Philosophy for Irene
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PHILOSOPHY FOR IRENE
JACINTO CHOZA PHILOSOPHY FOR IRENE THÉMATA SEVILLA 2021 •
Título: Philosophy for Irene Primera edición: febrero de 2021 © Jacinto Choza © Editorial Thémata 2021. Editorial thémata C/ Antonio Susillo, 6. Valencina de la Concepción 41907 Sevilla, ESPAÑA TIf: (34) 955 720 289 E–mail: [email protected] Web: www.themata.net Diseño de cubierta: Editorial Thémata S.L. Maquetación y Corrección: JHR e ICM. ISBN: 978-84-123136-0-4 DL: SE 50-2021 Imprime: Ulzama, Navarra Impreso en España • Printed in Spain Reservados todos los derechos exclusivos de edición para Editorial Thémata. El contenido de esta obra está protegido por la Ley, que establece penas de prisión y/o multas, además de las correspondientes indemnizaciones por daños y perjuicios a cualquier forma de reproducción, distribución, comunicación pública y transformación, total o parcial, de esta obra sin contar con la autorización escrita de los titulares del Copyright.
For Ananí and for Irene with whom I have written this book and for whom I have written it.
INDEX PROLOGUE................................... .............................................................17 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................19 § l. Philosophy as a hobby and as a profession .............................19 § 2. The order and disorder of knowledge .....................................20 § 3. The origin of philosophy ............................................................22 § 4. The love of wisdom .....................................................................24 Chapter 2. HOW HUMAN BEINGS IN THE PALEOLITHIC AGE UNDERSTOOD THE WORLD. THE UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE ...... .......................................................................................................27 § 5. Hunting and food. Giving thanks to heaven ..........................27 § 6. The force of life, its time, its expression, and its understanding .....................................................................................29 §7.CipheringanddecipheringPaleolithicrituals.Thefirst mandala ................................................................................................ 31 § 8. Storytelling, dancing, and jumping. Hopscotch .....................33 Chapter 3. HOW HUMAN BEINGS IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE UNDERSTOOD THE WORLD. THE INVENTION OF LANGUAGE............... ................................................................................35 § 9. Social systems and personal identity .......................................35 § 10. Cultural system and cultural spheres. Practice and theory..38 § 11. Building shrines and constructing poems ..............................40 § 12. Stones, villages, and eternity ....................................................41 Chapter 4. HOW PHILOSOPHY BEGAN. THE DISCOVERY OF THINGS. ................................................................................................43 § l3. Speaking and writing. Measuring and calculating ...............43
PROLOGUE Thisshortbookisapedagogicalsynthesisofphilosophy.Itsfirstobjective is to be clear and brief but at the same time novel and original. This is because there are not many philosophical works that address the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and the continuity of both cultural periods through the Metal Age and birth of philosophy. There have not been a lot of philosophical studies that focus on the relationship of philosophy to religion, politics, or science, or really with culture in general. And there have been no simple statements of philosophy from within the thought process following the development of thought itself (what philosophers call the transcendental point of view). This book demonstrates the close relationship and deep continuity between philosophy and culture in a story that covers all of human history from 80,000 years ago to the present. All that novelty should have some critical support. But the reader willfindnonehere.Thatwoulddiametricallyopposetheclaimsofthe book. Instead, the reader will have to search for critical documentation in the works of the author, which appear at the end of the text. There are no footnotes. This book is a story by a philosophical father to his teenage daughter about what philosophy is, about what he has learned throughout his life, and what he wants to tell his daughter so that she will understand what has the object of his professional life. The book originated from the idea of a friend and colleague. On the morning of the 26th of November 2013, Witold Wolny told me in hisofficeattheUniversityofVirginiaatWise:“Youneedtowritea book called Philosophy for Irene in which you explain to your daughter what philosophy is in a way that everyone can understand. “Because the book Sophie’s World by Gaarder in reality is not a good explanation for everyone. It does not tell you what philosophy is. But you, Jacinto, can say some things very simply and clearly. You can leave this as an explanation gift for your daughter, as an intellectual testament. - 17 -
“You can also put in writing what you have explained to Clara and me about Plato and Aristotle, St. Augustine and St. Thomas, about the new start of philosophy with Wittgenstein….” That is how this adventure began, on the eve of Thanksgiving Day, with heavy rain and snowandwithfloodsinthevalleysoftheAppalachians. Witold also suggested that Irene could help me with corrections, but that could be because he does not understand what it is to have a teenage daughter and what can realistically be expected of you. However, to my surprise Irene took on the job, sending me comments and corrections every now and again. Not long after starting the book I also received help from Ananí HerhelpcamefromArequipa,Peruatfirst,andthenlaterfromSeville, Spain. Then in January 2014, I began receiving help from a group of translators from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who were living in Seville, Gabrielle, Emily, Allison and Kane. Ananí teaches philosophy at both the National University of St. Augustine of Arequipa and the Catholic University of Santa María in Arequipa, Peru. She helped me byconfirmingalongthewaywhatmaterialforeachchapterwouldbe useful to her students. The translators are studying subjects unrelated to philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and are enrolled in my course “Philosophy of Culture” at the University of Seville. Thanks to their lack of philosophical studies, they have been abletoconfirmifeachofthechapterstheytranslatedintoEnglishcould be understood easily in both Spanish and English, and whether I was indeedabletoeffectivelyexplaininlayman’stermsthedefinitionof philosophy. Anne W. Gilfoil and Clara-C. Adame de Heu of the University of Virginia’s College at Wise made the last revision of the translation, leaving the text ready to go to press and to the general public. This small book was finished in February 2014 and was edited thanks to the help of Jesus Fernandez Muñoz. It goes without saying that without the help from all of these people this would not have been possible and that my gratitude for all of their collaboration is profound. Big Stone Gap, Virginia, November 2013- Seville, February 2014 - 18 -
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION §1. Philosophy as a hobby and as a profession. §2. The order and disorder of knowledge. §3. The origin of philosophy. §4. The love of wisdom. §1. Philosophy as a hobby and as a profession People don’t question mathematics, nor do they question law or biology, because they believe, more or less, to know where they come from, but people do question philosophy. They know math professors and lawyers; and they’ve seen videos about animals. However, they only ever met a philosophy professor after the age of eighteen if they attend college. “Philosophy” is, nevertheless, a word that comes up in normal conversation occasionally. Mac computers have their own philosophy, there’s a philosophy for transportation companies, and every politician has a distinct philosophy that differs from another politician in the same party, and, of course, from the opposing party. In these cases “philosophy” means the way in which we understand how a computer works, or how a transportation company functions, or a political party distinguished itself from others. Other times, and more frequently, one attempts to understand life in general, and then one discovers that older people have their own “philosophy,” i.e. their own way of understanding and believing in (or not) the world and life, they have their own way of knowing who they are. It is possible that the majority of people have their own philosophy, a partial philosophy or a thorough and complete one. Maybe the majority of people have their own understanding of youth, of - 19 -
– 20 – Spanish people or of democracy, or maybe most importantly, of what it is to be human, of human life and beyond. Well, it turns out that there are professionals like this. There are people who dedicate their careers to the study of whether or not man is good or bad from birth and the study of whether or not the world can endure forever, or if God really could have created the world. Many professional agendas are also cultivated by people from other disciplines or by almost anyone. For example, almost everyone in Spain dances in nightclubs, plays soccer, and writes to his or her family, but there are also professional ballerinas, soccer players and writers. Other times people have a great passion for a few subjects, and they turn them into hobbies. There are people obsessed with caving and caves, cacti, old newspapers, and they know more about that than the professionals. Somethingsimilarcouldhappenwithphilosophy.Onefindsthat people are obsessed with the universe, with math games, with human freedom or the existence of God. These are the subjects and themes that professional philosophers study. In reality, almost all children have had a period of intense philosophical interest, in which they have questioned the existence of fairies and vampires, or whether or not animals can think, or what happens to people after they die. Irene, you asked me once, “Dad, where was I before I was born?” “Well...in heaven.” “Was I living or dead?” “Living, my dear, living. The only way you can be in heaven is alive.” When one gets older one forgets these profound questions and stops paying them any attention. But if one does pay them attention then one can become a philosopher. Then one would have to study at a university and major in philosophy, or one could do something else but still buy and read books on the subject. §2. The order and disorder of knowledge There are many ways to begin studying philosophy. One can learn in order or combine it with knowledge one already has. A pretty good
– 21 – method is to retrace history and observe how all human beings were learning and using philosophy in each time period. There are also many ways to learn a language, and there are many theoriesaboutwhichwayisbest.Thesechangeswitheachspecifictime period. A good way to learn a language is to continue with the method that children employ. First they learn nouns and verbs. Then they learn adjectives,pronounsandadverbs,andfinally,theylearntheconditional and subjunctive moods of verbs. It has to do with the way in which children begin to have an awareness of themselves, of a place, of time and things of that manner. The learning of a language is bound to personal and physical maturation and to that of philosophy as well. I know that I will always be myself. What would happen if nothing existed, neither I nor anything else? What is electricity? Professionalphilosophersandfansofphilosophy,firstnoticedisconnections, from which very big questions arise, or big certainties which are like islands of light and understanding of things, that emerge from a great haze that is past when one enters into adolescence. Consequently one understands that there are another ways to look at things, to understand them, that one is no longer a child. Intelligence and curiosity work as poachers for the apprentice-phi- losopher. Hand to mouth, watching a movie, television series, to discuss with a teacher, to fall in love, suddenly question, certainties, and discoveries of new territories appear. In principle, all of this is philosophy. Then, when one begins to study seriously and with order, professionally, s/he begins to see that philosophy begins with admiration andquestioning.Thenightwithitsstarryskyisamagnificentenvironmentfor philosophy.Theoceanistoo initsinfinity.Thatwhich just is like crowds in which one can lose oneself, and in which human insignificanceperceivesitself.Thisobservationsleadsonetowonder abouther/hisowninsignificance,likedeath,andthegreatnessofitall, like the awareness of being alone among the stars. Also love and beauty. Falling in love shoots the imagination and intelligence into many directions. Questions concerning the future and eternity, family and friends being accompanied and being alone. Loneliness can
– 22 – have a special force. It may take one or many disguises and still not communicate that one is alone. When one gets too involved in his or her own thoughts, one does not realize that one is alone. Many times, when someone thinks, one ends up forgetting oneself. When one begins to dedicate oneself professionally to philosophy, orsomethingelse,onefindsthattherearethingsonewon’tunderstand and, what is worse, what one has to learn even if one doesn’t understand them. It’s not because sometimes teachers and writers are not good teachers. Life is also like this. One has to live things s/he doesn’t understand, that one won’t have time to think about until much later, possibly until retirement. Other times life is not a good teacher. Life collects events in the mind when the mind is not prepared, but the mind has to face that. One can be angry or despair, but it is better to be patient. Patience is one of the most important virtues of philosophy, because in the end, things will be understood. “Sit at the door of your house”, according to an Arab proverb, “and you will see the corpse of your enemy in front of you”. §3. The origin of Philosophy Aristotle began his book on metaphysics with the words, “All men desire to know by nature,” and because of that vision is valued more than any other of the senses, because it is what generates the most knowledge, and that is what most resembles man to the gods. Maybe Aristotle has a point. One of his greatest disciples, Cicero, argued, saying, “All men want nature to be in charge, to have the power, because that is how they are more similar to the gods and how they can more easily do favors for others, which is the most beautiful thing in the world.” Perhaps Cicero was right, but to be in charge is also something that one needs to be able to do. Philosophy normally begins with knowledge of nature, of the universe. It is not just studying the knowledge of scientists, but also investigating if the knowledge that they have is all there is or if there is something more and what it is like, and whether it is reliable. Then,
– 23 – philosophy continues with the knowledge of society, what primary schools call “the environment,” or “the social environment,” and the secondary schools call, “natural sciences” and “social sciences.” The knowledge of natural things consists of sciences: mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. The knowledge of social things consist of humanities: language, history, literature, law, sociology, economics, politics and philosophy. Sciences study the function of things, and humanities, the function of people. They are called sciences because almost all of what natural things do can be expressed in “scientific”language,artificialorexact,likeinmath,thesymbolsofchemistry, those of information, and so on. They are called humanities because almost all of what humankind do, they do or tell by writing and writingitinstandardlanguages,notnecessarilyaccurateorscientificbut very symbolic and evocative. So Cicero described it, and so it has been transmitted. In addition to natural and social things, there are phenomena that could be called “personal” or “intimate,” for example the conscience, affection, intelligence, freedom and the person. In addition to the things of the world and of humankind, is what is beyond the world of humankind, what many philosophers have called “God”. The world, humankind and, God are the issues that philosophers have always studied and what philosophers believe is theirs. These are the three subjects that interest almost everyone, and almost everyone throughout life has an idea about them. Therefore philosophy is a subject that attracts many non-professionals (although, of course, they don’t know that it’s called “philosophy”). In some environments, philosophy is associated with religion. For example in Eastern cultures, but also in Western libraries and bookstores, books of philosophy and books of religion are typically placed in the same category. In Western culture, philosophy and religion have been separated since the beginning, because philosophy wanted to elaborate on ‘‘scientific”knowledge,whichinAncientGreecesignified“disinterest,”and religion was and is knowledge of much interest. Religion tries to help humankind to be good and happy, in its relationship with the divine. ButphilosophydevelopedinGreecetofindoutwhatHumanitycould
– 24 – accomplish with it, to discover what the gods had communicated to humankind their possibilities. §4. The love of wisdom Philosophy was born without differentiation from theology, they were considered one and the same, and was gradually differentiated because what was most interesting for philosophers to know was what happened to gifted children and youth. They believed that knowledge was the characteristic of the gods, as well as power, but soon they realized that none of them could ever gain knowledge or power like the gods, and so they asked instead what they could have, without despairing. In reality then, like now, human beings always wanted to know, especially youth, if it were possible, but this desire changed over the centuries. Now, that aspiration encountered many obstacles as well as encouragements. Now there is much more accumulated objective knowledge that has the subjective capacity to be assimilated. That is one position,becausewenowhavethepowertogoontheInternetandfind anything that we want, but this is also an obstacle, because that which we want to know the truth about is “everything”. If we don’t know “everything”, if we don’t have an image of “everything” that there is to know and of everything we can know”, then we cannot know how to accommodate what we know and what we ignore in conjunction with all knowledge, and if we don’t know that, then we are lost. That is what happened to the Portuguese and Spanish navigators in the 15th and 16th centuries when they were making geographical discoveries. When they came to Cuba, to Brazil or to Australia, they knew that they were on land, but they did not know if the land were an island, a peninsula or a continent, nor how large it was. It took a centurytofigureoutthesethings.Anditwasduringandafterthattime that they began to discover what was inside of those territories. Philosophy teaches how many and which are islands, peninsulas, and continents of knowledge, and then it teaches what is inside those territories. This is not taught in the same way as it would be if it
– 25 – were done by mathematicians, philosophers, chemists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, historians, lawyers or linguistics, but instead from the point of view of understanding this knowledge in relation to others. Butasdifficultasitistoteachphilosophywell,studentsfrequently don’t understand and they despair. Sometimes even when they hear the explanations they do not seem to understand anything. For example, if they hear that a person is a “single substance of rational nature,” thatisthedefinitionthatBoeciusgaveinthe5thcentury,andalthough theyunderstandeachoneofthefivewordsofthephraseseparately, when one combines them all into a phrase, they do not understand the phrase. Other times, they understand the phrase, for example, “I think therefore I am,” which is one of Descartes’s great discoveries from the 17th century, but they have the sensation that it is nonsense and that philosophy is full of absurd and silly ideas. To know everything, to the extent to which humans are capable, is tofindoutandunderstandwhatallgoesonintheuniverse,theworld, life, where it begins and where it ends. What drives humankind, society, history, art, science, and religion. What are we dealing with when we are dealing with God. Making sense of all of that, our understanding of that, is not called science but wisdom. For that reason those that sought out that knowledge gave themselves the title of philosophers, which in Greek means “loversofwisdom.”Ifonedoesnotfinditanddeclaresthattheydon’t have it, then they are a special philosopher, because the duty of a philosopheristofindthemeaningofeverythingandputittogether,and thatisusuallywhats/hedoes.Themajorityofphilosophersfindthat their sense of the world and of life relates to God. Other times they do notfindthis,oronlydosopartially,andsotheyhumblydeclarethis. That’s why they are called wise and good humankind. Because they dedicate their lives to discovering the meaning of things and tell everyone about them and so they might have a beautiful life. This is what being wise is, to discover the meaning of things, and to reconcile with reality, the world, and life. This is what it means to be philosophers, like poets and mystics. Sometimes it seems that they say different things and are even incompatible.
