Regime and Education: A Study in the History of Political Philosophy [1 ed.] 9783031373824, 9783031373831

Citation preview

RECOVERING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Regime and Education A Study in the History of Political Philosophy Edited by

i a n dag g

Recovering Political Philosophy

Series Editors Timothy W. Burns, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA Thomas L. Pangle, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for and guidance of our political lives has provoked a searching re-examination of the works of past political philosophers. The reexamination seeks to recover the ancient or classical grounding for civic reason and to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of modern philosophic rationalism. This series responds to this ferment by making available outstanding new scholarship in the history of political philosophy, scholarship that is inspired by the rediscovery of the diverse rhetorical strategies employed by political philosophers. The series features interpretive studies attentive to historical context and language, and to the ways in which censorship and didactic concern impelled prudent thinkers, in widely diverse cultural conditions, to employ manifold strategies of writing, strategies that allowed them to aim at different audiences with various degrees of openness to unconventional thinking. Recovering Political Philosophy emphasizes the close reading of ancient, medieval, early modern and late modern works that illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest, enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foundations for contemporary political, social, and economic life. The editors encourage manuscripts from both established and emerging scholars who focus on the careful study of texts, either through analysis of a single work or through thematic study of a problem or question in a number of works.

Ian Dagg Editor

Regime and Education A Study in the History of Political Philosophy

Editor Ian Dagg Political Science University of Dallas Irving, TX, USA

ISSN 2524-7166 ISSN 2524-7174 (electronic) Recovering Political Philosophy ISBN 978-3-031-37382-4 ISBN 978-3-031-37383-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: IanDagnall Computing/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the work of Cole Simmons, the initial editor. The theme of the project was his idea, and he selected most of the contributors for this volume. He had to give up the editorship for personal reasons, and I am grateful that he passed the project over to me

v

Contents

Introduction Ian Dagg

1

The Limits of Regimes: Education and Character Formation in Xenophon’s Political Thought Gregory A. McBrayer

11

The Beautiful and the False: An Introduction to Plato’s Hippias Alex Priou

35

The Connection Between Moral Virtue and Politics in Aristotle’s Ethics John Hungerford

53

Machiavelli’s Revolutionary Classical Education John Peterson Bacon’s Transformation of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Education of Bacon Ian Dagg

81

105

Liberalism’s Approximation to the Rule of Wisdom Cole Simmons

131

Education and Regime in Rousseau’s Social Contract Ian Dagg

159

vii

viii

CONTENTS

Tocqueville’s Defense of Aristocratic Literature Antonio Sosa

185

Nietzsche and Political Education Michael W. Grenke

215

Index

239

List of Contributors

Ian Dagg Classical Education, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA Michael W. Grenke St. John’s College, SANTA FE, NM, United States John Hungerford Havertown, PA, USA Gregory A. McBrayer Ashland, OH, USA John Peterson Department of Education and Classical Learning, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA Alex Priou Herbst Program, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA Cole Simmons Univeristy of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA Antonio Sosa University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA; Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

ix

Introduction Ian Dagg

Considering the dizzying variety of political conventions could give one the impression that there are as many different conceptions of justice as there are political orders or that the attempt to answer the question “what is justice?” is hopelessly misguided. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, for example, after surveying “the thousand” different political orders, concludes that “men gave themselves all their good and evil” or that the content of good and evil is irreducibly conventional. Each people have a “law of their overcoming” or education devoted to a particular end that is not, as such, shared with any other people. The Greeks are devoted to competition and friendship, the Persians to the truth and bow, the Jews to parental honor, the Germans to loyalty, etc. The experience of the variety of different educations leads Zarathustra to speak of “will to power” for the first time in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.1 It is, then, the experience of the variety of political-civic educations that gives rise to what seem to be broader relativistic claims: the education of a people is a variation on a theme or 1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann (Penguin Books, 1977), 170.

I. Dagg (B) Classical Education, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_1

1

2

I. DAGG

note within what is fundamentally an unintelligible stream of becoming. Furthermore, if the variety of opinions about the beautiful, the good, and the just are either intimately tied up to the education of a particular political order or are otherwise without concrete content, as the understanding of “will to power” in “The Thousand Goals and One” seems to indicate, the dignity of man as the rational animal is considerably decreased. One wonders whether there is any access to being and therefore knowledge of being that isn’t colored over by the phenomenological experience of what is just, good, beautiful—or holy. For example, what is “merely a cup” to one person is a symbol of deep religious significance as a chalice to someone else.2 The situation looks different when one discovers or imposes order among the variety of political conventions by consideration of regime. Just as the infinite number of individuals may be organized along racial lines, as Zarathustra does organize men in “The Thousand Goals and One,” so political orders may be classified as particular variations within a stable number of kinds or species of regime, as he does not. If, to continue with the example of Zarathustra, the passive experience of the variety of political orders leads one to emphasize the irrational, as the introduction of “will to power” in “The Thousand Goals and One” implies that it does, so we can assume that the active analysis of political orders into types of regime will emphasize that which is rational. That this is the case may be seen in Thus Spoke Zarathustra itself. In the penultimate chapter published under Nietzsche’s authority, “On Old and New Tablets,” Zarathustra revisits the tablets of the good that hangs over each people. In this new consideration, he neither mentions “will to power” nor points to particular groups of people as he had in “The Thousand Goals and One”; however, he does, albeit quite briefly, perform a regime analysis when he contemplates a threat to the future nobility from the hands of “a great despot” on one side and “the rabble” on the other side.3 At the end of the day, Zarathustra himself divides regimes into tyranny, democracy, and aristocracy, which is to say that a partial reason why Zarathustra no longer speaks of will to power when considering the tablets of the good is that his experience of political phenomena, and 2 Cf. Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” trans. William Lovitt in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (Harper Collins, 1993), 313–314. 3 Steven Berg, “Interpreting the Twofold Presentation of the Will to Power Doctrine in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” Interpretation 26, no. 1 (Fall 1998): 116.

INTRODUCTION

3

therefore our access to the stream of becoming, has been stabilized by the experience that the immense variety of chaotic stuff may be organized by kind. The paltry regime analysis of Zarathustra points back in time to the much more robust regime analysis of the Greeks and makes us wonder why regime analysis became so much less important to modernity that it could be said to have been in danger of being lost. Indeed, the fact that this collection of essays is being published in a series entitled “Recovering Political Philosophy” implies that political philosophy has been or is in danger of being lost. According to Strauss, the rise of historicism gives one “the impression that the question of the nature of political things has been superseded by the question of the characteristic ‘trends’ of the social life of the present and of their historical origins, and that the question of the best, or the just, political order has been superseded by the questions of the modern state, of modern government, of the ideals of Western civilization, and so forth, occupy a place that was formerly occupied by the questions of the state and of the right way of life.” And this transformation or degradation of political philosophy in the realm of our best thinkers has significantly influenced our educational systems and seeped into normal public consciousness: “The result is visible in practically every curriculum and textbook of our time.”4 There is clearly a connection between how one’s political order is structured, general opinions about what is thought to be just, and how citizens are educated. If there is something wrong with our understanding of political fundamentals, then this failure will surely lead to bad consequences at the educational level, whether this is to be understood broadly as civic education or narrowly as education within schools and colleges. If we turn to political philosophy in the attempt to gain greater clarity about political fundamentals than is offered by a shallow moral relativism, then one fruitful pathway into such a movement is to ask the question of what a given political philosopher’s teaching of the best political order shows us about education. If our public justification of inquiry into the history of political philosophy is a concern for the health of our political order, then it makes good sense to couple this inquiry with one into political philosophy’s relevance to education (whether broadly or narrowly understood), out of concern for the health of our educational orders. 4 Leo Strauss, “Political Philosophy and History,” in What Is Political Philosophy? (Basic Books, 1979), 59.

4

I. DAGG

This volume is an inquiry into the history of political philosophy by way of the general theme of education. Each contributor addresses the relationship between a particular political philosopher’s broad teaching on the best political order and that political philosopher’s teaching about education, whether broadly or narrowly understood. Each contributor has been allowed considerable leeway in how this basic theme is understood and addressed. I think this plays to the strengths of individual contributors, while allowing needed flexibility when addressing differences of thought and manner of presentation among the variety of political philosophers considered in this volume. What follows is an introduction to the particular contributions within this volume. Gregory McBrayer examines the limitations of the education Cyrus receives at the hands of the fictionalized Persian Republic in Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus. Observing that this regime is a kind of embellished Sparta, he shows why this regime, and therefore that of Sparta itself, must have had a precarious hold on the devotion of its citizens. If the goal of the regime is to domesticate its citizens, there is nevertheless something in human nature that resists such domestication, no matter how well constructed the regime may be. McBrayer shows why Cyrus in particular was able to resist the education of his regime; however, perhaps more importantly, he shows why, after having resisted his regime’s education, Cyrus was able to subvert that education of the class of the nobles, that is, precisely that class of citizen who most benefitted from the regime as it was structured. Next, McBrayer turns to Xenophon’s Regime of the Lacedaemonians to counter the potential objection that Xenophon’s exploration of the limits of civic education apply merely to a fictional regime. In both works, he shows how the regime failed to control erotic longing or the desire for private wealth and used the threats of corporal punishment, dishonor, and systems of surveillance to coerce the desired behavior out of its citizens, as distinct from educating the citizens in genuine virtue. Finally, McBrayer shows how Xenophon thinks the education of these regimes could be improved by having a more balanced education that included not only physical education but also an education in music and letters. If Cyrus himself is noticeably ill-equipped to reflect on justice, the noble, love, freedom, and death, then perhaps an education that included the great books of the wise men of old would better prepare the citizens of such a regime to have a better and more thoughtful life— and therefore to be more devoted to the regime that did provide such an education. Works such as the Education of Cyrus and Regime of the

INTRODUCTION

5

Lacedaemonians ultimately point in the direction of Xenophon’s Socratic works. Alex Priou sheds light on the poetic education of the warriors in the city in speech of Plato’s Republic, perhaps surprisingly, by comparing the poets of that city with the Platonic Hippias. Priou observes a tension in the city between the noble understood as luxury and the noble understood as moral virtue, as well as a tension within poetry understood both as engaging our intellect and as morally edifying. The first part of the noble lie of the city resolves these tensions by suppressing the noble in favor of love of one’s own, and the second part of the noble lie resolves these tensions by suppressing the distance of intellectual interest in favor of obedience to the will of the gods. While the poets of the city were initially credited with the responsibility of the musical education of the guardians, they are presented as collapsing into their poems during the presentation of the noble lie, as if they themselves were persuaded by it. What kind of poet could be persuaded of the existence, outside of speech, of things that he himself has made in speech? It turns out that he would have to have the character of the Platonic Hippias: he would be concerned above all with praise, and this praise would lead him to imitate whatever understanding of the noble was already present in the community in which he found himself. Most strikingly, to be convinced of the truth of his poetry, he would have to think that the truth varied in tune with the opinions of his audience, that is, to avoid becoming a Protagorean relativist, he would have to believe in a self-evident unity of the beautiful that could be found solely in that which is beautiful or, as Hippias himself puts it, that Socratic dialectics mutilates the large and continuous bodies of being. Hippias—and the poets of the city in speech—comes to sight as mixing the arrogance of Odysseus with the moral obstinacy of Achilles. John Hungerford investigates the deliberate imprecision of Aristotle’s account of moral virtue in the Ethics. After presenting considerable evidence that Aristotle’s understanding of moral virtue is independent from politics or political virtue in his introduction, he argues that Aristotle’s understanding of moral virtue is in fact much more tightly bound up with the political regime than one might think. An analysis of Aristotle’s three methodological statements in the first book of the Ethics reveals that Aristotle’s decision to investigate practical virtue in the way that he does is not a limitation provided by the nature of the subject matter, as it may seem; instead, Aristotle’s refusal to provide greater theoretical clarity than he does provide is a deliberate choice meant to

6

I. DAGG

draw attention to the way moral virtue involves or depends upon opinions that are only held because of a certain kind of habituation. Next, Hungerford explains why Aristotle reminds us of the methodological limitations of the inquiry in the second book. This reminder turns out to be connected to the fact that while Aristotle claims that reason is at the core of moral virtue, Aristotle proceeds to develop his outline of moral virtue without explaining how correct reason can distinguish between good and bad actions. The imprecision of Aristotle’s turn to a second sailing in which the least bad of all things is pursued as an approximation to the virtue that we might desire is, in its turn, connected to Aristotle’s refusal to subject the relationship between the good, the noble, and the just to explicit scrutiny, apparently out of respect for the hopes aroused by the prospect of the complete happiness that virtue seems to promise. Finally, Hungerford turns to the imprecision of Aristotle’s account of prudence. Prudence in Aristotle’s account generates opinions as distinct from replacing opinions with knowledge and in this sense is limited in its perception of the universal toward which it aims, an imprecision grounded in Aristotle’s earlier decision not to subject the relationship between the good, the noble, and the just to explicit scrutiny. The imprecise prudence that develops out of this decision seems to ground the happiness of the individual in the household rather than the regime; however, household management is itself classified as part of the political capacity. The education in moral virtue as it is presented in the Ethics seems to be both bound up in the city and not bound up in the city. The confusion involved in this presentation is ultimately rooted in the deliberate imprecision of Aristotle’s inquiry in the Ethics and points the reader frustrated with Aristotle’s account in the Ethics in the direction of his Politics. John Peterson investigates the meaning of education in Machiavelli’s Discourses. He observes that education is not given the place of prominence in the work of Machiavelli that it is given in the works of classical political philosophy; instead, Machiavelli gives the art of war an importance that is itself downplayed by the classical political philosophers. Machiavelli focuses on war in a way that the classical political philosophers do not; therefore, while education is still a concern of politics for Machiavelli, his educational emphasis is the art of war as distinct from moral education. That being said, Machiavelli’s actual use of the word “education” in the Discourses tends to connect education with religion, the status quo, and even to inaction. The reason for this is that the education of Machiavelli’s time, Christianity, led men to weakness; in

INTRODUCTION

7

his hostility to Christianity, Machiavelli comes to sight as a kind of antieducational conspirator. Part of Machiavelli’s “educational conspiracy” is to change the way that we think about the passions: rather than mastering the passions, an attempt akin to denying necessity, the passions should be recognized and used as the occasion demands. Peterson justifies his claims by carefully considering a number of Machiavelli’s most important uses of “education” in the Discourses, focusing especially on the explicit and implicit connections between education and religion in this work. Machiavelli’s revolution in education will still include the study of ancient texts, but it will place a greater emphasis on history than was placed under classical and Christian educations, and the study of ancient texts will be paired with a direct focus on and experience of circumstances in the present. The fruit of Machiavelli’s educational conspiracy will be the production of statesmen in the place of philosophers and monks. Ian Dagg explains how Bacon transformed the way we think about education in The Advancement of Learning. Bacon’s sweeping educational project aimed to establish modern natural science by neutralizing Aristotelian metaphysical inquiry and taming Christianity in a way that appears consistent with Scholasticism. Part of Bacon’s strategy is to separate metaphysical and theological considerations from natural investigation to such an extent that the former can have no bearing on the latter. Dagg shows that Bacon redefines first philosophy from investigation into being to an affirmation of the unity of the whole and that he does so in such a way as to blur the distinction and tension between competing claims that the whole is created out of nothing and is eternal. Dagg also shows the ways in which Bacon transforms Aristotelian notions of causality by separating formal causality from natural investigation. Formal cause itself becomes the investigation of under what circumstances different arrangements of matter can take on different qualities. Bacon’s transformation of formal cause amounts to the loss of self-knowledge as a goal of philosophy, at least in Bacon’s public presentation of his thought. Bacon’s attack on dialectical inquiry leads him to rehabilitate the prominence of rhetoric and defend it against Platonic critiques. By detaching rhetoric from philosophic inquiry into the good, Bacon defends a Machiavellian appetitive politics of acquisition; however, unlike Machiavelli, Bacon hides his politics of acquisition behind Christian charity supported by productive natural science. Bacon’s transformation in education is oriented by the thought that Christianity represents a political and spiritual tyranny

8

I. DAGG

and that the new natural science will have to be assimilated to Christianity if it is to be established successfully. That being said, the new natural science, once established, will undercut Christianity in the name of making the earth a paradise of bodily pleasure and health through advanced technology. Cole Simmons shows that Locke’s preferred regime, as presented in the Second Treatise, works to secure a form of rule as close as possible to the rule of absolute wisdom as is practical at the time of his writing, perhaps despite appearances to the contrary. He then proceeds to connect Locke’s preferred regime to the education Locke prescribes for a gentleman in Some Thoughts Concerning Education. He begins with a consideration of Chapter 7 in Second Treatise, distinguishing conjugal, parental, and master/servant societies from political society. The uniqueness of political society resides primarily in the fact that the ruler has absolute power, that is, power of life and death. The political ruler is “umpire” in its own case and the highest court of appeal, regardless of whether the political ruler is a prince or the community in general. Now, the appeal of democracy, as presented in the Second Treatise, is that rule of law prevents the abuses associated with judging one’s own case; however, even in a community ruled by law, the community is still the judge of its own case. Simmons shows not only that Locke obscures this fact about law-based community rule for the rhetorical purpose of strengthening his case in favor of democracy, but he also shows that while the majority is stronger, it is not better at ruling. Rule of law, therefore, obscures both the fact that the community is judge in its own case and the fact that the need for virtuous rule on the part of a few is not somehow done away with in democracy grounded in law. Simmons turns to Some Thoughts Concerning Education to make the case that this work provides an education for gentlemen within a democratic state, that is, it serves as a corrective to the misleading impression given by rule of law in the Second Treatise and provides an education for a virtuous ruling class within a liberal regime, as distinct from an education as such or for all men in all times and places. Finally, Simmons shows that while this work provides rules for education that are meant to circumvent the aristocratic need for good company and good masters in a manner similar to the way law attempts to circumvent the need for prudent rulers, Locke’s rhetoric in this work is softened or less rigorous, that is, while Locke really does aim to provide helpful rules for education, he more readily acknowledges the value of spectacular individuals in this work than he does in the Second Treatise.

INTRODUCTION

9

Ian Dagg examines the civic education provided by Rousseau in The Social Contract. Rousseau teaches the reader to hold an astonishingly high bar for political legitimacy in which all existing political orders are held to be illegitimate forms of slavery. After rejecting a variety of claims to legitimacy, Rousseau concludes that the foundational condition of legitimacy is the thoroughgoing suppression of individuality, including the right to self-preservation. One’s slavery to the political order is justified if everyone within the political order is equally enslaved to it for the common good, that is, if everyone is equally denatured. While Rousseau claims that all regimes justify themselves on grounds of the divine origin of law, Rousseau deflates this justification for the purpose of establishing his own natural religion. When Rousseau finally turns to a discussion of regime, the importance of the question of regime is also deflated. By focusing on the amount of territory a regime holds to determine what regime would be best for it, Rousseau suppresses the claims to justice implicitly or explicitly made on behalf of different types of regimes. Toward the end of the work, Rousseau discusses a number of Roman institutions as a way of showing how his astonishing demands on the political order can be diluted within the realm of practical politics. Despite his egalitarian rhetoric, Rousseau favors the rule of the wealthy and rural population within an elective aristocracy, circumstances permitting. Rousseau’s seemingly irresponsible rhetoric may be best explained as the attempt to encourage public-minded spiritedness within regimes in which the citizen body is neither healthy nor so decadent and private-minded that such an appeal will have no effect. Antonio Sosa shows the way in which Tocqueville aims to encourage the development of a literary elite within American democracy for the social benefit of elevating the moral and intellectual tone of the utilitarian and commercial education that most citizens will receive. He does this by providing a close analysis of the chapter “Why the Study of Greek and Latin Literature is Particularly Useful in Democratic Societies” in Democracy in America. Sosa argues that the purpose of such an elite is to counteract the excessive love of equality that is in danger of developing within American democracy. Its aim would be to emphasize immutable standards of human excellence for the sake of rupturing the dream of the possibility and goodness of radical equality. Drawing from “How from Time to Time Religious Beliefs Divert the Soul of the Americans toward Non-Material Enjoyments,” Sosa explains that, according to Tocqueville, the aristocratic educator that the literary elite in America

10

I. DAGG

is most in need of is Plato. After drawing on a variety of sources to consider why Tocqueville found Plato to be valuable for an intellectual minority in a democracy, Sosa supplements the theme of Tocqueville’s understanding of the possibility of aristocratic literature within a democracy by appealing to a series of notes Tocqueville prepared in his role as judge for an academic contest in which the contestants discussed different systems of moral philosophy prior to Christianity. Finally, Michael Grenke discusses a variety of works by Nietzsche to make the case that Nietzsche is decidedly more concerned about education than he is about regime or, to put this differently, that regime must be in the service of education; however, if this is the case, then education is better understood as culture. According to Grenke, while Nietzsche prefers aristocracy over that of any other regime, his greater preference for the enhancement of the human type is dependent on regime change throughout time, which is to say that a permanently stable aristocracy would be undesirable. After surveying the three forms of history in Nietzsche’s On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life, Grenke proceeds to use these three forms of history to frame an account of the relationship between stability and change within education narrowly understood as culture as well as broadly understood as growth. The goal of education in the thought of Nietzsche might seem to be to produce spectacular individuals, but the goal of education is also said to be to get around the spectacular individuals that have developed. The goal of education, then, can be said to cultivate growth and expansion of a cyclical kind that fluctuates between emphasizing the development of spectacular individuals and the development of regimes capable of producing spectacular individuals. Nietzsche’s preferences for aristocracy and spectacular individuals are in tension with each other, and the goal of education is ultimately to create conditions for their cyclical mutual flourishing.

The Limits of Regimes: Education and Character Formation in Xenophon’s Political Thought Gregory A. McBrayer

1

Introduction

Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus provides a penetrating account of the problem of the regime and education. As the title implies, Cyrus’s education is the central theme of the book, but the title is equivocal. It seems to refer, in the first place, to the education Cyrus received, but it also refers to the education he imparted.1 And within these two educations, we again can draw distinctions. The education Cyrus received consists of formal schooling, on one hand, and informal learning, on the other. And while there are many examples throughout the book of Cyrus educating

1 The title could also refer to the education the reader receives in learning about Cyrus with Xenophon. Of course, the title also draws attention to the incomplete or defective character of Cyrus’ education. Much like the title of the Anabasis of Cyrus (Ascent or Rise of Cyrus ) contains an account of another Cyrus who failed to ascend, the Education of Cyrus seems to be about a Cyrus who fails to receive an education worthy of the name. I will discuss this further later.

G. A. McBrayer (B) Ashland, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_2

11

12

G. A. MCBRAYER

others, the education Cyrus provides focuses primarily on Persians, especially the Persian Nobles.2 Ultimately, Cyrus’s re-education of the Nobles amounts to no less than a revolution. Through these two educations, the one Cyrus receives and the one he gives, Xenophon provides a stunning contrast to the thought of his fellow Socratic political philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, who emphasize the vast power of regimes to shape the souls of their citizens. Reading them, one would not be blamed for coming away with the impression that the regime is an invincible juggernaut capable of shaping citizens’ actions, speeches, and thoughts completely, an all-encompassing entity from which only the philosopher can escape.3 Xenophon thus provides a helpful contrast to his fellow Socratic political philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, for he shows, in the example of Cyrus, how fragile the hold regimes have over the education of their citizens is. Xenophon’s political thought thus shows the limits regimes face in educating their citizens, highlights the tension between a political or civic education and human nature, and indicates the preconditions for genuine education. Regimes face two limits in education. First, and in agreement with Aristotle and Plato, regimes do not educate in philosophy. In addition, citizens regularly fail to live up to the demands of their regime—that is, their desires often push them to violate the education they received. By contrast, Aristotle and Plato present the regime as quite inescapable. Aristotle, for example, emphasizes the importance of how one was raised and habituated, initially saying these factors make no small difference in how one turns out, and going on to amplify the claim, declaring how one was raised makes all the difference.4 The first education one receives is at home, from the community or partnership called the family, but the

2 This is not to deny Cyrus teaches non-Persians as well. He also teaches the Armenian King, Croesus, and the Cadusians, just to name a few. 3 Of course, Plato and Aristotle indicate the regime may not be as powerful as they present it. Consider, for example, Aristotle’s account of revolutions (Aristotle, Politics, trans. Carnes Lord [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984] Book 5) and Plato’s cycle of regimes (Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom [New York: Basic Books, 1987] Book 8). 4 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , trans. Susan Collins and Robert C. Bartlett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) II.1 (1103b21–26).

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

13

family, in its turn, is shaped by the authoritative community, the political partnership.5 How we are raised, who will teach us, what kind of an education we are to receive, these are questions settled, to a great extent, by the political community. Even in situations where education is relegated entirely to the household, the decision to make that delegation is a political one. Politics, as Aristotle reminds his readers, is architectonic.6 Politics determines the sciences and arts that can be studied in a regime; it forbids certain studies, vocations, and inquiries; and, perhaps most importantly, it decides which virtues will be promoted. Every regime depends upon a certain kind of citizen for its perpetuation and so every regime aims to reproduce them.7 The regime effects this end through various means—including punishment, and the doling out of honors—but it does so, primarily, through education (Politics 8.1.1337a10–12). Plato uses even darker, more cynical imagery to describe our educational condition in the Republic, especially in his famous “Allegory of the Cave” in Book VII. There, Socrates likens human beings to troglodytes who inhabit gloomy caverns, who fumble about in the darkness, who are guided only by artificial light provided by our manipulative puppet masters. Worse, our necks and legs are enchained, and they have been enchained since we were children (but curiously, not since birth); thus, our heads are aimed at shadows cast on a wall our whole life long. Exceedingly few human beings ever escape this prison, and even these fortunate few do not do so by their own powers. Those with natures fit to be liberated cannot do so but with the succor of someone who has ascended before them, and even these lucky few must be compelled to leave— they go kicking and screaming, as it were. The overwhelming majority of human beings, all but the tiniest few among us, are condemned to live their lives entirely within the overbearing bonds of convention, their minds weighed down by chains fashioned by politicians or poets of the

5 Politics , I.1–2 (1252a1–6, 1253a19–20). 6 Nicomachean Ethics , I.2 (1094a27–28). 7 This is not to deny that some regimes even take an interest in the characters of noncitizens. For example, see Plutarch’s discussion of Sparta’s harsh policies, including their so-called “Secret Society” (krupteia), for dealing with their non-citizen slave population, the Helots (The Life of Lycurgus, 28). In Xenophon’s account of the Spartan Constitution, he is notably silent about the practice of krupteia (See Susan D. Collins, “An Introduction to the Regime of the Lacedaemonians,” in Xenophon: The Shorter Works, ed. Gregory A. McBrayer [Ithaca, NY: Corenell University Press, 2018], 370, n. 103).

14

G. A. MCBRAYER

highest order. The allegory of the cave, despite its widespread celebration, offers a rather bleak portrait of our education or, more accurately, lack thereof. Regimes provide powerful but incomplete educations, educations that hold fast and hold down, rather than liberate. Together, Aristotle’s account of our education and Plato’s famous allegory of the cave leave two impressions, impressions that may not hold up under scrutiny, but impressions nonetheless. First, our prospects for leaving the cave are dim; only a handful of human beings—philosophers— ever manage successfully to ascend from its darkness to the light of the truth. And second, the regime is nearly omnipotent in its ability to dominate the intellectual and moral horizon of the overwhelming majority of its citizens. The present chapter aims to challenge the impression formed by such a reading of Aristotle and Plato, the impression that regimes provide inescapable, all-encompassing educations for their citizens. Turning to Xenophon can help us to see the possibility that Plato’s allegory of the cave might be too strict, or at least our readings of it tend to be too strict. Xenophon presents to his readers many individuals who are not entirely bound by the bonds of their respective regimes.8 Furthermore, he shows us the ease with which an entire educational edifice can come crumbling down. In many of his works, but especially in the Education of Cyrus, Xenophon shows that the regime’s hold on its citizens is actually quite precarious. Even or perhaps especially in the case of a supposedly exceptional regime, a regime devoted to a kind of virtue, the regime’s ability to mold the characters of its citizens through education reveals itself to be quite limited.

2

The Limits of Regimes in the Case of Cyrus

Unlike many of Xenophon’s other books, which can tend to open rather abruptly, the Cyropaedia opens with an introduction that directly addresses the themes raised by the present volume, namely, regimes and education. The introduction opens by implying that the political problem is regime stability, it goes on to assert that Cyrus solved the political 8 Let me leave open the possibility that Plato, too, was fully aware of the limits of his allegory. One need only reflect on the measures Socrates puts into place in Kallipolis to see that the project of fully indoctrinating citizens requires an elaborate, almost incredible system of lies, habituation, and force.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

15

problem with his science (or knowledge) of politics, and it ends, as a result, with the suggestion that education is the means by which one arrives at a solution to the political problem. But here at the start, Xenophon stresses the fundamental fragility of regimes. Regimes of all types, Xenophon notes, are constantly being overthrown and brought down: Democracies are brought down, monarchies and oligarchies overthrown, and tyrannies are regularly brought down completely as soon as they start or, if they survive even a little while, are wondered at. If regimes were as good at shaping entirely the moral and political outlook of their citizens as others imply, the regularity with which they are overthrown would be puzzling. For surely one of the first traits the regime would try to instill in its citizens is an interest in the perpetuation of the regime. And this is simply not what we see, as Xenophon says and history bears witness. In rather curious fashion, Xenophon moves from political examples to domestic, and from domestic to bestial. Humans seem to be difficult to rule in any capacity, much more difficult than animals. To be more precise, he speaks of domesticated animals—cattle, horses, and herd animals generally—all of which, he proclaims, obey their masters more readily than humans do theirs. He claims never to have perceived a herd unite against its keeper. Setting aside the possibility that such united rebellion may have in fact occurred (what is a stampede?), Xenophon fails to mention wild animals, an omission altogether more curious given the frequency with which we will see wild animals throughout the book, but especially book 1. Now, the omission of wild animals shows that there are indeed other animals that humans have not been able to bring under their control. It also tacitly recognizes the Herculean task of domesticating wild animals—how did cows, horses, and other animals come to be tamed in the first place? Ostensibly such animals were not always under the dominion of humans.9 By emphasizing the difficulty of ruling human beings, Xenophon implies that humans are more akin to wild than to domesticated animals—or at least humans have not been entirely domesticated. In any event, based on these series of observations—the constant overturning of regimes and households, as well as the comparison of animals to human beings—our author draws the tentative conclusion that, “It is

9 But consider Genesis 1:24–25.

16

G. A. MCBRAYER

easier, given his nature, for a human being to rule all the other kinds of animals than to rule human beings” (1.1.3).10 If regimes try to form their citizens by habituation, or by training fit for animals, or through education, Xenophon’s introduction urges us to consider the possibility that something in human nature rebels against the attempt to be domesticated like animals. It proves to be a difficult task for regimes to accustom their citizens to being ruled. If the caves in Plato’s famous allegory represent the various regimes, Xenophon suggests that humans cannot be so easily enchained as Plato’s famous image leads one to believe. But then, our author shares, we noticed Cyrus. And we reflected on him and were compelled to change our minds. Our author seems to suggest Cyrus possessed the science or knowledge (epist¯em¯e) of ruling; preliminarily, Cyrus’s knowledge of how to rule offers a solution to the political problem that has perpetually plagued mankind. Cyrus first appears on stage, so to speak, as a kind of savior.11 As Xenophon presents the matter in this passage, Cyrus’s knowledge is central to his rule, and, if knowledge comes about through education, Cyrus’s education would be central to the stability of his rule. While the book focuses initially on the education Cyrus received, it later stresses the education Cyrus gave to others. Let us begin with the education Cyrus received, and then turn to the education he provided the Persian peers.

3

Cyrus’s Persian Education

Cyrus is exceptional, which is to say he is not typically Persian, and Xenophon connects his exceptional character to his enormous political success, which includes transforming a small, austere republic into a multiethnic empire that bears little resemblance to the regime in which he grew up.12 How did Cyrus manage to liberate himself from living the life prescribed to him by the rigorous education of the Persian Republic? 10 Xenophon, Education of Cyrus, trans. Wayne Ambler (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press, 2001). 11 His name even indicates as much. Etymologically, Cyrus’s name is derived from the word meaning power, authority, or even lord (kuros ). 12 Twice in the span of a paragraph, Xenophon identifies his fictional Persia as a republic (politeia, 1.2.15). It is a kind of constitutional monarchy tempered by a common council that also has a regimented judiciary system.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

17

Xenophon points to three factors in his introduction that led to Cyrus’s exceptional rise: his birth, his nature, and his education. To these three, Xenophon later makes clear the role chance plays, especially in foreign events. If not for an international incident, Cyrus might never have had the opportunity to reveal his exceptional character. In any event, Cyrus’s birth is spoken of fairly briefly. His father is said to have been Cambyses, King of Persia, and his mother is agreed by all to have been Mandane, whose father, in turn, was King of the Medes. Cyrus is held to have descended from royalty on each side. More than that, the royals on his father’s side trace their lineage back to the quasi-divine hero Perseus, so Cyrus is held to have descended from divinity. Having such an exalted ancestry might already put Cyrus at some distance from the regime—on one hand, he may be more tied to Persia than his peers on account of his birth. But to the extent that Cyrus was thought to be, and perhaps even to the extent that he thought himself to be, descended from the divine founder of his nation, it must have been difficult for him to think of himself as an ordinary Persian and thus bound by the rules applicable to them.13 Regardless, Cyrus was educated from the start in the laws of the Persians, and the Persian educational system had a clear purpose. Xenophon makes clear that, unlike other regimes, Persia proactively tries to shape its citizens’ desires. Persia educates its citizens so that the desire to do a vile or shameful deed does not even arise, whereas other regimes punish vile and shameful deeds after the fact. Persia effects this mostly by conducting a disciplined, public education. Students are compelled to be in public, for the most part, with very little privacy; in addition to allowing little opportunity to pursue vile and shameful deeds, this system also effectively harnesses peer pressure and thus instills a sense of shame before one’s agemates. The educational structure is also hierarchical, with the Persian males being divided into four classes on the basis of age. The boys are educated until around age sixteen or seventeen in four topics: justice, moderation, obedience, and continence. In addition, they are taught how to shoot a bow and throw a spear. Then the boys enter the class of youths, a stage that lasts about ten years and is devoted, above all, to hunting, 13 Perhaps this is why Xenophon emphasizes opinion regarding Cyrus’s parenthood (the father is “said to be” Cambyses at 1.2.1). On a related note, consider Aristotle’s account of whether founders are citizens, Politics 3.2.3 (1275b32–34). Cyrus is descended from the first citizen.

18

G. A. MCBRAYER

since hunting is considered the truest of the exercises that pertain to war. This much, it seems, accounts for the formal education of the Persian males, for after the ten years of youth education are finished, the youth graduate and join the ranks of the complete men (i.e., no longer in need of education), in whose ranks they will stay for the next twenty-five years and whose principal task is the military defense of Persia. Immediately after concluding the treatment of Persian education, Xenophon says he wants to make even more clear the character of the regime. This remark implies that the account of education he has just given is central to his account of the regime. There is a near identity between a regime and the education it instills in its citizens. In Cyrus’s case, the failure of the regime to instill this conservative set of virtues can be explained, or at least partially explained, by the fact that he does not receive the full Persian education.14 Partway through the boyhood education in justice, moderation, continence, and obedience, Cyrus is summoned to the court of the king of Media, his maternal grandfather Astyages. His grandfather’s regime is markedly different from his Persian home, so much so that Cyrus’s mother alleges it is in fact a tyranny. Xenophon encourages the reader to see Cyrus’s time in Media was formative, fundamental in shaping his deepest longings. His time in Media provides Cyrus with an alternative lens through which to view the world. What is just in Media is not the same as what is just in Persia; rulership is different as well, and there are luxuries available in Media unknown to Persians. Cyrus learns a great deal in Media, but he also misses some opportunities to reflect fully on problems that present themselves. For example, when Cyrus first arrives in Media, Xenophon relates a series of “beauty contests”; in these episodes, Cyrus is given an opportunity to reflect on the character of the noble or beautiful.15 Instead, young Cyrus draws a 14 In addition to Cyrus’s formal education Persia, Cyrus receives a significant but informal education from his grandfather in Media. Later, Cyrus’s father tries to teach him (1.6), and Tigranes, Cyrus’s boyhood friend, also imparts important lessons (3.1). These three men dispute key lessons of Cyrus’s Persian education. I have sketched an account of this in, “The Miseducation of Cyrus,” Paper presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November, 2015. 15 There is a series of three beauty contests in 1.3, between Persia and Media. All three are over to kalon, the beautiful. The first contest regards the good looks of royal men (His Persian father’s simple mode of dress, compared with his grandfather’s elaborate clothes,

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

19

kind of easy-going relativism from the contrasting accounts of beauty or nobility. At the very least, one can say that his Persian sensibilities are challenged: as he was a lover of beauty, Cyrus was greatly pleased by Median robes and desired to learn how to ride horses. Additionally, Cyrus learns the usefulness of feeding others in reward and punishment (1.3.7), he learns how to get others to do his bidding (1.4.9 and 14), and, above all, he learns about horses (1.4.4, 1.4.20 and ff.), especially as they relate to hunting and thus to military affairs. Persia would not have afforded Cyrus the opportunity to learn such matters. Xenophon makes clear to the reader the extent to which Cyrus’s time in Media contributed to his later unconventionality. But in a way, this is nothing novel. Of course individuals who spend significant amount of time away from their native land will find themselves less under the sway of their regime. Less obvious, then, is that when Cyrus visits his grandfather in Media, he arrives already harboring doubts about the goodness of the Persian regime and the education that conduces to its perpetuation. This becomes clear in his conversation with his mother regarding justice. At a certain point, not too long after they have arrived in Media, Cyrus’s mother expresses her desire to return home with her son, but Astyages, her father, asks her to leave Cyrus behind. Mandane responds that she will not leave the boy behind against this will, leaving the decision up to him. After Astyages makes promises to the young Cyrus regarding access to himself, horses, meals, and hunting, Cyrus proclaims he has made up his mind and decides to stay in Media. His mother expresses the fear that Cyrus will not learn Persian justice if he stays in Media. To assuage his mother’s fears about remaining in Media, Cyrus proclaims that he has already learned Persian justice, and so there is no real need to return. To show his mother that he has learned justice sufficiently, Cyrus relates to her a story when he happened to have been appointed judge in the case of a dispute between two boys. The case was like this: a small boy had a large tunic and a large boy had a small tunic, and the big boy decided to swap tunics with the littler boy. Cyrus judged it was better as now each boy had a more fitting tunic. The teacher who had appointed

jewelry, and make-up. Here, Cyrus declares a tie. Among the Persians, his father is most beautiful, and among the Medes, his grandfather is). The third contest is over which food is more beautiful or noble, Persian or Median (Here, and only here, Cyrus sides with his native Persia). The second, central contest is over the beauty of robes and horses, and here Persia does not even enter a contestant.

20

G. A. MCBRAYER

Cyrus judge saw things differently: he beat Cyrus for the decision he had made, insisting that just possession is determined by the law. To decide otherwise would be unlawful, and thus violent. In any event, the teacher insists that the just is the lawful, and Cyrus can confidently proclaim that he now knows what Persian justice is: the just is the legal. Cyrus’s mother is still worried, insofar as Median justice is not the same as Persian justice, but Cyrus again tries to put her fears to rest. No need to worry, mother, Cyrus tells her, your grandfather, the ruler of Media, will not teach me to be greedy, insofar as he teaches all of the Medes to have less than he does. Despite, or perhaps because of the story Cyrus has just told, his mother still harbors fears that her son will learn the tyrannical ways of her father (1.3.18). Perhaps, she still harbors these fears because Cyrus’s example does not unequivocally demonstrate his devotion to the Persian conception of justice. In fact, it may reveal precisely the opposite. For when Cyrus recounts the definition of justice offered by his teacher, Cyrus cynically has the teacher declare, “the lawful is just, and the unlawful violent ”—not unjust! (1.3.17, emphasis mine). Here, I think, Cyrus lets slip the lesson he learned from the example. The irony of beating Cyrus to stamp out violence was not lost on our young Cyrus: Persian law rests on violence, and, as the lawful is the just, Persian justice amounts to an elaborate façade masking the reality of violence. While Cyrus’s stay in Media surely had a corrupting effect on his character, this example shows us that Cyrus already had deep doubts about his native regime. The Persian educational system failed to produce the desired effect in the case of young Cyrus. Perhaps, another five years of habituation would have cured him of these doubts,16 or beaten them out of him, or even taught him that the lawful is in fact just, but his doubts existed prior to his Median education. Cyrus’s liberation from his regime seems to be due to a combination of factors, namely his exceptional birth, nature, and, above all his education (which included, of course, a significant amount of time away from Persia). Now, Cyrus, to be sure, is no philosopher, but he is still extraordinarily exceptional.17 If only the Cyruses of the world 16 Consider Plato, Protagoras, 325d in Plato, Protagoras and Meno, trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 17 For evidence Cyrus was no philosopher, consider 5.1.2–18; 7.2.15–29; 8.4.16; and 8.7.2–3 with 8.7.17–22. However, Xenophon does say that Cyrus was by nature a superlative lover of learning (“philomathestatos,” 1.2.1).

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

21

can liberate themselves from the all-encompassing, comprehensive educational grip of the regime, then Xenophon would seem to confirm the account of the regime’s power one finds in Plato and Aristotle. But, as I show next, Cyrus was not alone in his ambivalence toward the regime. In that regard, he was not exceptional at all; rather, he was quite typical.

4 The Nobles’ Doubts and Cyrus’s Transformation of the Persian Regime We see the evidence that Cyrus was not alone in his deep skepticism of the goodness of the Persian regime in a speech he gives years later, his first political speech, in fact. This speech laid the groundwork to alter the Persian regime fundamentally.18 While the success of the speech can be explained in part by the circumstances in which he gives it, the circumstances cannot account for its success entirely. The audience, Persian nobles, already harbored deep misgivings about the goodness of their regime, the quality of their education, and the grounds for their attachment to virtue. Cyrus gives his first speech years after he has returned from Media to Persia, where he has completed what remained of his formal education and joined the ranks of the complete (or mature) men whose chief object is preparation for war. We hear very little of Cyrus’s life in the years between his return to Persia and the death of his grandfather. Upon Astyages’s death, the Assyrian Empire prepares to strike Media in its moment of transition, sensing vulnerability. Persia is still an ally of the Medes, who are now under the kingship of Cyaxares, Cyrus’s maternal uncle, who inherited his rule from his deceased father. As a result of the impending invasion, Cyaxares asks the Persians to furnish an army and, given his familiarity with Cyrus’s impressive skills from when he was an

18 “The political activity of Cyrus—his extraordinary success—consisted in transforming a stable and healthy aristocracy into an unstable ‘Oriental despotism’” Leo Strauss, “Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero,” in On Tyranny (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 181.

22

G. A. MCBRAYER

adolescent in Media, he asks that Cyrus be put at its head.19 The immediate context of Cyrus’s speech is an external threat posed by a hostile, foreign empire, a situation where Cyrus is thrust into military leadership. War, Xenophon’s example suggests, provides an opportunity for someone dissatisfied with his own regime to propose significant changes; revolutions often arise in times of crisis. Changes are especially palatable if they are held to be necessary for the regime’s survival. Cyrus has been put in charge of a sizable Persian army, an army comprised of one thousand Persian peers who will immediately be charged with expanding the size of the army to 31,000. The audience for the speech consists of the initial one thousand Persian nobles. Cyrus’s speech radically transforms the Persian understanding that virtue is to be practiced for its own sake; the Persians cannot withstand an alternative, alluring ground for devotion to virtue. At the beginning of his speech, Cyrus praises the group’s Persian ancestors, but immediately undercuts any praise when he says the current generation is no worse than they were. This seemingly deferential statement gives way to the elevation of his contemporaries to the status of the founders; in effect, he denies the founders were special and thus departs from the conservative tendency to honor one’s ancestors. Soon, he will drop even the façade of respect and critique the ancestors directly. They practiced virtue, to be sure, but “What good they acquired from being [virtuous], however, either for the community of the Persians or for themselves, I cannot see” (1.5.8).20 And yet, he says, he does not think people practice virtue in order to have less than the worthless. To put the position more bluntly than Cyrus here does: virtue must pay, otherwise it would be foolish to practice it. He then gives four examples of artisans who practice their art in order to become excellent at it, all of whom we would deem foolish if they failed to capitalize on their hard work. What man would learn how 19 Xenophon presents this as a request made by a friend or an ally, and he thus obscures the historical fact that the Persians were in fact subjects under the Median Empire (See Herodotus, The History, trans. David Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 1.129–130). However, consider 1.3.1 and 1.4.24. Xenophon also reports that Media, “seemed [to the King of Assyria] to be the strongest of those nearby” (1.5.2). 20 Cyrus indirectly points to the possibility that the Persians are under the rule of the Medes. The ancestral practice of virtue did not even give the Persians independence. Perhaps only a massive empire can be independent, and massive empires rest on a different foundation (and education) than that given to an elite aristocracy. But in the case of empires, the citizens still lose their independence, insofar as they become subjects.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

23

to make excellent public speeches and not use this ability? We undertake military training to achieve wealth, happiness, and honor, Cyrus avers. And similarly it would be foolish for a farmer not to reap what he’s sown, or an Olympic athlete to train diligently for a period of some duration and then skip competition. All such persons would justly be blamed for their folly (1.5.10). Leaving the audience to draw the irreverent conclusion themselves, the Persian ancestors, who did not reap what they sowed, were foolish. Cyrus emphasizes that the Persians, including and especially those men standing before him, have been educated to practice virtue, and they have been educated to practice virtue for its own sake.21 Unless one is a fool, virtue must pay, and presently, virtue does not pay. Cyrus’s speech thus radically reorients the minds of these Persian Peers with regard to virtue, and, hereafter, things begin to change. While Cyrus unquestionably exhorts the Persians to persist in practicing virtue, at least for now, he has replaced its foundation. Virtue is to be practiced for the rewards it brings instead of its intrinsic good; virtue has become an instrumental good. Cyrus has shifted the foundation of the goal of the regime, and thus destabilized it; its purpose has been radically altered.22 As a result of the change in the purpose or final cause of the regime, its form begins to follow suit. Shortly after giving this speech, Cyrus abolishes the de facto class distinction between Peers and Commoners of the Persian republic and institutes in its stead a sort of meritocracy. This change serves the military well. The military succeeds, and succeeds, and succeeds, securing one victory in battle after another. Cyrus encounters very few opponents capable of giving him a run for his money. And in the span of a few books, in what is presented as a brief amount

21 I should also add that their emphasis on martial training appears to be with a view

to defensive war, rather than the acquisition of wealth, happiness, and honor. 22 According to Aristotle, the form of the regime is of greater importance than the people and place that make up a political community (Politics 3.3). The goal or final cause of a regime is bound up with the shape of the regime. In plain English, the rulers determine the goal of the regime and the form corresponds to the goal. The goals outlined by a founder limit or direct the form the government can take. In the case of the United States, for example, the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution articulate the goals. The Constitution of the United States makes manifest one way of organizing a government that can achieve those goals. However, as the Declaration of Independence makes clear, some other forms of government could potentially achieve the same ends.

