more impatient with futuristic schemes, for example, the republic of Fletcher of Saltoun, that would dismantle present

government using “violent innovations”: to “try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy can never be the part of a wise magistrate.”

Hume also proposed economic reforms. He did this in the light of the science of economics that he developed as part of his naturalistic science of human nature. But, while the science was substantial and a better basis for policy recommendations in the area than anything that had gone before, here, too, the approach was cautious.

Violent utopian policy prescriptions would profoundly affect government, throwing

it out of balance and making way for despotism. His suggestions were reformist, but also moderate and, relative to many suggestions, conservative. In this respect, Hume was prepared to consider John Law’s paper money scheme (1705), but his careful

sense of adapting to circumstances saved him from the more extravagant of Law’s

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demands for rapid, managed growth through money. Moreover, given the historical dimension to humans that is implied by the learning theory of his scientific psychology, Hume understood, as many policy makers do not, that the future is

determined not just by the present but by past history.18 In proposing policy, we must not look only at where we want to go, but also at where we have been. Contrary to

Milton Friedman, there is no universally safe policy. The learning theory also implies that people do leant. So Hume also recognizes that people will, or at least should,

adjust their behaviour in the light of past experience, and that this applies to

government actions. Good policy must also take into account the changes which the learning process will introduce into the habits, the constant conjunctions, of the past.

Abstract a priori reasoning cannot anticipate such alterations as cause and effect

regularities of the past. Keynesian economics, still not far from orthodoxy, once worked but no longer provides the policy guidelines it once did. This throws despair

into the hearts of those who follow so much of our tradition and demand policy that is infallible and unchanging. But the revolutionary scepticism of Hume shows us that we should neither be surprised nor despair - that it is simply the human condition and that we are once again confronted with the fact that our knowledge is fallible and

that our concern for truth once again demands of us an effort to undo yet another element of our ignorance. And it shows us, too, that the reasonable person, one guided by his or her long run self-interest in living a decent and reasonably (if not happy then) satisfying life,

will adopt both the revolutionary idea that we must not only seek to find means to our ends but also propose ends that fit the means available; it suggests the equally

revolutionary idea that humankind is best served not by grand strategies for the ultimate and absolute good of all but by incremental improvements upon the state in

which we have found that our history has put us.

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- Ill -

Hume argues that we can best get on with the task of living if we give up the idea of objective value, and work instead for our own long-run happiness in a context where

we are working to form a society in which all can achieve a reasonably satisfying life.

It is within the context of these relative values that we should find our motives and

such meaning in our life as we can reasonably achieve. Self-interest, that is, our

distant self interest, argues that we ought, as a means to that end, shape our own relative values, the values we live by, to better achieve these personal ends and social

goals. We should discipline our natural vices while developing our natural virtues; we should try to control our more selfish inclinations and cultivate sympathy and

benevolence; we should try to regulate our immediate impulses in the interest of the

artificial virtues that enable us to get on with our fellow human beings. But still, all is relative. There is no absolute and objective sanction against murder, for example, there are only human laws and human values, only human decency and human sympathy. this, Camus argues, is dangerous

In Camus’ terminology, Hume’s position is nihilistic. Nihilism, according to Camus, is the denial of all values, or rather, as he makes clear, the denial of objective values. “Moral conduct, as explained by Socrates, or as recommended by Christianity,

is in itself a sign of decadence. It wants to substitute the mere shadow of a man for a man of flesh and blood. It condemns the universe of passion and emotion in the

name of an entirely imaginary world of harmony’’ (The Rebel, p. 67). In order to find

value in the world, both the metaphysical philosophy of Socrates and his successors

and the faith of the Christians turn away from the world to a realm of Forms and

389 values that transcends the world of ordinary experience, the world that includes our passions and emotions. The latter is condemned, and, in Plotinus at least, condemned

absolutely: the One that defines the good of the world defines it to lie in itself, so that

it not only rejects the world but becomes a haven from it For these philosophers, “morality has no faith in the world” (ib). We must reject that lack of faith, and get on

with the task of living according to our human values, our felt moral sentiments. But

can one do this? Can one live without objective values? For Camus, this is equivalent

to the question: “Can one live as a rebel?” That is, for Camus, to rebel is to reject objective values, and so the question is equivalently understood as: “Can one live

believing in nothing?” (p. 66). Camus, following Nietzsche, answers in the affirmative. Yes, if one creates a system out of absence of faith, if one accepts the final consequences of nihilism, and if, on emerging into the desert and putting one’s confidence in what is going to come, one feels, with the same primitive instinct, both pain and joy (p. 66).

But again, if we are to do this, if we are to get on with the task of living our humanity,

living according to our human values, passions and moods, then we must destroy these values that condemn it. As Camus puts it, again referring to Nietzsche, “he who wants to be a creator of good or evil must first of all destroy all values” (ib).

However, if one rejects absolute values and objective meaning, then there is a problem, argues Camus: everything is permitted. And if everything is permitted, then

there can be no freedom, for freedom presupposes order. If one is to be free to do

what we want, it is necessary that we come to some arrangement with our fellow humans to eliminate conflict in a world of scarce resources. These arrangements limit our freedom in order to leave us free to get on with the task of living a reasonably decent and satisfying life The transcendent moralities of Socrates and his successors and of religion bind

one, but they do so illegitimately. They do so illegitimately for two reasons. In the first place, all such objective moralities are all false: there are no objective values there

to bind us. In the second place, the ontologies of objective value invariably sanction

an inequitable social order: the values these ontologies proclaim as absolute purport

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to bind one group in a way that implies the oppression of another. Freedom, therefore,

is achieved upon the rejection of such values, such metaphysics, such faith:

“... freedom of the mind is not a comfort, but an achievement to which one aspires and at long last obtains after an exhausting struggle” (p. 70). But if we are to get on in the

world, if we are to exist together with our fellow beings, then we need order, that is, values: “if the eternal law is not freedom, the absence of law is still less so” (p. 71).

Revolt is thus not against social and political order as such; it is not to deny the need

for unity. To the contrary, the rebel proposes a new order, one that is more equitable. The rebel “attacks a shattered world in order to demand unity from it.” He opposes the principle of justice which he finds in himself to the principle of injustice which he sees being applied in the world (pp. 234). What the rebel must do if he or she is to succeed is eliminate the objective moral order

that oppresses him or her - the order that is used by the masters to oppress him or her, and indeed has been used by the oppressed to justify acquiescence in their own oppression. But then the rebel must create the new order.

When the throne of God is overturned, the rebel realizes that it is now his own responsibility to create the justice, order, and unity that he sought in vain within his own condition, and in this way to justify the fall of God (p. 25). Thus, “the mind found its real emancipation in the acceptance of new obligations”

(PP 70-1). But, suggests Camus, the rejection of objective or absolute values leads to a

contradiction. On the one hand, if there are no objective values, then nothing is

forbidden, and everything is therefore permitted This is a sound inference; it has to do with nothing more than the meanings ofthe terms ‘forbidden’ and ‘permitted’. For, to say that

p is forbidden is to say that

it is not the case that p is permitted 19 Hence, to say that

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it is not the case that p is forbidden is to say that

p is permitted given that double negations are affirmations. Thus, if nothing is forbidden, then

everything is permitted. However, if we deny that some thing is forbidden because there are no objective values, then it cannot be an objective value that something is permitted. Thus, if those are the grounds for denying that everything is forbidden,

then we must also deny that everything is permitted. “If nothing is true, then nothing

is permitted” (p. 71) But here, according to Camus, we “arrive at the extremity of contradiction” (z'Z>). Thus, what Camus holds is that if we deny that there is absolute

or objective value, then we are led to assert both that (+)

for every thing, it is permitted

and

(++)

nothing is permitted

= for every thing, it is not permitted Now, if we affirm both of these then we do commit ourselves to a contradiction. For,

if we take action a and apply the first, we have to affirm that

a is permitted while, when we apply the second, we have to affirm that

a is not permitted and these are contradictory. But (+) and (++) are not themselves contradictory. To be sure, they cannot both be true; if they are, then that leads to a contradiction, as we

have just seen. But, unlike genuine contradictories, they can both be false. They can

both be false if (*)

some things are permitted

and (**)

some things are not permitted

That is, (+) and (++) are contraries rather than contradictories. Camus seems to have fallen into the old trap of confusing the two. However, it is also true that if we accept

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the argument in favour of (++), that nothing is permitted because there are no objective values, then we must apply that argument to both (*) and (**), and reject

both But (**) contradicts (+) and (*) contradicts (++). So the argument does, after

all, lead to a contradiction. Which poses the question: How do we resolve this contradiction? It would seem that if, when we reject transcendent values, we embrace (+) and

reject (**), then we cannot get on with the task of living because there are no

constraints on the behaviour of anyone. Freedom without law is no freedom. “If fate is not guided by superior values, if chance is king, then there is nothing but the step in the dark and the appalling freedom of the blind” (p. 71). But it would also seem

that if, when we reject transcendent values, we embrace (++) and reject (*), then we cannot get on with the task of living because there is nothing that we can do since

nothing is permitted. Thus, “at the point where it is no longer possible to say what is black and what is white, the light is extinguished and freedom becomes a voluntary prison” (ib), and “rebellion,” that is, the rejection of transcendent objective values, “ends in asceticism” (ib). In either case, we cannot get on with the task of living.

Camus proposes two ways to do this, one of which he rejects, and one of which he accepts. Both attempt to establish that, in spite of the case against transcendent objective values, there in fact are after all things that are valuable. Thus, both involve affirming (*) and (**), and rejecting both (+) and (++). The contradiction

is thus resolved. It is resolved by distinguishing the transcendent values of the

tradition deriving from Socrates, from what is valuable. Because both solutions proposed by Camus reject transcendent values, neither of them condemns any part of the world from this perspective. In fact, because they justify getting on with the task

of living by appeal to values that do not transcend the world, they both involve affirming the world, that is, affirming it, accepting it as valuable, even in the absence

of any transcendent sanction.

This magnificent consent, born of abundance and fullness of spirit, is the unreserved affirmation of human imperfection and suffering, of evil and murder, of all that is problematic and strange in our existence.

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It is bom of an arrested wish to be what one is in a world that is what it is (p. 72).

But this is not yet to say what those values are that justify getting on with the task of living while not being transcendent values.

The first position holds that one must in a way accept the contradiction arising from the absence of transcendent objective value and in spite of that contradiction get on with the task of living accepting as valuable whatever it is that, in living that life,

one ends up creating. Thus, whatever it is that one has created is deemed to be valuable, though the universe provides no assurance that it is valuable.

The transmutation of values consists only in replacing critical values by creative values, by respect and admiration for what exists (p. 74). We still wish for transcendent justification, Camus insists, as we know: in accepting

as valuable what he or she creates, a person “does not yet obtain assurance but only the wish for assurance, which is not at all the same thing” (ib).

Accepting as valuable whatever willy nilly one creates does not in any

straightforward sense resolve the contradiction, but it does seem to permit one to get on with the task of living. Nonetheless, according to Camus, it will not work On the

position, it is one’s creative activity that creates what is valuable. These values constitute the law that provides the limits of freedom. These limits are those that the

creator imposes upon him- or herself. Divinity without immortality defines the extent of the creator’s freedom (ib.).

However, when the rebel rebels in the name of justice, he or she often enough discovers that the new order, the new unity, cannot be achieved without violence. If

there were a universal human reason of the Socratic sort, then it could, in the absence of mystification, grasp the essence ofjustice, and the simple call to order would create

the new unity of a just system. But there is no such reason. There are only relative

values, and those of the oppressed are not those of the oppressors. Nor, even, are the

oppressed united. “A day comes when ideology conflicts with psychology” (p. 131).

When this happens, the rebel will find that he or she has no more to go on than

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his or her commitment to his or her vision of justice. A choice is there: give up that vision and compromise with others or achieve that vision by any means available. The

latter is an option that many choose When the rebel discovers that others disagree with his or her vision, “then there is no more legitimate power” (p. 131), that is,

power legitimated by some sort of universal rational consent. There is only the felt

vision of the rebel; this alone justifies his or her imposing the envisioned order on others.

Thus the law evolves to the point of becoming confused with the legislator and with a new form of arbitrariness.. .If major principles have no foundation, if the law expresses nothing but a provisional inclination, it is only made in order to be broken or to be imposed (ib.y The result will be the abandonment of the law that is supposed to ensure order for a lawlessness and terror intended to achieve order.

From the moment that laws fail to make harmony reign, or when the unity which should be created by adherence to principles is destroyed, who is to blame? Factions. Who compose the factions? Those who deny by their very actions the necessity of unity. Factions divide the sovereign, therefore they are blasphemous and criminal. They, and they alone must be combatted. But what if there are many factions? All shall be fought to the death (p. 124). The rebellion in the name of justice thus leads to Robespierre and Saint-Just, or,

equally, to Stalin and Pol Pot, to terror, that is, and murder. Previously oppression was justified by the objectified values of the social

structure. These are now rejected in the name of justice. But the demand for justice in its turn leads to new oppression and crime.

There comes a time...when justice demands the suspension of freedom. Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility to total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence (p. 105). Rebellion is the defence of that part of the human being that has refused to submit, or to submit any longer, to oppression. But this oppression has been enshrined as

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objectively right, so the defence involves a rejection of as it were God. The task is to create new values. But what it creates is violence and terror. So these are the new

values, sanctified by the very fact that this is now how we are getting on with the task of living - living in this world, in the absence of any objective transcendent values. “...[R] ejecting God,” the rebel “chooses history with an apparently inevitable logic” (p. 106), a history which, precisely because that is how the world now is, justifies the

values of violence, terror and murder - a new sort of slavery.

Previously social unity was achieved through binding people to an oppressive social system by treating the latter as ordained by objective values. Now unity or

totality is achieved by murder and terror imposing a new bondage.

Totality is, in effect, nothing other than the ancient dream of unity common to both believers and rebels, but projected horizontally onto an earth deprived of God. To renounce every value, therefore, amounts to renouncing rebellion in order to accept the Empire and slavery (p. 233).

This is the apparent result of Humean nihilism. Rebellion begins with the

attempt to end injustice. To do that it must attack the ontology of objective values that supports the oppressive social order. But the elimination of objective values

implies the acceptance of our own values, of our acting upon them, and of our creating through these actions new values. Action thus becomes its own justification.

Action, whatever its end, so long as it is action, is right. What is required of us is that we be, as Heidegger says, resolute It matters not what we are resolute about, what

is important is that we be resolute. Resoluteness here should not be confused with

making a choice from among determinate possibilities. In ordinary choice, one selects from options that are as it were already given But in choosing to be resolute what one is choosing is not an option but a condition of being in which options first arise. “One would completely misunderstand the phenomenon of resoluteness,” Heidegger

tells us, if one should want to suppose that this consists simply in taking up possibilities which have been proposed and recommended, and seizing hold of them... The indefiniteness characteristic of every potentiality-

396 for-Being into which Dasein has been factically thrown, is something that necessarily belongs to resoluteness (Being and Time, sec. 60).

Resoluteness is a condition produced by “the call of conscience.” Conscience reveals

an absence and a lack, the absence and lack of a place to rest, a place to be. It is a call

which summons the self, Dasein, to its“inmost-pote»//a//7y-for-Being-itself’ (ib., sec. 56). That is, it is a call for the self to set itself to be according to its own deepest impulses and sentiments. The call awakens the subjective desire to be oneself, to live

according to one’s own deepest impulses and sentiments. But since one is not so living at the moment that conscience makes its call, conscience in its call to the self also evokes a feeling of uncanniness, or of not belonging, that is, not belonging where

one now is, not belonging in one’s present state of being. This sense of being called from where one does not belong to somewhere determined by one’s inmost impulses

and sentiments is the state of resoluteness. What is important about an action is not its content or aim but rather the fact that it is resolute. So long as it is resolute, the

action is its own justification But murder and terror can be done with resolution.

Indeed, how else can they be done if they are deliberate actions of policy? How else could one overcome one’s own sense of humanity and human sympathy in order to

commit murder? We thus see that the result of nihilism is a justification of murder and terror, of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot. As Camus puts it, Men of action, when they are without faith, have never believed in anything but action. Hitler’s untenable paradox lay precisely in wanting to found a stable order on perpetual change and no negation (The Rebel, p. 178).

As for Stalin and the Marxists, If it is certain that the kingdom will come, what does time matter? Suffering is never provisional for the man who does not believe in the future. But one hundred years of suffering are fleeting in the eyes of the man who prophesies, for the hundred and first year, the definitive city (p. 207).

Camus concludes that we cannot accept a Humean nihilism, a world without objective

value.

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Now, the problem that Camus argued was challenging us was this: If by

rebelling in the name of Justice we reject transcendent objective values then we are driven to say both that everything is permitted and that nothing is permitted, and that in neither case can we get on with the task of living. How do we escape the

contradiction and get on with the task of living? The first solution that we have now

examined is that we embrace the contradiction and simply get on with the task of living, accepting as valuable whatever values we create as we get on with that task.

But this nihilism we now see leads to the horrors of murder and terror. The objective values are rejected and nihilism embraced in order to secure justice, but the

consequence is a new injustice and a new slavery. So this solution to the contradiction, about how to get on with the task of living, defeats itself: accepting it,

one still can’t get on with the task of living.

Is this it, then? “Must we therefore renounce every kind of rebellion, whether we accept, with all its injustices, a society that outlives its usefulness, or whether we

decide, cynically, to serve, against the interests of man, the inexorable advance of

history?” (p. 280). Camus argues to the contrary. There is a second, more reasonable way, to

resolve the contradiction. We can still rebel in the name ofjustice, and yet resolve the resulting contradiction in a way that does not lead to murder, provided only that we

accept one absolute value as objective. This one value is that of life, the value defended by the argument against suicide. Can the “We are” contained in the movement of rebellion, without shame and without subterfuge, be reconciled with murder? The reply is negative.

In assigning oppression a limit within which begins the dignity common to all men, rebellion defined a primary value. This value consists in the value which, through the sympathy that achieves solidarity, we attach to all people.

[Rebellion] put in the first rank of its frame of reference an obvious complicity among men, a common texture, the solidarity of chains, a

398 communication between human being and human being, which makes men both similar and united.

This excludes murder, objectively, as a crime. The question of how we can get on with the task of living in a world without values

...is now a question of deciding if it is possible to kill someone whose resemblance to ourselves we have at last recognized and whose identity we have just sanctified. When we have only just conquered solitude, must we then re-establish it definitely by legitimizing the act that isolates everything9 To force solitude on a man who has just come to understand that he is not alone, is that not the definitive crime against man? (p. 281).

So the way that Camus proposes to get on with the task of living in a world without absolute value and objective meaning is precisely the same way in which he proposed to justify rejecting suicide and getting on with the task of living. This way consists in

holding that life itself is the one objective value that there is in a world without (other) values, that is, (other) objective values. But as we have argued already, the argument which attempts to justify this claim that life has an objective absolute value will not stand the scrutiny of reason. So

the second way that Camus proposes to resolve the contradiction fails just as the first failed. Hence, the problem that Camus argued was challenging us seems insoluble. The problem was this: If by rebelling in the name of justice we reject

transcendent objective values then we are driven to say both that everything is permitted and that nothing is permitted, and that in neither case can we get on with

the task of living. How do we escape the contradiction and get on with the task of

living? The first solution that we examined did not work: it led to Hitler and Stalin It seems now that the second solution, the one proposed by Camus, equally will not

work So once again, must we either acquiesce in injustice by not rebelling or accept murder and terror when we do revolt?

We argued previously that Hume did in fact provide a solution to the problem of how to get on with the task of living. Can we perhaps argue that the same solution

will work here?

399

The problem is that if we reject transcendent objective values, then we seem

to be driven to affirm both

(+)

for every thing, it is permitted

and (++)

nothing is permitted

= for every thing, it is not permitted The way out of this contradiction is to affirm both

(*)

some things are permitted

and

(**)

some things are not permitted

and thereby deny (+) and (++). Camus’ two proposed solutions do just this, which would solve the contradiction save for the fact that neither of the solutions is

acceptable: the one defeats itself and the other is just unsound Note, however, that the whole discussion here takes place within a framework

which takes for granted that the notion that the idea of objective value actually makes sense. In fact, however, if the Humean arguments are correct, then the notion of

objective value is as much NON-sense as the notion of objective necessary connection, and for precisely the same reasons. It follows from this that neither (+)

nor (++), understood as referring to some sort of objective value, make any cognitive sense. And if a statement, whatever the contrary appearances may be, asserts non­

sense, then it is neither true nor false. It follows that, upon the Humean worldview,

the propositions (+) and (++) are simply meaningless. Indeed, in exactly the same sense, so are (*) and (**) both meaningless. Thus, we do not escape the contradiction

by affirming (*) and (**): there is no contradiction from which we must escape.

Camus notwithstanding, there is no contradiction to be resolved. If (+) and (++) are to make any cognitive sense then they must be construed

as expressing the values of some individual or group of individual persons. In that case, one would indeed have a contradiction. But of course no human system of

values is such that, relative to that system, both (+) and (++) are to be affirmed.

400 Rather, all systems of values that human beings in fact accept and act upon are such that (*) and (**) both hold in those systems. Insofar as there is a problem in

establishing that there are reasons for getting on with the task of living, they are resolved once we recognize that there are no grounds for supposing that our ordinary values, our ordinary sentiments and feelings, do not or cannot provide such reasons. The problem is, as we saw before, the craving for metaphysical unity and objective value. This desire, this lust, imposes upon us a standard, that of objective

values, that simply condemns as worthless the relative values that do not conform to that standard. This craving, Camus claims, is innate and inescapable. Rebellion is the

rejection of the established order. It requires not only real rebellion, but also rejection of the ontology of value that sanctifies the oppressive system against which one is acting. Nonetheless, there is still a craving for objective unity. This is inescapable. Or at least, that is Camus’ claim

The craving for objective unity condemns all relative values as unable to do

the job ofjustification that one wants done; it is a craving for a justification that none

of them, the relative values, ever could, by the nature of the case, satisfy. One

therefore ends up accepting all of those relative values as equal - everything is permitted - or rejecting them all - nothing is permitted But why not give up the craving? After all, first, it is impossible of fulfilment; there are no such objects -

metaphysical unities providing objective values - that could possibly fulfil it. And, second, there is no reason to think that the craving is innate. In fact, of course, from our common knowledge of human beings we can more than reasonably infer that

there is no inevitable metaphysical craving for the absolute. If, now, that craving is given up, then so is the standard for evaluation which it sets. That is, in giving up the

craving one gives up the idea that in order to do its job a justification must fulfil the

condition of being an objective value If one’s relative values are no longer expected to do the impossible of meeting that standard, then it will be possible to rely upon

them to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is permitted and what is forbidden. That is, if one gives up the craving for objective value, then one can, on the

401

basis of admittedly relative values, discriminate. And there are in fact felt human

values that permit us to condemn murder and terror as morally unacceptable. As Camus says, agreeing with Hume, there is a human sympathy that stands between one person and his or her killing another. This human sympathy provides a value that can condemn such killing. Moreover, human self-interest in each of us recommends that

this feeling be cultivated. One can, therefore, act upon one’s sense of grievance, and

try to change things; the moral sentiments that motivate this can be accepted. It does not follow that one must accept all such impulses to change. To the contrary, one

ought, in the name of long-run or distant self-interest, reject a wide variety of

impulses and sentiments that derive from the motive to eliminate injustice. One ought, for example, to control those impulses that urge one to murder in order to relieve

injustice. One can as a human being, and should in one’s own interest and out of sympathy for others, try to cultivate the sentiments of tolerance that control the

impulses to rejection, allowing the acceptance of those impulses as one’s own on the one hand, while preventing their coming to fruition in murder and terror on the other.