– 32 – The Paleolithic “Rosetta Stone”: carved in Lorthet and Pyrenees bone. Instructions for performing ritual songs and dances-- ceremonial ritual prayers (maybe for hunting) through signs whose meaning is indicated. The signs are the 4 moments or phases of development of life and the world: 1: Out of the sky, the shell, down to earth, rain, sinking into the forest, running through the forest. 2: Killing a piece of game, nailing spear, spilling and spreading blood 3. Flowing, quickening, full power, eating 4. Blooming, taking form, being strong, giving life “Alphabetic” transcription of signs and the indication of their meaning. 1 S S S S O 0 O O O O O <<<<<<< 2 3 4 / / // / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / ////////////// DDDDDDF F F F F F F T T T DDD HHHHHH = = = = \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 5 / 0 \ / 0 \ / O \ 0 0 S S S = = <<<<<<< Rows 1 and 5 to the left: A origin signs and O signs of dissolution and recombining. Rows 1 and 5 to the right: I signs of sudden rupture or injury, and E signs of branch, stem and fruit Rows 2 and 4: I signs of sudden rupture or injury Row 3: E signs of branch, stem and fruit
– 33 – To understand life and the world, after or while the necessary rituals for survival were invented, on the one hand there has to be a certain order and an establishment of a sequence among the different ritualstoindicatewhichcomesfirstandwhichcomesnext,andhow they depend on each other. On the other hand, the processes of life and of the world are also broken down in four moments or phases, which also have their own order and interdependence, like birth, growth, reproduction and death; infancy, adolescence, adulthood and old age; spring, summer, fall and winter, and many others, that have resemblances to the ritualistic processes. The outline of the ritual serves to order life and the world, and to filltheenormousemptinessofmemoryandtheignorantintelligence withaninitialcontentthatcanberefinedandcompletedovertime. The outline can be represented in bone, like that of Lorthet, or in a tuskortortoiseshell,forexample.WhatonefindsthenisaMandala, that is, an outline of the universe with its parts and indications of what has to be done in each and every moment. « Mandala » is a Hindi word that means circle, and the Hindus, like almost all people, have used circles and wheels to create complete calendars. They are divided in four parts, for example, which are the seasons of the year. Above them, they paint corresponding steps of human life, the stars that accompany these stations, the animals of each phase, etc. And so the mandala contains the universe, its processes, and its own rituals for each moment. §8. Storytelling, dancing and jumping. Hopscotch The mandala serves to show how things depend on each other in general, and a foundation or original cause. The center of the mandala is the fundamental principle that is activated during a ritual, that isalsotheprimordialritual,andfromwhicheverythingflows.Itisthe ritualofsacrifice,thatwhichconsistsexactlyofthecontributionoflife from the fundamental principle of the living, and the return of life and gratitude for this return. In Greek, this thanks is called “Eucharist.” Therefore, the mandala is an outline of instructions for carrying outaspecificritual,forcarryingoutallrituals,andawaytoexplainthe
– 34 – meaning of all of them. The Eskimo ritual of the hunting of the bear, the Sioux ceremony of smoking a pipe or the Catholic mass, all contain the same elements: Pictograms A: donation from the heaven to animals and plants tosacrifice. PictogramsI:theactionofsacrifice,breaking,separating,burning, eating, drinking, and smoking. PictogramsO:passageofthesacrificiallifetothesacrificeparticipants. Pictograms E: renewal of life or a new birth of the participants, which live with the life that came from heaven and therefore they go to heaven or they are already in heaven. Thefirsthumanbeingssurvived.Theyorganizedlifeandtheyorganized the world using their rituals. Initially, there was not much of a difference between doing things and counting them. Little by little they learned to count them only with dances, like the Aka Pygmies of central Africa (watch the video on YouTube), or like the Neolithic girls in their circle games (singing games). They jump and dance singing and holding hands, they crouch, they stand still, then they squat, as they need to do at each phase of the game, according to the ritual of life or the history of the universe. Something similar occurs in the hopscotch game (hopscotch in English, sharita in Arabic, kith-kith in India) perhaps the most primitive and universal of little girl games, in which a mandala is drawn on the ground is activated and the rituals are performed. So, through dance and play, there begins to be a development of separation between ritual actions and the knowledge that was differentiated from the religious cult, a knowledge that with time has come to be known as “philosophy.”
– 35 – CHAPTER 3 HOW THE HUMAN BEING IN THE PALEOLITHIC AGE UNDERSTOOD LIFE. THE INVENTION OF LANGUAGE §9. Social systems and personal identity. §10. Cultural systems and spheres of culture. §11. Building sanctuaries and building poems. §12. The rock, the village, and eternity. §9. Social systems and personal identity Paleolithic rituals are signs that have power, effective signs. This is howsacramentsaredefinedinreligions:sensitivesignsthatcause what they signify. If a child is named as a sign or signal that God has acknowledged and received him as a Christian, then that child is a Christian, if not, then s/he is not. The “name” that the child is given at his baptism is a sign that that child has become a Christian, and that s/ he has truly done so. If a man and woman decide to become man and wife, using as a sign the promise to devote themselves to one another, then they are married, and if not, then they are not. The mutual “promise of devotion” is a sign that they are married, and it makes them truly married. If a man asks forgiveness of another man whom he has offended or asks that man’s representative, using as a sign supplication, and the other man forgives him using as a sign a hug, then the man is forgiven, and if not, then he is not. Supplication and the hug are signs of forgiveness, true forgiveness. If a few men name another as their representative, or their boss, through the sign of a vote, and the man accepts this nomination with a sign by a saying “yes, I accept”, then that man then becomes the group’s representative or boss, and if not, then he does not. The vote and the words, “yes, I accept”, are the sign that the man is the boss and they make him into a legitimate boss.
– 36 – In the majority of cases rites are sacraments that confer powers to human beings. Those powers make them capable of particular activities, and make them what they are. They make them members of the group “Christians” or “Spaniards”, and it confers in them the capacity or right to do the things that Spaniards, or “the married”, or “the innocent”, or “the guilty”, or “representatives” are able to do, and what those who are not part of that group can not do, because they have not acquired those capacities through the corresponding rites. Rites are, well, the attribution of a portion of the supreme power to human beings, which converts them into an element of that system of power that consists of human society, and endows them with identity in that system. Rites convert a group of humans into a society of humans. Because of them, men and women are husbands or wives, owners, prisoners, free citizens, children, heirs, and many other things. When it is said that the human being is a social animal by nature, what is meant is all those things above, and that human being has the corresponding behavior for those things, not by biological instinct or from the result of natural processes, but from traditions by rites, as a result of social and cultural processes. As if the womb from which life springs is not only the female uterus, but also the framing of a social group’s traditions and communication. Well, the invention of human society and human identities with these characteristics is the biggest accomplishment of our ancestors from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, the biggest and best inheritance that they could have given us. In the Paleolithic, supreme power recognized by all was designated with the name of “mana” and others similar. The portion of “mana” that was taken to construct a social function and personal identity was called “totem”. In Western culture both ancient and modern, the supreme power recognized by all was designated with the name “God”. The portion of His power that was taken to construct social functions and personal identities was called “grace”. In contemporary
– 37 – cultures, the supreme power is recognized by all is the State, and its portions of power are called “titles” and “forms of legitimation”. The social system and personal identity of these different periods are represented in the following table: Social system and personal identity A) Totemic paleo society B) Feudal Christian society C) National modern society 0) Supreme power Mana God State 1) Personal power Rite of birth Baptism Civil registration 2) Group power Initiation rites Power of totem Integration in Kindred, freehold Legal age Nation, Citizenship 3) Dress of power Tattoos, and hunting and war ritual amulets, etc Emblems and shields, military standards Visitor cards Uniforms, style 4) Tools of power Ax, healing ritual amulet, etc. Weapons, professional instruments, etc. Professional titles, business logos 5) Capacity for new powers Rites of power increase, marriage Sacraments, Religious profession Formationcareer advancement 6) Protection of the systems of power Rites-Enactment taboos Enactment of moral codes Enactment of the criminal code 7) Scope of application of power Rites of incorporation of the town and tribe Vassalage/ allegiance constituion areas National constitution Private charters 8) Forms of intensification / annulation of power and identity Rites of reinforcement, fetishes, charms Rites-weakening, curses, voodoo Consecrations, Honors, titles Exile Excommunication Awards, Tributes, Prizes Fines Judicial convictions 9) Places and reservoirs of power Sacred mountain Animal mountain Ark of the covenant Temple Parliament, Central Bank 10)Symbolization of power and permanence of identities Rites-perpetuation, tombs, ancestor’s memory Cemeteries Memorials of heroes and saints Plazas, museums, building names and roads 11) Simple and substantial symbol of power Rites of cult to the image of the totem Rites of worship to the flag, to the cross Rites of cult to the flag, nation
– 38 – §10. Cultural systems and spheres of culture The social system determines personal identity: when and how one starts existing for society, what personal signs and group signs exist about who one is (name and last name), one’s corresponding visible signs (professional dress and tools), what powers one can exert, when and how (professional tools and social functions), how one can increase and decrease those powers, and how that identity can be more or less valuable, and how one can legitimatize one’s usefulness (prizes and public honors, bans of title theft, etc.) That system and identity are founded on what is recognized as supreme and absolute power, and it carries a conception of how that power makes reality the way that it is. That reality is given to us in eight spheres or articulated dimensions, from the point of view of the body axis, which is the position that each person occupies in space and which is that immediate spatial limits, and the general (which correspond to geography [4] and cosmology [3]), and the metaphysical limits of the real and unreal, the effective and the possible (which corresponds to the ontology [2]), the limits of what is perceived as agreeable and habitable (which corresponds to objectives values of esthetics [5] and the affective [6]), the limits of what is perceived as good (which corresponds to the values of ethics [7]), and the limits of what is useful (which corresponds to the technical [8]). That is how the conception of the world is formed, the “worldview” of a group of humans that in the terms of the anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, is a unitary system in which “sacred symbols thus relate an ontology and a cosmology to an aesthetics and a morality”, meaning that an organization of the limits of reality that results in the guarantee of religious conceptions [1]. The conception of the world constitutes a cultural system that can be represented as the following:
– 39 – Onto/Theology Cosmology Esthetic Ethics/ Thecnique 0) Totem/ Name 1) religious sense 2) metaphy-sical sense 3) geographi-cal topos 4) body axis 5) esthetic value 6) affective value 7) ethical value 8) technical value a) Zeus divine be-reality heaven above radiant luminous sublime saint magic b) Polis human/ inhuman becoming -fiction earthhere left/ right dirty/ clean beautiful/ ugly order/ disorder agreeable/ disagreeable good /bad useful /harm -ful c) Hephaestus demonic nothingunreality hell below gross dark horrible terrible sacrile- gious destructi- ve From the singular subjective point of view, the cultural system is the structure of the individual’s psyche, the operative system with which they comprehend and make decisions. From the objective point of view, it is common sense, the set of values shared by all individuals. That the human being is a social being by nature means that s/he understands and acts in communication with others, in a shared world. All this can be done through dance and song, without language, as we now know it. From the point of view of societal organization, the military, and the distribution of power, culture is broken down into eight spheres whicharefirstgroupedintotwolargersectors:thesectorofperformative language or practical knowledge include the following spheres: 1) religion, 2) politics, 3) law, and 4) economics; the sector of descriptive language or theoretical knowledge include the following spheres: 5) art, 6) technique, 7) science, and 8) wisdom. The four spheres of performative language, that is language that iseffectiveandcauseswhatitsignifies,areofPaleolithicorigins;they arise from rites that were already well documented, and are then maintained with the same performative value in modern societies with rites transmuted into civil ceremonies. Personal identity of modern
– 40 – humankind is determined in the same fashion as it was in the remote Paleolithic. Now, just like in the past, religion determines when a person is a saint or sinner; policy determines when individuals are leaders or subjects, allies or enemies, representatives or the represented; the law determines when a person is guilty or innocent, proprietors or thieves, man and wife, or friends and neighbors; economy determines when the person is a creditor or debtor, when they can or cannot have credit. All of that, by virtue of words, spoken or written, function as signs that cause what they mean. The four spheres of descriptive language, predicative language, which is language that does not cause what it means, and to a certain extent is impotent language, are the spheres of theoretical knowledge. They are of Neolithic origin and arise as running or hopscotch games that instruct you in how to describe the way things are. §11. Building sanctuaries and building poems The sapiens left Africa about 80,000 years ago, and the first sanctuaries, towers, and villages appeared in the Middle East around the 12th millennium BC. During those 70,000 years the initial group of less than 1,000 sapiens had grown to 3 million human beings, andtheyhadspreadoutacrossthefivecontinents.Duringthattime they were hunter-gatherers, nomads, and lived in groups of 50 persons practicing the rites mentioned earlier. This is a lot like what one sees in movies about North American Indians. To live that way a descriptive language is not necessary. Everything that needs to be taught or learned is much better taught or learned through imitation and practice rather than information from an instruction manual. Shooting arrows or hunting bison in the Paleolithic was taught best through imitation, just like modern day tasks like brushing one’s teeth or ironing shirts. Close to the 12th millennium BC, various groups of thousands built sanctuaries like the Göbekli Tepe (Turkey), Çatalhöyük (Turkey), or Stonehenge (England). These constructions were made of masses of stones weighing several tons, and then adjusted through movements
– 41 – requiring the help of 100 to 500 men. In order to give instructions to groups of 100 and 500 men on how to cut masses of stone, transport them, arrange them in determined positions, and do this in a way that would be understood and executed properly, it is not enough to use theimperativeandtheinfinitiveformsthatwereusedinritesduring the Paleolithic. Instead it would be necessary to conjugate in tenses that could be used in real-time and various non-real-time scenarios, meaning it would be necessary to handle the indicative tense of verbs (a real present or a timeless present) and compose with it conditional, subjunctive, and future tenses. For example: “when they bring the large stone, you will have to have the hole open; they will put it here…” etc. Also, it is not enough to only use the disinclined nouns and adjectives used in rites. It is necessary to decline them, add to them pre-prepositions and post-prepositions in order to indicate things like to where, from whom, for what and who, and for whom. For example: “put the large stone on top of the smaller one in a way in that the left side will be free…” That is said with the name “large stone” in nominative, ablative, or accusative sense. The groups of workers executed orders by singing them. In this manner they learned the name for what they were doing. If they took 192 years to make a sanctuary, which is how long it took to build the Cathedral of Seville, they would have 2.304 months to learn a few conjugations and declinations that you, Irene, and I, have had to learn in a normal 9-month course. Well, the tools and linguistic precision that are necessary to build those Neolithic sanctuaries are the same that are needed to build thefirstepicpoemsliketheEpicofGilgameshortheIliad. §12. The rock, the village, and eternity While a sanctuary is built in this manner, with large groups of people living in the location of the construction, then things and life, the things of life, are no longer like they were when there were only a few people living in small groups and frequently changing locations.