24

G. A. MCBRAYER

of time,23 Cyrus’s army eventually conquers the Assyrian enemy and captures its capital, Babylon. Cyrus’s new meritocratic military regime is wildly successful but its establishment has come at the expense of Persia’s republican character. By the end of Cyrus’s reign, the Persian Republic is no more. The constitutionally constrained monarchy gives way to the rule of one alone (1.2.15, 1.5.4). Cyrus sets himself up as an emperor, with the ornate clothes, platform shoes, and make-up of his tyrannical grandfather. Persia has become an empire with an emperor who bestows rewards on those most obedient to him. Instead of citizens, Persia has subjects. Instead of an education in virtue, Persia has instituted a system of secret police. Instead of a virtuous populace, the Persians became highly corrupt (8.8, in its entirety). Then, immediately upon Cyrus’s death, the people fell into vice: they became impious toward the gods, irreverent toward relatives, unjust toward others, and cowardly. The end of the book brings disappointment crashing down, and the reader, especially one approaching the text for the first time, can be left feeling stupefied and dissatisfied. The surprise can compel one to retrace one’s steps, to work backwards through the book in an attempt to discover where it all went wrong. The first step in Cyrus’s transformation of Persia from Republic to Empire was his first public speech, the success of which is puzzling.24 How was Cyrus able to persuade his peers to abandon the ancestral regime to such an amazing extent, and how did he manage to do it so quickly, in one brief speech?25 In short order, the Persian nobles are persuaded to reject the education they have received, to reject the traditional conception of virtue and the grounds of their devotion to it—in sum, to reject the very regime itself. While we have already outlined several factors that help to explain how Cyrus departed from the orders of others, and was thus free to craft such an unconventional speech, Cyrus’s

23 Xenophon gives the reader the impression that the entire military campaign (from 1.5.2 to 8.6.19) did not last very long. The entire campaign lasted, at most, two years (cf. 6.1.14). Cyrus was able to transform Persia from a republic into an empire in a very brief span of time. 24 Strauss (2000), 181. 25 It should not be puzzling why the commoners, those who were legally eligible but

effectually disqualified from participation in the educational system, and thus the regime, were quick to abandon ancestral Persia. Consider the case of the exceptional commoner, Pheraulus (2.3, 8.3).

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

25

lack of attachment to his regime cannot explain sufficiently why his words had the effect they did on the Persian Peers. The character of the speaker is but one factor in determining the persuasiveness of a speech. The disposition of the audience also factors in.26 Xenophon, no doubt, tempts readers to attribute the success of Cyrus’s speech entirely to the latter’s prudence, charm, and rhetorical abilities, but in order to understand why the Persian Peers were so easily persuaded to abandon entirely the way of life engrained in them from childhood, one must look to the Persian Peers themselves.27 The peers were persuaded because they were persuadable; they were ripe for the picking. Prior to Cyrus having given his first public oration, the peers were already unconvinced of the goodness of their regime. Their attachment to the regime was tenuous, the result not of reflection and choice but of habituation and obedience; it rested, ultimately, on fear, punishment, and the threat of force. To be sure, the Persians were largely obedient to the law, Xenophon asserts, but he makes clear that their conformity to the law was the result of habituation,28 constant supervision—the boys were seldom allowed to be in private—and the perpetual threat of force. While Xenophon initially contrasts Persia and other regimes by claiming Persia educates whereas other regimes punish (1.2.2), he shortly grants that Persians punish as well—in fact, Persians punish severely (ischur¯ os, 1.2.7). The closer attention one pays to the education of the Persians, the more one notes the elaborate lengths to which they would go to in order to surveil and to punish. The Persians post guards, search for malefactors, and punish robbers. The entire class of men over the age of roughly fifty adjudicates cases, which implies there are many such cases if everyone of that age performs the task. We learn that many of those who have completed the Persian education nevertheless do not live up to the demands later in life, and such men are convicted and

26 Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric, trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021) 1.2.1356a1–5. 27 “The first step in this transformation [i.e., from aristocracy to oriental despotism] was a speech which Cyrus addressed to the Persian nobles and in which he convinced them that they ought to deviate from the habit of their ancestors by practicing virtue no longer for its own sake, but for the sake of rewards.” Strauss (2000), 181. 28 Xenophon mentions the role of habituation specifically with regard to hunting (1.2.10) and war (1.2.11).

26

G. A. MCBRAYER

have to live their lives in dishonor (1.2.14).29 Persia is held together by an elaborate system of monitoring and punishing; in a word, the regime, which suppresses many natural human longings, is sustained by fear. Persia’s system of monitoring and punishment is necessary insofar as Persia attempts—by habituation, monitoring, and punishing—to suppress natural human longings, longings so strong that they can only be suppressed with extraordinary effort. Persia aims to subordinate the good of the individual to the common good, a task difficult to achieve, and perhaps impossible to achieve for any considerable length of time. In particular, the Persian education strives to suppress three natural human desires: the desire for freedom, the desire for love, and the desire to acquire. In the introduction to the book, Xenophon makes clear that humans, to a greater extent even than animals, bristle at the prospect of being ruled by others. Some may freely or willingly obey, but most must be compelled.30 Throughout the book, Xenophon connects the desire for freedom with the abhorrence of being ruled by others.31 Persian nobles— the boys, youths, mature men, and, to a lesser extent, the elders—are all required by law to be ever-present in the public square, an area near the government buildings and divided into four parts. As if to call attention to the illiberal character of public square, Xenophon, with a touch of irony, reports the location where the men are required to assemble is called the “so-called Free Square” (eleuthera agora kaloumen¯e). Everyone in Persia, it would seem, has a ruler. There are rulers for the boys, the youths, and the mature men. The elders, it seems, largely police themselves,32 but there is also a constitutional assembly, about which Xenophon is quite taciturn.33 The males have seemingly little property: commercial activity is explicitly banned from the so-called Free Square (1.2.3), and there is little

29 Compare also Regime of the Lacedaemonians (9.6 and context), and Regime of the Athenians (3.12). 30 Most of Cyrus’s subjects are ruled unwillingly (1.1.4). 31 See especially the Armenian King (3.1, 3.2.15). Cyrus himself equates ruling others

with freedom (7.5.79). 32 Note the passive construction obscures who appoints mature men and elders as leaders (1.2.5). 33 Cf. Xenophon’s discussion of the ephors Regime of the Lacedaemonians, Chapter 8.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

27

evidence they possess anything. Their Spartan existence denies them luxuries, and even, for that manner, some necessities (1.2.8).34 All meals are taken under the watchful eye of others, and there is accordingly little opportunity for the Persian nobles to eat or drink too much. However, throughout the book, Xenophon leads readers to consider the possibility that it is a very human thing to desire to acquire. Cyrus mentions the acquisition of wealth among the primary goods the practice of the military art yields (1.5.9), and, late in the book, confesses that he himself has always had an insatiable appetite for money (8.2.20). Of course, he is not the only one who treasures treasure: we see this quality in the Armenian King (3.1.2, 3.1.35), Croesus (7.2.14), and, of course, Cyrus’s grandfather. Cyrus himself is amazed that his grandfather has taught all the other Medes to have less than he does (1.4.18), which implies that, in his view at least, without such an education, the Medes would have pursued the natural human inclination to acquire more. As Cyrus’s army expands, new contingents plunder, despite having been forewarned against it, and their action confirms to others Cyrus’s insistence on the folly of prematurely grasping for rewards (5.4.19–23). To the extent that his army refrains from engaging in plunder, they do so principally because Cyrus promises even greater rewards for those who can delay gratification (4.2.42–45; see also his speech 7.5.72–86). All this is to say that there is ample evidence throughout the Cyropaedia, even in its principal character, that there is a strong natural inclination in human beings to acquire.35 Further, Persia attempts to reduce, up to the limits of what is humanly possible, erotic desire. Even young men who marry are expected to be present at the Free Square most of the time; only occasionally is it acceptable for them to spend time in private with their new brides (1.2.4). Cyrus similarly denies himself erotic desires, going so far as to refrain from even looking at beautiful women (5.1.16). While Cyrus denies himself erotic longings, he is well aware of the power they hold over others, and he uses others’ erotic longings to his advantage.36 Again, just as in the case 34 Cf. Lycurgus’s encouragement of the successful stealing of cheese, Regime of the

Lacedaemonians, 2.9. 35 See also Xenophon, Ways and Means, or On Revenues (4.7) as well as Abram Shulsky, “An Introduction to the Ways and Means.” 36 The entire love story between Panthea and Abradatas, that begins in Book 5 and is concluded in Book 7, illustrates this. Cyrus exploits the love each has for the other (but see especially 6.1.45–51); he also exploits the erotic devotion of one of his soldiers, Araspas,

28

G. A. MCBRAYER

of the human desire to acquire goods, Xenophon presents many examples of love and erotic longings throughout the book.37 And the Persian Republic, to repeat, tries mightily to provide the minimal outlet for the expression of eros by requiring men to be out in the open. What seems to have held it all together, to repeat, is the elaborate surveillance apparatus accompanied by a system of harsh punishments. The males are obedient, but obedience is always to another. Once the object of obedience has been displaced, so, too, will the character of the obedience. Put in a slightly different way, Xenophon repeatedly stresses the obedience of Persians, and connects their obedience to their practice of virtue. But insofar as their practice of virtue is marked by obedience, it has not been internalized. The attachment to virtue comes from without. Cyrus’s peers are as unconvinced as he is of the goodness of the education they have received and have followed it principally out of obedience—an obedience backed by the threat of severe punishment (1.2.6–7, 12, 14).38 Persia, it would seem, despite its rigorous and comprehensive educational structure, is unable to fully capture the hearts and minds of its citizens, be they truly exceptional, like Cyrus, typical members of the nobility, or commoners. One of the lessons of the Education of Cyrus is the difficulty of ruling human beings for any significant length of time, and Xenophon shows that difficulty springs, in part, from human nature.

5

A Laconic Digression

We may be tempted to dismiss Xenophon’s account of regime and education in Persia on the grounds that the Persia he presents in the Education of Cyrus is fictional, not representative of the historical Persia we know from other sources but in fact a highly embellished version of it. But, as others have noted, Xenophon’s Persia appears to be an improvement

for Panthea (Compare 5.1.17 with 6.1.34–44). Cyrus similarly exploits the love his Median “cousin,” Atrabazus, has for him as well (1.4.27–28), managing to get Artabazus to tell a lie to the Median soldiers that greatly benefits him (4.1.22 and following). 37 Astyages seems to have a harem (1.3.11). Similarly, his son Cyaxares enjoys the company of women (4.5.7–8). I have already mentioned the example of Abradatas and Panthea, but there is also the love Tigranes shows for his wife (3.1.36; 8.4.24), as well as Croesus’s love for his (7.2.28). 38 Consider also Regime of the Lacedaemonians, 2.2.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

29

not of the historical Persia but of historical Sparta.39 And Sparta, despite being famous in antiquity for its devotion to virtue, was nevertheless ultimately undone by the same inability to fully inculcate its particular brand of civic virtue in its citizens. Others before me have argued persuasively, not to say definitively, that Xenophon’s laudatory treatise on the regime of Lacedaemonia is in fact a satire meant to show its enormous shortcomings.40 For my purposes, it is only necessary to highlight aspects of what has already been said about Persia and to show that Xenophon’s account of Sparta accords with what we find there. In both cases, Xenophon’s teaching is consistent: regimes have only a tenuous hold over the souls of their citizens. At first glance, Sparta, unique among ancient cities, appears to have perfected the task of producing citizens, and they did so, primarily, through their unique practices, practices that stood in opposition to those of every other Greek city. Only in the penultimate chapter of the treatise does Xenophon convey that it all fell apart, in a manner reminiscent of the downfall of Persia as he describes it in the Cyropaedia. Xenophon indicates that Sparta falls apart because the Spartans strayed from their ancestral ways set down by their wise lawgiver, Lycurgus. Unlike the practices Lycurgus sought to establish, the Spartans are now overly fond of gold, meddlesome in foreign affairs, desirous of ruling over others, and unjust.41 While many have been puzzled by the sudden decay of Sparta in the penultimate chapter of the work, Xenophon has shown that the seeds of Sparta’s dissolution were present from its founding. The factors that drive its dissolution were never really driven out. Just like Persia, Xenophon indicates Sparta struggled to harness the power of erotic longing for the public good (1.3–10), and it struggled unsuccessfully to curb the desire for private wealth (Chs. 6 & 7, but see also the home searches in 7.6). Further, in order to promote obedience to law instead of fostering virtue for its own sake (Ch. 5), Sparta relied on a vast system of surveillance and punishment (corporeal (2.2, 2.8, 4.6, 7.6, 8.4), dishonor (9.3–6),

39 Strauss (2000), 181. Christopher Nadon, Xenophon’s Prince: Republic and Empire in the Cyropaedia (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), 30–32. 40 Strauss, “The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon,” Social Research 6, no. 4: 502–536. Collins, “An Introduction to The Regime of the Lacedaemonians ”. 41 Regime of the Lacedaemonians, Ch. 14.

30

G. A. MCBRAYER

and other penalties (10.5–7)—curiously, there is no mention of the death penalty). In the Regime of the Lacedaemonians, Xenophon indicates what is missing from a Spartan education, and thereby hints at what would be necessary for a fully human, as opposed to civic or political education. At the very least, a genuine education would require learning letters, would include music, and would involve exercise (Reg. Lac., 2.2). Now, no doubt the boys in both Sparta and fictional Persia received a physical education, but music and letters appear to be entirely neglected. To return to the Cyropaedia, there is no indication that Persian nobles are taught how to read and write, just as Sparta, in contrast to every other Greek city, fails to teach its boys letters.42 Not only are the boys innocent of books, but they seem to be innocent of the themes or questions raised by the great books of the wise men of old. Indeed, anytime Cyrus comes face to face with a fundamental question, he abandons the line of inquiry. To name just a few: Cyrus misses opportunities to reflect on justice,43 on the noble or beautiful,44 on love,45 on freedom or voluntariness,46 and death—even as he is about to die, he shows he has not come to terms with his own mortality.47 In each case, Xenophon gives clear indications regarding the limits of Cyrus’s inquiries.48 That is not to say that the Cyropaedia refrains from prodding readers to investigate these questions for themselves; whatever the limits of Cyrus’s education, Xenophon insists he wants his writings to be useful in making his readers wise and good.49 The book abounds with inconspicuously insinuated philosophical queries. In the first place, in the examples just mentioned, just because Cyrus failed to reflect sufficiently on them does not mean readers cannot mull them over for themselves. Similarly, once one comes to recognize the insufficiency of Cyrus’s education, one can 42 There are only passing references to Cyrus’s literacy: 4.5.26, 8.2.16–17. 43 Justice: 1.3.16–18. 44 Kalon: 1.3.2–5. 45 Love: 5.1. 46 Voluntariness: Ibid. 47 Regarding death, compare 1.6.4–6 with 7.3.8–16. See also 8.7.2–3, 17–22. 48 Perhaps this is why Xenophon says Cyrus was a lover of learning, and not a lover of

wisdom (1.2.1). 49 Xenophon, The One Skilled at Hunting with Dogs, 13.8.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

31

search the book for alternative pedagogical paths, especially given the title’s insistence on the importance of education. Admittedly, Xenophon only doles these indications out somewhat parsimoniously so as not to distract the reader too much from the primary focus, Cyrus, until the book’s conclusion compels a dissatisfied reader back through the work. If one revisits the book anew, looking for such indications, one sees that Cyrus often fails to reflect on questions raised by stories he hears about or from Gobryas, Croesus, Tigranes, the Armenian sophist, and an unnamed Persian teacher of boys. These examples give readers some indication of Cyrus’s educational defects. The unnamed Persian teacher of boys, for example, taught the boys that their Persian education in virtue was insufficient, and he taught them to lie and not to lie, to deceive and not to deceive, to slander and not to slander, to take advantage and not to take advantage. Indeed, justice even demands, on occasion, deceiving a friend or stealing from him, if it is for the sake of the good (1.6.31). While perhaps the Persian teacher of boys taught indiscriminately, and thus imprudently, the least one could say is that the Persian understanding of, say, justice, is too restrictive, as even young Cyrus himself saw (1.3.16–18).50 The Armenian Sophist, as others have pointed out, reflects Socrates, Xenophon’s own teacher, and the Sophist’s student, the Armenian Prince Tigranes, evokes the image of the author himself, Xenophon.51 The Sophist is compassionate or understanding with regard to those who do wrong (3.1.38), echoing Socrates’s famous paradox that no one voluntarily does wrong, and, also like Socrates, he is executed for corrupting the youth. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Xenophon whose curiosity is whetted by this example would reasonably be led to Xenophon’s Socratic works. The character of Tigranes, like the book’s author, has received a Socratic education, and his education informs his political actions and also shows why philosophy is needed in political life even as it appears to be liberated from it.52 For the first time we see Tigranes, he has just returned 50 See also Plato, Republic 331c–d. 51 “Commentators are nearly unanimous in identifying [the Armenian] sophist with

Socrates, and Tigranes with Xenophon himself” Nadon (2001), 79. 52 Tigranes plays a curious role in the Education of Cyrus, and, insofar as the author identifies himself with the character, one could go far in understanding the text by evaluating Tigranes’s estimation of Cyrus. Consider Tigranes’s remarks at 3.1.42, his remarks

32

G. A. MCBRAYER

from a trip and his father, the king, is in danger of being executed for his politically imprudent decision to rebel against his Median rulers. Cyrus has successfully and swiftly suppressed the seditious Armenian, and he decides to hold a public trial, with himself as the judge, to determine what is to be done with the king. Tigranes’s father convicts himself by his own standards of justice, and, worse, he concedes that he would execute anyone who similarly rebelled against him. At this point, Tigranes leaps to his father’s defense. He does so despite the fact, as the text will shortly make clear, that Tigranes’s Socratic education has driven a wedge between him and his father.53 The king was so jealous of Tigranes’s affection for the sophist that he consequently executed the sophist for corrupting his son and making him love himself more than his father. Nevertheless, and contrary to what his father understood to be characteristic of a Socratic education, Tigranes still cares for his father and comes to his father’s defense when he is most vulnerable and in danger of dying. Tigranes successfully persuades Cyrus not to execute his father for rebelling, and he appears to persuade him that his father would be a great ally in the future since he would be afraid of Cyrus. As this brief conversation with Cyrus shows, Tigranes was dialectically adept, and no doubt he learned this skill from his sophist teacher. He also appears to be capable of critically evaluating his father and the regime in which he was raised–another mark of a Socratic education. But, as critics of Socratic education often fail to see, Tigranes’s love for his teacher did not replace entirely his love for his father and his native regime. Tigranes may well admire his teacher more than his father, but he still loves his father and comes to his defense, at risk to himself, in the trial with Cyrus. Lastly, after it has become clear that Tigranes has done all that he can do for Armenia and his father, Tigranes leaves his native land and follows a foreigner named Cyrus. Clearly, Xenophon points to his own case, where his Socratic education informed his political action as recounted in the Anabasis of Cyrus. If in support of Cyrus’s proposal to continue to campaign in 5.1, his absence from the list of supporters regarding the same question in 6.1, and Cyrus’s final remarks about Tigranes and his wife in 8.4.24. 53 Tigranes’s absence from Armenia is another small sign of his liberation from political

concerns. Further, the text seems to suggest that the King has passed over Tigranes and designated his younger son, Sabaris, as heir to the crown—or at least, the text is not unambiguous as to which son is to inherit the crown (3.1.13). Regardless, as his later conversation with Cyrus confirms, Tigranes bears ill will toward his father and has been liberated, to some extent, from his father’s rule.

THE LIMITS OF REGIMES: EDUCATION AND CHARACTER …

33

Cyrus’s education is incomplete or defective in some way, Tigranes points the way toward genuine education. Turning to Croesus, whom Cyrus defeats in battle shortly before conquering Babylon, it is widely known that he had an interesting experience with the Delphic oracle; at least, Cyrus has heard of the story and, upon meeting Croesus for the first time, he inquires about the story. The Delphic oracle was the source of one of the most famous maxims from antiquity—“know thyself”—and Croesus relates to Cyrus that this is the answer the oracle gave him in response to his question about how he might live most happily. During the ensuing conversation, Cyrus never seems moved to consider the possibility that the oracle’s advice might apply to him as well (perhaps Cyrus believes he already knows himself). Here again, Xenophon points to a missed opportunity. But what might it mean to “know thyself”? Perhaps, in many of Cyrus’s earlier missed educational opportunities, Xenophon has indicated the answer. Perhaps, truly to know oneself requires submitting one’s opinions, one’s deepest longings, one’s answers to fundamental questions to scrutiny. Perhaps, truly knowing oneself would require working through—as Cyrus has not—the problem of justice, the problem of the noble or beautiful, love, friendship, death, and what God or the gods might be. In some cases, Cyrus seems to have rejected the traditional account of them instilled in him by his regime, but he evinces little inclination to work through them to a satisfactory end. And the best way to work through these problems might be in concert with a teacher like one found in former times in Persia, or Armenia. Alternatively, one could turn to books, great books, books written by the wise men of old, as the case of Gobryas suggests. For Xenophon takes the time to point out, in passing, that Gobryas possessed writings, which he either wrote or collected (8.4.16). Again, just as in the case of the Delphic exhortation to know oneself, and despite being a lover of learning, Cyrus evinces no interest in Gobryas’s books.

6

Conclusion

By way of conclusion, let me briefly turn my attention to another work by Xenophon, the Memorabilia, where he mentions books and the role they played in Socrates’s life. For unlike Cyrus, Xenophon allows readers to see, ever so briefly, that reading was one of Socrates’s chief activities. In one of the early chapters, a sophist named Antiphon browbeats Socrates

34

G. A. MCBRAYER

for his seemingly ascetic and impoverished way of life. After enduring this vitriol for some time, Socrates, Xenophon reports, responds in the following way: Accordingly, Antiphon, just as another is pleased by a good horse or a dog or a bird, so I myself am even more pleased by good friends, and if I possess something good I teach it, and I introduce them to others from whom, I believe, they will receive some benefit with a view to virtue. And reading collectively with my friends, I go through the treasures of the wise men of old which they wrote and left behind in their books; and if we see something good, we pick it out; and we hold that it is a great gain if we become friends with one another.54

When Xenophon heard Socrates’ response, he declares that he formed the opinion that Socrates was blessedly happy and that he led those who heard him to nobility and goodness. Socrates, whom Xenophon proclaims to be blessedly happy, says that education is man’s greatest good. Cyrus makes no such remark regarding the goodness of education. Instead, he declares happiness to be acquiring the most while keeping to what is just and using the most while keeping with the noble. Cyrus’s views on this matter of ultimate importance reveal his education to have been defective. By calling his book on the perfect prince the education of Cyrus, and not the life of Cyrus or even the Rise of Cyrus, Xenophon connects Cyrus’s defectiveness to his want of a genuine education, an education in human virtue. While the education of Cyrus leads to an even worse form of subjection, liberation is a goal of the education of Xenophon.

54 Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.6.14 in Xenophon, The Shorter Socratic Writings, ed. Robert C. Bartlett (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

The Beautiful and the False: An Introduction to Plato’s Hippias Alex Priou

Listen, for poets are feigned to lie, and I For you a liar am a thousand times. —John Berryman

1

Why Hippias?

Who wouldn’t doubt, even if only for a moment, that Plato wrote the Hippias Major and Hippias Minor? Hippias is among the most ridiculous characters to be found in Plato’s works, yet their topics—the noble or beautiful (τ`o καλ´oν) and lying, respectively—are among the most serious and enduring of philosophic concerns. Moreover, they divvy up between them, and so entrust to the ridiculous Hippias, the subject matter of Republic 2–3: the guardians’ education in τ`o καλ´oν and the noble lie

A. Priou (B) Herbst Program, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_3

35

36

A. PRIOU

that supports it (see Republic 402d1–7, 403c4–8, 414b7–8).1 Worse still, Hippias’ ridiculousness appears peculiarly anti-Socratic: in the Hippias Major he can only respond to the general question, What is τ`o καλ´oν?, with particular beautiful things, while in the Hippias Minor he lacks the dialectical acumen to question whether anyone willingly does bad things, even as Socrates lays that assumption at his feet (see Hippias Minor 376b5–6). Hippias appears ill-suited both to the quintessential Socratic question, What is x?, and to the Socratic manner of treating that question, dialectics.2 In these dialogues, then, Plato entrusts two important topics that together form a central part of his political philosophy, topics concerning the moral education of the best regime, to a man opposed not simply to answering these questions but even to asking them. So, who can blame scholars for doubting their authenticity? The whole thing does seem rather regrettable.3 1 All unspecified citations are to Plato. For the Republic, I have used the text of Simon Slings, Platonis Rempublicam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003). For all other dialogues, I have used John Burnet, Platonis Opera Omnia, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903). I am grateful to John C. Gibert, Gregory A. McBrayer, and Travis Mulroy for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 Socratic dialectics takes on an utterly peculiar form in the Hippias Major, as Socrates splits in two between a version of himself that wishes to learn from Hippias and so answers in his style, on the one hand, and a version of himself that is critical of the former Socrates’ Hippian way of answering, on the other. Socrates is forced to displace himself qua questioner, so as not to offend Hippias, so little common ground is there between the two. 3 The case against the Hippias Major as a genuine work of Plato’s remains unpersuasive. Most arguments rely on preconceived notions of Plato’s seriousness. Such notions would be more reasonable, were the Hippias Major the most comic of the dialogues. But the example of the Euthydemus, which no one doubts to be genuinely Platonic, suffices to dismiss these grounds as, at best, inadequate. Helpful discussions of the history of the debate can be found in Paul Woodruff, Plato, Hippias Major (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1982), 94–105 and Ivor Ludlam, Hippias Major: An Interpretation (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991), 12–20. Suffice it to say that the case is weak enough that recent scholars have felt a decreasing need to discuss the issue. The case for its authenticity, as always, depends on the dialogue’s content and, therewith, our interpretation of it (as note Woodruff, xi–xii, 94; Ludlam, 11; Travis Mulroy, “On the Difficulty of Beautiful Things: Political Virtue and Wisdom in Plato’s Hippias Major,” Ancient Philosophy 39 [2019], 43–67, 44). That Aristotle explicitly discusses the Hippias Minor should be enough to establish it as a genuine work of Plato’s (see Aristotle, Metaphysics Δ.29 1025a1–13). Nevertheless, a very small minority have attempted to argue, on the basis of a few similar words and phrases, that it is the work of Antisthenes’ hand. More reasonable, however, is Kahn’s account of the Hippias Minor as Plato’s response to Antisthenes (see Charles Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophic Use of a Literary Form

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

37

Nevertheless, what appears to be the case against a text may well be an author’s challenge to his reader, and such does appear to be the case with Plato’s Hippias Major and Hippias Minor.4 For Hippias justifies his opposition to Socrates’ question and questioning by recourse ´ to the “naturally great and continuous bodies of being” (μεγαλα…κα` ι διανεκÁ σωματα ´ τÁς oÙσ´ιας πεϕυκ´oτα), for which bodies the suitable mode of speech is such as one finds in the courtroom or council chamber (Hippias Major 301b5–7, 304a4–b6). Behind Hippias’ ™πιδε´ιξεις and moral rigidity, ridiculously anti-philosophic as they may appear, lies a conviction about the nature of things and the manner of speech appropriate to them. Nor is this conviction apparently shared among other sophists, as Protagoras famously advanced a moral and epistemological relativism based, as it seems, on a fluxist ontology.5 Hippias uniquely embodies a conviction in the veracity of the mode of speech common in political institutions, a conviction that predisposes him to public-spirited endeavors uncommon among his fellow sophists and that compels him to provide a supporting ontology.6 Correlatively, Protagoras tends to avoid

[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], 121–124). As a result, the example of the Hippias Minor proves particularly instructive as to the futility of dismissing a dialogue on the basis of an apparently inappropriate style or unphilosophic content, for, “if Plato could create a conversation as delightfully odd as the Lesser Hippias, who is to say with confidence what Plato could and could not have written?” (Thomas Pangle, “Introduction,” in The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas Pangle [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987], 1–20, 6). We should not demand of Plato such excessive seriousness as Plato attributes to Hippias. 4 The challenge is stated most directly by Woodruff: “Why is Hippias made the target of an attack unparalleled in Plato’s work? If we cannot answer that question satisfactorily, we will have to agree with critics of the dialogue that the attack is inappropriate” (Woodruff, 131). There must be some end, either moral or philosophical, at which Socrates’ treatment of Hippias aims, beyond mere abuse for its own sake. 5 Gorgias would appear to be an exception, inasmuch as he too served his native city of Elis in an official capacity, yet he famously distanced himself from the sophist’s claims to teach virtue. See Meno 95b9–c4, then Gorgias 459b6–460a4 with 461b3–c4. 6 In support of this view, see Woodruff, 85–86. If Hippias (one might ask) is convinced of the veracity of this public mode of speech, then why does he accept as true what is to his advantage more readily than what is lawful (Hippias Major 285b3–4)? But clearly Hippias isn’t simply concerned with his advantage, since he happily gives up money in exchange for praise. The situation is much stranger, as his determination of truth relies not on his private advantage so much as on his audience (see Hippias Major 292a6–c2). It’s a peculiarly humorous bit of playfulness, on Plato’s part, that Hippias is famous for his incredible memory yet seems unbothered by his own inconsistency. In the Hippias Major,

38

A. PRIOU

the public square, while having a higher opinion of Socrates and showing greater concern with persuading him than does Hippias. In his eventual recourse to ontology, Hippias represents the regime’s attempt to render itself complete in the most public of its political processes, deliberation, through a morally edifying education. That the results are so ridiculous is a testament to the intractable, even obvious obstacles that meet any such attempt. The regime, and the education that supports it, appear hopelessly incomplete. I hope to show that to understand why Plato and Socrates take Hippias so seriously, even though they see him to be ridiculous, requires looking at the Hippias Major and Hippias Minor in light of the Republic’s more serious treatment of their respective themes. Toward this end, I will discuss Republic 2–3 to show how the first steps in the construction of the city in speech rely on three forms or species (ε‡δη) of τ`o καλ´oν—as luxury, martial excellence, and poetic imitation—and that it is the heterogeneity of these three forms that makes the noble lie necessary and gives it its specific character (Sect. The Beautiful and Its Lie). I will then turn to the Hippias Major (Sect. Hippias the Beautiful) and Hippias Minor (Sect. Hippias the False) to show how this analysis of Republic 2–3 helps us understand Hippias’s psychology. Hippias’s errors, rudimentary as they may seem, will be seen to reflect the problem of grounding the best city’s moral education through literature in an account of reality without submitting that education to critical examination. Plato thus shows us, through the comic foil of his character Hippias, the necessary incompleteness of every regime in its education, that is, at its very core. At the same time, however, Plato subtly directs us to the hidden ideal of that education, a way of life denied by its popular exponents like Hippias: it will be the way of life of Socrates, and it will stand on its own.7

he puts his reputation on the line more than once, as though one can still wager what one has already lost (see Hippias Major 286e8–287a1, 291d6–7, after which Socrates’ alter ego threatens him with violence), and the Hippias Minor ends with him agreeing to every proposition in an argument while rejecting its necessary conclusion (see Hippias Minor 376b7–c1). Alone, as it seems, with Socrates in the Hippias Major, Hippias is content to agree with him when it redounds to his advantage. Before others in the Hippias Minor, however, he will not so readily transgress ordinary opinions about lying. The audience is primary. 7 This thesis aims to establish a connection between these dialogues that has not yet received attention, though one interpreter does suggest something similar in passing: “Hippias parodies together the compulsory descent of the philosopher into the cave and

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

2

39

The Beautiful and Its Lie

When Socrates and Adeimantus first begin building a city in speech, it is not τ`o καλ´oν but necessity that serves as the principle of its completeness (Republic 369b7–c5, 371e8–372a2). Only after Glaucon objects that this is a city of sows does τ`o καλ´oν earn its place (Republic 372c3–e1; but compare 370b5–7). His desire that the citizens eat the cuisine of contemporary Athens, as opposed to the slop served in the city of sows, and that they do so seated at a table and sitting on chairs introduces τ`o καλ´oν into the city in the form of refinement and sophistication.8 That this desire is paired with a contempt for the denizens of the city of necessity shows that his demand for luxury is rooted in a wish to rise above the bestial and into the properly human. Noticing Glaucon’s contempt, Socrates responds by portraying the city that meets Glaucon’s demands as luxuriating (τρυϕîσαν) and swollen (ϕλεγμα´ινoυσαν), making τ`o καλ´oν qua luxury as much an object of contempt as the city of necessity had been for Glaucon (Republic 372e2–373d3). But Socrates marshals this contempt not to redirect Glaucon back to the city of necessity but to arouse his admiration for the newly introduced class of warriors, necessary to protect the growing city and, like the other artisans, highly specialized in their art (Republic 373d4–374e4). Socrates’ exposition of the nature and education of these warriors is so successful in its intended effect that just moments later Glaucon is a changed man: though he had earlier recoiled at the sow-like life in the city of necessity, Glaucon now finds attractive warriors doggish in nature; and though he once advocated on behalf of Athenian luxuries, he now readily dismisses them from the

the noble lie” (Seth Benardete, The Being of the Beautiful: Plato’s Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984], xxiii). Accordingly, my engagement with the secondary literature is necessarily restricted to significant details of interpretation, establishing precedence for certain questions or observations, and relevant and illuminating insights. 8 Socrates never explicitly identifies luxury as a species of τ`o καλ´oν, though he does say it is no longer concerned with necessity (see Republic 373b1–3). Likewise, his list includes many refinements readily offered as examples of τ`o καλ´oν elsewhere in Plato, most notably, as we will see, in the Hippias Major. Socrates perhaps hesitates to explicitly call them καλα, ´ as he is about to identify τ`o καλ´oν as the end of the guardians’ education. The problem of τ`o καλ´oν must be suppressed if the guardians are to stay in their job and, in turn, Glaucon is to be satisfied with the city in speech. The whole discussion of the guardians’ education ends on precisely this point (see Republic 416d4–417b9).

40

A. PRIOU

education and diet of the warriors.9 Socrates thus effects a turn from τ`o καλ´oν as luxury to τ`o καλ´oν as moral virtue. But in so doing he reveals a tension within it, represented in the split between the artisan and warrior classes. This tension threatens the unity of the city, for why would the warriors willingly risk life and limb to defend those whose lives they deem not worth living? Socrates must provide them with a reason for their allegiance. But if the tension within τ`o καλ´oν is real, then wouldn’t that reason be a lie? The warriors’ education has two parts, the one music and the other gymnastic (Republic 376e1–4). The musical education is admittedly false, in that it makes use of μàθoι rather than λ´oγoι (Republic 376e5–377a7). Such μàθoι serve as a stamp that can set its seal on the youths, plastic ´ (πλαττεται) as they are at that age (Republic 377b1–2). The survival of the city thus depends upon the censorship of the poets, so that the youths who model themselves on the gods and men depicted in their poems grow courageous and moderate.10 But Socrates also restricts the poets from speaking in the voice of any but the decent man, out of shame on their part at imitating—and thus molding themselves to the stamp of— those worse than they (Republic 396c6–e1). Socrates treats the poets as though they were guardians themselves, a move ostensibly justified by the assertion that such imitations, when performed continuously from youth on, settle into habits and nature (Republic 395c8–d2).11 But this hardly seems adequate to explain the effect composing the Iliad had on Homer or, for that matter, Oedipus Tyrannus on Sophocles. Socrates deemphasizes the distance mind discerns between image and reality, even though

9 See Seth Benardete, Socrates’ Second Sailing: On Plato’s Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 51, 54, 74. 10 Wisdom is attributed not to the guardians but rather to the greatest of poets, to be revered by Socrates and Adeimantus yet dismissed from the city in speech (Republic 398a1–b4). 11 Indeed, Socrates appears in the course of his discussion to slide from the guardians to the poets as though they were one and the same (see Republic 394d1–e2). Annas raises a similar objection from the perspective of actors, though she goes a step too far, I think, in arguing that Plato “is not concerned with the dangers of life imitating art” (Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], 96). The problems in the critique of poetry here are real and necessitate the second treatment in Book 10, where, as Annas also notes, μ´ιμησις takes on another connotation. See footnote 12.

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

41

it will be so crucial in the divided line of Book 6 and the second treatment of poetry in Book 10. This suppression is necessary, inasmuch as the guardians can never know that their moral education involves their attempting to become what the poets only feign to be. Such an insight is reserved, perhaps, only for those who obtain the education not in μàθoι but in λ´oγoι, the education detailed in Republic 7. Regardless, the plasticity of youth is preserved in the range of types the poet can adopt at will, but if the guardians ever figure that out, they will no longer be typical and will thus cease to be a class. No Horatio Alger novel should have an aspiring novelist as its protagonist. It appears, then, that τ`o καλ´oν again splits in two: between the poem as edifying, which encourages us to model ourselves after its protagonist and so fall into the plot, and the poem as interesting, which engages our intellect without dictating our habits.12 Socrates must therefore find a means to conceal from the guardian class that the principle of their education—imitation of the poetically typified decent man—allows for a range of possibilities forbidden them. But we ask, again: if this second tension within τ`o καλ´oν is also real, then wouldn’t that means be a lie? The two parts of the noble lie respectively attempt to mend the above two rifts within τ`o καλ´oν.13 First, the myth of autochthony mitigates the contempt the warriors have for the artisans by making them brothers through a common parentage in the earth (Republic 414e2–5, 415a2). If not out of brotherly love, then at least out of filial piety will the warriors 12 This split seems to govern Thucydides’ twofold complaint in History I.20–21.1. For a fuller and more nuanced account of this restricted purpose of poetry, see Benardete 1989, 61, 69–72. Compare Annas, 94. 13 Many have noted the connection between the guardians’ education in τ`o καλ´oν and the need for the noble lie. See, for example, Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 100–3; Benardete 1989, 77–78. I have tried to augment those accounts by spelling out the specific defects or tensions within it that make the noble lie’s patchwork necessary. By far, however, the principal focus of the scholarship on the noble lie has been on Plato’s endorsement of lying both here and elsewhere. Readers tend to take offense at the paternalism, the denial of autonomy, and the eugenic aims of these lies. The most famous and extreme of these critics is certainly Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 Vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1945), 1:120ff. A few scholars have attempted to moderate or refocus the debate, as, for example, Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith, “Justice and Dishonesty in Plato’s Republic,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 21 (1983): 79–95. By far the most impressive and successful attempt, to my knowledge, to challenge the typically modern assumptions of these critics is Carl Page, “The Truth About Lies in Plato’s Republic,” Ancient Philosophy 11 (1991): 1–33.

42

A. PRIOU

guard those they would otherwise disregard entirely. That the tension between luxury and virtue is reconciled not through love of τ`o καλ´oν but through love of one’s own suffices to show that the first rift is indeed real. Second, though the lie of autochthony reduces enmity between the classes of the city, it does nothing to give the city its class-structure.14 For that, the myth of metals is necessary. Whereas in reality the poets ´ fashioned (πλαττεται, πλασθšντας) the souls of the guardians and rulers through their rearing and education (Republic 377b1, 5), Socrates now persuades them that it was all a dream: it was rather the god who fash´ ioned (πλαττων) them for their current roles by mixing their souls with metals whose variation in value reflects the hierarchy of classes to which they belong (Republic 414d1–6, 415a3–7; see 414d6–7). Restricted in their imitation to the decent man and forced to display a reluctance to imitate anyone worse, the poets collapse with their protagonists, vanish into their own poems, and so allow Socrates to transfer the authorship of their and the guardians’ souls to the gods. The noble lie thus resolves the second rift above by suppressing the distanced, intellectual interest one can take in τ`o καλ´oν; it invokes the will of the gods to restrict the citizens to their place in the city. As before, this resolution comes not through τ`o καλ´oν; rather, here it comes through pious obedience to the gods. As before, the rift is real. Made by the gods to be what they are and born from the earth with the implements of their political function in hand (Republic 414d7–8), the members of each class are primed to view their jobs as natural and class mobility as divinely forbidden. That the noble lie nevertheless makes some allowance for changing classes (and thus jobs) shows that, however specifically tailored it may be to mend these two rifts, its success is at best partial. But even though this is by far the longest part of the noble lie, nothing more is said about how the rulers will detect whether children are born with metals at variance with those of their parents: they are merely said to differ in nature (Republic 415c1–2, 3–4). Later remarks suggest that any difference would reveal itself through an inclination to that species of τ`o καλ´oν which marks another class (see Republic 416e4– 417a5).15 But this suffices only to explain those inclining from one to

14 “The soil makes the city one, the metals structure it” (Benardete 1989, 78). 15 Page usefully connects the tension between classes to the regime decline (see Page,

22).

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

43

the other side of the first rift. What of the individual who notices that his education rests on imitation? The answer to this question lies in the psychology of Hippias.

3

Hippias the Beautiful

Though in the Hippias Major Socrates and Hippias attempt to answer the question, What is τ`o καλ´oν?, that question is not posed until a quarter of the way into their conversation (Hippias Major 287d2–3). This first quarter instead features a discussion of Hippias’s work as a traveling speaker and diplomat of sorts, who exhibits his novel wisdom at home and abroad through display speeches (Hippias Major 281d4–e3). The subject of τ`o καλ´oν is first introduced obliquely when Hippias, like the artisan class, implicitly identifies it with wealth (Hippias Major 282d6–7). Yet Hippias seems to find καλ´oν not the wealth so much as the wonder it induces, for he readily exchanges that wealth for his compatriots’ wonder and amazement at the fact that he freely gave away his recent earnings to his father (Hippias Major 282e4–7). That Hippias’s desire to be the object of others’ wonder inclines him to displays of both wealth and filial piety (see Hippias Major 281a3–b4), and more so the latter, shows that he is not solely concerned with τ`o καλ´oν as luxury. This peculiar feature of Hippias’s inclination to τ`o καλ´oν is most evident in his frequent and entirely unremunerated trips to Sparta, where he is precluded from ´ making his usual displays but instead has been compelled (ºναγκασμαι)— by whom?—to learn and practice reciting the generations of heroes and men, among similar topics (Hippias Major 283b4–c1, 285b7–e2). Hippias’s display of filial piety before his compatriots appears to have been pro forma, as he does the same even in a foreign city and for no compensation save praise (Hippias Major 284c8, 285b7–8, d3–4). Hippias is thus primarily concerned with the praise of whatever community he finds himself in, with pleasing them, a concern that compels him to imitate their understanding of τ`o καλ´oν back to them. That is, he seems to have noticed that the unity of a city rests on an education formative for its inhabitants but easily imitated by another. He has broached, as it seems, the second rift. Yet Hippias is not a simple flatterer. Socrates poses the question, What is τ`o καλ´oν?, in response to Hippias’s remark that he has an alto´ gether beautifully composed speech (παγκαλως λ´oγoς συγκε´ιμενoς), in which Nestor instructs Neoptolemus about the noble pursuits

44

A. PRIOU

(καλα` ™πιτηδεvματα) ´ that would make him well-reputed (Hippias Major 286a3–b7). That is, Hippias imitates a decent man instructing another decent man about very many lawful and entirely noble pursuits ´ ´ (παμπoλλα ν´oμιμα κα`ι παγκαλα) in a work that would readily pass censorship in Kαλλ´ιπoλις, should it only be in the appropriate meter and mode (see Hippias Minor 368c8–d2). At the same time, Hippias struggles to understand what Socrates means by τ`o καλ´oν, taking the substantivized adjective to indicate not an abstract form but a particular thing (Hippias Major 287d2–e3). Even after he claims to have understood Socrates, he answers in a way that shows he still takes it to refer to a particular thing: παρθšνoς καλη` καλ´oν (Hippias Major 287e4). After disabusing Hippias of this first definition, Socrates clarifies that by ˜ κα`ι τ¢λλα ˜ ´ τ`o καλ´oν he means αÙτ`o τ`o καλ´oν, ñ παντα κoσμε‹ται κα`ι ` πρoσγšνηται ™κε‹νo τ`o εḹδoς, “the noble (beauκαλα` ϕα´ινεται, ™πειδαν tiful) itself, by which all the other things are both ordered (adorned) and appear beautiful, whenever that form comes to be present (attached)” (Hippias Major 289d2–4). Here Socrates clarifies what he means using a somewhat softened version of the technical language of the doctrine of the forms. But he is unsuccessful in getting through to Hippias, as Hippias’ second, humorous answer—gold—shows he’s construed καλ´oν, κoσμε‹ται, πρoσγšνηται, and εḹδoς physically (Hippias Major 289d6–e6). After this second definition is also shown inadequate, Hippias observes, to Socrates’ approval, that Socrates seems to him to seek to answer that τ`o καλ´oν is the sort of thing that will not appear (ϕανε‹ται) ugly to anyone anywhere at any time (Hippias Major 291d1–5; see 288a3–5). But this third answer is no less particular than the two before it: “it is ´ most beautiful (καλλιστoν) for a man—wealthy, healthy, honored by the Greeks, arrived at old age, and having nobly (καλîς) buried his parents upon their death—to be nobly (καλîς) and magnificently interred by his offspring” (Hippias Major 291d9–e2). Hippias consistently struggles ´ tending to reduce to examine τ`o καλ´oν in abstraction from τα` καλα, the former to the latter. Remarkably, it seems, his imitation of common opinion is entirely unreflective. He has not so much broached the second rift as he has reconciled per impossibile its poles. After Hippias’s three failed definitions—all of them particular examples—Socrates proposes three abstract definitions of and on his own, the last of which sheds light on the character of Hippias’s imitation of common opinion. There Socrates defines τ`o καλ´oν as the pleasant both through hearing and through sight, τ`o δι j ¢κoÁς τε κα`ι δι j Ôψεως ¹δv´

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

45

(Hippias Major 298a6–7; see 297e5–298a1). Socrates notes in passing that this perceptual or “aesthetic” definition, if you will, excludes the sort of things that Hippias has Nestor describe in his display speech (Hippias Major 298b2–d3).16 Rather, the definition appears peculiarly tailored to τ`o καλ´oν as Hippias himself experiences it in performing his displays and, what’s more, to the perspective of the poet (see Hippias Major 284c8, 285b7–8, c2–3, 286b4–c2; compare Republic 401b1–d3, esp. c6–7). But whereas Hippias spoke of how audiences enjoy hearing and so praise him, Socrates includes sight. His examples for beautiful sights are human ´ beings, embroidery, paintings, and sculptures (πλασματα); for sounds, he lists voices, music, speeches, and myths (Hippias Major 298a1–5). It is strange, then, that Socrates asks whether the sight and sound are together beautiful, while each individually is not, as many of the beautiful sights he lists are inaudible and many of the beautiful sounds invisible. That said, the beauty of a statue, for example, is augmented audibly when one is told it is the goddess Athena, protectress of Athens. Earlier, Socrates and Hippias agreed that it was more beautiful for Phidias to use stone than gold for the eyes of Athena Parthenos, evidently because she is spoken of in Homer as “grey-eyed” (see Hippias Major 290a5–d6).17 The hearing of the myth augments the sight of the statue. In such cases, enjoyment of the beautiful thing both through hearing and through sight requires a common, formative education.18 Accordingly, τ`o καλ´oν would be present whenever a praised sight or captivating speech unites a group in common admiration: τ`o καλ´oν typifies individuals. As in Republic 2–3, then, τ`o καλ´oν would be the unifying principle of each group or class in the city, 16 Interestingly, Sider reads the Hippias Major as Plato’s early aesthetics, which Plato would flesh out more fully only later in the Symposium, Phaedrus, Philebus, and Timaeus (David Sider, “Plato’s Early Aesthetics: The Hippias Major,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 35 [1977]: 465–470). We might add to this list the Republic. On this developmental reading, see footnote 22. 17 I owe this observation to Travis Mulroy. For his detailed account, see Mulroy, esp. 65. 18 Consider how many museums have informative text or offer audio guides to augment our enjoyment of the art, as well as how uninteresting portraits can be when you know nothing of the individual’s story. Likewise, “the combination that he has in mind would be somewhat better illustrated by our enjoyment, whether of a musical performance or a painting, where that enjoyment has been enhanced by the fact that it is said to be admirable to enjoy such things” (Christopher Bruell, On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues [Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999], 90).