We may therefore rebel, or, more generally, and perhaps more reasonably, act to change things, while yet condemning murder and terror.

So the real question comes back to this, Can one give up the craving for metaphysical unity and objective value? Camus claims not, but as we have seen he

does not make his case. Hume argues to the contrary; there is no reason not to accept his argument. We can give up that craving. We should. We should also recall, however, that the craving for objective unity is but a

disguised craving to have instituted a certain sort of political order, the political order

demanded by oneself and the friends with whom in solidarity one has revolted. Recall

once again Weston LaBarre’s remark that “Values must from emotional necessity be viewed as absolute by those who use values as compulsive defences against reality,

rather than properly as tools for the exploration of reality.” What purports to be a desire for objective values is in fact but the craving that one’s preferred social order be securely in place. This means in effect that, while the craving for metaphysical unity

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and objective value purports to condemn all relative values, what it more exactly does

is condemn any values that do not lead to the creation of that preferred social and political order. One gets on with the task of living but that life turns out to be one that stands condemned unless it leads to the institution of the preferred political order

And so rebellion leads to murder and terror

Man, who hated death and the god of death, who despaired of personal survival, wanted to free himself in the immortality of the species But as long as the group does not dominate the world, as long as the species does not reign, it is still necessary to die. Time is pressing, therefore; persuasion demands leisure, and friendship a structure that will never be completed; thus terror remains the shortest route to immortality (The Rebel, p. 247). What of this sort of craving? that is, the undisguised craving for a certain sort

of political and social order, one that does not encompass those who resist it, those

against whom one is rebelling, those with whom one is not in human solidarity. Hume has investigated this case also He acknowledges that human sympathy extends only so far. Benevolence is limited

’Tis certain, that no affection of the human mind has both a sufficient force, and a proper direction to counter-balance the love of gain, and render men fit members of society, by making them abstain from the possessions of others Benevolence to strangers is too weak for this purpose; and as to the other passions, they rather inflame this avidity, when we observe, that the larger our possessions are, the more ability we have of gratifying all our appetites. There is no passion, therefore, capable of controlling the interested affection, but the very affection itself, by an alteration of its direction. Now this alteration must necessarily take place upon the least reflection; since ’tis evident, that the passion is much better satisfy’d by its restraint, than by its liberty, and that in preserving society, we make much greater advances in the acquiring possessions, than in the solitary and forlorn condition, which must follow upon violence and a universal licence (T, p 492).

In a world of scarcity, and limited benevolence, the desire for goods for oneself or one's group leads to the war of all against all, or, rather, the war of tribe against tribe, family against family. This war is won when one tribe, that with sufficient power,

imposes its version of order upon all others. The craving for political unity that leads

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to murder and terror is thus a craving for one’s tribe to triumph over the others. The craving for metaphysical unity is really a craving for this sort of political

unity. So the question, Can the craving for metaphysical unity be curbed? is really, for

practical purposes, the question, Can the craving for such a political order, one restricted to one’s tribe, be curbed? Here again, it is clear that Hume’s answer is in the affirmative. The mechanism for curbing such political lusts, for preventing restricted benevolence from leading to war, is provided by long-run self-interest. If short-run self-interest leads to the war of

all against all, self-interest, “by an alteration of its direction” towards the long run, is the means to end that war.

. . .as ’tis by establishing the rule for stability of possession, that this passion [self-interest] restrains itself. . .nothing can be more simple and obvious than that rule; every parent, in order to preserve peace among his children, must establish it; and that these first rudiments ofjustice must every day be improv’d, as the society enlarges: If all this appear evident, as it certainly must, we may conclude, that ’tis utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition which precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may justly be esteem’d social (T, p 492). The war of all against all is to be won not by one side murdering the other but by both sides out of long-run self-interest compromising on a set of conventions that will

enable them to live together in peace, tolerating if not liking one another, but giving to each and all a reasonable opportunity to live a reasonably decent and satisfying life,

not the perfect life of the sort to which they perhaps, though unreasonably, aspired but simply what is feasible, namely, a reasonably decent and satisfying life.

Hume is here disagreeing with the political thought of Epicurus. The latter held, it will be recalled, that friendship should, by the reasonable person be taken as

the basis for society. Epicurus contrasted this with the social order that then existed,

based, as he saw it, on narrow self-interest, and which led, as Epicurus also thought, to inevitable social disorder and the inquietude that is incompatible with the Epicurean

goal of happiness. But Hume is arguing that friendship, that is, benevolence, is always

restricted, and inevitably leads, in a world of scarce resources, to a conflict no

404

different from that which is created by simple narrow self-interest As with Socrates and Plato, Hume argues that, as friendship, restricted benevolence, leads to conflict

and pain it must be curbed by justice. Only, where Socrates and Plato held that justice is determined by the transcendent objective Forms, for Hume it is determined by social conventions, conventions which are themselves justified in the first instance by

- self-interest. Except, of course, it is self-interest which, “by an alteration of its direction,” is directed not towards the short-run that leads to conflict but rather

towards the long run or “distant” considerations that lead to cooperation and the establishment of the conventions of justice and contract, the conventions that ensure social harmony and the sharing of scarce resources in a way that permits everyone to

prosper. However, the important point is that even in a world without objective value,

people, provided they are moved by long-run self-interest, can come to establish social conventions that ensure harmony and the sharing of scarce resources by all.

We may therefore conclude that Camus is wrong: the sort of nihilism that Hume defended, that is, the rejection of all absolute values and objective meaning, is

after all, contrary to Camus, not dangerous. It is only dangerous in the context of

Camus’ assumption that the craving for objective unity is inescapable - a craving for objective unity that is based on the imposition of a regime that permits one social

group, that determined by one’s own restricted sense of benevolence, to determine at the expense of another the distribution of scarce resources. This assumption, that

such a craving is inevitable, is wrong. We may therefore accept the EpicureanHumean view of the world - nihilism if you insist - without forcing ourselves into the conclusion that murder and terror are acceptable forms for political action.

405

- IV -

Our concern is the fear of death. We are also concerned with the craving for

metaphysical unity. This craving may not be innate, as Camus, following Autgustine,

has claimed, but it certainly does exist. The point is that this craving for metaphysical unity, absolute value, and objective meaning, is a craving that the universe be so

structured that, when we are aware of that structure, the fear of death will be put to

rest. It was Socrates who first argued that the world has an ontological structure

that satisfies this craving. Socrates’ argument aims to establish that this attitude of

fear is unreasonable. It does this by arguing that what is essential to our human being is not life but the good life, that this is achieved through our being in contact with an

eternal standard of virtue that is outside all time and change, and that through this contact we achieve an immortality that overcomes death, and renders fear of it

unreasonable. From this perspective the position of Epicurus, Lucretius and Hume is

damaging indeed. On this latter view, there are no objective transcendent moral

standards. What makes life worth living, then, does not exist, life has neither meaning nor value. All is worthless. Nothing matters Above all, death cannot be overcome. Fear of it can after all be reasonable. At least, there is no argument that can show it to be otherwise.

This fear that nothing matters and, consequently, the fear that death cannot be overcome, is what motivates believers such as Tolstoy to try to solve by faith what they cannot solve by reason: they invent gods in which they may believe so as to make

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life livable and the thought of death bearable in a world without value.

Fear of death leads us to create gods that will overcome that fear, as Lucretius

suggested. To be sure, as Lucretius also suggested, and as the case of Samuel Johnson illustrates, the cure may actually make the disease worse. Hume, we have seen, argued in detail the same Epicurean thesis: religious belief has no foundation in

reason but arises instead from passions other than the love of truth, including the fear of death But, Hume also argued, again following Lucretius, it is better for our longrun welfare to discipline our beliefs, and to accept only those that conform to the

standards of scientific, empiricist reason However, if we are to do this with any hope

of success, we must also try to curb those fears and passions, such as the fear of death, that lead us to want the religious beliefs to be true, lead us to demand absolute

value and objective meaning, contrary to what our cognitive interest would incline us to affirm. How, then, do we curb the fears that prompt us to believe what rationally we ought not to believe? How, in particular, do we curb the fear of death? The

answer that Hume gives is that answer that Epicurus and Lucretius gave: We curb the fear of death by articulating the Epicurean-Humean metaphysics and, as part of that

worldview, the accounts of reason and of morality. This makes the thought of death bearable in a world without value. At the same time, in accepting that there is no objective value, we make life livable, we free ourselves to get on with the task of

living freely and, if you wish, courageously, according to our own - relative - values.

This cannot be the whole story, however For the craving for objective value is also a disguised craving for a certain sort of social unity, a certain sort of social

order. The latter craving, too, must be curbed. As we have seen, the Humean

argument is that self-interest, at times at least, can curb such political passions. The deeper question is this: how is it that a desire for an ontology to

overcome the fear of death becomes entwined with, and confused with, a desire for a certain sort of social order?

To answer this question we must look more closely at what becomes of the notion of a person in a Humean world. In the world of Socrates and his successors,

407 of course, the person is understood as a metaphysical entity that unifies the various

states of a person into a whole. In the case of Hume, following Epicurus and

Lucretius, there are no such entities. Nonetheless, the concept of a person involves the concept of unification. Except now the unification is achieved by a pattern rather than by an entity.

What Hume argues, quite correctly, is that character is a matter of our psychological dispositions, our human sentiments and passions. These are dependent upon social and economic conditions, and changes in those conditions bring about

psychological transformations. He characterizes the conventions that make social life possible as “natural artifices” (T, p. 484). These have developed “gradually and

acquire force by a slow progression” (T, p. 490). Such changes in the social and economic structure redirect the human sentiments and passions in various ways. There is therefore, as Hume says, a “progress of the sentiments” (T, p 500) as the artifices

that structure society develop. Traits like “selfishness and confin’d generosity” (T, p. 495) are present in pre-social or natural persons. But as society forms through the

institution of social conventions concerning property, contract (promising) and

government, new traits such as honesty, fidelity, and loyalty, and also chastity, come into existence. And as these make possible the division of labour, so our natural abilities also develop (T, p. 606ff). The abilities that pre-social or natural man

possesses are “slender” (T, p. 484); they need to be “augmented” (T, p. 485) if life is to be at all decent. This improvement in our abilities is achieved in the social context,

it is “by partition of employments, [that] our ability increases” (ib). Among the relevant faculties of the soul are the intellectual, for example the “faculty of placing our present ideas in such an order, as to form true propositions and opinions” (T, p.

612), as well as our manual abilities, for example, “agility, good mein... dexterity in

any manual business or manufacture” (T, p. 279). Hume also mentions “industry, assiduity, enterprize, dexterity,” (T, p. 587) and later “industry, perseverance, patience, activity, vigilance, application, constancy” (T, p. 610). Besides “wit and

eloquence” he includes “good humour” (T, p 611). To “cleanliness” he adds

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“decorum” (T, pp. 611-2). The various dispositions and traits that constitute one’s character are all to be

understood as patterns of thought and action. The permanence of the seif, then, if there be such, is the permanence of a pattern, not the permanence of an entity. The

objection of Samuel Clarke and Joseph Butler to the attack on the substantial self was

that it eliminated the permanent; for them the question was, as it was for Shaftesbury, “how [is] that subject continued one and the same?”20 Too wed to the substance

tradition, too wed to the Christian doctrine of the self that had appropriated the substance account of personal identity, they could not see that there could be any permanence other than the permanence of an entity. What Hume makes clear,

however, is that another account of the permanence of the self is possible. The habits, the traits and dispositions, that constitute character are themselves

learned; these patterns are acquired patterns. The laws of learning are the same for all persons; these patterns define a common human nature, and through them,

together with different conditions of learning, we can account for the diversity, and

stability of human nature. We acquire the various traits that define our individual

characters through a process of learning when we grow into the roles that are open to us in society, when we choose a role like historian or lawyer or pool hustler, or

when we come to play a role to which we are led or assigned or even fated by, say,

the place of our parents in society.

The skin, pores, muscles, and nerves of a day-labourer are different from those of a man of quality: So are his sentiments, actions and manners. The different stations of life influence the whole fabric, external and internal, and these different stations arise necessarily, because, uniformly, from the necessary and uniform principles of human nature. Men cannot live without society, and cannot be associated without government. Government makes a distinction of property, and establishes the different ranks of men This produces industry, traffic, manufactures, law-suits, war, leagues, alliances, voyages, travels, cities, fleets, ports, and all those other actions and objects, which cause such a diversity, and at the same time maintain such an uniformity in human nature (T, p 402). What accounts for the stability of human character is, therefore, the fact of

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causal determinism, where by ‘cause’ one means, of course, “constant union” (T, p 405).

Whether we consider mankind according to the difference of sexes, ages, governments, conditions, or methods of education; the same uniformity and regular operation of natural principles are discernible. Like causes still produce like effects; in the same manner as in the mutual action of the elements and powers of nature (T, p. 401).

This means, of course, that the self in the sense of that which is permanent through diversity is created in and by the sensible world rather than being something that transcends that world, as in the substance and Christian traditions. Hume does not

neglect to point out that both common sense and the Christian tradition tend to agree with his position rather than that of the substance tradition when they recognize the

efficacy of rewards and punishments in shaping human character. “ ’Tis indeed certain, that as all human laws are founded on rewards and punishments, ’tis suppos’d

as a fundamental principle, that these motives have an influence on the mind, and both produce the good and prevent the evil actions. We may give to this influence what name we please; but as ’tis usually conjoin’d with the action, common sense requires

it shou’d be esteem’d a cause, and be look’d upon as an instance of that necessity...”

(T, p. 410). Indeed, if we assume that causal determinism does not hold true, then there would be no connection among the actions of our lives. On the view of the libertarians who deny causal determinism, the self would turn out to be a mere bundle with nothing permanent to it, and however good or evil those actions might in

themselves be, there would be no person to hold responsible for them or to praise or

blame. Actions are by their very nature temporary and where they proceed not from some causes in the character and disposition of the person, who perform’d them, they infix not themselves upon him, and can neither redound to his honour, if good, nor infamy, if evil. The action itself may be blameable; it may be contrary to all the rules of morality and religion: But the person is not responsible for it; and-as it proceeded from nothing in him, that is durable or constant, and leaves nothing of that nature behind it, ’tis impossible he can, upon its account, become the object of punishment or vengeance ...’Tis only

410

upon the principles of necessity [causal determinism], that a person acquires any merit or demerit from his actions, however common opinion may incline to the contrary (T, p. 411).

Moreover, as Hume has explained much earlier in his discussion of cause in Book I of the Treatise, given that we are presented with no objective necessary connections in experience, the hypothesizing of a transcendental self as a power that produces actions will not help.

...it having already been prov’d, that the power lies not in the sensible qualities of the cause; and there being nothing but the sensible qualities of the cause, and there being nothing but the sensible qualities present to us; I ask, why in other instances you presume that the same power still exists, merely upon the appearance of these qualities? Your appeal to past experience decides nothing in the present case; and at the utmost can only prove, that that very object, which produc’d any other, was at that very instant endow’d with such a power; but can never prove, that the same power must continue in the same object or collection of sensible qualities; much less, that a like power is always conjoin’d with like sensible qualities (T, p. 91). The metaphysical conjecture of a transcendental substantial self is therefore without any practical importance; the only notion of the permanent self that is useful is that

which Hume proposes, the permanence of a pattern rather than the permanence of an entity. - Or at least, those metaphysical notions OUGHT to have no practical

importance. In fact, they do sometimes, in spite of, or no doubt because of, their confused nature, have practical import: the notion of a transcendental self somehow in contact with objective values does play an important role in the lives of many

persons. This is so, even though, if these persons were reasonable, they would so discipline their thought and behaviour that these confused notions would in fact play

no such role. Some people, e g., Tolstoy, eg., Samuel Johnson, have their lives determined by these confused notions of transcendent selves and objective meaning and value. Any account of human being must allow for such superstition, as well as

for reason. The only reasonable notion of the self is the one which Hume describes;

but, alas, not all are reasonable. We shall return to this last point, but for now we must explore in greater detail

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the concept of the self that Hume develops. We have now seen that the unity of the self is not merely the unity of the body, though that is a crucial part of it. The unity of the self includes also the unity

constituted by the person’s enduring character. As we have seen Hume say, for

socialized persons, “our reputation, our character, our name are considerations ofvast weight and importance” (T, p. 316). And so, in order to define the relation that links

the various stages of the self into a unity we need to take into account not only the laws that connect the states of the body with their predecessors and successors and

states of mind with states of the body but also the permanent patterns of thought and

action that define our character and our name, that is, make us who we are, the individual person we are. We have, then, two crucial features constituting the unity of the self according

to Hume: there is in the first place, as we saw earlier, bodily identity, and there is, in

the second place, as we just saw, identity of character. There is, however, one more thing. Since the unity of self is constituted by patterns and these can come to be

known as can any patterns, it follows that the unity of the self, far from being mysterious as it appeared at the end of Book I of the Treatise, is in fact open and

public. But the traditional self is not only a centre of consciousness but more strongly a centre of reflective self-consciousness, and this we do not yet have. It must not only

be true that the self can be known but that it be capable ofse/f-knowledge; a person

must have the capacity to reflect upon and monitor his or her own self. After all, we have emphasized, following Hume, the role of the self in monitoring its own activities

and disciplining itself to better conform to the standards, cognitive, moral and

prudential, that it sets for itself. It does this when it sets itself to conform its beliefs to the standards of empirical science; it does it when it disciplines itself to free itself

of the illusions of rationalist metaphysics and the notions of transcendent substantial selves and objective values; it does it when it disciplines its immediate impulses to

conform with its moral standards; and it does it when, in the name of long-run self­ interest, it attempts to enhance its sense of moral approbation towards conformity, on

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one’s own part and on the part of others, to the norms of civil society, that is, property, promising, etc. We must locate this capacity for self-reflection within the concept of the person.

Now, this capacity for self-reflection is itself is a character trait, and Hume’s general position on the unity and permanence of the self applies in particular to the

crucial trait of self-consciousness. This too is a socially acquired trait,21 and its

enduring character can be accounted for in terms of the needs of society and of the

individual in a social context One’s character is of importance to others, they learn to discern it in order to

look after their own good, as they interact, or refuse to interact, with one. One’s own character is important to oneself also, for one to know how others will react to one and how one can go about achieving one’s own ends in cooperation with others.

Morally good character traits, recognized in a good reputation and name, are

generally beneficial to both oneself and others. In the pre-social context, a person in a way has a character, in the sense of

having certain natural virtues and vices, enduring traits and abilities. What one doesn’t

have is a “reputation” or even a “name.” Hume links the invention of language with that of other conventions such as that of promising (T, p. 490), so one could have a

“name” only in a context in which the artificial virtues were also present22 Similarly,

one could have a reputation only in a community in which opinions are shared through

language as well as sympathy. Having a reputation depends upon the existence of a common moral language (T, p. 582), and so having a reputation like having a “name”

presupposes the presence of the artificial virtues The development of society in the

form of the conventions of property, contract (promising) and government also brings with it, in the form of language, the capacity to describe virtues and vices and to

communicate one’s judgments of character. Moreover, since an abstract idea is, for

Hume, simply the association of a word with a similarity or resemblance class of individuals, it follows that we can have no abstract ideas, nor, therefore, any thought,

apart from language, apart from linguistic conventions.23 The capacity to think about

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ourselves, the capacity for reflective self-consciousness, is thus acquired only in the social context. The establishment of one’s “reputation,” “character” and “name” is a social

process, and the capacity for one’s knowing one’s own reputation, character and

name is mediated by the capacity to know these in others; the capacity for self-

knowledge presupposes the ability to know the character of others. Through

sympathy and reasoning others form a mirror in which we discover ourselves. “’Tis certain, then,” Hume tells us, “that if a person consider’d himself in the same light in which he appears to his admirer he wou’d ...receive...a pride or self satisfaction ...Now nothing is more natural than for us to embrace the opinions of

others in this particular; both from sympathy, which renders all sentiments intimately

present to us, and from reasoning, which makes us regard their judgment as a kind of argument for what they affirm” (T, p. 320). Hume does admit that it is more natural for us to embrace the good rather than the bad opinions others have of our

character, but “in general we may remark that the minds of men are mirrors to one

another” (T, p. 365). The shared practice of establishing reputations and names and of morally assessing characters is the stable public fact which enables individual

persons to come to recognize in others, and in themselves, the enduring and permanent virtues, vices, abilities and capacities, that provide the structure that unifies the changing flux of action and perception into the bundles that we call persons. These

unified bundles will be continuing individuals each with a unique combination of personal abilities, virtues and vices. Locke recognized that the notion of a person is a forensic notion, that is, one

that is designed to enable us to carry on our practical affairs of assessing moral

responsibility and assigning moral praise and blame, moral reward and punishment (Essay concerning Human Understanding, II, xxvii, 26). For practical purposes we need, not reference to a metaphysical entity that is beyond the realm of ordinary experience, but rather a notion securely rooted in that world of experience, one that

can in fact be used and applied. Hume accepted this Lockean point of principle, but

414 went beyond it by providing a detailed account of the location of the notion of a

person in the broader framework of the linguistic and moral practices that define society and the social context in which we live and work. Since the forensic notion of

the self defines the latter with respect to responsibility, it follows that the linkage

which creates a person out of a series of events need not coincide with the casual

chain that links those events. Both bodily identity and memory are crucial to personal identity, but there is more to it than that there are also the permanent traits of character that unify one’s thought and action as one 's own. But there is yet more. As Locke also recognized, continuing the tradition coming down from Plotinus through

the Christian tradition, the responsible self is one that is self-reflective. Locke was not

able to free himself sufficiently from the substance tradition to recognize that this capacity had to be understood not as a simple power of a substance but as a learned

capacity of a socialized being. This last step was the one that Hume took. Identity of self is not something that one can “find” in “the thought alone” (T, p. 635); reason reflecting upon its own processes cannot discover the principle that constitutes

personal identity. Nor is that which constitutes the unity of the self to be found in the passions alone, the sentiments, traits and abilities that define one’s character. What

is required is the union of these two in a character that includes the capacity for self-

conscious concern, the reflective concern of a mind for the status and being of its own

self, the reflective concern of a mind “all collected within itself’ (T, p. 270). This mind “all collected within itself’ is the product of the social context in which each mind

mirroring its fellows discovers itself: “a mind will never be able to bear its own survey which has been wanting in its part to mankind and society” (T, p. 620). The man of thought alone is a “strange, uncouth monster” (T, p. 264); once we have discovered

exactly what it is that constitutes personal identity, we recognize that it is not at all surprising that he (that is, the man of thought) is incapable of discovering his own

personal identity, that is, to put it another way, that the full solution of the problem of personal identity cannot be given in Book I of the Treatise, that one must wait for the completion of Books 11 and III. The man of character is one who can “mingle and

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unite in society” (ib.) through the establishment of conventions and social artifices

Only when this is added to the man of thought do we achieve a person, someone

capable of surveying his or her own being and bringing it into harmony with the deepest standards he or she has for him- or herself alone, someone responsible for his

or her own identity - including, we should recall, those parts of one’s identify that one inescapably must have.