– 48 – whicharerealandwhicharefictional,ascanbedistinguishedfrom each other, from which arise some and which arise others, which may be related to the others and, for that relate, how many kinds of realities exist and how many are the ways of relating the realities there. The way in which we relate things and words is what the Greeks called, without further word, which in their language was named “logos”. All of these activities make up thinking, ways of exercising or thinking,whichaimstolearnandfindwisdom.Relateallthethings one needs, with everything, what humankind have always done since appearing on earth in the Paleolithic but have been linked to that of anon-reflective,butvitalway:forthatwasandislife,becausethey wanted to live and share life, to share s/his life with life. That was and is religion, sharing life with life. When human beings distance themselves from their lives and living, and distance themselves from their religion, and suddenly say, “Well, and what is all this? And what is this all about?” Then, the conjunction of all this is called “what is being” (in Greek “ontos”, in Latin “entities“) “reality.” But “reality” is not life, and knowing it is not sharing one’s life with life. Then they stand on their plants and in a way begin to talk about each person to God, and begin to believe they are made in the image and likeness of God. They begin to believe that there is a realm that belongs to all humankind, the world and God, a common scenario for all. This common scenario is what philosophers call “transcendental order”, and its discovery is what drove the most terrible panic that human beings can suffer. The discovery of this common scenario is the discovery that there is a “family resemblance” between the world, humanity, and God, a certain unity between the three. Being is not wrong, reality is not wrong. The reality, the world, humankind, and God can understand each other and are dialoguing. And that’s a big hope. The foundation of philosophy is the love of wisdom. We hope that one can achieve, that my love can be reciprocated to some extent. And that is the greatest happiness of the world, after the feeling actually corresponded, of course.
– 49 – §16. The first philosophers. From Pythagoras to Anaxagoras When human beings stood up on the sole of their feet and begun to speak of you to God, they came out of the terrifying dread causedbythefloodandthepassageofthePaleolithic,fromareligiouslife in a world full of gods, they started a life from scratch, from nothing. They learned to talk to each other with an informative language and then realized that the gods were doing the same, and that they were informing men about many things. The set of such reports by the gods were called “revelations” and they were collected in books called “sacred.” Paleolithic gods did not report anything and did not speak. They simply displayed their omnipotence. Now, the gods were talking, and they promised salvation, and eternal life. Besides salvation was achieved effectively by believing in them, accepting their power and preparing to receive it, because then the gods exercised it. There is a unique setting for all reality. God has done it all in a manner that one can understand: according to measurements, through words and through numbers. Being is not wrong, counting it can be measured in words and numbers, measured with thinking, one might think. When Pythagoras discovered them, he felt that numbers were sacred, and that ratios were the key to discovering how things were made. But it is not so simple, because are numbers real? Are they not too equal between the different units of measurement (years or kilometers) to express the reality of things, the years of adolescence and maturity, or kilometers of coastline and desert? There has to be something real and malleable, like clay, with which one can do everything “that is being”. It could be something like water, which can be found in solid, liquid or gaseous state, and move from onetoanotherbyfire.Oritcouldbesomethinglikethefireitself.Tales of Miletus, Anaximander and Anaximenes thought that they could be something like an original material, just as now some physicists have said that what was in the beginning is dissociated hydrogen gas. Parmenides thought that what is in the beginning and always has been, “what is being” is what can be called “being”, “the self”, which can be thought and said, and that that ensures our consistency. The
– 50 – inconceivable, that which cannot be thought, cannot be. And what cannot be, cannot think. The possible and thinkable perhaps match. The law governing the stage of being is the power to think and say, the logos. The law of “reality “ is “ logos”. In addition to the self, reality, and in addition to measurements and numbers, the logos, there is also thought, intelligence, which the Romans called “Nous”, and which later on translated to “intellect” and “sprit”. Was God the “nous”? Was it the “self”? Was it the “logos”? How could they think that it was Zeus? Philosophywasbornwiththesparksofthefirstphilosophersand took more than a century to organize itself as a totality with differentiated and related parts.
– 51 – CHAPTER 5 WHY DOES EVERYBODY STUDY PLATO (427-347 BC)? THE BIRTH OF GEOMETRY §17. The axial age. The school of Athens. §18. The birth of the world and of geometry. §19. Truth of beauty and love of the idea. The good. §20. The best possible system of human organization. §17. The axial age. The school of Athens This philosophy emerged in the 6th century BC, with the emergence of subjectivity and logos, through the four spheres of culture previously mentioned: religion, politics, law, and economy. Religion Politics Law Economy Paleolithic Sacrificial offering of a hunted animal Tribes, leaders of tribes (‘‘bosses’’), chamans Law of the most powerful. Vis. Best resource: Women bartering Neolithic Sacrificial offering of oneself through obeying societal norms Villages, heads of kingdoms, kings Law given by the gods. Fas. Best resource: land Various types of money Chalcolithic, Iron Sacrificial offering of oneself through faith in salvation Kingdoms, empires, Satraps, Pharaohs Law dictared by the group. Ius. Best resource: real estate Unification of type of money used Written History Sacrificial offering of oneself through meditation and prayer Republics Senators Abstract Law. Lex. Coinage
– 52 – From 800 BC to 600 BC religious, political, legal and economic practices shaped human minds so that theoretical spheres of culture could begin their development, and from that century on activities featuring pure thought, art, technology, science, and philosophy began to be practiced. These same activities are now practiced in the East and in the West and are still closely linked to religion. The 6th century BC is the moment in which we become aware of logos, the intellectual and spiritual intimacy that was, in many places, distant and unrelated to one another. This era includes the time at which the use of logos begins to be widespread and human beings start writing history based on written documentation. The philosopher Karl Jaspers calls this the beginning of the “era axial”, or the “ time axis “. This is the century of religious reform: Zarathustra (+ 583 BC) in Iran, Buddha (563 BC -483 BC) in India, Confucius (479 BC - 551AC) and Lao- Tse in China, the fall of Jerusalem (587 BC), the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, their detachment from the temple and the promised land, supported by the preaching of the prophets, and the discovery of logos by the Pythagorean cult (570 BC - 495 BC) and Heraclitus (535 BC -475 BC) in Greece. Philosophy and science began their development in the 6th century BC in southern Italy (Magna Greece) Sicily, Greece, and the coasts of Anatolia. In Greece, the most active, cosmopolitan center was considered the most important city. It was here, in conjunction with Socrates that the Athens school was founded. The Athens school would become a research center called “The Academy”, founded by Socrates’ pupil Plato (428 BC - 348/347 BC). A sign was placed on his door saying, “Let None But Geometers Enter Here.” Athens had 150,000 inhabitants and was located near Babylon, the most populous city of the eastern Mediterranean. Babylon contained a higher concentration of wealth, commercial and cultural activity. Plato was from a wealthy family and was one of the most idealistic human being that ever lived: his glory and his martyrdom. We still use the term “platonic love” to describe a very high passion (impractical) for something sublime (for something very intangible) that accepts that it willneverfulfillone’sdesire.
– 53 – §18. The birth of the world and geometry Plato, as anyone who has discovered the idea, had every reason to love, live, and die for other people. We just said that in the Neolithic, humanity began to calculate the wheat they needed to survive and the amount of land they had to sow to reap the necessary harvest. Also, along the same line of logic, one must measure and calculate a way to live safely, relying on internal observations rather than on the outside world. Earth in Greek “gea” or “gaia” is said to measure “metron”. The measurementofpracticalfields(inLatin“ager,agri”)iscalled“surveying” and the theory of the measure of land is called “geometry”. Whenthefieldtobemeasuredissmall,flat,andmoreorlessquadrangular,surveyorsmeasurethesidesofthefield.Fromthesides,they calculate the area, and the area is calculated by the cubic meters of grain thatagivenfieldcanproduceinayear,knowingthecapacitiesofthe otherfields. However, if the pieces of land are round/ oval, very large, or have large moats or high mounds, then these surfaces cannot be measured unless a way to measure round or irregular surfaces can be ascertained. This can be done if you can break these irregular surfaces into shapes thatfitthenormalwayofsurveying,andmeasuretheareasofcircles, triangles, squares invented. Platoknewhowtocomposeanddecomposepolygons(planefiguresformedbystraightlines)andpolyhedral(figuresformedbyplanes) from irregular to regular. He knew that there are many regular polygons and 5 regular polyhedral (convex), and how they could come together to make normal observations. Plato was one of the greatest geometers of history and a theoretical surveyor, although not a practical surveyor. A good theory is a good theory, but it may not be useful outside of being a good theory. Plato knew that volume could be generated by rotating planes, that planes could be generated by turning straight lines, and that the straight line is the view from one end of a line that is reduced to just a point, leaving zero amount of space. Plato knew that zero, unless there was space, meant that the two planes were united.
– 54 – Geometry, the theory of space and the world of celestial spheres, is also the understanding of the formation of the world, and has been used by Pythagoras to Einstein to Plank. Complex and complicated things arise from the composition of simple things. The universe is composedoffourelements:earth,water,air,andfire,anditsmaterial is distributed in four states: solid, liquid, gaseous, and igneous. These elements correspond to geometric shapes that have measurable, calculable relations with each other, whether it is through triangles and spheres, waves, strings or elementary particles. The movements of the spheres explain the seasons, temperatures, light, movements of the seas, and the reason for the displacement of the sun and stars. Geometry lets one know that the world exists in terms of movements and cycles, but it does not let one know if these cycles are limitless.Thereareexpertsthatbelievethecyclesareinfinite,andthere are experts that believe that they are not. This debate is not a new one; it was discussed in Plato´s era, as well as in the era of Thomas Aquinas and Averroes, and continues today. § 19. The truth of beauty and love of the idea. The good The question of the truth of measurements, calculations, and theories is still pending from changes in the Neolithic era. The units of measurement are always the same but the realities measured are not, and this seems to give more authenticity to the measurement and the unit of measurement, which is a great conventional construction. Looking more closely at the matter, Plato, and other mathematicians, and later philosophers (eg Hegel), say the opposite. Thus, when Galileo said that objects fall with an acceleration of 9’80665 m/s, when Newton said that bodies attract with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance, or when Boyle-Mariotte says that, constant temperature and amount of gas, the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume (or that gas exerts equal pressure in all directions of the space in which it exists), they say that is how the universe was built, and that is how it works.
– 55 – And if the universe really does not work well, if objects do not fall at the speed of acceleration, if the masses are attracted to that force, and if the gases do not exert that pressure, then it is because there is what Hegel calls “empirical impurities” that prevent reality from behaving as it should behave, preventing it from being as it should be. We are not aware of the “empirical impurities” that affect our trajectories to the severe, the masses or gases, and we do not care as long as we remain ignorant of them. But it greatly bothers us that a tree is dying, a horse is lame or a child is dyslexic. It hurts. The reason it hurts is because of the requirement of realization of the ideal, which is internal,andoftheawarenessthatwecannotfittheideal.Thatpainand that requirement are what can be called and is called platonic love, or justlove,andwhatPlatodefinedas“desiretobegetinbeautyaccording to the body and the soul.” Plato says that the world as we know it is a world of shadows that what we see is like shadows on the wall of a cave, shadows of the things that are nearby in existence and sunlight projected on the wall. Humanity believe that the shadows are reality, but they are not. Reality is what we lack and what hurts if we cannot achieve our ideal reality. What one wants to engender in the tree, the horse and the girl is what one needs to realize the ideal, to be as one should be. In the examples, love points to the physical perfection of the horse and of the girl, and to the embodiment of an ideal physical perfection. But, it could also point to the embodiment of spiritual perfection, for example being thankful rather than spiteful. We want to engender in our souls both wisdom and beauty. The poet Pedro Salinas says: “Forgive me the pain sometime. I just want to get out of you your best self. It is just you that you did not see it and I do.” Whatisfirstperceivedisthebeautyofthetree,horse,andchild. Beauty awakens the Eros, the love that is the effort to engender in those beautiful beings their deepest truth. Beauty is the beauty of the truth and goodness that exist, and this calls attention to the truth they are missing. The beauty there attracts, and the missing good drives us to full realization that is, the dynamics of the universe, Eros. Not only human beings, horses, and plants, but also gas, the masses and burdens. Everything, the universe aspires to its full realization, its truth, its
– 56 – ideal, which according to Plato, is much realer than gas, masses, horse,andgirlinthisdeficientsituation,andforthisreasontheytruly hurt. It should be noted that, although it is beauty that attracts, beauty is not what one wants to accomplish. What one wants to engender in a beautiful creature is the good. “Your best you”. And that good is what Plato says is the key to knowledge. We know because we love the good that is missing. Those in love know about everything, and sometimes only in relation to their beloved. Ortega y Gasset remarked jokingly that for a lover green is not a color but that blouse in which she looks so beautiful, and lettuce is not a vegetable but that with which she prepares a wonderful salad. She is the source of meaning, which illuminates and gives relief to the bodice and lettuce. So when her love dies out, these things no longer have meaning, as the verses of Antonio Machado say, “your street is no longer your street/ it’s just any street/ a path to any place”. The light of knowledge the good, because love is love of the good. And, it is not only applicable to her. It is the truth of everything, the embodiment of everything. Burdens, the masses, gasses, trees, horses, and humankind. § 20. The best possible organization of human affairs Besides being an outstanding geometer, Plato was a philanthropist, a lover of humankind, and although he did not like to command, he liked to organize things. He strongly believed in the realization of human beings and society. It hurt to see everything that was wrong with Athens, so he designed a social organization and an educational system that would facilitate the full realization of humankind. Aspartofarichandinfluentialfamily,hehadafriendwhoruled in Syracuse (Sicily) who convinced him to implement his model of society there. This experiment did not turn out well; he was sold into slaveryandendedupinafleamarketthere.Luckilyanotherrichfriend rescued him, and they returned home.
– 57 – Plato deeply studied the human being, his own body and soul, the chances of immortality, the kind of existence possible in another life, and the conduct necessary to be as happy as possible and also be a productive, ideal citizen. He studied the best ways of organization for the polis. Some of his ideas are highly known for their extreme proposals, such as the abolition of private property, the abolition of the family, the community of women and children, and some others. That is, in addition to developing theories of metaphysics, physics, theology and a very complete theory of knowledge, Plato developed a theory of anthropology and psychology and a theory of education, ethics,sociologyandpolitics.Thatis,hebrokeallthefieldsofphilosophy and raised the fundamental problems of each. That is why everyone studies Plato, because therein lies the entirety of philosophy. Up to this point, American philosopher and mathematician Whitehead says that Western philosophy was a set of footnotes from the extensive pages of Plato. For Plato philosophy was very clearly distinguished from religion, but in spite of that it is also in a way an acknowledgment of salvation, a knowledge connected with mystery and the unknown. It is because theItisbecausetheloveofwisdomleadstothepurificationofthesoul, because the study of geometry leads to the truth of being and the truth ofhumankind,andpurifiestheworldaroundus.Andthephilosophical kind of existence that we carry in this life is what prepares us for the next, an idea in which Plato believed deeply. Some currents of Platonism have led his disciples to establish religious schools, or philosophical and religious schools that have endured to the present moment, which are maintained with a renewed vitality.
– 64 – Thefifthlevelofknowledge(row3)istheonethatcorrespondsto realities that are not only the result of named things and appointed persons, but also the relation with realities that result from the combination of people and things together. To name them creates consistency for example, “Sioux,” “family,” “mana,” “sextercio,” “Rome,” “Hispanic-American bank” or “the Declaration of Human Rights.” This level of knowledge relates to political and ethical life and to future realities to be achieved in the end. The sixth level of knowledge (row 2) corresponds to the type of reality that has the breadth of intellect, as the darkness is the absence of light and silence is the absence of sound. That which relates to the breadth of intellect has not been understood or named by philosophers, and that which relates to absence but is understood by all philosophers has been named and can have logos, light or spirit. The seventh level (row 1) corresponds to a type of reality that is beyond the scope of knowledge, which forms the other levels of realties, and in many religions and many philosophical developments is called God. Aristotle called it God and said that it is the thought that thinks in itself, the thought that thinks and knows everything. §23. Inventory With this systemization of reality, with this organization is what it is,thehumanintellect,whatitistobehuman,hassatisfiedits thirst for knowledge, and that is everything, right? We know that there are few cognitive abilities that are known as cognitive acts, and we know that few cognitive acts are listed as known objects. It works, Aristotle. But, are the cognitive abilities of humankind designed to capture all of the objects that exist? Well, in a way, yes. There are sounds that the human ear does not register, and the same applies to light radiation, but you can get to know them. Scientists of the 21st century believe that there could be many different universes, but of course, they could discover them.