46

A. PRIOU

with the heterogeneity of these principles eluding unity among them´ Perhaps, it is selves. Thus, τ`o καλ´oν would always tend toward τα` καλα. for this reason that Hippias tends to reduce the former to the latter. Hippias thus combines an awareness of the ground of τ`o καλ´oν in common opinion with a conviction in common opinion’s veracity. Hippias’s criterion of truth, we recall, is popularity (Hippias Major 288a3–5, 291d1–5). But this criterion means that the truth varies with his audience (see Hippias Major 281e9–282a8, 285b3–4). This observation pushed Protagoras in the direction of a moral and epistemological relativism based on a fluxist ontology. But Hippias appears entirely untroubled by this variation. This peculiarity of Hippias’s character shows up in his indignation, which extends beyond disgust at questions and examples he deems ridiculous and includes, strangely, the rather technical, ontological question of whether there is anything that is experienced by a pair that is not also experienced by its individual members.19 But his indignation at this question is less strange when we notice that Socrates is asking whether the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; for, if it is, then τ`o καλ´oν cannot ´ as Hippias would like. Hippias thus be entirely reduced to τα` καλα, passionately responds that, because Socrates and his ilk do not inspect the wholes of things, they are unaware of the naturally great and continuous bodies of being, so illogical, lacking inspection, simplistic, and thoughtless is their condition (Hippias Major 301b2–c3). Socrates has elicited from Hippias his otherwise latent belief in the self-evident unity of τ`o ´ While Hippias takes the praise of others to confirm καλ´oν in τα` καλα. the existence of this unity, the Republic primes us rather to understand that unity—and the praise that follows from Hippias’s elegant articulation of it—as a reflection of his audience’s homogeneous education, an education tailored to suit a particular regime and thus a non-Socratic education. It is the ontology of the cave, for men who have seen only shadows. In his response to Hippias’ indignant ontology, Socrates is content with showing only that the number two is even while each of its units is odd (Hippias Major 302a1–b6). With respect to τ`o καλ´oν, Socrates is rather of two minds on the subject, at one point saying it is like the number two, only to claim a little later that it isn’t (Hippias Major 302c4–7, 303c2– 6). As for Hippias, he remains unwavering in his opinion, despite number

19 Compare Hippias Major 288b1–3, d1–3, 289e9–290a2, d10, 291a3–4, e8–292a1, 293a2–3 with 300b6–8, c2–3, 7–8, d5–8, 301b2–c3, d2–4, e10–302a1.

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

47

two (Hippias Major 302b1–4).20 He merely agrees with Socrates’ second position, that τ`o καλ´oν is not like the number two in this regard, thereby dismissing without argument the definition of τ`o καλ´oν as the pleasant both through hearing and through sight (Hippias Major 303b1–d10). Socrates’ subsequent attempt to resume the conversation meets only with Hippias’s disapproval, as he adds to his dismissal of Socrates’ ontology a dismissal of Socrates’ epistemology: if being is composed of large and continuous bodies, then the manner of speech appropriate to being is not dialectic but rhetoric (Hippias Major 304a4–b6). Socrates takes Hippias’s protest as his cue to leave, but not before noting that the only ™π´ιδειξις he makes is of his own wandering and perplexity (Hippias Major 304b7–c4). The first words of the Hippias Major have Socrates calling out to Hippias in the nominative rather than vocative case— “Hippias the beautiful and wise” (`Iππ´ιας Ð καλ´oς τε κα`ι σoϕ´oς)—as though Hippias wishes to be spoken of more than spoken to (Hippias Major 281a1). In contrast, the last words have Socrates reflecting within himself on his comprehension of a proverb—“That ‘the beautiful things ´ δoκî are difficult’ I seem to myself to know” (τ`o Xαλεπα´ τα` καλα, μoι ε„δšναι)—as though he has come to sense that concern with τ`o καλ´oν necessarily makes one of two minds (Hippias Major 304e7–8). Socrates has attempted to communicate this to Hippias, only for his questions to have fallen on deaf ears; but by virtue of that same deafness, Socrates comes to grasp through Hippias that one cannot buy into the lie that τ`o καλ´oν is one without recourse to a defective ontology and epistemology.21 The cave cannot be closed.

4

Hippias the False

If it’s strange that Plato and Socrates took Hippias seriously, it’s even stranger that there’s a Hippias Minor. For who, after the Hippias Major’s ascent from the silly to the sublime, would deem a sequel necessary, let alone one treating the more narrowly literary question as to whether

20 See Benardete 1984, xlvi. 21 “Inasmuch as Socrates chooses to speak with Hippias alone and willingly keeps up the

discussion long after Hippias seems to have lost all interest in it, Socrates must somehow need Hippias and what he represents in order to complement his own way. Could this complement be Hippias’ dumb vision of the beautiful as a being?” (Benardete 1984, xxi).

48

A. PRIOU

Homer’s Achilles or Odysseus is better (Hippias Minor 363b5–c3)?22 But if Hippias tends to imitate without embodying the moral edification of poetry, as do the poets of Kαλλ´ιπoλις, then the literary question gets to the heart of Hippias’s psychology and the political implications thereof. The Hippias Minor begins with Eudicus asking Socrates to break his silence by either praising or refuting something in Hippias’s ™π´ιδειξις as not spoken καλîς, which in light of the above amounts to an invitation to affirm or deny the completeness of a morally edifying education through Homeric poetry (Hippias Minor 363a1–3). This subtle allusion to Republic 2–3 is present also in Socrates’ introduction of the literary question, in which he says that Eudicus’s father, Apemantus, had claimed that “the Iliad is the more beautiful poem by Homer than the Odyssey, and it is more beautiful to the extent to which Achilles is better than Odysseus” (Hippias Minor 363b2–4). Apemantus holds each work to be about—and thus judges each one by—its protagonist, as though a poem must present good models in order to be edifying: he precludes the possibility that the Odyssey is a cautionary tale (Hippias Minor 363b4–5). In so doing, Apemantus renders irrelevant Homer’s intention in presenting us with this or that character. As in Republic 2–3, the poet is to be judged by the sort of man he imitates. Thus, the guiding question of the Hippias Minor is of substantive philosophic importance, even apart from the discussion of lying. Hippias does not take Apemantus’s view, but rather claims that “Homer has made Achilles the best man of those arriving at Troy, 22 The strand of scholarship most relevant to our question approaches the Hippias

Minor as a criticism of the Homeric worldview, with Apemantus and Hippias’s view—their differences aside—intended to reflect the typical opinion of the time (see Richard Hunter, “The Hippias Minor and the Traditions of Homeric Criticism,” The Cambridge Classical Journal 62 [2016]: 85–107, 86 n. 5). The most extensive treatment of this question in relation to the Republic is Ruby Blondell, The Play of Characters in Plato’s Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), who presents the Republic as developing on the criticisms advanced in the Hippias Minor. My discussion differs from this general approach in two respects: first, because Hippias is so laughable, it is unclear to what extent the Hippias Minor adds anything to the criticism of Homer found in the Republic, unless there is something quite serious and unique in Hippias’s ridiculousness; second, by using the language of the argument in the drama—as, for example, when Socrates remarks that, like Achilles, he does evil involuntarily—Plato suggests that he finds guidance in his writing from Homer’s characters. Accordingly, I incline against taking the Hippias Minor as preparatory for or an earlier version of the critique of poetry in the Republic and in favor of seeing it as offering something distinct from, though complementary to, what is offered in the Republic.

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

49

Nestor most wise, and Odysseus most versatile” (Hippias Minor 364c4– 7). Socrates does, however, push the conversation in the direction of Apemantus’s view. First, he subtly shows how easy it is to obscure Homer’s role in the crafting of Achilles and Odysseus’s characters. In the initial discussion of how Homer made Achilles and Odysseus, Socrates and Hippias vary between naming Homer and leaving him anonymous and between using the active and the passive voice for πoιšω. Socrates only once names Homer (with the passive voice) and only once uses the ´ active voice (with the anonymous honorific Ð πoιητης), while Hippias always uses the active voice and doesn’t name him only when discussing specific verses (Hippias Minor 364c5, d8, e2, 5–6, 9, 365b5). The poet in his distinctive activity is variably placed center stage and erased altogether. Homer’s erasure is accomplished immediately thereafter, when Socrates explicitly dismisses him, arguing that, while Homer’s intention is obscure, Hippias evidently understands and agrees with him, and so can take his place (Hippias Minor 365c8–d4). That is, Socrates collapses reader, poet, and protagonist just as in Republic 2–3. As a result, all talk of Homer and his Achilles and Odysseus drops out until Socrates brings them back into the conversation nearly four Stephanus pages later (Hippias Minor 369a8–b1). In the intervening discussion, they speak instead of the false ´ and the true or truthful man (Ð ¢ληθης), ´ man or liar (Ð ψευδης) effectively disposing of Homer and his poems by transforming his protagonists into types. Socrates thus pushes the conversation from a literary question, in which mind maintains a distance on τ`o καλ´oν, to a moral question, in which authorial intent disappears (à la Apemantus) behind the praise and blame of individuals as καλ´oς or α„σχρ´oς.23 The question of characters becomes a question of character. Socrates thus pushes Hippias from the perspective of the poet to that of the denizen of the city in speech, effectively asking for his judgment of the shadows on the cave wall. With Homer, his Iliad and Odyssey, and their Achilles and Odysseus ´ and replaced by apparently authorless and contextless types, Ð ψευδης ´ Hippias’s moral misgivings about Odysseus transform into Ð ¢ληθης, ´ during which Hippias assents to Socrates’ quesoutrage at Ð ψευδης, tions with additions that emphasize and even extend their force.24 At the 23 ¢δvνατoν ´ ™πανερšσθαι τ´ι πoτε νoîν ταàτα ™πoησεν ´ τα` ἕπη (Hippias Minor 365d1). 24 Socrates’ δυνατovς ´ τι πoιε‹ν becomes Hippias’ δυνατovς ` ἕγωγε κα`ι μαλα ´ σϕ´oδρα

¥λλα τε πoλλα` κα`ι ™ξαπαταν ˜ ¢νθρωπoυς; ´ Socrates’ Øπ`o πανoυργ´ιας κα`ι ϕρoνησε ´ ως ´ τινoς becomes Hippias’ Øπ`o πανoυργ´ιας παντων ´ μαλιστα ´ κα`ι ϕρoνησεως; ´ Socrates’

50

A. PRIOU

´ is wise, as is Hippias, since he same time, Hippias agrees that Ð ψευδης ´ is an expert; but since experts are good, and thus truthful, Ð ψευδης ´ are the same and not most opposite, as Hippias had and Ð ¢ληθης claimed (Hippias Minor 365d6–367d3; see 367d1–2, 366a5–6, 365c3– 5). Central to this argument is Hippias’s vanity, which lays claim to both moral and intellectual excellence. As in the Hippias Major, he is “Hippias the beautiful and wise” (Hippias Major 281a1).25 But the present context concerns not so much what Hippias deems καλ´oν as where Hippias himself fits into his conception of τ`o καλ´oν. When Socrates returns to the question of the relative goodness of Achilles and Odysseus, he argues ´ on the basis of various instances of that Achilles is an example of Ð ψευδης double-speak in the Iliad. Hippias counters that Achilles lied involuntarily and, when pressed with further examples, that he did so out of guilelessness (εÙηθε´ιας) (Hippias Minor 370e5–7, 371d8–e3).26 Socrates draws the obvious conclusion, that Odysseus is better than Achilles, inasmuch as he who lies voluntarily is better than he who lies involuntarily, since the former possesses Hippias’s good, wisdom (Hippias Minor 371e4–8). It is Hippias’s own self-appraisal that usurps Achilles’ place at the peak of virtue.27 So where does Hippias fit among the Homeric models? If Odysseus has an intellectual flaw, it is his overly high estimation of his cleverness.

ϕρ´oνιμoι…æς ἕoικεν becomes Hippias’ να`ι μα` Δ´ια, λ´ιαν γε; Socrates’ ™π´ιστανται becomes Hippias’ κα`ι μαλα σϕ´oδρα ™π´ιστανται etc.; and Socrates’ σoϕo´ι becomes Hippias’ σoϕo`ι μἑν oâν (Hippias Minor 365d6–8, e3–5, 5–6, 7–9, 10–366a1). 25 Pierre Destrée, “‘Hippias, Handsome and Wise’: A Note on a Bon Mot in Plato, Hp. Mai. 281a1,” The Classical Quarterly 67 (2017): 653–655, notes that the phrase καλ´oς τε κα`ι σoϕ´oς from the first line of the Hippias Major is a quip meant to contrast with the usual καλ´oς τε κα`ι ¢γαθ´oς, as does Benardete 1984, xxi. The meaning of the substitution is evident: Hippias attempts to bridge moral excellence with wisdom, without ever asking whether wisdom cannot be beautiful if it is to be good. 26 One manuscript has εÙνo´ιας instead of εÙηθε´ιας. While I prefer the latter, the above argument doesn’t rely on one reading over another. 27 Hippias finds nothing odd in the notion of preferring to possess this or that soul, as though the act of preferring did not require a further soul that could in turn taint the choice (Hippias Minor 375c3–6). This is the basic absurdity of Hippias’s goal of omnicompetence: it requires self-generation, effectively replacing one’s father (Hippias Major 282e4–6; compare Genesis 37:9–10).

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE FALSE: AN INTRODUCTION …

51

More than a few times in the Odyssey—and even in the Iliad, as well— does Odysseus’s intellectual arrogance land him in an otherwise avoidable predicament. The most decisive of these is Odysseus’s revelation of his proper name to the Cyclops Polyphemus, a situation his curiosity got him into and his cleverness got him out of, only for his desire that he be known for his cleverness to extend his journey home nearly a decade. It is hard, then, not to see more Odysseus than Achilles in Hippias. And the reverse appears to be the case with Socrates, who claims that any κακoυργ´ια on his part toward Hippias was involuntary (Hippias Minor 373b4–9). Likewise, Socrates’ wandering from one position to its opposite and back again reminds one of Achilles’ contradictory statements during the embassy of Iliad 9 that Socrates and Hippias discuss (Hippias Minor 376b8–c6). Nevertheless, Socrates, like Odysseus, is aware of his wandering and often seems to play the beggar, while Hippias reacts to the liar with the moral outrage of Achilles, so much so that it threatens to end the dialogue entirely (Hippias Minor 371e9–373c4).28 Socrates combines the cleverness of Odysseus with the ignorance of Achilles into Socratic knowledge of ignorance, while Hippias combines the intellectual arrogance of Odysseus with the moral obstinacy of Achilles into, well, Hippias: the man who claims to fear the questioning of no man—certainly not that of Socrates—yet responds to it with moral outrage.29 In short, Socrates possesses the intellectual virtues of each, while Hippias has only the correlative vices. That Hippias agrees with every premise of the final argument but not the conclusion, without raising any specific objections, suffices to show that his combination is incoherent. That Socrates recognizes he wanders, and that the cause thereof is the heterogeneity τ`o καλ´oν, shows 28 Was Socrates silent at the beginning of the Hippias Minor so as to provoke Eudicus into starting the conversation, in anticipation of the possibility that his line of questioning would anger Hippias? Hippias’s terseness at the beginning of the dialogue seems to be a carryover from the tense ending of the Hippias Major (see Hippias Minor 363c7–d4, 364a7–9, d3–6, 365d5). Eudicus may be necessary, it seems, to keep things civil after the stalemate in which the Hippias Major culminated, so little common ground is there between the men. See Bruell, 94. 29 Throughout the last part of the dialogue, there is an equivocation between a`μαρτ´ια and κακoυργ´ια. Likewise, in the first treatment of Ð ψευδης ´ and Ð ¢ληθης, ´ there is an equivocation between the goodness of moral decency and the goodness of technical competence. The principal, unarticulated assumption of the Hippias Minor is that there are no neutral errors. This assumption is generated out of Hippias’s indignant ontology, according to which being as such supports the manner in which the politically decent man articulates things.

52

A. PRIOU

conversely that it is through intellectual distance on the tendency of τ`o καλ´oν to make types of individuals that one becomes one. Paradoxically, then, the only coherent type that can be modeled on Homer’s protagonists is the composite Socrates. It is a type whose self-aware wandering is ill-suited to the unreflective and static emulation engendered by the poets. Still, we should always remember that we may never have arrived at this insight were it not for the poet-philosopher Plato.30

30 Compare Hippias Major 303c3–7 and Hippias Minor 366b7–c4 with Republic 415a3.

The Connection Between Moral Virtue and Politics in Aristotle’s Ethics John Hungerford

1

Introduction

Aristotle claims that the study of ethics, or practical virtue, is a political study. There are obvious ways in which ethics is connected with politics. How we ought to act of course has important implications for how we should govern ourselves. It is also a matter of common sense that at least one part of being a good person is to be a good citizen, or to contribute to the improvement of one’s political community. Yet it is also a matter of common sense that one need not devote oneself to politics to be a good person—that good citizenship is only one part of what it means to be a good person. And if certain virtues, like justice, can belong to a government or political society, these virtues seem to belong in the first place to individuals, regardless of whether they are shared collectively. If the capacity to act well can be extended to political matters, that capacity does not, on the face of it, appear to be intrinsically political. One could just as easily conclude that politics is an ethical study.

J. Hungerford (B) Havertown, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_4

53

54

J. HUNGERFORD

While this conclusion reflects a certain common-sense point of view, however, it may be objected that it is not one shared by the world Aristotle was addressing when he wrote the Ethics. For the modern world distinguishes between public or political concerns and private concerns to a degree unimagined by Aristotle’s original audience. This difference is made clear in Aristotle’s initial explanation, in the opening passages of the Ethics, for why ethics is a “kind of political inquiry.” Everything we do, he explains, whether practical (“every … action, as well as choice”) or intellectual (“every … art and inquiry”), is understood to be for some purpose, that is, to “aim at some good” (1094a1–2).1 Unless these activities are “empty or pointless,” they must either be or contribute to some single ultimate end, which “clearly … would be the good, that is, the best” (1094a18–22). It is the political art (politik¯e), finally, that is understood to be what orders all activities toward such a summum bonum (1094b11; 1094a26–28). It does this by “ordaining” what we may or must learn and by “legislating” “what one ought to do and what to abstain from” (1094a28–b6). Insofar as its ordaining and legislating are indeed authoritative, the end it pursues by these means “encompasses all of the others” and is therefore “the human good” (1094b6–7; emphasis added). The city’s authoritative end is the “the good of the city” or even “of a nation and of cities.” It is a question whether this is also the good of the individual. If not, it is nevertheless a higher end—it is “nobler and more divine” (1094b7–10). At first sight, then, the Ethics is a political inquiry because the political community is the highest authority pertaining to the human good and because all human action, properly understood, aims at the good of the political community. And if this is the case, it is clear that practical virtue is inherently political, for goodness of action is in all cases reducible to its contribution to the good of the city. While this opening statement can in principle make sense of Aristotle’s claim, however, the rest of the Ethics does not consistently maintain this radically polis-centric view of human action. This is most obviously the case in Aristotle’s eventual rejection of what he calls the “political life” in favor of the “contemplative life.” These two alternatives are identified early in the first book, and while the greater part of the Ethics is devoted to addressing the political alternative, 1 All quotations of the Ethics are from Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, trans., Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Parenthetical citations refer to Bekker page numbers.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

55

Aristotle eventually returns to contemplation in its final chapters where he reveals that the political life is of only secondary goodness, as a means to some further end, while contemplation alone is chosen for its own sake (1095b14–19, 1177b1–4; 1178a9ff).2 Insofar as politics as an activity or way of life is, in Aristotle’s final judgment, a means to something beyond itself, Aristotle rejects the city’s claim to comprehensive authority. This eventual rejection of politics is even foreshadowed by the cautious wording of Aristotle’s initial presentation of the city’s architectonic character. The ultimate end we seek, he tells us, is only “held” to be the end sought by the “most authoritative and most architectonic” capacity (1094a26). And this capacity, in turn, only “appears” to be the political capacity (1094a27). Aristotle’s opening statement of the comprehensive authority of the political community would thus appear to be above all an expression only of the “common sense” view of his audience and not his own. Perhaps, then, in Aristotle’s final judgment, while the highest good transcends politics, goodness in the more ordinary sense is fundamentally political. For moral virtue is the virtue belonging to “the political life.” Yet even Aristotle’s account of the “political life” does not simply or straightforwardly reflect the priority of the city. At the outset of that account Aristotle rejects the simple identification of the human good with the city. The political life first comes to sight as the life that identifies happiness with honor; but this, Aristotle quickly points out, does not necessarily refer to the honor bestowed by the city (1095b22–23). It is the honor of the prudent or wise that is most sought after, and this Aristotle takes as evidence that public recognition is not what is ultimately sought in the pursuit of honor, but rather confirmation of one’s own virtue (1095b23–30). Thus, the political life as Aristotle conceives of it is not simply reducible either to the good of the political community or to a conformity with its opinions or preferences—with what it praises and blames—but is marked by the concern for virtue as such. As Aristotle goes on to sketch an account of virtue, moreover, the connection between the concern for virtue and the architectonic political capacity becomes even more ambiguous. For both components of the virtue belonging to the political life, moral virtue and prudence, stand at 2 The life devoted to pleasure is quickly dismissed, though Aristotle takes it up again later in book ten, suggesting it is a more serious contender than that dismissal suggested (1095b20–22; 1172a19ff).

56

J. HUNGERFORD

some distance from the city, or regime. While many of the moral virtues are clearly connected with the city or the common good in some way or another, only one of these—justice—is identified with the common good or the law, and in this one case Aristotle explicitly distinguishes justice “in the unqualified sense” from “political justice.”3 Generally speaking, the moral virtues are either for the sake of moral virtue itself or for the sake of the noble, and not for the sake of the city.4 To take one example, the first moral virtue Aristotle addresses, courage, is clearly connected with politics insofar as the “greatest and noblest danger” is of death in war, and his discussion of it focuses on citizens and soldiers fighting on behalf of cities (1115a30–31). Nevertheless, Aristotle explicitly distinguishes courage in the precise sense from “political courage” (1116a16–b4). He insists throughout this lengthy discussion that the end sought by courage is the “noble,” and he never reduces nobility to the needs of the city, which courageous deeds happen to serve (1115b22–23; 1116a11–12, 27–29, b31–32; 1134a15–1135b15).5 Moral virtue’s independence from politics is also reflected in Aristotle’s insistence that it is governed by reason. What moral virtue demands is made clear to us not by the city but by an intellectual virtue called prudence, which serves to guide action in something like the manner in which the medical art guides doctors’ medical decisions (1106b36– 1107a2; 1138b20–34). The possibility of this kind of moral reasoning holds out the promise that moral action could be self-sufficient—not dependent on law or the community.6 Moreover, Aristotle distinguishes personal prudence from political prudence and suggests that personal prudence is prudence in the governing sense. At least, in Aristotle’s presentation of that distinction, politicians or statesmen come to sight as “busybodies,” whose grasp of their own well-being and of others’ is questionable (1141b23–31). Prudence and the moral virtue that it attends could easily appear to belong above all to a kind of private life, with only occasional (if significant) intrusions into public matters (see, e.g., 1124b23–26). 3 1129b1, 1130b25–26, 1134a25ff; but see also 1129b27ff, 1130b26–30. 4 Bartlett & Collins, Nicomachean Ethics, 256–264. Susan D. Collins, Aristotle and the

Rediscovery of Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 53–66. 5 Collins, Rediscovery, 53–54. 6 John Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing

Co., 1986), 76ff.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

57

Finally, Aristotle’s explicit account of the connection between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics offered in the final chapter of the Ethics suggests a far more modest connection between their subjects than the Ethics’ opening chapter. His argument for why the reader concerned with moral virtue should study the Politics is only that the overwhelming influence of the city on our moral education tends to obstruct our attempts to cultivate virtue privately (1180a19–21). According to this argument, we turn to politics apparently only to help us learn how to educate those we care for according to the precepts taught in the Ethics (1180a21–35ff). On this view, the architectonic character of politics is of only secondary importance. Though the city does determine how most people live as a matter of practice, it does not always do so well or correctly. The city’s authority is thus of second rank to the prudent grasp of moral virtue by which one is able, like Aristotle, to evaluate the education offered by the city. It is therefore possible to walk away from the Nicomachean Ethics with the view that Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship between ethics and politics is closer to the more familiar view that, while our conception of virtue will have important implications for politics—for what we consider to be good or bad government, for instance—and while our political institutions may have some important influence on our moral education, morality is not essentially political. In the remainder of this paper, I will try to show that, despite the apparent distance between moral virtue and politics, in Aristotle’s view moral virtue is deeply and intrinsically bound up with politics—that is, with the regime. Recognizing this deeper connection between moral virtue and politics will help us understand why Aristotle considers the life characterized by moral virtue to be the political way of life and why Aristotle calls the investigation of the human good as such a “certain political inquiry” even when that inquiry takes pains to separate moral virtue from politics and ultimately rejects the political way of life.

2

Moral Virtue and the Question of Method

To accomplish this task, we will try to distill from the Nicomachean Ethics a precise understanding of what Aristotle means by practical virtue, or the virtue belonging to the political life. This effort is from the beginning frustrated by his explicit refusal to provide such an account. For upon

58

J. HUNGERFORD

concluding that he is undertaking a political inquiry, Aristotle warns us that this inquiry would be adequately made if it should attain the clarity that accords with the subject matter. For one should not seek out precision in all arguments alike, just as one should not do so in the products of craftsmanship either. … It would certainly be desirable enough, then, if one who speaks about such things and speaks on the basis of them demonstrate the truth roughly and in outline. (1094b13–15)

This warning introduces the first of three digressions punctuating book one that deny the necessity of seeking a precise or scientific account of virtue. The second (1095a28–b13) explains that it is sufficient to know “the ‘that’” of the subject matter, which is evident to one “brought up nobly by means of habituation,” and that “there will be no need of the ‘why’ in addition” (1095b4–7). The Ethics thus purports only to give some limited or “rough” measure of clarity to what has already been made apparent to its intended readers through a sound moral education consisting in habituation (1103a14ff). The third digression (1098a26– b8) reiterates the two previous ones, reminding the reader neither to “seek out precision” nor to “demand the cause” (1098a27–29, 33–b1). Rather than dashing our hopes to attain theoretical clarity about moral virtue, however, Aristotle’s discussions of the limitations of his inquiry in fact provide a promising starting place for pursuing such clarity. For according to the first digression, those limitations are due to the nature of the subject matter. In providing an explanation of the reasons for the limitations, therefore, Aristotle must provide some insight into the nature of practical virtue.7 The first digression draws its conclusion from the manifest variability of the subject of the Ethics (1094b15–8). In doing so, however, it raises a question about that subject. For Aristotle refers both to “the noble and just things,” which are the subject of the political art, and to “the good things,” which he had implied were the subject of the Ethics (1094a). Each of these kinds of ends vary—for which reason Aristotle warns against seeking a precise account of them—but they vary 7 The following treatment is informed largely by Dustin Sebell’s interpretation, which offers the only sustained analysis of these crucial methodological statements in the literature: Dustin Sebell, “The Problem of Political Science: Political Relevance and Scientific Rigor in Aristotle’s ‘Philosophy of Human Affairs,’” American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 1 (2016): 85–96.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

59

in different ways. The noble and just things change (plan¯e) but are also “disputed,” and to such an extent or in such a way that they are held by some “to exist by law alone and not by nature” (1094b15–17). The good things, however, are said only to change and are not, apparently, accused by anyone of being merely conventional (1094b17–18). Moreover, Aristotle’s examples of the changeability of good things illustrate, if anything a certain consistency about the good; for while an apparently good thing like wealth may be good in one moment and bad in another—for instance, if someone should be “destroyed on account of their wealth”—there is no suggestion that the harm suffered is questionable or inconsistent (1094b17–20). By separating the political ends—the noble and the just—from the good, Aristotle makes us wonder whether these ends are good, as would have to be the case if the political art is in fact architectonic in the sense described in the opening chapter.8 He also makes us wonder why, if others have dismissed the political things on the basis of their changeability and controversial character, he does not similarly dismiss them as merely “conventional.” Rather than trying to resolve the difficulties that have brought the political ends in question, however, Aristotle instead insists on surrendering to these difficulties and addressing them in the vague and questionable light proper to them, which is to say, “roughly and in outline” (1094b20–22). The second digression follows Aristotle’s initial attempts to identify the “highest goods.” While “most people agree” that the human good is happiness, there is little agreement as to what happiness consists in. The diversity of opinions about happiness elicits a second warning from Aristotle that it would be “rather pointless” to consider “all these opinions”; he resolves instead to address those “that are especially prevalent or are held to have a certain reason to them” (1095a29–31). This decision in turn elicits a series of reflections about the method of the Ethics ’ inquiry: But let it not escape our notice that there is a difference between the arguments that proceed from the principles and those that proceed to the principles. … One must begin from what is known, but this has a twofold meaning: there are things known to us, on the one hand, and things known

8 The fraught distinction between these ends haunts the whole of the Ethics. Cf. Collins, Rediscovery, 52–66; Bartlett & Collins, Nicomachean Ethics, 256–264.

60

J. HUNGERFORD

simply, on the other. Perhaps it is necessary for us, at least, to begin from the things known to us. (1095a31–b4)

Some arguments demonstrate conclusions on the basis of known premises and other arguments aim at identifying or clarifying sound premises. The latter task is complicated by the fact that “one must begin from what is known,” implying that one must always have recourse to some premise or “principle.” This seems to imply in turn that one must know the principles in order to arrive at the principles. Yet, Aristotle proceeds to draw a distinction between “things known to us … and things known simply” and recommends that we “begin from” the former (1095b1–4). Now it would be absurd for Aristotle to draw this distinction and conclude from it that the “things known to us” are a superior starting point for “arguments that proceed from the principles” than the “things known simply.” Aristotle must mean, then, that we should begin from what is “known to us” in order to “proceed to the principles.” That is, what is “known simply” are principles. In light of the problem that led Aristotle into this digression—namely, the diversity of opinions about happiness—the implication of this passage is that Aristotle’s inquiry will begin from mere opinions about the human good (or at least the most prevalent or reasonable opinions) and through some kind of analysis of these try to arrive at a precise principle from which sound, scientific conclusions about action could be derived. To our surprise, however, Aristotle’s explicit conclusion once again rejects such a scientific course: Hence he who will listen adequately to the noble things and the just things, and to the political things generally, must be brought up nobly by means of habituation. For the “that” is a principle, and if this should be sufficiently apparent, there will be no need of the “why” in addition, and a person of the sort indicated has or would easily get hold of principles. (1095b4–8)

In place of what is “known to us” and what is “known simply,” Aristotle now substitutes the “that” and the “why.” This substitution drastically alters the sense of the relation, however, for while the distinction between what is “known to us” and what is “known simply” must bring into question the status of what is “known to us”—i.e., it may be wrong or not in fact known at all—the distinction between the “that” and the “why” suggests only that the cause of what is known to us is not known. It seems

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

61

perfectly reasonable, if this is the relationship between our opinions about happiness and the knowledge we might pursue about happiness, that such knowledge is superfluous from the standpoint of action. For if the conclusions are sound whether or not we possess such knowledge, our action will be no worse for it. Yet, Aristotle’s subsequent quotation of a few lines from Hesiod’s Works and Days, offered in support of the foregoing conclusion, implies that such knowledge is not in fact superfluous: This one is altogether best who himself understands all things … But good in turn is he who obeys one who speaks well. But he who neither himself understands nor, in listening to another, Takes this to heart, he is a useless man. (1095b10–13)9

In context, these lines suggest that living according to one’s moral habituation and the understanding it instills—the “that”—amounts to “obey[ing] one who speaks well,” or relying on the guidance of the wise. Though Hesiod calls this “good,” he nevertheless makes it clear that it is inferior to what is “altogether best,” which is to “understand all things” for oneself. The distinction between the “good” and the “best” implies a substantial difference between the possession of “the ‘that’” and the possession of “the ‘why.’” It implies, in other words, that one’s view of the good is transformed by the knowledge that grounds it; insofar as “the ‘that’” does not include wisdom or the possession of “the ‘why,’” it cannot truly be “the ‘that’” of a good life. The third digression follows Aristotle’s identification of the human good with the “activity of soul in accord with virtue” (1098a15–18). This conclusion, which sets the stage for the inquiry into the moral virtues that occupies the majority of the Ethics, along with his admission that the conclusion is only a “sketch,” prompts Aristotle to remind us of the conclusions of both prior digressions (1098a20–21). In doing so, however, he introduces a significant, if easily missed, alteration of his original argument. When reminding us that “one must not seek out precision in all matters alike,” he now adds that not only the “subject matter” will

9 Hesiod, Works and Days lines 293–297 in David W. Tandy and Walter C. Neale, Works and Days: A Translation and Commentary for the Social Sciences (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

62

J. HUNGERFORD

set limits on the precision but also the inquiry itself (1098a27–29).10 As an example, he compares the ways in which a geometer and a carpenter consider the right angle. While the geometer seeks certain knowledge about such angles, a carpenter makes use of the geometer’s conclusions without seeking the reasons for them (1098a28–32). In this case, the underlying subject—angles, or geometry more generally—is common to both experts but approached differently. This way of understanding the differences between inquiries makes us wonder whether the “rough” or “sketched” character of Aristotle’s account of the good is really an unavoidable requirement of the nature of the good being sought, or whether it is a limitation only of the manner in which Aristotle has chosen to address this subject. To bring these considerations together, the methodological statements of the first book indicate that Aristotle likely does believe that theoretical clarity about practical virtue is both possible and preferable to the rough sketch that he resolves to provide. His resolution to do so appears to be more of a choice on his part of which sort of inquiry to undertake than a necessity following from the nature of the subject matter. The inquiry Aristotle chooses to undertake, it would seem, is one that will not attempt to proceed from “what is known to us,” or the “that” provided by our moral training, toward what is “known simply,” or the cause of or reason for the “that.” And this, perhaps, is the clearest indication of the nature of moral virtue that can be drawn from Aristotle’s refusal to identify its nature: moral virtue, it would seem, is bound up with this starting place: its “principle” comes not from “induction” or “perception,” or any of the “other ways” in which we are able to grasp principles, but from habituation (1098b3–5). In other words, moral virtue involves or depends upon opinions that would not be held but for a certain kind of habituation.

3

Moral Virtue’s Dependence on the Intellect

Now that we have some grasp of Aristotle’s method, let us consider his definition of practical virtue. Having proposed that the human good can be understood as “an activity of the soul in accord with virtue,” Aristotle eventually picks the thread of that argument back up in the last chapter of book one, which finally leads him to identify moral virtue and prudence

10 Sebell, “Relevance and Rigor,” 9.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

63

as the two kinds of practical virtue. The terms in which Aristotle reintroduces this line of inquiry are of interest given our question about the connection between moral virtue and politics: Now, since happiness is a certain activity of soul in accord with complete virtue, what concerns virtue would have to be examined. For perhaps in this way we might better contemplate happiness as well. And the politician in the true sense seems to have labored over this especially, for he wishes to make the citizens good and obedient to the laws … And if this examination is a part of the political art, it is clear that the investigation would be in accord with the choice made at the beginning. (1102a5–14)

Aristotle’s reference here to the “choice made at the beginning” must have in view his conclusion in 1.1 that the Ethics is a “certain political inquiry.” We thus find a second indication of the connection between the inquiry of the Ethics and politics. This account, however, says nothing of the architectonic character of the political capacity. Instead, it points in the direction of our initial objection to Aristotle’s claim that ethics is political, for it indicates only a certain incidental overlap between politics and ethics: virtue is a high concern of the statesman, perhaps, but it does not follow that politics is a high concern of the virtuous individual. That virtue is “a part of the political art,” is not, therefore—at least on the grounds provided here—a sufficient reason to make it the focus of the inquiry given that the original goal of the Ethics is the complete human good. Yet, the other reason Aristotle gives for investigating virtue—that happiness is an activity in accord with it—is also, on consideration, inadequate, for if happiness or the human good is a certain activity of the soul, surely this activity is what most of all needs to be investigated. Aristotle’s turn to virtue puts the cart before the horse. A precise account of happiness, given Aristotle’s own premise, ought to clarify the characteristic activity of the human being and on that basis derive the virtues belonging to that activity. Aristotle’s decision to orient his inquiry around the question of virtue in lieu of the question of activity would thus appear to reflect his decision not to pursue precision or rigor in that inquiry.11 Given the questionable grounds of Aristotle’s substitution of virtue for activity, we should reconsider the significance of his apparently incidental statement about the political concern for virtue. For that statement 11 Bartlett & Collins, Nicomachean Ethics, 246.

64

J. HUNGERFORD

suggested that Aristotle’s decision to consider the human good from the standpoint of virtue as opposed to the activity that virtue serves reflects a political perspective—the outlook belonging to the “politician in the true sense.” And indeed, from this point onward, Aristotle makes no attempt to clarify the activity of the political life but examines only the virtue connected with it. Virtue, it seems, takes the place of activity as the substance of human happiness. This abstraction of virtue from the end which it is supposed to serve reminds us of the distinction Aristotle drew in his first digression on method between the political ends—the noble and the just—and the good. Aristotle’s turn to virtue, which remains bounded, it would seem, by the “principle” provided by moral habituation, resists the unification of these ends into a single rational hierarchy. This approach and the principle that it both reflects and preserves—the common sense outlook of morally educated people—is perhaps bound up with politics, or the capacity of the “politician in the true sense.” How this is so we have yet to see. Despite his insistence on foregoing a properly scientific account of the human good, Aristotle’s discovery of moral virtue follows from what seems on its face to be a scientific analysis of the soul. For while the good is an activity of the soul, Aristotle explains that this activity must be understood in terms of the activities of the soul’s constituent parts. Each of these parts has its own work, or activity, and the work of the whole being is the combination of the work of the parts. Hence, each part has its own virtue or virtues that make its work good, and the virtue of the whole being is the combination of the virtues of the parts (1144a1–7). Aristotle begins this analysis by dividing the soul into rational and non-rational components. The non-rational part is divided in turn into a “vegetative” part, which is shared by all living beings, and a part “characterized by desire, and by longing in general,” which is shared by all animals (1102a32–b1, b30–31). The rational part, unique to human beings, overlaps to some extent with the non-rational part, for in the case of human beings the desiring part “shares somehow in reason inasmuch as it heeds it and is apt to be obedient to its commands” (1102b31–32). Moral virtue is the virtue of the desiring part; it is the disposition to desire the correct things. Intellectual virtue is the virtue of the reasoning part, or intellect (nous ) (1103a4–10). In this analysis, we find a third indication of the connection between practical virtue and politics, for practical virtue is identified with a kind

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

65

of political rule, writ small, within the soul. It comes to sight as excellence in ruling over the passions—on the one hand, the excellence of the passionate part of soul in listening to reason “as to one’s father,” and on the other hand, the excellence of the reasoning part of our soul in giving commands to the passions (1102b12–1103a4). This internal political rule, moreover, is also connected with rule in the ordinary sense, for Aristotle offers as evidence of our passions’ ability to listen to our own reason our ability to heed “admonition,” “criticism,” and “exhortation” in general. Both the self-rule characteristic of moral virtue and the rule of fathers over children, if not also of citizens over each other would appear to share a common psychological root. Yet for the same reason, the political rule found in the soul points away from politics in the ordinary sense. For it suggests that the “rule” of moral virtue comes ultimately, or at least in the best case, not from the city or the regime, but from one’s own intellect when it is in possession of intellectual virtue. The importance of the ruling function of the intellect becomes clear as Aristotle proceeds in book two to address moral virtue. His elaboration of moral virtue begins with the argument that because the moral virtues are “characteristics,” or dispositions to act well through repeated practice, it makes “the whole difference” whether “one is habituated in this or that way straight from childhood” (1103b21–26). This argument leads Aristotle into a fourth digression, in which he once again reminds us that, “just as was said at the beginning,” arguments about action must “be stated in outline only and not precisely” (1104a1–3). The reason we must be reminded of the limitations of his method is that at this point in the argument, it has become “necessary to examine matters pertaining to actions, that is, how one ought to perform them,” and this in turn is because Aristotle has shown that “these actions have authoritative control over what sorts of characteristics come into being” (1103b29–32). We might put the problem in the following way: having taken pains to consider virtue without reference to the activity to which it belongs, Aristotle has in a sense backed himself into a corner. For if he is not willing to articulate in general terms the activity of which virtue is the excellence, he cannot at any rate avoid discussing virtuous actions, especially if virtue is attained through habituation. If virtue comes into being through virtuous actions, which by repetition transform our dispositions and produce virtuous characteristics, the choice of which actions to repeat will “make the whole difference.” It is therefore troubling and in need of explanation that Aristotle now responds to the manifest need

66

J. HUNGERFORD

to be able to distinguish clearly what actions should be performed with the recommendation that we simply “posit” for the time being that action is “in accord with correct reason” and address what “correct reason” is at some later point (1103b31–1104a1). Why put off this crucial question? Aristotle’s attempt to address this concern in the fourth digression is more problematic than the previous three, for having admitted that reason is at the heart of moral virtue, he cannot persuasively distinguish between the case of practical virtue and other kinds of expertise as he had before. This difficulty shows its face in his attempt to present the problem of his subject matter—its variability and lack of precision—as a problem belonging to all kinds of practical expertise. For he now compares “matters of action” and matters “pertaining to what is advantageous” to “matters of health,” claiming now that both have “nothing stable about them.” And since this is the case in the “general argument,” he continues (as though that were sufficiently evident), it is even more so in the case of “particulars” (1104a3–7). On these grounds he concludes that, just as in the case of the medical art and piloting a ship, one can discriminate between good and bad actions only by examining “what pertains to the opportune moment” (1104a8). Aristotle thus exaggerates the extent of the well-known difficulty of applying general knowledge to particulars by presenting it as compounding some deeper problem already evident in the case of general knowledge. While it is true that expert judgment must always be made with a view to particular circumstances, this fact does not preclude the existence of universal principles that underlie and unify such judgments. And indeed, we have already seen Aristotle provide an example of such recourse to universals in the arts in his example of the carpenter’s use of the right angle. Whether or not the carpenter should give an account of the nature of right angles, the possibility of such an account, which the geometer may provide, is crucial for the carpenter’s ability to perform his task. It should therefore be no surprise to us that as Aristotle proceeds to develop a “sketch” of moral virtue that puts off the question of how “correct reason” can distinguish between good and bad actions, difficulties with that procedure continue to arise. The sketch is developed on the basis of the observation that virtue is “destroyed through deficiency and excess,” which leads eventually to Aristotle’s famous definition of moral virtue as a “middle term” or “mean between vices” (1104a12– 17; 1107a1–2). This definition continues to avoid the question of what

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

67

makes virtuous actions virtuous and the related question of how to identify which actions are virtuous. Of course, on the basis of Aristotle’s digressions, avoiding these questions is not necessarily a problem in practice, for it should be enough to have been brought up properly by the kind of habituation that makes one apt to hit upon the mean. However, Aristotle once again indicates that the vagueness of his account of moral virtue may be a problem from the standpoint of practice. For if in relation to the vices, virtue is a mean, in relation to “what is best and the doing of something well,” it is an “extreme” (1107a6–8). This radical aspect of the mean points us back to the lofty hopes for complete happiness that Aristotle had discussed at such length in book one and in response to which he had turned to virtue as a possible answer. In light of these hopes, Aristotle’s suggestion that virtue is “more precise and better than every art” and as such “would be skillful at aiming at the mean” leaves the vagueness of his account of the mean dissatisfying, if not concerning (1106b13–16). Aristotle concludes book two and his preliminary analysis of practical virtue with the concession that “it is difficult to hit on the middle with precision,” and for this reason recommends that we be satisfied with a “second sailing,” or a “second best” alternative to virtue in the complete sense, which means pursuing “the least bad of all things” in order to approximate the mean as best we can (1109a33–b1). And yet it is even difficult to evaluate the success of such a second sailing, because the recognition of that success, like all things “subject to perception, … resides in the particulars involved” (1109b20–24). Thus, the roughness of Aristotle’s approach to moral virtue is connected with a danger of falling short of that excellence upon which our hopes for complete happiness seem to depend. Could one who takes seriously these hopes to which Aristotle has just given voice be satisfied with such an alternative?

4

Prudence and Moral Virtue

Aristotle’s subsequent treatment of the eleven virtues in books three through five proceeds, it would seem, on the basis of precisely this second sailing. For generally speaking his elaboration of each of the virtues consist in first, identifying those passions or desires toward which a person can have a virtuous or vicious disposition, second, identifying the manifest extremes, or vices, related to these passions, and third, on the basis of these more manifest extremes, defining each virtue as a mean in relation to them. At no point, however, does Aristotle try to offer an account by

68

J. HUNGERFORD

which one could identify precisely what any of these virtues demand in particular cases. In light of what we have learned from his introduction to that effort, then, it is no surprise that Aristotle opens the sixth book of the Ethics by bringing our attention its inadequacy: however “truthful” his discussion of the virtues may have been, ultimately that discussion was “not at all clear” (1138b25–26), but was like telling someone who wishes to heal a sick patient to do “so many things as the art of medicine commands and as he who possesses that art commands” (1138b29–32). Whoever “should possess” such an account is “no further ahead in his knowledge” for it (1138b29–30). Accordingly, not only is it important to recognize that there is some “correct reason” that dictates what virtue is in each particular circumstance or that this “correct reason” is the task of prudence and possessed by the prudent person, but “what correct reason is must also be defined” (1139b32–34). In order to provide this missing piece in his account of moral virtue, Aristotle proceeds to clarify the task of the intellect as it relates to matters of action (6.2; see 1139b12) and the virtues of the intellect that make it able to do this task well (6.3–6.11; see 1139b12–13, 15–16). To do so, Aristotle returns to the analysis of the soul that had informed his original presentation of moral virtue, turning now to the intellect. This part of the soul he divides further into a “calculative” (logistikon) and a “scientific” (epistemonikon) part, each part corresponding to the kind of beings that it contemplates (1139a11–12). The scientific, or theoretical, part “contemplate[s] all those sorts of beings whose principles do not admit of being otherwise,” while the calculative, or practical, part contemplates “those things that do admit of being otherwise” (1139a6– 8). The calculative part, in other words, addresses those things that we can change, whereas the theoretical part addresses those that are beyond the reach of choice or chance. Both of these parts aim at truth, and thus the whole intellect undertakes the single activity of pursuing the truth (1139b12–14). The two parts of the intellect are set apart not only by the kinds of truths they pursue (i.e., the kinds of things they contemplate), but also by how they are judged in their pursuit of the truth: whereas theoretical thinking is done “well or badly” only if it true or false, “practical thinking is well done when truth is in agreement with the correct desire” (1139a29–31). Practical thinking, in other words, requires additionally the “correct” ordering of the desiring part of the soul and must be guided by that desiring.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

69

Prudence is the virtue of the calculative part of the intellect.12 There is another truth-attaining faculty or “characteristic” belonging to the intellect, namely, art (techn¯e). Art is not a virtue, however, because it is not necessarily guided by right desire; one can act well by intentionally failing in one’s art, for instance, whereas to fail to be prudent is never preferable to acting prudently (1140b22). Moreover, art aims only at particular goals, whereas prudence informs action, and thus “living well in general” (1140a29). Prudence is therefore the most complete or comprehensive form of practical thinking. Being the virtue of the calculative part of the intellect, prudence consists primarily in “deliberation,” or calculating about what particular actions will contribute to a given end. Prudence is also, however, a “correct conviction about” the end deliberation serves (1142b31–33). Without such conviction, prudence is nothing more than mere “cleverness”—an adeptness at calculating which can just as easily serve wicked ends as good ones (1144a23–36). Insofar as prudence is a virtue and is “well done” only “when truth is in agreement with the correct desire,” it requires recognizing the correct end in addition to recognizing the true means to that end. Whatever clarity the above summary brings to Aristotle’s teaching of practical reasoning, however, it does not answer the question that motivated his turn to intellectual virtue in book six. In the whole of book six, Aristotle never explicitly takes up the question of how prudence goes about hitting upon the mean, which is to say how it gives precision to action and therefore to moral virtue. The closest he comes to addressing that question is in the last two chapters where he takes up the somewhat different question of why prudence is necessary at all if moral virtue makes one able to choose or act well (1143b21–28). In raising this question, Aristotle implicitly acknowledges the failure of his treatment of prudence to answer the question that had originally motivated it. In doing so, however, he inverts the difficulty to which that question had pointed: while in the beginning of the chapter Aristotle began from the premise

12 At least, we are permitted to assume so. Aristotle never explicitly refers back to the divisions of the intellect after the first chapter of book six, but he does maintain the distinction between what “admits of being otherwise” and what does not. Prudence, which concerns the former, and wisdom, which concerns the latter (insofar as wisdom is a science), prove to be the intellectual virtues among the eight “characteristics” or capacities Aristotle addresses throughout the book, at least five of which aim at truth (1139b15–19; 1153b15–17).