This concept of a person is not adopted for purely descriptive purposes.

Unlike our abstract idea of, say, a natural chemical kind, e.g., gold, we do not adopt it simply because it is useful in stating the regularities that we discover to obtain in the world. That, to be sure, is part of it, since regularities, both those that define our body

and those that define our character, are important in determining the utility of our concept of a person. But Locke’s insight remains, that the concept of a person is also

a forensic concept, in part defined as it is because it is useful in the social practices of

human beings. Persons are, in the first instance, those entities whose enduring dispositions and traits we morally evaluate and who, on the basis of those evaluations, we reward and punish. But persons are more than entities whose behaviour and whose

traits can be shaped by the actions of others through reward and punishment. Persons

are not merely responsible for what they do, they are capable of taking responsibility

for their actions. They are capable of self-evaluation, and capable of acting to shape

themselves, and to determine their own way of being. This capacity is itself useful both to the possessor and to others - it is to one’s own good and that of others that one knows oneself sufficiently to anticipate the responses of others, and, where one

finds it desirable, to modify one’s actions and dispositions in the light of this

knowledge. And since this capacity has utility, it is, upon Hume’s view, a virtue. It is, however, not simply a virtue among virtues, it is a virtue that is of such special utility in social practice that we use it as a defining characteristic of those who play roles in

our social system.

It is equally true, however, that the virtues of self-knowledge and self­

discipline are not as extensive as the welfare of society would prefer. Tolstoy cannot

416 free himself from the need to believe in objective meaning and absolute values. Camus

cannot free himself from the false belief, the belief that he himself at certain moments

does recognize as false, that there is in us all an innate craving for such metaphysical unity and objective value. Others cannot free themselves from the social ties that bind them to local groups in order to extend the social rules of tolerance and civil society to include others outside the local group, even though longer-run self-interest would

seem to demand such an extension. Benevolence is a natural virtue in human beings; it is an instinct that is part of

our original or innate constitution just as the love of life and kindness to children are

built in as a matter of fact as parts of our human nature (T, p. 417, p. 439). But, as we have seen Hume quite correctly emphasize, this benevolence does not extend to

the whole of humankind: there is “no such passion in human minds as a love of mankind merely as such” (T, p. 481). That is why justice cannot be founded on any

instinct of benevolence. But precisely to what extent is benevolence “confined”? Hume is clear: to the local group, the group to which one is related by ties of family and tribe

There are no phaenomena that point out any...affection to men, independently of their merit, and every other circumstance. We love company in general; but ’tis as we love any other amusement. An Englishman in Italy is a friend: A European in China, and perhaps a man wou'd be belov’d as such, were we to meet him in the moon. But this proceeds only from the relation to ourselves; which in these cases gathers force by being confined to a few persons (T, p. 482). What we must note is that where the limits of benevolence are drawn will be a trait

of one's character. It will therefore be part of one's identity as a person. It is in the broader interest of civil society and one’s participation in it that this part of one’s identity be restrained. For, it is destructive of the social order that alone

makes possible in the long run a reasonably satisfying life. In conditions of scarcity

what makes for conflict is not so much simple narrow self-interest as the interest in being benevolent to those within the group which is part of one’s identity as a person, at the expense of others outside the group. As Hume put it,

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This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society. There scarce is any one, who is not actuated by it; and there is no one, who has not reason to fear from it, when it acts without any restraint, and gives way to its first and most natural movements. So that upon the whole, we are to esteem the difficulties in the establishment of society, to be greater or less, according to those we encounter in regulating and restraining this passion (T, p. 492). If we are reasonable, then considerations of long-run self-interest will lead us to curb these instinctual urges to benefit our friends and the local group with which we

identify at the expense of others; such longer-run or “distant” self-interest will lead us to discipline ourselves to conform our actions and, indeed, our feelings and our very language in which we express those feelings to the conventions of civil society,

the norms of property and promise keeping. Unfortunately, not all are rational, not all

can curb the impulse to benefit the group that is part of one’s identity at the expense of others. Camus, in spite of his concern for social justice was, as we saw, such a one:

in the end he could not curb the impulse to identify with the colons to the exclusion of the Arab and Berber Algerians.

Now, we have argued that Camus’ claim that there is an innate craving for

metaphysical unity is a way of disguising from himself a craving for a political and social unity that he found he neither could attain, nor, from the perspective of his

humane sensibility and politics, wanted to attain This argument can be strengthened if we can give a plausible account of how these two cravings, the metaphysical and the political, become merged, how it is that the one can be sufficiently part of the

other that the one can substitute for the other. But it is easily seen, now, how these two cravings in fact blur one into the other. The craving for metaphysical unity is a craving for a metaphysics that will

establish that the fear of death is unreasonable; it is a craving for an overcoming of the

fear of death. The craving for political unity is a craving for a unity that will overcome a threat to a civil order that supports one’s own group to the exclusion of others; it

is a craving for the overcoming of the fear of the breakdown of the social structure

418 of the group membership in which is part of one’s identity. The fear of death is the

fear ofdissolution ofself thefear of loss ofpolitical unity is thefear ofdisorder and dissolution of social and personal identity. That is, in both cases the craving isfor

a solution to the problem of the threat of loss of self74 With the cravings tending to merge in this way, it should not surprise us that when one appeals to some ontology of value to justify a position it often turns out that the position that is being justified is one that favours the group with which one

identifies oneself.

In any case, with respect to each of the fears that creates the craving, there is,

of course, a solution. In each case there is a form of immortality. In the one case, that of fear of death, the fear is removed by creating an ontology that permits one to locate a form of immortality. In the other case, that of fear of loss of identity, the fear is

removed by identifying oneself as a member of a group that survives outside and beyond one. Camus in fact saw this equation clearly.

Man, who hated death and the god of death, who despaired of personal survival, wanted to free himself in the immortality of the species But as long as the group does not dominate the world, as long as the species does not reign, it is still necessary to die. Time is pressing, therefore; persuasion demands leisure, and friendship a structure that will never be completed; thus terror remains the shortest route to immortality (The Rebel, p. 247). The point to be made, of course, is that the appeal to either sort of immortality

is not necessary in order to address the fear With respect to each of the fears that

creates the cravings, there is a solution other than that, in the one case, of creating an

ontology of unity and objective value, and, in the other case, of imposing unity even through murder and terror. In the one case, that of fear of death, the fear can be alternatively attenuated by recognizing the Lucretian argument that there is nothing

to fear since where death is I am not.

But if one can thus remove the fear of death, how does one remove the fear

of loss of identity9 As we have seen, Hume provides an answer here also. The threat of loss of identity is constituted by the threat of loss in the war of competition among

419 groups in a world of scarce resources. This threat is removed by self-interest

extending one’s concern to embrace others in the web of conventions that constitute civil society and ensure peace with those groups that threaten one’s identity.

Camus, of course, with his humane sympathies, attempted to do this. He insisted that France live up to its word, and treat the non-colonist inhabitants of Algeria, the Arabs and the Berbers, as citizens. France failed him. So did both the

colons and the non-colonist inhabitants of Algeria. In the end the rational self-interest of each group in arriving at an accommodation with the other could not curb the tribal

identifications that turned those outside the groups into enemies. The world, unfortunately, and the human beings in it are often - too often - less reasonable than they ought, in their own interests, and the interests of others, to be.

Hume takes it as evident to any clear-headed person that the conventions of civil society should be extended to people beyond the range of our limited benevolence, beyond the range of the groups with which we identify ourselves.

“...[N]othing can be more simple and obvious than that rule...,” he says, and

concludes that for humans their “very first state and situation may justly be esteem’d social” (T, p. 493). But it seems that people are in fact less inclined to peace, or, what

amounts to the same, to rationality, than Hume supposes. Just as irrational fears can

lead some, like Tolstoy, to the irrational beliefs of religion, so irrational fears can lead others, or perhaps the same, to irrational political action, even murder and terror Why is this so? Freud has pointed out that, while society is, as Hume says, reasonably to be

based on conventions justified by long-run self-interest, there is in fact more than this to the bonds that link persons into society.25 “...We can quite well imagine,” says

Freud, following Hume, a cultural community consisting of . individuals..., who, libidinally satisfied in themselves, are connected with one another through the bonds of common work and common interests. If this were so, civilization would not have to withdraw any energy from sexuality. But this desirable state ofthings does not, and never did, exist. Reality shows us that civilization is not content with the ties we have so far

420 allowed it. It aims at binding the members of the community together in a libidinal way as well and employs every means to that end It favours every path by which strong identifications can be established between the members of the community, and it summons up aiminhibited libido on the largest scale so as to strengthen the communal bond by relations of friendship (pp. 55-6). Why is this so?

Freud in these remarks is agreeing with Hume that conventions based on self­

interest are not the only set of bonds that link people into civil society. Hume argues that these conventions, once instituted, themselves become moral rules. The

mechanism through which this comes to be is sympathy. Consider any violation of one of the conventions of justice, that is, the conventions that determine stability of

property. ...when the injustice is so distant from us, as no way to affect our interest, it still displeases us; because we consider it as prejudicial to human society, and pernicious to every one that approaches the person guilty of it. We partake of their uneasiness by sympathy, and as every thing, which gives uneasiness in human actions, upon the general survey, is call’d Vice, and whatever produces satisfaction, in the same manner, is denominated Virtue; this is the reason why the sense of moral good and evil follows upon justice and injustice. And tho’ this sense, in the present case, be deriv’d only from contemplating the actions of others, yet we fail not to extend it even to our own actions. The general rule reaches beyond those instances, from which it arose; while at the same time we naturally sympathize with others in the sentiments they entertain of us. Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment ofjustice: but a sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, which attends that virtue (T, pp 499-500).

Hume’s account of the utilitarian justification of the conventions of civil society is eminently reasonable; it carries conviction. Equally convincing is his claim that these conventions become moralized, that we consider violations not just bad

taste, for example, but worse, that they are morally vicious, while conformity to those conventions is morally virtuous. Freud was as convinced as Hume of the truth of these two positions. Where they disagree is on the mechanism by which the conventions become moralized For

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Hume, the mechanism is that of sympathy, and, while there is undoubtedly such a

mechanism at work in the human soul, we may well wonder if it is sufficient to account for the phenomena of moral approbation and disapprobation as Hume claims.

Certainly, Freud thought not. And equally certainly, Freud is correct. Can sympathy

really, after all, account for the strength of conscience? can it account for the way in

which conscience punishes us for violating its dictates? Think again of Samuel

Johnson. Can the mechanism of sympathy at work in him really account for the torments that he, through his conscience, inflicted upon himself? It is implausible. Freud argues on the basis of a deeper psychology for an alternative account

of the psychological roots of moral rules Freud suggests that in the beginning, the motive for submitting to rules is -fear, “fear of the loss of love.” And this loss of love is feared because of the threat its loss poses to the person, a threat, on the one hand, to its survival, since the person depends upon the one who loves for protection, and,

on the other hand, to its well-being as a person, since the other is quite capable of punishing those who transgress his or her rules. The basic threat, that makes the threat of loss of love so potent a weapon, is the fear for one’s being, or of, at least, what is

not clearly distinguishable from this at the level of instinct, one’s well-being: it is the

fear of death. Freud describes this first stage of moral development in the face of fear of death in this way.

If he loses the love of another person upon whom he is dependent, he also ceases to be protected from a variety of dangers. Above all, he is exposed to the danger that this stronger person will show his superiority in the form of punishment. At the beginning, therefore, what is bad is whatever causes one to be threatened with loss of love. For fear of that loss, one must avoid it.26

At this stage guilt is nothing other than “social” anxiety. In children this social anxiety

is fear of the loss of the love of the father or, perhaps, of both parents; in adults who have not progressed beyond this stage, the place of the parent or parents is taken by

the larger human community. In any case, the demands of society for conformity to its conventions are the demands of the father or of the parents. These demands are to

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the effect that the child give up trying to satisfy certain impulses that come upon him

or her instinctually; the child conforms, renounces the satisfaction of those impulses,

through fear, fear that the authority will not only withdraw his or her protective love but will also punish severely if the child tries to satisfy his instinctual impulses.

These demands are in fact none other than the price society asks of those who

wish to live in it. As Hume has argued, and as Freud agrees, many of these demands are reasonable. If one is to be at all social, then instinctual impulses to seize for one’s

own what others have appropriated must be curbed. This is the price of a reasonably satisfying life. Nonetheless, many of the instinctual impulses that are declared by our

conscience to be morally wrong are quite compatible with civil society. Society thus seems to ban more than the existence of civil society requires one to renounce. This is because the development of the super-ego, the moralization of social rules, is not a matter of responding to behaviour that does and behaviour that does not conform

to those rules, as Hume suggested. The development of a moral conscience is rather

the result of internalizing an authority that enforces those rules. In the practical life

of the child, the demands of civil society are the demands of the parental authority.

Or, more accurately, they are among the demands of parental authority, which also

demands, and places in the super-ego of the developing child, a variety of demands, some reasonable, some silly, some, such as the hatred of other groups, that are downright ugly, and, indeed, incompatible with some of the reasonable demands.

Parents are often unreasonable and inconsistent, and so, therefore, equally often, are super-egos. In the normal progress of human development, the demands of society

as mediated by the parental authority come to be internalized, felt as demands by the person upon him- or herself. “A great change takes place only when the authority is internalized through the establishment of a super-ego” (p. 72). It is this which is the origin of the sense of guilt which is so characteristic of morality.

Thus we know of two origins of the sense of guilt: one arising from fear of an authority, and the other, later on, arising from fear of the super-ego. The first insists upon a renunciation of instinctual satisfactions; the second, as well as doing this, presses for punishment,

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since the continuance of the forbidden wishes cannot be concealed from the super-ego.. .the severity of the super-ego...is simply a continuation of the severity of the external authority, to which it has succeeded and which it has in part replaced (p. 74).

There are advantages to the internalization of the threat. So long as the authority that is feared is external, the problem is that of being found out. Provided one is bright

enough, one can behave as a knave, and violate the rules of society. For, the bright

knave will not be found out, and so will never be punished. But the bright knave is a threat to the social order. The development of the super-ego makes the possibility of

the bright knave less likely. For, with a super-ego one must renounce not only the satisfaction of the instinctual impulse that violates the social conventions but the very

impulse itself. Originally, renunciation of instinct was the result of fear of an external authority: one renounced one’s satisfactions in order not to lose its love. If one has carried out this renunciation, one is, as it were, quits with the authority and no sense of guilt should remain. But with fear of the super-ego the case is different. Here, instinctual renunciation is not enough, for the wish persists and cannot be concealed from the super-ego. Thus, in spite of the renunciation that has been made, a sense of guilt comes about (p. 74). But instinctual impulses are part of oneself; they can never be made to disappear. However, the super-ego, too, is part of oneself. This higher stage of moral behaviour is thus achieved only at the cost of the self being at war as it were within

itself. The pain of guilt is eternal. Thus, the super-ego is an advance, but it is an advance that is achieved only at great cost. “A threatened external unhappiness - loss

of love and punishment on the part of external authority - has been exchanged for a permanent internal unhappiness, for the tension of the sense of guilt” (p. 75). But civilization, social existence, requires that moral rules extend from beyond the family

and the tribe to the whole of humanity, as Hume saw. Self-interest demands of the conventions of civil society that they extend that far. If they are to be moralized, then

conscience must be made to extend that far. Can it? Freud, quite correctly, wonders. If civilization is a necessary course of development from the family to humanity as a whole, then. . .there is inextricably bound up with it an

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increase of the sense of guilt, which will perhaps reach heights that the individual finds hard to tolerate (p. 80). The fact is, which people are apt too often to dispute, that, as Freud also says, “men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at most can defend

themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness” (p. 58). People have instinctual urges, and they are quite prepared to act to get these satisfied

if they can, even at the expense of others, even at the cost of murder and terror. As a result [of these instinctual impulses], [for every person] their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo hominid lupus [27] (p. 58). “Who,” continues Freud, “in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will

have the courage to dispute this assertion?” As Hume saw, mere convention, defended on the basis of self-interest, will not

suffice to curb the impulses that lead to the war of all against all with victory, if any, to the stronger, or, at least, the more cunning. We need, beyond convention, moral

sanctions. But the moral rules that bind us do not arise from something so nice as

sympathy; something so nice could not bind the instinctual urges that move us to violate the norms and conventions that alone make a decent and reasonably satisfying life possible. This something more is the internalization of a punishing parental and social authority. However, given the limitations of all of us, and more particularly all of us as

parents, given our fallibility as humans and our inclinations to succumb ourselves to our instinctual impulses, it turns out that our super-egos contain both too many moral

rules and too few. Too many: we find ourselves forbidding ourselves many things the achieving of which would, objectively, as a matter of fact, do little if anything to

endanger the social order. Too few: we internalize rules that limit our concerns to the

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family and the tribe rather than to the generality of humankind, as we must extend our

rules if, in the end, we are to meet the standards demanded by our own long-run self­ interest. It is the “too few” that is the problem. For, it applies equally to the other as

it does to me. It is this that calls into question our capacity to form moral rules that extend to the limits of the rules that are demanded by our long-run self-interest. If we are to moralize the conventions of civil society, with this morality extended to all of

humankind, then, as the Christian expression goes, 1 am called upon to “love my

neighbour as myself.” It seems unlikely that I can internalize such rules; it seems

equally unlikely that the other person can. But even if I can, then if the other person cannot, then he or she is a threat to me. The evidence seems to be that the other

person cannot. Not merely is this stranger in general unworthy of my love, I must honestly confess that he has more claim to my hostility and even my hatred He seems not to have the least trace of love for me and shows me not the slightest consideration. If it will do him any good he has no hesitation in injuring me, nor does he ask himself whether the amount of advantage he gains bears any proportion to the extent of the harm he does to me. Indeed, he need not even obtain an advantage; if he can satisfy any sort of desire by it, he thinks nothing of jeering at me, insulting me, slandering me and showing his superior power; and the more secure he feels and the more helpless I am, the more certainly I can expect him to behave like this to me. If he behaves differently, if he shows me consideration and forbearance as a stranger, I am ready to treat him in the same way, in any case and quite apart from any precept (p. 57). The norms that one internalizes may well bind one to local groups, to one’s family,

to one’s tribe. They do not extend to everyone. And that means in tum that one is free to act out one’s instinctual impulses relative to the other group, the group that one’s

internalized values lead one to identify as the “other,” the enemy. It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness (p. 60). Here, then, we have an account of the internalization of moral attitudes that

426 is located within the framework of the Humean worldview and justified on the basis

of the norms of empirical science. But where Hume, with the rather crude mechanism of sympathy, proposed that one could easily moralize the rules of civil society, Freud

now argues that this is in effect psychologically impossible. One can achieve a moralization of universal rules only at the cost of a psychological unhappiness that is likely, more often than not, to be unbearable. If civilization imposes such great sacrifices not only on man’s sexuality but on his aggressivity, we can understand better why it is hard for him to be happy in that civilization.

Primitive man, without civil society, was happier; no conscience flogged him to give up his instinctual impulses. Unfortunately, primitive man lived a very insecure existence; if the instincts were satisfied, none of the higher values dependent upon the existence of civil society were served, and in any case even the enjoyment of the

satisfactions of our primitive impulses could not be anything but precarious. In fact, primitive man was better off knowing no restrictions of instinct. To counterbalance this, his prospects of enjoying this happiness for any length of time were very slender (p. 62). Freud is arguing plausibly on the basis of a scientifically grounded psychology, one that is more deeply rooted than is Hume’s in the facts of human experience, that

our moral sentiments develop in response to the fear of death, to what are seen as

threats to our being and well-being. Psychologically, what curbs this fear of death and

makes a decent life possible is the development of a super-ego. Yet this super-ego limits the application of moral rules to groups that are smaller than the whole of humankind. The result, given the scarcity of resources, is a social situation in which

people, or groups of people, view each other as enemies, and treat each other accordingly: one ends up in the insecurity of the war of all against all, and faces the

threat of dissolution of self if the group that has become part of one’s identity should lose the war. Moral principles are developed in order to curb the fear of death; those

same principles make such a fear reasonable. How, then, can we cope9 One way is through the illusion of an ontology that

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is supposed to secure immortality through the contact of the self with eternal virtue. We cope by providing ourselves with the illusion that, in heeding the demands of our

conscience, of our super-ego, we are in touch with the eternal reality that secures our

immortality But this is the way of Tolstoy, the way of illusion

A second way is to secure the immortality of the individual by securing the endurance of the social group with whom the individual, through his or her super-ego, identifies. But this can succeed only through war, murder, and terror.