– 65 – The question is whether or not reality and knowledge are proportional. Aristotle believed that they were. He tried to take inventory of all that there is and to see if it is covered effectively. The inventory of cognitive capacities can be achieved and it is within our reach, but is there another way to take inventory, or even better, are there better inventories that we could use for the procedure? Well, there is at least one other procedure, and it analyzes ways to say the ways that Aristotle supposed matching mindsets. But there are two orders of being. One, to match all things that exist, and to match onlycertaintypesofthings,thefirstiscalledtranscendentorder.The second is called categorical order, or even better, the order of things in general and the order of the different ways they are real. From the point of view of the transcendental being, the self is determined in many ways, but there are three fundamental ways: 1) In thefirstplace,theselfisdeterminedaccordingtosubstanceandact, according to what things are, according to the how they are now and according to what they are in a perfect state. This is the sense of being that Plato worked and that operates with geometry. What things are is what they will always be. 2) Secondly, the self is determined according to what is true and what is false. In this sense, the truth states things astheyare,andwhatisfalsestatesthings,astheyarenot.Thefirst andsecondsensesoftheselfsignificantlycorrespondwithbeingand measuring up to and checking each other. The logos are the logos of reality. 3) In the third place, to be is determined according to power and action. To be is determined by what can happen, what you do, or what you want to do. Since the Neolithic period, until the 20th century, themostimportantsensewasthefirst.Fromthe20thcenturythemost important was the third, because the rhythm of change of things and the quantity of things that could and wanted to be were superior to what was established, and this is important to the philosophy of the 20th century. From the point of view of the different kinds of reality, to be is said in 10 ways: 1) Substance: as “human being” or “horse,” 2) Quantity: as “two or three yards,” 3) Quality: as “white,” 4) Ratio: as “double” or “larger,” 5) Place: as “in high school” or “in the market,” 6) Time: as “yesterday” or “today,” 7) Position: as “sitting” or “lying,”
– 66 – 8) Possession: as “armed” or “disarmed,” 9) Action: as “cutting” or “walking,” 10) Passion: as “is cut” or “is burned.” Human being and horse are not real in the same way that numbers, feelings, years, and dollars are. Different laws govern these types of beings, and their study is what gives rise to different types of sciences, each with its own methods. §24. Complete Philosophy It might seem that Aristotle was a kind of a general life librarian who ordered books and knowledge as they passed. Well none of that. Hespenthislifewatchingthestars,guttingjellyfishonthebeachesof Piraeus, dissecting geckos, attending the births of cows, watching the silly and normal people go to the theater and to the market, helping in the debates of the Senate, and collecting plants, animals and laws that his former student, Alexander the Great, had sent from all of the countries through which he passed and conquered. All that he knew, he knew through observation, and he had a talent for observation in a way that no one else has had. He was not an exceptional geometrician or mathematician, and he used a method for each type of knowledge, a different method which corresponded to each one. He did not apply mathematics to physics because he said that physics did not tolerate that method of math: if he had done so, he would have created physical geometry. It “measures” the movement, but does not think, does not see what it is. With Aristotle, and especially with his writing of his books on logic, philosophy is left as a complete knowledge, one that is systematized and organized.
– 67 – CHAPTER 7 THE DISCOVERY OF FREEDOM. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY § 25. - Judaism. Covenant, freedom, and future. § 26. -Christianity. Person, freedom, and dignity. § 27. -The recycling of existence. Forgiveness. § 28. - Christianity and Christendom. Western Culture. §25. Judaism. Covenant, freedom, and future From the 80th millennium BC to year zero, humanity traveled the path that carried them from birth to adulthood. Since leaving Africa in the 80th millennium BC (or possibly the 60th , for the dates can not beconfirmed)untiltheendofthePaleolithicerainthe15thmillennium BC, humanity, whose religion revolved around sacrificing the animals they hunted, created social and cultural systems, which were then spread throughout the land. The personal identity systems used today were also established. During the Neolithic Era (15,000 BC to 5,000 BC), the people of the Middle East created cities and developed agricultural practices involving the domestication of plants and animals. They also invented forms of informational and descriptive language. These cultural practices of religion, politics, law and economics generated subjects such as art, science and wisdom. A history of eternity was discovered through paintings, songs, parties, and games. DuringtheMetalAges(5,000BCtothemidfirstmillenniumAD), the people of the Eastern Mediterranean, whose religions promised eternal life through faith in the divine power, created and developed political organization within empires. Writing, science and philosophy, as they are currently recognized today, were also developed.
– 68 – Through Greek and Roman Stoic philosophy and Roman law, humanitydevelopedarecognitionoffreedomanddignityinthemid-first millennium AD. This corresponded with the maturation of their abilities. They were now able to measure their essence, which is the practice of philosophy. Gradually and through exchanges with other cultures, that essence, and the knowledge of it consolidated in its full consistency. That time is recognized by the Western culture as year 0 (zero) because it is considered the most important moment in history and the point where everything starts. Human essence reached maturity between the 5th century BC and year zero. Although the knowledge gained was suitable for the time period, there are essential aspects of philosophy and law, however, that later came to light as the size of humanity grew over time. Freedom and dignity were the new aspects of human nature that became apparent throughJewishandChristianinfluence. Experience and the idea of freedom appear in Judaism in the late Neolithic period. They are also present in the Middle East between the 4thand3rdmillenniumBC.Itfirstaroseinconnectionwiththeconcept of creation: God creates because He wants to. Freedom exists with a God whose main quality is omnipotence. This is invoked in the profession of Christian faith through saying “I believe in Almighty God the Father.” The idea of creation is not typically found in Paleolithic religions. It appears in Neolithic religions and usually includes chaotic waters, perhaps related to flooding, that were produced by the end of the Würm glaciation. In some Neolithic religions, God created out of chaos and through speech; however, God created freely in some Afro-Asian religions. The Hebrew Bible is an example of this. Secondly, freedom appears in Judaism with regards to the experience and idea of the covenant. This is rather unusual in Neolithic religions. God is believed not to engender his people in the same way a father does his children in order to establish a natural relationship with them. People choose and establish a covenant with God. People accept the choice and covenant freely for sometimes they rejects it and returns to it at other times.
– 69 – Well, people who maintain a free relationship with God, in which acceptance and rejection occur, has a consciousness of freedom, negotiation, and the covenant that is not solely manifested in worship and religious behavior. The covenant does not refer to eternity, eternal life, or a promise of salvation. Judaism is not a mystery religion or a form of salvation. Its promises relate to the story, and the world is here now with all its glory. Yahweh did speak of an afterlife. Neolithic religions and the mysterious religions of the Iron Age did not have these traits. Such a religion was not present in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece nor Rome between the 3rd and 1st millennium BC when Judaism was consolidated. These features have kept Judaism in European history, and they are found in the work of philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides of Cordoba, and Martin Buber of Germany. §26. Christianity. Person, freedom, and dignity The Hebrew meaning of divine omnipotence and freedom, as well as the covenant and human freedom, includes Christianity as it was because Christianity is considered to embody Yahweh’s promises to the chosen people. According to Christianity, such conduct does not occur in terms of historical triumph, but rather as a promise of eternal salvationthroughtheSonofGod,whoidentifiedhimselfasthepromised Messiah. InChristianity,arelationshipcanbeidentifiedbetweentheSonof God and humankind because was born to a woman. The female determines the nature of a child; a human is born from a woman like a calf is born from a cow. Therefore, the Son of God was born to a woman even though He is still considered divine. In order to understand that the Son of God is both God and human being at the same time, one must understand and accept the nature of the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Through reaching this understanding, philosophers and Christian theologians developed the concept of a “person.”
– 70 – Before year zero, only characters or roles defined people. They were actors in the theatre and judges in lawsuits. There was nothing viewed beyond these roles, even though their personal lives possessed more. Betweenthefirstand4thcenturyAD,theFather,theSonandthe HolySpiritweredefinedascharactersandtheactorbehindthemwas identifiedasadivinebeing.Thisissimilartohowafather,motherand son are roles with humankind behind them as the actor; a man, a woman and a child are the three models of “humanity.” Each role is equally expressed by its actor; therefore, the divine actor does not deliver the role of the Father any better than the roles of the Son and the Holy Spirit. With this came the idea that to be “human” meant being part of a family of at least three members, and that to be “divine” meant being part of a family of three. In these two types of families, the “person” is the role and the “actor” is in the background. The role is different from the other roles, and the actor possesses the substance and essence that compose each of the three persons. It was determined that Jesus had both natures, a divine and a human. These natures acted as single a actor, which produced a divine “person”. In the case of Jesus, theologians agreed to say that a single actor existed with two actors behind it. This single actor acted sometimes from his divine background and sometimes from his human background. With this, even though some issues remained uncertain, what became very clear was that to be a “person” meant to have an endowed backgroundthatexistedforanunfathomableinfinity. Thus, Christianity teaches that being a person is a way of being that exerts different roles in relation to others exercising other roles. These are equally divine and human among themselves because the actor who acts within different people is either the same humanity or the same divinity. In order to understand this concept of a person and have relationships with other people, Christianity deemed equality and the fellowship of human beings to be the core structure, or ontological structure, of being human. These were formulated by Greek and Stoic philosophers and existed as principles of the law or moral norms.
– 71 – Equality and the fellowship of all human beings were not matter of the law or good moral intentions, but rather characteristics that composed the essential structure of human beings. In the centuries that followed, the political and social achievement of this equality and fellowship was demanded in Europe. This shaped the development of European culture with an intensity that is not present in the developmentofothercultures.Whatwasdiscoveredinthefieldofreligionhad tobeunderstoodinthefieldofphilosophyandpresentinpolicyand the law. §27. The recycling of existence. Forgiveness Equality and fellowship must be enacted. They must also be enacted freely because human beings, in addition to the essential structure of having to be in a family, can only be a Christian if it is freely accepted. One can only remain a Christian if every action taken to expand and strengthen one’s abilities is also freely performed. A husband and wife who have freely accepted the appropriate skills will reach forgiveness and regeneration if they are accepted freely. That is the structure and the mode of operation for the Christian sacraments. It involves a set of procedures consisting of recycling, repairing and regenerating existence. This recycling of existence is not something that is limited to the world of religious relations, as seen with the agreement of the chosen people. The evangelical description of mercy reads: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me” (Mattew 25: 35-36). The aforesaid notes how these ideals were assumed in the institutions of civil society: a system of free and compulsory education, unions, laws and fees regarding foreigners and immigrants, a health care system, accident insurance, pension plans, laws regarding prison and probation, legal guarantees for the offender and, overall, a state of welfare. To achieve all of these on a theoretical and practical level was the purpose of revolutions and political reforms that wanted to bring the
– 72 – future to the present and the eternal ideal to the temporary reality. The revolutions and reforms triumphed, and the future was present with freedom of religion, conscience, expression and trading. Culture, education, housing, employment, social justice, equality, fellowship and solidaritywererevolutionized.ThisfirsthappenedinWesterncountries of Christian culture, and then spread to the rest of the world. §28. Christianity and Christendom. Western culture Christianity spread from Palestine in all directions. It especially prospered in some areas to the north and northeast with very peculiar cultures, namely those of Greece and Rome. The Greeks invented science and philosophy, and they managed everything they touched through these concepts. The Romans were the great creators of organizations and law. They managed everything that fell into their hands through administration. From the time of the apostles, Christianity existed in Ethiopia, Armenia, Ukraine, and many other places in the East, but it was not like the Greco-Roman Christianity. On February 7, 380, Emperor TheodosiusproclaimedGreco-RomanChristianityastheofficialreligionofthe Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica. On the third day of the Kalends of March in Thessaloniki and in theGratian’sfifthconsulateofTheodosiusAugustusandAugustusI, it was proclaimed, “We order that only those who follow this rule will have the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, whom we judge to be insane and crazy, are branded with the infamy of heresy. Their meeting placesshallnotreceivethenameofachurch.Theywillbeobjectsfirst of divine vengeance and then punished for our own initiative to adopt the following of the heavenly will.” By the late 4th century, baptizing infants was already a widespread custom. It was no longer a free choice of faith and had instead become a requirement for integration into society. Thus, Christianity ceased to be a religion only for those who chose it and became a cultural system to which humans belonged by birth. Like in the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, religion again determined
– 73 – the identity of each individual in every moment of its existence. The sevensacramentsthatweresignificantduringtheirlifelongjourneywere baptism,communion,penance,confirmation,marriage,ordinationand Extreme Unction. Westerners have imposed worldwide parameters with their culture in areas such as political democracy, human rights law, the free market economy, artistic methods (such as music and architecture), the experimental method in science, and the technical synthesis of science and art that involves technology. They have not imposed their religion and philosophy unless these areas of Western culture were already present. The 21st century globalization involves a synthesis of all cultures together, but it is unlikely that time would no longer be counted on the Western calendar. It holds theworld’sfinancialaccountingandthecostofchangingitwouldbe sohuge,thusmakingitdifficulttofindthepoliticalwilltoaddressthe issue of the change of the calendar.
– 80 – the eve of the building of the great empire of the Huns by Attila in 434 and the devastation of civilized Europe. Augustine saw the fall of the Roman Empire, as if it were the end of the world. He did not have the experience of modern Western civilizations of a fall and a rebirth of civilization. He did not have precisely the experience of the dissolution of Rome and the emergence of Europe, but only the end of civilization. And he had to think about it in apologetics and polemics against those who believed that this ruin was precisely caused by Christianity, and those who have assumed the spirit of Rome, especially Constantine and Theodosius. Thus Augustine, in addition to developing the structure and content of the individual biographical deployment in the Confessions, elaborates the structure and content of the history of humankind, in his treatiseTheCityofGod.Thisworkisnotonlythefirstphilosophyof historybutalsothefirsttheologyofhistory. A philosophy of history is an understanding of humanity in the temporal process from its beginning to its end, an understanding of the stages of the processes and the meaning of each of them and as a whole. In the Paleolithic, Neolithic and in Greek and Roman antiquity there is something. In the thousand years between the 5th century BC, when Herodotus wrote his history books, and the 5th century when SaintAugustinewrotehisown,therearenotablehistorianswhoreflect on their science. However, they do not make a philosophy of history, much less a theology of history. A theology of history is an understanding of the temporal unfolding of the human species, from the individual point of view and from that of their communities, in relation to their destiny in eternity and in relation to the divine activity that refers to those human beings and her/his communities. From the remotest Paleolithic human being needs to understand well and thus comprises individual and social life with the Divine. In further stages the scheme does not change, because that is the scheme of the whole of reality, and understanding is always to understand the whole. Yet in each period the human being must draw the outline in a new and different way because new elements come into play that are
– 81 – very different from those before and which make one think that nothing that came before has value any longer, and that this prevents the warning from coming into play and that the formal scheme used to reach the new understanding is the same. Well, the new elements that Augustine works are precisely the completehumanstorytoldinempiricallyidentifiableandrectifiable years from the start to end he is setting it to the same empirical terms. Augustine already has a rudimentary Biblical chronology, a history of Greek and Roman history, and kept records of hundreds and thousands of years. Moreover, for him history relates to religion and theology because God was born and died on a very precise dates, and also that story, which begins with the creation of the first human couple, complete with second coming of God to earth man. In other words, history is the story of the making of the city of God, the kingdom of God on earth. Or, the story is the story of the embodiment of Christ on earth and salvation of the human species. This implication of philosophy and theology, of religion and civil life, forces us to think about issues that were not thought of, such as those of freedom and evil, and others that were, but that must be thought of differently, such as that of forms of time and eternity. That is a task that faced Augustine, and he hands this down to later times, because he was just a period of history and of human consciousness that lasted a millennium.