70

J. HUNGERFORD

that prudence is what gives moral virtue its precision in making particular choices and asked how it does so, he now begins from the premise that moral virtue is excellence in making particular choices and asks what prudence could possibly add. Aristotle thus gestures toward the original problem with a different problem that is less likely to bring into question his prior account of moral virtue. Why he should hide the original difficulty at this late stage becomes apparent when we consider Aristotle’s answer to his question. The answer is that one cannot do without either moral virtue or prudence. As we have seen, without moral virtue, our deliberation is unmoored from any sound perception of virtuous ends; it is mere cleverness and is no virtue at all. Deliberation becomes prudence, therefore, only when it is united with moral virtue. Aristotle now adds that without prudence, on the other hand, we cannot have moral virtue either. We can possess “natural virtue,” which is the “inclination” or desire to be virtuous, but we may nevertheless lack the understanding of how to fulfill that desire (1144b4–7). One may wish to be courageous in battle, for instance, but without some understanding of what consequences are likely to issue from which decisions, one would be unable to determine whether, say, charging an enemy is noble or simply reckless. Only by guiding our inclinations with calculation does our “natural virtue” become “virtue in the authoritative sense” (1144b12–14). While this argument clearly restates the importance of prudence for moral virtue, however, it says nothing about how prudence actually goes about giving precision to our judgment of what is morally virtuous in particular cases. If anything, it complicates matters. For Aristotle’s argument that we need both moral virtue and prudence is curiously circular. It is clear that deliberation does not become prudence without moral virtue, yet for some reason moral virtue also cannot inform deliberation without the presence of prudence! This poses a difficulty for Aristotle’s presentation of prudence as consisting primarily in deliberation. For deliberation is, in itself, nothing other than the selection of means to an end (1142b33). If moral virtue is what provides the end, that end would have to be known with sufficient precision in order to select the means appropriately. Yet Aristotle’s original suggestion that moral virtue is a mean between extremes that varies according to circumstances in a manner recognized only by the prudent person implies that the end, or “target,” is not known with precision. It would thus seem that the division of labor in Aristotle’s account of virtue between the perception of ends, supplied

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

71

by moral virtue, and the selection of means, supplied by prudence, cannot really account for morally virtuous action. Consider again the case of the soldier facing hard choices in battle. It might very well be true that he could not be courageous in war if he lacked any ability to predict what would result from attacking or not attacking an enemy. Yet even if he had a clear idea of the risks involved in either choice, that idea alone is not sufficient to determine what the courageous course of action would be. The calculation about what courage demands involves the recognition of whether the risks or even sacrifice involved are good, noble, or just. If he knew that attacking would likely result in his own death as well as the death of his subordinate soldiers and that holding off would mean the loss of the battle, he would not necessarily know whether the victory that his death may secure is grand enough, for instance, to merit that sacrifice. He would have to be able to rank, somehow, the nobility of likely outcomes in addition to recognizing what those outcomes are.13 This is to say little more, however, than that the soldier must calculate with a view to what is most courageous, or most virtuous. Yet, Aristotle’s insistence that what is courageous is itself a matter of calculation—a matter of identifying the mean in particular circumstances—implies that he does not have recourse to a clear idea of what is courageous in general that can guide this calculation of the means to courageous action. At the end of book six, prudence and moral virtue come to sight as inseparable aspects of a single thing. The prudent person somehow—and this “somehow” remains, to the end, altogether mysterious—perceives the end and the means in the same activity of calculation. This is why prudence ends up being, paradoxically, both a kind of deliberation and a conviction about ends—both a form of calculation and the virtue of the “part of the intellect that forms opinions” (1140b25–28; 1144b15). Moral virtue does not come into being without a development of a capacity of calculation, and indeed one’s habituation to moral virtue is or involves the habituation of one’s manner of calculating. But this is to say, as Aristotle makes clear in his introduction to book six, that for

13 The need to imagine our own examples of what prudential calculation involves underscores the curious absence of such examples in book six. Aristotle offers only two examples of deliberative reasoning and neither relates to action in the full sense (i.e., to moral action). The reason for this absence may be explained by Aristotle’s desire to avoid bringing attention to the limitations of his account of prudence.

72

J. HUNGERFORD

all this we are “no further ahead in knowledge.” The correct reason of the mean, which is to say, the conclusions formed by prudence relating particular choices to general ends is as unclear as ever.

5

Particulars and Universals in Practical Matters

To understand the connection between Aristotle’s inability to clarify the “correct reason” that informs the prudent person’s selection of the mean and the political character of moral virtue, let us now turn to Aristotle’s comparison between prudence and science, or intellect. For in the first place, the murkiness, or “roughness,” of Aristotle’s account of moral virtue is connected with his insistence on refraining from subjecting moral virtue to a scientific inquiry—it is therefore connected with Aristotle’s insistence throughout book six on distinguishing prudence from science or wisdom. And yet, while Aristotle emphatically denies that prudence is a science, its operation in his account is unmistakably analogous to that of science. Prudence and science both involve given or indemonstrable “principles,” which are “universals” or general premises or definitions, and both consist in reasoning by means of syllogisms from these principles to conclusions concerning more particular things. In the case of science, the “principle” is a necessary and general truth about the world and the reasoning involved is the “demonstration” of equally necessary implications of that general truth for more particular species of beings. In the case of action, the “universal” is the end sought and the reasoning involved is the “deliberation” that determines the best means to attain it. Deliberation is thus the practical analogue to scientific demonstration. On this understanding, there appear to be two basic differences between science and prudence: first, the principles of science are necessary and eternal, whereas those of prudence “admit of being otherwise” and second, while science is especially concerned with principles, prudence is less concerned with these than with judging in particular cases (1140b22– 25; 1141b15–23). It does not matter, for instance, that we know what courage is in general, so long as we identify what the courageous action is in when we are confronted with a particular decision. Since the goal of practical reasoning is a good, noble, or just result, knowledge is less important than the ability to achieve these results in practice. Moreover, the practical orientation of deliberative reasoning sets limits on its precision or rigor. For instance, if one worked through practical decisions with

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

73

the patience and rigor of a scientist, one would often miss opportunities to act well. “Correctness of deliberation” must therefore balance precision or rigor with other considerations, such as the timeliness of decision (1142b26–29). This difference between science and prudence is illustrated by one of only two concrete examples Aristotle gives of practical reasoning in all of book six.14 Aristotle observes that it is preferable, with a view to action, to recognize that poultry is healthy than to recognize that light meats are healthy in general but to fail to recognize that poultry is light (1141b18–22). Though Aristotle concludes from this that the universal is less important than the particular, we should note that in this example the universal is not unimportant at all; we just do not need to understand it in a general form. To be able to make a good choice when it comes to medical matters, one must have in view some idea of health as the end pursued—one can do nothing without recourse to such an idea, however dimly understood. What Aristotle’s example demonstrates is not that we need not have any grasp of health (the universal), but only that we need not understand in general terms what makes one thing healthy rather than another. It is somehow possible simply to have a knack for classifying the particular cases before one as “healthy” or “unhealthy” without knowing why they are such. This example suggests, in keeping with our earlier interpretation of the role of prudence for moral virtue, that our recognition of the universal “end” or “target” (i.e., moral virtue), is not separable from our judgment of the particular “means” to that end. It is thus consistent with Aristotle’s presentation of moral virtue as an unspecified mean between vices. For to lack knowledge of the end, or universal, in this example, is just to recognize the end in different cases without possessing the general account that unites those cases. Thus, to deliberate prudently is to seek to identify the end at the same time that one seeks to identify the means to that end. This means, in turn, that the precision possible in the reasoning belonging to the arts and sciences—whether producing demonstrations from principles or deliberating with a view to an intended product—cannot apply in any straightforward way to the reasoning belonging to prudence. Aristotle’s discussion of prudence’s greater attention to particulars than to universals also helps us to understand why Aristotle calls prudence the

14 See n. 13 above.

74

J. HUNGERFORD

virtue of the “part of the soul concerned with the formation of opinions” and also the “correct conviction” about ends (1140b25–28; 1144b15). Because prudence lacks a general understanding of the ends it serves, it appears to work by formulating opinions about these ends in the face of particular choices. That is, moral virtue is not—at least not only—the simple tendency to desire the correct things brought about by habituation. It involves conscious thought about one’s action and its purpose. When we act and especially when we deliberate, we articulate to ourselves, however dimly or incompletely, an idea or opinion about what is best; this opinion is, at least in the best case, the “correct reason” definitive of the mean. Yet insofar as prudence is the virtue of generating opinions and not of replacing opinions with knowledge, prudence is necessarily limited in its perception of the universal. It is, it would seem, the tendency to hit upon the right opinion about virtue in the given circumstances, but it is not the ability to see virtue for what it is. The mean stands in place of a general account of the end pursued.

6

Architectonic Prudence

The incompleteness of prudence’s perception of the universal (i.e., its end, or principle) is thus at the heart of the difficulty Aristotle faces in accounting for its operation. He acknowledges this difficulty to some extent in the conclusion of his initial discussion of prudence’s attention to particulars over universals: Prudence is bound up with action. As a result, one ought to have [knowledge of] both [universals and particulars], but more so of the latter. But here too there would be a certain architectonic [capacity]. (1141b21–23)

Aristotle admits that universals, too, are important for action; it is perhaps more important that one judge particulars correctly, but to grasp the universal can only help one do so. Yet Aristotle also adds, without elaboration, that there is some “architectonic” capacity connected with prudence. The above considerations indicate what Aristotle likely has in mind by this somewhat cryptic statement, for if prudence is characterized by the tendency to judge particular actions correctly, and if this means arriving at the correct opinion (for the circumstances in question) about how the available courses of action are classified according to some universal end (i.e., whether they are good or bad, virtuous or vicious, noble or base),

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

75

the source of this universal is of paramount importance for our action. There must be some ruling capacity that can lead one, without fail, to form the correct opinions. The importance of the universal points, on the one hand, toward the possibility of knowledge or art concerning the human good. This, at any rate, is the most obvious contender for an “architectonic” capacity that would provide the universal. A general knowledge about the human good analogous to the general knowledge of health that informs the art of medicine would, presumably, make clear both what “correct reason” is in each case and how best to train those who lack this general knowledge to opine correctly about it. The possibility of a knowledge of the good haunts Aristotle’s discussion of prudence, for the fact that practical deliberation and scientific demonstration share the same syllogistic form of reasoning suggests that a knowledge of ends would solve the opening difficulty of book six by turning action into a kind of science. Yet Aristotle rejects, to the last, the Socratic reduction of virtuous action to knowledge (1144b18–1145a2). The grave importance of universals moves Aristotle not to consider the possibility of knowledge, but to consider another, more authoritative form of prudence—one that supplies the universals, which is to say it guides the opinion-formation of the subordinate form of prudence. This, at least, would explain Aristotle’s sudden shift, immediately after suggesting the need for an architectonic form of prudence, to a discussion of the political forms of prudence—the legislative form of which is called “architectonic”—and its difference from the “personal” form, which is frequently held to be prudence proper (1141b23–33).15 The implication is that the political capacity, particularly its legislative aspect, is what provides or takes the place of the universal in the practical syllogism. We can begin to understand how this may be the case by considering Aristotle’s original statement of the architectonic character of the political capacity in light of what we have learned about political virtue from 15 Aristotle’s sudden turn to a discussion of the different forms of prudence appears to be a digression, for upon its conclusion he immediately returns to the theme of particulars and universal. The connection that we propose between the importance of universals for prudence and Aristotle’s sudden acknowledgment of the existence of an architectonic form of prudence, on the one hand, and the fact that one of the political forms of prudence is called architectonic in the course of that digression, on the other, suggest that the “digression” on the political form of prudence is in fact intended to address the larger discussion of universals and particulars that it interrupts.

76

J. HUNGERFORD

his methodological statements. For the political capacity is architectonic because it both “ordains what sciences exist in the city” and “legislates what one ought to do and abstain from,” and in regulating both our thoughts and our actions, it is responsible for the character of the habituation that forms the “that” of practical virtue (1141b23; 1095a31–b10). The city or the regime, in other words, is at the bottom of our moral outlook, for it is responsible both directly and indirectly for training us to discern right and wrong action in particular circumstances. The formation of our souls by the political community, above all in the form of law, takes the place of knowledge or wisdom in providing the “correct reason” that permits us to perform virtuous action (cf. NE 1180a21–22). Of course, as we have already acknowledged, Aristotle’s presentation of the political forms of prudence does not so straightforwardly suggest that they are as profoundly important as we are arguing. The political forms of prudence are just three among a number of different forms that prudence can take. There is also a domestic version of prudence, which is “household management,” as well as a personal form (1141b31–33). After laying out a taxonomy of prudence that covers all these different forms, moreover, Aristotle proceeds to relate a criticism of politics that seems to indicate that personal prudence is superior to political prudence: In fact, he who knows about and spends his time on things that concern himself is held to be prudent, whereas politicians are held to be busybodies. Thus Euripides: And how could I be prudent, who might have been free of busyness, Numbered among the many of the army, Enjoying an equal share? For those who are extraordinary and a little too active… For people seek out their own good, and they suppose that this what they ought to do. From this opinion, then, has arisen the view that these people are prudent. (1142a1–9)

Yet the critique of politics in the passage above is not, properly speaking, Aristotle’s. It is a critique held by at least some of Aristotle’s readers and

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

77

supported by certain poets.16 Politicians, he says, are “held” to be busybodies. People “suppose”—meaning, as Aristotle makes clear in 6.3, that they might suppose wrongly—that they ought to “seek out their own good” (1139b16–17). The view that true prudence is personal prudence, finally, “has arisen” from this questionable supposition. These considerations make us wonder whether the view that personal prudence is prudence in the precise or governing sense is sound. Indeed, immediately after sketching the above critique of politics, Aristotle suggests that it is not decisive: Yet perhaps one cannot do well for oneself in the absence of household management or a regime. Further, how one ought to manage one’s own affairs is unclear and must be examined. (1142a9–11)

Aristotle gently reminds his readers—at least those apt to endorse the critique rendered here—that their way of life depends on politics, implying that they should not lightly deny its dignity. Perhaps more to the point, he encourages them to think more seriously about what their “personal” well-being consists in. Though he does not spell out why this question—“how one ought to manage one’s affairs”—is relevant to the question of whether personal prudence or political prudence is prudence properly speaking, the context suggests that Aristotle thinks that the way even privately oriented citizens understand their own well-being includes distinctly political concerns. And it is not difficult to imagine why he might think this, for are those of his readers who have contempt for politicians indifferent to justice, and in particular to that of their fellow citizens and rulers? Would they not be moved to anger, for instance, by the thought of cowards fleeing their city’s enemies to save their own skins? Finally, Aristotle points to the dependence of the individual on the household as well as on the city as possible evidence against the priority of 16 The passage thus reveals that Aristotle’s presentation of the architectonic character of politics in the first chapter of the Ethics, which we incautiously took to be the “commonsense” view of Aristotle’s audience, does not reflect the only view of politics found in the city. The city is not, according to Aristotle, simply or straightforwardly united in its high opinion of itself. It is also possible, however, that the view reflected in this statement is not properly speaking a “common-sense” opinion, but rather the opinion characteristic of philosophers or certain kinds of philosophers, who look down upon politics as conventional (recall 1094b15–17). On this reading, the purpose of this passage is not to correct one form that conventional opinion can take but rather to encourage those who reject convention to take it more seriously.

78

J. HUNGERFORD

personal prudence. If a happy existence does not depend on the regime, does it not at least depend on a household? Do his readers, moreover, not have in mind, when they think about the life they wish to secure for themselves, a certain kind of household? Aristotle will eventually develop this argument more fully in the first book of the Politics, where he argues that the relations constituting the household are determined or shaped by the regime (Politics 1260b9–17).17 The Politics ’ treatment of the household thus suggests that the character of the private existence pursued by those who favor “personal prudence” is informed by the rule of the larger community within which that private existence is situated. The importance of the household to the question of the relative status of personal and political prudence is indicated in Aristotle’s taxonomy of prudence. Within that taxonomy, the personal and the political constitute two altogether distinct spheres within which one can speak of “prudence.” Yet Aristotle also includes household management in his taxonomy but does not make it clear which of these spheres, if either, it falls within, or in what way. Is household management a form of personal prudence, as one might expect? If so, does it govern personal prudence, or is it governed by personal prudence? Or is household management subordinate to the political art in some way, as Aristotle suggests in the Politics ? Indeed, Aristotle has already provided an answer to this question in the very first chapter of the Ethics, in which he classifies household management as part of the political capacity (1094b4). The existence of an intermediate form of prudence between the personal and political forms and the ambiguity of its relation to each of them suggests a problem with the apparently clear distinction between personal and political prudence. If the household is bound up with the city, and if the individual is bound up with the household, then personal prudence cannot be so cleanly separated from political prudence. If what one takes to be the good household is informed by the city or its laws, and if one’s individual well-being is bound up with the household, then personal prudence takes its bearings from what the city has legislated. Thus, while Aristotle pays lip bservice to some of his readers’ anti-political views, he indicates that their pursuit of their private well-being is in fact political in nature. This is to say, however, that he indicates that politics 17 Carnes Lord, Aristotle’s Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). Parenthetical citations refer to Bekker page numbers.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL VIRTUE …

79

is architectonic—at least in the sense that it shapes the goals or pursuits of the communities and individuals within its authority—but also that its architectonic character is not obvious to all.18

7

The Transition to the Politics, Reconsidered

By tracing Aristotle’s account of practical virtue to its dependence on the architectonic legislative form of the political capacity, we arrive at an explanation of why the Ethics is, according to Aristotle, a “political inquiry.” It is a political inquiry because it provides an account of practical virtue— moral virtue and prudence—that takes as its “principle” or premise an outlook shaped by the political community. This outlook is so deeply shaped by the political community, moreover, that it is not even apparent to many that is so shaped. It is characterized by the confusing and perhaps confused distinction between the noble or just and the good, or by a reluctance to consider virtue in terms of the good that, despite this reluctance, it assumes virtue provides or even embodies. This outlook is not, finally, a complete outlook, for it lacks a coherent conception of the end it seeks. The “correct reason” which guides moral choice is thus not an idea grasped by one’s own intellect but is an argument of the city inscribed in the soul. Thus, the self-rule that characterizes moral virtue, which we took at the outset to point toward self-sufficiency and freedom from the authoritative decrees of the city is in fact an expression the continued rule of the city within us. In light of this interpretation, the connection Aristotle draws between the Ethics and the Politics in the final chapter of the Ethics is less modest than it first appeared. The connection, we recall, is that it is necessary, or at least useful, to possess the political art if we want to educate those we care about to virtue. This is because it “is difficult” to “obtain from childhood a correct upbringing with a view to virtue” if one is “not reared under the laws of the requisite sort” (1179b31; 1179b31–32). Now this conclusion subsequently appears to follow only from the fact that people—especially “the many”—tend to be either weak or irrational, insofar as they “obey the governance of necessity more than of speech, and of punishments more than of the noble” (1180a4–5). Because individual families, and especially fathers, lack “strength or compulsion” in comparison with the law or the regime that enforces it, the law plays a 18 Christopher Bruell, “Aristotle on Theory and Practice,” in Political Philosophy CrossExamined: Perennial Challenges to the Philosophic Life (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 26–27.

80

J. HUNGERFORD

crucial role in directing most but not all people toward virtue (1180a18– 20). In the passage preceding that statement of the importance of laws, however, Aristotle suggests that everyone, except those few who are fortunate enough to be good by nature, require habituation in their youth “to feel delight and hatred in a noble way” in order to become educable by speeches (1179b23–26). Without that preparation, such a person “would not listen to a speech meant to deter him, nor in turn would he even comprehend it” (1179b26–28). This means that even among the minority of people who do not require the threat of legal punishment in adulthood, such punishment will nevertheless be important in their youth.19 Insofar as nearly everyone requires habituation and insofar as such habituation is the product of coercion, the city’s legislative capacity is crucially important to all of its members if only for the simple reason that the regime’s coercive power dwarfs that of any individual or community within it. At this point in the argument, Aristotle seems to suggest that we owe our goodness to the city, for the city is necessarily formative of our character. Yet, Aristotle goes on to make it clear that to the extent that people are in fact good, they are good despite the influence of the city, not because of it. He laments that exceedingly few cities—possibly only Sparta—have “taken care for the rearing and the regular practices of the citizens” (1180a24–26). Most cities, it turns out, legislate in the manner of the savage Cyclops: they have “utterly neglected” their citizens’ moral education (1180a26–29). If we look ahead to Aristotle’s discussion of the Spartan regime in the Politics, moreover, we see that even if Sparta has exercised some “care for the rearing and regular practices of the citizens,” it does not do so adequately, in Aristotle’s judgment (Politics 1252b22ff). Indeed, Aristotle’s argument in the Politics suggests that no city, whether real or in speech, has been ordered well prior to the writing of the Politics (1260b27–36). The significance of the law is therefore not simply that it is useful, but that its influence is unavoidable and potentially problematic. We are reminded that “the ‘that’” from which Aristotle’s account of moral virtue and prudence takes its bearings is questionable and demands examination.

19 Only an exceedingly small minority remains of people who lack the need for habituation entirely. One wonders what the character of their excellence is, however, insofar as moral virtue does not come into being by nature, according to Aristotle (1103a14ff; cf. 1114b1–12).

Machiavelli’s Revolutionary Classical Education John Peterson

Those associated with what is called the classical education movement in America today are in part motivated by resistance to the present regime, to the direction of cultural trends, and to the mainstream in the field of education, which has rejected traditional methods, the canonical classical texts, and, generally, all that is old-fashioned and time-tested.1 Thus their turn to the classical texts of the canon and to time-tested teaching methods constitutes resistance to that regime, even though they wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves in those terms. Machiavelli is part of the canon that would be resurrected by the classical education movement, 1 Examples of the classical education movement include: the Association of Classical Christian Schools [classicalchristian.org]; Great Hearts Academies [greatheartsamer ica.org]; Hillsdale College’s K-12 Classical Education program, including the Barney Charter School Initiative [k12.hillsdale.edu]; the Classical Education Graduate Program at the University of Dallas [udallas.edu/classicaled]; the CiRCE Institute [www.circeinst itute.org]; and the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education [catholicliberaleducation.org].

J. Peterson (B) Department of Education and Classical Learning, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_5

81

82

J. PETERSON

but he is not, for them, a model; he is a byword, connected in some way to the foundation of the very regime which the classical education movement sees itself as resisting. It is not the purpose of this essay to treat this movement, whether as a trend in education, politics, or culture, or to give an account of its self-understanding as inheritor of a tradition in education and of a canon of texts. It is also not its purpose to treat Machiavelli’s understanding as inheritor of that tradition, although that project, ably undertaken by others,2 is closely related to this one. Rather, the purpose of this essay is to make clear what Machiavelli means by education, and to connect it to his understanding of regime. In this way, it seeks to connect Machiavelli as a proponent of a new movement in education with the same author as inheritor of an intellectual tradition. So-called classical education, then, is only an example, but an important example of a similar topic or question: How does one approach the inheritance of a tradition that, in the present, is moribund; how ought that inheritance to inform what one intends to pass on into the future, to what one intends to bring about, not only in the souls of students but also in the regime—the political order, the culture, and celebrated actions of human beings? What kind of life, and what kind of disposition toward the present regime, ought it to promote? In a normal, healthy regime, one looks with reverence not only at the past, but at the present, and sees models for emulation in the laws of the regime and the noble actions of contemporaries. It may even be the case that the healthiest regimes would not need reverence for the past, only present examples of excellence and moral seriousness. At any rate, this is not the context of the classical education movement or of Machiavelli’s writings. In each, the argument—explicit or implicit—is that the regime, and its education, is unhealthy. Each looks to the past, and to ancient texts, as a means of resistance to the regime. However, while the classical education movement espouses no revolutionary purpose, asking only for a little space

2 The best examples are Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: The University

of Chicago Press, 1958), and “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” Review of National Literatures 1, no. 1 (Spring 1970); Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979); and Rasoul Namazi, “Machiavelli’s Critique of Classical Philosophy and His Case for the Political Life,” Perspectives on Political Science 50, no. 3 (2021).

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

83

under a wall where it can recover old books and practices,3 Machiavelli sought to transform the regime and the world through a new education. His ambition was not limited to the creation of an obscure sect of philosopher-monks, but extended to the conquest and rule of the world. As Harvey Mansfield puts it, “Men, especially young men, can be made to desire the future if they are taught by praise of the past to reject the present”; Machiavelli intends for “the prejudice in favor of ancient things [to serve] a revolutionary rather than a conservative purpose.”4 It is beyond the scope of this essay, and perhaps would, at any rate, be inappropriate in an academic paper, to ask whether the newest Renaissance ought to learn from and emulate the greatest son and greatest critic of the old Renaissance. However, if those in the present wish to inherit the past, and even, as they perhaps do not now believe they can, to imitate its great actions,5 it would first be necessary to understand them. Just as Machiavelli famously does not mention the soul (anima),6 he also rarely talks about education and certainly never describes education in terms of the order of the soul, as Plato does. Machiavelli, therefore, does not make the explicit connection between the political order and the order of the soul that we find in the classical and medieval political philosophers. Indeed, his specific contribution to political theory seems to have been to effect a separation between politics and the soul. This is certainly the case in his rhetoric and in his overt emphasis. However, close attention to key passages in his works reveals that Machiavelli understood the connection between the regime and education stressed by his predecessors, but understood differently from them what education the present moment required—because the moment was different. He sought to invigorate and enthuse the young, the intellectually capable, and the talented, to inform and arouse their spirits (animo), not to make their

3 Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968), VI.496d. 4 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 297. 5 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov

(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), I.pref. All quotations of Discourses are from this edition, and references include book, chapter, and as applicable, the section numbers available in this edition. Parenthetical citations in the body of the text not otherwise indicated are to this work; where this work is explicitly indicated, it is by the abbreviation “DL.” 6 Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 276–280; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 333n59.

84

J. PETERSON

souls (anima) moderate and just, and he did this not to preserve and maintain a good regime, but to disrupt and disorder a bad one. In so doing, he intended to push along, even restart, the classical cycle of regimes or civilization.7 To effect this, he turns especially to the study and use of history, eschewing philosophy.8 It is through history that education and regime are connected in the Machiavellian enterprise.9 The Renaissance thinkers of Machiavelli’s time and of the preceding generations were involved in the restoration of classical texts to prominence. However, their interest in these texts was more literary than political; that is to say, they took from them a new model and curriculum for education, not, as Machiavelli did, for revolution.10 Machiavelli made

7 Machiavelli’s clearest references to the cycle of regimes are Discourses II.pref and Florentine Histories, V.1. Quotations of this latter text are from Florentine Histories, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), abbreviated in parenthetical citations as “FH .” There is apparent disagreement between Mansfield and Christopher Lynch on this question. While they agree that Machiavelli thinks the cycle of regimes has stalled, Lynch argues that Machiavelli’s purpose is to restart the stalled cycle through teaching youth the spiritual art of war, while Mansfield argues that Machiavelli hopes to coopt Christianity’s universal claims in order to break the cycle and bring about a “perpetual republic”: Machiavelli, Art of War, trans. Christopher Lynch (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003) [abbreviated as “AW ”], 221, 224–226; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 113–114, 121, 274–276, 280. Mansfield, at New Modes and Orders, 38–39, commenting upon Discourses I.2, makes the important distinction between the cycle of regimes, whereby each city is considered by itself, its internal movement dependent on “domestic policy,” and the cycle of civilization, which affects and brings all cities together into descent through cataclysm. Machiavelli in effect combines these two in his concern for “foreign policy,” which ought to be the concern of domestic politics, including, presumably, education and instruction in the art of war both physical and spiritual. In this way, Lynch and Mansfield can be understood to be in agreement. On this question in the contemporary context, see Michael Anton, “‘Founding Philosophy’: Michael Anton Responds,” New Criterion, June 13, 2018, https://newcri terion.com/blogs/dispatch/founding-philosophy-michael-anton-responds. 8 Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 11; Thoughts, 45, 48; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 269. Cf. The Prince, XIV, 60. Quotations and page references from this latter text are from Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), abbreviated as “P.” 9 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 141–142; “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 23–24. 10 Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 25; Mansfield, New Modes and Orders,

297.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

85

his focus those books of history bequeathed by antiquity; works of philosophy and poetry he referenced, but did not treat thematically.11 To the degree to which other Renaissance thinkers did look to examples from classical history, they failed, as Machiavelli sees it, to understand the lessons to be drawn from them because they failed to grasp the contours of their own historical moment. They saw in the actions of the ancients static forms rather than modes suited or unsuited to the times. Machiavelli would use these texts instead to teach one to recognize what the times require, or failing that, to encourage and inform impetuous action. These are, of course, two different things. Machiavelli has two different audiences in his major works.12 The first, like him, has the prudence and capacity to understand the consonances and dissonances between the modes and the times. The second does not have the capacity to recognize the contingent character of the success or goodness of his actions, but will nevertheless be encouraged to act.13 Machiavelli’s purpose for both audiences is the disruption and disordering of the present regime. Both among the thinker-captains and the young men of action Machiavelli aims to create a kind of revolutionary sense, a wartime mindset. He writes propaganda for the followers, perhaps, but he would have the captains, too, write that propaganda. Thus, in Machiavelli’s writing, we find everywhere both this propaganda and instructions for writing propaganda.14 He is unlike previous political theorists—if he can, in this deviation, still rightly be called a theorist—in that he makes himself a partisan, a captain, of the people.15 While this partisanship means that Machiavelli intentionally disrupts education in the sense of the formation of the soul in virtue, and thus he turns away from the concern of classical political philosophy, in this very disruption he aims to recover the ancient connection between regime and education, and thus to bring about a new regime which likely will bring about human beings of a more spirited, if not nobler type. That is,

11 Strauss, “Machiavelli and Classical Literature,” 8. 12 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 50, 77; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 43–46. 13 The Prince, XXV; Leo Paul de Alvarez, The Machiavellian Enterprise (Dekalb, IL:

Northern Illinois University Press, 1999), 127–130. 14 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 173, 297; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, xi, 4,

211. 15 The Prince, IX, 39; de Alvarez, Machiavellian Enterprise, 45.

86

J. PETERSON

through inattention to virtue and the order of the soul, he will help to establish the conditions that make that virtue and order possible. The connection between Machiavelli’s attempted restoration of the cycle of regimes and civilizations and his understanding of education is to be seen in his emphasis on the knowledge of sites, on the one hand, and his emphasis on the study of history, on the other.16 The former represents his teaching on the knowledge of the particular and the present, i.e., the knowledge of one’s own regime and political situation, while the latter is the study of other, past regimes, and past political situations. These, the knowledge of sites and the study of history, are united in the art of war, which for Machiavelli becomes an offshoot of the science of politics, the practical manifestation of the theoretical understanding of the regime.17 The art of war requires, first and foremost, a knowledge of one’s own good and the willingness to defend it; it requires attachment and devotion to one’s own. Beyond this, it requires attention at all times to the particular case in question, to what, in that case, can be controlled, and to how, in any case, the army can depend less on chance and more on its own arms. Finally, it requires authority, the ability of commanders and officers to have their wills followed, and to inspire their soldiers with obedience, discipline, and the desire to triumph.18 By contrast, for classical political philosophers, the art of war is external to politics proper, or at most a problem to be solved inasmuch as warmaking introduces obstacles into the regime, emphasizing passions and virtues which can be dangerous to the good order of the regime as a whole.19 Thus, the rule of warriors is, in Plato’s Republic, a corruption of the best regime, which is ruled not by warriors but by philosophers. These philosophers are detached where the warrior is attached; they have a speculative disinterest where the warrior has a passionate interest. To be sure, the Republic is very much concerned with the question and the problems of spirited attachment. However, these are, in the Republic, problems, and not, as for Machiavelli, solutions. Along these lines one can also contrast Machiavelli on the art of war with the Platonic education with regard to

16 Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Leo Paul S. de Alvarez (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1980), xxxi. 17 Discourses, III.39; Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 210–211, 267–269. 18 Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 211–213; Lynch, 224. 19 Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 268–274.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

87

attention to the particular case and what it requires. The Platonic case can fairly be reduced to a question of unity and moral virtue. Because the best regime is unified, and its warriors virtuous, it can always defeat any other city by dividing it, by exploiting its disunity and its vices.20 There is no need for attention to the particular case. This general strategy will always suffice. By contrast, for Machiavelli war not only requires a strategy individualized for each case, but is part of the nature of politics itself. Thus, because education is a concern of politics, education must be concerned with war and teach the art of war.21 The word “education” (educazione) and its derivatives do not occur often in Machiavelli’s works, and it does not occur at all in Machiavelli’s most famous work, The Prince. It does, however, have a significant presence in Discourses on Livy. Generally, Machiavelli uses the word in connection with refinement, reserve, morality, and good order. It is thus connected to religion, to the status quo, and even to inaction. This connection can be seen especially in the Preface to the first book of the Discourses, where Machiavelli writes of “the weakness into which the present religion has led the world.” In the 1531 Rome edition, religion is replaced by “education.”22 Whatever the reason for the difference between editions, this replacement is consistent with his meaning throughout the whole text and in the passage in question, where he assigns “not having a true knowledge of history” and “not getting from reading [histories] that sense nor tasting that flavor that they have in themselves” as the causes of the “evil… done to many Christian provinces and cities.” Here, the “ambitious idleness” which Machiavelli holds responsible for this evil is implied to be the result of the Christian religion, which leads one to think that past events, though interesting, aren’t relevant for the present, “judging that imitation is not only difficult but impossible” (I.pref). This sense that Christianity is something altogether 20 Republic, IV.422e–423b. 21 Indications of the importance of this art to education and regime are found in Art

of War, I.51, 66, 68, 85, 92–93, 106, and 108. See Lynch, 224–226. This essay will focus, however, on the direct references to education in the Discourses. 22 This preface is taken from a text written in Machiavelli’s own hand, which has

“religion” instead of “education.” See Mansfield and Tarcov, Discourses, 6n6; Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, vol. 1, 191n2; and Cecil H. Clough, “Father Walker’s Presentation and Translation of Machiavelli’s Discourses in Perspective,” in The Discourses of Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. 1, trans. Leslie J. Walker (Routledge, 1991), reprint ed., xv–xxiv, esp. xxiv–xxix.

88

J. PETERSON

new, “as if heaven, sun, elements, men had varied in motion, order, and power, from what they were in antiquity,” leads to an improper education, to the failure to learn the proper lessons for the present moment from the classical texts about which Machiavelli’s contemporaries were so enthusiastic. As we will see, this “ambitious idleness” is characteristic not only of Christianity and classical philosophy but also of regimes generally, and is seen not only in religion but in education.23 In the famous beginning of book V of Florentine Histories, Machiavelli writes that “the strength of well-armed spirits cannot be corrupted by a more honorable leisure than that of letters, nor can leisure enter into well-instituted cities with a greater and more dangerous conceit than this one” (FH , V.1). His project is not, however, to undermine the study of letters and so to return to “arms,” but rather to restore the understanding of the importance of arms and thus to make the study of letters conducive to the preservation and renovation, not the destruction of regimes—as he says, “so that those who read these statements of mine can more easily draw from them that utility for which one should seek knowledge of histories” (DL I.pref.2).24 His “enterprise” in Discourses is thus both one of education and of regime-reform. This enterprise has a militant, revolutionary aspect. Machiavelli promises to “take a path as yet untrodden by anyone” (I.pref.1), and he appeals to “the spirits of youths who may read these writings” and “prepare themselves to imitate” the actions he praises (II.pref.3), namely “the most virtuous works the histories show us” (I.pref.2). We ought to contrast this with the learned “idleness” and “leisure” he decries, which amounts to “a fragment of an ancient statue” (I.pref.2), something to be admired, reproduced, and even imitated, though not as a living person but as a representation. However, elsewhere Machiavelli does connect learning in the traditional sense—not war, but letters—with action and ambition. There are those who are learned and also engaged in revolutionary projects, but who take the wrong lessons from their learning and

23 Namazi, 7. 24 Thus Machiavelli’s project is not simply a rejection of the philosophic and an embrace

of the political life, as Namazi argues. It is more proper to say that he restores the connection between liberal education and politics, and thus reinvigorates the competition between philosophy and politics as the capstone or consequence of liberal education. Insofar as he sides with statesmanship rather than refined leisure, it is as the fruit of that education.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

89

are not fully models for Machiavelli. What is the difference between their education and action, and what Machiavelli would recommend or seek to bring about? For the conventional sense of education, in connection with the learning of Latin, though still, like educazione, with a sense of refinement, reserve, and good order, Machiavelli prefers the adjective litterato, or “lettered.” For example, in Mandragola, Ligurio says to Callimaco, “You’re educated [literatto], and can say something to him in Latin.”25 In a letter to Guicciardini, Machiavelli refers to change for the better in a young man, now “associating with educated [litterato] men.”26 And in Florentine Histories, he contrasts education in this sense with action and change, writing of one “Jacopo di Messer Poggio,” who “was a literary [litterato] youth, but ambitious and very desirous of new things” (FH , VIII.4). Despite this seeming contrast, it is not the only instance of the pairing of ambition and learnedness in Florentine Histories. This connection, and its consequences for conspiracies and revolutions, is thematic in the last part of that work and is worth dwelling on here. In addition to the failed conspiracy of the Pazzi against the Medicis in Florence, which Machiavelli describes in the first part book VIII, and in which the young and lettered Jacopo participated,27 there is the failed 1476 conspiracy against Duke Galeazzo Sforza in Milan, described at the end of book VII. This was inspired by “Cola Montano, a lettered and ambitious man,” who “taught the Latin language to the leading youths of the city,” and who, “in all his reasonings execrated life under a prince who was not good, calling those glorious and happy whom nature and fortune had allowed to be born and live in a republic” (FH , VII.33). He had his charges “swear that, as soon as they were of an age when they could, they would free the tyranny of that prince.” Ultimately, they conspire to kill and do kill the duke, but not without the deaths of some of the conspirators. One of them, Girolamo Olgiato, escapes but is later brought

25 Gilbert, vol. 2, p. 789. See also Florentine Histories, VII.34, p. 315: “…he said these words in Latin, for he was lettered” (disse queste parole in lingua latina, perché litterato era). 26 Letter no. 211, 2 June 1526, in Gilbert, vol. 2, p. 1001. For a similar usage of educazione, see The Art of War, I.205. This is the only instance of educazione in this text. 27 One Stefano, a priest employed to teach Latin to one of the conspirator’s daughters, also participated.

90

J. PETERSON

to justice, where upon the point of his execution, “he said these words in Latin, for he was learned [litterato], ‘Death is bitter, fame perpetual; the memory of this deed will long endure’” (FH , VII.34). Machiavelli’s comment on this failed conspiracy is that “they were ruined when those they had hoped would have to follow and defend them neither defended nor followed them”; “how vain is the thought,” he remarks, “that makes one trust too much that a multitude, even though malcontent, will either follow you or accompany you in your dangers” (FH , VII.34). The education of these youths was apparently insufficient, for if they had read the histories as Machiavelli does, they would have learned from them the nature of men and of the multitude. At the very least, we can say that their education did not give them an advantage or did not allow them to succeed where others would have failed. It may be that they thought their learning irrelevant for such enterprises.28 However, we ought not to conclude from this failed conspiracy of Cola Montano’s students that Machiavelli thinks education cannot give one an advantage in such plots. The existence of his long chapter “On Conspiracies” (DL, III.6) is sufficient evidence of this. He professes there that he writes it “so that princes may learn to guard themselves from these dangers and private individuals may put themselves into them more timidly” (III.6.1), but if studying the history of conspiracies were useless for committing them, it would also be useless for thwarting them. It would be going too far, though, to conclude from this that Machiavelli’s criticism of past conspirators, and his enumeration of their errors and the reasons for their failures, amounts, paradoxically and esoterically, to a kind of how-to guide full of tips and tricks for future ones. While we ought skeptically to raise our eyebrows at his claim that his purpose is innocent, that we “may learn to be content to live under the empire that has been proposed for [us] by fate” (III.6.1), it is not quite so laughable that he would recommend timidity or rather prudence. As Mansfield notes, Machiavelli does not dissuade us from conspiracy by showing that all conspiracies fail, which would make the chapter’s advice useless for princes anyway.29 Rather, he shows that the most prudent way for a private citizen who would rather live a private life but finds himself “discontented with a prince” (III.2) is to enter politics is not through direct

28 Cf. Namazi, 3. 29 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 319, 343.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

91

but rather indirect conspiracy. Furthermore, Mansfield argues, the chapter is the occasion to discuss “Machiavelli’s [own indirect] conspiracy,” for he himself announces in the preface to the first book that he hopes others will carry out his enterprise for him (I.pref.2).30 He is to be a new and better Cola Montano, one who teaches revolution, but does not indiscriminately praise republics over principalities, or encourage his students to engage in direct and bloody confrontation which will likely only lead to their own deaths and provide justification for the entrenchment and greater cruelty of their rulers, but advises them in an intellectual wartime project which will reform the regime by disordering their intellectual contentment and teaching them the role of necessity and the importance of arms to good regimes. It is somewhat of a misnomer to refer to this emphasis of Machiavelli’s on arms and necessity as “education,” for as he asserts, these are rather the conditions, not the content, of education (I.4.1). As for the content, though it seems to consist in the formation of virtue, Machiavelli never says this directly; it is always reflected in actions, appearances, and observations.31 He connects education more directly to the “knowledge of things”: For becoming insolent in good fortune and abject in bad arises from your mode of proceeding and from the education in which you are raised. When that is weak and vain, it renders you like itself; when it has been otherwise, it renders you also of another fate; and by making you a better knower of the world, it makes you rejoice less in the good and be less aggrieved with the bad. (III.31.2)32

This teaching about education is complicated, or in another way simplified, by Machiavelli’s refusal to mention the soul. If education is the 30 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 318–319. 31 Discourses, III.30.1 is perhaps an exception: “When they are men that are used to

living in a corrupt city, where the education has not produced any goodness in them….” But even here the “goodness in them” could refer to excellent actions and examples, not to virtue in the soul. 32 See also III.27.2, where Machiavelli writes that “the weakness of men at present” is “caused by their weak education and their slight knowledge of things….” This could indicate that Machiavelli considers weak education and knowledge of things to be distinct causes of human weakness, but it’s more likely that the slight knowledge is the effect of weak education.

92

J. PETERSON

formation of the soul, the right ordering of the passions and their alignment with reason or intellect, strength of soul means that one can respond well to any situation that arises, that no amount of external hardship, pleasure, or pride can disrupt one’s balance, while weakness is the opposite: one is easily disrupted, vulnerable to every external threat because unstable and unbalanced within. The analogy to the regime is obvious: the healthy regime is well-ordered within, its parts in the proper balance, each class of citizen content with its role, and as a whole, able to withstand any external threat. This is the soul and regime of Plato’s Republic, but not of Machiavelli’s Prince and Discourses. Here, it first appears similar: a “weak and vain” education “renders you like itself”; the regime educates, and one becomes like the regime. However, “your mode of proceeding” is an important addition. This does not refer to the order of the soul or the regime but to customs, to behavior. That these reflect virtues and vices, of course, seems clear from a later chapter, “That Men Who Are Born in One Province Observe Almost the Same Nature for All Times” (III.43), but even here Machiavelli refers more to the virtuousness and viciousness of the “works” of peoples or provinces. Where he most seems to be describing the order of the soul, he is reversing the classical order of things: It is true that their works are more virtuous now in this province than in that, and in that more than in this, according to the form of education in which those people have taken their mode of life. To see a nation keep the same customs for a long time, being either continually avaricious or continually fraudulent or having some other such vice or virtue, also makes it easy to know future things by past. (III.43)

Leaving aside Machiavelli’s implication that avarice and fraud may be either vice or virtue, we note, putting this passage together with the one extracted above, that it is not virtue or vice that allows one “to see” correctly, and “to know future things by past,” but seeing the traits of men, “who have and always had the same passions” (III.43), that allows one to be virtuous, or at least, because one knows the nature of men and the many things that can happen in human affairs, neither insolent in good fortune nor abject in bad. It is not a question of the formation of a soul that is able, or not able, to respond to good or bad fortune because formed in virtue or vice. A virtuous soul, in the classical sense, or at least in the Stoic or Christian sense, may be “weak and vain,” that

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

93

is, liable to suffer, especially subject to accident and chance, and perhaps most importantly, unable to recognize the customs and modes of others. As an example, Machiavelli writes, “[I]f Florence had not been either constrained by necessity or overcome by passion, and had read and known the ancient customs of the barbarians, it would not have been deceived either this or many other times by them, as they have always been in one mode and have used the same means in every part and with everyone” (III.43). A good education is not a matter of mastering the passions or overcoming necessity, but of recognizing and using these as the occasion demands. It teaches one to be “a knower of the world,” and thus not to be naïve, not to believe that men will always keep faith with you.33 What is “necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself,” namely that he “learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity,”34 might then seem also to be necessary to a people, such as the people of Florence. Any good detrimental for the political good is not part of good education; “Florentine credulity,” or their belief in the faithfulness of princes, is a consequence of a bad education that teaches that “desire for acquisition” is bad and calls it “avarice.”35 Not recognizing the natural and ordinary character of desire for acquisition,36 Florence is unable “to know future things by past”; credulity and therefore ignorance of necessity is its own “mode of life.” On the other hand, education that makes one a “knower of the world” is good education because it allows one to recognize the nature of human beings and know how human beings respond in different situations. To be such a knower is to be wise in the ways of the world, to recognize that “all worldly things have their own counterpart in ancient times” (III.43). This does not include non-worldly things, things which do not have ancient counterparts, namely Christian revelation and Christian virtues. This is the difference between “our education and the ancient, founded on the difference between our religion and the ancient”: Christianity “has placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and contempt of things human,” while the ancient religion “placed it in greatness of spirit, strength of

33 The Prince, XVIII. 34 The Prince, XV, 61. 35 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 430. 36 The Prince, III, 14.

94

J. PETERSON

body, and all other things capable of making men very strong” (II.2.2). This new education and new religion have “rendered the world weak and given it in prey to criminal men,” that is, it has surrendered this world in the hopes of another one. Machiavelli’s first reference to education in the Discourses, if we don’t include “the present religion” from the first preface, is in the context of his discussion of “tumults,” a feature of the Roman republic which common opinion holds to be at odds with the otherwise good order of that regime, but which Machiavelli defends as essential to that order (I.4.1). This reference to “education” is paradigmatic for Machiavelli, as it includes both aspects of his teaching on this theme. In the first place, education is the source of “good examples,” that is, good men who provide “so many examples of virtue,” and is itself produced by “good laws.” Here is the connection between regime and education in the most straightforward and conventional sense: the regime represents an order of goods; it implicitly endorses certain virtues and encourages actions which are examples of those virtues. It does this through law, rewarding those virtues and actions and punishing their opposites, and this law is educative, forming the habits of citizens so that they come to embody those virtues and perform those actions. However, Machiavelli’s inclusion of tumults in this chain goes beyond the connection between regime and education to include something that seems to be outside of, but a condition of the law, namely the fundamental passions or “humors.” But tumults, arising from these humors, are not merely unfortunately necessary, but actually superlatively praiseworthy (I.4.2), and they produce modes of law which are themselves praiseworthy: “every city ought to have its modes with which the people can vent its ambition” (I.4.1). Tumults, therefore, form part of the order of the laws and also give rise, like the other laws, to education which, in turn, gives rise to admirable examples. A related, seemingly contrary mode is discussed in book III: “to kill the heads of the tumults” (III.27.1). This mode is not in fact contrary to the modes which make benefit of tumults, because the context here is a foreign power holding a “divided city,” not the institutions which are conducive to republican freedom. Machiavelli ultimately rejects this mode, but only because it is not immediately possible in modern times. In his explanation, he refers us back to his first preface, and “the weakness into which the present religion has led the world” (I.pref.2):

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

95

Because such executions have in them something of the great and the generous, however, a weak republic does not know how to do them…. These are among the errors I told of at the beginning…. But the weakness of men at present, caused by their weak education and their slight knowledge of things, makes them judge ancient judgments in part inhuman, in part impossible. (III.27.2)

A similar judgment applies in the case of tumults early in the book. Just as then, here it is “modern opinions” that are to blame, and which are the source of the alternatives to “hold[ing] states with force and with virtue” (III.27.3). In each case there is a squeamishness, fostered by our education, about violent or disruptive events, and a judgment that good order, and the nature of things, must preclude, even forever shut off, certain possibilities of action. Why are men weak, their education weak, and their knowledge of things slight? Again, we must recur to Machiavelli’s assertion in the first preface that the present religion has led men into the judgment that “imitation” of ancient things “is not only difficult but impossible.” This judgment amounts to a belief that the cycle of regimes (I.2.3–4), wherein strong states and strong men become weak, has ceased to operate, that the same conditions no longer apply as in the past. Machiavelli’s praise of tumults, and his argument that they are at root, and even the product of strong education, is part of his attempt to restore understanding of this cycle, either to restart it, and thus to bring weak states and weak education around again to a strong condition, or else to halt the decline of the present regime and, making use of the modern religion and education, to halt the decline into weakness and create a perpetually strong regime.37 We will have occasion to address these different arguments about Machiavelli’s intention for the cycle in the next section. For now, it is enough to say that Machiavelli wishes to connect the idea of education to strength, energy, and the martial virtues, and that he gives his attention not so much to the content of education, which in any case will be the virtues of the regime, but to its conditions. Good education for the Romans was predicated upon tumults, upon the venting of humors. We see further evidence of this focus on conditions or foundations in education in Machiavelli’s second reference to education, in his chapter, “Of the Religion of the Romans” (I.11). Here, he distinguishes between 37 See Discourses, I.2 with Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 38–41.