A third way is that proposed by Hume. On the one hand, develop a rational

view of reality; this will tell a tale about the nature of human being that establishes that “where death is, 1 am not,” and therefore that, so far as the dissolution of one’s person is concerned, there is nothing to fear in death. On the other hand, develop a system of social norms for civil society that can be justified in terms of one’s own

long-run self-interest, and in terms of the long-run self-interest of all persons striving to divide the scarce resources. But reason, it seems, is here in conflict not only with

instinct, as Hume assumed, but also with our super-ego, our moral sentiments, contrary to what Hume argued. Given the psychological facts about the development of the super-ego, it is clear that at best it can only with difficulty curb the instinctual

impulses to violate the norms of civil society. Moreover, given those same facts, it is clear that the super-ego, one’s moral sense, is going to bind oneself into a group rather more narrow than that required by the extensive concerns of long-run rational self-interest. Our moral sentiments are thus going to come into conflict with the attempts by long-run self-interest to establish conventions that extend beyond the

narrow reach of the local family, tribe, or group, to the whole of humankind. It seems, then, that Freud is correct in his argument that what is at the bottom of morality is not only the requirements of the social order but also the fear of death. Unfortunately, none of the ways in which one can begin to attenuate that fear of death

seem to work. And so ....

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On the one hand it seems as if we cannot live a reasonably satisfying life unless we can use reason and the facts of reality to curb the fear of death. If we allow beliefs

other than those of reality and reason to curb the fear of death, then we cannot live a reasonably satisfying life. Yet on the other hand it also seems that reason and the

facts of reality cannot curb the fear of death; if the job is to be done at all, it must be done by beliefs and moral sentiments other than those that are grounded in reality. Perhaps, in the end, then, we are confronted by a contradiction: a decent life is not

possible unless it is lived free from illusion nor is it possible unless it is supported by

illusion. Perhaps, in the end, only the heroic few can live the life that Epicurus first proclaimed as the ideal, a life that is reasonably satisfying, free of illusion, free of the fear of death.

To be sure, 1 would like to hope that there are in fact in human beings, Freud

notwithstanding, resources sufficient to create in the end a morality that at once conquers the fear of death and also rises above tribalism and succeeds in embracing

in a genuine way the precept to which we must conform if the rules of the civil society demanded by long-run self-interest are to be made the object of our moral

approbation. This is the precept that we love our neighbour as ourselves. But 1 cannot be sanguine in that hope; the facts testify pretty strongly to the contrary. Nor can I satisfy that hope by faith Perhaps in the end one must conclude, however reluctantly, that philosophy cannot everywhere conquer the fear of death. No more than it can

insist upon people being reasonable.

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NOTES

431

Notes to Chapter One

1 Quoted in Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, trans. Richard M. Grummere, 3 vols. (London: William Heinemann, 1925), “On the Futility of Planning Ahead,”

Epistle CI, vol. iii, p. 165. 2 Pliny, the Elder, Natural History, trans. H. Rachmann, 10 vols. (London: W.

Heinemann, 1938-63), vol. vii, 54.

3. Seneca, Epistle CI, p. 167. 4. Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes, trans. W. G. Shepherd, with Intro, by B. Radicel (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1983). 5. Seneca, Epistle CI, p 165.

6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Plato, Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis, Indiana. Hackett, 1977), 68d. 9 In Chapter Three. 10. Odyssey, Bk. 11,1. 43,1. 634, in Homer, The Odyssey, trans. E. V. Rieu, revised

C. H. Rieu (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1991), p. 160, p. 178.

11. Ibid., ii, 94, p. 162. Yl.Ibid., 11, 155, p. 163.

13. Ibid., 11, 217-22, p. 165. 14. Ibid., 11, 487-91, p. 173.

432 15. Robert Garland, The Greek Way ofDeath (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,

1985), p. 48.

16. Seneca, Epistle CI, p. 167. VI. Ibid.

18. Epistle Cl, pp. 166-7; quoting Virgil, “Usque adeone mori miserum est?”, Aeneid, xii, I. 646, translated by Jackson Knight as “But is it then so pitiable to die?” (p. 329);

see Virgil, Aeneid, trans, with Intro, by Jackson Knight (Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

Penguin, 1956).

19. Seneca, ibid. 20. Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. M. Grant, revised edition (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1989), Ch xv, p. 376.

ZVIbid., pp. 375-6.

22. Ibid., p. 376. 23. Ibid. 24. Luke, Ch. 22, verse 39.

25. Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza,

trans. R. H. M. Elwes, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1951), vol. II, “Note” to Part V,

Proposition 41. References will be by Part and Proposition, and, where necessary, by Corollary, Note, or Proof. 26. H. Wolfson has made the relevant point this way: “Of course, religion preaches that the love for God must be disinterested love, and that nothing is to be expected

in return, for then and then only will the love for God be the ultimate” (H. A.

Wolfson, The Philosophy ofSpinoza, 2 vols. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1934], vol. 2, p. 288). He goes on to refer to Spinoza, whom he suggests seems to argue that this “is humanly impossible. If God can love man, then man will love God in expectation that God will love him in return. The love for God thus

ceases to be the highest good; it becomes a commodity in trade.” He notes Spinoza’s

433

proposition that “He, who loves God, cannot endeavour that God should love him in

return” (Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, V, 19). 27. This is Camus’ definition of the absurd, as we shall see in Chapter Five. 28. Augustine, Confessions, trans, with Intro, by R. S. Pine-Coffin (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1961), Bk. X, sec. 38, p. 247.

29. Augustine, Confessions, X, 22, p. 229 30. Augustine, Confessions, IV, 12, p. 82. 31. Augustine, City of God, trans. H. Bettenson with Intro, by J. O’Meara

(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1984), Bk. XI, sec. 27, p. 461. 32. Augustine, Confessions, X, 41, p. 249.

33. Augustine, Confessions, X, 42, p. 250. 34. Ibid. 35. Augustine, Confessions, X, 43, pp 250-51. 36. Augustine, Confessions, X, 43, p. 251. 37. Cf. J. H Hagstrum, “On Dr. Johnson’s Fear of Death,” ELH (English Literary History), 14 (1947), pp. 308-319. 38. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (Modern Library Edition, Random

House: New York, 1950), p 34. 39. Life, p. 674; the quotation is from Johnson’s Prayers and Meditations. 40. Sir John Hawkins, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. B. Davis (Macmillan: New York, 1961), p. 257.

41. Ibid., pp. 244-5. 42. Hester Lynch Piozzi (Mrs. Thrale), Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. [in Arthur Sherbo, ed., William Shaw, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late

Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Hester Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the Late Samuel

434

Johnson, LL D (London: Oxford University Press, 1974)], p 97. 43. See William Agutter, On the Difference between the Deaths of the Righteous and the Wicked, Illustrated in the Instance of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and David Hume, Esq.: A Sermon Preached before the University of Oxford at St. Mary's Church, on

Sunday, July 23, 1786 (London: Philanthropic Reform, 1800).

44. Thus, for example, there is excellent discussion of ethical issues surrounding death in L. W. Sumner, “A Matter of Life and Death,” Nous, 10 (1976). But there is no

probing of the ontological presuppositions of the view of death. The same can be said of the various discussions in the excellent anthology, Ethical Issues in Death and

Dying, ed. T. Beauchamp and S. Perlin (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978).

45. See, for example, J. Glenn Grey, “The Problem of Death in Modem Philosophy,”

in W. A. Scott, ed., The Modern Vision ofDeath (Richmond: 1967), as well as other contributions to this collection.

46. One could mention Marcus Aurelius, for example. His Meditations are briefly

mentioned below, but these turn out to provide very little philosophical rationale justifying the attitudes that they recommend. They are more wisdom literature than philosophy, that is, reasoned philosophy. In this respect, Seneca is better for the purposes of this essay: he gives more of the relevant Stoic philosophical rationale.

One could also mention Boethius. But again, he does not add much to the tradition of Socrates, the Stoics, Plotinus, and Spinoza.

There are limits to what can be discussed, and choices must be made. I have selected those who seem to be the central philosophic figures. 47. I have not treated at all the Islamic and Judaic discussions of the appropriate

attitudes towards death. I would argue that, insofar as they are philosophical and not merely religious, they tend to fall into the tradition flowing from Socrates. As for the

Buddhistic tradition, my impression is that the texts are, like Marcus’, more wisdom literature than reasoned philosophy

435 However, for an interesting discussion that links contemporary philosophy and

the Zen Buddhistic tradition, see John V. Canfield, The Looking-Glass Self (New York: Praeger, 1990).

48. The fact that the central focus of the present essay is to come to grips with Camus’ views on death means that we can quite reasonably exclude such alternative

traditions as those mentioned in the preceding note.

49. For discussion of Hume’s supposed scepticism, see F. Wilson, Hume's Defence

of Causal Inference (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). 50. L. P. Gerson, “Plotinus’s Metaphysics: Emanation or Creation?” [Review of

Metaphysics, 46 (1993), pp. 559-74], has argued that the doctrine that Plotinus was

an emanationist in contrast to the creationism of Aquinas is a dogma forced on the philosophic community by E. Gilson. As Gerson points out, while in fact Plotinus uses the term ‘emanation’, he

nowhere defines it. Certainly, it can be argued, as Gerson argues, that Plotinus’ view is not akin to that of others who more clearly state a doctrine of emanation. In any

case, what is argued below is that for Plotinus the One actively unifies the parts of the world into the whole. Texts are produced to support this reading. But I do not go

further, leaving it open whether the unification is to be understood as involving an emanation or as involving a creative causal activity. That is, it is argued that there is a structuring casual activity, but its precise nature is left indeterminate: it is not

necessary for our purposes to further determine it. This in tum leaves open the precise

relation of Plotinus’ views to those of Aquinas. It certainly does not commit one to the view that the relation of the One to the (rest of the) universe is the creationist one of Aquinas and the Christian tradition.

437

Notes to Chapter Two

1 References to Lucretius’ great poem, On the Nature of Things, are by page to the translation of Ronald Latham (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1951). The texts for the study of Epicureanism can be found translated with

commentary in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol.

1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 2. Virgil, Georgies, trans. L. P. Wilkinson (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin,

1982), II, 490, p. 93.

Acheron is a river in Hades, the Underworld, and the wailings heard on this river stand for man’s fear of the afterlife. 3. Cf. E. Asmis, Epicurus ’ Scientific Method (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

1984), and J. L. Stocks, “Epicurean Induction,”Mind, n.s. 34 (1925), pp. 185-203. 4. This same model of explanation has been adopted by empiricists such as Bacon,

Hume and John Stuart Mill in more recent times, as well as by Russell and the positivists in this century.

For a recent defence of the model, see F. Wilson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel, 1985). See also F. Wilson, The Logic and Methodology ofScience and Pseudoscience (Toronto: Canadian Scholars

Press, 2000), especially Chapter One. 5. This pattern was defended in detail by Hume and John Stuart Mill.

For a recent defence, see F. Wilson, Laws and Other Worlds (Dordrecht, The

Netherlands: Reidel, 1986).

438 6. Technically, the notion of a pattern among patterns is the notion that regularities

can share a logical form.

For discussion of this idea, and its relevance for contemporary science, see F. Wilson, Empiricism and Darwin’s Science (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1991). The methodology of Epicurus is in fact simply that of empirical science.

7. For a discussion of this issue from a more recent perspective, see F. Wilson, The Logic and Methodology ofScience and Pseudoscience (Toronto: Canadian Scholars

Press, 2000), Ch. IV, sec. (iv).

8. References to Epicurus, unless otherwise noted, are by page to his Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings, trans, with Intro, and Notes by R M Geer

(Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, 1964) 9 Diogenes Laertius, Life of Epicurus, Geer, p. 6.

9 Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus, Geer, p 9. 10. Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus, Geer, p. 32.

11. Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles, Geer, p. 36. 12. F. H. Bradley, Essays on Truth and Reality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), pp

451-9. 13. To be fair, Bradley would likely not accept that argument In any case he goes on:

“If we are left with that [the thoughts that bring disquiet] and with no more than that,

we have obviously some cause for apprehension. It is here that religion, if we have

decent religion, should come to our aid. Any but an inferior religion must on the one

hand condemn all self-seeking after death. But on the other hand it will assure us that

all evil is really overcome, and that the victory (even if we do not understand how) lies with the Good” (p. 459). Religious faith thus stills the disquieting thoughts by

assuring us that, whatever happens, there is a guaranteed happy ending: “they all lived

happily ever after.” 14. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, Geer, p. 54.

439 15. Letter to Manoeceus, Geer, p. 55.

16. Thomas Nagel, “Death,” in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

17. Jeffrie G. Murphy, “Rationality and the Fear of Death,” Monist, 59(1976), p. 197. 18. Plutarch, “That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible,” in Plutarch, Moralia, vol. xiv [trans. B. Einarson and P. H. de Lacey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1967)], p. 147.

19. Ibid., p. 149. 20. Ibid., p. 147. 21. Ibid., p. 149. 22. Eg., S. E. Rosenbaum, “How to Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus,”

American Philosophical Quarterly, 23 (1986), p.. 217-225. 23. Ibid., p. 221. 24. Vatican Sayings, #31, Geer, p. 68. 25. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R. D. Hicks, 2 vols

(Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1958); Book X, “Epicurus,” p. 645.

26. Vatican Sayings, #66, Geer, p. 71.

27. Cf. L. W. Sumner, “A Matter of Life and Death,” Nous, 10 (1976). 28. Tern Horwitz, “My Death,” in J. Malpas and R. C. Solomon, eds., Death and

Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 14 29. Plato, Republic, trans. Grube, 329c.

30 Adam Smith to William Strahan, 9 November 1776, in J. Y. T. Greig, ed., The Letters of David Hume, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), vol. ii, p. 451.

440 31. Cicero, “On Old Age,” in Cicero, Selected Works, trans, with Intro. Michale

Grant (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1960), pp. 211-250, at p. 243 32 Seneca, “On Groundless Fears,” Ad Lucillium Epsitulae Morales, Epistle XIII, vol. i, p. 83.

33. This is the only source for this fragment from Epicurus; see H. Usenet, ed., Epicurea (Lipsiae: G. B. Tevener, 1887), fragment 494, p 308.

34 Seneca, Epsitle XIII, p 83. 35. The Cynics valued sensuous pleasures, and denigrated all else. For this they were

criticized by the Epicureans, who argued that one ought to value the social pleasures more highly. 36. See Jackson P. Hershbell, Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus, text, translation and

introduction (Chico, Calif: Scholars Press, 1981).

37. This is Edmund Spenser’s translation; see F. M. Padelford, ed.. The Axiochus of

Plato translated by Edmund Spenser (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934), pp 46-48 The standard reference to the platonic corpus is 366d-367b See Hershbell, p 35f.

38. For the connection between Spenser’s Axiochus and Shakespeare, see D. S. Hutchison, “The Cynicism of Jacques: A New Source in Spenser’s Axiochus?" Notes

and Queries, vol. 237, Sept. 1992, pp. 328-330. 39. Spenser’s translation, in Padelford’s edition in pp. 52-53. In the standard reference to the Platonic corpus, it is at 369b-369c. See Hershbell, pp. 41-42.

40. Cicero, “Of Old Age,” p 241.

41 Cicero, “Of Old Age,” p 246. 42. A more plausible view of human being than that of Nagel has been presented by Peter Loptson. “Death,” he tells us, “(my death) is bad because it ends the

constructibility of an edifice of value, part of which is not just individual value-items

or value-units, but an interwoven or interdependent dynamic, diachronically sustained

441

value-locus, a personal existence in ongoing trajectory” (“The Antimony of Death,” in J Malpas and R. C. Solomon, eds., Death and Philosophy [London: Routledge, 1998], p. 149), On Loptson’s view, human beings are involved in developing or

ongoing projects that create and sustain that which is valuable to oneself and to

others. But he shares with Nagel the view that this involvement in projects is one that is viewed as never-ending. So on Lopston’s view, too, human existence is one that

anticipates an “open-ended possible future... ” He thus shares with Nagel the thesis

that death is a bad end for us all. But Cicero is arguing against any view of human being that has it anticipating an “open-ended possible future...”. It applies to Nagel’s

argument. It applies equally to Loptson’s. 43. See note 28, above. 44. We shall have more to say about Hume’s attitude towards death in Chapter Four. 45. Principle Doctrines, #20, Geer, p. 62.

46. A somewhat similar point has been made by David Furley, “Nothing to Us?” in M. Schofield and G. Striker, eds., lite Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic

Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 75-91. 47. R. Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World, trans. R George (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1967), p. 297. 48 For this notion, see G. Bergmann, Philosophy of Science (Madison, Wise.:

University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), Chapter One 49. Cf. Peter Black, “Definitions of Brain Death,” in T Beauchamp and S. Perlin, eds., Ethical Issues in Death and Dying (Englewood Cliffs, N. J : Prentice-Hall, 1978).

50. Reprinted in Beauchamp and Perlin, Ethical Issues in Death and Dying.

51. Hans Jonas, “Against the Stream: Comments on the Definition and Redefinition of Death,” in Beauchamp and Perlin, Ethical Issues in Death and Dying.

442 52. On some of the issues concerning Heidegger, see J. Glenn Grey, “The Problem of Death in Modem Philosophy,” in N. A. Scott, ed., The Modern Vision of Death (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1967); P. Kostenbaum, The Vitality of Death (New

York: Greenwood Publishing, 1971); Calvin Schrag, Existence and Freedom

(Evanston, 111 : Northwestern University Press, 1961), J. Wild, The Challenge of Existentialism (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1959), P. Tillich, “The

Eternal Now,” W. Kaufman, “Existentialism and Death,” and H. Marcuse, “The Ideology of Death,” all in H. Feifel, ed., The Meaning of Death (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1959); P Edwards, “Existentialism and Death: A Survey of Some Confusions and Absurdities,” in S. Morgenbesser, P. Suppes, and M. White, eds., Philosophy, Science and Method (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), P. Edwards, “Heidegger and Death as ‘Possibility’,” Mind, n.s. 84 (1975), pp. 548-65; P.

Edwards, “Heidegger and Death: A Deflationary Critique,” Monist, 59 (1976), pp 161-85, P. Edwards, “My Death,” in P. Edwards, ed.. Encyclopedia of Philosophy

(New York: MacMillan, 1967), vol. 5, pp. 416-19; J. van Evra, “On Death as a Limit,” Analysis, 31 (1971), pp. 170-76. The best discussion of Heidegger’s general position is in R. Grossmann,

Phenomenology and Existentialism: An Introduction (London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul, 1984).

53. Heidegger’s translators don’t help: they translate bad German into worse English. They are apparently under the strange impression that Heidegger’s thought can be translated into English only if the syntax of our language is made through distortion to replicate the syntax of German

As for Heidegger’s neologisms, see the fine treatment of them in Gunter Grass’ novel, Dog Years, trans. R Mannheim (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1963),

p. 302ff, p. 345ff 54 M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E Robinson (Harper &

Row: New York, 1962); references are by page to this edition.

443

55. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, Geer, pp. 54-5.

56. S. E. Rosenbaum, “How to Be Dead and Not Care: A Defense of Epicurus,” p. 217.

57. “Death,” Mortal Questions, pp. 9-10. 58. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, p. 129. 59. Being and Time, p. 294.

60. On the Nature of Things, p. 121. 61. Being and Time, p. 179. 62. On the Nature of Things, p. 125.

63. Cicero, “Of Old Age,” p. 242.

445

Notes to Chapter Three

1. Letter to Menoeceus, Geer, p. 55. 2. Letter to Herodotus, Geer, p 9.

3. Letter to Menoeceus, Geer, p. 56. 4. Cicero, De Finibus, trans. H. Rackman, [vol. xvii of Cicero’s Works, in 28 vols. (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1971)], p. 59. 5. Principle Doctrines, #27, Geer, p. 63.

6. Vatican Sayings, #23, Geer, p. 67. 7. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, p. 205. 8. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, in R McKeon, ed., The Basic Works ofAristotle

(Random House: New York, 1941), Bk. 8.

9. Principle Doctrines, #31, Geer, p 63. 10. Ibid., # 33, pp. 63-4.

11. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, p. 202. 12. Xenophon, Memorabilia, trans. E. C. Marchant [vol. iv of Xenophon’s Works,

7 vols. (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1979)],

p. 351. 13. References will be to Plato, Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube.

14. Near present day Naples, in southern Italy.

446

15. Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. vi, 11. 270-5, in Virgil, The Aeneid, W F. Jackson Knight (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1958), p. 155.

16. Ibid., vi, 11. 745-51, p. 169. 17. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, p. 99. 18. Cf. G. Vlastos, “Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo,” Philosophical Review, 78

(1969); and R. G. Turnbull, “Aristotle’s Debt to the ‘Natural Philosophy’ of the Phaedo'’’ Philosophical Quarterly, 8 (1963). For greater detail on these patterns of explanation, see F. Wilson, Logic and

the Methodology of Science in Early Modern Thought: Seven Studies (Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1999); see Study One in particular. 19. It is worth noting that one may consistently hold that value judgments are relative

while also holding that there is universal agreement about certain basic values.

20. In David Bolotin, Plato’s Dialogue on Friendship: An Interpretation ofthe Lysis, with a New Translation (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York, 1979).

21. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, p. 202. 22. Plato, Protagoras and Meno, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1956).

23. Plato, Theaetetus, in F. M. Comford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1957).

24 Compare Aristotle: “...we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty

and vain)...” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1094a20-l). 25. T M. Robinson suggests that the view of the soul that one finds in the Phaedo is

an “ectoplasm theory” (T M. Robinson, Plato’s Psychology, second edition [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995], p. 30ff) “On this view,” we are told,

“soul is something like what spiritualists call ‘ectoplasm’ and ordinary people a ghost,

which can influence and be influenced by the body and the bodily, and is the body’s

447 exact non-material replica” (p. 30). But this account of the soul will not fit the

metaphysical position that Socrates develops. In particular, ectoplasm, whatever else

it is, while not solid is nonetheless material in the sense of being extended. If it is extended then it has parts. .And if it has parts it is not simple, and therefore cannot supply the unification that the Socratic pattern of explanation demands

26. S. Luper, Invulnerability: On Securing Happiness (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1996), suggests “Socrates is a classic example of a wishful thinker who strongly favors a heavy dose of death-proofing” (p. 129). However, to say that Socrates is a wishful thinker is to ignore the fact that Socrates in fact develops an argument for

immortality. Luper simply ignores the fact that Socrates is in fact a philosopher, not

just a wishful thinker. That Socrates’ arguments may not be sound does not negate

this basic point. 27. K. Dorter, Plato's Phaedo: An Interpretation (Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1982), suggests (p. 179ff) that the sort of soul defended in the Phaedo can be

compared to the modem concept of kinetic energy. There are two things wrong with this suggestion. In the first place, the soul is an activity with a purpose or end at which

it aims. This anthropomorphic feature of activity is absent from the modem concept of kinetic energy. In the second place, kinetic energy is something that is in the world

that we know by ordinary sense experience. To be sure, we do not know it directly by our senses, but we can measure it, operationally as one used to say, but in any case its presence is known a posteriori In contrast, the Forms are known a priori, they are not part of the world of ordinary sense experience. And the souls are, as Socrates

emphasizes, like the Forms: to know the Forms is, as we just saw, for the soul to “make its way to a region of the...noble and pure and invisible” (80d4-5).