– 82 –
– 83 – CHAPTER 9 THE GREAT ORGANIZATION. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274) §33. The second birth of Europe. §34. God and the creation of the world and angels. §35. The human being and society. §36. Redemption. Everything is in its place. §33. The second birth of Europe WhenRomeofficiallyfellin476,ithadbeen36yearssincethedeath of Saint Augustine. When Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225, it had been 741 years since the fall of Rome, seven and a half centuries. During those seven centuries, odd things happened. The evolution of the world’s population since the birth of Rome until Thomas Aquinas is the following: Year Population in millions Asia Europe USRR Africa 400 BC 95 19 13 17 0 170 31 12 26 200 158 44 13 30 600 134 22 11 24 1000 152 30 13 39 1200 258 49 17 48
– 84 – During the millennium of the rise and fall of Rome, the European population, especially that of the Roman Empire, doubled, concentrated by the process of urbanization and the Mediterranean urban fabric and all its cultural development. The fall and dissolution of Rome occurred during a large part of the 5th century and was driven by a stagnant economy and a severe recession as well as a demographic involution, and disconnect between the population and the institutions, which were ineffective and non-responsive. The surplus population from central Asia making the transition to Europe covered the demographic vacuum of the Empire, and the cultural vacuum is covered by the development of the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Meanwhile the demographic involution of Post-Roman Europe was offset by the demographic and cultural developmentofIslam,whichculminatedinfigureslikeMaimonides (Córdoba, 1135 - Fustat, Egypt, 1204) and Averroes (Córdoba, 1126 – Marrakech, 1198). Since the fall of Rome in the 5th century to the European civilization in the 13th century, that is to say, the industrious and commercial world, which had been reduced to less than half, begins to emerge again,andsodoesconflictwithIslam,inthesouthern-orientalMediterranean. And so began the regeneration of urban interweaving from the forts, castles, monasteries, and commercial crossings of ancient, surviving cities, which is to say from plazas, which are physical locations,atthesametimethatinstitutions,whicharereflectionsofhuman will, lay out how we must perform certain life activities. During those eight centuries of European culture, tools and techniques, traditions, beliefs and languages were lost, and Italy and Spain absorbed the cultural development of the Islamic world, and collected and developed ancient culture as well institutions that retain the old way of making up a skeleton of a kind of social memory that breathes inspiration into the human waves that arrive from Asia with a more rural life, customs and languages. These new settlers occupy ancient cities, create new ones and open a wide horizon for new development. In fact, during the new cities that arose during the 11th century, two institutions that enhance their projection into the future, and the memory of the past and the present,
– 85 – namely, banking and academia. They are the two institutions that definitivelymarkEuropeanculture,itssoul,andthatimmediatelyaroused the interest of power and captured its attention, a power which otherwise remains intact in the spirit of the Edict of Thessalonica (the capital of Greek Macedonia). In the formation of the new Europe and through the connection of these two institutions with a political power that is also religion and with a religiouspowerthatisalsopolitical,aself-reflectionofhumanityisproduced. Inthis reflection,thekingisalso responsibleforeternalsalvation,and the priest is responsible for the orthodoxy of the king, in a more intense co-impli- cation than in the Neolithic and Paleolithic periods. §34. God and the creation of the world and angels Saint Augustine and the fathers of the Church left for their philosophical successors the task of thinking about the adequate articulationbetweenawell-definedrealityandastableone,asGreek wisdom has developed, and a divine and human liberty that was proclaimed through a new religion. That is the task of medieval philosophers that somehow a Dominican friar, Thomas of Aquino, leads to completion. Saint Thomas was a fat Italian phlegmatic, like a Rossellini character, he was calm. Everything was ordered and systematic; everything was clear as Chesterton, another fat Englishman who wrote one of the best biographies on Saint Thomas that exists. In the 13th century the knowledge that was produced and studied at European universities had the form of a « Summa », a type of encyclopedias in which all of reality is systematically ordered. The Theological Summa of Saint Thomas, one of the most famous and well known of the Western world, is not a history of The City of God and its transformations. It is a plan for the structure and functioning of all of reality. The creation began through the free will of an omniscient God until the completion of redemption through Jesus Christ. First, reality and the form of God is shown as consisting of three persons, relating to each other and generated by knowledge and love
– 86 – and then continues with the creation of spiritual creatures, that is to say, the angels, and the material creatures of the universe, which culminated in the creation of humankind, which is a spiritual and material creation.ThisisthecontentofthefirstpartoftheSumma. In this text, Saint Thomas is perceived as a profound thinker of Aristotle who feels drawn to life by an idea that prefers biology to mathematics and who sees and describes reality from the point of view of activity, of its strength, which is to say, from the point of view of being. For that reason, so much attention is dedicated, after God, to the angels. The angels are spiritual creatures or “separate intelligences” in charge of the governing of the universe. Aristotle called them “heavenly spheres” and said that they were related to and connected to a center of the universe that was called “the internal, motionless motor of the world.” To those heavenly spheres the Arabic philosophers also called “angels”, and that motionless motor was called “the world’s soul.” The ratio of human beings to the “angels” and the “heavenly spheres” was in relation to “the stars.” That relationship was also a power that could be used to cure, to know the profound aspects of people and to provide events, between things, through a set of religious, astronomical and medical practices that could also result in something like magic.Todrawthelinebetweensacraments,sacrifices,andsuperstitions and magic was a problem for heavenly and civil authorities during the Middle Ages that did not resolve itself until the triumph of the Platonic view or mathematics in science. Thereafter, in the 17th century, any relation to the heavenly spheres that were not mathematical calculation was relegated to “superstitious ignorance.” Angelology, cosmology, anthropology, and psychology of Thomas of Aquino constitutes a description of the joining and articulation of the cosmos, the organic world, and the human world, from the point of view of inter-activity, which maintains its consistency with a permanent validity.
– 87 – §35. The human being and society ThefirstpartoftheSummaendswiththeanalysisofthesituation prior to original sin and the consequences of the fall of all creation, the body and soul of the human being. The second part of the Summa is dedicated to the study of the operational dynamics of the human being,andinturn,consistsoftwoparts.Thefirstpertainstohisultimate goal and the resources that are needed to achieve it, namely their innate abilitiesandpassionsfirst,thentheiracquiredabilities,andthentheexternal factors of the human being who routed them to the end, namely, the law, both human and divine, and the grace of heaven. The second part is dedicated to a description of the process of humanfulfillmentthroughthepracticeofthetheologicalvirtues(faith, hope and charity) and morals (prudence, justice, strength and temperance), through mystical union with God and through the forms of consecrated life or states of perfection. Thethirdpartisfinallydedicatedtothestudyoftheincarnationof the Word, Jesus Christ, to describe the way in which He developed the fulfillmentofthehumanasamodeltoberealized,andinthesystemof adjuvant procedures for the different phases or moments of that realization,specifically,thesacraments. Itisdifficulttofind,inhistory,amorethorough,deep,andbroad analysis of human life, and profound thought than those encountered in the two parts of the second part of the Summa of Thomas of Aquinas. Moreover, the structure of the Summa did not only reproduce the processofhumanfulfillmentprocessfromleavingtheCreatortoreturning to him. It also reproduces the structure of a medieval city and its social processes. Acityisdefinedastheexpressionandsymbolofanintegrated social relationship with a center and boundaries, as the expression of a human community according to its organization and the relationship among persons within. Well, much like a medieval city, like Summa, has at its center, God, God has in Himself or in His center, the cathedral. About God and the cathedral, the power and civil authority that govern the world arelocatedhere:theangelsandgovernorsintheiroffices,townhall,
– 88 – theaudience, theofficersor policeaswell.The currentoperational progress for the community resources—artists, merchants, teachers, soldiers and bankers—are also located here. Additionally, the city life and the life of its citizens begin with baptism in the cathedral and continues with more training for married and professional life, also acquired in that spiritual center of divine human power: the cathedral, the universe, the audience. From that center, citizens return to their dependencies on the periphery, on artisan workshops, on union centers, on the markets, or on the farms, where they return periodically to the center for festivals or ceremonies. That dynamiccertifiestothemthattheworldandlifeareliketheyareand determinesthemostappropriatewaytofinishtheprocessthatislife. Life ends in the cathedral as well and in its cemeteries, where the beginning of another stage whose phases are related to the previous stages of this world according to a well established and precisely stated decrees. §36. Redemption. Everything is in its place The whole of reality has colonized and plowed through the minds of Paleolithic human beings in their songs and their instruments, and the girls’ games of hopscotch in the medieval Summa with an imposing density and consistency. This structural and functional plan of all of reality is the supreme form of a creation and redemption reached in the Neolithic era of the 13th century and continues on until the 20th century. And this plan is also what the people from the 20th and 21st centuries had in their minds and what they looked back on with nostalgia because it appeals to the eternal values of civilization and culture against postmodern Nihilism. Human intellect always opens a horizon of concern and curiosity that is only answered when all of reality is organized in an orderly and believable whole —the totality of what is real in each culture and in every era, that is given to humankind. It is ordered and believable in every culture and in every era so that human beings can express them-
– 89 – selves and communicate in the languages of those moments. The key question is whether reality and language are proportional. Aristotle and Thomas of Aquinas believed that yes, there is a certain proportionality between reality and language. The two also believed that what is not proportional is the self and intellect, and much less proportional are God and intellect. Both believe that knowledge is designed for living a life on planet Earth, or as the Greek called it, the “sublunary world,” and therefore, to know the things of that world, “the essence of material entities” as Thomas of Aquinas said. But they also knew that knowledge of that essence never ends. When Thomas of Aquinas approached 50 years of age, he said, “Compared with what I see, that which I have written is straw.” The Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophical language is proportional with the Western world of the 13th and 14th centuries, but the world of the 15th and 16th centuries doubled in size and population as they expanded. Oceans, continents, sidereal spaces, cultures, and groups of humans all dilated. New languages emerged within Platonic tradition so that they could know one another, and there were geometric and arithmetic languages that gave way to a new type of science that cannot capture or expresses life without measuring and calculating force. This new type of construction and expression of knowledge acquired dominance in the public interpretation of reality, and the old became outdated in the public sphere, gradually marginalizing and passing through some hiding in the form of astrology, alchemy or chemistry. Not everything disappeared, and it acquired a presence in the academicandofficialmodernenvironments,butthestrengthandvitality of the new mathematical language of knowledge is such that the new “science” and other languages are becoming a part of a group that is suspiciously called “hidden sciences.”
– 96 – believe it. If we do not know how much of our knowledge is true and how much is false, would we be better off if we only based our lives on the knowledge we know to be true, on the certainty that supports “evidence”,oronscientificknowledge,ofscienceitself? Everything that we know is false to a certain point until it can be proven scientifically through “evident” representations and connections, and it can not, therefore, be doubted. Descartes calls this “methodical doubt”, and not because he and his countrymen really doubted what they knew, but instead because after discovering science, they believed that knowledge that was not proven certain could not be referred to as truly “known” to the same extent and with the same dignity as knowledge so evident and marvelous. Starting in the 17th-century science begins to be generalized as a control for the quality of knowledge. The same regulators that exist for any supermarket product, controls of quality, is what Descartes discovered and applied to knowledge. On one hand, it was a great success that brought lots of good discoveries, but on the other hand, it had a number of drawbacks that would not be discovered until three centuries later. §40. The self and machines In addition to mathematics, the other subject that Descartes felt passionate about was mechanics. He had discovered that the human being, the self, was in part thought, the philosophers of that era that spokeLatincalledthis“rescogitans”.Descarteswasoneofthefirst and best explorers of reason, to the maximum depth of reason. On the other hand, he understood that human beings are a corporal being, that the self, in addition to being thought was also material, which he called “Res Extensa” in Latin. The human being in regards to “res cogitans”, and in regards to reason was the center of knowledge. However, it was very clear that in regards to “res extensa” the human being was not the center of the universe, but the self could be the center of the activity in the body.
– 97 – Just the body is a material reality; Descartes believed that the rules that governed body movement had the same rules that governed the movement of all of the other things in the universe, namely, the rules of mechanics. And so he began to describe the motor abilities of the human body as if they were made up of levers, pulleys, nicks, and things of that nature. More than a century beforehand, an engineer in Italy, a great artist, and painter thought the same and had shown this in sensational drawings. His name was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The mechanics of the 16th and 17th centuries were in mid evolution and were not at the time very tied to chemistry or biology, and because of this, it was thought that human beings were made in the same way as machines. Moreover, the universe must have also been formed in this way because it was material. Descartes invented a model of whirlpools like those that are formed in water. He did this using wood chips as they went down the drain and explained with this model the formation of the universe, the planets, and the galaxies. But Descartes did not have a special interest in applying mathematics, calculus, to the weight necessary to support the legs of a human being while resting or while moving, or the force with which a rock could be thrown by the human arm. He also did not apply calculus to the whirlwinds, to the amount of wood chips that there needed to be, or the speed at which the chips needed to spin before they would go down the drain in that would resemble the movement of the stars in the night sky. To Descartes, and to Leonardo, it was much easier to invent than it was to calculate, and they moved much better through the heights and depths of reason than those of the universe. Tofinishhissystemandexplainscientificallythewayinwhichthe human being was made up, which is as a unit, he thought that the “res cogitans” and the “res extensa”, which were two very different realities, came together at a point in the body, the pineal gland. The pineal gland is the point of junction of the medulla, which moves the whole body, with the brain, between the two lobes of the brain, which is where we process all of cognitive and conscious information. In the 17th century, there was not as much known about cerebral ana-
– 98 – tomy, but the majority of the things said by Descartes at the time have given us much to contemplate in the centuries that followed, and even now continue to give us much to contemplate.