96

J. PETERSON

Romulus, who gave Rome “its birth and education,” and Numa, who gave it its religion. He does not explain here what education means apart from religion or why he has here separated them where elsewhere he has conflated or combined them in the same expression.38 The thrust of the chapter seems to give the responsibility for Rome’s “happiness” and “good orders” to religion (I.11.4), but if religion did all this, what did education contribute? Or are we to understand what while Romulus gave Rome its first education, Numa gave Rome its second and lasting one with its religion? In any case, Machiavelli seems to say that what Numa contributed was much greater, “for where there is religion, arms can easily be introduced, and where there are arms and not religion, the latter can be introduced only with difficulty” (I.11.2). Religion would then seem to be more selfsufficient than arms, and the introduction of religion—whether or not this constitutes a second education—the greater task. But Romulus introduced arms, along with “the Senate” and “other civil and military orders,” before Numa introduced religion. For Romulus “the authority of God was not necessary,” while for Numa it was; thus Romulus was more selfsufficient, and his task more fundamental. Furthermore, the subsequent argument indicates that Numa had the easier task: “since those times were full of religion… he could easily impress any new form whatever on them” (I.11.3). Given what was said by Machiavelli above, does this mean that Romulus was actually the founder of the religion and Numa of its arms? In any case, “the fear of a prince… supplies the defects of religion” (I.11.4); in this sense, Romulus was more necessary than Numa. But once the great prince is gone, something must replace him; the “birth and education” he has given a people must be transformed into a lasting order or regime, something “maintained when he dies” (I.11.5). There may be arms without religion for a time, but religion, or some other order, must come which maintains the order established with arms. The one who orders this new order, unlike the first founder, cannot rely, as Romulus did, on his own authority; Numa “doubted that his authority would suffice” for his new orders. Such is the difficulty for anyone who proposes a new order. Change is difficult, because “men are born, live, and die always in one and the same order.” Nevertheless, a corrupt people can be reordered, can be led to believe in a new order, as the example not

38 Cf. Namazi, 7.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

97

only of Savonarola, but also of Romulus himself, suggests.39 For Machiavelli had written in the previous chapter, “And truly, if a prince seeks the glory of the world, he ought to desire to possess a corrupt city… to reorder it as did Romulus” (I.10.6). The “birth and education” of Rome came from such a reordering, by arms. Savonarola, we know, failed because he was an unarmed prophet40 ; the ending of I.11 suggests that he was unable to reorder Florence because he was, since unarmed, unable to see beyond the limits of the Florentine order. In book 3, in which Machiavelli most takes up the question of private character,41 he contradicts the claim that men stay always in the same order. In the last passage on education in the work, Machiavelli writes of the diversity of families in the same city (III.46), adding to the diversity he has already considered that exists between cities (III.43). How does it come to pass that different families, existing under what would appear to be the same regime, have such different qualities? The answer: these differences “come from the diverse education of one family from another.” Distinct educations do not consist of distinct curricula, or distinct content, but the encouragement of different passions. Hence, “the Manlii were hard and obstinate, the Publicoli kind men and lovers of the people, the Appii ambitious and enemies of the plebs….” These are not differences of argument or even of virtue, but of temperament, and arise from “hear[ing] good or bad said of a thing” from an early age, which forms one’s character and “afterward regulates of the mode of proceeding in all the times of his life.” While it would certainly seem that Machiavelli thinks that such modes are fixed (see III.43 on his conflation of the custom of a people with its nature),42 his encouragement of the study of history, and furthermore, his move between III.43 and III.46 from “the Same Nature for All Times” within “One Province” to “the diverse education” of different families within “One City,” are indicate otherwise. For the choice of education is not indifferent, and one more than another is likely to render one able to adjust one’s modes or at least to use that mode which most allows one to recognize and flourish in

39 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 72. 40 The Prince, VI, 24. 41 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 97. 42 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 428.

98

J. PETERSON

different circumstances.43 In an earlier chapter which we have already considered (“Strong Republics and Excellent Men Retain the Same Spirit and Their Same Dignity in Every Fortune”), Machiavelli wrote that an education that is not “weak and vain” can make one “a better knower of the world” (III.31.3), and thus less subject to fortune, less likely to be ruled by one’s passions, to become insolent or abject. A people can be “made to that perfection that [a republic’s] mode of life has.” It is unclear what such a mode, which includes knowledge of the world, including knowledge of history, would mean for “many who live in one and the same republic.” In what way would the diversity of human types, and knowledge of different peoples and places in history, be manifest within a republic? Something like the diversity of the Roman regime comes to mind: it contains “modes” for “diverse humors” to be expressed; at different times, one or the other can get the upper hand (I.4). This, Machiavelli argues, is conducive to freedom, even to the ascendancy of truth, since the people are likely to yield to “some good man who in orating demonstrates to them how they deceive themselves.” The republic with a good mode of life and a good education allows iterations of different passions and even different regime-principles to have expression even while remaining “one and the same republic.” The good man, for his part, has “experience of present things” and “knowledge of ancient things” (I.pref.1); he can say, with Tennyson’s Ulysses, “Much have I seen and known; cities of men/ And manners, climates, councils, governments.”44 The good republic, after his example, may teach not only its own history, but the history of other peoples. At least, in a bad order, where “vice… reigns,” he will “teach others”: “For it is the duty of a good man to teach others the good that you could not work because of the malignity of the times and of fortune” (II.pref.3). So says our new and better Cola Montano. At the end of the chapter on religion, Machiavelli writes, after mentioning Savonarola’s spectacular success but eventual failure, that “men are born, live, and die always in one and the same order” (I.11.3). He says that this “was said in our preface.” There is no direct corollary there, but he is likely referring to his remark that “neither prince nor republic may be found that has recourse to the examples of the ancients”

43 Cf. The Prince, XXV, 99. 44 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” lines 13–14.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

99

because of some combination or connection between “not having a true knowledge of histories,” “an ambitious idleness,” and “the weakness into which the present religion has led the world” (I.pref.2). Our examination of relevant passages on education have borne out our sense here that these are causally related: the religion, the idleness, and the poor knowledge of histories and human things. However, Machiavelli has also indicated, as he does throughout this preface, that it is in fact possible not to be “born, live, and die always in same order.” Indeed, the preface boldly announces the author’s intention “to take a path as yet untrodden by anyone” and to leave a task for others to complete. But for whom is it possible? Mansfield argues that Machiavelli writes of “one and the same order” in I.11 in order to “persuade his listeners of a ‘new order and opinion.’”45 If so, one must connect this passage with the one in III.31 where he writes of “one and the same republic” which is like the “better knower of the world.” There is no escaping the need for a unifying order, but it can nevertheless incorporate an understanding of the diversity of human types and regimes. Machiavelli opposes the diversity of the ancients, or the mixing of ancient and modern, to the universality of Christianity which insists that the world and the men in it have changed forever.46 Thus we return to the question of the status of the cycle of regimes and the cycle of civilizations in the present: Has Christianity, in fact, managed to end the cycle forever, by somehow changing the nature of human beings and politics? Machiavelli clearly rejects this understanding in his first preface. But has Christianity stalled the cycle, giving the appearance that it is no longer an accurate description of the course of human politics? If so, where on the cycle does Machiavelli find the modern regimes? And what role could education have played in the cycle and the apparent stalling of the cycle, and what role could it play in the future? The answer to these questions also appears clear from what we have already considered: the world is weak, but before was much stronger; the present religion is to blame for its not being led to strength again; and finally, if led to detest the present and imitate the great actions of the past in order to bring about the future,47 the spirited can restart the cycle or at least make the peoples of the present greater “lovers of freedom,”

45 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 72. 46 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 86–87. 47 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 297.

100

J. PETERSON

make them “capable… of doing something strong,” and thus make the mode of present regimes stronger (II.2.2), not only by becoming more republican, but also by protecting property and encouraging lawful and salutary rivalries (II.2.3). The chapter of the Discourses from which these last quotations are extracted contains the most sustained explicit treatment of education in Machiavelli’s works. Here we see again the familiar connection between education and religion, but there is also something new: the question of interpretation. He writes that men are now less of “lovers of freedom” than the ancients because they are “less strong,” and they are less strong because of “the difference between our education and the ancient, founded on the difference between our religion and the ancient” (II.2.2). In what way is education “founded on” religion; why speak of both, if they inevitably lead to the same place, and, as in the case of the first preface, the one can be replaced with the other? Here, while they remain almost inextricably connected, we get the root of an answer. Religion amounts to an order of goods, a hierarchy of honors: “our religion… makes us esteem less the honor of the world”; “[o]ur religion has glorified humble and contemplative more than active men” and “placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and contempt of things human.” Education, though, is about actions. The connection between what religion honors and the actions it inspires is indicated by Machiavelli’s use of “wish” (volutare). “Wish” is the gulf between the teaching and the belief, and the reality of what comes to pass. This is indicated at the end of the first section of the chapter—“…freedom that is taken away from you is avenged with greater vehemence than that which is wished to be taken away” (II.2.1)48 —and is carried through as a theme in what follows. First, Machiavelli writes, “And if our religion asks that you have strength in yourself, it wishes you to be capable more of suffering than of doing something strong” (II.2.2). Despite only asking and wishing, the religion has had a real effect, although there is some question in Machiavelli’s teaching about religion as the cause and the weakness into which the world has been led as an effect: “This mode of life thus seems to have rendered the world weak and given it in prey to criminal men”; “the world appears to be 48 Given what follows, does this mean that the present religion only apparently takes away freedom, and thus that its teaching against freedom does not inspire vengeance with the requisite vehemence?

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

101

made effeminate and heaven disarmed” (II.2.2, emphasis added). What intervenes between them is due to interpretation; this “arises,” Machiavelli writes, “more from the cowardice of the men who have interpreted our religion according to idleness and not according to virtue.” Again, here, in providing what he offers as the correct interpretation of the religion, Machiavelli writes of what religion “wishes”: “it wishes us to love and honor [the fatherland] and to prepare ourselves to be such that we can defend it.” Here he connects “educations” to “false interpretations” of the Christian religion, and both to the paucity of republics and the lack of “love of freedom” among peoples. However, the strength of this conclusion is quickly undermined by Machiavelli’s remark which implies that the cause of the false interpretations is rather the successful conquests of the Roman republic, which by destroying the other republics and bringing about peace, have also made the world weak, lessening the vehemence with which peoples might resist tyranny. As the “Roman Empire”—or rather the Roman republic (II.1)49 —successfully brought its neighbors to servitude and brought them peace and thus made them weak, so the Roman Church has brought servitude and peace and made peoples weak.50 Machiavelli has his own wish to replace the wish of “our religion,” that is, a new interpretation of what actions the religion commands. This is seen in his “wish” that “the example of the Samnites” would be “enough” of an example of what he means by the connection between religion, education, and the weakness of the world” (II.2.3). If this example suffices, then we can learn from ancient examples lessons for modern actions, and we can deliberate about the problems presented by the new Roman religion by reference to Roman empire. Furthermore, one would take as a model not “some barbarian prince, a destroyer of countries and waster of all the civilizations of men”—the Roman emperor, or Christ himself, prince of the Roman Church?—but one who “has within himself human and ordinary orders” and will leave to his subjects “all their arts and almost all their ancient orders.” Rather than the admonition to be Christlike,51 and thus to endure “their beatings,” men will think “of avenging them” (II.2.2). Machiavelli will accept the universal principality of Christianity if it can be

49 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 196. 50 Mansfield, New Modes and Orders, 197. 51 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 175.

102

J. PETERSON

interpreted as “human and ordinary,” and only if it is so interpreted can we gain any “utility” from the study of “histories” (I.pref.2). Machiavelli’s “wish” for a new education must contend with the learning that is characteristic of his time. It is not merely a question of providing a new interpretation of Christianity, for interpretations are in themselves theoretical and not immediately translated to action, and what he wishes for are actions conducive to the freedom and good order of peoples. In the most famous part of Florentine Histories, that is, the beginning of book V, he connects the cycle of regimes to learning, and there we see that “letters come after arms” and “captains arise before philosophers”; it is the “honorable leisure” of “letters” that corrupts “well-armed spirits” (FH 5.1). What kind of education in letters, then, if any, could rather form “well-armed spirits”? It seems that the study of ancient philosophy and letters popular among certain of Machiavelli’s Renaissance contemporaries is characteristic of the decline, rather than the restoration, of the strength of regimes. Far from a “rebirth,” it is a pleasant sign of death: we are not doing anything great now, and so must dwell in the past, collecting ancient manuscripts as so many lifeless busts and portraits to put on display. Machiavelli, by contrast, is interested in great actions in the present. However, it is not enough to say that he eschews letters in favor of arms, for he clearly thinks there is much to learn from the past. It is rather that the past must be treated as if it has bearing upon the present; it must be used to make the future through action. As Strauss writes, “The purpose of the Discourses is not simply to bring to light the ancient modes and orders but above all to prove that they can be imitated by modern man.”52 Accordingly, Machiavelli’s revolutionary classical education must not only include the study of ancient texts, especially works of history, but also a focus on the circumstances of the present, and not only through vicarious study, but also through direct experience, that is statesmanship and revolutionary action. These are paired in both of the initial texts of his chief works: “continuous reading [or knowledge] of ancient things” and “long experience with modern [or present] things.”53 The fruit of that education is not the monk or the philosopher but the statesman who

52 Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 86. 53 The Prince, Dedicatory Letter; and Discourses, I, preface.

MACHIAVELLI’S REVOLUTIONARY CLASSICAL EDUCATION

103

has knowledge of many regimes, including and especially his own, and who knows his own not as one of many, but as his peculiar challenge and responsibility. When it is “clearer than the sun” that “vice… reigns,” that responsibility becomes to learn and practice the spiritual art of war (II.pref).54

54 Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 211, 268–269; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 35, 102, 172; Discourses, III.39; Prince, XIV.

Bacon’s Transformation of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Education of Bacon Ian Dagg

Socratic insight can be described as knowledge of what one does not know. In his self-presentation to the Athenians in Plato’s Apology, Socrates claims that he discovered this peculiar quality about his wisdom from the oracle at Apollo, albeit indirectly. Now, there is reason to think that the oracle at Apollo is a more respectable variation of the daimonion of Socrates.1 Just as the oracle at Apollo seems to represent the intrusion of the voice of a god on human thought, so the daimonion represents instinct or the way a thought comes when “it” wishes.2 The daimonion is effectually indistinguishable from instinctual experience. It is our link to the “granite of spiritual fatum… at the bottom of us.”3 Socrates, as the paradigmatic representative of rationalism, first comes to sight as one who favors reason at the expense of instinct; upon reflection, we might conclude that his moderate claim to knowledge of ignorance is grounded 1 Leo Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1983), 46–47. 2 Compare with Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 17. 3 Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 231.

I. Dagg (B) Classical Education, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_6

105

106

I. DAGG

in his awareness of the merely partial accessibility of instinct.4 By contrast, Cartesian natural science aims to provide a method that will allow the scientist to abstract himself from that which is studied. The Cartesian method takes thought (and motion) for granted. By abstracting from the individual, it abstracts from the instinct of the individual. Accordingly, it aims to replace knowledge of ignorance with scientific knowledge. By taking thought for granted and abstracting from the individual, Cartesian natural science encourages hyper-rational claims, claims that are rooted in a forgetfulness of instinct and sense perception. It allows one to say that a “this” of our experience is really a “that,” for example, our experience of color is really electromagnetic radiation among a particular range of wavelengths. As long as this abstraction is firmly held to be an abstraction that is made for the sake of predicting the motion of beings and controlling them, no harm is done to our ability to think clearly. The problem is that the method’s success in predicting and controlling makes it all too easy to forget that the abstraction requires thought which itself is grounded in instinct and human perception, which is to say that knowledge of ignorance is sacrificed to the extent that scientific knowledge is held to be knowledge. While Descartes is largely responsible for establishing the foundation of the way scientists investigate nature through a process of quantification, the basic transformation of the way in which we investigate nature by abstracting from the individual originates not with Descartes, but with Francis Bacon. It might be surprising to turn to an investigation of Bacon regarding the foundations of natural science in a collection of essays devoted to “the regime and education,” but Bacon does not make the choiceworthiness of a particular type of regime over others thematic. In fact, it may very well be impossible to determine the answers to basic questions about regime, such as whether he preferred republicanism or monarchy.5 Silence regarding basic political questions such as regime preference seems to imply some level of indifference to questions directly linked to the theme “regime.” The same could not be said for “education.” Bacon aimed to make sweeping changes within education that would lead to a transformation of the way that we think. In this sense, Bacon might remind us 4 Michael Davis, The Music of Reason (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 128. 5 Howard White, “Francis Bacon,” in History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed., eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 372.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

107

of Christianity. While Christianity aims for a comprehensive shift in our relationship with the world, it expresses formal indifference to regime type. The formal indifference of Christianity in this regard is linked to the formal indifference on Bacon’s part regarding regime type. Finally, if natural science obscures knowledge of ignorance, it also undercuts our attachment to Christianity. Bacon intended both of these changes. It is the aim of this essay, first, to show in what way Bacon intended to change public education, and, second, to show why he wanted to do this. In this way, we will gain insight into both his transformation of public education and the different manner in which he educates a small minority of his readers, or the difference between what I will call his public education and his private education. This essay will focus on Bacon’s The Two Books of Francis Bacon of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning Divine and Human, perhaps as opposed to another likely choice, The New Organon. The Advancement of Learning is devoted to broad changes to the educational system as it has been passed down to Bacon, while The New Organon is devoted to establishing the inductive method that Descartes will perfect with applied mathematics; the purpose of The New Organon is governed by the broader purpose of The Advancement of Learning. Finally, Bacon himself considered this work worthy of being republished. While Bacon wrote The Advancement of Learning in 1605, he republished the work in Latin as De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum in 1623.6 Bacon’s educational project is sweeping. To be devoted to natural science as it is practiced today requires that one avoid both metaphysical and theological inquiry. To understand the success of Bacon’s transformation, therefore, we must understand how he neutralized Aristotelian metaphysical inquiry and tamed Christianity, that is, we must understand 6 While van Malssen prefers De Augmentis Scientarum on the grounds that Bacon himself claimed it was an expanded and enriched version of Advancement of Learning, Jerry Weinberger prefers the original version on the grounds that “Bacon admitted that in preparing the translation to be read in ‘all places’ he had acted as his own Index expurgatorius: throughout the whole of the De augmentis, Bacon omitted all comments offensive to the Church of Rome.” For the reason given by Weinberger, namely, that “the problems of religion and Christianity, including Roman Catholic Christianity, are central to Bacon’s teaching,” I will be referring to the 1605 work. Compare Tom van Malssen, The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon: On the Unity of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press), xi with Jerry Weinberger, Science, Faith, and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 10–11.

108

I. DAGG

why Bacon’s work was appealing to the same generation that executed the cosmologist Giordano Bruno. One could say that Bruno lacked tact, a tact that Bacon possessed. Rather than openly attack Scholasticism, Bacon presented his educational transformation in such a way that made it seem to be consistent with Scholasticism. Part of Bacon’s strategy is to separate theological and metaphysical considerations from natural investigation to such an extent that the former can have no bearing on the latter; if this separation can be achieved, then transformation and advancement in natural investigation can be rendered inoffensive to Scholastics and other authorities. Bacon begins his formal discussion of philosophy in the following way: “The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.”7 The majority of Bacon’s readers may be expected to conclude that divine revelation not only has the dignity of knowledge, but is a full half of the knowledge accessible to man. Bacon elaborates what he means when speaking of two fountains of knowledge by clarifying what is meant by the light of nature and denying that “teaching” falls under either divinity or philosophy: “The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses: for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original; as in a water that besides his springhead is fed with other springs and streams.”8 The two “originals” are “divinity and philosophy” (83). Divine revelation, then, is not to be thought of as a kind of teaching or conflated with what must be thought of as merely human teaching. That divine revelation is considered distinct from “teaching” speaks to the dignity of divine revelation, and the dignity accorded to divine revelation must have been of comfort to many of Bacon’s readers. However, to claim that teaching is distinct from both sources of knowledge on the grounds that it is cumulative should raise an uncomfortable question: is it not the case that divine revelation is cumulative? If there is progress within Old Testament prophecy, and if the New Testament is a significant movement away from the teaching of an eye for an eye, then the brute fact of divine revelation, even if accepted as genuinely from a divine source,

7 All parenthetical references are to Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. G.W. Kitchin (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2001). 8 Cf. van Malssen, 96.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

109

cannot be held to be original in Baconian terms. Bacon reassures one type of reader even while provoking a different type of reader to wonder why divine revelation must be accomplished in stages.9 Initially, when providing an overview of the parts of learning, Bacon had divided the parts into six groups: human learning as related to memory (history), imagination (poesy), and reason (philosophy), and divine learning according to the same division in which prophecy correlates to memory, parable to imagination, and holy doctrine or precept to reason (68). Now, when Bacon turns to knowledge and breaks knowledge down into the two groups of divinity and philosophy, he would seem to be adhering to his initial plan. Accordingly, we might expect Bacon to turn to divinity understood as holy doctrine or precept and to explain why divinity now understood as inspired by divine revelation (operating on reason) is distinct from prophecy, which is merely a divine history (68 with 83). Bacon does not do this. He breaks philosophy down into divine philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy and, after covering first philosophy—an unexpected addition to the plan—claims that he will not cover “Divinity or inspired theology” until the end of the work on the grounds that it is “the haven and Sabbath of all man’s contemplations” (87 with 83). That he would do this seems to indicate that he has a great amount of respect for revealed theology; surely anyone who skips to and skims the end of the work will walk away with this impression. That being said, by fracturing the structure in this way, the treatment of “sacred and inspired divinity” occurs directly after the sections on rhetoric, morality, and civil knowledge (193). Is the structure of the work distorted out of piety or for some other reason? It is at least possible (and I will present arguments as to why I think this is the case) that the placement of sacred and inspired divinity is not itself so much a rigorous adherence to the logic of the plan, but a rhetorical, moral, and political consideration.10

9 Bacon’s use of the poetic “two fountain” image occurs immediately after his discussion of “poesy,” which “being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined; and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things” (80). In truth, one couldn’t possibly separate divine and natural knowledge because the possibility of miracles imposes or would impose on what can be known by the light of nature. 10 To this extent, the work of Bacon resembles works of Alfarabi and Maimonides in which the location of a topic is almost as important as what is said about that topic.

110

I. DAGG

To begin to show this, we must look at what Bacon says about first philosophy. First philosophy is, strictly speaking, an unexpected interruption in the initial plan of the work that doesn’t fall, in Bacon’s scheme, within the category of philosophy or holy doctrine or precept; instead, it is introduced as governing both divinity and philosophy: “it is good… to erect and constitute one universal science, by the name of philosophia prima, primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves,” that is, first philosophy serves as a “stem” grounding, among other things, the division of knowledge into the initial branches of divinity and philosophy (83, cf. 68). Bacon rather comically clarifies what he means by first philosophy as follows: “Therefore, because in a writing of this nature, I avoid all subtlety, my meaning touching this original or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by negative: That it be a recptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences but are more common and of a higher stage” (84). Bacon’s definition hardly teaches us about the content of first philosophy, but it does nevertheless appear to amount to a serious transformation and denigration of what first philosophy would have been considered prior to his writing: the investigation of being as being. Bacon continues to shed light on what he means by first philosophy by asking a string of questions: (1) Isn’t it true both in mathematics as well as justice that equals to unequals yields unequals and that, therefore, commutative and distributive justice correspond to arithmetical and geometrical proportions? (2) Doesn’t the rule stating that things equal to one another are equal apply not only to mathematics but also to logic? (3) Isn’t it the case that the philosophic claim that the quantum of nature is eternal amounts to the same claim in natural theology that the same omnipotency that would be required to make something nothing made nothing something, which in turn amounts to the same claim in Scripture that all the works of God will endure forever and that we cannot add to or take away anything from them? (4) Doesn’t Machiavelli’s claim that the way to establish and preserve governments is to reduce them to the beginnings hold in religion and nature as well? (5) Isn’t Persian magic a reduction or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature to the rules and policies of governments? (6) Doesn’t the precept of the musician to fall from discord to concord apply to affection as well? (7) Isn’t the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, similar to the trope of rhetoric

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

111

of deceiving expectation? (8) Isn’t the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water? (9) Aren’t the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflection, such as glass (84–85)? Bacon’s string of questions lack logical rigor and are rhetorically constructed to leave the impression in the reader’s mind that there is a remarkable concordance and unity among the whole. It is easy to lose focus and glide over this section; any question regarding the status of divinity as a separate branch of this overarching first philosophy is likely to be forgotten by the time the book concludes with the putatively comforting and rousing affirmation of Scripture at the end of the work. The overall impression of most readers is likely going to be that the Biblical God supports a unified whole, the parts of which cleanly line up next to each other in an orderly fashion. That being said, Bacon provides no further clarification as to how advancements in first philosophy may be made. The subject of first philosophy is raised only to be forgotten, as questions of metaphysics seem to have been forgotten by natural scientists today. One is left with the comforting thought that the unity, stability, and fundamental correlation of all things with each other are supported by God, something that might seem to be necessarily the case if the pursuit of scientific knowledge is to be viable. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that Bacon’s rhetorical accomplishment does not, at this point, reach the height of being a theoretical accomplishment. The third question in particular is designed to show Bacon’s more alert readers why there is, in fact, incredible tension between the philosophic position and the Biblical position. To illustrate the philosophic position that the “quantum of nature is eternal,” Bacon cites Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15.165): “omnia mutantur, nil interit,” that is, all things change, nothing is destroyed (84). In the context of the Metamorphoses, the philosopher Pythagoras makes this statement to reinforce his claim that the soul does not go out of existence with death, that is, he claims to have been other men in past times, and this actually makes a fair bit of sense. If it is truly the case that nothing is created or destroyed, then this would have to include the source of individual life. To put this differently, whatever the relationship between the body and the soul is, if nothing is created or destroyed then the soul loses its quality of radical independence. The philosophic teaching of eternity undercuts the independence of the person that seems to be required by

112

I. DAGG

claims to moral responsibility and is completely at odds with the Christian claim that each individual has a unique soul. The claim presented in Ovid is, in fact, contradicted by the claim Bacon makes on behalf of natural theology, that the same Omnipotency that makes something out of nothing can return something to nothing. In the extreme case, it would not even make sense to speak of the “same” Omnipotency. To speak of the “same” Omnipotency is to indicate that the Omnipotency has a fixed character or nature; however, this would be a kind of limitation. In the extreme case, once one has declared something omnipotent, nothing more can be said; to be genuinely omnipotent, the Omnipotency cannot be limited by fixed qualities. Surely an omnipotent being that could create out of nothing could also change the nature of something or perform miraculous transformations. The existence of such a being would call into question the stability of any natural limitations and restrict scientific claims to knowledge. Finally, turning to Bacon’s third false equivalency within the question, Bacon cites Eccl. 3:14 out of context in such a way that implies eternity as distinct from creation out of nothing. This is clearly not the Christian position; to say the least, Bacon could have cited Eccl 3:11, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end,” to imply creation. Bacon does not hide or ignore the question of eternity or creation out of nothing; instead, he blurs the distinction between the two and makes us forget about the tension between them. If the string of questions illuminating first philosophy seems to imply that the whole is wonderfully united within itself in such a way as to allow for unity even between the different parts of learning, then first philosophy is a relatively uninteresting affirmation of this unity. However, when the tension in the third example is given its proper due, the study of first philosophy becomes the extraordinarily important inquiry into the possibility of knowledge and the status of God. Bacon cannot make this question thematic or even explicit without subverting his rhetorical alignment with Christianity; by contrast, if Bacon gave no indication that this problem was a problem, then he would have to be regarded as either a fanatic or as one unaware of what is at stake in the transformation he intends to effect, that is, he would be taken less seriously by his most intelligent readers. Bacon writes in such a way that appeals to the concerns of different types of readers, and his last citation in the section on first philosophy implies that he knowingly avoids openly discussing the fundamental

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

113

problem. He supports his rhetorical question “Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water?” with a citation from Aeneid: “splendet tremulo sub luminae pontus” or “under her [the moon’s] quivering light the sea glitters” (85). The context in which this apparently innocuous citation occurs is the circumvention of the island of Circe by Aeneas and his fleet, that is, just as Virgil indicates that Aeneas does not come to have the same insight into nature as Odysseus—Odysseus learns about nature from Hermes on the island of Circe, where he discovers both philosophy and what it is to be human—so Bacon’s citation is a melancholy acknowledgment of the narrowing intellectual landscape his project will bring about by attaching itself to Christianity, that is, Bacon’s public education appeals to the religious passions just as much as Christianity does and simply channels them in a different direction.11 After his treatment of first philosophy, Bacon briefly discusses divine philosophy or natural theology in the form of a digression, for which he apologizes: “whereunto I have digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy hath received and may receive, by being commixed together; as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy” (86). Most readers will take this to mean that natural theology is not a fruitful area of inquiry to the extent that it differs from what is revealed in Scripture; according to Bacon’s public education, one can and should pass over natural theology for the authority of Scripture. By contrast, a close analysis of this short section reveals an unbridgeable gap between natural theology and the revealed religion of the Bible. Bacon shows that natural theology is in principle unequipped to recognize (or deny) a miracle as a miracle: “The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince atheism, but not to inform religion: and therefore there was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God: but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God.” Precisely because miracles are supernatural, one would have to know the boundaries of the natural to know what is miraculous. To 11 Holly Haynes, “Empire as Wasteland, or Seth Benardete with Ronald Syme,” in The Eccentric Core: The Thought of Seth Benardete, eds. Ronna Burger and Patrick Goodin (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2018), 193.

114

I. DAGG

accept an event one has experienced or heard about as a miracle, one must already believe in a being or beings able to operate outside of nature, that is, without knowledge of natural boundaries, putative miracles—regardless of whether the event in question is believed to have happened or not—only confirm what is already believed as believed. This means that the God of natural theology cannot be the God of Scripture: “the heathen opinion differeth from the sacred truth; for they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be an extract or compendious image of the world, but the Scriptures never vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour” (86).12 Bacon shows what follows from natural theology’s degradation of the status of miracles by discussing angelology, “which is an appendix of theology both divine and natural, and is neither inscrutable nor interdicted; for although the Scripture saith, Let no man deceive you in sublime discourse touching the worship of angels, pressing into that he knoweth not, etc., yet notwithstanding if you observe well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be two things only forbidden, adoration of them, and opinion fantastical of them, either to extol them further than appertaineth to the degree of a creature, or to extol a man’s knowledge of them further than he hath ground.” It seems as though anyone who accepts the authority of the Bible must believe that angels are messengers of God. Bacon himself grounds the existence of angels on the authority of the Bible. Where does this leave natural theology? “But the sober and grounded inquiry, which may arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures, or out of the gradations of nature is not restrained. So of degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing with them or the employment of them is prohibited, more any veneration towards them; but the contemplation or science of their nature, their power, their illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a part of spiritual wisdom.” What Bacon has done is claim that angels may be inquired into either on the authority of Scripture or through the natural light of reason, but he had previously shown that the God of Scripture cannot be the God of the light of reason. This means that according to the light of reason Biblical angels couldn’t possibly be interpreted as Biblical angels, which is to say that to the extent that one even believed they existed outside of speech, they would come to sight simply as “evil spirits” or as “fabulous and fantastical”

12 Cf. van Malssen, 110–113.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

115

(87). We must go further: if the God of Scripture is distinct from the God of natural theology, then all authoritative claims in Scripture must be thought of in the same terms as the angels. Following this thought through to its extreme conclusion leads to the stern refusal to regard as relevant to the fundamental question not only hearsay claims, but also even personal experiences of apparent miracles, including divine revelation. From the light of nature, the experience of divine revelation, for example, supporting not only Scriptural claims, but any claims contrary to the light of nature would be interpreted as insanity, confusion, interaction with an extraordinarily powerful being, etc. A less extreme variation of this thinking is that, at least under certain circumstances, the same experience that a Christian would interpret as angelic would be interpreted by a Muslim as demonic and vice versa. We have seen that how one interprets any miracle or purported miracle is predicated on what one already believes; while Bacon’s straightforward claim that the God of natural theology and that of Scripture are distinct shows that it is not controversial to observe that the two positions are in disagreement with one another, the extreme position that follows from thinking through the root of this disagreement, prompted by Bacon’s remarks on angelology, is quite controversial. While Bacon’s public education aims to downplay and disregard natural theology, his private or hidden education helps us understand the problem raised in the section on first philosophy by showing why the light of reason is irreconcilable with Scripture. Bacon turns next to “natural philosophy,” which he divides into two distinct parts, their “more familiar and scholastic terms” being “speculative, and operative; natural science, and natural prudence” (87). If these terms remind the reader of Aristotle, this is intentional on the part of Bacon. He formally maintains interest in physics, metaphysics, and Aristotelian causes: material, efficient, formal and final; however, he changes the meanings of all of these terms and even goes so far as to tell that reader that he does this: “I doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and many other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms” (88). If he changes these terms in a way that Scholastics would reject if they understood, why does he expose his public education in this way? His teaching changes too much not to be acknowledged, and Scholastics are not stupid. By acknowledging that he makes changes, he is better able to hide the changes that he wishes to remain hidden. To be specific, while Bacon acknowledges all four of

116

I. DAGG

the Aristotelian causes, albeit in changed form, he does so in such a way that leads to the complete separation and isolation of final cause from the other causes. Furthermore, while he is critical of Aristotle, his criticisms of Aristotle are carefully contrasted with praise of Christianity to hide the fact that his transformations undercut Christianity as much as they undercut Aristotelianism. To put this differently, the public education honors Christianity even as it works to render it irrelevant to human investigation and control. One more point of clarification must be made before turning to Bacon’s transformation of Aristotelian causality in detail, and it is one that Bacon himself draws to our attention: “it appeareth, by that which hath been already said, that I intend philosophia prima, Summary Philosophy and Metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as one, to be two distinct things. For the one I have made as a parent or common ancestor to all knowledge; and the other I have now brought in as a branch or descendant of natural science” (89). This is a demotion of metaphysics. First philosophy, no longer equated with metaphysics, becomes a foundational study rather than the highest, while metaphysics becomes a subset of natural science as distinct from following after it and being of a greater dignity. Where does this leave metaphysics? Baconian physics investigates “that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and Metaphysics that which is abstracted and fixed” or, to use the language of Aristotle, “the one part, which is Physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is Metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes ” (90). Bacon’s treatment of physics means that formal cause has no place in the investigation of natural phenomena, that is, it is not a cause of that which is in motion. Accordingly, each individual being is treated in relation to its stuff and motion, but the class characteristics that make it a particular type of being, say a chair, are abstracted from. When Bacon expresses interest in “differing substances” or “differing qualities and natures,” he is not so much interested in what makes a particular this a chair but to what extent and under what circumstances different arrangements of matter can take on different qualities: “Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay; fire is the cause of colliquation, but respective to wax; but fire is no constant cause either of induration or colliquation: so then the physical causes are but the efficient and the matter” (90). Bacon’s public education, then, is the open reduction of the philosophic attempt to understand how something in motion can

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

117

have not only a stable identity, but even a stable identity that can be discerned in multiple particular beings. To put this differently, Bacon’s reduction amounts to a refusal to consider the relationship between parts and wholes, and this ultimately means a refusal to consider being as being. Bacon’s public education or Baconian enlightenment is not designed to produce philosophers; it is designed to produce public natural scientists. One might be tempted to suppose that Bacon himself misunderstands philosophy, but this temptation should be resisted on the grounds that he provides a private education within his work as well. One indication that he is aware of what is lost by his reduction is simply that he refers to “natural science” when he discusses physics in detail, while he had been referring to “natural philosophy” before he actually described his physics, that is, he acknowledges the distorting effect of his change by a change in name (87 and 88). Furthermore, he introduces his statement about fire by citing a passage from Virgil’s Eclogues (8.80) that refers not only to the way that fire but also love can assimilate to both the hard and the soft. If love is a motion of soul toward something experienced as beautiful, that is, toward something manifested as a unique and shining whole, then by drawing our attention to and dropping love, Bacon shows not only that he is aware of what he is doing, but also that he is aware that the natural science he is publicly advocating is not philosophy.13 Regarding Baconian metaphysics, Bacon transforms formal cause to such an extent that we can consider Baconian natural science a rejection of the investigation of formal cause; Bacon transforms formal cause into an investigation of the laws of nature. He begins by attacking Plato’s public presentation of forms: Plato “lost the real fruit of his opinion, by considering of Forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter; and so turning his opinion upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is infected” (91). Bacon proposes to keep forms attached to matter and uninfected by theology; he implies that he will keep formal cause uninfected not only by natural theology but certainly also by divine theology. However, he begins his description of forms by excepting man from consideration, and he does this on Biblical grounds citing, on the one hand, the distinction between fish and land animals in Genesis 1:20, 24, and, on the other hand, man at Genesis 2:7; when citing 2:7, however, Bacon drops the last part of the

13 Weinberger, 255.

118

I. DAGG

verse, “man became a living soul.” Bacon’s omission draws our attention to what is not being investigated by the new natural science: the soul of man. He assures the reader that he affirms the special status of human beings on Biblical grounds, thus indicating that the new science neither rejects Biblical authority nor endangers it. His assurance contributes to his public education’s alignment of the new science with Christianity; however, he provides this assurance immediately after he has accused Plato of infecting his investigation of formal cause with (natural) theology! If the special status of the human is affirmed only on divine authority, then the new natural science, as natural science, denies the special status of the human. Bacon’s reduction of natural philosophy to natural science abstracts from the grounds on which one would investigate the human as human: Platonic “what is” questions that themselves abstract from motion and time. Once one makes the Baconian abstraction that which supports the special status of human beings can only be divine theology. However, the flip side of this is that when one realizes that humans can be subjected to Baconian natural science, this realization has the effect of undercutting Biblical authority on the grounds that the claim it makes is contrary to what natural science shows. Regarding the actual transformation of formal cause, Bacon rejects the investigation as it stands: “the Forms of substance, I say, as they are now by compounding and transplanting multiplied, are so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired; no more than it were either possible or to purpose to seek in gross the Forms of those sounds which make words, which by composition and transposition of letters are infinite. But on the other side, to inquire the Form of those sounds or voices which make simple letters is easily comprehensible; and being known, induceth and manifesteth the Forms of all words, which consist and are compounded of them.” As we immediately see, formal causality is no longer investigated as that which establishes the class characteristic among particulars: “In the same manner to inquire the Form of a lion, of an oak, of gold, nay, of water, of air, is a vain pursuit: but to inquire the forms of sense, of voluntary motion, of vegetation, of colours, of gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of heat, of cold, and all other natures and qualities, which like an alphabet, are not many, and of which the essences, upheld by matter, of all creatures do consist” (91). The new investigation of formal cause, today understood as investigation of laws of nature, is of what is not unique to a given class of beings.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

119

The investigation of formal cause is “most excellent” for two reasons: “it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of individual experience” and “it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects” (92–93). This first reason quickly becomes an affirmation of Christianity by presenting natural philosophy as a pyramid in which Christianity is placed at the top: “the basis is natural history; the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical is metaphysic. As for the vertical point, opus quod operatur Deus a principio usque ad finem [the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end], the summary law of nature, we know not whether man’s inquiry can attain unto it” (92). In what has become a typical conflation of the Biblical and the natural, Bacon takes on Biblical authority to place the summary law of nature as the peak of natural science. From the standpoint of his public education, one that aims to make his natural science in tune with Christianity, this is entirely appropriate; however, his use of the Bible can hardly be considered pious. The passage he cites is Eccl. 3:11: “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” This is to say that Bacon’s claim seems to be that we don’t know if man can attain this knowledge without the aid of revealed religion, but his claim is presented in a cheeky way that runs contrary to the emphatic statement in Ecclesiastes. Bacon submits to Christianity, but he doesn’t simply submit to Christianity. He submits to power rather than authority: “But these three be the true stages of knowledge, and are to them that are depraved no better than the giant’s hills: ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam, Scilicet atque Ossae frondosum involvere Olympum [thrice they attempted to heap Ossa on Pelion, and then to pile leafy Olympus upon Ossa]. But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as three acclamations, Sancte, sancte, sancte! holy in the description or dilatation of His works; holy in the connection or concatenation of them: and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law” (92). The first citation, from Virgil’s Georgics (1.278), refers to the theomachy that the giants lost to the Olympian gods. The implication is that the example of a failed assault on the gods leads Bacon, like the four beasts in Rev 4:8, never to cease referring all things to the glory of God: hence, holy, holy, holy! Bacon’s “three acclamations” is one of his strongest affirmations of Christianity in the work. Why does he place this affirmation where he

120

I. DAGG

does? The answer is that he needs to counteract the potential damage of the second respect in which metaphysics is “most excellent,” namely, its power to grant man “the greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects” (93). The affirmation of this second excellence could easily be taken for what, in fact, it is: an attempt to remove Christianity’s influence on both theory and politics; a strong affirmation of Christian piety is appropriate particularly at this point as a countermeasure. Indeed, Bacon’s transformation of formal cause and understanding of forms in this new sense opens up the prospect for the “possibility of superinducing that nature upon any variety of matter, or the condition of the efficient” (93). Without the aid of Christianity to provide moral guidelines to the new science, it seems as though the new science will have no limitations to how it is practiced, and we have seen that the practical result of the new science is to undercut Christianity. Where does all of this leave final causation, the second subsection of Baconian metaphysics? As we have seen, it would seem to be the top of the pyramid of learning, mixed with Biblical theology. When Bacon turns to address final causality directly, he claims that he is addressing a misplacement of final causality which has led to a distortion of physical investigation: “For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the server and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery” (93). Bacon illustrates what he means by intermixing by referring to examples drawn without citation from Xenophon’s Memorabilia (1.4.2–8); it is “impertinent” mixing to say of anything that it is for something when providing a physical explanation. The passages alluded to are taken from a context in which Xenophon’s Socrates attempts to convince Aristodemus of humanly rational divine providence in order to prevent this associate of his from making atheistic declarations in public as opposed to trying simply to discover theological truth.14 Bacon’s use of Xenophon can be taken as evidence that Bacon understood that the Socratics’ open theological teaching served a political or salutary purpose, as distinct from his subsequent open and loud criticisms of Plato and Aristotle, which on their own would lead one to question whether he 14 Weinberger, 249. Also see Leo Strauss, Xenophon’s Socrates (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 26 and Thomas Pangle, The Socratic Way of Life: Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 54–55.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

121

understood the intention of those thinkers. Purpose has no place in the kind of inquiry allowed for and made possible by the new natural science: “And therefore the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others (who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune) seemeth to me, as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain unto us, in particularities of physical causes, more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those persons” (94). Bacon’s move amounts to a public return to pre-Socratic inquiry or the complete rejection of ancient political philosophy as a unified inquiry into nature. Why does Bacon merely remove final causation from physical investigation as distinct from simply removing it from the whole realm of public inquiry? The answer is that final causality is intertwined with Biblical theology. To reject final cause wholescale would be to deny space to the final causality of “divine philosophy” or revealed religion. Bacon, therefore, pulls back from his condemnation of final causality when he comes to “Divine Providence” and assures us: “both causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only. Neither doth this call in question, or derogate from Divine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it. For as in civil actions he is the greater and deeper politique, that can make other men the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of God more admirable, when nature intendeth one thing, and Providence draweth forth another, than if He had communicated to particular creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His Providence” (94). Bacon emphatically affirms the providence of God. This affirmation could seem pious and is consistent with making the new natural science palatable to Christians, but by moving in the direction that he does, Bacon simply blurs the distinction between mindless or reasonless Democritian natural philosophy and divine providence. If in principle we do not have access to the workings of divine providence, then for all intents and purposes, that is, from our human perspective, divine providence is mindless. In truth, then, atheistic claims of fundamental mindlessness and Christian claims of mysterious divine

122

I. DAGG

providence amount to the same physical interpretations from the perspective of Baconian natural science; the physical interpretations themselves can have no bearing on the existence and content of divine providence.15 For this reason, even though the new natural science will undercut Christianity, it is, in principle, unable to adjudicate between conflicting claims made on behalf of atheists and Christians. By moving final causality to a place that has no real bearing on our public interpretation of physical and metaphysical causality, Bacon’s treatment of final causality contributes to rendering Christianity irrelevant, and, therefore, contributes to undercutting Christianity as a public force. That being said, the wiggle room given to Christianity under Bacon’s public education leaves room for a dogmatic or fanatical strain of Christianity that one could only meet in conversation by appealing to the kind of Platonic investigation that Bacon publicly rejects. Bacon’s public education aims to sap the political strength of Christianity and weaken most men’s attachment to it; the public education does not aim to deal Christianity a “death-blow” at the level of theory, that is, critical engagement with the theological claims made on behalf of Christianity only occurs in Bacon’s private education or between the lines of his straightforward teaching. Bacon’s project amounts to the loss of self-knowledge as the goal of philosophy, as we see when we turn to the last broad part of philosophy in Bacon’s model, human philosophy or “that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves ” (101). Bacon’s description of human philosophy in reference to the ancient oracle obviously calls to mind the Socratic dialectics associated with selfknowledge; accordingly, one might expect an account that, by eliminating dialectical arguments, summarized in treatise form what could be gained from dialectical inquiry, say, into the relationship between the noble and the good. Bacon does not pretend to do this: “For I do take the consideration in general and at large of human nature to be fit to be emancipate and made knowledge by itself: not so much in regard to those delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which being mixed cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either” (101–102).