28. K. Dorter, Plato's Phaedo: An Interpretation, perceptively remarks that the

arguments of the Phaedo “furnish [. . .] us with a sense of immortality closer to the discovery of eternity within ourselves than to unending individual perpetuity in time” (p. 77). He adds that Plato has not provided us “with grounds for belief in the survival

448 of our individual personality,” but rather “enabled us to perceive that a spark of etemality lies at the heart of our being” (//>.). However, according to Dorter the notion is that “the life within us is inseparable from the life that always was and always

will be” (zZ>.). On this notion the individual soul is not imperishable. It is to be sure

life, the active principle, and as such cannot, while existing, admit death (p. 155). In that sense it is immortal. But he suggests that for Plato “the soul was identified with

the motive force of the universe” and that “individual souls were particular instances

or portions of world-soul.” The individual soul, he proposes, perishes when it leaves the body; it perishes by returning to once again be an undistinguished part of the world-soul. But in this sense the soul is immortal: as a part, sometimes distinguished from, sometimes indistinguishable from the world-soul, it exists forever. As Dorter

puts it, “if the universe is to be perpetually active its motive force must be perpetual

as well, and soul must therefore be eternal” (p. 157). This makes immortality = eternity = omnitemporality. But this ignores that it is the realm of the Forms to which those souls that are purified by philosophy go on death (cf. Phaedo, 80d, 82b-c,

114c2-4). Immortality, then, is achieved by the soul joining the Forms. But the Forms are eternal not in the sense of existing forever, omnitemporally, but in the sense of being timeless, outside the world of time and change. This implies, it seems to me,

that Socrates (or Plato) is arguing that the soul of the philosopher achieves immortality through union with the Forms, and the immortality that is thereby achieved is the immortality, i e., eternity, timelessness, of the Forms. Dorter’s reading

is indeed suggestive concerning the relation of individual souls to the world-soul, but

it does, it seems to me, miss the real meaning to be attached to Socrates’ philosophical claim that the soul is immortal. 29. G M A. Grube, Plato's Thought (London Methuen, 1935), makes this point

when he indicates that Plato, when he takes the soul to be immortal, “considers it to be in some essential way akin to the eternal forms, changeless, simple, without parts, ever the same” (p. 129). However, Grube is wrong when he goes on to state that, since on this view

449 “the soul as here described is essentially the mind and the intellect,”

...there is an implied contradiction..., for if the philosopher has a passionate desire for truth he cannot be devoid of all emotion (ib.).

This ignores, however, that what is crucial are, as Grube put it earlier, “the activities of the soul” (p. 122; italics added). The soul is intrinsically active. As such it has, as

Socrates insists against the physicists, an intrinsic teleology. This teleology is that of imitating in its outward appearance the ideal Form of human virtue. This implies that

it has, contrary to Grube, an intrinsic drive towards or desire for the truth, for the Forms which define what human being most truly is. Given Socrates' characterization

of the soul as something that is intrinsically active, he has as it were built into the notion of soul the passionate desire for the truth that Grube suggests is missing.

There is, after all, no contradiction in the Socratic account of the soul to be found in the Phaedo It is of course not only in the Phaedo that Plato emphasizes that the soul is activity One finds the point also in the Phaedrus, for example, where Socrates argues that “all soul is immortal” and that soul is “that which moves itself’ (245c-e). In the

Laws, too, the soul is defined as “that which moves itself’ (895e-897b).

K. Dorter emphasizes that the soul is activity; see his Plato's Phaedo: An Interpretation, p. 40ff. Cf. also his comment that “the soul must be conceived not as

an immanent form but as an active principle” (p. 146). 30 Peter J. Ahrensdorf, The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), argues this means that the

philosopher can never purify himself sufficiently to merit everlasting happiness in an

afterlife (p. 106). It is therefore “unreasonable for any human being to hope for such happiness” (p. 107). Ahrensdorf therefore concludes that Socrates does not really

believe in an afterlife in which eternal, in the sense of everlasting, rewards are possible

(ib), that he “rejects the belief in personal immortality” (p. 199). Furthermore, Ml ... Socrates suggests that wisdom, or at least human wisdom, is indeed attainable in this life and hence that the goodness of the philosophic life does not, in fact, depend on the existence of an afterlife (ib.).

450

We have argued in agreement with Ahrensdorf that Socrates rejects the notion that

the soul is eternal in the sense of being everlasting or omnitemporal, and further, also

agreeing with him, that wisdom is achievable in this life. But it does not follow that the soul of the philosopher, one who lives life contemplating the Forms, the reasons

of things, does not achieve another sort of immortality that has the capacity to remove the fear of death. Ahrensdorf fails to recognize that the soul achieves this sort of

immortality when, through its capacity for rational intuition, it passes from the world of ordinary sense experience and change to the timeless and changeless world of the divine Forms.

31. Plato, Symposium, trans, with Introduction by Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford

University Press [Oxford World’s Classics], 1994). 32. For discussion of this ascent, see J. M. E Moravcsik, “Reason and Eros in the ‘Ascent’ Passage of the Symposium,” in J. P. Anton and G. L. Kustas, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1971).

33. Cf Grube, Plato’s Thought, p. 152. 34. Ibid., p. 158. 35. Plato, Apology, trans. Grube, 3 Idl. 36. Cf. Mark McPherran, “Socratic Reason and Socratic Revelation,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 29 (1991).

37. Ibid., pp. 365-6.

38. Cf. G. Vlastos, “Socratic Piety,” in his Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 157-158. 39. Ibid., p. 171.

40. Cf. McPherran, p. 361. 41. Grube, Plato’s Thought, p. 158.

451 42. Plutarch, “On the Sign of Socrates,” in his Moralia, vol. vii, trans. P. de Lacey

and B. Einarson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 372-512, at 455.

43. As the translators note (ibid}, ‘Aoyoc;’ can mean ambiguously the notion, that is, the Idea or Form, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the rational soul.

44. R Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955), p 186. 45. Ibid.

46 K. Dorter, Plato’s Phaedo: An Interpretation, p. 165. 47. Cf. Dorter, p. 166ff. 48. Thus, E. E. Harris, writing of Spinoza, states that in the latter’s metaphysics the soul “cannot be conceived, as it was by Plato in the Phaedo, as the continued

existence of a disembodied soul after death and dissolution of the body” (E. E. Harris, Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza's Philosophy [The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973], p. 230). What we are arguing, of course, as we shall see in more detail

in the next chapter, is that the view of immortality developed by Socrates in the

Phaedo is close indeed to that of Spinoza.

49. Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b30, in The Basic Works ofAristotle) indicates that the historical Socrates did not separate the Forms; so the ideas of Socrates in the Phaedo are more properly to be described as “Platonic.”

50. Aristotle, De Anima (in The Basic Works ofAristotle).

For greater detail on the Aristotelian patterns of explanation, see F. Wilson,

The Logic and Methodology of Science in Early Modern Thought: Seven Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), especially Study One.

51. Aristotle, Categories (in The Basic works of Aristotle). 52. Aristotle, Physics (in The Basic Works ofAristotle). 53. See also the discussion of these points in F Wilson, The Logic andMethodology of Science in Early Modern Thought, especially Study One.

452 54 Xenophon, Memorabilia, p. 287.

55. Cicero, De Finibus, p. 33. 56. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, Geer, p 56. 57. Epicurus, The Vatican Sayings, #21, Geer, p 67. 58 On Stoicism, see Johnny Christensen, An Essay on the Unity ofStoic Philosophy

(Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962); A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy , 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1986); A. A. Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (London: The Athlone Press, 1971); J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); J M. Rist, ed., The Stoics (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1978); L. Edelstein, The Meaning ofStoicism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966). The texts are translated with commentary in A. A. Long and D N. Sedley,

The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

59. Epictetus, Discourses, 3.3.22-4, trans W A. Oldfather, 2 vols. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1928), vol. ii, pp. 29-30.

60 For some of these differences, see F. Wilson, The Logic and Methodology’ of Science in Early Modern Thought: Seven Studies, Study Two.

61. Aristotle, Politics (in The Basic Works ofAristotle). 62. On this point about sympathy, see also S. Sambursky, Physics of the Stoics

(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), p. 2Iff, p. 82ff. 63. Page references are to the exposition of Stoicism found in vol. II of Diogenes

Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, two vols., trans. R D. Hicks (London:

Heinemann, 1925). References to this text will be in parentheses following the letters “DL”.

64. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. M. Staniforth (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:

Penguin, 1964), p. 151.

453

65. Seneca, “On the Happy Life,” in his Moral Essays, 3 vols., trans. J. W Basore

(Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1979), vol. ii, p. 107. 66. Seneca, “On the Terrors of Death,” Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Epistle IV,

vol. i, p. 17. 67. Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. S. McKenna, 4th ed. revised by B. S. Page,

Forward by E. R. Dodds, Intro by Paul Henry (London: Faber and Faber, 1969).

References are given by number of the Ennead, and, within the Ennead, to the

Tractate and chapter, plus the page number. Other translations of Plotinus are available. But I have found that students get a sense of the deep connections between Plotinus’ thought and religiosity through the

McKenna translation, in a way that they do not with other translations. I therefore tend to rely upon the latter when I refer students to the text.

68 Seneca, “On the Corporeality of Virtue,” Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Epistle CVI, vol iii, p 219.

69. Robin Waterfield points out similar echos in Origen and Augustine, and comments

that “In short, it sometimes seems as though it has become virtually impossible for the experience of spiritual ascent not to be clothed in the terminology of Diotima’s

speech” (“Introduction” to his translation of Plato’s Symposium, p. xxix). 70. Recall Jacques speech from As You Like It. And as will be remembered, Cicero too used the stage metaphor.

71. Meditations, p. 47. 72. Ibid., p. 70.

13. Ibid., p. 151. 74. The reference, ‘live at ease,’ is to Homer, Iliad, vi, 138. 75. Augustine, City ofGod, trans. H. Bettenson, Intro. J. O’Meara (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1984), X, 16, p. 394.

76. Augustine, City of God, VIII, 8, p. 310.

454 77. Augustine, Confessions, VII, 16, p. 151. 78. Ibid. 79. Augustine, City of God, XI, 27, p. 461. 80. Ibid.

81. Ibid. 82. Augustine, Confessions, X, 23, p. 229. 83. Augustine, Confessions, X, 38, p. 247.

84. Plutarch, “That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible,” p. 149. 85. Ibid., p. 145.

455

Notes to Chapter Four

1. This had just been published. 2. James Boswell, The Private Papers ofJames Boswellfrom Malahide Castle, ed.

G. Scott and F. A. Pottle, 18 vols. (Privately Printed: New York: 1928-34), vol. xii,

pp 227-32.

3. Ibid , p 232. 4. See Lucian, Works, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), vol. VII,

trans. M D. MacLeod. The Dialogues of the Dead are satires on the vanity of human wishes.

5. Adam Smith to William Strahan, 9 November 1776, in J. Y. T. Greig, ed., The Letters of David Hume, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), vol. ii, p. 451

6 John Wesley, On the Deceitfulness of the Human Heart, A Sermon Preached at

Halifax, 21 April 1790. In his Sermons on Several Occasions, in 2 vols. (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book-Room, 1853), vol. ii, pp. 763-72. 7. William Agutter, On the Difference between the Deaths of the Righteous and the

Wicked, Illustrated in the Instance of R. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, Esq , A

Sermon Preached before the University of Oxford, 23 July 1786 (London: Philanthropic Reform, 1800)

8. Boswell, Life ofJohnson, p. 366. The reference in the passage is to Samuel Foote, the actor, playwright and satirist. Johnson enjoyed his wit but despised his person. In

making this comparison, Johnson was no doubt intending to convey as negative an

456 evaluation of Hume as he made of Foote.

9. Joseph Black to Adam Smith, 26 August 1776, in Greig, The Letters of David Hume, vol. ii, p. 449. 10. This reading of Hume has gradually emerged over the last few years. Especially

relevant has been the work of Livingston, Ardal, Capaldi, Jones, Forbes, and Wilson: P A. Ardal, “Some Implications of the Virtue of Reasonableness in Hume’s

Treatise," in Hume: A Re-Evaluation, ed D. Livingston and J. King (New York:

Fordham University Press, 1976); N. Capaldi, David Hume: The Newtonian Philosopher (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975); D. Forbes, Hume's Philosophical

Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); P. Jones, Hume's

Sentiments (Edinburgh: University ofEdinburgh Press, 1975), D. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy ofCommon Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984),F. Wilson,

“Hume and Derrida on Language and Meaning,” Hume Studies, 12 (1986), pp 99121; “Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference,” Dialogue, 22 (1983), pp. 661-94; “Hume’s Defence of Science, "Dialogue, 25 (1986), pp. 611-28; “Is Hume a Sceptic

with Regard to Reason9” Philosophy Research Archives, 10 (1984), pp. 275-320; “Was Hume a Sceptic with Regard to the Senses?” Journal of the History of

Philosophy, 27 (1989), pp. 49-73; “Was Hume a Subjectivist?” Philosophy Research

Archives, 14 (1989), pp. 247-82; “Hume’s Fictional Continuant,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, 6 (1989), pp 171-88; Laws and Other Worlds (Dordrecht, The

Netherlands: D. Reidel, 1986); Hume's Defence of Causal Inference (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). 11 For a discussion of Clarke and Butler, see. F. Wilson, Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy ofJohn Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), p

24ff. 12. Cf the important study ofD. F. Norton, David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist,

Sceptical Metaphysician (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); also F.

Wilson, Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy ofJohn Stuart Mill.

457

13. It is standardly accepted that Hume is a sceptic about causation. For an extended argument that this is a serious misreading of Hume, see F. Wilson, Hume's Defence

of Causal Inference, where the case is made that, if there is a problem of induction

that was discovered by Hume, it is also true that the problem was solved by Hume.

14. See S. P Kashap, ed., Studies in Spinoza: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), M. Greene, ed., Spinoza (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1973); and H. A Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols.

(New York: Schocken Books, 1969).

15. Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, trans. R. H. M. Elwes. References, unless otherwise noted, are by Part and Proposition.

16. H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, vol. II, p. 289ff. 17. For further criticism of Wolfson’s description of the Spinozistic soul, see E. E.

Harris, Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza’s Philosophy, p. 243ff. 18. H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, vol. II, pp 292.

19. Compare H F. Hallett: The perfection of the whole ... must already contain all the stages of its achieving, not sub specie durations as stages external to one another and to their end, and leading up to perfection, but sub speciei aeternitatis, and after the manner in which premises are contained in their explained conclusion ...

[Aeternitatis: A Spinozistic Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 59],

20. In the translation we are using the passage that Wolfson is quoting is this: “...the

mind is, only while the body endures, subject to emotions which are attributable to passions” (V, xxxiv, Prf).

21. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, vol. II, p. 309. 22. David Savan, “Spinoza on Man’s Knowledge of God: Intuition, Reason, Revelation, and Love,” in Barry Kogan, ed., Spinoza: A Tercentenary Perspective

(Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, 1978), pp.

458

80-103, at lOOff. 23. Cf. H F Hallett: the eternity of the whole implies and includes that of every part which in its measure reproduces the whole. To deny the reality and eternity of such parts is to evacuate the whole Our eternity is thus one with our relative wholeness as real parts of the infinite whole. It does not lie in the past or in the present or in the future, but our past, present, and future lie within it, transformed and ‘livelier than life’; integrated, expounded, redeemed, stabbed broad awake. (Aetemitatis, p. 323).

24. Savan, p. 99. 25. Compare H F. Hallett: As potencies ... mind and body are identical; as actualities they are distinct. But neither mere potency not mere actuality are possible existents; what exists is potency-in-act, and thus body and mind are at once identical in potent source and disparate in actual presence.

[Creation, Emanation and Salvation (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962), p 120],

26. Cf. Hallett: The union of mind and body is ... not a union of two compresent objects, one psychical and the other physical, but of two agents, omnino dtversa and omnino conviens. In other words, it is a modal expression of the substantial identity of the Attributes of Thought and Extension. For intellect Thought and Extension are potencies-in-act wholly diverse, but as Substance (z. e. Natura naturans) these potencies are not differentiated. So also with mind and body, though for thought they are wholly diverse ... , yet their agency is integral..

[Creation, Emanation and Salvation, p 120]

27. It is therefore incorrect to suggest, as Wolfson does, that “The mind, according to Spinoza, is not merely a physiological function of the body which is born with the

body and which must completely disappear with it. This is only true of some of its functions” (The Philosophy of Spinoza, vol. II, p 291). In the first place, and most importantly, no part of the mind is correctly characterized as a “physiological

function' of the body. There is, rather, a parallelism of mental states and bodily states,

459 both expressing in their own way the eternal essence of the person in God’s mind. In the second place, it is misleading to speak of mind not completely disappearing with the body. For, to say that is to imply that there is no parallelism: it is to imply that

mind and body are after all not completely parallel. But that is wrong. To the contrary, for Spinoza, if the body as created entity ceases to exist in the temporal order, then so does the mind as created entity cease to exist in the temporal order. 28. For a discussion of the ontological argument for God’s necessary existence, see F. Wilson, The Logic and Methodology of Science in Early Modern Thought, Study

Seven (“Descartes’ Defence of the Traditional Metaphysics”). 29 Compare E. E Harris: The body is thus revealed as the vehicle of God’s own self-revelation in and through the mind of man. The power of God, causing the infinite system of modes which is nature, and working immanently throughout that system and produces man’s body, as it produces all others, and pari passu produces man’s mind, the idea of his body, which it then urges through a process of internal development from imaginatio to scientia intuitiva and to a revelation of God’s own infinite and eternal nature the supreme object of perfect and unadulterable love. It is the love of God himself, by which in one and the same act he loves himself and his creation, including man. In short, it is a union or self-identification of man with God

(Salvation from Despair, p. 241). 30. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). References to the

Treatise will be made in parentheses, with a “T” followed by the page number.

Hume also discussed in a more popular way the specific issue of the immortality of the soul in his essay “Of the Immortality of the Soul” (D Hume,

Writings on Religion, ed., A. Flew [La Salle, III : Open Court, 1992]). This essay was apparently originally intended for publication in the Treatise, but was suppressed by

Hume as being too provocative. He proposed during his life to publish it in a

collection of essays, along with his essay “Of Suicide,” but again was advised that they were too provocative. They both were published only posthumously.

31. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, Second Edition (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1902).

460 32. John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. A C. Fraser, 2 vols.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895). References, unless otherwise noted, are to Book, Chapter, and numbered paragraph. 33. N. Malebranche, De la Recherche de la Verite, ed. G. Rodin-Lewis, in 3 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1962), vol. II, p. 200, p. 203.

34. Cf. F. Wilson, “Acquaintance, Ontology and Knowledge,” The New

Scholasticism, 54 (1970), pp. 1-48

35.1 have defended this account of causation in detail in F. Wilson, Lawsand Other Worlds, see also F. Wilson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction, and Hume 's

Defence of Causal Inference. 36. Cf. F. Wilson, “Hume’s Theory of Mental Activity,” in D F. Norton, N. Capaldi,

and W Robison (eds ), McGill Hume Studies (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1979), pp. 101-120. 37. Hume distinguishes a natural tendency as something essential or necessary (T, p.

484) and a tendency being natural as a malady is natural (T, pp. 225-226). The clear thinker can, in principle at least, keep the two definitions of “cause” distinct and not

fall into the illusion of the existence of an objective necessary connection (T, p 170);

but there are tendencies in thought that lead the inattentive mind (which is what most of us are, most of the time) to fiise, that is, confuse, the two distinct ideas of “cause”

(T, pp. 168-169). That most of us most of the time speak as if there were objective necessary connections- even Hume acknowledges that he so speaks (T, pp. 273-274)

- is thus understandable in naturalistic terms. It is natural as diseases are natural. 38. Hume indicates in his suppressed essay “Of the Immortality of the Soul” that there can be no argument a priori for the existence of a simple substantial immaterial self.

just metaphysics [that is, the metaphysics of the Treatise} teaches us that the notion of substance is wholly confused and imperfect, and that we have no other idea of any substance than as an aggregate of particular qualities, inhering an unknown something. Matter, therefore, and spirit are at bottom equally unknown; and we cannot

461 determine what qualities may inhere the one or the other. They [that is, just metaphsyics] likewise teach us, that nothing can be known a priori concerning cause and effect, and that experience being the only source of our judgments of this nature, we cannot know from any other principle whether matter, by its structure of arrangement, may not be the cause of thought. Abstract reasonings cannot decide any question of fact or existence (pp. 29-30). 39. Here is how Hume put this point about the empirical self being composed of

separable parts in his essay “Of the Immortality of the Soul”: “Nothing in this world is perpetual Every being, however seemingly firm, is in continual flux and change: The world itself gives symptoms of frailty and dissolution: How contrary to analogy,

therefore, that one single form, seemingly the frailest of any, and from the slightest causes, subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal and indissoluble? What a daring theory is that! How lightly, not to say how rashly entertained!” (p. 36).

40. Hume was to point out the intimate connection of person and body in his essay “Of the Immortality of the Soul” : “Everything is in common between soul and body. The organs of the one are all of them the organs of the other The existence therefore

of the one must be dependent on that of the other” (p. 36).

41. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, Second Edition, 1946 (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1971), p. 165.

42. Ibid., p. 168.

43. M. de Montaigne, An Apology for Raymond Sebond, trans. M. A. Screech

(London: Penguin, 1987), p. 11. 44. Apology, p. 12. 45. Apology, p. 90. 46. Cf. T. Penelhum, God and Scepticism (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1983). 47. F. R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928).

462 48 A. Plantinga, God and Other Minds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967). However, I have argued elsewhere that Plantinga’s case about the irrationality of

belief in other minds is mistaken; see F. Wilson, "Why I Do Not Experience Your

Pain,” in M. Gram and E. Klemke, eds., The Ontological Turn: Essays in Honour of Gustav Bergmann (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1974), pp. 276-300. 49. Apology, pp. 185-6.