– 99 – CHAPTER 11 THE INVENTION OF SCIENCE. HOW HUMANS GO CRAZY ABOUT IT §41. Observe and calculate. Galileo (1564-1642). §42. Extrapolate and generalize observations. Newton (1642-1727). §43. Leibnitz (1646-1716), fusion of science, philosophy, politics, and religion. §44. How humans go crazy about science. §41. Observe and calculate. Galileo (1564-1642) Galileo was an Italian astronomer 32 years older than Descartes who is considered to be one of the founders of modern science, because he, unlike Descartes, invented instead of calculated. As Descartes made a complete philosophy of reason, humankind, God and the world, Galileo maintained an attitude and thought process that were very bold for his time. He and made a fortune and can be best expressed in the statement: “I, to know something, do not need to know everything.” Before Galileo, the majority of scholars, scientists, and philosophers felt inclined and obliged to know everything and know everything about everything. A philosophy had to be a philosophy of everything, a theory had to be a theory of everything. But Galileo decided that no, he did not want to know everything butonlythemovementsofthestarsinthesky,andevenmorespecifically, he wanted to know how a stone falls to the ground. All of what he did was to experiment and measure, and therefore he is the father of specialization. He built ramps and measured the time it took a rock to get from the top of the ramp halfway and then from the middle to the ground. Henotedthatinthesecondhalf,therockwasfasterthaninthefirst half. He then began to build more ramps, to make them longer and to
– 100 – divide them into more parts. He noted that on the parts closer to the ground, the ball increased in speed. He measured the difference between different portions of the ramp,andhefinallycalculatedhowthespeedofthestoneincreased as it approached the ground. With increased speed and acceleration, Galileo ‘s law then states that falling bodies (of objects with mass) fall according to their acceleration and says they fall with an acceleration of 9’80665 m / s, or the same speed as gravity on the Earth´s surface. Galileo continued to observe and measure, especially the movements of the stars, because it was what interested him as an astronomer. He watched them approaching and receding from each other. In one of these observations, he set the basis that the Earth revolves around the sun.HecametofindthathisoriginaltheoryoftheEarth´smovement was true, and this was a grandiose truth, because during this time period, the widely accepted belief was that the sun and all other stars revolved around the Earth. People thought this to be true because the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.This theory was also seen in people in the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages, and in characters of the Bible. As the Bible was the most important text of the time and it was a book revealed by God, whom neither can deceive nor be deceived. To say that it was not the sun that moved around the earth, but the earth around the sun, was considered heresy. Therefore, saying that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa was considered heresy. Authorities of the Church, who knew Latin and Hebrew but were a little clumsy in matters of science, had burned at the stake many of these so called heretical scientists at the stake. Galileo was not as cunning and elusive as Descartes. Rather, he was a little cocky and loudmouthed, so he led the authorities of the Church to his telescope, so that they could see for themselves that the Earth was not, in fact, stationary, but rather moving. They said they were not looking because they did not want to be shown confusing and contradictory ideas and Galileo was told that if he did not recant what he had said, he would be burned at the stake. Galileo then said that his theory was nonsense. Then Galileo swallowed his pride and retracted himself. And when he left the courtroom, after retracting his statement
– 101 – that the Earth did not move, he kicked angrily at the ground and said in Italian “eppure si muove” (and yet it moves!). That is one of the famous quotes of history. §42. Extrapolate and generalize observations. Newton (1642- 1727) Sir Isaac Newton, an Englishman of rather sour character, was an astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, theologian, mathematician and a lot of other things. He had the ability to both invent and calculate with ease, and enjoyed doing both. He studied Descartes’s swirl theory about how the universe movesandtriedtofigureoutwheretheyneededtobesothattheoryofthe universe´s movement would be true. How do you want the turns, Don Renato?Asyouwillsee,howeveryoudefinethem,itisnotpossible thattheseswirlshaveputthestarswheretheyare,soyouneedtofind another theory on the formation of the universe. After all, movements of the stars differs from that of the swirls. Newton knew the work of Galileo and knew how the force of gravity on the surface of the Earth and elsewhere worked. Apparently, one dayhewasinafieldwhenheandsawanappledropfromatree.He had a bright idea. He thought the force by which the block was attracted to the Earth was the same as the force by which the planets were attracted to the sun and revolved around it to form an ellipse (an ellipse isaplanefigurethathastheformofaneggoranear). Newton could see that the planets approaching the sun went far faster than those exiting in its orbit, because he did a similar experiment with planet orbits that Galileo did with the balls exiting the ramp. And then it occurred to Newton that there was gravity in general not just a surface gravity on land as Galileo had said, but a universal gravitation, which governed all movements of the universe. This made a mathematical law. Newton enunciated this law in his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687. For it he says that the force that attracts two bodies, masses M1 and M2, that are separated by the
– 102 – distance R is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance. The law of universal gravitation allowed the prediction of where each one of the celestial bodies would be at all times and in retro - says where they would have been in the past. One of the results that had a more dramatic effect on the public was the discovery of the planet Uranus. By observing some small deviations in the orbit of Saturn it was assumed that there was another mass. He calculated the size of the mass and its position and predicted where it should be at a certain time and when scientists looked where Newton had said, it was located, the planet Uranus was discovered. The joy of discovery is so complete and radiant that it cannot be called anything except science. Newton built the entire celestial mechanics, and thereafter the universe began to be calculable and otherwise predictable. Newton developed much of the math necessary to calculate speed variations, curvatures of waves, diffraction of light, and many other things. However, Newton ‘s interest was not in analyzing the “forces” of nature as “living” to be calculated as “inert,” and although this was not his main interest, he formulated the law of inertia. However, Newton was more interested in alchemy and theology of physics and wrote more about that. That is to say, maybe he was as Aristotelian asPlatonicinhisinterests, asreflectedinhisviewsandapproaches that he practiced in theology and alchemy. Newton may be one of the philosophers in the early modern age that was fully able to utilize his resources and abilities without social intervention. §43. Leibnitz (1646-1716), fusion of science, philosophy, politics, and religion Therehasprobablynotbeenanotherinfluentialthinkerinhistory thathastriedtoharmonizesomanyconflictingbeliefsandpositions as Leibnitz has done. Leibnitz made countless endeavors in the fieldsofscience,philosophy,politicsandreligion,andduringatime inwhichthosefieldshadneverbeenmoreintertwined.Therehasprobably never been another human being in history who got as close as
– 103 – Leibnitz to establishing a unity among all of these different intellectual fields.Leibnitzisprobablythephilosopherwiththemostadmirers,devotees, and followers in all of history, and there has probably never been a person in history that has deserved it more. Inthefieldofreligionandpolitics,Leibnitzfocusedhispreferential attention to his work and his way of life: diplomacy. He dedicated noble attempts to harmonize and foment understandings between Protestants and Catholics. He tried to do this through a draft of pact between the two groups, but this pact was not signed due to the interests of the French monarchy. His pact basically is a parallel of the Augsburg pact that was signed in 1999. Inthefieldofphilosophyandtechnology,hetriedtoreconcilethe bad in the physical world with the holiness and goodness of God, the divinecreator.HecalledhistheoryTeodicea,orjustificationofGod. Inthefieldofmathematicsandlogic,helookedforawaytomake sense of everything using a universal notation. He thought that every event could be processed through acts of logic and logical reasoning. He set the basis for mathematical logic, which would be discussed by Gottlob Frege in 1879 in the book Concept-script. Mathematical logic was a logic that could help to avoid misunderstandings and make mutualunderstandingpossible.Italsocreatedinfinitesimalcalculusand helped to explain some of Newton´s theories. Inthefieldofphysicsandmetaphysics,heconceivedtheideathat the human race is susceptible to calculus and mathematical thinking on one hand, and caring, emotions, and psychologists for the other part. The world could be studied in two ways: mathematical, analytical, and logical and also through experience, life, emotions, consciousness, and intimacy. He created the basis for a theory, which Freud would later develop in the 20th century, into a combination of psychophysics, neurophysiology, and phenomenology. These would come together. An inert universe that is calculable, as described by Plato but at the same time a universe that knows itself as described by Aristotle. This is the content of the treaty that preaches universal harmony. Leibnitz published this treaty in 1714 under the title Monadology. In Monadology, Leibnitz thinks as if he were at the end of his life, combining and harmonizing together everything he knew and resol-
– 104 – ved to be true, put together with the procedures and methods available to prove this knowledge. If one believes, thinks and knows that reality is a willingness of hand, momentum, and energy and believes in another representation of the extension of time and space, one practices theknowledgeofthefirstareaandthedescriptionofwhatappearsto be consciousness. (What is called “phenomenology“), and practices a method for understanding the second mathematized physical i.e., mechanics and mathematics in general. It becomes a world that is increasingly likely to overcome its own assumptions and the limitation of 18th century Europe. §44. How human beings go crazy about science Science creates an addiction, especially the geometry of Euclid’s, that has presided and inspired relevant works in the history of thinking, but also in the classical mechanics of Newton. This addiction is dangerous.Becauseitencouragedpeopletoapplyeffectivetoolsinafieldof knowledge to others where they did not work well. A reality so violent because there is so much to be discovered but this is masked by the idea that we have basic knowledge. Each type of reality requires a different method, a special approach, as Aristotle repeated many times. Even the same reality, when focused in different methods presents different aspects and new and different dimensions. Modern science, mechanical analysis is not the only valid way of knowing, not even the one for the sky waves. From Euclid, Newton and onward, it is not acceptable that science purely exists for the purpose of science. It must also be ethical, so Spinoza wrote an Etica more geometrico demonstrata that makes religion pertain to science, Kant wrote a treatise on Religion within the limitsofreason,andthismustbescientificandthereforescienceand politicscoincide.MarxconstructedascientificSocialismtocontrastto the utopian socialism. From the Edict of Thessalonica and throughout the Middle Ages, religion is the key to public interpretation of reality, so that whatever is accepted by the Church is accepted by the populous and science.
– 105 – The rejection of the Church reality was what led some scientists to be burned at the stake at the beginnings of modernity. The 20th century interpretation of reality began to focus less on religion and more on science, and thus dissenters were no longer burned at the stake. Instead, journalists, higher institutions, and free thinkers were castigated. The classical mechanics of Newton has led many scientists to interpret the world in a deterministic way because it is impossible to state some rather obvious realities, for example, life or freedom. The position of any given atom in the universe can be calculated at any given time, the physical states with certainty that everything is determined, there is no freedom, and those that believe in superstition are ignorant. That means moving the arm when one wants, marrying, signing a mortgage and telling the ignorant physical he is superstitious, have nothing to do with intentions and personal decisions.
– 112 – married a rich prince and was able to save many people in her town from their misery. The treasure was rich because it was gold, silver, and jewels. The prince was rich because he had many lands. This was considered to be wealth until the 18th century, which is when almost all children’s stories were written. When people are now asked who the richest people in the world are, no one thinks to name someone who has lots of jewelry or many lands. History books tells of how Italy, Galia, and Hispania were very rich territories because they were full of wheat, olives and grapes. They could feed the entire population of Rome with what they produced. Books also tell how Mexico, Brazil, and Peru were very rich countries becausetheywerefilledwithenoughgold,silverandcoppertofinance the empires of Portugal, Spain, and even France. Adam Smith discovered that Holland and England were rich countries as well because they were full of Dutch and English people. He found that the Dutch and English were engaged in doing things that everyone else wanted. For the people who are always at war, such as the Somalis and the Afghans, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short,” said Hobbs. For those who work and are at peace, like the Dutch and the English, life is appealing. To work, precisely, is to do things that others need or want. Human beings tend to account for these needs, and they do things to remedythesupplytoothers,sothattheymayobtainthebenefitsfortheir lives, as well as the lives of others. Adam Smith discovered that the greatest sources of wealth are human freedom, creativity and ingenuity, as well as the effort of hours and hours of human labor and the self-interest of every human being to make a living with what he or she does. Naturally, humankind does not only want to be able to know and direct, but he also wants to follow his own interests, whether they be patriotic or personal; this is how wealth comes about, by following one’s interests. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from careful consideration of their own interests.” The butcher and the baker do not give good meat and
– 113 – bread because they are very caring and compassionate (which they may well be), but because they are concerned that their customers continue to buy from them so that they can make a living. Smith discoveredhowthechainofefforts,servicesandbenefitscreatesasocietyin which everyone wants what everyone else does, and wealth is created. At the height of 18th century, the human population had grown, and people had concentrated in cities. Within these cities, new needs emerged that had to be resolved intelligently. For example, there were many people who needed to buy and sell things to live, things such as housing, food, clothing, tools, and means of transportation to move all these things from one place to another. Books, glasses, clocks, lamps, cars and computers became necessary. Many things were invented, such as universities for people to go and study, and banks for people to borrow money on credit. Wealth flowedfromknowledgeandfromwork,andthepeoplewhoperformed the best in these areas became wealthy. Adam Smith discovered what the new way of being rich consisted of, and he wrote a book entitled The Wealth of Nations. Since its publication, nations have sought to provide a good education to their citizens, the “human capital” as it is sometimes called, for they now know that human capital is more valuable the more that is known as a whole.
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– 115 – CHAPTER 13 THE INVENTION OF DEMOCRACY. LUTHER (1483-1546), HOBBES (1588-1679), ROUSSEAU (1712-1778), AND JEFFERSON (1743-1826) §49. All human beings are equal because any one of them can kill another. §50. The rights of man and the rights of the citizen. Naturalism and citizenship. §51. The state and citizenship. §52. The first declaration of human rights. Thomas Jefferson. §49. All human beings are equal because any one of them can kill another Since the discovery of America and modern science, since the consensus and new forms of wealth, the cities in Europe and around the world have grown a lot. Education is becoming more widespread, and slaves, uneducated peasants or indent subjects no longer form the new masses of people. Thomas Aquinas had already taught that the supreme moral rule for each person is his own conscience, and the Spanish jurists of the School of Salamanca had begun designing international law proclaiming the equality of all human beings, in particular, the right of American Indians, as human beings, and the ownership and management of their land. Still Luther took a step even further and proclaimed that the right to free interpretation of Sacred Scripture should be left up to the free interpretation of every Christian, in a way so that the most important beliefs to humans, the sovereignty of each person was complete. In this situation, a growing number of individuals felt entitled to decide for themselves religious, economic, and political issues. So it was impossible to maintain the Edict Thessalonica over the religious unity of the kingdoms, the absolute power of kings who ruled these
– 116 – same kingdoms, and monopolies on wealth and land that were owned by princes and nobles. More and more people began to be truly equal, and more and more each human being wanted to be recognized as an equal by the political, religious, and economic authorities. Well, that’s what these people asked for, more or less, peacefully, and that’s what those with some sort of religious, political or economic power accomplished without struggles, wars or deportations. While a lot of people struggled to gain a more equal distribution of power, a small number of individuals, a minority of politicians and intellectuals, sought reasons to show that an equal distribution of power was fair, although it had never been practiced before. Because even if something is fair, if it has not been practicedbefore,itisdifficultforpeoplewhoareusedtothingsbeinga certain way to accept the new and untried as fair. That equal sharing of power is called democracy. It was invented and practiced for many centuries by the Greeks, but it was lost until politicians and philosophers in modern Europe rediscovered it. Luther declared that a key step toward democracy, the theoretical and practical, is to give the people freedom of conscience in religious matters. But the theory of democracy, the description of what it is and why it exists the way that it does, Hobbes made to show the equality of all persons in connection with the essence of political activity, power. Cicero had argued, against Aristotle, that all human beings want to lead by nature. They do not know how much they want to have power. And Hobbes continued to show that from the point of view of power, all persons are equal. They are equal because they all have supreme power: the ability to kill one another, whether it be directly, or by duty, or by being cunning in other ways. Awareness of that equality of power became more prominent in the 17th century, when the number of people living together in cities was becoming very high, and when those citizens, who saw each other every day, started to feel equal to others and forcefully claim their share of power. Before then, it was also true that any man could kill another, but when life transitioned to being in the countryside, outside of castles and abbeys, and society was composed of peasants and soldiers, priests
– 117 – and nobles, spaced well apart, the awareness of equality was not the main component of life and the equal distribution of power was not yet demanded. When many human beings live together, they begin to feel the same way about wanting to share, and that’s when democracy in practice and theory needs to be put into practice. If everyone wants limitless power, then there is continuous war and the strongest empire is always in power, and in that situation, life is “ lonely, poor, nasty, brutal, and short”. Thebestwaytoreachaprofitablepeaceforeveryoneisanagreement on equitable distribution of power, which is achieved by creating a monopoly on legitimate violence that is established by a covenant. It is agreed that only this institution can legitimately exercise violence, providing that a person deserves it: execute, imprison, exile, reward, honor, etc. That institution is the state, and in this way peace is created. The state is formed by the agreement of citizens, who also agree upon the laws, to which the King is subject as well. At the end of their civil war in 1651, that is what was established in England. It inaugurated a political regime that has been strong ever since then and has shown its power as one of the most stable regimes in the world. §50. The rights of man and the rights of the citizen When what all human beings want is expressed and legislated, implemented, and accepted, the position of each person is supported by the will of all. So when someone buys a house, he or she is not just the owner of the house and of everything that it has, but he or she also becomes a property holder. To be the possessor of something is something the individual wants, but when the entire community recognizes the possession and wants the individual to exercise his or her right over the possession, the possession transitions into property, and the possessor of it into an owner. And when it comes to this situation, if someone steals a person’s home, then they not only are doing damage to them against their will, but they are also acting against the community and are committing a crime against the will of all. The individual
– 118 – wants to have her/his own home, just as the community wants the individual to have her/his own home. This same situation happens in the case of people who are married, of doctors, and in defending a city. Not only spouses love each other, want to live together, have children, and care for them, the community also wants them to do this, and if someone steals the child from the parents, this not only attacks the family, but the entire society. Not only does the medical expert want to heal people, society also wants them to do it, and recognizes her/his title to do so. If someone impersonates the doctor in her/his activities. It is not only robbing the doctor of her/his livelihood, but it is also attacking all of society, which wants the medical expert to cure people and wants the defense experts to be military and city police. Rousseauwasthephilosopherwhoreflectedmostontheunityof will among people, of common will, on unanimity, which is the foundation of society and law. It is called “the general will”. §51. The state and citizenship The common will, all members of a unanimous community, needs for all human beings to be recognized for what they are, which is free, equal, endowed with reason and feelings, inclined to recognize and revere God and our neighbor and much more that constitutes the very essence of human characteristics. The common will wants the human essence to be appreciated. It wants human beings to be recognized and known. Social life should be organized so that these qualities and capabilities can be exercised. This makes the State, the national government, which recognizes all of its people as citizens and grants them citizenship. Human rights express the human essence and their recognition by the State is crucial. Moreover, the State provides to its citizens the means to perform and demand their rights as individuals. Citizens are those who have the means provided by the State to perform as human beings. To have the right to these State duties is to have citizenship.