15 Cf. Weinberger, 257n33.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

123

Socratic inquiry into the human soul is replaced by a two-fold investigation into “discovery and impression,” of which each branch is itself “double” depending on whether one begins by taking ones bearings by mind or body (102). The public education of Bacon, then, replaces Socratic dialectics with observations of (1) the way in which the disposition of the mind can be reflected in facial expressions and gestures; (2) the way in which dispositions of the body can be discovered by “imaginations of the mind,” that is, in dreams; (3) how the humors of the body alter the mind; (4) how the passions of the mind work upon the body. Now, when one considers the four subgroups that replace Socratic inquiry, one comes to see that what Bacon means by mind is not reason but imagination; Bacon substitutes inquiry into the rational mind with inquiry into the imaginative mind. Bacon helps the reader see that this is the case by going into the most detail on the third point, how the humors of the body alter the mind: “it is an inquiry of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how and how far it alterth the body proper of the imagination” (103). If the ancients are inclined publicly to reduce the passions and the thumotic aspect of human nature to the body while isolating reason in the mind, Bacon publicly maintains the mind/body dichotomy but simply drops reason and separates imagination from body: “And if any man of weak judgment do conceive that this suffering of the mind from the body doth either question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul, he may be taught in easy instances that the infant in the mother’s womb is compatible with the mother and yet separable; and the most absolute monarch is sometimes led by servants and yet without subjection” (103). This appears to be a pious confirmation of the Christian separation of soul and body, but by locating this separation in an imaginative abstraction from reason, Bacon in effect privately argues that the Christian separation is an act of imagination. What Bacon has done confuses the relationships between both body and mind, and imagination and reason. Has Bacon fallen under the sway of the new natural science such that it is the source of his confusion or is he merely demonstrating awareness of the kind of confusion that will arise as the new natural science gains traction and indicating that he finds the rise of such confusion acceptable? Bacon frames his account of self-knowledge with citations from Cicero and Plato that are taken considerably out of context, that is to say, thoughtfully used. Before rejecting “those delightful and elegant discourses,” Bacon, making an argument favoring the unity of knowledge, cites Cicero: “So we see Cicero the

124

I. DAGG

orator complained of Socrates and his school that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art” (101). The citation is taken from Cicero’s De Oratore (3.16), but what Bacon claims is a point of Cicero, is actually spoken by Cicero’s Crassus, that is, Bacon ignores the dialogical context precisely when he says he is going to abstract from “those delightful and elegant discourses” (101). Furthermore, the argument of Crassus is that the Socratic attack on rhetoric led to the fracturing of the party of Socrates to such an extent that a large variety of sects emerged out of the way of Socrates. Crassus doesn’t take issue with the question of which sect is closer to the truth because his concern is which philosophy is best suited to the orator. Bacon cites Cicero in a way that abstracts from dialectics at a point of inquiry devoted to oration at the expense of truth, and his treatment of Plato is similar. He ends his account of self-knowledge with the claim that greater inquiry must be made “which considerth of the seats and domiciles which the several faculties of the mind do take and occupate in the organs of the body; which knowledge hath been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in the liver deserveth not to be despised; but much less to be allowed” (104). Bacon comically treats Plato as an incompetent neuroscientist, as though the relationship between mind and brain is what Plato meant by self-knowledge. In fact, Bacon’s citation is from the Timaeus (69e–70e), and Timaeus rather than Socrates is the speaker. Bacon censures “Plato” for incorrectly placing “anger” in the heart when, in fact, that is where Timaeus had placed manliness (andreia) and spiritedness (thumos ); obviously there is a connection between anger and manliness and spiritedness, but Bacon’s lack of precision here is indicative of the way in which he uses Plato for his own ends. If we expected an account that, by eliminating dialectical arguments, summarized in treatise form what could be gained from dialectical inquiry, again, say, into the relationship between the noble and the good, what Bacon actually presents is a parody of that expectation that abstracts from reason to emphasize imagination; denigrates dialectical inquiry; and indicates that, with the loss of self-knowledge, rhetoric will return to its pre-Socratic heights in importance and dignity. When Bacon does “descend” to the topic of rhetoric, he calls it a “science excellent,” assimilates rhetoric to the Bible, and attacks Plato.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

125

Bacon acknowledges that “in true value it is inferior to wisdom… as it is said by God to Moses.” For the moment we should observe that Bacon refers to Exodus 4:16 in which it is established that Aaron will be the spokesman of Moses; by now it should not be surprising that Bacon conflates wisdom with Biblical wisdom, but the slightly awkward phrase “as it is said by God” instead of the simpler “as God said” might help the reader think about the rhetorical value of assimilation. Despite the true value of (divine) wisdom, “yet with the people it [eloquence] is the more mighty: so Salomon saith, Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet [The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning; Prov: 16:21]; signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active life” (136). Bacon cites Solomon to claim that eloquence is both distinct from and superior to wisdom in an active life. We have already seen that Bacon uses Cicero to begin to rehabilitate the public reputation of rhetoric to its pre-Socratic heights and therefore the active life associated with rhetoric, and we have also seen the reduction of formal cause to laws of nature for the active project of increasing man’s power. If Bacon’s public education is that wisdom is for the sake of action, then, as the active life increases in dignity, so rhetoric increases in dignity. However, the way in which Bacon signifies this through Biblical citation is quite bold: in Prov 16:23, Solomon says that the “heart of the wise teacheth his mouth and addeth learning to his lips,” that is, the actual proverb teaches that (divine) wisdom and rhetoric are joined in such a way that the latter follows from the former, as distinct from being separated in the way that Bacon claims. The boldness of abusing Proverbs in this way becomes clear when one observes that awareness of the context of the second Biblical citation actually undercuts the first Biblical citation referring to Moses, a man who needed Aaron to be his spokesman. Turning to Bacon’s refutation of Plato’s treatment of rhetoric, Bacon observes that “it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out of a just hatred to the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste.” Bacon refers to a passage in Plato’s Gorgias in which rhetoric is compared to cookery, but the remarkable thing about the passage is that, while Socrates does eventually admit that rhetoric is an art, in the passage cited, he denies that it is an art (462b with 511c). This is to say that

126

I. DAGG

Bacon softens “Plato’s” criticism of rhetoric. The Platonic criticism of rhetoric centers on its lack of political responsibility. Rhetoric is a tool that can be used regardless of the decency or indecency of the user; it can be used to undercut the law and serve unjust ends in law courts. Bacon seems to disagree with this interpretation: “it was excellently noted by Thucydides in Cleon, that because he used to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech; knowing that no man can speak fair of courses sordid and base” (137). In the debate about the Mytileneans, Cleon, favoring the bad cause, attacks rhetoric as something that could only serve a bad cause, while Diodotus, favoring the good cause, argues that rhetoric is needed to defend the good cause. Bacon presents himself as siding with Diodotus, but he obscures something about the claims of Cleon: Cleon’s speech attacking rhetoric is itself quite gifted from a rhetorical point of view and is only able to be defused by masterful rhetoric on the part of Diodotus.16 This is to say that the citation literally supports Bacon’s claim, but that its context subverts his argument: while Bacon acts as though rhetoric lends itself to the good or decent cause, the context of his citation indicates that in truth he is aware that rhetoric lends itself just as well to the bad or indecent cause. Morally speaking, his argument that rhetoric is moral is itself immoral and misleading. The public detachment of rhetoric from philosophic investigation into the good points in the direction of an appetitive politics of acquisition; however, unlike Machiavelli, who openly speaks in favor of a politics of acquisition, Bacon hides his politics of acquisition behind Christian charity supported by productive natural science. He follows his typical procedure of publicly assimilating himself to Christianity while criticizing the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. In fact, Bacon establishes a very high moral standard on Christian grounds: “it may be truly affirmed that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular as the Holy Faith… for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematized and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion” (146). It is on the basis of the extreme standard set by Paul, who expresses the charitable willingness to be damned if only the Israelites

16 See van Malssen, 184.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

127

would accept Christ (Rom 9:4), that Bacon not only “decideth the question touching the preferment of the contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle” but also “decideth” controversies among Greek philosophers over tension between pleasure and virtue and private repose and society. Now, after having rejected a private life of pleasant contemplation on the basis of an extreme view of Christianity demanding devotion to public charity, Bacon says that he will “resume private or particular good,” that is, resume his account of the division of private good into passive and active or preserving and multiplying (148). The problem is that he is not returning from a previous point of digression in which he was discussing private good; by acting as though he is, Bacon publicly conflates private and public. Why he does this becomes clear in what immediately follows, but it should be noted that he does this in the context of a refutation of Greek philosophy from the standpoint of charity. Continuing to derive support from Scripture, Bacon argues in favor of the active good: “In the pleasures of living creatures, that of generation is greater than that of food; in divine doctrine, beatius est dare quam accipere [it is more blessed to give than to receive], and in life, there is no man’s spirit so soft, but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality; which priority of the active good, is much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be mortal and exposed to fortune” (149). The Biblical passage refers to Acts 20:35 in which Paul makes the claim that it is better to give than to receive, perhaps on the authority of what is said in Luke 14:12–14, that recompense will follow at the resurrection of the just. On these authoritative grounds, Bacon argues in favor of works of charity, emphasizing that we are mortal: “if we might have a perpetuity and certainty in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price: but when we see it is but magni aestimamus mori tardius [we set great store upon dying late], and ne glorieris de crastino, nescris partum diei [boast not of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth], it maketh us to desire to have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our deeds and works: as it is said, opera eorum sequuntur eos [their works follow them]” (149). The first citation is Roman and the second two are Biblical; Bacon’s claim seems to be supported by the traditional authorities; however, when we look at the context of the citations, the subject becomes the status of the afterlife. The first citation, from Seneca’s Natural Questions (2.59), is part of an argument that one need not fear thunderbolts or an investigation

128

I. DAGG

into them on the grounds that we all eventually die. Seneca’s argument depends, among other things, on there being no afterlife in which we experience great pain or pleasure as a punishment or reward. While the citation from Seneca and the next citation, from Prov. 27:1, seem to mean the same thing, the contexts are drastically different. Finally, the last citation, from Rev. 14:13, in context means that their works follow them into the afterlife as distinct from this world. Where does this leave us? Bacon’s public argument favors charity but within the context of the new natural science, charity will come to mean the works relieving man’s estate in this life. Considering the citations in context leads to the conclusion that Christianity is a kind of ascetic moral hedonism in which Christian charity is for the sake of sempiternal pleasure. Christian charity is a kind of generosity that depends on superfluity, faith that one will find what is needed in the future, or that one will be rewarded in the future on the basis of good works in this life. The moral merit of charity makes one worthy of the afterlife, but the endless pleasure of the afterlife is the genuine desire. Paul’s claim in Romans 9:4 that he would sacrifice his future happiness is an extreme extension of charity that can only be considered confused if the aim of charity is a reward in the afterlife. We have to wonder if Paul would really make the sacrifice he is proposing and, if he would, if he has correctly estimated the value of charity or if it is more likely that Paul makes the offer precisely because the moral merit demonstrated by such an offer gives him confidence that the offer would not be accepted.17 Bacon’s new natural science is oriented by the thought that Christianity represents a political and spiritual tyranny and that the new natural science, to be established successfully, must be assimilated to Christianity. Just as Christianity aims to be independent of regime, so Bacon develops a solution to the problem as he sees it that is itself independent of regime. Bacon undercuts Christianity by attaching himself to it, and when the “Christian scaffolding” falls away, one is left with the attempt to make earth a paradise of bodily pleasure and health through advanced technology. One may be critical of Bacon for doing this, but he did what he did with his eyes open. The private education he offers, located primarily in a comparison of his citations with their initial contexts, shows thoroughgoing contemplation of Christian theology in relation

17 Cf. van Malssen, 158–159.

BACON’S TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY …

129

to the theological arguments made by the ancient Greeks. His public education—the development of a new natural science formally aligned with Christianity—cannot be evaluated properly without considering the private education he offers between the lines of his writing.

Liberalism’s Approximation to the Rule of Wisdom Cole Simmons

It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.—Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819

In the fifth chapter of Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss says that “Locke’s conception of natural right is fundamentally different from Hooker’s,” and by this he means Locke’s view was the result of a “break” with the classical conception of natural right. The philosophers who broke with the ancients are “plebeian philosophers” because they are “nonteleological” (NRH 165–166).1 A nonteleological philosopher is plebeian because he sides with the people, who would not accept the best regime even if a wise man were willing to rule (NRH 143). The plebeian philosophers accommodated this denial by denying the possibility of the best regime. They “deliberately lower the goal of politics; they are no longer concerned with having a clear view of the highest political possibility with 1 Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1965). Parenthetical citations refer to page number.

C. Simmons (B) Univeristy of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_7

131

132

C. SIMMONS

regard to which all actual political orders can be judged in a responsible manner. The ‘reason of state’ school replaced the ‘best regime’ by ‘efficient government.’ The ‘natural public law’ school replaced the ‘best regime’ by ‘legitimate government’” (NRH 191). The non-plebeian, or noble, philosophers taught the doctrine of “closed societies,” wherein a “man can reach the perfection of his nature.” Strauss twice emphasizes that such societies are the results of “supreme efforts toward human perfection.” “Cities do not grow like plants…. They come into being only through human actions” (NRH 131–132). While Locke apparently agrees with the ancients in one respect—“man owes almost everything valuable to his own efforts”—his doctrine lacks the emphasis on cultivation toward natural perfection, on the conscious efforts of generations to obtain the freedom worth living (NRH 248). “Not resigned gratitude and consciously obeying or imitating nature but hopeful self-reliance and creativity become henceforth the marks of human nobility” (NRH 248). So far from cultivating the appetites, Locke does not even seek to restrain them: “the restraint of appetites is replaced by a mechanism whose effect is humane” (NRH 248). Instead of restraining “covetousness and concupiscence,” the Lockean state should “channel” the desires (NRH 247). Ambitious hard-workers will arise “spontaneously,” and their work and achievements will compel “the lazy and inconsiderate to work against their will.” This compulsion is true charity. “Unlimited appropriation without concern for the need of others is true charity” (NRH 243). But the channeling of spontaneous and unrestrained desires is not merely a program for the ruled populace. The rulers labor under the same dispensation: “the only effective guaranty for the rights of the individual is that society be so constructed as to be incapable of oppressing its members: only a society or a government thus constructed is legitimate or in accordance with natural law” (NRH 233 emphasis added). Lockean citizens and rulers are guided by “institutional safeguards,” rather than an education of the mind and cultivation of desire (NRH 233). Locke’s reliance on institutional safeguards means that he is one of the plebeian philosophers. He replaces “regime” with “legitimate government.” This transformation produced two very important aspects of his teaching: he denies the possible legitimacy of absolute rule, and makes

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

133

consent the basis for all legitimate rule.2 He does this in opposition to the ancients who held: It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulation; hence the rule of the wise must be absolute rule. It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to their unwise subjects. To make the ruler of the wise dependent on election by the unwise or consent of the unwise would mean to subject what is by nature higher to control by what is by nature lower, i.e., to act against nature. (NRH 140–141 emphasis added)

Locke rejects the possibility of legitimate absolute rule in chapter 7 of the Second Treatise, and sets down the supremacy of consent in chapter 8. These positions would appear to confirm Strauss’ condemnation of Locke and the moderns generally; however, at least in the case of Locke, he takes up these positions merely esoterically, working to secure a form of rule as near as possible to the absolute rule of wisdom. That is, Strauss’ twofold blame maps nicely onto chapters 7 and 8 of the Second Treatise and is likewise “refuted” in those chapters. What Strauss says about the character of the Lockean regime is largely correct—the industrious and rational men will force the indolent and lazy to change their ways, with the final goal being a very populous and wealthy state. However, Strauss is wrong to say that Locke did not orient his regime toward the best regime and this can be shown through short analyses of chapters 7 and 8.

1

Chapter 7: Absolute Rule

In chapter 7 of the Second Treatise, Locke sets out to distinguish several societies from political society. His procedure, the way he makes these distinctions, shows the reader that absolute rule is meant in two ways and is inseparable from political society. He determines what rule is fitted to what society by the end of the society. Whatever power is necessary for the end of the society is vested in the ruler; whatever powers are not necessary

2 Cf. Robert Goldwin, “John Locke,” in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Joseph Cropsey and Leo Strauss (University of Chicago Press, 1963), 476. “Locke’s own political teaching may be stated in opposite terms [to Filmer’s] but with similar brevity, in this way: All government is limited in its powers and exists only by consent of the governed.”

134

C. SIMMONS

are not authorized. While Locke gives the impression that absolute rule is illegitimate, his procedure shows that it is necessary to political society. Locke’s procedure gives absolute rule two distinct meanings. On the one hand, it is a sort of power, namely, the perpetual power of life and death. On the other hand, it is unchecked power, namely, the authority to judge in one’s own case. These two meanings combined make up the executive power in the state of nature. It is the second sense that is theoretically interesting and what Strauss referred to when he spoke of absolute rule being unhampered rule. This question is not merely, as Strauss puts it, a necessity for the rule of wisdom, but a necessity for rule simply—a necessity which makes wisdom or its approximation all the more urgent in political life. If the ruler or rulers must be judges in their own cases, then for their own sake as well as the sake of the ruled, they need to be guided by wisdom; if no one can tell an independent commonwealth what to do, benefitting itself is up to it alone. The notion that “institutional safeguards” can stave off indefinitely what Locke calls the “final determination” or “appeal to Heaven” is a specifically modern, and Lockean, noble lie. This, in any event, is my thesis for this section. Specifically: Locke distinguishes between non-political societies and political societies in a perplexing way to hide the fact that absolute rule rests with the “community” in the Lockean commonwealth, and he does this in order to identify democratic notions of law with nature, or democracy with legitimate government as-such. As I will show after my short analyses of chapters 7 and 8, this noble lie shapes the regime’s education of the young. The conjugal, the parental, and master/servant societies all have forms of authority suited to them, but the ruler in each case lacks absolute rule understood as the perpetual power of life and death. That is, Locke says these three societies are different from political society and then goes through each one, arguing in each case that the ruler lacks absolute power in the sense mentioned. What banishes absolute rule from them is that these societies do not need it: the ends of the societies do not require it. Couples can justly separate once the children are raised, children grow into adults, and servants’ contracts can be fulfilled (Treatise §§81, 74, 85); the man only has authority by contract over certain common interests which do not extend to the life of the woman; children need “help” and “discipline necessary to their education” which “extends not to their lives;” and servants cannot forfeit their lives through contract (Treatise

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

135

§§82, 65, 85).3 The ruler of a household could not have a power over all of them together that he lacks in each separate case (Treatise §86). Taken separately or taken together, none are political. Locke continues his procedure into the second half of chapter 7, where he explains what distinguishes political society from the household societies. He explains what powers the ruler of a political society possesses according to the end of political society. The reader expects to find an explanation of why the ruler of political society possesses the power the ruler of the household societies lacked, namely, the perpetual power of life and death. Locke fails to fulfill this expectation, and goes further. Unlike the ruler of the household, the political ruler has the executive power that all men possess in the state of nature transferred to him. Therefore, he has the “power not only to preserve his property” but also to “judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself,” and all this according to “his opinion.” This power all men had in the state of nature gets “resigned up” to the ruler, “the community,” which is called by Locke the “umpire”—a word he uses in 4 other places, each time meaning the authority without peer, or more appropriately, the party which is always a judge in its own case (Treatise §§75, 212, 227, 242).4 Locke fulfills the expectation insofar as the political ruler clearly has the power of life and death, because all men in the state of nature have that power. He fails to give the political ruler 3 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 1980). Parenthetical citations refer to section number. 4 Section 75: “Their little properties, and less covetousness, seldom afforded greater

controversies; and when any should arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they had every one been sustained and brought up…” Section 212: “Civil society being a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have … for the ending all differences that may arise amongst any of them…” Section 227 : “… those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion: for if any one by force takes away the established legislative of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage, which everyone had consented to, for a peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of war amongst them.” Section 242: “If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a case, should be the body of the people: for in cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common ordinary rules of the law; there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend?”

136

C. SIMMONS

perpetual authority, though he went to great lengths to deny it belonged to the household ruler. The reader will only learn that political rule can be (but isn’t necessarily) perpetual in chapter 8, section 120. But most interesting of all is how Locke exceeds expectations. Nowhere in his discussion of the household societies did he mention the authority to judge in one’s own case. And yet, it is clear, both from considering the powers “resigned up,” as well as Locke’s pointed use of “umpire,” that the political ruler, which is the community, is the judge in its own case (Treatise §87).5 Which is to say, the political ruler—the community—has absolute power, except it has not yet been said to have its authority perpetually. The only perpetual rule the reader has seen thus far is the rule of the master over the slave (Treatise §85). This unsettling fact will become important in a moment, because Locke intends for the community to have all the powers of the master but over men with property rather than slaves. Locke’s procedure, up until section 90, focuses the reader on absolute power in the sense of a perpetual power of life and death. As I pointed out in the previous paragraph, he indicates in section 87 that there is another aspect to absolute power, the authority to judge in one’s own case—but it isn’t until 90 that he focuses on this. And while he granted that power to the community in 87, he denies its legitimacy in section 90 and following. Before reaching section 90, the reader should have concluded that the difference between the household societies and political society was that no powers were “resigned up” in the household society. The children do not have any executive “powers” until they are adults (Treatise §61). The 5 Locke keeps the status of this absolute community ambiguous. Cf. Francis Edward

Devine, “John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty: Mixed Monarchy and the Right of Resistance in the Political Thought of the English Revolution. By Julian H. Franklin. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Pp. Xi 148. $15.95.),” American Political Science Review 73, no. 3 (Cambridge University Press, 1979): 850. Devine viewed the community as sovereign but only in a limited sense unattached from the exercise of government: “The constituent power lies in the community. This entity is created by the consent of its members to form a government. The community retains its constituent power even after it has established a government.” He means to say the community has an absolute power to withdraw consent and to form government, what Devine calls the “constituent” power. John Scott echoes this confusion: “In fact, Locke never calls the people ‘sovereign.’ He states that ‘there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them.’ Yet, he quickly assures us that while the people are latently ‘supreme,’ they are not actively such as long as government subsists.” Cf. John T. Scott, “The Sovereignless State and Locke’s Language of Obligation,” The American Political Science Review 94, no. 3 (Cambridge University Press, 2000): 548.

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

137

wife and husband do “consent” to a contract, but both retain the executive powers that all men have in the state of nature (Treatise §82). Likewise the servant and even in a certain fashion the slave, who is in the state of war rather than state of nature, retain all their natural powers (Treatise §85). Locke perhaps could have ended the Second Treatise at the end of section 89, having nearly demonstrated what he set out to demonstrate in section 2, namely, “to set down what I take to be political power; that the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave” (Treatise §2 emphasis added). Locke has distinguished the household and political societies, but he has not yet explained the specific meaning for this when it comes to a single magistrate and a single subject. That is the subject of sections 90 through 94. Locke opens section 90 with an assertion that goes against the reader’s understanding of the distinction between the household societies and political society. Locke says “it is evident” that absolute monarchy “can be no form of civil-government” and is “inconsistent with civil society” (Treatise §90). Under absolute monarchy, the “inconveniencies of the state of nature” persist, insofar as there is no “known authority to which everyone of that society may appeal to” in a controversy between a subject and the “absolute prince.” This is confusing because Locke seems to be saying that monarchy is an illegitimate form of government. But Locke claims to be explaining legitimate government as such, rather than recommending a specific regime: “I must be understood all along to mean, not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community” (Treatise §133). And this impression, though clearly given in chapter 10, is a result of his rhetoric throughout the book. We only need to look at the chapter under examination. Not only does he speak of “political society” in chapter 7, he explicitly says things like “wherever there are any number of men, however associated,” and “there, and there only is political society” (Treatise §§89 and 87). And yet in section 90 it appears as if he has ruled all monarchy as illegitimate. If he has not ruled monarchy illegitimate, if perhaps he has only ruled “absolute” monarchy illegitimate, then by what does the monarch become absolute? If, as Locke clearly suggests, that which makes the monarch absolute is his being a judge in his own case, then it would appear that the “community” is absolute in this way as well; which of course, as umpire, it is. Therefore, it is not wrong for the community to possess this power, but for

138

C. SIMMONS

one man to possess this power. In other words, Locke is clearly recommending the rule of several or many, for the purpose of promoting what Strauss called “institutional safeguards,” under the guise of defining legitimate government as such. By placing absolute power solely in the hands of “the community,” Locke does as much as can be reasonably done to avoid saying there are different parts ordered hierarchically in the civil society. It is telling that in making this recommendation, Locke speaks only of “civil-government” and “civil society;” that is, he uses civil as the adjective rather than political. Indeed, from section 90 to the end of chapter 7, the word political is not again used by Locke—which is to say that the distinction between bare government and civil-government is obscured and a regime-level recommendation for government as such is smuggled in as a matter of definition. In sum: what makes political society different from household societies is the absolute powers of judging and executing that are placed in the community (Treatise §87). What makes government “civil” is that all men are subordinate to the laws, such that no single member of society is a judge in his own case (Treatise §90). The “standing rule and common judge,” not resigned rights, are what lift man out of the state of nature and into a civil society where they are to be considered sensible beings.6 The legislator of civil society does not “think men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done by pole-cats or foxes but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions” (Treatise §§91 and 93). But Locke does think them foolish enough: he thinks they need to believe they are at liberty to choose what regime they please, when in fact they are being led to choose one specific regime.

6 I have focused on the Second Treatise and therefore on the civilizing effects of citizenship under “common judges”; but the noble lie of institutional safeguards goes much deeper than merely denying men the right to judge their own civil disputes. Francis Edward Devine, “Absolute Democracy or Indefeasible Right: Hobbes Versus Locke,” The Journal of Politics 37, no. 3 (1975): 763. The problem of skepticism receives a justified and practical solution through agreement which presupposes the ability for men to appeal to arbitration. Devine believed that John Locke speaks quite sensibly when Locke extends the need for common judges to matters of biblical interpretation: “A judge must be agreed upon to determine what doctrines are contained in a book before they can be enforced.”

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

2

139

Book 8, the Rule of (Locke’s) Wisdom

In this section, I will show that Locke took the rule of wisdom as the standard under which the commonwealth would be judged as good. Chapter 8 of the Second Treatise has 3 parts. In the first, Locke sets down rule by the greater number as if such a government were necessary to political society as such (Treatise §§95–99). Second, Locke restrains the majority through law (Treatise §§100–112). Third, Locke gives the restrained majority authority over property rather than persons (Treatise §§113–121). This development can only be understood by seeing the unity of chapters 7 and 8. In chapter 7, Locke had not discussed who would rule in the political society, except to say the community would rule over the members. He approached the question differently for the household societies: the parents were co-rulers over the children, and the man was ruler over the woman, the servants, and the household proper. The reasons why some rule over all (instead of all being ruler over each) is plainly stated in each case. The parents are adults and have reason; the man is abler and stronger; the master has a contract with the regular servant and over the slave he is stronger and was the victor in a just conflict (Treatise §§84, 82, 85). When it comes to rational adults, only in the case of the conjugal society does a purely natural distinction determine who should rule. In chapter 8, we see this same distinction determines who rules in political society as well, though it won’t be so clearly stated because Locke has obscured who, if anyone in particular, rules in political society. In chapter 7, no ruler over the community was designated; the community itself was the umpire. However, we know a ruler will need to be appointed within the community, because wherever there are “different wills” there needs to be a “last determination, i.e., rule,” and for such a determination, the individuals of the commonwealth are to be “represented” in some fashion by the “commonwealth”—that is, there is to be a last determination and those who make it are not identical with “the whole” or the unanimous consent of all (Treatise §§82 and 88). So while Locke explained what a political or civil society is in chapter 7—a society of men under law with an impartial judge for disputes between members—in chapter 8 he is going to explain who the ruler of political society is. And in chapter 8, the two natural categories that stood the man as ruler in the conjugal society are operative again, namely, that which is stronger and abler rules.

140

C. SIMMONS

The majority is stronger. “[I]t is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority; or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should” (Treatise §§96 and 98). This reductio ad absurdum is said to prove that men who make a community necessarily submit to the rule of the majority or supermajority. If they didn’t consent to be ruled by the majority when they consented to join a community “the coming into society upon such terms would be only like Cato’s coming into the theater, only to go out again” (Treatise §98). Since men cannot consent to absurdities, they consent to majority rule because they would not consent to form a society merely to have it immediately dissolve. Locke fashions two objections, not explicitly against the rule of the majority, but against the necessity of consent. The first objection is that no political society was ever founded by consent. The second is that men are never at liberty to start their own governments (Treatise §100). Locke answers both objections twice. First, he addresses them literally, and resolves the question of consent. Second, he addresses them with respect to what that consent must necessarily mean and thereby he establishes what part of the community should rule. The first objection is posed in section 100 and answered in sections 101 through 104. In those four sections, Locke answers the objection as if he took it literally. The objection runs: “There are no instances to be found in story, of a company of men independent, and equal amongst one another, that met together, and in this way began and sat up a government.” Locke says this objection is unfair because the beginnings of societies are rarely recorded. Even if we have no record of men beginning a society by consent, it still could have occurred (Treatise §101). Then he argues that there are evidently moments in history where this happened (Treatise §§102–103). Locke “concludes” his answer to this objection in section 104: “the reason being plain on our side, that men are naturally born free” and form governments through consent. In the next section though, Locke speaks as if the objection were really about majority rule rather than the necessity of consent. He says, “I will not deny, that if we look back as far as history will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the government and administration of one man” and that “government commonly began in the father” (Treatise §105).

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

141

In this earlier time, the natural mode of choosing rulers made sense, as Locke had done when he chose the man over the woman in the conjugal society.7 These earlier people “set him up, whom they judged ablest, and most likely, to rule well over them.” Likewise, they refused to obey heirs of former kings who were in “any way weak, or uncapable,” always preferring instead the “stoutest and bravest man” (Treatise §105). Rulers in these times ruled on these two accounts, with the meaning of “ablest” taking on a swarm of guises: “age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities fit for rule” (Treatise §105). So we see here, in chapter 8, excellence of some type is understood by Locke to be the natural basis for rule. The ruler must be stronger and abler, with “abler” obviously not meaning “strength” but the ability to choose well for the commonwealth. In a sense this is what I set out to show at the beginning of this chapter: Locke understood that the best regime is the absolute rule of the wise (or those who are able to choose well for the commonwealth and strong enough to effect their choice). However, the purpose of showing it is to be able to understand the regime Locke chose to promote instead of the absolute rule of the wise. Therefore, I want to show why and how Locke obscures the rule of virtue and what this means for the regime he promotes. Locke tries to show his reader precisely these three things in the remainder of chapter 8. After showing that the natural mode of choosing who rules is operative in the political as it was in the conjugal society, Locke says that “this having given occasion to men to mistake, and think, that by nature government was monarchical and belonged to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider, why people in the beginning generally pitched upon this form” (Treatise §106).

7 Cf. Thomas G. West, “The Ground of Locke’s Law of Nature,” Social Philosophy and Policy 29, no. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2012): 21. West takes a similar approach to understanding political society in Locke’s Second Treatise because he identifies the “earlier” forms of government as the “natural” forms. However, he calls absolute government in the sense I discuss here “despotic”: “One sees the same tension inherent in nature in regard to despotic government. Locke argues that it is not good for people to be ruled by governors with unlimited power over them. Yet human nature itself leads people to submit without complaint to governors of that kind. Locke admits, in fact, that people are not naturally inclined toward political liberty and living according to the law of nature. Instead, ‘in the beginning of things,’ they experienced as children ‘the father’s government of the childhood of those sprung from him..., [which] accustomed them to the rule of one man. It was no wonder,’ Locke continues, ‘that they should pitch upon, and naturally run into, that form of government, which from their infancy they had been all accustomed to.’ The law of nature, discovered by reason, must counteract the tendency of human beings to ‘naturally run into’ absolute monarchy.”

142

C. SIMMONS

The absolute rule of wisdom was suited to men “in the beginning of things.” The “ambition or insolence of empire” had not yet made its mark. There was no need “of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in different hands.” These first men had “acquaintance and friendship,” and therefore “stood more in need of defence against foreign invasions and injuries, than multiplicity of laws” (Treatise §107). Locke says Israel, under the kings and judges, was an example of rule in the first ages (Treatise §109).8 The people of this time were forced by necessity to set up rulers “without any other express limitation or constraint” but the “public good and safety,” because “unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted” (Treatise §110). This necessity was blessed by circumstances. The rulers were legitimate because this “golden age … had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects.” That is, absolute rule was reasonable because all rule is “intrusted in another’s hands only for the [public] good” and the public good and absolute rule were commensurate in this age (Treatise §111). And this brings us to the definitive statement of natural rule and the great cause of the present need to hide it from view by declaring it illegitimate: Thus we may see how probable it is, that people that were naturally free, and by their own consent either submitted to the government of their father, or united together out of different families to make a government, should generally put the rule into one man’s hands, and chuse to be under the conduct of a single person, without so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence; though they never dreamed of monarchy being Jure Divino, which we never heard of among mankind, till it was revealed to us by the divinity of this last age. (Treatise §112)

These sections set the tone for the regime when considered alongside the corresponding sections (87–93) on “civil society” from chapter 7. There was a good time that cannot be recovered and may be should not be, insofar as men’s properties were small. The age was virtuous, but 8 This is blasphemy, there having been a more ideal time before this. In the Old Testament, the Hebrews fail to uphold the Law of Moses and therefore need judges and eventually kings. Locke inverts this, making their failure into the golden age of mankind and suggesting that from the corruption of this age comes the interest in, and eventual science of, politics.

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

143

poor. This age gave way to a bad age, where the corrupting doctrine of jure divino was thought to be the foundation of rule, which allowed the community to be exploited and fooled by the absolute monarch. Today, mankind has moved past that and will now combine wealth and numbers of men with good government, having learned that law should rule rather than men. The community is umpire through laws which govern any ruler or rulers, by setting limits to the powers of government and partitioning those powers into multiple hands so that no individual in the government can escape the laws set down. In other words, the many are the strongest but are not able. The majority will rule, but under law. The ruling offices will represent the majority but there will still be a prince or minorityfigures who help guide the majority according to law. “That prince, who shall be so wise and godlike, as by established laws of liberty to secure protection and encouragement to the honest industry of mankind, against the oppression of power and narrowness of party, will quickly be too hard for his neighbours” (Treatise §42). After Locke establishes the rule of law in sections 105–112, he explains how it is that the law remains perpetual. The source of law is property, which, once joined with the property of the community is inalienably the community’s property—its putative owners being free to take up or leave behind the duties and restrictions of the law. That is, if a potential citizen wishes to enjoy property “belonging to” the community, he must obey the laws. If he wishes to be released from the laws, he can do so but he leaves his land and other lawfully submitted property behind, in the hands of the community which is its protector (Treatise §120). To conclude my discussion of chapters 7 and 8: Locke hides the main quality of absolute rule in chapter 7, namely, that the ruler is unavoidably a judge in his (or its) own case. He hides this because, as he shows in chapter 8, that which is “stronger” is not at the same time that which is “abler.” The majority is stronger but not abler in modern times. So while Locke recognizes the two qualities of the best regime from ancient times, the absolute rule of the wise, he fashions a political teaching whereby the “final determination” (which by nature belongs to the stronger and abler) is hidden, putatively placed outside the hands of any man or even group of men, and found only in the “community.” The education of the gentlemen class proposed by Locke in Some Thoughts Concerning Education prepares men to live in this community, called the commonwealth. I will show how Locke’s “general method” of education develops the young gentleman’s greatest desire, the desire for dominion, so that while

144

C. SIMMONS

it appears to be repressed by the education, it is in fact fashioned to be expressed in a liberal or “civil” manner. While Locke fashions his education to fit the liberal regime, he is aware that this education is “to a regime” and not education “as such,” or for “all men in all times and places.”

3

The Regime’s Education

The book Some Thoughts Concerning Education is for gentlemen within a democratic state. Locke says in the dedicatory letter that “if those [children] of that rank [gentleman] are by their education once set right, they will quickly bring all the rest into order.” This education is for those families that keep their sons to be educated at home, rather than sending them to the schools—that is, Locke expects many and perhaps the majority of boys to receive their education from a schoolmaster (Thoughts §70). He also speaks of a farming class where the sons receive no formal education (Thoughts §4). Whereas the farm boys receive a full physical education, the children at school receive book-learning. The sons of gentlemen should receive an education of both the body and mind: “A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world” (Thoughts §1). However, there are three parts to the treatise. And what is clear in section 70 is that the boys at school, though they receive book learning, do not thereby receive a full education of their minds. Their characters are often ruined by school (Thoughts §70). So the reader, from the first section of the treatise, looks forward to a treatise in two parts but finds a treatise in three parts. I will show that Locke provided a treatise in three parts because he thought it necessary to prepare young English gentleman for their regime, while giving them an opportunity to complete the laws of that regime, or, to put it in more Lockean language, to make them “free of that law” (Treatise §59). To accomplish this, he was compelled to write a third part, the first two being inadequate in the age for which he wrote. Each of the three parts of the book contains a discussion of method, with the last part containing a section specifically titled “method” (Thoughts §195).9 If the gentleman’s son is indeed “a sheet of white 9 John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 1996). Parenthetical citations refer to section number.

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

145

paper or wax, to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases” then the same method applied to each gentle-child should, all other things being equal, produce the same results (Thoughts §216). However, Locke does not think that “all other things are equal” either from birth or circumstances: “scarce any two children can be conducted by exactly the same method” (Thoughts §216). That is, in the last section of the book (§216), Locke tells his reader that although he had written as if gentle-children were a sheet of white paper for whom method would work, he does not actually think this is the case.10 He hopes his methods “give some small light to those whose concern for their dear little ones makes them so irregularly bold that they dare venture to consult their own reason in the education of their children than wholly to rely on custom” (Thoughts §216). I will show how the importance of method increases at each stage of the work and how this increase results from a move away from nature or the best regime. At the heart of this is play. Locke’s method aims to make the cultivation of the young gentleman into something as close to sport and play as possible while fitting him for the Lockean commonwealth: “the chief art is to make all that they have to do, sport and play too” (Thoughts §63).

10 Cf. Nathan Tarcov, Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Tarcov recognizes this, writing that “one should not fail to observe how far Locke is from the other allegedly Lockean extreme of asserting a total human malleability and equality” (Tarcov, 109). I believe this observation should be connected to other observations of Tarcov’s, where he notes some of Locke’s misgivings regarding methods and rules. For example, Locke denies any given method can be applied to all, but this does not stop him from relying to a great extent on method itself. According to Tarcov, Locke’s inability to produce a perfect method is the reason for his inability to produce an “impossibly just” treatise (Tarcov, 81). Tarcov is referring to Locke’s own claim that his treatise should not be thought of as a “just” treatise (§216). Locke is being held back from producing a just treatise by what appears to be human nature itself, which is too stiff and unequal. Tarcov takes Locke’s “failure” to perfect methods or rules in a different direction. For example: “One should not teach by ‘Rules and Precepts,’ which depend on thought, but by practice, which depends on habit. Here again the line between nature and nurture is erased” (Tarcov, 107). This observation suggests Tarcov’s main thesis that Locke is aware of something called “nature” which he tries to respect in Some Thoughts Concerning Education while also trying to provide a salutary teaching for others; this salutary teaching requires Locke to obscure nature to varying degrees.

146

C. SIMMONS

4

Part 1, Play and Habit

In the dedicatory letter, Locke mentioned that he is providing a method which worked not only on the son for whom it was designed, but also on another son Locke had not thought of when writing the treatise. This first mention of method is not a straightforward contradiction of the last mention of method in section 216, but they do go in opposite directions. Either way, the meaning of method is the same at both the beginning and end. A method is a set of instructions that can work even if they are heard and carried out by someone the author has never encountered or even heard of. The second part (Thoughts §§31–133) is prepared by the ending of the first part (Thoughts §§1–30). The only mention of “method” in part one comes at its end, in sections 27 and 29. Most of the first part consists of what Locke calls “rules,” which differ from “method” insofar as they consist of prohibitions against customs that make young boys soft (Thoughts §30). For example, it is “custom” that “makes this great difference between the hands and the feet” and that can be remedied by leaving the feet bare or at least in ragged shoes (Thoughts §7). When it comes to “method,” the first part of the treatise contains only one description of a method, which is a cure for “costiveness,” or being “too hard” in ones “stool” (Thoughts §§23–28). The opposite problem, being too “loose” in the stool, is typically best “left to nature” to fix, i.e., all that needs to be done is not to do too much (Thoughts §23). The problem with costiveness is that nature is easily thwarted by a child who denies nature’s calling because he is interested in play (Thoughts §27). That is, by following this method men can be “sure to have nature very obedient” thus allowing them to deny the “motions of nature” and her “seasonable offers” as they choose throughout the rest of their day (Thoughts §§26–27). This method will, in the end, “become natural to him” who undertakes it (Thoughts §27). Method is, then, a way of curing a weakness of nature or strengthening nature in a way commensurate with play. This short humorous discussion of a method gives the reader a good idea of how to interpret the second part of the treatise, where Locke lays down what he calls his “general method” of educating the mind (Thoughts §133). The second part opens with a claim that virtue is the same whether one is talking about the body or the mind: “As the strength of the body lies chiefly in being able to endure hardships, so also does that of the mind. And the great principle and foundation of all virtue and worth is

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

147

placed in this, that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best though appetite lean the other way” (Thoughts §33). Therefore, it would seem that Locke would teach something similar about the education of the mind. However, he does not. With the body, the most important thing was not to spoil the child through pampering and the like. The great danger was parents or custom spoiling the child. The only danger that arose from the child’s own inclinations was his propensity to play and thereby stop up some natural motions within himself. However, now, Locke will point out many things that need to be done in order to educate the mind properly. That is, virtue in the body appeared to be a spontaneous product of nature, whereas the virtue of the mind now appears to result from diligent and unceasing cultivation. Locke even suggests hiring a full time tutor for the son, and to spare no expense (Thoughts §§88–94). The goal of this general method is aimed at making the child “reverential” (Thoughts §§31–99) and good “tempered” (Thoughts §§100–132). The connection of play to method is central to both endeavors, only to be crossed in dire circumstances where the potential for simple inadequacy in the son becomes apparent: “If it be any father’s misfortune to have a son thus perverse and untractable, I know not what more he can do but pray for him” (Thoughts §87).

5 Part 2: Liberal Reverence (§§31–99) and Temper (§§100–133) The important thing in this part (Thoughts §§31–99) is nature and its relation to method. As I noted before, method corrects a failing of nature but this correction is itself natural. It is natural to make nature obedient. Locke applies this view to making sons obedient. The son is brought to obedience through play and if the son’s play becomes a form of disobedience, the parent or tutor is to make the disobedient play into a matter of obedience by requiring the play; that is, the parent ought to teach the child serious subjects by making the learning a game. If some frivolous game gets in the way of actual learning, then the parent must begin requiring the child to play the frivolous game so that the child will lose interest in it (Thoughts §73). Locke proposes to cross, as little as possible, the inclinations children (and men) have to be free and to tie that inclination to important rather than frivolous matters. The instructor must exercise as little overt

148

C. SIMMONS

authority as possible all the while cultivating the talents and habits of the child. This is very typical of the Lockean regime: there should be some goal men can reach with a little help and even less outright direction. Whether Locke is discussing the father or the prince, a similar view prevails. If the fathers take “a right course with children from the beginning, very few will be found to be [perverse or intractable]; and when there are any such instances, they are not to be the rule for the education of those who are better natured and may be managed with better usage” (Thoughts §87). Likewise, when it comes to the government of men, “if Government be faithfully administered” it “will seldom happen” that the “authority of the magistrate” will ever cross “the conscience of a private person” (A Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 48). That is not to say Locke denies the existence of a “final determination, i.e., rule” in matters of education or politics. He recognizes that, even after he has lowered the expectations of the regime and therefore of education, there will be people unable to freely become who they need to become. For an example of Locke lowering expectations, in this second part (Thoughts §§31–99), Locke mentions the virtue of courage only to say it need not be cultivated. “Innocence, sobriety, and industry” need to be taught to children but not courage because “it has been looked upon as the natural inheritance of Englishmen” (Thoughts §70). Locke will not discuss courage at length until he discusses the specifics or particulars (rather than his “general method”) of the education in the third part of the book. Even then, while he did explain in the first part that “A gentleman in any age ought to be so bred, as to be fitted to bear arms, and be a soldier,” he will not explain how a young gentleman can or should be prepared for this role (Thoughts §15). Instead, Locke aims to prepare the young gentleman to face “the world as it really is.” Even in this section on “general method,” Locke is tailoring the education to the Lockean commonwealth: the young man will not “relish” freedom through the domination of others, but through a hard-nosed refusal to adopt any habits or modes of living that would permit other men to take advantage of him (Thoughts §93). In sum: there are signs that Locke is consciously aiming the educator toward the regime of the Lockean commonwealth, but because he is discussing a “general method,” the regime is hard to detect. That it is hard to detect is integral to it being democratic, or aimed at “freedom.” Just as the educator must direct the pupil without making his authority strongly felt, so too does Locke direct the educator without making his choice easily recognizable. However, Locke has indeed made a

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

149

choice and therefore, there are limits or boundaries to what is acceptable thought and behavior. There are limits because there is an implicit idea of a good man, whose way must be, all other things being equal, respected and submitted to by other types of men. After settling the parent’s authority in a liberal manner, Locke turns to what is normally called “virtue.” A “good temper” must be settled in the child and this includes, but is not limited to, the “cardinal” virtues: courage, moderation, justice, and prudence (Thoughts §§115, 130, 110, 118–122). These and other good qualities are what make a “good temper” and should be instilled into the child in a liberal manner, that is, in a gentle and subtle way that does not directly appeal to the child’s cruelty or desire for dominion (Thoughts §§116 and 103). Before discussing the more traditional set of virtues, Locke begins by discussing the proper mode of acquisition. Children are to be taught to acquire in an indirect or liberal manner. If a child ever voices a desire for something specific, he is to be denied this thing. But if he displays a becoming “modesty and silence” combined with general “good behavior” then he should be “rewarded with what is suitable and acceptable to [him].” The parent or tutor must know what the child wants through observation and bring the child to believe that the fulfillment of those wants does not come about through “bargaining” or direct requests but “as if it were a natural consequence of good behavior” (Thoughts §107). That is how the child acquires things from a superior. When the child is dealing with equals (other children), Locke still presupposes the existence of a superior: the child should be taught “to part with what they have, freely and easily, to their friends; and let him find by experience that the most liberal has always the most plenty.” The child should “perceive that the kindness he shows to others … brings a return of kindness both from those that receive it and from those who look on.” The parent or tutor should even “make this a contest among children, who shall outdo one another this way” (Thoughts §110). This mode of acquisition of course presupposes the original acquisition has already been made, i.e., that the final determination or rule is established elsewhere. After the child has been taught how to acquire things he desires, other good qualities, the virtues, should be instilled. In order to avoid nourishing, by example, any desire for dominion or practice of cruelty, the virtues must be instilled in such a way that the child “may not perceive you have any hand in it.” Children desire to be active; the parent or tutor must direct this activity to the child’s advantage (Thoughts §129). This

150

C. SIMMONS

method of instilling virtue harnesses the natural energy of children who “love liberty and therefore should be brought to do the things that are fit for them without feeling any restraint laid upon them” (Thoughts §103). And while harnessing that energy, it does not feed what children love “more” than liberty, namely, “power and dominion” (Thoughts §103). If parents achieve their purposes through overt exercises of their own power and dominion, they teach their children to relish the same and begin to practice for when they too shall be at liberty to hold sway over others. This is not to say Locke is insensible to the potential advantages of cultivating the desire for power and dominion. He praises the Spartan education for its ability to prepare young people for a virtuous life, but explains that he is “not so foolish to propose the Lacedaemonian discipline in our age or constitution” (Thoughts §115). For example, although he denigrates the “entertainment and talk of history” in his day for the “honor and renown that is bestowed upon conquerors,” he refuses simply to say that “children should from the beginning be bred up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting any living creature and be taught not to spoil or destroy anything”—to this admonition he adds “unless it be for the preservation or advantage of some other that is nobler” (Thoughts §116). That is, the general tendency Locke encourages is toward gentle liberality but he views this as a matter of focus or emphasis. He rarely speaks of the “noble,” but when he does it means what it means here in section 116, namely, the right of men to subordinate other men to higher purposes. Almost the exact formulation is found at the beginning of the Second Treatise: “though man in that state [of nature] have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it” (Second Treatise §6). The rarity of Locke’s appeal to “the noble” is a result of his choice for liberalism, wherein the child is to learn to acquire through displays of liberality—by beating out his peers in the contest of not appearing domineering. The virtues to be instilled are likewise not to be instilled through overt guidance or command. These excellencies in the child compliment his liberty, which like his domineering qualities, should have been cultivated in such a manner that it expresses itself either through reverence for the parent or an unguided delight in activities that bring profit. In sum: the child may exercise his liberty and even practice domineering, but within the confines of what Locke calls “civility.” With

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

151

respect to the liberty of the child, only in extreme cases of obstinacy is “chiding” much less “the rod” acceptable, and when these become necessary “I think it is best the smart should come more immediately from another’s hand” (Thoughts §83). Gently direct the child to a profitable pursuit and “they being satisfied that they act as freely in this as they do in others things, will go on with as much pleasure in it and it will not differ from their other sports and play” (Thoughts §74). With respect to the domineering tendency of the child, this is to be redirected toward liberal forms of acquisition (contests of civility) and the cultivation of virtue through seeking esteem. If the child is insufficiently spirited or otherwise perverse the parent must actively direct him, though Locke warns the parent “you must not let him perceive that you or anybody else do so” (Thoughts §125). Locke’s “general method,” whether it is settling reverence in the child or cultivating his virtues, aims to remain invisible but will, if the need arise, make itself felt in requiring a certain direction for the child or absolutely forbidding some of the worst tendencies.