50. Apology, p. 130. 51. Apology, pp. 189-90. 52. This is the reading of Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy ofDavid Hume (New

York: Macmillan, 1941); R H. Popkin, “David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and his

Critique of Pyrrhonism,” in V. C. Chappell, ed., Hume (New York: Doubleday, 1966); R. Fogelin, Hume’s Scepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature (London: Henley, 1985); and B Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).

53. D. Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. N. K. Smith, Second Edition (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947).

54. Cf. S. Tweyman, Scepticism and Beliefin Hume 's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1986)

55. A. Baier, A Progress of Passions (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). Page references to this book are given in parentheses.

56. He does so in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, sec xii. 57. Cf. F. Wilson, The Logic and Methodology ofScience in Early Modern Thought, Study Five.

58. Hume notes in his essay “Of the Immortality of the Soul” that

All doctrines are to be suspected which are favoured by our passions. And the hopes and fears which give rise to this doctrine [that of immortality] are very obvious (p. 38).

463

59. For the latter, see D Gauthier, “David Hume: Contractarian,” Philosophical

Review, 89 (1979), pp. 3-38. 60. D. F. Norton, David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician

61. See P Ardal, “Some Implications of the Virtue of Reasonableness in Hume’s

Treatise,” in D. Livingston and J. King, eds., Hume: A Re-valuation (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976). 62. D. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

63. See F. Wilson, Hume 's Defence of Causal Inference, “Was Hume a Sceptic with

regard to the Senses?”; “Was Hume a Subjectivist?”; “Hume’s Fictional Continuant”; and “Substance and Self in Locke and Hume,” in Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. J. Gracia and K Barber (Albany, New York: The State

University of New York Press, 1994), pp. 155-200. See also F. Wilson, “Ardal’s / Contribution to Philosophy,” in Pall Ardal, Passions, Promises and Punishment (University of Iceland Press: Reykjavik, 1998). 64. Livingston, Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life. 65. Hume, Letters, ed J. Y. T. Grieg, (Oxford, 1932), vol. 1, p 201 66. P. Jones, Hume's Sentiments (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1982), p. 146.

67. Ibid., Ch. 4. 68. Ibid., p. 146.

69. Ibid., p. 144. 70. This long argument has been examined in detail in F. Wilson, Hume's Defence of

Causal Inference. 71. See Baier, p. 15-27.

464 72. These remarks by Hume occur in the “Conclusion” to Book I of the Treatise. The structure of this passage has been examined in detail in F. Wilson, “Is Hume a Sceptic with regard to Reason7”

73. On reason as a virtue, see also P. Ardal, “Some Implications of the Virtue of Reasonableness in Hume’s Treatise” and F. Wilson, “Hume’s Defence of Science.”

74. Apology, p. 186. 75. M. de Montaigne, “On Physiognomy,” in his Essays, trans. J. Cohen (London: Penguin, 1957), p. 338.

76. “On Physiognomy,” p 336. 77. “On Experience,” Essays, p. 354. 78. “By various experiments, experience has led to art, example showing the way.” Manilius, I, 59.

79. “On Experience,” pp. 343-4. 80. “On Experience,” p. 354. 81. “On Experience,” p. 400. 82. Ibid., p. 403. 83. R. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (New York:

Humanities Press, 1964), provides a convincing argument that Descartes’ project aimed to provide a reply to Montaigne. For an extended evaluation of Descartes’ defence of the traditional

metaphysics, see F Wilson, The Logic and Methodology ofScience in Early Modern

Thought, Study Seven. 84 Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. A. J Krailsheimer (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:

Penguin, 1966), #131 (Brunschvicg # 82), p 62. [The first “#” refers to the Pensee in the now standard French edition; the second to the earlier Brunschvicg edition ]

85. Ibid., pp. 62-3.

465

86. Ibid., p. 63. 87. Ibid., p. 64. 88. Pensees, #110 (Brunschvicg # 282), p. 58. 89. Ibid.

90. Pensees, # 170 (Brunschvicg # 268), p. 83.

91 Pensees, # 427 (Brunschvicg # 194), pp. 158-9. 92. Ibid., p. 157. 93. Ibid., p. 156; emphasis added. 94. D. Hume, Natural History ofReligion, ed. H. E. Root (Stanford, Calif: Stanford

University Press, 1957), p. 27. 95. Ibid., p. 65. 96. D Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, p. 225.

97. Ibid. 98. Natural History, p. 28. 99. Natural History, p. 29; Enquiries, p. 133. 100. Natural History, p. 75. 101. Natural History, p. 28 102. See Treatise, Bk. I, Part IV, Sec. iii.

103. Natural History, p. 29. 104. Seneca, AdLucillium Epistulae Morales, vol. II, Epistle LXX (“On the Proper

Time to Slip the Cable”), pp. 58-9. 105. That is, in the technical sense of the Stoics, are neither good nor evil. ■ 106. Presumably D. Junius Brutus, who managed to incur the enmity ofboth Octavian and Antony. He was ignominiously put to death by a Gaul while fleeing to join

466 Marcus Brutus, the assassin of Caesar, in Macedonia. 107. Seneca, Ad Lucillium Epistulae Morales, vol. II, Epistle LXXXII (“On the

Natural Fear of Death”), pp. 247-9. 108. Ibid., Epistle LXX (“On the Proper Time to Slip the Cable”), vol. II, p. 61 109. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1925 translation), Part II-II, Q. 64, Art.

5, “Whether It Is Lawful to Kill Oneself.” Reprinted in Ethical Issues in Death and Dying, ed. T. Beauchamp and S. Perlin (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978). Pages references are to the latter.

110. Augustine, City of God, i, 20. 111. Reprinted in Beauchamp and Perlin, Ethical Issues in Death and Dying. Page

references are to this publication. 112. London, s.n , 1695

113. The identification of Gildon with “Lindamour” can be found in the DNB. 113. There is no pagination for this essay in defence of Blount; references will be made to pages counting from the first page of the essay The present reference is to p 7. 114. D. Hume, “Of Suicide,” in T. Beauchamp and S. Perlin, eds., Ethical Issues in

Death and Dying, pp 105-110, 115. Cf. T. Beauchamp, “An Analysis of Hume and Aquinas on Suicide,” in T.

Beauchamp and S. Perlin, eds., Ethical Issues in Death and Dying, pp. 111-121. 116. Note the significance of this as a reply to Johnson Boswell, recall (see the

passage cited by note 8), had remarked that “Foote, Sir, told me, that when he

[Hume] was very ill he was not afraid to die.” To which Johnson had replied that “It is not true, Sir. Hold a pistol to Foote’s breast, or to Hume’s breast, and threaten to

kill them, and you’ll see how they behave” (Boswell, Life ofJohnson, p. 366 ). Hume

would reply that it is utterly reasonable to expect any person with a pistol to his or her

breast would seek to flee or in some other way counter the threat: “...such is our natural horror of death that small motives will never be able to reconcile us to it...”.

467 We would likely, now after Darwin, add that our natural horror of death is

biologically determined by natural selection: such an impulse makes us biologically more fit.

There are no doubt similar good biological reasons why, as we become old, this natural horror of death becomes attenuated, why towards our natural ends we no longer fear such an end.

117. R. M. Hare, ‘“Nothing Matters’,” reprinted in E. D. Klemke, ed., The Meaning ofLife (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). Pages references are to this edition.

118. Kurt Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” reprinted in E. D. Klemke, The Meaning of Life. Page references are to the latter.

119. A J. Ayer, “The Claims of Philosophy,” in M. Natanson, ed.. Philosophy of the Social Sciences (New York: Random House, 1963). 120. Kurt Baier, p. 105. 121 Kai Nielson, “Linguistic Philosophy and ‘The Meaning of Life’,” reprinted in

Klemke, The Meaning of Life. Page references are to the latter. 122. Nielson, p. 193. 123. Leo Tolstoy, My Confession, reprinted (in part) in Klemke, ed., The Meaning

ofLife. Pages references are to this edition. 124. Nielson, p. 189. 125. It is, perhaps, “wishful thinking,” in the sense in which S. Luper has accused

Socrates of indulging in wishful thinking; see Luper, Invulnerability, p. 129. 126. Nielson, p. 203. 127. Ibid. 128. Weston LaBarre, The Human Animal (Chicago. University of Chicago Press,

1954); quoted in Nielson, p. 197. 129. Nielson, p. 197.

469

Notes to Chapter Five

LED. Klemke, “Living without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life,” in E.

D Klemke, ed., The Meaning ofLife, pp. 162-74.

2. Notice how Klemke simply ignores that claim, defended from Aristotle on by those in this tradition, that the soul becomes identified with the Form. The Form constitutes the objective value, but being the soul it moves the person in the determined direction. This claim may be wrong - Hume would of course so argue. The point is that it

cannot simply be ignored, as Klemke seems to do.

3. See note 127, Chapter Four. 4. T. Nagel, “The Absurd,” in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1979), pp. 11-23. 5.

Kurt

Baier,

“The

Meaning

of Life,”

in

E.

D.

Klemke,

ed.,

The Meaning ofLife.

6 Kurt Baier, “The Meaning of Life,” p. 105

7. Ibid. 8. B. Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in his Mysticism and Logic (London:

Longmans, Green & Co., 1918), pp. 46-57, at 47-8 9

Cf. Jeffrey Gordon, “Nagel or Camus on the Absurd?” Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, 45 (1984), pp. 15-28. 10. A. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. J. O’Brien (New York: Vintage Books,

1955). All references to this will be given by “MOS” followed by the page number.

This edition contains several essays besides the novel from which the collection takes

470 its title. References to these essays will be given by “MOS/e" followed by page

number.

I have found the following books useful: Brian T. Fitch, Narrateur et Narration dans L’Etranger d'Albert Camus: Analyse d'un Fait Litteraire, Second

Edition (Archives des Lettres Modernes, 6 [I960]), Brian T. Fitch, L’Etranger d'Albert Camus: Un texte, ses lecteurs, leurs lectures: etude methodologique (Paris:

Librairie Larousse, 1972); M.-G Barrier, L 'Art du recit dans L 'Etranger d'Albert Camus (Paris: A. G. Nizet, 1962); and R. Quilliot, The Sea and Prisons: A

Commentary on the Life and Thought ofAlbert Camus, trans. E. Parker (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1970). The best brief discussion of Camus’ philosophy remains H. Hochberg, “Albert

Camus and the Ethics of Absurdity,” Ethics, 75 (1964-5), pp. 87-102. See also R.

Wollheim, “The Political Philosophy of Existentialism,” Cambridge Journal, 7 (1954), pp 3-19. 11. A. Camus, The Outsider, trans. S. Gilbert (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin,

1961). All references will be given by “OUT” followed by the page number. 12. Compare the essays on The Outsider in G. Bree, ed , Camus: A Collection of

Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N J : Prentice-Hall, 1962), and the following studies: A. King, Camus (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1964), Chapter IV, P. Freud,

The Art of Reading the Novel, revised edition (New York: Collier Books, 1965), Chapter 27; and John Cruickshank, Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt

(London: Oxford University Press, 1959).

13. We see here again the rhetorical dramatization of the situation: why is it a “wild” longing? Why, indeed, is it a “longing”? 14. But see in particular J. N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation and the One (Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1967).

15. Note the same academical sceptical stance that was previously adopted and defended by Hume.

471

16. This echoes Hume, and has been echoed in turn by Klemke 17. Pensees, # 427 (Brunschvicg # 194), pp 158-9. 18. G. R. G. Mure, The Philosophy of Hegel (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 60-1.

19. Quoted in S. E D Shortt, The Search for an Ideal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), p. 93. 20. See also F. Wilson, “Acquaintance, Ontology, and Knowledge.” 21. Cf. F. Wilson, “Hume's Theory of Mental Activity”; T. Beauchamp and T. A

Mappes, “Is Hume Really a Sceptic about Induction?” American Philosophical Quarterly, 12 (1975), pp. 119-134, N. Capaldi, David Hume. 22. Cf. Wilson, “Hume’s Theory of Mental Activity” and Hume's Defence of Causal Inference', and also A. J. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge (Harmondsworth,

Middlesex: Penguin, 1956), p.75.

23. In pursuing this line of reflection, Hume shows greater sensitivity to the issues than do Nagel, Kurt Baier or Klemke.

24. See also F. Wilson, Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference. 25. Augustine, Confessions, X, 23, p. 229.

26. Pensees, # 427 (Brunschvicg # 194), pp. 158-9. 27. In recognizing that such regret is pointless, Meursault is disagreeing with Nagel’s claim that with death we arrive at a “a bad end [which is] is in store for us all.”

28 As D. F. Norton has reminded us. 29. This, of course, is the point later taken up by Nagel, Kurt Baier and Klemke. 30. See also Albert H. Smith, “Eden as Symbol in Camus’ L Etranger,” Romance

Notes, 9 (1967), pp. 1-5.

31 A. King, Camus, p. 25.

472 32. H. Hochberg, “Albert Camus and the Ethic of Absurdity,” p. 92 33. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II-II, Q. 64, Art 5, “Whether It Is Lawful to Kill Oneself,” in Ethical Issues in Death and Dying, ed. T Beauchamp and S. Perlin (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978), p. 103.

34. Stendahl, Memoirs of Egotism, ed. M Josephson, trans. H. and M. Josephson

(New York, McGraw-Hill: 1949), p. 43. 35 . In contrast, perhaps, to the dissociation of sensibility of which T. S. Eliot talks. Certainly, Eliot would see the dissociation setting in before I would. See his 1921

essay, “The Metaphysical Poets”, reprinted in T. S. Eliot, Selected Prose, ed. J.

Hayward (Harmondsworth, Middlesex. Penguin, 1953), pp. 105-114.

36. Jane Austen, Emma, Riverside Edition, edited with an Introduction by Lionel

Trilling (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957). All references to this will be given by “E” followed by volume and chapter number.

37. D. Jefferson, Jane Austen's Emma: A Landmark in English Fiction (London: Sussex University Press, 1977).

38. “Jane Austen and the Moralists,” The Oxford Review, 1 (1966), pp. 5-18;

reprinted in S. P. Rosenbaum, ed., English Literature and British Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 168-84. Page references are to the

latter. 39. Cf. N. K. Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1964).

Hume explicitly mentions both Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in the “Introduction” to the Treatise (T, p. xxi).

40. The Letters ofDavid Hume, ed J. Y. T. Greig (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), vol. I, p. 34.

41. D. Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding and concerning the

Principles ofMorals, p. 233. 42. I owe this point to C. Ruth Wright.

473

43. Cf. R. Williams, The Country and the City (London: Chatto and Windus, 1973), Chapter 11.

44. Ibid., p. 115. 45. Alice Kaminsky, “On Literary Realism,” in L. Halpern, ed., The Theory of the Novel: New Essays (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 230.

46. R. Ingarden, The Cognition of a Literary Work of Art, trans. R. Cowley and K.

Olson (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. xvi But my use is not quite that of Ingarden: his is too much loaded with the non-empiricist theories of the

phenomenological tradition of which he is a part. 47. Cf. Wilson, Laws and Other Worlds. 48. S. D. Ross, Literature and Philosophy (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969), p. 179. A similar conclusion is drawn in W. M. Manley, “Journey to / Consciousness: The Symbolic Pattern of Camus’s L ’Etranger,” PMLA, 19 (1964),

pp. 321-328.

49. G. Bree, Camus, Revised Edition, (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1972), p. 115.

50. E. Zola, “The Experimental Novel,” in his The Naturalist Novel, ed with Intro.

by Maxwell Geismar (Montreal: Harvest House, 1964), pp. 1-32.

Commenting on Balzac, Zola writes that It is ... evident that there is not only observation there, but that there is also experiment; as Balzac does not remain satisfied with photographing the facts collected by him, but interferes in a direct way to place his character in certain conditions, and of these he remains the master... In fact, the whole operation consists in taking facts in nature, then in studying the mechanism of these facts, acting upon them, by the modification of circumstances and surroundings, without deviating from the laws of nature. Finally, you possess knowledge of man, scientific knowledge of him, in both his individual and social relations (p. 5).

474 51. Cf. G Bergmann, "Dispositions and Dispositional Properties,” Philosophical

Studies, 6 (1955), pp. 77-80. 52. As Zola puts it, “The problem is to know what such a passion, acting in such a surrounding and under such circumstances, would produce from the point of view of

an individual and of society; and an experimental novel. . . is simply the report of the experiment that the novelist conducts before the eyes of the public” (“The

Experimental Novel,” p. 5).

53. Henry James, The Art ofFiction, in The Portable Henry James, ed., M D. Zuabil

(New York: Viking, 1971), p. 405. Of course, Zola worked for his experiments in the “salon of life” in contrast to the “social salon” where James conducted his experiments; but that does not make the approach of the two novelists any the less

experimental. Nor are they any the less equally experimental because Zola uses an

omniscient narrator while James uses the technique of the central consciousness to

present the events related in the novel. 54. In fact, so confident is Hume himself that there is no such craving for immortality

that he uses its absence to give an argument against immortality. Were our horror of annihilation an original passion, not the effect of our general love of happiness, it would rather prove the mortality of the soul. For as nature does nothing in vain, she would never give us a horror against an impossible event

This is not to say that we do not attempt to avoid death. But this too is part of nature’s plan. She [nature] may give us a horror against an unavoidable event, provided our endeavours, as in the present case, may then remove it to some distance. Death is in the end unavoidable, yet the human species could not be preserved, had not nature inspired us with an aversion towards it. (“Of the Immortality of the Soul,” p 38.) The point is that such an aversion to life-threatening situations is not the same as a

lust or craving for immortality.

55. Cf. C Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1961), chapter VI, and L. Orr, “Vraisemblance and Alienation Techniques: The

475

Basis for Reflexivity in Fiction,” Journal ofNarrative Technique, 11 (1981), pp. 199-

215.

56. Stewart Sutherland, “Imagination in Literature and Philosophy: A Viewpoint on

Camus’ ‘L’Etranger’,” British Journal ofAesthetics, 10 (1970), pp. 261-70. 57. Stewart Sutherland, “Imagination in Literature and Philosophy: A Viewpoint on

Camus’ ‘L’Etranger’,” p. 264. 58. G. Bree, Camus, Revised Edition, p. 112. 59. For French critics, one supposes, who take Paris to be the only place in France

where a reasonable person would want to live, this lack of ambition renders totally

unbelievable the thought that Meursault is an ordinary human being with ordinary

emotions and feelings. 60. J. P. Sartre, “An Explication of The Stranger,” in Bree, Camus: A Collection of Critical Essays, p. 114.

61. G. Bree and M. Guiton, The French Novel from Gide to Camus (New York:

Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1957), p. 221. P. Thody, Albert Camus, 1913-1960 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961), also

asserts that Meursault is “essentially passive in his attitude towards the world, and it

is his passivity towards physical sensation which leads to his crime” (p. 34).

62. H. Carruth, After the Stranger: Imaginary Dialogues with Camus (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 51.

63. J. Conrad, Lord Jim (Harmondsworth, Middlesex . Penguin, 1949), p. 19. 64. Ibid., p. 88.

65. Sartre, “An Explication of The Stranger,” pp. 116-18. 66. One can reasonably wonder whether Sartre ever read Hume.

67. “An Explication of The Stranger,” p. 116. 68. Ibid., p. 118.

476 69. S. D Ross writes that “If moral aspects of the novel exist, they are left to the reader to find for himself. Even Meursault’s great transformation at the very end of

the novel is a definite enigma; it is up the reader to interpret his remarks for himself,

if at all” (Literature and Philosophy, p. 175). Of course it is left up to the reader: that is the point of writing a novel from the perspective of a central consciousness - there is no omniscient narrator to interpret for us. That makes interpretation more difficult, but there is no great mystery, as Ross seems to think.

70 The French actually begins with ‘today’: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” 71. Some mention should be made of the use by Camus of the French grammatical form of the passe compose, which is characteristic of spoken language, in contrast to

the literary passe simple. Dans la langue modeme, le passe simple et le passe compose ont chacun leur domaine propre. Le premier, declasse peu a peu par la langue parle au benefice du passe compose, n’a plus qu’un emploi litteraire. Comme il est avant tout le temps du roman, il est devenu 1’un des signes les plus nets du language romanesque. De sorte que, refuser le passe simple, c’est deja se poser en dissident vis-a-vis du rituel des Belles-Lettres. Mais ici, Camus fait plus encore, puisqu’il choisit d'ecrire tout le livre au passe compose qui est le temps de la parole, de las realite, le temps non encore compromis par des emplois litteraires (M.-G Barrier, L 'Art du Recit dans L 'Etranger d'Albert Camus, pp. 16-17).

Barrier remarks later that

Refuser le passe simple au benefice du passe compose, ce n’est done pas simplement refuser le ceremonial litteraire, c’est aussi vouloir donner au recit une valeur de temoinage, un caractere d’authenticity (p. 18). Barrier also usefully describes (pp. 19-21) the role of the first person “je” in Camus’

prose in The Outsider 72. Compare John Fletcher, “Meursault’s Rhetoric,” Critical Quarterly, 13 (1971), pp. 125-135. 73. Cf. A King, Camus, pp 49-50.

477 74 William Godwin, Caleb Williams, ed. M. Hindle (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:

Penguin, 1987), p. 192. 75. “Meursault’s Rhetoric,” p. 134 76. The Sea and Prisons, p 82. 77. Sartre, “An Explication of The Stranger," p. 110. 78 S. D. Ross, Literature and Philosophy, p. 177.

79. Cf. W. M. Manley, “Journey to Consciousness. The Symbolic Pattern of Camus’

L ’Etranger " 80. Quoted in C. C. O’Brien, Camus (London: Fontana, 1970), p. 20. 81 It is wrong to suggest with D G. Galloway (The Absurd Hero in American

Fiction, Second Edition [Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1970], p. 7) that “Camus established a new and distinctly modem basis for heroism...”. What Camus

established was not a basis for Heroism but rather a basis for getting on with the task of living an ordinary decent life, the life of an ordinary decent (though not entirely

perfect) guy like Meursault. Galloway seems have to been carried away by the over­ dramatization of Camus’ description of the universe and of the relation of human being to it.