– 119 – The Romans invented citizenship, in this sense. Rome conquered the known world in ancient times and granted Roman citizenship to those born in cities recognized by Rome as Roman. Some also bought citizenship by paying a large amount of money, like how health insurance or a pension plan is bought today. As Rome grew to its maximum extent during the time of their Empire, Roman citizenship was granted to all people living within the borders of the Empire. Rome knew and recognized a set of qualities of human nature. That essence was called “little humans”, and the cultivation and protection of it through education and rights were called “humanism.” It can be found in history books, law books, and literature. Together, it is humanistic knowledge, or the “humanities”. After the fall of the Empire fragmented the community of humankind that Rome had formed, kingdoms derived from Asian tribal invaders were created. When these kingdoms began to reach a level of civilization similar to that of the Romans, they exceeded the Roman levelinalmostallculturalfields.Theycreatedthestateofthemodern age, and the system of citizenship arose. Human beings were given rights because they were individuals. Those who before were just subjects were now called citizens. Theoretically, humanism is universal; however, in practical terms, it is national. Human rights can guarantee the State to its citizens, but not to all human beings in general. This is what continues to happen in the 21st century. In theory, all human beings in a democratic society, like that described by Hobbes and Rousseau, are equal, want the same things and respect the laws. In practice, all people are competing to outdo each other and to accumulate more political, legal, and economic power than others. Rousseau believed that before the social contract, human beingswerenotascompetitiveandselfish.Societymadethemvain, conceited, hollow and empty. Rousseau did not say that all people desire by nature to know or command. They desire to be recognized, famous, admired, praised, andloved.Therefore,“weseekinotherswhatwecannotfindwithin ourselves: pleasure without happiness, science without wisdom and honor without virtue.” A human being in society has so much passion
– 120 – for recognizing from others that he abandons the project of realization of the human essence and of himself. He abandons the aspiration to be happy, wise and good. He focuses on hoarding and having, and forgets the aspiration to be himself and to be fully human. Rousseau came up with various remedies to avoid such an outcome. One solution could be the abolition of property, like what Plato believed in ancient Greece. Rousseau later found someone who took and applied this theory. §52. The first declaration of human rights. Thomas Jefferson Unlike Hobbes and Rousseau, who were intellectuals, Thomas Jefferson was a professional politician, a man of the state. He was one of the Founding Fathers of America, the principal author of the DeclarationofIndependenceoftheUnitedStatesandofthefirstDeclarationofHumanRights(1776),thefirstSecretaryofStateoftheUnited States (1790-1793), and the third president of the United States (1801- 1809). Although he was born to a wealthy family in Schadewell, Virginia, he knew that the vast majority of the inhabitants of those territories had come as exiles and fugitives, persecuted in their home countries, especially for religious reasons. They had come to practice a faith different from that of their kings and their states. They were people aware conscious of their liberties, which were formulated by Thomas Aquinas and preached by Luther. Jefferson was the most sensitized person to the abolishment of the Edict of Thessalonica, in which Emperor Theodosius proclaimed ChristianityastheofficialreligionoftheRomanEmpirein380.Ithad maintained the princes and kings of the Middle Ages on their thrones and the Modern Age, at the cost of many bloody wars over religion. Hobbes, Rousseau, and above all, John Locke (1632-1704) inspired this independence. Locke was an English philosopher, and he was more balanced and practical than the others. On these foundations, a democratic constitution was created and a universal declaration of human
– 121 – rights was made. These served as models for subsequent constitutions and declarations made throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. JeffersonfinallyterminatedtheEdictofThessalonicainhispolitical, legal and economic work. He proclaimed religious freedom and createdacountrywheretheaffirmationofindividuallibertiesisboth anaffirmationofimpulsesandreligious,judicial,political,andeconomical values of the human species. He created a model of liberal humanism that subsequently supported the ideologies of the liberal right (Republicans in the U.S.) and the socialist left (Democrats in the U.S.). Jefferson’s main concern in designing the American Constitution wastofindafragmentationofpower,suchasonepreviouslydefined by Montesquieu (1689-1755), and a stable balance between these fragments. Only a well-designed system of balance among the fragments of power could prevent the tendency to accumulate forces, thus resulting in an effective concentration of power that harms and prevents the exercise of human rights. Hobbes and Rousseau had spoken of this accumulation of forces. This is not just a theory concerning the function of a just society. It is a set of mechanisms that actually works. Jefferson achieved it. In the 6th century BC in Greece, Cleisthenes (570 BC – 507 BC) achieved something similar for about 30,000 people. Jefferson achieved it for many millions more. He taught humanity that we must live while performing as humans all together.
– 128 – Why do several people come up with the same invention at once— beitscientific,technical,artistic,orlegal—withoutanyrelationtoeach other? How do several people come up with the same solution to a problem, or different solutions that are equally valid? Because both reality and thought follow the law of the best way, and both reality and thought, in their processes, take shape so that their elements best match each other, so that when compared, they have the same results. This is a possible explanation, but it is very general. Aristotle and Kant explained this in another way. §56. How does the mind work and how is science done? Returning to Descartes and Euclid, the origin of geometry and the generationofspaceandtime,offiguresandvolumes,ofthequalities and properties of things: Kant believed that space and time, whether they actually exist independently,wereactuallyfigmentsofimagination,ofthemind(he callsthem“thefirstformsofsensibility”),andthatspaceistherealm of things that occur together or separately, and that time is the realm of things that occur in succession or simultaneously. He believed that “they give” whether in thought or in reality. That which is given, in reality can be anything. It doesn’t matter what (Kant believed that we cannot know this and he called it “noumenon”), but in the imagination theycanbeseenasthingslikecolors,sounds,smells,flavors,andtactile sensations (which Kant called secondary qualities), and that they can also be seen in quantities, big or small sizes, fast or slow movements (which Kant called primary qualities). Secondaryqualitiesarefittedorentwinedwiththeprimaryqualities, and that is the way human sensitivity works. Meanwhile, our imagination ties a secondary quality or sensation—“green” with “sweet” and/or “hard”—with a primary quality of a “spherical surface” resulting in, for example, the image of an apple. Concurrently with sensitivity and imagination, is the available understandingofpasswordsthatareclassifiedasmontages.Accordingto the relationship that the elements for the montage have with each other
– 129 – from the point of view of time, some things are permanent and constant, and are substantial, others are transient, others successive, other simultaneous. An apple is a thing, that which Aristotle and Kant both called substantial. There are things that are substantial in themselves, such as apples, animals and houses, and there are other things that cannot exist alone like happiness, the temperature or money. In this way do we create the way of being of things, what Aristotle called “categories”, as we take their inventory from reality. But Kant analyzed those ways of being, not from the point of view of how they are things, but fromthepointofviewofhowtheyareclassifiedinourunderstanding. Finally, concurrently with sensitivity and its facts, the imagination and its montage structure, the understanding and its categories, reason establishes the way of being for things. What way of being do these things have? What is it they can do, and how do they relate? Well, there are things that can be together or not, and that can create another type of thing or not. For example, there may be mountains or there may not be, there may be apples or there may not be. These things are called “contingents”, and they can exist or not. But there are things that cannot cease to exist. For example, the Pythagorean theorem cannot cease to exist. It is not contingent, but necessary, and it does not have to do with time. Things can be real or unreal, possible or impossible, necessary or contingent, from the point of view of being or existing, from the point of view of a certain relationship with time. All of that machinery consists of sensitivity, imagination, understanding, and reason. It can work using facts that come from outside and organize themselves according to their own protocols. Then they depart from sciences like physics or biology. But they can work to analyze their own protocols, without looking at the outcome, and sciences like geometry and arithmetic can result. Newtonian physics is done by measuring the external data mass, force, distance and position, and then organizing them according to the internal protocols in contiguity of space and the passing of time. Descartes’ analytical geometry is done with more internal protocols while watching and assigning numerical values to the spatial positions. The calculus of Leibniz is also done using only internal protocols to calcu-
– 130 – late how measurable space extensions lean toward zero, but disappear with all the space. This is how Kant thought we organized our knowledge of things and how things were organized in reality. This thought it explained why when science does calculus, then it applies it to actually agree with them. The calculations work, and the spaceship lands on the moon. This is how human beings can do science, how they can know, and if they do not proceed in this manner, because they do not take data from outside, then they cannot do it. Therefore man can do physics and chemistry, geometry and arithmetic, but he can’t do metaphysics or theology because they don’t have sensitive data of the being itself or of God. Kant published these studies in The Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 (the second, more famous edition was published in 1787), and with it he wanted to answer the question, “What can I know?” With The Critique of Practical Reason he answered the question, “What can I do?” And with other works, he answered the question, “What can I expect?” These are questions asked by the human being regarding her/ his individual potential and whose responses can redesign a mind, like little girls who play or Thomas of Aquinas, but at the height of its time, of what was then known. Kant felt that these questions could be asked and answered from the point of view of the human community, but then the answer seems much more complicated.
– 131 – CHAPTER 15 ROMANTICISM IN POLITICS AND ART §57. The French Revolution and the universalization of the market. §58. Napoleon (1769-1821), Lincoln (1809-1865), and the abolition of slavery. §59. Goya (1746-1828), Beethoven (1770-1827), and Victor Hugo (1802-1885). §60. Romantic perversions of politics and art. The fascist and the bohemian. §57. The French Revolution and the universalization of the market TheindependenceoftheUnitedStatesandthefirstDeclarationof Human Rights is from 1776, and that is a point of permanent political reference. The Wealth of the Nations written by Adam Smith was published in 1776, and that is a point of permanent economic reference. The Foundation of the Custom of Metaphysics written by Kant was published in 1785, and in it lies the foundation of philosophy of the human dignity. The French Revolution broke out in 1789, and it is considered the trigger of the downfall of the ancient regimen and the beginning of the contemporary western world. The fall of the ancient regimen can be explained best as the dissolution of the old way of life, the disappearance of customs that appeared during the Neolithic age with the appearance of cities, along with the establishment of hierarchies of power by kings, nobles, priests, and townspeople, such as the division of social classes, an example being slavery, with land and real estate being the principal assets. Since Roman and Medieval times, land has been linked to blood. It belonged to those who conquer it, to those who were of noble birth and who then passed it to their blood relatives through inheritance. In their own regard, the laborers, slaves, and work force were also linked to the land. They lived where they worked and belong to the owners of the land. Neither the land nor the work/force could be sold or bought.
– 132 – However, when cities evolve more and more, more services and the generation of wealth depends more on what people do instead of what the land has to offer and what is produced in the land. Thus more wealth is generated, more money, and more power. The business owners and those who offer services (free professionals) begin to dictate daily and common life. These individuals want to control the policies of daily life, want power in politics. As seen in the English Civil war in 1851, they want economic power as well, as the power to sell and buy land and work. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution marked the second half of the 18th century. Those that were inventors or had machines neededworkerstoworkintheirfactories.Theyneededforfieldworkers to leave their homes, move to the cities, and take the salaries that the new industry had to offer them. The French Revolution is the rupture between the links between work and land and between land and blood. From this point on, human beings could live off of their work, through a paid salary. The wealth of a nation now depended on how many people lived there that were doing things better or more frequently than anyone else. Human dignity was also now measured in how much was monetarily paid to an person for his or her activity. This was, as Hobbes said, to value someone is to pay them. Every person deserves recognition of value in his or her work, and they deserve that this value be expressed through a quantity of money that allows them to live. To open these new possibilities, one has to break old bonds and habits and reduce the resistance of those who live through these old practices and customs. This is sometimes reached by diplomacy and sometimes by violence. Freedom, which used to be limited to the few with material means, was now open to all. §58. Napoleon (1769-1821), Lincoln (1809-1865), and the abolition of slavery Kant was one of those people who lived off of his salary as a professor. That salary was paid by the Prussian state. It can be claimed
– 133 – that all people are equal and free and have endless opportunities to obtain the means to actualize their full potential. This idea is claimed in many governmental documents from around the world, such as both the American and French constitutions. However, these constitutions thatexpressesthisreflectionofsocietyandofthegeneralstructureof the society, the state has to give the means to its citizens. One has to get teachers to charge their salary and in general all those who charge a serviceimmediately.Onehastocreatebodiesofofficials.Thatis,thestate has to create an administration that has the duty to pay or give citizens the rights that the Constitution grants them. The various European states had been generating administrative sectors since the Middle Ages, especially with regard to the administration of justice and tax collection. But all these creations are now systematized together with new ones to form the body of the state administration. That is the work of Napoleon Bonaparte, under which lawyers saythatforthefirsttimeinhistory,thepowershiftstotherightthrough administrative law, the supreme power of the state is at the service of the rights of citizens. The fall of the Old Regime does not happen once and for all after American independence and after the French Revolution. The triumph of the revolutionaries suffered stagnation and transactions with known interests and forces of landowners during periods of restoration. Advances and downfalls are prolonged throughout the 19th century as well. The war between the States in the United States (1861-1865) is considered among the most important events for Western history in relation to the fall of the Old Regime. The war was between the Confederate slaveholders, southern landowners, and abolitionists, northern industrial unionists that needed their business’s labor to be freed from slavery. The American Civil War, with the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the unionists, represents the triumph of industry over agriculture, productivity of freedom over the productivity of nature, and in some ways the consummation of the fall of the Old Regime. It is the settlement of a way of life that began in the Neolithic age and disappeared with statements of the 19th and 20th century practices.