6

Part 3, The Good Man (§§134–216)

Locke begins the third part saying he is going to explain four good things every father wishes his son to possess: virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning. He offers an apology, the implication of which is that he is abiding by a specific regime. I will not trouble myself whether these names [virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning] do not some of them sometimes stand for the same thing, or really include one another. It serves my turn here to follow the popular use of these words, which, I presume, is clear enough to make me be understood. (Thoughts § 134)

Locke is going to speak of the good things a gentleman should have as a swarm; that is, Locke says that perhaps the four good things he is going to speak of might, in an unpopular sense, all be “the same thing.” For example, Plato’s Socrates popularized the view that “virtue is knowledge” and accused interlocutors of speaking nonsense when they chopped up their definition of “virtue” into a number of virtues.11 Locke implies 11 Tarcov notes that “this warning [to follow the popular use of words] is echoed in his definition of ‘Wisdom,’ which begins ‘Wisdom I take, in the popular acceptation’ (§

152

C. SIMMONS

that he is aware of Socrates’ procedure (or similar procedures) but explicitly declines to adopt it. In part 2, Locke had explicitly claimed to be developing a “general method” whereas now he is explicitly claiming to be speaking about what is “popular” and therefore not general. Locke is laying down a number of good qualities a gentleman should possess in the Lockean regime. Part 3 is broken up into four subparts, if the four sections on travel are grouped uniquely (Thoughts §§212–215). The first subpart covers the four good things (qualities or virtues) Locke says every gentleman wishes his son to have (Thoughts §§134–195). This subpart ends in the book’s only lengthy discussion of “method,” in section 195. The second subpart covers the “accomplishments” a gentleman should have (Thoughts §§196–200). The third subpart covers “trade” (Thoughts §§201–211). Finally, Locke sets a limit to the regime in the fourth subpart on travel (Thoughts §§212–215). The key to understanding part 3 is section 195, with its two discussions of the Greeks and method. Section 195 is a conclusion of the discussion of the four things every gentleman wishes for his son: “To conclude this part which concerns a young gentlemen’s studies, his tutor should remember that his business is not so much to teach him all that is knowable, as to raise in him a love and esteem of knowledge and to put him in the right way of knowing, and improving himself, when he has a mind to it.” Locke indicates that Greek would complete the education he laid out, but that it is meant for “scholars” and not for every gentleman. If gentlemen wish “to go deeper than the surface” they will need to learn Greek so that they can go straight to the “springhead, and not take things secondhand.” In this section Locke practices a bit of method. He is trying to entice the adult to further study in the way he earlier suggested adults might entice children to more diligent labors. I advised [the mother] to try another way… we therefore, in a discourse on purpose amongst ourselves, in his hearing but without taking notice of him, declared that it was the privilege and advantage of heirs and elder

140)” and that this permits Locke to avoid “precisely discussing the classical question of the relation between virtue and wisdom, whether they are really the same thing, or really include one another” (Tarcov, 184–186). Tarcov is interested in locating the philosophic teaching behind Locke’s esoteric recommendations, whereas I am interested in locating the regime.

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

153

brothers to be scholars, and this made them fine gentlemen and beloved by everybody, and that for younger brothers it was a favor to admit them to breeding; to be taught to read and write was more than came to their share… This so wrought upon the child, that afterwards he desired to be taught…. (Thoughts §148)

Just as Locke taught the mother to do, so he does in section 195: only once the boy is “a man” and wishes to become more than a “gentleman” should he learn Greek, which is “the foundation of all that learning which we have in this part of the world” (Thoughts §195). Which is to say that Locke claims his discussion of the four good qualities is incomplete, and aimed at producing a type of man who is an approximation of a higher and better type. This explains Locke’s discussion of Greek in 195, but not his subsequent discussion of method in that section. What Locke does is explain in 195 how a “good method” helps a “learner” progress in his learning. He then writes in such a manner that the reader will have to exercise his mind in a way commensurate with the method described in 195, by recognizing the mind’s capacity for definition. Locke is going to twice alter the definition of the “gentlemen” by introducing new and liberal characteristics a gentleman must possess. A list of “accomplishments” follow the four things (virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning) and these accomplishments either constitute a new list of things separate from the first four, or they come under the fourth thing, “learning.” Locke gives both impressions. As I mentioned above, he says in section 195 that he is concluding the discussion on learning. He begins section 196 continuing this impression, but more ambiguously than before: “Besides what is to be had from study and books, there are accomplishments necessary for a gentlemen to be got by exercise, and to which time is to be allowed, and or which masters must be had” (Thoughts §196). Are the accomplishments “got by exercise” a subset of “learning,” with the other subset being things learned “by study and books”? Or are the accomplishments something different, the section on learning having been concluded in section 195? The former appears to be the case; in the discussions of the accomplishments, it appears that they are indeed a subset of learning, because they are said to be “learned.” The impression is that there is one list, learning, and two sorts of learning: some learning is by “books and study” while another type is through “exercise.” However, Locke concludes the list of accomplishments saying “These are my thoughts concerning learning and

154

C. SIMMONS

accomplishments,” which would make two lists into one section. That is, initially the question was whether the reader was looking at two lists in two sections or one list in one section and Locke ends saying it was two lists in one section (Thoughts §200). And this explains the discussion of method in section 195, where Locke had said “it will be of great use to the pupil to accustom him to distinguish well, that is, to have distinct notions wherever the mind can find any real difference, but as carefully to avoid distinctions in terms where he has not distinct and different clear ideas” (Thoughts §195). Locke began the entire discussion explaining that the four things he was going to address might all be one thing, i.e., he began part 3 anticipating the discussion of method in section 195 and the artifice employed afterwards, whereby he displayed for the reader an act of his art, grafting a new set of good things onto the original set of four thus giving shape—a Lockean shape—to the meaning of the word “gentleman.” In sum: Locke is producing a definition of “gentleman,” and he is doing so taking custom into account while never losing sight of the true definition of the gentleman discovered by the Greeks. In the first part, Locke had relied very little on method and openly stated that all gentlemen in “any age” should be fit to bear arms. However, the age in which Locke writes has made it so that soldiering is no longer a requisite part of gentlemanship, or at least will not be recommended by Locke to most gentlemen. Locke does not explain why this is, but it is clear that he opposes himself to making gentlemen into soldiers. He goes so far as to warn against any attempts at learning even fencing, for fear that the gentleman will get himself killed as a middling swordsman (Thoughts §199). That is, the only weapon Locke even mentions a gentleman might be required to take up is also denigrated by him as a needless danger to the gentleman. The gentleman’s physical prowess will be displayed in dance rather than war. Dancing gives “graceful motions,” “manliness,” and “confidence” to the pupil (Thoughts §196). Does this mean Locke believes nature has been overcome and that the Greek discovery can be safely ignored? He does not. The two lists in one section are expanded to three lists in one section: “I have one more thing to add” (Thoughts §201). This last thing, which Locke calls “trade,” the most important of which is “husbandry,” situates the newly defined gentleman in the light of a nobler definition. The ancient gentleman is the noblest; the country gentleman is the second noblest; the gentleman

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

155

who spends most of his time in towns or cities is the lowest of the three and the type most suited to Locke’s suggested education. As I said earlier, the Lockean gentlemen will not be fit to be soldiers. Locke said that they shouldn’t even learn fencing because, not being soldier material, they would learn it poorly and get themselves killed (Thoughts §199). However, these gentlemen cannot overcome nature and ignore the existence of contest or the fact that they occupy elevated positions that are desired by those who do not have them. Locke requires gentlemen to learn some form of husbandry to defend their status as gentlemen (Thoughts §§201–211). The gentleman who spends “a considerable part of his time in a great town” practices a sort of husbandry over himself, through the keeping of expense books so that he does not waste his estate by falling prey to perverse desires or the designs of others (Thoughts §209). The country gentleman practices husbandry over the land and woodworking, making him “able to govern” and physically fit. He does not practice this husbandry for these purposes, however. Locke says “these I propose not as the chief end of his labor” (Thoughts §204). The chief end of this husbandry is a profitable “diversion from his more serious thoughts” (Thoughts §204). What are these more serious thoughts? Locke does not say explicitly but the next section is on the ancient gentlemen who were “great men” (Thoughts §205). The ancient gentlemen were “great captains and statesmen as well as husbandmen” (Thoughts §205). Cato the Elder diverted himself through husbandry, “was versed in country affairs,” and yet acquired “great reputation” and “bore all the great offices of the commonwealth” (Thoughts §205). Finally, above all three classes of these gentlemen, Locke makes reference to men in an unnamed “greatest condition”: the recreation of “the huntsmen” is the “constant recreation of men of the greatest condition” (Thoughts §206). Not one of the four good things all gentle-sons should have, nor one of the three accomplishments, but the sort of husbandry learned as a recreation for relief from more serious thoughts is what distinguishes or allows the reader to rank the sorts of gentlemen Locke discusses. Trade is what permits the lower type of gentlemen to remain the class of men who, once set right by the Lockean education, “will quickly bring all the rest into order” (Thoughts dedicatory letter). Travel “completes the gentlemen” (Thoughts §212). However, either no gentlemen are benefited by travel or very few. On the one hand, traveling during the ages of “sixteen to one-and-twenty,” which is the “ordinary time of

156

C. SIMMONS

travel” is the time when men are “least suited to [the improvements] of travel” (Thoughts §212). If the young man (16–21) goes alone, he will get into all sorts of trouble and spend his time in “admiration of the worst and vainest practices [to be] met with abroad” (Thoughts §213). Or, if the young man goes with a tutor, the tutor will not be able to control him and the young man will come to see his tutor as “the enemy of freedom” (Thoughts §212). On the other hand, if the time of travel is altered to when the boy is younger, “men of worth and parts will not easily admit the familiarity of boys, who yet need the care of a tutor” (Thoughts §214). Men of worth will happily admit “a young gentleman and stranger, appearing like a man and showing a desire to inform himself in the customs, manners, laws, and government of the country he is in” (Thoughts §214). Therefore, the only young gentlemen suited to travel are those who are old enough to travel alone and are possessed of the rare quality not to need a tutor or guardian during that “season of all his life that most requires the eye and authority of his parents and friends to govern it” (Thoughts §212). Here the gentlemen are less explicitly ranked by Locke and the ranking seems to admit of a much simpler divide with a much greater gulf: very few can profit from travel; most cannot. Those who can profit from travel do not need those who “travel with them” to “screen them, get them out when they have run themselves into briars, and in all the miscarriages be answerable for them.” Those who cannot profitably travel do need this. The wording here is very similar to Locke’s description of law in the Second Treatise. Like the tutor, the law “hedges us in only from bogs and precipices” (Second Treatise §57). This suggests that young gentlemen who travel abroad are either free from the need, or more free from the need, for law than the gentlemen for whom travel will prove either useless or worse.

7

Conclusion

In the final section of the book, Locke points to the inadequacy of method. He “considered [the child] only as a white paper or wax to be molded and fashioned as one pleases” but believes this way of writing to be less than “just.” Such a way of writing does not take into account the “various tempers, different inclinations, and particular defaults that are to be found in children.” Nor does it take into account that children should be educated to their different stations in life. Locke only considered the “ordinary gentleman.” He did not consider the “prince” or “nobleman.”

LIBERALISM’S APPROXIMATION TO THE RULE OF WISDOM

157

The education Locke fashioned for the “ordinary gentleman” is appropriately expressed in a treatise which treats children as “white paper or wax.” Discussing children in this egalitarian way is suited to the lowest of the three classes of gentlemen mentioned in this section, insofar as it is easier to persuade someone they can make their children “as they please” so long as what they please is not too difficult for them or outside what is possible for people of their station. As Locke showed in the sections on travel, but also throughout the book, setting down rules or methods is a sort of stand-in for good company or competent masters. Locke’s presentation generally cleaves to the liberal notions of equality which include the promise that profitable rules, methods, and laws can be known and applied by all equally. To put this in the language with which I began the chapter, Locke’s reliance on method in his scheme of education is a reliance on an “institutional safeguard” that guarantees “legitimacy.” However, unlike Locke’s more rhetorical approach in the Second Treatise where the rule of law is almost opaquely superior to the rule of men (good company and masters), Locke’s rhetoric in his treatise on education is less rigorous and he ends with a claim that it has not even been wholly “just.” A regime that is an approximation of the best regime needs men educated beyond the regime and so a regime of “ordinary gentlemen” would be blindly wrought if the possibility of higher types was thoroughly denied.

Education and Regime in Rousseau’s Social Contract Ian Dagg

1

Politics and Slavery

To understand the relationship between the regime and the education of the citizen in the thought of Rousseau it is best to turn to The Social Contract, in which Rousseau devotes half of a book to forms of government; however, the question of regime is only addressed after two books have been devoted to the question of legitimacy within a political order. The question to address the work, then, should be reformulated: what is the relationship between the standard of political legitimacy Rousseau establishes and his consideration of forms of government? We should start by observing the extremity of Rousseau’s beginning: all members of every political organization are slaves. The question Rousseau aims to address is not how to provide freedom to the enslaved but to show under what conditions the enslavement of man can be made “legitimate” (I.1.1).1 The work’s beginning cannot be overemphasized, 1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 40. Parenthetical citations refer to book, chapter, paragraph.

I. Dagg (B) Classical Education, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_8

159

160

I. DAGG

because it means that when Rousseau rejects the legitimacy of slavery (I.4), he is not merely rejecting the legitimacy of the institution that anyone would think of when hearing the word; he is rejecting the legitimacy of all existing political orders.2 Rousseau does not hesitate to acknowledge that without one’s political organization one would perish (I.6.1); he merely denies that this fact has relevance to political right: “since each man’s force and freedom are his primary instruments of selfpreservation, how can he commit them without harming himself, and without neglecting the cares he owes himself?” (I.6.3). Slavery is illegitimate regardless of whether one agrees to be a slave or not. If one merely yields to force, then the same principle that makes one a slave, force, would allow one to free oneself whenever one had the opportunity; the mere fact of slavery does not obligate the slave to the master (I.3.2). By contrast, regarding willing slavery: “To renounce one’s freedom is to renounce one’s quality as man, the rights of humanity, and even its duties. There can be no possible compensation for someone who renounces everything” (I.14.6). The reason why Rousseau denies the legitimacy of voluntary slavery is that the slave, in principle, receives nothing in return for being enslaved. One is a part of the political order, to say the least, to secure one’s self-preservation, but, again in principle; the slave is completely at the mercy of the master. To willingly accept slavery is irrational: “To say a man gives himself gratuitously is to say something absurd and inconceivable; such an act is illegitimate and null, for the simple reason that whoever does so is not in his right mind. To say the same of a whole people is to assume a people of madmen; madness does not make right” (I.4.4). Rousseau sets an astonishingly high bar for legitimacy: even the relevancy of the experience of the individual is discarded unless that experience is grounded in reason. Rousseau’s standard of legitimacy is so high that a whole people, ruler(s) and ruled, could illegitimately agree that their political order is legitimate. Rousseau also rejects claims made on behalf of divine authority as the foundation of legitimacy: “the social order is a sacred right, which provides the basis for all others. Yet this right does not come from nature; it is therefore founded on conventions” (I.1.2). Rousseau seems to reject divine authority out of hand or dogmatically; its rejection is linked to his 2 This includes the putatively “free State” of Geneva (I.introduction.3). See Hilail Gildin, Rousseau’s Social Contract: The Design of the Argument (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 9.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

161

rejection of slavery: “no man has a natural authority over his fellow-man, and since force produces no right, conventions remain as the basis of all legitimate authority among men” (I.4.1). If force produces no right, and if legitimacy can only be achieved by the standards set by the social contract, as Rousseau will subsequently argue, then the brute fact that one is divine or even that one created human beings, would give no claim to right.3 Rousseau is pointedly silent about claims to rule made on behalf of wisdom in book one. We might think that democratic institutions confer legitimacy, but Rousseau denies this too: “if there were no prior convention, then, unless the election were unanimous, why would the minority be obliged to submit to the choice of the majority, and why would a hundred who want a master have the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not want one? The law of majority rule is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity at least once” (I.5.3). Rousseau condemns as illegitimate every single society that does not go back to a first convention; the clauses of which “are everywhere the same, everywhere tacitly admitted and recognized” (I.6.5). These clauses can be reduced to one: “namely the total alienation of each associate with all of his rights to the whole community: For, in the first place, since each gives himself entirely, the condition is equal for all, and since the condition is equal for all, no one has any interest in making it burdensome to the rest” (I.6.6). The foundational condition of legitimacy is the thoroughgoing suppression of individuality, including the right to self-preservation. Founding the legitimacy of the political order on the social contract is shocking: the purpose of the social contract is not so much a recovery of

3 This is an inadequate rejection of claims made on behalf of (divine) authority. See Heinrich Meier, Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion, trans. Robert Berman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 119–120. Rousseau openly rejects such claims in a dogmatic fashion; however, the work taken as a whole is meant to show the true justification of such a rejection, and this justification is no less allegorical than the one found in Machiavelli’s Discourse on Livy. The justification of the rejection of authority as authority can only occur after authority as authority has already been rejected on inadequate grounds. Rousseau’s work mirrors the thought process the individual will have to undergo to justify rejection of authority as authority. For an excellent consideration of Rousseau’s rejection of (divine) authority, see “The Right of Politics and the Knowledge of the Philosopher: On the Intention of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Du Contract Social,” in Political Philosophy and the Challenge of Revealed Religion.

162

I. DAGG

natural freedom, but the legitimization of slavery.4 One’s slavery to the political order is justified if everyone within the political order is equally enslaved to it for the common good, that is, if everyone is equally denatured. That being said, the work is also almost silent on women; women will not be “made whole” through the political order for the implicit reason that they must be devoted to raising children (cf. “Sophie or the Woman” in the last book of Emile as well as the distinction between the “citizen” and the “female citizen” in that work, a concept absent from The Social Contract ). Rousseau’s silence on women indicates that he does not favor “female emancipation”; women are subjects of political orders without being a part of the general will. While, strictly speaking, this means that the treatment of women is illegitimate, that they are not simply slaves is indicated by the fact that they are treated much differently than slaves in the ordinary sense and that when Rousseau speaks of “female citizens” elsewhere it is within the context of a Spartan mother insulting precisely a slave for thinking that she would be more concerned with her own children than with the outcome of a Spartan war. Rousseau’s unqualified rejection of slavery was a preliminary conclusion that is qualified in a specific and technical sense for men within a legitimate political order and, in a different way, for woman as such. The Social Contract is utopian, that is, dehumanizing or denaturing. It abstracts from the individual body no less than does Plato’s Republic.5

2

The Direct Addressee

After having established the social contract as the ground of political legitimacy, Rousseau turns to the subject of sovereignty and law, still as distinct from regime. The order of subjects discussed implies that the legitimacy of the regime rests on the legitimacy of sovereignty and law; the principles of sovereignty and law are not dependent on regime. Part of Rousseau’s civic education is to make the citizen or potential citizen aware that not only the particularities of his political order but also its formal structure or type have no bearing on questions of legitimacy.

4 This claim is contradicted by the presentation of the “difficulty” in which Rousseau acts as though each individual will “remain as free as before” (I.6.3–4); however, it is impossible to legitimize slavery and to remain as free as before. At least one of the two claims has to be considered a rhetorical exaggeration and the evidence points to the second claim being a “pious fraud” (Meier, 122). 5 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom (Basic Books, 1979), 40. Contrast Gilden, 144–145.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

163

Rousseau defines sovereignty as “nothing but the exercise of the general will… which is nothing but a collective being” (II.1.2). This means that the magistrate, regardless of the form of the regime, is not the sovereign; not even a king would be sovereign. The general will comes into existence as an independent being at the time of the social contract: “Each of us puts his person and his full power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole” (I.6.9). One might conclude from this that, just as the social contract requires unanimity, so, for the general will not to be merely the expression of so many individual wills; it must be no different from the unanimous expression of each individual will. This would be a mistake, because it would deny the independent status of the new body created by the social contract. In fact, Rousseau denies that the general will, once formed, need always be unanimous; however, “it is necessary that all votes be counted; any formal exclusion destroys generality” (II.2.1n). Nor does the general will’s existence imply that the individual is denatured to such an extent that his particular will is no longer capable of willing contrary to the general will: Rousseau goes so far as to refer to the “absolute and naturally independent existence” of the individual. Instead, he merely claims that “by considering the moral person that constitutes the State as a being of reason because it is not a man, he would enjoy the rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfill the duties of a subject,” if he looked upon what he owed the “common cause as a gratuitous contribution” (I.7.7). The only time Rousseau refers to “injustice” in the first book is in this context. The definition of injustice is the refusal to make the individual abstraction required for the general will to be heard while still living within a political community. By definition, the general will looks to the common good. Therefore, it is not so much that if a part of the political organization looked to its own ends at the expense of everyone else that the general will would be corrupt, but rather that such an activity would not be according to the general will. This leads to the rhetorically strong conclusion that “the general will is always upright and always tends to the public utility” (II.3.1). In fact, Rousseau establishes a rhetoric that is highly sympathetic to those who have no part in the magistracy or are “normal” citizens; it is necessary to shrug off the effect of that rhetoric to understand the argument of Rousseau, without, of course, losing sight of that rhetoric’s existence and purpose. When Rousseau says that “the people’s deliberations are always equally upright,” while he seems to be claiming that

164

I. DAGG

the common man is morally upright, this is not at all what Rousseau actually means; instead, he is arguing by definition (II.3.1). The “act by which a people is a people” is the “true foundation of society,” the social contract; a people is defined as so many individuals who have formed an independent being, the general will (I.5.2). A “people” is the independent moral person or body under the supreme direction of the general will. To say that a people’s deliberations are always equally upright is to say no more or less than that the definitions of “people” and “general will” are intertwined and mutually dependent. The case becomes much more complicated when one turns to the deliberations of the people. The individuals that make up a people may very well be quite foolish, and Rousseau does not abstract from this possibility: “One always wants one’s good, but one does not always see it: one can never corrupt the people, but one can often cause it to be mistaken, and only when it is, does it appear to want what is bad” (II.3.1). The possibility for the people to deliberate poorly doesn’t appear to be in any way shocking or strange, but is strange in the context of the qualifications of legitimacy established by Rousseau regarding the initial social contract: voluntary slavery is illegitimate “for the simple reason” that whoever voluntarily enslaves himself “is not in his right mind” (I.4.4). Rousseau’s treatment of deliberation does not travel the parallel route of claiming that foolish or mindless deliberations are illegitimate. Furthermore, the problem of deliberation is exacerbated by the fact that the common good aimed at by the independent body or “moral person” governed by the general will does not have its own independent good: “the latter [the general will] looks only to the common interest, the former [the will of all] looks to private interest, and is nothing but a sum of particular wills; but if, from these same wills, one takes away the pluses and minuses which cancel each other out, what is left as the sum of the differences is the general will,” that is, “the Sovereign, since it is formed entirely of the individuals who make it up, has not and cannot have any interests contrary to theirs” (II.3.2 with I.7.5). The common interest is what is believed to be the shared private interest of the members of the political community. The common good is ignored when a person’s “share of the public evil seems to him as nothing compared to the exclusive good which he seeks to make his own” (IV.1.6, my emphasis).6

6 Contrast with Meier, 129–131, especially 130n24 as well as 167. Cf. Gilden, 44, 55– 57, and 164 as well as Roger D. Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 326.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

165

Despite the fact that Rousseau emphatically denies that there is a relationship between right and force, he acknowledges the legitimacy of coercion within the body politic: “for the social compact not to be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the following engagement which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the entire body: which means nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free” (I.7.8). Rousseau elaborates what he means by this in the chapter “Of the Right of Life and Death” which addresses the question of “how individuals who have no right to dispose of their own life can transfer to the Sovereign this same right which they did not have” (II.5.1). Rousseau claims that the state must punish criminals, and “anyone can see where [it] leads” if the law is not enforced (II.5.7). Rousseau does not attempt to transform criminal law, and his position is so uncontroversial that “anyone” would agree with him about it. When a state is working properly, punishments will lean in the direction of harshness and that means that the death penalty will be enforced; however, precisely if a state is “well-governed,” there will be “few punishments… because there are few criminals” (III.5.6). The “obvious” position surrounding criminal law is only controversial or questionable within the context of what has already been established by Rousseau. When the subject was the social contract itself, Rousseau had asked, “since each man’s force and freedom are his primary instruments of self-preservation, how can he commit them without harming himself, and without neglecting the cares he owes himself?” (I.6.3). Now that the subject matter has turned from the individual entering the social contract to the problem of the criminal, Rousseau’s tone shifts in a way that is sympathetic to the state: “the Citizen is no longer judge of the danger the law wills him to risk, and when the Prince has said to him, it is expedient to the State that you die, he ought to die; since it is only on this condition that he has lived in security until then, and his life is no longer only a bounty of nature, but a conditional gift of the State” (II.5.2). Rousseau’s support of the death penalty is an extension of this manner of thinking. The criminal “consents to die” in the sense that it is according to the rational general will that all criminals be killed; if this is not the position of the criminal, then he should be killed or exiled anyway as an enemy to the moral person of the State (II.5.3–4). Rousseau writes as one overcome by the passion of pity to such an extent that he can no longer bring himself to discuss the issue of the death penalty: “But I feel my heart murmur and check my pen; let us leave these

166

I. DAGG

questions to be discussed by the just man who has never lapsed, and never himself been in need of pardon” (II.5.7). The denaturing process, by which the individual is subsumed into the moral person of the state and by which his power is placed under the direction of the general will, requires the destruction or suppression of human pity. Rather than sternly advocate for the necessity of such measures as the death penalty on the grounds of justice, manliness, honor, etc., Rousseau undercuts the effect of his teaching even if one acknowledges that it is correct or rational. Obviously, Rousseau could have removed the line in question even if he had added it in the passion of the moment; that the line wasn’t cut is reason to think that the passion it exhibits is an artful rhetorical shift as distinct from a passionate failing. Rousseau brings to the attention of the reader the fact that he himself is not a denatured citizen and, in fact, the murmurings of his heart indicate that he would not want to be a denatured citizen. One might think that this is Rousseau’s way of acknowledging that he himself lacks the toughness of character required to be a true citizen; however, the murmurings of the heart suggest that it is not good for the individual to become denatured in the way that is required of a true citizen. The distortion required would certainly preclude not only the distance from the political required for the possibility of writing The Social Contract but also the possibility of experiencing the delicious reveries required for writing Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Rousseau himself seems to reject the life of the citizen as one requiring a toughness he himself lacks; in truth, Rousseau thinks that such a dehumanized life would not be choice worthy, as he also hints to us by beginning the work with a reference to himself and ending it with the claim that he should have fixed his sight closer to himself (I.introduction.1, IV.9.1). Rousseau’s “slip” into pity has the effect of drawing out the pity of the reader; despite the likely first impression that Rousseau is writing primarily to educate the citizen on the question of legitimacy, it is hard to reconcile such an impression with the cultivation of a passion that undercuts the citizen’s devotion to the state. This problem is exacerbated by Rousseau’s procedure in the chapter “Of the Lawgiver” (II.7). This chapter is primarily devoted to explaining the device the lawgiver uses to shape opinion, namely religion. By explaining the lawgiver’s use of religion, Rousseau seems to go out of his way to undercut the potential authority of lawgivers and therefore of the law itself. The problem all lawgivers face is that they have neither the force to compel nor the authority to demand that a people accept the law being established by

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

167

the lawgiver: “he must of necessity have recourse to an authority of a different order, which might be able to rally without violence and to persuade without convincing” (II.7.9). Rousseau claims without exception that the lawgiver must make a religious appeal: “This is what has at all times forced the fathers of nations to resort to the intervention of heaven and to honor the Gods with their own wisdom, so that peoples, subject to the laws of the State as to those of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation of man and in that of the city, freely obey the yoke of public felicity, and bear it with docility” (II.7.10). It seems as though any citizen who read this and took what he read to heart would no longer be a good citizen. The reader is even reminded of this at the work’s conclusion when Rousseau observes that the particularities of a given civil religion are a matter of convention according to the ninth of the ten Rousseauian commandments guiding the construction of civil religions (IV.8.33). Why does Rousseau seem to support the citizen by teaching him about legitimacy only to undercut the citizen’s attachment to the law by cultivating pity and treating religion as a noble lie? Who is Rousseau’s target audience and what does he want to achieve with his book? One might attempt to answer these questions by identifying the direct addressee of the work; however, the direct addressee of the work is hard to identify for the simple reason that there are multiple direct addressees: attentive readers (II.4.2n), a lawgiver or one otherwise in charge of establishing a state (II.11.2n, II.11.4, III.13.8), free peoples (II.8.4), modern peoples (III.15.9–10), and even someone traveling through Naples (III.8.13). If a free people would end up being corrupted by reading The Social Contract, then the advice directly given to free people, to remember the maxim that “[f]reedom can be gained; it is never recovered,” must be a rhetorical flourish meant to shame corrupt readers or “modern peoples” (11.8.4 with 11.15.10). If what Rousseau says to free people, that freedom can never be recovered, is true, then one has to wonder about the apparent cruelty of what Rousseau says to modern peoples: “As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but are yourselves slaves; you pay for their freedom with your own. Well may you boast of this preference; I find in it more cowardice than humanity” (11.15.10). What would be the point of shaming someone who has no hope of improvement? Free peoples would be harmed by the work and modern peoples are too corrupt to be benefitted; both addresses are rhetorical flourishes. The direct address to the lawgiver, one who first might gain

168

I. DAGG

experience of different people by traveling, seems to hold more promise. It would be quite helpful for a potential lawgiver to have read and understood The Social Contract. Rousseau plausibly could be thought to be giving a blueprint for lawgivers; however, apparently, the people ready for a lawgiver are “nascent people,” and one wonders about the value of advice that seems out of touch with the times (II.7.9). Finally, the identity of the attentive reader is not clear. Is the attentive reader a potential lawgiver or an inquirer? Rousseau seems to act as though the attentive reader is not a philosophic inquirer; he pulls away from directly addressing “one” who “inquires” in the same chapter in which he addresses a potential lawgiver (II.11.1 with II.11.2n and II.11.4). The obvious and preliminary conclusion is that the direct addressee may be reduced to the potential lawgiver of a nascent people. We will consider Rousseau’s chapters “Of the People” (II.8–10) and reevaluate this preliminary conclusion about the direct addressee. The second book as a whole may be divided into two parts, sovereignty and the people, bridged by the chapter on the lawgiver; the chapters directly devoted to the people balance the chapters directly devoted to sovereignty. The first of three chapters on the people addresses the historical presuppositions required by “the wise institutor” in the first place: he “does not begin by drawing up laws good in themselves, but first examines whether the people for whom he intends them is fit to bear them” (II.8.1). An inability to tolerate good laws is the norm, both for any given people and within the life of a given people: “A thousand nations on earth have been brilliant which could never have tolerated good laws, and even those which could have tolerated them could have done so only for a very brief period in the course of their entire lifetime” (II.8.2). It is even the case that there is only “one country left in Europe capable of receiving legislation; it is the island of Corsica” (II.10.6).7 The rhetorical tone of Rousseau in these chapters is that a corrupt people is not or hardly worth treating: “Plato refused to give laws to the Arcadians and Cyrenians, since he knew that both peoples were rich and could not tolerate equality: that is why there were good laws and wicked men in Crete, for Minos had done no more than to discipline a vice-ridden people” 7 Cf. “Rousseau’s Critique of Liberal Constitutionalism” by Allan Bloom in The Legacy of Rousseau, eds. Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarkov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 163 as well as “Rousseau and the Origins of Nationalism,” by Marc F. Plattner, 193–194 within the same volume.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

169

(II.8.1). Rousseau seems to justify the inaction of Plato, but isn’t doing “no more” than disciplining a vice-ridden people still a greater achievement than nothing? Rousseau does acknowledge that there were “good laws” in Crete—if wicked people truly cannot bear good laws, then the Cretan laws must be considered to be good relative to the Cretans, that is, the small but real legislative accomplishment of disciplining a vice-ridden people is what allows us to consider the laws “good.” In this connection, it is worth observing that not only are modern peoples in general corrupt, but also both the regime and people in a monarchy are very likely to be corrupt: the government itself is “less vigorous and less prompt in enforcing, preventing provocations, correcting abuses, [or] thwarting seditious undertakings,” while among the people “[t]alents are hidden, virtues, unknown, vices unpunished in this multitude of men who do not know one another, and whom the seat of the supreme administration has brought together in one place” (II.9.3). This is to say that Rousseau goes out of his way to emphasize to what extent the French intellectual most likely to be reading The Social Contract will be corrupt. In the beginning of the work, Rousseau claimed that if he “were a prince or legislator,” then he “would not waste [his] time saying what needs doing; [he] would do it, or keep silent” (I.Introduction.2). Accordingly, in the light of this claim, to the extent the direct addressee seems reducible to that of the potential lawgiver, and considering that Corsica is the only country left in Europe capable of receiving legislation, a plausible conclusion to make is that the most timely consideration of the work and what Rousseau aims at above all else is to instruct a potential lawgiver of Corsica. However, this conclusion cannot be considered sufficient, because it fails to address a number of questions: On the one hand, (1) why does Rousseau emphasize problems associated with a large state as distinct from ways to benefit the state of a small island in II.9? (2) Why does Rousseau insult the French “modern peoples” as slaves in III.15.10? (3) Why does he cruelly emphasize to the French reader not only that he is corrupt, but also that his corruption is beyond help? On the other hand, (1) Why does Rousseau acknowledge that Minos did, in fact, improve a corrupt people (II.8.1)? (2) Why does Rousseau end the second book by emphasizing that the “great Lawgiver attends in secret” the “morals, customs, and above all… opinion” of those for whom he legislates (II.12.5)?

170

I. DAGG

All of the above-mentioned questions are resolved immediately if one assumes that, contrary to Rousseau’s explicit claims that the corrupt are beyond help and in accordance with his claim that Minos did help the corrupt, Rousseau does, in fact, aim to legislate for a large and corrupt people in general, and the French in particular. All that is needed to accept this conclusion is to accept that Rousseau is capable of misleading his audience and that he must think that part of helping a large and corrupt people includes the rhetorical claim that they are beyond help. The claim that the lawgiver attends morals, customs, and opinions “in secret” should be sufficient to open one to the possibility that Rousseau is capable of misleading his audience.8 Regarding the second point, while being called a slave and being told that one is beyond help could lead someone to despair—and, while causing someone corrupt and beyond help to despair is cruel, it is not itself a source of political corruption—it is also the case that being told these things could raise the spiritedness of a reader and lead to an attempt at improvement on his part. I suggest that The Social Contract makes considerably more sense when read in the light of the conclusion that Rousseau actually does aim to serve the function of a lawgiver, not for a nascent people, but for a large and corrupt people, particularly the French but also large and corrupt people in general. Rousseau’s third book, working out which regime is best suited to which people, will be discussed in the light of this conclusion; however, before turning to the third book, it is worth observing a crucial piece of evidence supporting the conclusion that Rousseau himself performs the function of a lawgiver by attending in secret to the morals and opinions of a corrupt people. In the chapter “Of the Lawgiver,” we had observed Rousseau’s claim that “at all times” the “fathers of nations” were forced “to resort to the intervention of heaven and to honor the Gods with their own wisdom, so that peoples, subject to the laws of the State as to those of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation of man and in that of 8 These claims are compatible with claim that multiple “lawgivers” are needed in a process of founding over time that cannot end with the initial lawgiver. Leo Strauss observes in Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950) that “society has a continuous need for at least an equivalent to the mysterious and awe-inspiring action of the legislator” and that “Rousseau’s doctrine of the legislator is meant to clarify the fundamental problem of civil society rather than to suggest a practical solution, except in so far as that doctrine adumbrates Rousseau’s own function” (287–288, my italics). Also see Gilden, 73–74.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

171

the city, freely obey the yoke of public felicity, and bear it with docility” (II.7.10). Is it really true or in accordance with Rousseau’s other statements that peoples are as subject to the laws of the State as to those of nature and that the power involved in the formation of man is the same as in that of the city? We should acknowledge that this is neither true nor in accordance with Rousseau’s other statements. The social order is “founded on conventions” (I.1.2), “conventions remain as the basis of all legitimate authority among men,” which is to say that “no man has a natural authority over his fellow-man” (I.4.1); no social order could denature man to such an extent as to overcome “his absolute and naturally independent existence” (I.8.7). The belief that one is as subject to the laws of the State as to those of nature is the belief most conducive to subjecting oneself to the conventional and denaturing moral freedom associated with the social order of a corrupt people no longer fit, as a nascent people is, for direct lawgiving and too sophisticated to hold the religious claims of a direct lawgiver as true and binding.9 Rousseau substitutes his own natural religion for religions no longer held in credit by the corrupt; he appeals to the religious passions even as he renders it significantly more difficult to believe in the religion of, say, Calvin as lawgiver even if Calvin as theologian held his religion to be true and not merely salutary (II.7.5n).

3

The “Scientific” Analysis of Regime

The mere structure of The Social Contract indicates that the legitimacy of the regime is not founded on its form. We have already seen that Rousseau, in “Of the Lawgiver” (II.7), undercuts the claim of legitimacy of “all” regimes that justify themselves on grounds of the divine origin of law, however that divine origin is understood. While book two, therefore, can be understood as a denial of the self-understanding of any given particular regime, the discussion of regimes found in book three can be understood as a denial of the self-understanding of the citizen as shaped by the form of the regime, that is, the legitimacy of the regime is by no means grounded in claims of justice made on behalf of those who actually fight in wars (ancient democracy) or own property (oligarchy). By tacitly denying the claim of justice made on behalf of each form of regime,

9 Meier, 139.

172

I. DAGG

Rousseau not only needs to supply a new understanding of legitimacy, as we have seen him do in the first two books, but he also needs to supply a new understanding of regime; we will see that Rousseau places great emphasis on the relationship between the size of the state and the best type of regime. If the question of the best regime for a people were simply relative to the size of the state, then one could prescribe the appropriate regime for a given people with precision. Accordingly, Rousseau models his analysis of the proper regime on the model of geometry, giving his analysis the dignity of scientific precision and apparent neutrality in the controversy over the best regime. That being said, Rousseau exhibits a clear preference for regimes that provide for the freedom of the citizen; he continually shifts back and forth from the rhetoric of the coldly neutral scientist to that of the ardent lover of freedom. To understand the third book, one has to unravel these two threads running throughout the book; a process made more complicated by the fact that Rousseau will define a term and then proceed, without warning the reader, to use that term both in the context of his rigorous definition and in the term’s more common meaning.10 Finally, both rhetorical modes, that of scientist and freedomlover, aim to appeal to the corrupt audience that is Rousseau’s primary reader; book three contains additional evidence for the characterization of the work as fundamentally utopian. Rousseau begins the third book by presenting a geometer’s ratio for determining the most appropriate amount of force a government ought to have (III.1.8–12). This seemingly precise11 scientific claim replaces the claim that a people’s understanding of justice is mutually reflected in and determined by their form of government, and the appeal to scientific precision could lead the reader to think Rousseau’s transformation is as justified and irrefutable as Newton’s science is over that of his precursors. While one might be inclined to think that the lawgiver can just slap on a particular government depending on the territory to population ratio, Rousseau readily acknowledges that this is not the case. Rousseau chooses relative number of people to explain his ratio because number yields the most precise conclusion. While it is the easiest way to explain his ratio to the reader, it is by no means the only or even the most important

10 Cf. Gildin, 41–42. 11 Cf. Masters, 340–348.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

173

quality of a people to consider (III.1.10). Qualities important to an individual, such as spiritedness and intelligence, would be just as important when considering the group as a whole: “the ratios about which I am speaking are measured not only by numbers of men, but more generally by the amount of activity, which is the combined result of a great many causes; that, besides, if in order to express myself in fewer words I momentarily borrow the language of geometry, I am nevertheless not unaware of the fact that geometric precision does not obtain in moral quantities” (III.1.16). The purpose of government seems to be the simple application of the general will of a people in accordance with the universal standard of legitimacy already established: government is an “intermediate body established between subjects and Sovereign so that they might conform to one another, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political” (III.1.5). This seemingly simple definition is complicated by the realization that the “and” separating “execution of law” from “maintenance of freedom” is disjunctive. The general will may legitimately will that which is stupid or conducive to the loss of freedom, and some peoples simply do not have the characteristics needed for freedom. At times, maintenance of freedom would have to give way to execution of the laws if the emphasis were truly to be placed on execution of the laws. A lurking question moving forward is if and to what extent, given the standard of legitimacy established, the government may act to maintain freedom if that maintenance occurs at the expense of the execution of the law; however, even by the end of the first chapter, we are given evidence of the direction Rousseau will take in this matter: “without directly departing from the goal of its institution, it may deviate from it more or less, depending on how it is constituted” (III.1.21). The higher the quality of a people, the less the “and” in question will be disjunctive. The tension between executing the law and maintaining freedom is akin to the tension between Rousseau’s seemingly scientific insistence on the relativity of the goodness of a government and his concern for the freedom of a people. For example, when Rousseau claims that “there is no unique and absolute constitution of Government but that there may be as many Governments differing in nature as there are States differing in size,” we should not take this consideration as a lack of preference in state size or governmental form. Rousseau’s “geometric ratio” shows quite clearly that “the more the State expands, the more freedom is diminished”

174

I. DAGG

(III.1.11). Rousseau ends III.1 by claiming that “often the Government which is in itself the best will become the most vicious, if it its relations are not adjusted to the defects of the body politic to which it belongs,” and later says that just “as the regimen of healthy people is not suited to the sick, one must not try to govern a corrupt people by the same Laws as those that suit a good people” (III.1.22 and IV.4.36). Rousseau’s “scientific neutrality” removes or avoids the need to adjudicate between opposing claims to justice made by different types of regimes; this by no means implies that Rousseau has a “scientific” lack of interest in a people’s freedom or lack of freedom any more than it implies a lack of interest in the relative sickness or health of an individual. The terms Rousseau uses to describe governments are by no means novel; however, one must keep firmly in mind that by form of government (regime) he is referring solely to executive power: a democracy is governed by the whole or majority of the people, aristocracy by a small number, and monarchy by a single magistrate (III.3.2–4). In truth, however, these three categories, as broad categories, abstract from the nearly infinite variety of particular forms: “democracy” can be found not only where every single citizen is a member of the government, but also where merely half the citizens are members of the government; likewise aristocracy can be found when government is restricted from as little as half the citizens to the smallest number (II.3.5). Furthermore, the form of each of these governments would, strictly speaking, change depending on the actual number of citizens as well the manner in which the government is subdivided to create a variety of mixed forms (III.3.5–6). More novel than the formal separation of legislative and executive power, and more novel than the characterization of regime solely in terms of executive power, is that Rousseau combines both the Aristotelian conception of regime that judges a government based on its goodness and the “scientific” conception that does not. The third chapter of book three, “Classification of Governments,” makes sure that the reader is aware that the “various kinds or forms of Government are distinguished according to the number of the members who compose them” as distinct from differing conceptions of justice or wisdom that are reflected in the size of the governing body (III.3.1). Rousseau takes a “Platonic” conception of government in which a bad government, one that no longer serves the general will, is no government at all. Such a situation is not, as it is in Aristotle’s Politics, the degeneration of, say, aristocracy into oligarchy, but rather, aristocracy or any other government at all degenerates into anarchy; however, the

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

175

formalized character of this anarchy allows Rousseau to break anarchy down into something like the Aristotelian forms of decayed government: ochlocracy, oligarchy, and tyranny (III.10.8). The distinction between the three forms of government in terms of size, as well as the comparison between the three forms of government and their decayed non-government forms, could lead one improperly to deemphasize the extent to which Rousseau finds some forms of government superior to others as such. For example, one might be surprised, given Rousseau’s stated preference for small size, that he takes a rather dim view of the way in which democracy mixes that “which ought to be kept distinct,” namely the legislative and executive powers; democracy is “nothing but a Government without a Government” (III.4.1). Democracy too readily allows for the “dangerous… influence of private interests on public affairs” (III.4.2). A people of sufficient moral virtue to maintain a democracy “would not misuse independence either; a people which would always govern well would not need to be governed”; “[i]f there were a people of Gods, they would govern themselves democratically. So perfect a Government is not suited to men” (III.4.2 and 8). Rousseau goes so far as to deny that a genuine democracy has even ever existed or will exist: “It is against the natural order that the greater number govern and the smaller number be governed. It is unimaginable that the people remain constantly assembled to attend to public affairs, and it is readily evident that it could not establish commissions to do so without the form of the administration changing” (III.4.3). Democracy is rejected both as utopian in its demands on the moral character of the citizen and also as simply impractical. This apparently simple and prudent conclusion is rendered complicated by the fact that The Social Contract itself is a utopian work; we had seen this previously, and Rousseau goes out of his way to remind us of this when he condemns the use of deputies or representatives. By the time he turns to representative democracy as a way of alleviating the foreign problems associated with a small size, he claims he will show “below” how a very small political order will “not be subjugated” by a larger one only to tell us that he failed to do this very thing in a footnote to the passage (III.15.12 with III.15.12n). When discussing democracy, small size is not good because democracy is both impossible and impractical; when discussing representative government, Rousseau does not see how “among us the Sovereign can henceforth preserve the exercise of its rights unless the City is very small” (III.15.12). Rousseau establishes political conditions that shift depending on the context in

176

I. DAGG

which they occur. The condemnation of democracy, then, must be considered in the light of Rousseau’s rhetorical considerations and not taken simply at face value. The complement to Rousseau’s condemnation of democracy is his praise of aristocracy. There are three “kinds of Aristocracy: natural, elective, hereditary. The first is suited to simple peoples; the third is the worst of all Governments. The second is the best; it is Aristocracy properly so called” (III.5.4). To be clear, while elective inequality originated in the “instituted inequality” associated with “riches or power,” the election of magistrates is, or at least can be, the means “by which probity, enlightenment, experience, and all the other reasons for public preferment and esteem are so many further guarantees of being well governed” (III.5.3, 5). Indeed, Rousseau goes so far in his praise as to imply that if, “the best and most natural order is to have the wisest govern the multitude, so long as it is certain that they will govern it for its advantage and not their own,” then elective aristocracy, assuming the conditions for it are in place, is the best government for people who are no longer simple (III.5.7). Now, just as it is hard to reconcile what Rousseau says about democracy with representative government, so it is difficult to tell what the difference between elective aristocracy and representative government even is unless one pays sharp attention to Rousseau’s equivocal language. When he praises “elective aristocracy” he is referring to government in the sense of the executive branch, while when he refers to representative government he is referring to an elected sovereignty. Rousseau rejects monarchy along a similar line of reason as that of his condemnation of democracy; taking humans as they are, monarchy just asks too much of the monarch: “if, according to Plato, a King by nature is such a rare person, how often will nature and fortune concur to crown him, and if a royal education necessarily corrupts those who receive it, what can be expected of a succession of men brought up to rule? It is therefore deliberate self-deception to confuse royal Government with the Government of a good King. In order to see what this Government is in itself, it has to be considered as it is under stupid or wicked Princes; for either that is what they will be when they accede to the throne, or it is what the throne will make them be” (III.6.15). After having established the social contract and general will in books one and two according to the highest standards imaginable, Rousseau now condemns a “political sermonizer” who would claim of monarchs

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

177

that “since the people’s force is their force, their greatest interest is to have the people flourishing, numerous, formidable; they know perfectly well that this is not true. Their personal interest is first of all that the People be weak, wretched, and never able to resist them” (III.6.5). By contrast, Rousseau takes up a significant amount of space in the chapter “Of Monarchy” praising republican government (at this point “republican” loses the technical sense of generic “body politic” initially assigned to it [I.6.10]).12 For example, monarchy will “always” be inferior to “republican government” because “in Republics the public voice almost never elevates to the highest places any but enlightened and capable men who occupy them with honor” (III.6.8). By the end of the chapters on simple governments, we are prepared to accept that elective aristocracy or republican government is the best government a people can have, so long as that people has the right character and lives in the right place, and the short chapter “Of Mixed Governments,” which observes how to concentrate or moderate governmental force, does nothing to call this understanding into question.13 At this point, it is appropriate to take a step back and consider the structure of book three. After considering simple and mixed forms of government, there is no reason to come to any other conclusion than that whatever the difference between elective aristocracy and republican government is, if there even is one, these one or two forms of government are the best regime(s) for human beings when taking into consideration the moral capacity of human beings as they are experientially. To be sure, one can hardly overstress the extent to which Rousseau insists that the form of government be adjusted to the quality of the climate, geography, and people. The chapter after “Of Mixed Government,” “That Not Every Form of Government Is Suited to Every Country,” makes

12 There is a tendency among Rousseau’s readers, encouraged by the rhetorical motion of Rousseau, to exaggerate Rousseau’s attachment to the republican form of government by conflating his formal definition of republican government with the form of government most people envision when speaking of republican, for example, see “Rousseau and the Origins of Nationalism,” 194. Leo Strauss takes advantage of Rousseau’s equivocal use of “republic” to attack him as more radical than is the case; the subsection on Rousseau in “The Crisis of Modern Natural Right” is misleading and polemical in a way that mirrors the inflammatory rhetoric of Rousseau: Strauss, Natural Right and History, 277n44. Cf. Meier, 155–156 with 159. 13 Gilden, 116–117.