It is also wrong to suggest with R W B Lewis (The Picarescpie Saint [Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1959], p. 61) that for Camus the universe is one in which “right and wrong have lost their ancient names, as the ancient order that named them

has crumbled, and the task, as he has seen it, is not to restore but to create anew.” It

is true that Camus argues, following Epicurus, Lucretius and Hume, that the idea that

there is objective right and wrong is mistaken - these have indeed “lost their ancient

names” - but the task is not to recreate objective values, or, as it is here put, to “create [them] anew.” For that would be to attempt the impossible; it could amount to nothing more than illusion, and the loss of the lucidity that has been gained with

such difficulty.

478 82. It is perhaps worth adding that neither is there any case to be made that Meursault is the sort of person that Nagel and Heidegger describe, aiming to live indefinitely, something that John Cruickshank, Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt (New York. Oxford University Press, 1960), suggests: “The sensibility examined here [in

The Myth ofSisyphus] by Camus is one that can make no contact with absolute truths and values. The kind of man described - and he is presented as a common

contemporary figure - is one who instinctively wishes to be happy, who wants his life to continue indefinitely, who seeks close contact with other human beings and with

the natural world, but who finds these desires frustrated by the nature of existence.

It is Camus’ contention that such desires cannot be satisfied by human life as it is” (pp. 43-4). The point is that it is clear from the example of Meursault that people not only want to be happy but can be - even in situations such as that faced by Meursault

as he sits in prison awaiting his execution. Moreover, as Meursault again illustrates, people can have close contact with each other and with the natural world: recall his

remark about his swimming with Marie, how “the water was cold and I felt all the better for it,” and how “we were both in the same mood, enjoying every moment” (OUT, p. 56). The only thing that this world could frustrate is the Nagelian and

Heideggerian desire “to continue life indefinitely”; but Meursault, though faithfully described by the narrator, evidences no such desire.

83. A. Camus, The Rebel (New York: Vintage Books, 1959). 84. Cf. E. Levinas, who asserts that the other person is “the being whose negation can only announce itself as total: as murdep' (Basic Philosophical Writings, A. Pererzak

et al. {Bloominton, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996], p. 9).

85. The Rebel, pp. 13-22, pp. 302-6. 86. We shall have more to say about the trial below. 87. Carruth, After the Stranger, p. 58. 81 As noted in John Wain, Samuel Johnson: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1974),

p. 152.

479 82. John Cruickshank, Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt, also suggests that for Camus “the gulf between man and the world is not as radical and absolute as some

of his ..statements suggest” (p. 53). In particular, “Camus also seems to go too far when he claims that the absurd is an absolute and universal relationship. The

necessarily subjective human factor in this relationship only permits him to claim confirmation of his own experience in the similar experiences of others. To do this then requires recognition of the fact that this experience is no more universally valid, in the absence of absolutes or divine revelation, than that of a very much larger

number of thinkers who hold the contrary or a different view” (p. 52-3).

It should be noted, however, that a value judgment can be universal yet lack

an absolute or objective ground , a value can be relative to human judgments and for all that still be universal.

83. A. King, Camus, p. 25. 84 The English is: “...all of a sudden, the Arabs vanished, they’d slipped like lizards

under cover of the rock.” This translates the original French: “Mais brusquement, les

Arabes, a reculons, se sont coules derriere le rocher” (in A. Camus, L Etranger, ed. G. Bree and C. Lynes Jr. [New York: Appieton-Century-Crofts, 1955]). This does not mention “lizards” but the relevant verb is “se couler” which means not only to slip

but also to glide or slide. ‘Slip’ by itself as the English translation would not carry the suggestions of‘se couler’ of gliding and sliding, i e, the movements characteristic of snakes and lizards. The English translation which includes a reference to “lizards,”

e., “lizard-like movements,” is appropriate. The point is that Meursault sees the i.

Arabs not as moving like people - walking or stepping, say - but as moving in ways characteristic of lizards and snakes.

85. After Meursault helped Raymond to set up the latter’s girl-friend for a beating, one would hardly have thought that it is reasonable to characterize Meursault as “by

nature a harmless person.” Lazere is not the first, nor likely the last, who seems unable

to give The Outsider a careful reading.

480 86 D Lazere, The Unique Creation of Albert Camus (New Haven, Conn : Yale

University Press, 1973), p. 33.

87. B Disraeli, Sybil, or the Two Nations (London: Nelson Classics, n. d ), p. 85. 88. A. Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death, trans. J. O’Brien (New York: Knopf, 1961).

89. Ibid., p. 111. 90. Ibid., p. 114. 91. Ibid., p. 115. 92. Ibid., p. 111. 93. Camus, pp. 20-27, pp. 64-66, pp. 72-75.

94

Quoted ibid., p. 12. From “La Chute Indigene: La Nouvelle Culture

Mediterraneene,” reprinted in R Quilliot, ed., Albert Camus: Essais (Paris:

Gallimard, 1965), pp. 1321-7. 95. O’Brien, Camus, pp. 13-14 96. R Quilliot, “Albert Camus’ Algeria,” in Bree, Camus: A Collection of Critical Essays, provides some balance to O’Brien’s picture of Camus. But see also Jan

Rigaud, “Depiction of Arabs in L ’Etranger," in A. King, ed., Camus's L’Etranger: Fifty Years On (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), pp 183-192.

97. G Bree, Camus and Sartre: Crisis and Commitment (New York: Delta Books, 1972), p 151, p. 152, p 213.

98. See also Albert H. Smith, “Eden as Symbol in Camus’ L ’Etranger "

481

Endnotes to Chapter Six

1. S. Luper, Invulnerability, p. 44ff, refers to this sort of discipline as “adaptation,” which he contrasts with “optimizing” behaviour

2. D Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section III, Part I. 3 C f. T, p 439ff.

4. See F. Wilson, “Hume’s Defence of Science.”

5. Self-interest is “optimizing,” in Luper’s sense; see his Invulnerability, p 44ff. 6. Cf. D. Hume, The Natural History of Religion, p 27, p 29.

7 Cf. Hume, Natural History, p. 47. 8 Peter Jones, Hume's Sentiments, p. 168. 8 In his Hume's Sentiments

9 References will be to D. Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays, ed. J. Lenz (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).

Jones (Hume’sSentiments, p. 79) does discuss this essay, but he does not take

up the points we shall be making.

10. D. Hume, History ofEngland, 10 vols. (London: 1808-1810). 11. Hume elsewhere notes that “ All doctrines are to be suspected which are favoured by our passions” (“Of the Immortality of the Soul,” p. 38).

12. D. Hume, “Of the Original Contract”, in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 464.

482

13. Weston LaBarre, The Human Animal, quoted in Nielson, “Linguistic Philosophy and ‘The Meaning of Life’,” p. 197. 14. We noted this point about the Socratic patterns of explanation in Chapter Three. 15. The historical dimension is emphasized by D. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy of

Common Life, but see also the review of this work by F. Wilson, Philosophy of the

Social Sciences, 18 (1988), pp. 139-42. 16. The case for toleration has been brought up to date by J. Newman, Foundations

of Religious Tolerance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). 17 For a good discussion of Bayle, in all his complexity, see T. Lennon, Reading Bayle (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 18 Cf. Tom Velk and A. R. Riggs, “David Hume’s Practical Economics,” Hume

Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 154-65.

19. If

represents “not”, “F” represents forbidden, and “P” represents permitted,

then the inference is the simple one from

Fp

to -Pp The converse inference is also valid

20 Shaftesbury, Third Earl of (Anthony Ashley Cooper), Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. J. M. Robertson, with an Intro, by S. Grean, 2 vols.

(New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), vol. II, p 275. 21. We saw Emma come to have a deeper capacity for reflective self-awareness. 22. Cf. F. Wilson, “Hume and Derrida on Language and Meaning.”

23. Cf. ibid 24. Cf. S. Luper, Invulnerability, p. 125: “[One] way 1 can try to redefine the self so

as to avoid the misfortune of death is to enlarge it. I can try immersal, whereby I adopt the view that I literally am some ongoing group rather than any individual, so

483

that ‘my’ history extends as far backwards and forwards as that of the group, and so that my breadth encompasses the entirety of the collective.” 25. S. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. J. Strachey (New York: Norton, 1962).

26. Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 71. 27. “Man is wolf to man.” Derived from Plautus, Asinaria, II, iv, 88.

485

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507

Index

Abraham. 15

Ardal. P., 209, 456, 463, 464

Absolute, the. see: One, the

Aristotle. 25, 121-127, 137, 146, 155, 172, 185. 198. 204. 212f. 250. 258, 302. 383. 445. 451. 452 differs with Stoics, 129f his ethics, 302f his metaphysics. 58, 121-127, 161 defects in. 130f

absurdity, 17, 72. 164f. 266ff. 281. 290ff 320. 336. 340f. 356. 433 Acheron. 437 Achilles, 4, 86

Asmis, E., 437 activity. 92ff, 105f, 120. 121, 13Iff. 136f. 141ff. 161f, 180f. 449

associationism, 208ff, 250f, 372f, 412

aether, 138

Athens. 88. 116

Agathon. 109ff Agutter. W., 170ff. 434, 455

Augustine. 17ff. 23, 121. 159-165. 171. 190. 219, 229, 256f. 273, 281. 297, 315. 336. 359f. 405, 433, 453f, 466. 471

Ahrensdorf. P.. 449f

Augustus, 1

Albigensians, war against. 382

Austen, J., 299, 314, 472 see also: Emma

Algeria. 35 Iff, 417 its war of “liberation’, 351f, 382

Ayer. A. J., 197f. 238, 461, 467. 471

Algiers. 347. 349f. 353. 355f, 370. 419

Axiochus. 49ff. 440

Anaxagoras, 93f, 98. 121

Bacon. F., 205, 437

Anton. J. P., 450

Baier, Annette, 202ff. 209ff. 213ff. 220ff. 224ff. 462, 463

Antonv, 228. 465 Aquinas, Thomas, 229-236, 263, 293f, 435, 466, 472

Baier, Kurt. 238ff. 259ff. 274, 276, 298. 336. 467, 471 his concern about nothing, 238

Arabs, 323f. 330. 352ff. 355ff. 370. 417. 419. 479 fear of. 323f. 349f

Barber. K., 463

Arcesilaus. 203

Bayle, P., 173, 383, 384, 386, 482

Barner, M.-G., 470, 476

508

Beauchamp, T., 233f, 434, 441, 466, 472

Calvinism, 302f. 380f, 383. 385

Bergmann, G., 441, 474

Cambodia. 382

Bible, 11

Campbell, Dr., 167

Black, Peter, 441

Bolotin. D., 446

Camus, Albert, 23ff, 164f, 263, 264-357, 359f, 369, 370ff, 388-404. 417f, 419. 433, 469f, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480 a colon, 355ff defends a Humean view of the world. 266ff his dissociated sensibility, 289, 315, 345, 356ff his dramatic view of human being, 264f, 346ff, 357 his fallacious argument against suicide. 289ff, 398 his failure to understand his characters, 345 his humanitarianism. 35Iff. 356f

bondage, see: freedom

Capaldi. N., 460

Booth. C. Wayne, 474

Carnap, R., on death, 55ff, 441 his argument with Heidegger, 58,66

Black, Joseph. 171, 456 Blount, Charles, his suicide, 231 defended by Charles Gildon. 233ff body, and mind, 177ff animated by soul, 92f, 106

Boeotia. 88

Boethius, 434

Boswell, James, 19f, 167ff. 227, 342, 433, 455f, 466

Carruth. J., 322, 475, 478

Bradley. F. H., 38f. 438

Cebes, 102. 227

Bree. G., 320f, 322, 354. 470, 473, 475, 480

Cecilia, 300

Britain, its admirable constitution. 374, 376, 378f its revolution, 37Iff. 377 compared to French constitution, 374,376

Cephalus, 46

Bnitus. D. Junius, 228, 465 his ignoble death, 228, 465f

Charon, 169

Chappell, V. C„ 462 Charles Stuart, the first, 367

Christensen, J., 452 Brutus. Marcus, 466

Buddhistic philosophy, 434

Christians, 13, 16f, 22, 23, 72f, 86, 121, 156. 159ff, 168ff, 180, 199, 209, 381, 388, 409, 414f, 425, 435

Burney, F., 300 Butler, J., 173, 374. 408, 456

Cicero. 48ff, 75f, 78. 126, 128, 203, 363ff. 368, 380. 440f, 443, 445, 452, 453

Caesar. 138

Clarke, S., 167, 173,408. 456

509

Clarissa, 300 cognitive interests, 206, 214f. 22If. 224, 360f see also: curiosity• cognitive standards. 204ff. 213ff, 218ff. 22 If. 359, 384 contextual ization of. 226, 359, 372f Commons, English House of. 367 colons, 370f

anxiety in the face of, 17, 70ff attitude towards, 6. 8f, 16, 3If, 38ff, 42ff, 45ff, 52f, 68f, 89ff, 104ff, 120. 134, 154f. 163. 165, 167ff, 174ff, 342, 345 brain-, 56ff concept of, 56ff; forensic, 56f; Heidegger's, 62f; scientific, 55f not to be feared, 4, 16, 25-75, 134, 154f, 342ff, 345 wages of sin. 14, 20 where it is 1 am not, 40ff, 342 see also: fear of death

concepts, forensic, 56f significant, 55ff; and biological concept of death, 56f

Deck, J. N., 470

concepts, a priori, 93ff. 189ff arguments against, 189ff

Descartes. R., 147, 173, 180, 191, 193, 195, 204. 209, 21 Iff. 217f, 464

conditionals, counterfactual. 309ff 317f and novels, 309ff

despair, 26Iff, 279f, 288f, 292, 298, 342, 359, 451

Conrad. I, 316f, 324, 350, 475

determinism: see: freedom

contract, social, 80f. 367, 374ff. 379. 407 a set of conventions, 80, 374, 383, 407 not justified a priori, 379f. 385f

Dickens, C., 317

Delphic oracle, 125, 254, 305

Diogenes Laetius, 13 Iff, 137f, 439, 452

Diotima, 109-112, 453 conventions, social, 80, 374, 383, 407, 430f

Disreali, B., 350f, 480

Croesus. 13 Cruickshank. J., 470, 478

curiosity, motive to knowledge, 206, 214f, 22If, 360f, 369, 372f

Dorter, K., 447f, 449, 451 on souls as bits of kinetic energy, 447 ignores teleology of souls, 447 economics, science of, 377ff

custom, cement of society; 383f

Cynics, 49£f, 440 daimon, Socratic, 114ff and Forms, 115ff

economists, their unreasonable view of human nature, 47ff. 52f, 387

ectoplasm, 446f Edelstein, L.. 452

Darwin, C., 467 Edwards, P., 442

death, a biological fact, 55; Carnap and, 55ff a great evil, 3f, 4Iff and virtue, 7, 13, 119, 154f

Einstein. A., 280

510

Eliot. T. S„ 472 Emma, 299-308, 312, 316, 330f. 333, 347, 340, 355, 482 portrays an ordinary' world. 300ff its characters do not lust after the Absolute. 314. 333

of dead), 2, 5, 17, 20, 30ff. 38f, 45ff. 68ff. 77ff, 86f, 119, 155ff, 263, 342f. 345357, 380, 405. 417, 421, 427, 428; and social identity, 345-357, 421

Feifel, H., 442

Fielding. H., 300 England. 306 Fitch, F. B., 470 enthusiasm. 222, 364f, 367f, 381 see also: superstition

Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 386

Epictetus. 128, 452

Fletcher, J., 475

Epicurus, 23, 29-40, 42ff, 48ff 59. 63, 71, 77f, 82, 88f, 94, 95ff. 126f, 139, 156, 162ff, 169ff. 188, 197, 198. 234, 236f, 243f, 245, 247. 250, 256ff, 261. 274f. 282, 294f, 345, 359. 369, 403f. 405ff, 437, 438, 439, 443, 452, 477 his account of virtue, 99f, 126f, 282, 403f epistemic standards, see: cognitive standards

Flew, A., 459

Euthyphro, 95

forbidden, nothing is, 390ff, 400f

explanations, 451 metaphysical, 89-112. 119f, 123ff, 173. 233ff, 280f; and absolute values, 97, I95ff; and Forms (or Natures), 94ff. 118f, 120. 13 Iff; and substances, 123f, 130fT; and the One, 144ff, 150f; involves values, 125; unification by entities, 89ff, 94, 122f, 130f, 135. 150ff; teleological, 93f, 105f; see also: reason, intuitive scientific, 3 Iff, 280ff; analogies and, 32f; naturalistic and matter-of-fact, 31 ff; refer to universal patterns or regularities. 3 Iff. 82, 94; value free, 96f, 194ff; see also: reason, empirical

Forms, 90ff, 114ff, 121ff, 141ff, 156f, 160f, 175ff, 199, 230, 242, 256, 258. 294, 388f, 404, 451 and virtue. 108. 129, 147ff, 404 and necessary connections, 98 divine, 115f, 119 immutable, 105 known a priori, 9Iff, 102f, 145ff, 176ff not separate. 122f perfect exemplars, 90f. 190ff; arguments against, 190ff timeless, 96

Euclid, 176 Euthydemus, 82

faith, 19, 200ff. 218ff, 24Iff. 359, 389f, 405 and scepticism, 20Iff. 218ff and virtue, 121 fear, a psychological attitude, 2f, 31. 45, 54

F. L. N., 351 Fogelin, R., 462

Foote, S.» 171,455, 466 Forbes. D., 456

France, 419 its constitution, 374; compared unfavourably to British, 374, 376; its legitimacy. 374 Fraser, AC., 460 freedom, 246ff, 253ff, 366ff, 376, 377f, 381. 383, 389f, 392ff and determinism. 409

511

Freud. P., 470

Godwin. W., 329, 477

Freud. S., 165,419-428

Gordon, J., 467

Friedman. Milton. his failure to understand the relevance of history . 387

Gracia, J., 463 Gram. M., 462

friendship, 78ff. 99f. 403f Grass. Gunter, 442

Furley, D , 441

Greene. M.. 457 Gaius Calpumius Piso. 9

Greer, R. M_, 438

Galloway. D. G., 477

Grey, J. Glenn. 434, 442 Garland. R.. 432

Greig. J., 439. 455. 463. 472 Gauthier. D., 463

Geismer. M., 473 Gerson. L., 435 a critic of Gilson. 435

Grosmann, R., 442 his able discussion ofHeidegger. 442

Grube, G. M. A., 114. 448f. 450 guilt, sense of, 422ff

ghosts. 446f Guiton. M„ 322, 475

Gibbon. E.» 380f his view of Christianity. 381 Gildon. Charles, 23 Iff. 466 Gilson, E., his interpretation of Plotinus, 435

God. 10, 14f, 18f, 135, 137f, 160ff. 170f, 175ff. 179ff. 199, 200ff, 218, 315. 332. 338, 375f, 382, 390, 395, 432f an alleged source of virtue, 10, 338, 382 an illusion, 278f, 332 a standard of perfection. 17,21. 160 concept of meaningless, 221 his alleged Son, 14f, 19 rejection of seems to imply terror, 395 gods, 30. 82ff, 113ff, 181,221.227. 298.405 and Forms. 114ff. 227 anse from ignorance, 30, 405 exacerbate fear of death. 30

Hackforth. R., 118.451

Hades, 4, 107. 117. 437 see also: Hell

Hagstrum, J. H.. 433 Hallett, H. F., 457, 458

Hamlet. 347 Hampden, John, 366

Hare. R. M., 237ff Harris. E. E., 451,457 Harvard Medical School, 57 its concept of death. 57

Hawkins, Sir John, 20ff. 433

Heidegger, M., 23, 58-75, 395ff, 442f. 478 compared to Cicero, 75f

512

compared to Lucretius, 59, 74 compared to Plutarch and Nagel, 74 his concept of a person. 59ff his Epicurean view of death. 63f his fallacious argument against suicide, 292ff his neologisms. 442 his prose. 442 resoluteness and. 395f

and John Wesley, 169ff and sympathy. 340ff. 393f. 421 and religion. 222ff. 362ff his alleged nihilism. 388f his alleged scepticism. 173, 20Iff. 208f

his attitude towards death. 167ff, 345; disbelieved by Johnson. 171, 466f his republicanism, 378

Hell, 5, 30

Hutcheson, F., 302, 374

Helvelius. 225

Hutchison. D., 440

Hemmingway. E., 326

Hutton, M., 274f

Henn. D. P., 453

Ingarden. R.. 473

Heraclitus. 102

interest, self. 36If, 368, 388.401.407f, 423f. 427 and artificial virtues. 36 If

Hershball. Jackson P., 440

Hobbes, T., 173, 205. 209

“is” and “ought”, their gap, 194. 283. 29If. 339, 375f, 377 see also. “must” implies "ought'

Hochberg. H.. 470

Iran, 382

Holocaust, the. 382

Islamic philosophy, 434

Homer, 4, 90, 107, 431.453

Italy, 445

Horace, 1, 431

Jacques (/Is You Like II), 49f, 153. 440. 453

hope. 17, 121, 156f, 198f. 200, 242ff, 286ff. 298. 345, 359 sometimes an illusion, 242, 288

James, Henn; 312, 316f, 331

Horwitz, Tern. 439

Jesuits, 383

Hume, David, 23. 25f, 48. 164f. 167-172. 173-199. 20Iff. 204-215, 220, 222ff. 245, 247. 250, 256ff. 26Iff, 266f, 274, 275ff, 279ff 286ff. 291. 294f, 297, 298f. 3O3ff. 308f, 311, 314ff, 316ff. 325f, 329, 340, 345. 348.350.359-369. 371-387, 388, 399ff. 402f, 405ff, 409ff, 413ff, 416ff. 419ff. 426f. 437. 441. 456f. 459, 460f. 462. 463, 464. 465. 466. 469. 470, 471, 472, 473, 475, 477, 481 allegedly a Tory, 305f, 377f and suicide. 227-237

Jesus. lOf. 16, 85, 157, 168. 170. 188. 199 alleged Son of God, 14f, 19 his argument for virtue. 1 If

Hitler. A., 396

Jefferson. D., 299ff, 472

Jews, 180 Johnson. Samuel, 19ff. 29. 37. 86. 162. 168. 170f, 199. 345, 406, 410, 433f. 455f. 466f his fear of death. 20, 86, 345. 406; pathological. 21

