Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
560Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
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SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Here are the great minds of Western civilization and their pivotal ideas, from Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud. Richard Tarnas performs the near-miracle of describing profound philosophical concepts simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, THE PASSION OF THE WESERN MIND is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780307804525 |
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Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 10/19/2011 |
Sold by: | Random House |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 560 |
Sales rank: | 184,338 |
File size: | 2 MB |
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The Greek World View
To approach what was distinctive in a vision as complex and protean as that of the Greeks, let us begin by examining one of its most striking characteristics—a sustained, highly diversified tendency to interpret the world in terms of archetypal principles. This tendency was in evidence throughout Greek culture from the Homeric epics onward, though it first emerged in philosophically elaborate form in the intellectual crucible of Athens between the latter part of the fifth century B.C. and the middle of the fourth. Associated with the figure of Socrates, it there received its foundational and in some respects definitive formulation in the dialogues of Plato. At its basis was a view of the cosmos as an ordered expression of certain primordial essences or transcendent first principles, variously conceived as Forms, Ideas, universals, changeless absolutes, immortal deities, divine archai, and archetypes. Although this perspective took on a number of distinct inflections, and although there were important countercurrents to this view, it would appear that not only Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and Pythagoras before them and Plotinus after, but indeed Homer and Hesiod, Aeschylus and Sophocles all expressed something like a common vision, reflecting a typically Greek propensity to see clarifying universals in the chaos of life.
Speaking in these broad terms, and mindful of the inexactness of such generalities, we may say that the Greek universe was ordered by a plurality of timeless essences which underlay concrete reality, giving it form and meaning. These archetypal principles included the mathematical forms of geometry and arithmetic; cosmic opposites such as light and dark, male and female, love and hate, unity and multiplicity; the forms of man (anthrōpos) and other living creatures; and the Ideas of the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, and other absolute moral and aesthetic values. In the pre-philosophical Greek mind, these archetypal principles took the form of mythic personifications such as Eros, Chaos, Heaven and Earth (Ouranos and Gaia), as well as more fully personified figures such as Zeus, Prometheus, and Aphrodite. In this perspective, every aspect of existence was patterned and permeated by such fundamentals. Despite the continuous flux of phenomena in both the outer world and inner experience, there could yet be distinguished specific immutable structures or essences, so definite and enduring they were believed to possess an independent reality of their own. It was upon this apparent immutability and independence that Plato based both his metaphysics and his theory of knowledge.
Because the archetypal perspective outlined here provides a useful point of departure for entering into the Greek world view, and because Plato was that perspective’s preeminent theoretician and apologist, whose thought would become the single most important foundation for the evolution of the Western mind, we shall begin by discussing the Platonic doctrine of Forms. In subsequent chapters, we shall pursue the historical development of the Greek vision as a whole, and thereby attend to the complex dialectic that led to Plato’s thought, and to the equally complex consequences that followed from it.
Yet to approach Plato, we must bear in mind his unsystematic, often tentative, and even ironic style of presenting his philosophy. We should bear in mind too the inevitable and no doubt often deliberate ambiguities inherent in his chosen literary mode, the dramatic dialogue. Finally, we must recall the range, variability, and growth of his thought over a period of some fifty years. With these qualifications, then, we may make a provisional attempt to set forth certain prominent ideas and principles suggested by his writings. Our tacit guide in this interpretive effort will be the Platonic tradition itself, which preserved and developed a specific philosophical perspective it regarded as originating with Plato.
Having established that pivotal position within the Greek mind, we can then move backward and forward—retrospectively to the early mythological and Presocratic traditions, and then onward to Aristotle.
The Archetypal Forms
What has been commonly understood as Platonism revolves around its cardinal doctrine, the asserted existence of the archetypal Ideas or Forms. That assertion demands a partial shift, though a profound one, from what has come to be our usual approach to reality. To understand this shift, we must first ask, “What is the precise relation between the Platonic Forms or Ideas and the empirical world of everyday reality?” Upon this question turns the entire conception. (Plato used the Greek words idea and eidos interchangeably. Idea was taken over into Latin and English, while eidos was translated into Latin as forma and into English as “form.”)