– 134 – §59. Goya (1746-1828), Beethoven (1770-1827), and Victor Hugo (1802-1885) In ordinary language the term “ romantic “ is associated with impossibleideals,thewildestdreams,themostdedicatedanddifficult love, the power of feelings contrasting the effectiveness of rational calculation, the arcane and remote before the everyday and ordinary, the great against habitual, the innermost and intimate versus the distant and cold. As the poet Hölderlin said, “the human being is a god when hedreamsandabeggarwhenhereflects.” All these connotations have at heart the interests and ideals of the peoplefightingattheBattleofSaratoga,atthestormingoftheBastille or at the rise against the Napoleonic troops in Madrid in 1808. Such interests and ideals are also collected in the constitutions of the United States or France or Spain, but not in those political and legal texts in which they are best expressed. These ideas are best expressed in Goya’s “The Charge of the Mamelukes” or “The Shootings of May 2nd “, in the painting by Delacroix, “Liberty leading the people”, in the symphonies of Beethoven, especially in the “Ode to Joy” of his ninth symphony, in Chopin polonaise, or novels like Notre Dame de Paris and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. These are images, melodies and stories that belong to the memory of humankind. These works express the necessity and desire for freedom that dro- ve the revolutionaries, politicians and warriors, that moved the artists as citizens and patriots and especially moved them as creators to express realities with a new language and new experiences. Goya, Napoleon, Beethoven, and Hegel all died between 1827 and 1831. Beethoven dedicates his third symphony, the “Heroic” to Napoleon because it was the great harbinger of freedom, excluding the consideration of how Napoleon’s troops stormed Vienna with force. Hegel also praised Napoleon as the man who allowed the freedom of humanity to become aware of itself in a self-conscious way. Napoleon was considered the liberator because he wanted an administrative law and civil code and a common language (French) for all countries in Europe. He thought that he could establish this rule. He was sure of it. Althou-
– 135 – ghhewasdefeatedinthebattlefield,thislegacylivesonbecauseother European countries copied his policies. The state and the Napoleonic law is non-denominational, liberal, established once and for all the Edict of Thessalonica, ends and relocated Christianity as the institutional matrix of Christian churches, clearedthe fieldfor launchingthe IndustrialRevolution byestablishing universality and a wage market, and created an administration that can provide and protect the human rights of citizens. Enlightened despotism of monarchs and the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century resulted in a population explosion and the triumph of enlightenment. The urbanization and rationalization of labor generated in citizens a clear conscience and a belief in the equality of all men because everyone started to become educated and could now read the same newspapers and books. They could go to the same hospitals and begin to enjoy the same health care and sewerage systems. And that consciousness allows for new achievements in greater equality. With the French Revolution, and with the romantic period come a new humanity and a new society. Thestate,althoughithasalargeandefficientpublicadministration is not the only way or the only source of the self-consciousness of society. The clearest and fastest social awareness is found in the civil society itself, not in the state, and it is an art. Goya and Delacroix, Beethoven and Chopin have a clear and distinct consciousness, because they are not dragged into practical action to manage the progress of the nation. The conscience of the rulers is less expansive and goes into detail. Action is required in the short term, and thus this conscience has no time to think of ideals. Artists, scholars and thinkers, can. §60. Romantic perversions of politics and art. The fascist and the bohemian Thereflectionofsocietyonitself,whichisexpressedinthemodern state,emphasizesreflectionandthoughtandthewillofthecitizens,whichthenconstitutesanation.Oneformofthisreflectionisthe
– 136 – delivery of capabilities for development and defense, also institutionalized by Napoleon. Napoleon nationalized the freedom of citizens and reflexivelyfocusedonsocietyandthestatebyestablishinganational service that led the citizens to extreme patriotism, even to dying for their country. Acompulsorymilitaryserviceduringspecifiedyearsforallcitizens had never existed before. Neither Sparta nor Rome had obligatory military service, and these were the birthplaces of citizenship. There are archetypal roots documenting a Spartan and Roman conquests of Numancia by the Romans and Carthaginians in Sagunto in prehistoric Hispania. This is the case of delivery to the death in defense of the city itself, of the family and of the land itself. Tacitus also recounts similar cases among the primitive Germans. It follows from these primary roots of these archetypes roots in the community, patriotism, and nationalism of civil society and its own perversion, fascism. Civil society, the society of citizens, families living in the city or in the villages, are also called bourgeois society. This was founded after the fall of the Old Regime to the development of the Industrial Revolution and under the impulse of Enlightenment ideals of emancipation, autonomy, freedom, equality and fraternity. With the Romantic feelings of their past, their roots, their own land, and through the people themselves, the universalist and cosmopolitan ideals of the Enlightenment are superimposed. Then the feelings of national identity and assertion are expressed in all the arts and humanities and remain until the 21st century. Whenthosefeelingsofaffirmationofnationalidentityandterritory are radicalized to the point that absolutely exclude other human beings who are ‘new blood’ (another race) and ‘other land’, fascism arises, which can be described as the egotism of those considered eminent and chosen to lead humanity to salvation. In terms of art, universality and cosmopolitanism illustrated the Romantic artist opposes the singularity of her/his creative genius, which leads her/him precisely to invent new languages and new ways of saying in which new ways of life can express themselves. This creative genius is a divine gift that makes the artist an exceptional being pampered by the gods. Moreover, these new forms of life are the socie-
– 137 – ty of citizens, of bourgeois society and bourgeois families who have a certain standard character. That standard level implies a degree of being, a certain degree of culture and a certain degree of respectability, which relates to the protection of the nation. Actually, this is the standard level that corresponds to the effective implementation of Human Rights which the constitutions proclaim as ideal for all citizens. Aspiration of this level and its achievement, is the aspiration of pleasure, knowledge and recognition, which may or may not be accompanied by happiness, wisdom and virtue according to Rousseau, and it is often the paradox that the more strongly desired the former is, the more diminished the latter aspects become. Therefore, civil society is described as ‘bourgeois society’ to express its hypocrisy. The artist usually seeks the truth and rejects hypocrisy by rejecting the values of ‘having’, and also rejecting the values of ‘being’ and chases the creativity of an absolute and radical way of living out of wisdom (in the obsession with aesthetic values) and virtue (of the concern and care for others), then they follow a way of life that is ‘bohemian‘; and they adopt the image of authenticity for artists all during nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most often the lives of the artist are at the service of the community, deviating from society, much like the old mendicant friars.
– 144 – According to this Hegelian organization of knowledge, philosophy and philosophers can be represented according to the following table. Types and levels of knowledge Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas Kant Hegel Contents of knowledge Sensibility External sensibility Common sensibility Forms of sensibility Sensation Perception Language The real world Positive sciences Imagination Internal sensibility Schemes of the imagination Logic of being Representations The beautiful The sublime Art Reason Assessment Understanding Reason Categories of understanding Logic of essence Thoughts God, the sacred Religion Intellect Patient intellect Agent intellect Ideas of reason Logic of the concept The idea The spirit Concepts Philosophy To present his vision of reality and knowledge of reality, Hegel invents his own logic, which he calls dialectic. With this name Plato designates the process by which thought goes from the first beginning, the Good, to the last and least materialistic realities, and with thissamenameHegeldesignatestheprocessbywhichreflectiongoes from spatial and temporal realities to the self, full of the sprit, until the point the thought thinks itself. Dialectic is the description of the logical process necessary to go from the inert to the living conscious, and to the knowledge that the intellect has of itself. The way to go from the intellectual consciousness to the living consciousness and to the organism, for example, to cure it, is similar to something Freud later on calls psychoanalysis.Thedialecticisoftendifficulttounderstand.Manyof Hegel’s followers believe that one cannot understand anything without
– 145 – understanding dialectics, but other followers do not think this is so. What is the best way to go from inert to conscious living and from consciousness to inert living? Either way, Hegel was certain that he made clear that the meaning of the creation of the cosmos and humankind and of natural history and social history is the development of the human spirit to full maturity, a full consciousness of itself, and its essence as a free spirit. History is the story of the attainment of freedom and of the manifestation of the human essence and its implementation through the proclamation of human rights. The phases of history, law, art, religion, and philosophy are all steps leading to this goal. All of previous history could be interpreted in relation to this goal in a way in which there are no longer goals, or at least no goals as spectacular in comparison. Hegel therefore ventured to think that history, and perhaps art, religion and philosophy as well, ended during his time and that what came after would have to be something else.
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– 147 – CHAPTER 17 DISCOVERY AND LIBERATION OF THE OPPRESSED. MARX (1818-1883) AND FARADAY (1791-1867) §65. The anguish of feeling increasingly poor. Malthus (1766-1834). §66. Marx and the birth of the proletariat. §67. Faraday, the Industrial Revolution, and the discovery of human capital. §68. The empire of ideologies. §65. The anguish of feeling increasingly poor. Malthus (1766-1834) The basic sketch of the events of the human spirit, since the emergenceofhomosapiensuntilthe19thcentury,whichbestclassifiesthe weight of events, i.e., the one that best explains the development of the human spirit, is the theory that Hegel provides. The way of thinking that begins with Plato ends with Hegel becausehumanintelligence,reflectedinitself,isfinallyself-awareandeventually learns of its own operation and history. After this philosophy no longerfocusesonreflectionandstartsanewpathinthe19thcentury with three different parts: one part human intelligence that focuses on transforming action of the world and society, as Marx and Faraday comprise, another focuses on the contemplation from the exterior to itself, the being and the divine, as Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer comprise,andanotherdevelopsexplorationofthoughtandreflection from outside of Western culture, where the thought process that takes placeisreflective.However,onecanalsospeakofafourthway,that of positivism, in which philosophy worships science, by emulating and imitating it. Sometimes this has the positive effect of moderating the speculative fervor of some scholars, and sometimes this has the negati- ve effect of preventing the development of promising inspirations.
– 148 – In the early 19th century the Industrial Revolution began to demonstrate its effects. First and foremost was the effect of population growth. Such growth is seen in the following table. Year Population Asia Europe USRR Africa America Oceania World 1750 500 111 35 104 18 3 771 1800 631 145 49 102 24 2 954 1850 790 209 79 102 59 2 1,241 1900 903 295 127 138 165 6 1,634 1950 1,376 393 182 224 332 13 2,560 2000 3,611 510 291 784 829 30 6,055 The emigration from the countryside to the city due to better living conditions in the cities caused a population explosion that alarmed more than a few economists. One of these economists was Thomas Robert Malthus, who calculated the amount of arable land in the world, the growth of agricultural production, and the growth of the human population. He came to the disheartening conclusion that there would not be many years until there was a scarcity of food for all. Since 1820 when Malthus made these calculations, other intellectuals have calculated that there would not be room in London for storing horse manure, according to the pace of the growing number of equine -drawn vehicles in the British capital, or that there would not be sufficientfieldsinEnglandtocultivatebeeswaxproductionasrequired in the city’s lighting. Since then, periodically, economists have estimated that there will notbeenougharableland,enoughfire(coal,oil,gas,etc.),enoughwater (drinking water supplies) or enough air (pollution and air quality of the atmosphere) for all of the human population that is expected in the coming centuries. Marx believed that these are redundant computations because he observed that humankind generates solutions to their problems even before they arise. However, there is a calculation that is not resistant. He calculated the rate at which money was accumulated in the hands of
– 149 – entrepreneurs in the cities and the rate at which groups of people who came to them from the countryside became poorer, forming from what Marx called the mass of proletarians or the proletariat, i.e., the poor. §66. Marx and the birth of the proletariat Marx, along with Plato, is the philosopher who decides with the greatest force to target political action processes as the realization of the human essence. For Marx, this realization is the one that Hegel discovered, the realization of human rights. However, Marx believed that what Hegel, under intellectualism, called dialectical logic, in terms of social reality is the appropriation of the rich taking the fruits of labor (work) from the poor, who will then have ownership of the work of the poor to create their wealth. Dialectical logic interprets Marx, in terms of the social and political reality, as class struggle. Marxcreatedapoliticalmovement,scientificsocialism(alsocalled communism) to voluntarily and consciously drive the historical processes of social transformation that he calculated. He wanted to assume that for political purposes, what his theory said was reality. It is not just getting drunk off of science, as had happened to others before, but getting drunk off of history, a history that had become a science. Marx noted that the groups taking the Bastille in France and winning the Civil War in the United States, moved from obtaining land and labor that could be bought and sold to achieving the abolition of slavery and the universalization of wages, and the realization of the human being through his work, as noted by Adam Smith and Hegel. Groups formed in cities to accumulate almost all the money and to keep immigrants from the countryside, the proletariat, from access to good living conditions in the city, borough, or the life of bourgeois society. The bourgeois family, bourgeois society (whose perversion is fascism) acquired a monopoly of money, and with it a kind of monopoly on morality, art, religion and philosophy, i.e. a monopoly on the culture in general. This produces a split of society into two distinct and antagonistic classes that threaten the ideals of the Enlightenment and its achievements. If the trend of the bourgeoisie to exclusivism is not
– 150 – offset, Enlightenment ideals embodied in the Proclamation of the RightsofManandofthecitizenmaybecanceled.Theaffirmationofthe freedom of an extreme mode can actually prevent the equality and fraternity also proclaimed in revolutions. If religion and the power to decide the law and economic resources, then science and morality are not the same for all, as Adam Smith, Kant, Rousseau, Jefferson, Napoleon and Lincoln had said. The Enlightenment fails its leaders, the bourgeoisie, and recedes to the conditions of life in the Old Regime and the roles of the old aristocracy are resumed. That alternative was perceived and taken into account in the liberal revolutions in the 18th century and by the leaders of the socialist movement who led the revolutions of the 19th century. However, Marx andscientificsocialismhadapointofradicalismandextremismand believed that the realization of Enlightenment ideals was only possible if the total abolition of private property occurred and if a new struggle against the upper classes was produced. Liberals believe that if the spontaneity of the market is left to be free of regulations and to the natural supply and demand of jobs, social inequalities will level out, and the de facto recognition of human dignity will follow. Socialists believe that if the ideals of the revolution are not imposed by the State through public administration, then inequalities grow. They believe that the law must impose the recognition of the metaphysical reality of human dignity. §67. Faraday, the Industrial Revolution, and the discovery of human capital While Malthus makes economic calculations and Lincoln and Marx take part in their political revolutions, a modest English learner (assistant to a bookbinder) named Michael Faraday made one of the biggest discoveries in technical science, the discovery of electrical energy. Newton developed and systematized the laws of gravitational energy, Faraday with others, electric power, and the physicists of the 20th century, atomic energy. Michael Faraday, perhaps the greatest benefactorofhumankind,throughtheapplicationofscientificdiscovery
– 151 – to a technical utility, invented what we call technology. Faraday’s technology frees people from all work effort needed when he invents the process by which that job could be done with electricity. In the Paleolithic era, human power was used to complete any given task. In the Neolithic era, animal power, waterpower or wind power was used. In the post-Neolithic age, general mechanical strength, namely, electrical energy was used. After World War II every household in the world opened its doors to washing machines, and in general to an entire set of appliances, and with this transition the last condition of Paleolithic life disappeared, the use of female human-power. People who grew up watching women wash clothes by hand lived in the Paleolithic era, while those who have only seen washing done by appliance were born in neither the Paleolithic nor the Neolithic, but in the post-Neolithic. The discoveries and inventions of Faraday constitute the largest liberation of human beings that has been made because thanks to them human beings cease to be used as animal power in productive tasks that economists call the primary sector of economic activity (production of goods) and can now concentrate on the so-called secondary sector (manufacturing and distribution of goods), and tertiary sector (goods care, support and help). The discovery and use of electricity, which is generalized from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, powered both the Industrial Revolutions and democratic revolutions, producing a complete transformation of the world and society. In industry, which is becoming bigger and better all the time fewer people and more machines are being used. In human societies the enlightened programs of universal education are maintained, more and more men, and more and more women, can do most things that others want, that is, more and more countries are rich because their human capital is useful. Their men and women can and do, from inventing cars and medicines to inventing mops and band-aids. Since the widespread use of electricity the wealth of countriesis,asAdamSmithhadsaid,definedinthefreedomofthosewho are and were its citizens.
– 152 – §68. The empire of ideologies At the political level, the effort to make the Enlightenment ideal was polarized during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in two divergent strategies that characterized some as liberals (also called “right-wing”) and others as socialists (also called “left-wing”). These strategies are schools of thought that are also called ideologies, which in a way superceded and encompassed religious ideals from the Middle Ages and acquired a certain character of civil morality. The thesis of ideology can be summarized in a table of the principles, values, institutions, and governmental maxims used by each of the ideologies during those 200 years. Liberal Cycle. Right Wing. 1789 (French Revolution) to 1889 (Second International) Socialist Cycle. Left Wing. 1889 (Second International) to 1989 (Fall of the Berlin Wall) 1) Fundamental principle Spontaneity of natural freedom Legal establishment of human dignity 2) Government Let things go, custom Correction, Law 3) Hegemonic institution Civil Society, private realms State, public realms 4) Realms of application National, regional International, global 5) Rights promoted Political human rights Social human rights 6) Economy Free market Centrally controlled 7) Economic Policy Privatization of public goods Nationalize private goods 8) Main players Bourgeoisie, capitalists Proletariat, workers 9) Positive moral traits Creativity, boldness, magnanimity Justice. Perseverance, solidarity 10) Negative moral traits Vices: Selfishness, greed, arrogance Vices: Sloth, envy, resentment 11) Preferences War, prostitution, death penalty Revolution, divorce, abortion
– 153 – Throughout the 20th century, the most important ideological divergence is not that which is produced between socialists and liberals, but that which occurs between countries with a multiparty government in a democratic regimen and those that have totalitarian or single party governments, generally the communist party. In each of these two blocks of political parties there can be found approaches that incline more with column A and others that incline more with column B.