513

his incapacity to believe Hume, 171, 466f

LaBarre, Weston. 243, 249, 370, 401, 467, 482

Jonas, Hans, 57f, 441 his obscurantism, 58

Lamy, B., 211

Jones, P., 21 If, 362, 365, 456, 463, 481

language, and thought, 209ff, 372ff, 375ff, 413 of theology, 221

Joyce, J., 318

Law, John, the Christian, 19 Juan. Don, 285, 289f

Law, John, the economist, 386f Judaic philosophy, 434 Kaminsky. A., 308, 31 Iff, 473 on realistic novels, 308f

law, Natural. 232 and substances, 233ff

Lawrence. D. H., 299

Kashap. S. P.» 457 Lazere, D., 350, 479, 480

Keats. J., 47

learning, theory of, 207ff, 372ff, 378, 408 Keynes, J. M., his economics, 387 Lennon, T., 482

Kierkegaard, S., 292

Levinas, E., 478 King, A., 285f. 470, 471, 476, 479 Lewis, R W. B., 477 King, J., 456, 463

liberty, see: freedom Kirk, Scottish, 381

life, meaning of, 17, 158, 161

Klemke, E. D„ 245ff, 255ff, 272, 274, 276, 336,359, 462, 469, 471 knowledge, a priori, 95, 96, 10If, 176ff, 207 empirical, 102, 204ff, method to, 205ff; not incorrigible. 102f, 193ff, 204ff incorrigible, lOlf, 176ff. 193ff 201, 204f, 258 of Forms, 95, 96, 10 Iff. 176ff of the One, 15 Iff self-, 148f, 178ff, 251f, 301, 312, 343f, 345, 348, 411 vs. opinion, 101, 175ff see also: reason

Kogan, B„ 457 Kostenbaum, P., 442 Kustas, G. I, 450

Lindamour, see: Gildon, Charles

Livingston, D., 209, 456, 482 Locke, J., 167, 189ff, 21 Iff, 229, 373, 374f, 383, 384, 413ff

Long, A. A., 437, 452

Loptson, P., 440f Lucian, 169, 455 Lucretius, 23, 27, 29-40. 43, 48ff, 54, 59, 68, 71, 88, 92, 95ff, 162ff, 169ff, 188, 198, 236f, 238, 261, 274, 369, 403, 406ff, 437, 443, 445, 446, 477 Heidegger compared to, 59

514

irrational nonsense, 278f

Luke, 10, 85, 432 Luper, S.,447, 467, 481.482f his unfair evaluation of Socrates, 447, 467

Monboddo, Lord. 168

Montaigne. M. de, 200ff, 215-220, 278, 280. 373, 461,462, 464

lust for objective value and unity: see: values, objective, lust for

Moracsik. J. M. F., 450

Maecenas, Iff. 16, 22, 29f, 37, 43, 70, 153, 161, 162

murder, 339f, 394, 396, 398 Camus’ fallacious argument against, 339, 398

Malebranche. N„ 191f. 198f. 460 Mure, G. R. G., 273f. 471

Malpas. I, 439, 441 Murphy, Jeffrie, 42, 438 Mandeville, B de, 173 “must” implies “ought”, 124ff, 1281'. 252f

Manilius, 464 mysticism, 15 Iff

Manly. W M., 473, 477

Marcus Aurelius. 132, 155f, 452

Myth ofSisyphus, 23, 26, 264-357 its dramatic world, 264f its puzzling argument. 265

Marcuse, H., 442 myth, Platonic, 112ff Marsais, C. C. du. 211

Marxism. 383, 396

McPherran, M.. 450

method to knowledge, 205ff, 22If Meursault, 28Iff, 3lOff, 313ff. 317,319-336, 338-345, 346f, 353ff, 475. 476, 477. 478,479 compared to Caleb Williams. 329 does not lust after the Absolute, 344f not disengaged, 32If not innocent, 353

Nagel, T„ 23, 41-53, 54, 64f, 67, 71, 74f, 90. 257ff, 260, 263, 274. 276, 287, 298. 315, 336,438, 440f, 469. 471 anticipated by Plutarch, 42 his economist's view of human nature, 47ff, 52 Naples, 445 Natures. 123ff define virtue, 125f transcend sense experience. 127

mind. 92, 177ff and body, 9Iff, 178ff knows itself, 178ff

necessary’connections, 98, 122f, 192ff. 206f. 275ff. 308ff, 399,410 objective. 122f, 192ff, 206f, 275ff. 399,410; an illusion, 278f relative, 192ff, 275ff, 308ff. 399 see also: Forms

Morgenbesser, S., 442

Nero. 9

monism. 128-135,144ff, 151,270.277, 280f, 284, 292. 298

Newman. J., 482

Mill. John Stuart. 205, 225, 437

515

Newton. L, 280 neo-Platonism. see: Plotinus

Pans. 321.475 inability of French critics to understand why Meursault docs not want to go there, 475

Nielson. Kai, 238f, 243, 467, 482 Nietzsche. F., 389 nihilism, 388. 395f, 404 Hume's alleged. 388. 395. 404

Pascal, B., 217ff. 224. 273. 278, 281, 297. 336, 464f, 471

Paul, 22

Perlin. S., 434. 441.466. 472 Norton. D. F., 209. 456, 460, 471

permitted, everything is, 390ff. 400f nothing, does it matter or not. 237ff. 405f

Penelhum. T., 461

novels, realistic. 264, 299. 314f and counterfactual conditionals. 309f O'Brien. Conor Cruise. 352ff, 477, 480 Octavian. 1, 465 see also: Augustus

Odysseus, 4, 86 Odyssey. 431 One. the, 27, 144ff. 156fT, 199. 269ff. 281. 284. 348, 435 a refuge, 157, 27If Camus and. 269ff, 272ff its knowledge of itself, 146f knowledge of. 150ff. 157f unification and. 144ff, 150f see also: values, objective opinion, corrigible, 101 vs. knowledge, 101 Orr, L., 475 Outsider, The, 23. 26. 264-357. 476, 479 a realistic novel. 264; its failure in realism. 353f its characters do not lust after the Absolute. 333 its grammatical form. 476. 479 portrays an ordinary world. 264f

Padelford, F. M., 440

Persephone. 4 persons, 37, 177ff, 209ff, 25If. 27If, 369. 408ff and their bodies, 37f, 411 bundles of perceptions, 409f explanations of, 37, 177ff. 252f Heidegger’s concept of (= Dasein). 59ff, 293ff, 396 identity of, 178ff. 196ff. 408ff, 414f. 425f; and patterns, 408f: constituted by body, 178ff; and fear of death. 419, 424f supposed immortality, 37f their condition said to be absurd, 72 unities, 147, 152f

pieds noirs, 370 Piozzi, Hester Lynch (Mrs. Thrale). 2 If. 433 Platinga. A., 200, 202

Plato. 10, 25. 27, 81-120, 12Iff. 137, 142ff. 151f, 160. 163. 173. 201, 203, 207, 210. 212f. 373, 376. 379f. 385, 404. 431. 439. 440. 445, 446. 447f, 449, 450

Plautus. 483

Pliny, the elder, 1, 431 Plotinus, 23, 25, 27, 136-158. 159. 161ff. 171, 180. 182f, 188. 190. 195. 199, 203,212, 230, 241. 258, 269ff, 276ff, 281, 291, 298, 338. 348. 356f, 370, 414. 434, 435, 453

516

the religiosity of his prose. 453 Plutarch, 42f. 64f. 71, 74f. 162ff. 438. 451, 454 his argument adopted by Nagel, 42

revolt. 268f. 338ff, 37Iff. 377. 390, 395ff see also. Puritans see also: values, objective Richardson, S., 200

politics. 378ff British. 378f not a priori, 378, 385f

Rigaud. J., 480

Pol Pot, 394, 396

Rist, J., 452

Popkin. R. H., 462, 464

Robbespierre, M. de, 394

Port Royal, 221,224

Robinson, T., 446f on Platonic souls, 446f

Riggs. T.. 482

positivists, 437

Robison, W., 460

Prodicus. 49f Rome, 1, 380f

properties, sensible, in souls, 94f imitate Forms, 95 separable. 98. 122

Rosenbaum, S. E., 64, 439, 443 Rosenbaum. S. P., 472

Psalms. 11 Ross, S. D., 310f, 331, 473, 476, 477

psychics, their alleged powers, 225 Rouseau, J.-J., 378

Pufendorf, S., 374f

Puritans, their ethics, 302f. 380 their revolution. 366f

Russell. B., 225, 260ff. 437, 469 his unreasonable view of the universe, 26If

Quilliot, R., 329f. 470, 480

Ryle, G., 302f, 472

reason, a calm reflective passion, 2231T intuitive a priori), 95.96, 102f. 108, 11 If. 132f, 132, 149ff. 153ff. 173, 176ff, 291, 387; non-sense, 279 empirical. 35f, 96, 173. 194ff. 216ff. 276ff, 277ff, 29If, 360ff, 384f; fallible. 189. 193, 203ff. 267, 276, 278ff. 314, 329, 338, 341.360,382.384,387; reasonable standards of. 360f. 384. a virtue, 214ff; and faith, 24Iff; and minds, 37f, 111; and superstition, 36, 38, 360

Sartre. I-P., 32If, 325f, 33If, 475 his apparent failure to read Hume. 475 Savan. D., 457f

scepticism. 173f, 188ff, 20Iff, 205ff, 215f. 218f, 373, 381f, 385 academic, 202ff. 205ff. 385 and faith, 21 Of, 218ff Pyrrhonism. 173f,202ff, 205ff. 372f. 383,386

Rebel, The, 339ff. 388ff, 418. 478

Schofield, M., 441 resoluteness, 395ff Heidegger and. 395ff

Schrag, Calvin, 442

517

Scotland, its Church. 381 its convenanters. 385 Scott. N. A.. 442 Sebond. R., 200 Sedly. N.» 437, 452 Selby-Bigge. L. A., 459 selves. see\ persons

Seneca. If. 5ff, 16. 22. 23, 25. 48. 77, 85, 120. 137. 168, 186, 228. 431,434. 440, 453, 465 Sermon on the Mount. 11 f

121

and body, 92ff, 105f. 108f as a harmony. 90ff as ectoplasm. 446f compared inaccurately with kinetic energy, 447 corporeal. 137 ghost like. 446 imitate Forms, 95, 447 immortality of, 105f, 108f, 11 If. 118f. 120, 448 is like Forms, 107 knows Forms, 107 sensible properties in, 94ff simple, 104f. 140 teleology of, 447 transmigration of, 86ff, 115f; a myth, 87, 115ff see also', persons

Sextus Empiricus, 203f. 205, 373

Spenser. Edmund. 440 Shaftesbury. Anthony Ashley Cooper. Third Earl of. 482

Simmias, 90ff, 95, 114, 117f

Spinoza, B., 12, 27, 123, 159, 173. 174-188. 190, 199, 204, 212, 230, 242, 248ff. 252ff. 258, 432f. 434, 457ff his attitude towards death. 174. 186ff

Sisyphus, 298, 335ff, 346ff, 353

Stalin, J., 339, 382. 394, 396

Smith. A., 168f, 438, 455, 456, 471, 480

Stendahl. Marie Henri Bayle, 295f, 472

Smith. Norman Kemp, 462, 472

St. Just, L. A. L., 394

Socrates. 3. 10. 23, 25. 71-120, 121, 159, 163. 168. 171, 173, 180, 182, 186, 188f. 191. 204. 212, 232, 236, 242. 245, 254, 258, 294, 373, 388f. 393. 404, 407f, 434,450.451, 467 his attitude towards death. 8911, 104ff. 174, 193f, 195, 199 his death. 84f unfairly evaluated by Luper. 447

Striker. G., 441

Shakespeare, W.. 239, 347, 440

solidarity: see: sympathy

Stroud, B., 462 Stocks. J. L., 437

Stoics. 8. 25. 27, 128-135, 136ff. 137f. 155f. 186, 252, 434, 452, 465 criticized by Plotinus, 138f differ with Aristotle, 129f their materialism. 137ff

Solomon. R. C., 439. 441 Strachan. W., 439. 455

Sophocles. 47

soul. 140ff animates the body, 92ff. 105f, 120,

fl substances, 123ff. 130ffl35, 137ff, 230ff and suicide, 230ff and virtue. 124

518

his need for objective values. 239ff,

Natured. 123ff. 129, 131

256. 427 suicide. 26, 227-236, 262f, 288. 339, 398 Aquinas’arguments against. 229ff. 293f Camus and. 263, 289ff Camus' fallacious argument against. 289ff, 339, 398 Heidegger's fallacious argument against, 292ff; identical to Camus', 292ff Socrates’ argument against, 228f Hume’s defence of, 23 Iff. 262f

Tom Jones. 300

Tories. 377, 383 their historiography, 377ff Tremblay. J. Frain du. 211 Trilling, Lionel. 299f. 472

Turnbull, R. G., 446 Sumner. L. W., 434, 439

Tweyman, S., 462 superstition, 213f. 22Iff. 360f. 364f. 376. 381 understanding, human, see: reason

Suppes, P., 442 Sutherland. Stuart. 475 sympathy. 225. 242, 250f, 3O3ff. 340ff. 353, 359. 368. 388f. 397ff 400f. 413. 416f. 421 f Camus and. 340f Hume and. 340ff, 402f limited. 402ff

Tacitus. 9f, 432

Tennant. F. R., 200, 202, 461 Testament, New, 384 its unreasonable cognitive norms, 384 Thebes. 88. 93

Thody, P., 475 Thomas Aquinas, see: Aquinas, Thomas

thought, and language. 209ff Tillich, P., 442 toleration. 379f, 381, 383ff. 387

Tolstoy. Leo. 47, 239-244. 256. 278. 359. 362ff. 368. 405, 410. 415f, 427, 467 his despair. 240ff his faith. 24Iff, 405

unification. 89, 89ff. 94. 122f. 129ff, 135. 136-158, 173. 177ff, 268. 277ff. 291. 334. 345, 370, 417 vs. correlation. 129f. 275f

Unserer. J., 440 values, ability to choose. 247ff objective (=absolute), 96, 238ff. 245ff. 256ff. 286. 295. 332, 334. 340f, 345. 370ff. 375. 382, 388f, 393. 399. 404. 405f, 411. 426f; and explanation, 96; Camus and. 285, 295f. 330, 388ff. 399f, 405. 417. do not exist. 389. 393, 399, 41 If. 426f; horrible consequences of believing in, 382; lust for. 16Iff. 256ff. 262f, 268f. 296f, 315f. 319f. 332. 330, 342. 360. 400, 404. 405f, 417f; attenuation of. 263. 268f. 297. 400ff. Klemke on. 245ff. revolt against, 298f. 389ff. 393ff. 398f relative. 96, 238ff. 282f. 284ff. 294ff, 334, 388f, 393, 406; moral sentiments and. 251. 283; provide reasons against suicide, 295f; provide reasons for acting. 283ff, 295f political. 370f; illusion of objective. 370ff

van Evra. J., 442 Velk. A. R., 482

519

Vico. G , 318

Virgil. 1, 86f. 432. 437. 446

Whole Duty ofMan. 302 disliked bv•* Hume.* 302 Wild. J., 442

virtue. 84.90ff. 108, 1 lOff. 117ff. 128f, 131ff, 135, 136. 152f, 159, 184ff. 194ff. 412 and death. 7f, 13, 19ff. 134, 153ff and Forms. 108, U8f. 136f, 152ff defined by substantial Natures. 1124ff. 13 Iff. 155f Epicurean. 99 Jesus' argument for. 1 If monkish. 381 Socratic. 99. 186 timeless. 1-27. 95, 134.

Wilde, O., 309f Williams. Caleb, compared to Meursault. 329 Williams, R.. 473 Wilson. F., 437, 438, 446. 451, 452, 456. 457. 459. 460, 462, 463, 464, 471. 473. 481. 482

Wolfson. H. A., 178ff, 432f. 457. 458f Vlastos. G., 446, 450 Wollheim. R., 470

Wain. J., 478 Wright. C. Ruth, 472

Wesley, John. 169ff and Hume. 169ff Whigs, 37If. 383 their historiography. 377f

Xenophon. 82, 84. 93, 114, 116. 445. 452 Zeus. 4, 132 Zola. E., 311.473,474

Wlute. M.. 442

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

Justus Hartnack. From Radical Empiricism To Absolute Idealism Leonard A. Kennedy, Peter of Ailly and the Harvest of Fourteenth-Century Philosophy Don MacNiven, Bradley’s Moral Psychology T.C. Williams, The Unity of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason'. Experience, Language, and Knowledge Kenneth xMaly and Parvis Emad, Heidegger on Heraclitus: A New Reading Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Blair Reynolds (trans.)

7.

Antoine Amauld, On True and False Ideas: With Arnauld's New Objections to Descartes’ Meditations, and Descartes’ Replies, Elmar J. Kremer (trans.)

8.

Edward J. Butterworth, The Identity of Anselm's Proslogion Argument for the Existence of God With the Via Quarto of Thomas Aquinas Laura Westra, Plotinus and Freedom: A Meditation of Enneads 6:8 Ian Box, The Social Thought of Francis Bacon

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

Francois Poullain de la Barre, The Equality of the Two Sexes, A. Daniel Frankforter and Paul J. Morman (trans.) Conrad of Prussia, The Commentary of Conrad of Prussia on the De Unitate Et Uno of Dominicus Gundissalinus, Joseph Bobik (trans.) Samuel Pufendorfs On the Natural State of Men'. The 1678 Latin Edition and English Translation, Michael Seidler (trans.) Kurt F. Leidecker (ed ), The Record Book of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, Founded February 1866 John H. Heiser, Logos and Language in the Philosophy of Plotinus Peter McLaughlin, Kant’s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation: Antinomy and Teleology Ira Robinson et al, The Thought of Moses Maimonides: Philosophical and Legal Studies Raymond Frey, William James Durant: An Intellectual Biography Mark Glouberman, The Origins and Implications of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: NC — PK Jennifer Yhap, The Rehabilitation of the Body as a Means of Knowing in Pascal’s Philosophy of Experience Patrick T.Murray, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind and Will Gerald Rochelle, The Life and Philosophy of J. McT. E. McTaggart, 1866-1925 John Milbank, The Religious Dimension in the Thought of Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744; Part 1: The Early Metaphysics Dominick A. Iorio, The Aristotelians of Renaissance Italy: A Philosophical Exposition

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

Lewis Baldacchino, A Study in Kant's Metaphysics of Aesthetic Experience: Reason and Feeling Giacomo Rinaldi, A History and Interpretation of the Logic of Hegel Leonard A. Kennedy, The Philosophy of Robert Holcot, Fourteenth-Century Skeptic FT. Kingston, The Metaphysics of George Berkeley, 1685-1753: Irish Phiolosopher Humphrey Palmer, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason-. An Abridged Translation for College Students J. Heywood Thomas, Philosophy of Religion in Kierkegaard's Writings

31. Theodore Plantinga, Historical Understanding in the Thought of Wilhelm Dilthev 32. John Milbank, The Religious Dimension in the Thought of Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744; Part 2; Language, Law and History 33. T.C. Williams, Kant’s Philosophy of Language: Chomskyan Linguistics and Its Kantian Roots 34. Joel Wilcox, The Origins of Epistemology in Early Greek Thought: A Study of Psyche and Logos in Heraclitus

Peter Preuss, Epicurean Ethics: Katastematic Hedonism 36. Lee R. Snyder, The Development of Cognitive Synthesis in Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl 37. O.K. Bouwsma, An Interpretation of Bouwsma’s Notes on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, 1965-1975; edited and introduced by J.L. Craft and Ronald Hustwit 38. Harry J. Ausmus, A Schopenhauerian Critique of Nietzsche’s Thought: Toward a Restoration of Metaphysics 35.

39. 40.

Albert Harper, Discussion and Commentary on Kant's Critiques Victorino Tejera, Aristotle’s Organon in Epitome, The Poetics, The Rhetoric, The Analytics: Aristotle's Tool-Kit

41.

W.A. Stewart, Philosophize

42.

Philip MacEwen (edited with an introduction), Ethics, Metaphysics and Religion in the Thought of F.H. Bradley

43. 44. 45.

W.S.Anglin, The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art Katherin A. Rogers, The Anselmian Approach to God and Creation Katherin A. Rogers, The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology of Anselm of Canterbury-

46. 47.

Richard Hart and Victorino Tejera, Plato’s Dialogues - The Diological Approach Colin Tyler, Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) and the Philosophical Foundations of Politics: An Internal Critique

48.

Donald Wayne Viney (edited and with an Introduction by), Translation of Works of Jules Lequyer

Introduction

to

Lonergan's Insight:

An

Invitation to

49. Daniel Shaw, Reason and Feeling in Hume’s Action Theory and Moral Philosophy: Hume’s Reasonable Passion 50a. Scotus vs. Ockham-A Medieval Dispute Over Universals: Volume I: Texts; texts translated into English with commentary by Martin M. Tweedale

50b. Scotus vs. Ockham-A Medieval Dispute Over Universals: Volume II: Commentary; texts translated into English with commentary by Martin M. Tweedale 51. Jules Lequyer’s Abel and Abel Followed by ’’Incidents in the Life and Death of Jules Lequyer", translation by Mark West, biography by Donald Wayne Viney 52. Martha Beck, Plato’s Self-Corrective Development of Concepts of Soul, Forms and Immortality in Three Arguments of the Phaedo 53. Michael J. Lapierre, The Noetical Theory of Gabriel Vasquez, Jesuit Philosopher and Theologian (1549-1604): His View of the Objective Concept 54. John A. Black, The Four Elements in Plato’s Timaeus 55. Max Gauna, Montaigne and the Ethics of Compassion 56. John-Christian Smith, Companion to the Works of Philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-1796) 57. Joseph Cronin, Foucault’s Antihumanist Historiography 58. O.K. Bouwsma, O.K. Bouwsma’s Commonplace Book-Remarks on Philosophy and Education, Ronald E. Hustwit and J.L. Craft (eds.) 59. Alan J.L. Busst, La theorie du langage de Pierre-Simon Ballanche: Contribution a I'etude de la philosophic linguistique du romantisme: Avec des extraits des ouvrages de Ballanche 60. Daniel Shaw, A Philosophical Account of the Nature of Art Appreciation 61. Rod Jenks, The Contribution of Socratic Method and Plato’s Theory of Truth to Plato Scholarship 62. Fred Wilson, Socrates, Lucretius, Camus-Two Philosophical Traditions on Death

Nl' IONi 11NIVER.11111^ RARY

3 1786 10161 4524

DATE DUE

BD 444 .W53 2001

Wilson, Fred, 1937Socrates, Lucretius, Camus

Fred Wilson recieved his B. Sc. in Honours Applied Mathematics AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS FROM McMaster University, and his Ph. D. in Philosophy from the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. He IS CUR­ RENTLY a Professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Fred Wilson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1994.