It is crucial to the Platonic understanding that these Forms are primary, while the visible objects of conventional reality are their direct derivatives. Platonic Forms are not conceptual abstractions that the human mind creates by generalizing from a class of particulars. Rather, they possess a quality of being, a degree of reality, that is superior to that of the concrete world. Platonic archetypes form the world and also stand beyond it. They manifest themselves within time and yet are timeless. They constitute the veiled essence of things.
Plato taught that what is perceived as a particular object in the world can best be understood as a concrete expression of a more fundamental Idea, an archetype which gives that object its special structure and condition. A particular thing is what it is by virtue of the Idea informing it. Something is “beautiful” to the exact extent that the archetype of Beauty is present in it. When one falls in love, it is Beauty (or Aphrodite) that one recognizes and surrenders to, the beloved object being Beauty’s instrument or vessel. The essential factor in the event is the archetype, and it is this level that carries the deepest meaning.
It could be objected that this is not the way one experiences an event of this sort. What actually attracts one is not an archetype but a specific person, or a concrete work of art, or some other beautiful object. Beauty is only an attribute of the particular, not its essence. The Platonist argues, however, that this objection rests on a limited perception of the event. It is true, he answers, that the ordinary person is not directly aware of an archetypal level, despite its reality. But Plato described how a philosopher who has observed many objects of beauty, and who has long reflected on the matter, may suddenly glimpse absolute beauty—Beauty itself, supreme, pure, eternal, and not relative to any specific person or thing. The philosopher thereby recognizes the Form or Idea that underlies all beautiful phenomena. He unveils the authentic reality behind the appearance. If something is beautiful, it is so because it “participates” in the absolute Form of Beauty.
Plato’s mentor, Socrates, had sought to know what was common to all virtuous acts, so that he could evaluate how one should govern one’s conduct in life. He reasoned that if one wishes to choose actions that are good, one must know what “good” is, apart from any specific circumstances. To evaluate one thing as “better” than another assumes the existence of an absolute good with which the two relative goods can be compared. Otherwise the word “good” would be only a word whose meaning had no stable basis in reality, and human morality would lack a secure foundation. Similarly, unless there was some absolute basis for evaluating acts as just or unjust, then every act called “just” would be a relative matter of uncertain virtue. When those who engaged in dialogue with Socrates espoused popular notions of justice and injustice, or of good and evil, he subjected these to careful analysis and showed them to be arbitrary, full of internal contradictions and without any substantial basis. Because Socrates and Plato believed that knowledge of virtue was necessary for a person to live a life of virtue, objective universal concepts of justice and goodness seemed imperative for a genuine ethics. Without such changeless constants that transcended the vagaries of human conventions and political institutions, human beings would possess no firm foundation for ascertaining true values, and would thus be subject to the dangers of an amoral relativism.
Beginning with the Socratic discussion of ethical terms and the search for absolute definitions, Plato ended with a comprehensive theory of reality. Just as man as moral agent requires the Ideas of justice and goodness to conduct his life well, so man as scientist requires other absolute Ideas to understand the world, other universals by which the chaos, flux, and variety of sensible things can be unified and made intelligible. The philosopher’s task encompasses both the moral and the scientific dimensions, and the Ideas provide a foundation for both.
It seemed evident to Plato that when many objects share a common property—as all human beings share “humanness” or as all white stones share “whiteness”—that property is not limited to a specific material instance in space and time. It is immaterial, beyond spatiotemporal limitation, and transcendent to its many instances. A particular thing may cease to be, but not the universal property that the particular thing embodied. The universal is a separate entity from the particular and, because it is beyond change and never passes away, is superior in its reality.
One of Plato’s critics once stated, “I see particular horses, but not horseness.” Plato answered, “That is because you have eyes but no intelligence.” The archetypal Horse, which gives form to all horses, is to Plato a more fundamental reality than the particular horses, which are merely specific instances of the Horse, embodiments of that Form. As such, the archetype is apparent not so much to the limited physical senses, though these can suggest and lead the way, as to the more penetrating eye of the soul, the illuminated intellect. Archetypes reveal themselves more to the inner perception than to the outer.
The Platonic perspective thus asks the philosopher to go through the particular to the universal, and beyond the appearance to the essence. It assumes not only that such insight is possible, but that it is mandatory for the attainment of true knowledge. Plato directs the philosopher’s attention away from the external and concrete, from taking things at face value, and points “deeper” and “inward,” so that one may “awaken” to a more profound level of reality. He asserts that the objects one perceives with one’s senses are actually crystallizations of more primary essences, which can be apprehended only by the active, intuitive mind.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Introduction 1
I The Greek World View 3
The Archetypal Forms 6
Ideas and Gods 13
The Evolution of the Greek Mind from Homer to Plato 16
The Mythic Vision 16
The Birth of Philosophy 19
The Greek Enlightenment 25
Socrates 31
The Platonic Hero 35
The Philosopher's Quest and the Universal Mind 41
The Problem of the Planets 48
Aristotle and the Greek Balance 55
The Dual Legacy 69
II The Transformation of the Classical Era 73
Crosscurrents of the Hellenistic Matrix 75
The Decline and Preservation of the Greek Mind 75
Astronomy 79
Astrology 81
Neoplatonism 84
Rome 87
The Emergence of Christianity 89
III The Christian World View 91
Judaic Monotheism and the Divinization of History 94
Classical Elements and the Platonic Inheritance 98
The Conversion of the Pagan Mind 106
Contraries Within the Christian Vision 120
Exultant Christianity 125
Dualistic Christianity 130
Further Contraries and the Augustinian Legacy 138
Matter and Spirit 138
Augustine 143
Law and Grace 148
Athens and Jerusalem 151
The Holy Spirit and Its Vicissitudes 155
Rome and Catholicism 158
The Virgin Mary and the Mother Church 162
A Summing Up 165
IV The Transformation of the Medieval Era 171
The Scholastic Awakening 175
The Quest of Thomas Aquinas 179
Further Developments in the High Middle Ages 191
The Rising Tide of Secular Thought 191
Astronomy and Dante 193
The Secularization of the Church and the Rise of Lay Mysticism 196
Critical Scholasticism and Ockham's Razor 200
The Rebirth of Classical Humanism 209
Petrarch 209
The Return of Plato 211
At the Threshold 220
V The Modem World View 223
The Renaissance 224
The Reformation 233
The Scientific Revolution 248
Copernicus 248
The Religious Reaction 251
Kepler 254
Galileo 258
The Forging of Newtonian Cosmology 261
The Philosophical Revolution 272
B$con 272
Descartes 275
Foundations of the Modern World View 282
Ancients and Moderns 291
The Triumph of Secularism 298
Science and Religion: The Early Concord 298
Compromise and Conflict 301
Philosophy, Politics, Psychology 308
The Modern Character 318
Hidden Continuities 320
VI The Transformation of the Modern Era 325
The Changing Image of the Human from Copernicus through Freud 326
The Self-Critique of the Modern Mind 333
From Locke to Hume 333
Kant 341
The Decline of Metaphysics 351
The Crisis of Modern Science 355
Romanticism and Its Fate 366
The Two Cultures 366
The Divided World View 375
Attempted Syntheses: From Goethe and Hegel to Jung 378
Existentialism and Nihilism 388
The Postmodern Mind 395
At the Millennium 411
VII Epilogue 415
The Post-Copernican Double Bind 416
Knowledge and the Unconscious 422
The Evolution of World Views 433
Bringing It All Back Home 441
Chronology 446
Notes 468
Bibliography 494
Acknowledgments 513
Index 515