178

I. DAGG

this clear: “Hence the question, which is absolutely the best Government, does not admit to a solution because it is indeterminate: or, if you prefer, it has as many good solutions as there are possible combinations in the absolute and the relative positions of peoples” (III.9.1). After this, Rousseau provides two chapters on the end of the regime (“Of the Abuse of Government and of Its Tendency to Degenerate” and “The Death of the Body Politic”) followed by three chapters on the maintenance of sovereign authority. If book three ended with “The Death of the Body Politic,” then book three would be relatively straightforward: analysis of preference within simple and mixed regimes would be qualified by context along with the sober-minded conclusion that no regime lasts forever. Or, if the three chapters on the maintenance of sovereign authority had been placed prior to “The Death of the Body Politics” at which point book three ended, again, book three’s structure and arc would be quite clear. By placing the maintenance of regimes after the end of the regime, Rousseau prepares us for the particularly jarring chapter “Of Deputies or Representatives.” One might have expected the subject of representatives to be covered within the chapter on democracy, as a variation of democracy; within the chapter on aristocracy, in which it would be explained how this form of government differs from elective aristocracy; or within the chapter on monarchy, as the foil to monarchy; or within the chapter on mixed regimes. By placing the chapter so far afield from where one would expect it to occur, Rousseau makes us wonder why he does this and the content of the chapter only makes the resolution of this problem all the more necessary for understanding the role of regime within The Social Contract. Elective aristocracy had come to sight as the best regime in the chapter on aristocracy and republican government as best situated for bringing enlightened and capable men to government in the chapter on monarchy. If these facts are borne in mind, then Rousseau’s harsh and personal critique of representative government in “Of Deputies or Representatives” will be shocking unless one is attuned to Rousseau’s equivocal use of language; again, while Rousseau had been discussing government in terms of his formal definition, as the executive, he now reverts to the common sense understanding of elective republican government in which sovereignty is represented by elected officials. That these facts are not likely to be borne in mind by the typical reader has everything to do with the significant distance separating the apparently inconsistent treatment of the subject matter, as well as both Rousseau’s confusing and equivocal

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

179

language and his rhetorical approach of seeming to deny that any regime is better than any other both within the work as a whole and especially in the two chapters treating that subject (II.7–8). Why does Rousseau seem to contradict himself and what impression does he wish to leave in the reader’s mind? “Of Deputies or Representatives” is the most aggressive chapter in the whole work; in this chapter, speaking in direct discourse to “you,” Rousseau calls “you” a cowardly slave (III.15.10). The condemnation of representative government is surely the last word for the typical reader. To interpret this chapter correctly, and therefore to understand Rousseau’s thought on the question of regime, one must account for (1) why he wants the typical reader to be ashamed of himself at this point in the context of representative government and (2) why he wants attentive readers to be perplexed at this point. This chapter comes on the heels of three chapters making a case that a state filled with hundreds of thousands of citizens is no excuse for claiming that it is impossible to assemble the people; however, even if we accept Rousseau’s argument on this point, there is still the question of the desirability of assembling the people. We already know that Rousseau prefers elective aristocracy and republicanism; the point of assembling the people is not to form a government out of them but simply to confirm the executive as it is structured (III.13.1). Rousseau’s attack on deputies or representatives has to be understood in the light of this distinction. Rousseau neither thinks that the people should be gathered together for purposes associated with the executive branch, nor does he explicitly state how often the people must be assembled for the political order to retain legitimacy. Frequency of assembly would seem to be a question of prudence in which the people should be assembled less frequently as they are more corrupt. The point of assembling the people is to confirm that the government should retain its form and leave those who are in charge in charge, that is, to remind the government that it is not the sovereign authority and to remind the citizens that the question of legitimacy does not disappear with the formation of a government (III.18.7–8 with III.18.4). In fact, usually it would be indicative of an imprudent government if the assembled sovereign, which has “no other object than to maintain the social treaty,” did anything other than confirm the government in its form and administration (III.18.6). Continual transformation of the law would indicate a corrupt or incompetent government, but it is the commercial republic that is both proud of its putative legitimacy and changes the law most frequently. Rousseau’s

180

I. DAGG

chapter attacking deputies and representatives is designed to shame those who think of themselves as morally superior to Romans on the grounds that commercial virtues are more decent than warlike virtues. Rousseau’s attack on deputies and representatives is really an attack on commerce: “The word finance is a slave’s word; it is unknown in the City. In a truly free State the citizens do everything with their hands and nothing with money: Far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would pay to fulfill them themselves” (III.15.2). Rousseau goes so far as to say that “the instant a People gives itself Representatives, it ceases to be free; it ceases to be” (III.15.11). Accordingly, the so-called laws that are established by representatives imply in truth that “upon closer examination, very few Nations would be found to have laws” (III.15.8). Someone might claim that it is astonishingly imprudent to make a point of delegitimizing political orders that provide for security, wealth, and the opinion of freedom in their citizens. By openly transforming the opinion of freedom into the opinion of slavery, is Rousseau not stirring up unrest and encouraging political disorder? The following is speculation, but, considering the extensive use of direct discourse in the chapter, speculation is warranted. In a healthy commercial republic, a spirited citizen would reject such insults with indignation; in a thoroughly corrupt and bloated commercial republic, an indifferent citizen will shrug such accusations off, saying, “What do I care?” (III.15.3). In both cases, the rhetorical appeal will fall flat. The group for which it will not fall flat, then, is the group in the intermediate stage of transition from spirited and public-minded to decadent and private-minded. Rousseau makes the calculation that the danger of stirring up bloody revolution is outweighed by the need to boost public virtue in commercial republics; by stirring up citizens, Rousseau aims to induce mediocre citizens to reattach themselves to the common good or to public virtue. Rousseau’s attack could be the spark that leads to the destruction of a republic, but it could also delay the destruction of a republic, just as jolting a dying individual with an electric shock could be that which either finishes him off or rejuvenates him.

4

Elective Aristocracy Disguised

The purpose of the last book is to summarize what has been learned about the general will and to discuss several useful institutions, almost all of which are modeled on Roman institutions. The discussion of the

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

181

Roman institutions is dry, and the reader may be tempted to skim over them; Rousseau demands that the “judicious reader” not do this (4.3.10). In fact, the discussion of the Roman institutions serves to qualify some of Rousseau’s more deliberately misleading remarks about political legitimacy. He begins the book with a chapter reminding us that the general will cannot be “annihilated or corrupted”; instead, in corrupt political orders, the general will is ignored in favor of particular interests (IV.1.6). This raises the question of the status of the general will if a vote is not unanimous; in this case, must we assume corruption? Rousseau’s answer is that to be mistaken is distinct from being corrupt: “When a law is proposed in the People’s assembly, what they are being asked is not exactly whether they approve the proposal or reject it, but whether it does or does not conform to the general will, which is theirs” (IV.2.8). To make a mistake about the general will is neither to destroy it nor an indication of corruption. Regarding “the elections of the Prince and the Magistrates,” it remains to establish whether election ought to be “by choice or by lot” (IV.3.1). The answer to this question depends on the form of government: “In every genuine Democracy, magistracy is not an advantage but a burdensome charge, which one cannot justly impose on one individual rather than another” (IV.3.4). By contrast, in “Aristocracy the Prince chooses the Prince, the Government perpetuates itself by itself, and that is where voting is appropriate” (IV.3.5). Now, Rousseau reminds us that he has “already said that there is no genuine Democracy,” completely ruling out unqualified election by lot, and he acts as though few offices actually require “specific talents”: while election by choice should fill positions such as “military offices,” many offices, such as, “judicial responsibilities” may be filled by lot in a “well-constituted State” (IV.3.8). Despite the fact that the tone of the work taken as a whole favors democracy,14 we are left with a formal recommendation in favor of elective aristocracy and mixed regime; however, this conclusion sits uneasily with what Rousseau claims about the right to vote: “I could offer quite a few reflections here on the simple right to vote in every act of sovereignty; a right of which nothing can deprive Citizens… but this important matter would require a separate treatise” (IV.1.7). The problem of keeping an unruly sovereignty 14 Leo Strauss begins his essay “On the Intention of Rousseau,” Social Research 14, no. 4 (December 1947) by observing that Rousseau “considered himself the first theoretician of democracy,” 455.

182

I. DAGG

in check by the few in government is implicitly considered in the chapters on Rome and, most importantly, the reforms of Servius. Rousseau calls the Roman Comita or Assembly a “Council of two hundred thousand men” (IV.4.10). Earlier, when he had made his highly rhetorical condemnation of representative democracy by contrasting modern representative democracy with Rome, he had acted as though the Roman Empire had been able to maintain universal suffrage despite having “more than four million Citizens,” while now, in the more soberminded analysis of the Roman Assembly, the number of men being considered is reduced to merely two hundred thousand (IV.3.10). This is another indication of the utopian character of the work.15 What is really at stake is not so much the possibility of having millions of assembled voters, but the manner in which one type of rule may look like another type of rule, that is to say: (1) meet with the approval of the many (2) without having the defects of being ruled by the many, while still (3) maintaining a high level of legitimacy in Rousseau’s sense. When the initial apportionment of Rome into tribes of Albans, Sabines, and foreigners led to the problem that the third tribe of foreigners was continually expanding at the expense of the other two, Servius reorganized Rome. While not spelling this out, Rousseau seems to recognize Servius as Rome’s true lawgiver; he implies that the purported existence of Romulus and Numa were in truth allegorical fictions (IV.4.1). It is to the distinction between urban and rural tribes, instituted by “the wise institutor” Servius, that Rome owed “both the preservation of its morals, and the growth of its empire” (IV.4.8). By coupling “freedom with rural and military labors,” Servius “so to speak relegated arts, crafts, intrigue, fortune and slavery to the city” (IV.4.8). The apparently neutral divisions had the effect of establishing “all of Rome’s illustrious men… in the country and cultivat[ing] the land,” and “it became customary to look only there for the mainstays of the Republic” (IV.4.9). Putative equality may favor the wealthy and rural population over and against the corrupting influence of the city for the betterment of the political order. Servius also divided “the whole Roman people into six classes, which he distinguished neither by district nor by persons, but by goods: So that 15 Rousseau himself prescribed a federated representative democracy to Poland, albeit one that included binding instructions. See “Rousseau and the French Revolution” by François Furet, 173 with “Rousseau and the Theory and Practice of International Relations,” by Pierre Hassner, 208 in Legacy of Rousseau as well as Masters, 339.

EDUCATION AND REGIME IN ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL …

183

the first classes were filled with the rich, the last with the poor, and the middle ones with those who enjoyed a moderate fortune. These six classes were subdivided into 193 other bodies called centuries, and these bodies were so distributed that the first Class alone contained more than half of them, and the last formed but a single one” (IV.4.15). To avoid the appearance that the division into classes preferred the wealthy over the poor, Servius “pretended to give it a military cast” (IV.4.16). Rousseau himself formally refrains from judging whether this division into classes was “in itself good or bad”; however, he believes he can “safely say that it could only be made to work because of the first Romans’ simple morals, their disinteredness, their taste for agriculture, their contempt for commerce and the ardor for gain.” He is also willing to ask the following rhetorical question: “Where is the modern people whose devouring greed, unsettled spirit, intrigue, constant comings and goings, perpetual revolutions of fortune would let such an establishment last twenty years without overthrowing the state?” (IV.4.19). The rhetorical force of the passage makes it is easy to assume that Rousseau thinks that forming the division into classes in this way is good, and it is certainly the case that this kind of attack on “modern people” is in tune with the attack on the representative democracy of a commercial republic. However, one should be hesitant to ascribe anything other than ambiguity to Rousseau on this point because the ultimate value of Rome’s division into classes in its historical context is a universal empire and the rise of Christianity. What is of immediate importance is that Rousseau does not declare such a division illegitimate despite the fact that it favored the first class to such an extent that by itself it “prevailed over all the others by its votes” (IV.4.28). Given the tone of the work, it is remarkable that the “judicious reader” be instructed in this manner. Yes, Rousseauian legitimacy seems to make astonishing demands on the political order, but the practical dilution of Rousseau’s conception of legitimacy is hardly any different from that of the maxim of prudence that presents the political order as more in the control of the many than is in truth the case. Rousseau teaches the judicious reader to favor “the wealthy and the rural population over against la canaille.”16 It is a sad reflection on the reader and his political order if Rousseau’s The Social Contract is taken to be a call to revolution. Its most immediate purpose, as indicated by its rhetoric, is political remediation. In the

16 Strauss, “Intention,” 485n70.

184

I. DAGG

case of revolution, the work establishes a standard of legitimacy capable of standing in for the traditional religious appeal of “all” legislators or the disputed claims to justice associated with particular forms of regimes; however, Rousseau instructs his better readers, incidentally those more likely to obtain political power, that the “egalitarian implication of his doctrine” need not be affirmed at the expense of the few who should, in fact, rule.17

17 Ibid., 485n70.

Tocqueville’s Defense of Aristocratic Literature Antonio Sosa

The fundamental purpose of Tocqueville’s work is to protect democratic man from himself. More precisely stated, Tocqueville seeks to cultivate in democratic man the beliefs and sentiments necessary for him to preserve religion and liberty in democratic times.1 And yet Tocqueville has very little to say about education in the formal and ordinary sense of the

1 See Democracy in America, I.I.2, II.I.5, II.II.15, and II.IV.7. The relevant state-

ments in these sections may be found, respectively, in Pléiade, II.47, II.532, II.657, and II.846. Roman and Arabic numerals following “Pléiade” will refer to the volume and page numbers, respectively, in André Jardin, ed., Tocqueville: Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1991). See also Tocqueville’s letter to Claude-François de Corcelle, dated September 17, 1853, where he remarks that “man’s true greatness lies only in the harmony of the

A. Sosa University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA A. Sosa (B) Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_9

185

186

A. SOSA

word.2 In The Old Regime and the Revolution, he criticizes the public education proposals of the physiocrats for their disdain for local liberties and their belief that enlightenment through “a certain public instruction given by the state” would make despotism impossible.3 He makes his most laudatory statement about formal education in Democracy in America, in a brief chapter that occurs in the part of Volume II that treats the effect of democratic equality on “intellectual movement in the United States.”4 The scope of the chapter is not, however, limited to the United States. For as is often the case, and particularly so in Volume II, Tocqueville uses observations about democracy in America as a basis for making general statements about democracy as such. The very title of the chapter in question—“Why the Study of Greek and Latin Literature is Particularly Useful in Democratic Societies”—shows the truth of this claim. Though brief, it touches upon ideas that Tocqueville develops in

liberal sentiment and religious sentiment,” in Roger Boesche, ed., Alexis de Tocqueville: Selected Letters on Politics and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 295. For the sake of convenience, I have included page references to the relevant sections in English-language editions of Tocqueville’s works: a. Roman and Arabic numerals following “Nolla” will refer to the volume and page number, respectively, in Eduardo Nolla, ed., Democracy in America (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2012). The references to Tocqueville listed at the beginning of this footnote correspond to Nolla, I. 69–70, II.745, II.957, II.1272. b. Roman and Arabic numerals following “Furet and Mélonio” will refer to the volume and page number, respectively, in François Furet and Françoise Mélonio, eds., The Old Regime and the Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). c. Arabic numerals following “Mayer and Kerr” will refer to the page number in J.P. Mayer and A.P. Kerr, eds., Recollections: French Revolution of 1848 (New York: Routledge, 1987). 2 For an interpretation of the aristocratic implications of this silence, see Edward T.

Gargan, “The Silence of Tocqueville on Education,” Historical Reflections 7, no. 2/3 (1980): 565–575. 3 See The Old Regime and the Revolution, I.III.3; Pléiade, III.188; Furet and Mélonio, I.211. All translations of Tocqueville’s work, including his letters, are my own unless otherwise noted. 4 Democracy, II.I.15; Pléiade, II.573–575; Nolla, II.815–817.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

187

other parts of his work and so functions as a useful beginning for studying the theme of education in his thought.5 In what follows I will develop this theme by looking at (1) Tocqueville’s view of aristocratic literature as he presents it in the aforementioned chapter, (2) his view of the meaning and function of poetic ideals in aristocratic and democratic times, (3) his view of Plato’s teaching on the soul and politics, and (4) his view of the prospects for the recovery of aristocratic virtue in democratic times.

1

Aristocratic Literature and Democratic Man

As the chapter in question is relatively short, it is possible to give a full account of its structure. It is composed of two parts. In the first, Tocqueville describes the character of aristocratic literature and explains why its study is useful to democracy. In the second he prescribes the general manner in which democracy should study aristocratic literature. One may, therefore, say that while the first part is theoretical the second is practical in character. Tocqueville begins by emphasizing the aristocratic character of ancient republics. The ancient cities, both Greek and Roman, were not democratic in the modern egalitarian sense. They were democracies in the sense that all free citizens were equal in their right to take part in public affairs. But they accepted the principle of inequality to such a degree as to condone its most extreme manifestation, slavery. The slaves, which formed the overwhelming majority of the cities, performed the manual labor that made the leisure of free citizens possible. This labor, Tocqueville reminds the reader, is in modern times done by the poor and even the middle class. To this political condition of ancient cities Tocqueville adds one that is social: the presumably technological limitations of the time made the production and reproduction of books (i.e., papyri) a relatively costly endeavor. The leisure that slavery made possible, 5 Notable studies addressing the theme of education in Tocqueville’s thought include: Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 83, 106–107, 125–134; Jan H. Blits, “Tocqueville on Democratic Education: The Problem of Public Passivity,” Educational Theory 47, no. 1 (March 1997): 15–30; “Tocqueville: the Aristocrat as Democratic Pedagogue,” in Teachers of the People: Political Education in Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville, and Mill, Dana Villa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 173–227.

188

A. SOSA

in conjunction with the scarcity of books that the limits of technology made necessary, resulted in the rise of an intellectually cultivated class within the ruling class of citizens, “a small literary aristocracy of the elite of a great political aristocracy.”6 This intellectual aristocracy gave to its literature “the particular vices and special qualities that characterize literature in aristocratic centuries.”7 In describing what these vices and qualities are, Tocqueville reveals the nerve of the argument of the first half of the chapter. Though ancient writers did not always write about enough things and did not write in a sufficiently general way, they wrote with painstaking attention to detail and form. They wrote a literature for connoisseurs, to educate and be enjoyed by men of taste. Tocqueville adds to this depiction the following remark, without making clear if it follows logically from the preceding set of qualities or is one that exists independently: “the search for ideal beauty shows itself unceasingly” in ancient literature.8 He then makes the observation, presumably based on the aforementioned qualities, that no literature “puts the qualities naturally lacking in the writers of democracy more in relief than that of the ancients.” There, therefore, “exists no literature better suited for one to study in democratic centuries.”9 It is clear from the preceding that Tocqueville believes that democratic literature has, just as aristocratic literature, its peculiar vices and virtues, and that these are the inverse of those of aristocratic literature. Democratic literature, as Tocqueville elsewhere remarks,10 is unconcerned with literary form, and also, presumably, with “the search for ideal beauty”— at least relative to aristocratic literature. These are its principal vices. Its virtues include a tendency to generalize and to treat a great variety of subjects. There is no need for the political science of democratic times to seek to reinforce these virtues because the democratic social state, by which they are partly caused, will by its own nature give them support: the horizon of democracy will protect the distinctive virtues of democratic literature. But it will not counter but only strengthen the vices

6 Democracy, II.I.15; Pleiade, II.574; Nolla, II.816. 7 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, ibid. 8 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, II.817. 9 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, ibid. 10 Democracy, II.I.13; Pléiade, II.570; Nolla, II. 808.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

189

toward which that literature naturally tends. Aristocratic literature functions as a source of literary taste beyond the horizon of democracy that can moderate democratic writers by showing them what they tend to lack. But this means that democratic literature must recognize the partial authority of a literature that is based on a social state antithetical to the basic principle of democracy, that is, equality. The excellence of the literature of democracy requires that it remains at a certain remove from the horizon of democracy. After cautioning the reader to pay close attention to what he is about to say next, Tocqueville introduces the argument of the second and practical or, to be much more precise, political part of the chapter: “a study can be useful to the literature of a people” but still be inappropriate “to its social and political needs.”11 Aristocratic literature cannot be the sole or even primary object of study in a democracy because if it were then citizens “would trouble the state in the name of the Greeks and Romans instead of enriching it with their industry.”12 For not only does an education in aristocratic literature not satisfy the commercial needs of democracy; it teaches contempt for those needs in the name of Greek and Roman things. It is not clear whether “Greeks and Romans” refers primarily to the virtues of intellect, character, or the great political deeds of the sort depicted in Plutarch’s Lives,13 or to some combination of the preceding alternatives. It is not even clear whether this degree of specificity is relevant to Tocqueville’s argument. However, this may be, his argument at the very least entails the view that an overriding focus on the study of ancient things in the program of education of a democracy risks leading

11 Democracy, II.I.15; Pléiade, II.574; Nolla, II.817. 12 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.575; Nolla, ibid. 13 Plutarch’s Lives was one of Tocqueville’s favorite ancient works, as his letter of April 6, 1838, to Royer-Collard, attests. There Tocqueville writes: “I return to my work [writing the second volume of Democracy in America] that I do not interrupt but from time to time, when I am fatigued, in order to reread Plutarch.” See Oeuvres Complètes, Tome XI: Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville avec P.-P Royer-Collard et avec J.-J Ampère (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 60. Moreover, in a letter to Gustave Beaumont, dated March 21, 1838, Tocqueville describes his stirring experience reading Plutarch’s Lives: “This reading has captured my imagination so well that there are moments when I fear becoming mad in the manner of Don Quixote. My mind is completely crammed with a heroism that is hardly of our time, and I fall very flat when I come out of these dreams and find myself face to face with reality.” See Selected Letters on Politics and Society, 125. Trans. James Toupin and Roger Boesche.

190

A. SOSA

to political disorder because most people in a democracy must work to live and ancient things, whether they point to virtue or glory or a combination of both, inspire in men a disdain for the desires that a life of work both requires and engenders. The greatness of the founders and statesmen of Plutarch’s Lives, for example, resides precisely in their willingness to endure danger and pain for the sake of glory. The middle class of a democracy, by contrast, which is the overwhelming majority, is characterized precisely by its restless pursuit of safety, comfort, and wealth. The education program of a democracy must satisfy the basic needs of the social state upon which democracy is based if it is to contribute to its perpetuation. From the preceding Tocqueville reaches a conclusion that surely breaks the hearts of the most egalitarian advocates, then and now, of liberal education: liberal education must be elite and not mass education if it is to benefit democracy. Most people in a democracy, therefore, should receive a “scientific, commercial, and industrial rather than literary” education. Liberal education is the preserve of a minority for whom “a few excellent universities” should exist in which “those whose nature14 or whose fortune destines them to cultivate letters or predisposes them to that taste find schools in which one can become a perfect master of ancient literature and be totally imbued with its spirit.”15 By “totally imbued with its spirit” Tocqueville means, not the virtues and vices of aristocratic literature but rather the virtues of aristocratic literature in contradistinction to its vices. He indicates this by emphasizing that aristocratic literature is not irreproachable16 but rather that it has “special qualities” that “hold 14 The French noun Tocqueville uses here is not nature but naturel, which can mean “nature,” “character,” “naturalness,” and “ease.” In this last two senses, the term is akin to the way we use “natural” in English, as when we say that “someone is a natural” in a given activity. An alternative translation here would be “natural talent” or, if one is in an audacious mood, “innate knack.” 15 Democracy, II.I.15; Pléiade, II.575; Nolla, II.817. See Alan S. Kahan’s clear-eyed treatment of this view in “Tocqueville and Liberal Education,” The Tocqueville Review 34, no. 2 (2013): 159–168. 16 The most reproachable thing in ancient literature for Tocqueville was the inhumanity inherent in its indifference to or acceptance of slavery. In this connection, Tocqueville argues earlier in Volume II that because ancient writers were limited by the aristocratic horizon of their time, they could not understand what Jesus Christ “had to come to earth to make understood,” namely, “that all members of the human species were naturally similar and equal.” He is particularly hard on Aristotle, who famously distinguishes between natural and conventional slavery and thereby denies that slavery is simply unjust.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

191

us [democracy] up on the side where we lean.”17 But why would the few who are equipped by nature or circumstance to receive such an education not trouble the state? A part of the answer must surely lie in the limited power of the minority to challenge a democratic state, although it must be added that Tocqueville was well aware of how far extraordinary individuals could go in this regard.18 It is more reasonable to think that Tocqueville believes that the fit few will tend to have the delicacy and discrimination necessary to integrate the virtues of aristocratic literature into the political and social framework of democracy. A minority that is fit to receive a liberal education will not, unlike the majority, trouble the state in the name of Greek and Roman things because they will be more likely to distinguish between the spirit and the letter of Greek and Roman teachings. Liberal education distances this literary elite from the horizon of its time in order to make it, not a passionate enemy but a more thoughtful friend of democracy.19 But it is one thing not to trouble the state and another to benefit it. Tocqueville does not explain by what means this literary elite is to benefit democracy. One might try to find an explanation by having recourse to his Introduction to Democracy. For he there makes clear that his work is intended to instruct democracy by, in part, instructing those who are in charge of directing its political and social affairs.20 Since it is reasonable to assume that a not insignificant portion of those with the leisure to receive the highest literary education will be in a position to occupy positions of In the privacy of a note on the chapter rather than in his published work, Tocqueville writes that, rather than discover slavery in nature, he would have preferred that Aristotle had “look[ed] for truth only in his own heart.” See Democracy, II.I.3; Pléiade, II.526; Nolla, II.733n. Trans. James T. Schleifer. 17 Democracy, II.I.15; Pléiade, II.575; Nolla, II.817. 18 For example, Tocqueville briefly describes Napoleon and his critical role in influ-

encing the character of post-revolutionary France at the very beginning, and at the beginning of Book Three, of his unfinished second volume of The Old Regime and the Revolution. See Old Regime, “Idée Originaire, Vue Générale, Sentiment Général et Primitif du Sujet,” “Projets;” Pléiade, III.455, III.635–640; Furet and Mélonio, II.27, II.185–189. 19 For an exploration of Tocqueville’s understanding of both the destructive and salutary potential of liberal education in democratic times, see Luke Foster’s “Tocqueville on the Mixed Blessing of Liberal Learning: Higher Education as Subversive Antidote,” in Exploring the Social and Political Economy of Alexis de Tocqueville, eds. Peter J. Boettke and Adam Martin (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 63–81. 20 Democracy, I. “Introduction;” Pléiade, II.8; Nolla, I.16–18.

192

A. SOSA

considerable responsibility in government and civil society, it is reasonable to conclude that a part of the political elite will come from the literary elite and thus share in its spirit. But this would only explain Tocqueville’s reasoning in the case of a European democracy of the mid-nineteenth century, in the case of an aristocracy that is transitioning to democracy. In the case of mid-nineteenth-century America, the image of democracy as such in Tocqueville’s eyes,21 the political elite does not come and is not ever likely to come in any significant degree from the literary elite. This leaves the following alternative: the literary elite of a democracy benefits democracy not on a political but on a purely social level, by elevating the intellectual and moral tone of the utilitarian and commercial education for which most people are suited.22 If elite literary education ranks high in the order of formal education, institutions of mass education will in some sense look up to it as a standard.23 By exemplifying a standard in light of which the pursuit of comfortable self-preservation appears low or ugly, elite literary education would provide an implicit and gentle criticism of the aims of mass education, and by extension of democracy, that may ennoble democracy without undermining the legitimacy of the commercial, industrious and—from the rarefied perspective of ancient virtue or glory—prosaic way of life of the majority. By simply being what they are within an academic order in which liberal education is honored above utilitarian education, those fit for a liberal education may thus leaven the character of democracy. But would not the needs of the democratic social state gradually narrow the horizon of democratic man to such an extent as to obscure the rank order of academic disciplines and the evidence for the preeminence of liberal education within that order? Under such conditions, a rigorous education in aristocratic literature would no longer be the pride 21 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.15; Nolla, I.28. 22 This is not to deny that Tocqueville thought democratic statesmen should be

concerned with preserving or recovering the conditions under which active and publicspirited citizens are most likely to emerge. For two nuanced treatments of this dimension of Tocqueville’s thought, see: (1) Dana Villa, “Religion, Civic Education, and Conformity,” in The Spirit of Religion and the Spirit of Liberty, ed. Michael Zuckert (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 217–237; and (2) Brian Danoff, “A School or a Stage? Tocqueville and Arendt on Politics and Education,” Perspectives on Political Science 41, no. 3 (July 2012): 117–124. 23 In this connection, see Democracy, II.I.13, II.I.16; Pléiade, II.570–571, II.577–578; Nolla, II.808–809, II.824.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

193

of academia and consequently no longer function as a model for the bulk of the universities. The minimum that must be said in defense of Tocqueville’s view is that he does not seem to believe that the natural tendency of democracy is strong enough to necessarily bring about such a diminution of the horizon of the democratic mind, so long as sufficient precautions in the intellectual and moral education of that mind are taken by its genuine and thoughtful friends. Independently of these factors, Tocqueville also holds the old-fashioned view that nature will always bring into being rare human types who, regardless of the horizon of their time, will strive to reach the highest intellectual goals.24 However this may be, the chapter we have been considering introduces us to Tocqueville’s view of the character of aristocratic literature and the function of a literary aristocracy of sorts within democracy. But it does not give us an adequate account of what Tocqueville understands by aristocratic literature, that is, of its teaching on man, virtue, or politics. For example, Tocqueville refers to the “ideal beauty” that aristocratic literature is ever in search of but does not tell us what he understands by that term. And he does not even explicitly refer to, let alone give an account of, ancient virtue or the love of glory. He leaves it to the reader to infer these notions from his reference to the difference between the utilitarian and commercial needs of a democracy and the ideas and sentiments that aristocratic literature inspires. But as long as we do not have an adequate grasp of what Tocqueville understands by aristocratic literature, we will not have an adequate grasp of what he means by a literary class that is totally imbued with its spirit. To begin to remedy this deficiency, it is necessary to look at Tocqueville’s most substantive account of the meaning and value of aristocratic literature. This account is found in his chapter on the sources of poetry in democratic nations, wherein the concept of “the ideal” is the primary theme.25

24 Democracy, II.I.10; Pléiade, II.554, 557; Nolla, II. 781, 785. 25 Democracy, II.I.17; Pléiade, II.583–589; Nolla, II.831–842.

194

A. SOSA

2

The Poetic Ideal of Democratic Man

Tocqueville defines poetry in the broad sense of the term as “the search for and depiction of the ideal.”26 It is unlike philosophy or science, one may say, in that it “will not have for its aim to represent the true but to embellish it and to offer a superior image to the mind.”27 This higher image is not real or is real only in the sense that it exists in the imagination. But it has the power to rouse man precisely because it retains a connection with reality, because it is an enlarged and ennobled image of the real, a magnification of those aspects of reality that exemplify or point to man’s deepest longings. The ideal thereby teaches man about the nature of the soul. This is why Tocqueville does not merely say that poetry enlarges or embellishes nature, but that it also completes it. Poetry could not complete nature if it did not depict what nature—human nature—always already points to. But poetry in democratic times cannot be the same as in aristocratic times, according to Tocqueville, because its sources––the social state, along with the beliefs and sentiments that it partly generates––are not the same. In aristocratic times, profound and hereditary inequalities exist between men, the beautiful is more highly esteemed than the useful, and faith in positive religion is deeply rooted. These conditions elicit a poetry that depicts the ideal by populating the universe with supernatural beings, such as gods and heroes, who act as “intermediary powers between God and man.”28 These images are able to capture the imagination of men in aristocratic times, to shape their ideas and sentiments, because the social conditions that underlie them, and which they in turn reflect and magnify, make them believable idealizations of reality. The extreme difference between a leisured nobleman and a landless peasant with respect to their material conditions of existence and respective degrees of intellectual cultivation, for example, renders the depiction of heroes who tower 26 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.583; Nolla, II.832. In a set of notes on the chapter, Tocqueville indicates that he is here using “poetry” as a term of art suitable to his broader thematic concerns, rather than in its more restricted, technical sense: “So what definitively is poetry? This could become the topic for a dissertation, with which I do not intend to fatigue the reader. So instead of trying to find out what language has wanted to include in the word poetry, I will say what I include in it myself and I will fix the meaning that I give to it in the present chapter.” See Nolla, II.831n. Trans. James T. Schleifer. 27 Democracy, II.I.17; Pléiade, II.583; Nolla, II.832. 28 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.584; Nolla, II.833.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

195

above the general rung of men in virtue and power a believable ideal, an image that fulfills and crystallizes what society already intimates. A similar relation exists in Tocqueville’s view between the saints and demons that revealed religion teaches man to believe in, on the one hand, and the gods and heroes that aristocratic poetry depicts. Democratic times, by contrast, strengthen doubts regarding the truth of revealed religion, undermine hereditary privileges, reduce material inequalities, and elevate the useful over the beautiful as the paramount object of desire. It is not that the religious faith of democratic man is entirely shaken, but rather that it is simplified: he will tend to doubt the existence of intermediary powers between himself and God. Indeed, in his chapter on pantheism, Tocqueville goes as far as to express a concern that the ontological hierarchy between Creator and creature taught by traditional monotheism may fray in the face of the egalitarian tendency of democratic man to identify God with the world.29 The growing social equality of democratic times, along with the concomitant rise of a middle class, renders the image of exceptional human beings standing high above the rest far less compelling and even intelligible to democratic man. And the freedom and restlessness of democratic times, in which men rise or fall in social standing and property by their talent, industry, and luck, leaves most men little time to pursue or even acquire a settled taste for pleasures of the mind. The latter are not honored in democratic times because they serve no end beyond themselves. More men have more things in democratic times, but fewer men, and fewer leading men, pursue beautiful things or have even an inkling of their place in the economy of human desire. The beautiful—the search for ideal beauty—therefore comes to lose the authoritative status it had in aristocratic times. And yet the prosaic objects of desire of the democratic middle class do not serve as an adequate replacement for the beautiful. The pursuits that typically animate men engaged in commerce are not easily rendered into images that stir the soul. The poetry of democracy thus finds itself in the awkward position of being unable to appeal to the love of the beautiful that only a life of leisure and cultivation reliably nourishes, while being unable to appeal to the concerns of men whose lives are dominated by the pursuit of comfortable self-preservation.

29 Democracy, II.I.7; Pléiade, II.541–542; Nolla, II.757–758.

196

A. SOSA

The solution to this problem, according to Tocqueville, lies in the sources of poetry that are specific to democratic times. Instead of vainly trying to sculpt the delicate features of the noble hero out of the coarse stone of the bourgeois soul, Tocqueville finds the ideal of democratic times in the dignity of man as man, in human nature as revealed by democratic times. Not the ideal of the outstanding individual who embodies the highest human possibilities but the ideal of humanity reflected in ordinary human beings gradually awakening to the truth of human equality, is the theme of democratic poetry. For it is ordinary human beings who most clearly exemplify the qualities and confront the problems that reveal the unity of the human species. Tocqueville singles out the possibilities the future opens rather than the limits the past imposes as a significant corollary of this ideal.30 The future of humanity is an exciting prospect for democratic man because the political and social changes already accomplished in and through the democratic age—changes understood by democratic man, though not by Tocqueville,31 as progress simply—herald deeper changes and engender tantalizing hopes. The greatest hope for the future is man’s full recognition of natural human equality, of the unity of the human species. This equality entails, on a political level, a regime of equality and liberty, that is, the disappearance of hereditary class distinctions and the political privileges related to them. It entails the right of all members of a political community to contribute in some way to its government. Not the kingdom composed of estates that the accidents of history have vested with power but the nation constituted by a self-governing people aware of its rights, provides the image that rouses the hearts of men in democratic times. The preceding represents one pole, what we may call the animating or comic pole, of the ideal of poetry in democratic times. But there is another pole—what we might call a restraining or tragic pole. It consists of the problems of the human condition with which all men are confronted, the problem of human existence itself, of the whence and whither of the human soul. Tocqueville suggests that the problem of human existence is experienced with greater clarity and intensity, and

30 Democracy, II.I.17; Pléiade, II.586–587; Nolla, II.836, II.838. 31 See Tocqueville’s letter to Charles Stoffels, dated April 21, 1830, on “the fate of

civilized man,” in Nolla, II.1368–1372. Trans. James T. Schleifer.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

197

so results in greater spiritual distress, in democratic times. For as faith in positive religion and in the variety of signs by which God was formerly thought to undergird the dignity and meaning of human existence have frayed in the face of modern science and democratic skepticism about intellectual authority, the problem of human existence is experienced by a growing majority with greater starkness and fewer consolations. Democratic man cannot escape this predicament. But the predicament of democratic man is but an accentuation of the predicament of man simply. For Tocqueville holds, striking a characteristically Pascalian note, that man is a poetic being precisely because he is caught in the predicament of being between knowing and not knowing: If man were completely unaware of himself, he would not be poetic; for what you have no idea about you cannot portray. If he saw himself clearly, his imagination would remain idle and would have nothing to add to the picture. But man is revealed enough for him to perceive something of himself, and veiled enough for the rest to sink into impenetrable darkness, into which he unceasingly, and always in vain, plunges, in order finally to grasp himself.32

Simply stated, man knows too little about himself to experience the happiness of wisdom and too much to experience the happiness of ignorance. Man knows enough to know that he does not know the most important truths about the human soul, but he knows enough to know that such truths are the key to his happiness. Man, it seems, cannot be happy. Or he at least cannot be happy in this life. And yet he also cannot help trying to see through the impenetrable darkness of his soul, seeking to know what life means for a being who knows that he is caught between “two abysses”: the nothingness out of which he comes and “the bosom of God” into which he will “disappear forever.”33 The task of the poets of the democratic age is to depict man’s confrontation with this condition in such a way as to make clear and unforgettable the goodness inherent in doing so.34 The paradigmatic image of the tragic pole of democratic

32 Democracy, II.I.17; Pléiade, II.589; Nolla, II.840. 33 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, ibid. 34 A part, and perhaps the most important part, of the utility of religion in Tocqueville’s view resides in its power to help man “to solve the greatest problems that human destiny presents” so that he may avoid being “cowardly reduced to not thinking about them.”

198

A. SOSA

poetry is the unfinishable but humanizing quest for self-understanding through meditation on the human condition.35 The two poles of democratic poetry, then, are the growing awareness of the unity of the human species and the growing awareness of the problem of the human condition. But what is the relation between these poles and the ideals of aristocratic poetry? For we recall that Tocqueville believes these ideals should shape the horizon of a literary elite within democracy so as to counter the worst tendencies of democratic literature. To begin with one may easily imagine how the excessive love of equality and humanity may lead democratic man to the neglect and even resentment of the immutable standards of human excellence that rupture the dream of radical equality by revealing—to those with eyes to see—where different individuals fall in the rank order of wisdom and virtue.36 There is in other words a fundamental limit to the unity of the human species that is crucially important for democratic man to recognize. The ontological parity of men, all of whom are endowed with a mind that enables them to recognize the mystery of their own mortality, does not render them equal with respect to their power to think deeply or act morally. The passionate hopes for the future of humanity under a regime of liberty and equality may likewise lead democratic man beyond neglect and toward outright hatred of the past and the inequalities with which it is coeval. Aristocratic poetry, by contrast, idealizes human inequality to the point of tolerating or condoning slavery, as Tocqueville well knows. It thereby

See Democracy, II.I.5; Pléiade, II.532; Nolla, II.745. For a study of the Romanticist resonances in Tocqueville’s understanding of democratic poetry, see Reino Virtanen, “Tocqueville on a Democratic Literature,” The French Review 23, no. 3 (January 1950): 214–222. 35 For a study that describes Pascal’s influence on Tocqueville’s view of the human condition as well as the crucial point of contrast between them, see Alexander Jech, “Tocqueville, Pascal, and the Transcendent Horizon,” in The Spirit of Religion and the Spirit of Liberty, ed. Michael Zuckert (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 99–121. 36 Tocqueville refers to the “monsters” and “imaginary realms” that the democratic passion for generalization fosters in democratic writers, as well as “the crowd” that reads and is inflamed by these writers, in Democracy, II.I.18; Pléiade, II.591; Nolla, II.844. Tocqueville also refers to “the natural aristocracy that arises from enlightenment and virtue” in Democracy, I.I.3; Pléiade, II.56; Nolla, I.86. Moreover, his famous distinction between the manly and unmanly passion for equality (Democracy, I.I.3; Pléiade, II.58–59; Nolla, I.89) implies that democratic man’s regard for human excellence and strength of soul is crucial to the good order of democracy.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

199

furnishes democratic man with an unforgettably stark image of the gulf separating the peaks and valleys of human life. Tocqueville, as we shall see, does not accept the images of these peaks as being simply true accounts of human greatness. He sees all too well the mixture of nature and convention, of reason and arbitrariness, that characterizes the Greek and Roman ideals of greatness, and he is likewise aware that several of these conventions are in conflict with the demands of conscience and simple virtue.37 But despite its distortions of human nature, and indeed partly as a result of them, aristocratic poetry instills in man the notion that the highest human possibilities are coeval with inequality. It teaches man what democratic man, in his growing awareness of the unity of humanity and his hopes for its future, is particularly in need of remembering: the truth that human greatness is inseparable from human inequality in some form and therefore that inequality rightly understood is good for man. Aristocratic poetry is the great repository of beautiful images that tutor and tame the egalitarian longings of the democratic soul. The past, which aristocratic poetry largely depicts, is seen more reverently by a soul whose egalitarian longings have been thus educated. Man’s confrontation with the human condition is also in need of a corrective, lest man succumbs to a materialistic understanding of it. This understanding holds out the promise of liberating man from the existential angst of meditating on the nature and fate of his soul by persuading him that he has no soul or that he has no soul in any way that is relevant to his moral choices. But Tocqueville, who regards “the trouble of thinking and the pain of living”38 as essential to a truly human life, sees in this claim of liberation the degradation of man’s humanity.39 He is, therefore, concerned with finding a corrective to it. One of the best correctives that aristocratic literature provides, in his eyes, is Plato. 37 Tocqueville distinguishes between the code of honor with which societies of various kinds, whether aristocratic or democratic, have conventionally rewarded different kinds of actions and given preeminence to different virtues, on the one hand, and “the simple notions of the just and the unjust,” “the natural order of conscience,” the “obscure but powerful instinct” that is “more ancient and more holy” than any code of honor, on the other. The latter, unlike the former, stems from the “permanent and general needs” of humanity, as opposed to those of a social state, class, or country. In terms of its moral content, simple virtue in contrast to honor seems to give humanity as a virtue pride of place. See Democracy, II.III.18; Pléiade, II.745–758; Nolla, II.1093–1115. 38 Democracy, II.IV.6; Pléiade, II.837; Nolla, II.1251. 39 Democracy, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.658; Nolla, II.957.

200

A. SOSA

3

Plato’s Teaching on the Human Soul

Tocqueville’s most sustained treatment of Plato in his published work occurs in a chapter entitled, “How from Time to Time Religious Beliefs Divert the Soul of the Americans toward Non-Material Enjoyments.”40 It describes the need that man and in particular democratic man has for a transcendent horizon that lifts his sights above the concern with material goods. Democratic man has special need of this horizon because the equality of conditions prevalent in his time has placed a great portion and variety of material goods within his industrious and restless reach and raised the moral status of the life devoted to their acquisition.41 In America, Christianity effectively provides that horizon. For there, every Sunday, as Tocqueville relates, “the soul finally regains self-possession and contemplates itself.”42 At Church, Americans reverently listen to speeches that criticize pride and greed, that exhort them to self-control, and that teach them that virtue is its own reward. In this way, Americans momentarily tear themselves from “the petty passions” and “transitory interests” that constitute their ordinary lives in order to contemplate “an ideal world where everything is great, pure, eternal.”43 In the context of his description of the religious ennoblement of democratic society, Tocqueville appeals to Plato and his Socrates. The utility of Plato stems from his teaching on the immortality of the human soul. While recognizing that it is difficult to say what opinion Socrates actually held about “what must happen to man in the other life,”44 Tocqueville makes clear that he regards this difficulty as irrelevant to his central point: 40 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.655–660; Nolla, II.954–962. Tocqueville expresses his admiration for Plato’s spiritualism in a letter to Gustave de Beaumont, dated April 22, 1838. See Selected Letters on Politics and Society, 130. 41 Tocqueville’s general treatment of democratic man’s passion for material well-being, and the restlessness that is partly engendered by that passion, spans Chapters 10–17 in part II of volume II of Democracy. He at one point describes this passion as “the useless pursuit of a complete felicity that always flees” (Democracy, II.II.13; Pléiade, II.649; Nolla, II. 944). Elsewhere, Tocqueville remarks that equality of conditions, notwithstanding the great good it does for men, also “opens their souls excessively to the love of material enjoyments” (Democracy, II.I.5; Pléiade, II.532–533; Nolla, II.745). And he observes that the democratic code of honor of American society carried out a moral rehabilitation of “the love of wealth” (Democracy, II.III.18; Pléiade, II.751; Nolla, II.1103). 42 Democracy, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.655; Nolla, II.954. 43 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.656; Nolla, II. 955. 44 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.659; Nolla, II.959.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

201

Socrates’ view of the character of the other life is not as important as his view that there is another life.45 Tocqueville goes as far as to say that “the belief in a non-material and immortal principal, united for a time to matter, is so necessary to the greatness of man, that it still produces beautiful effects even when you do not combine it with the opinion of rewards and punishments [after death].” Even if the teaching on immortality holds that “after death the divine principle within man is absorbed into God or goes to animate another creature,” it would still lend support to human greatness.46 This is because all types of spiritualism, whether they include divine punishment or not, teach man that the body is “the secondary and inferior portion of our nature” and that “the non-material part of man” is higher or more admirable than the material part.47 Since the desires that satisfy the non-material part of man are higher or more admirable than those that satisfy the material part, they are more choiceworthy. The desires that satisfy the material part have as their object comfortable self-preservation and the ordinary pleasures of daily life. Belief in immortality thereby strengthens man’s belief in the fundamentally dissatisfying character of mere well-being and in the goodness of longing for things higher than mere well-being. It is worth noting that since the belief that man is rewarded or punished after death in a perfectly just manner—i.e., man cannot possibly escape getting his just deserts eventually, even if he were to wear the Ring of Gyges—means that justice has divine support, Tocqueville implies that man can tend toward “pure sentiments and great thoughts” without believing that justice has divine support.48 But the preceding defense of spiritualism does not entail, as Tocqueville makes clear, that man should dedicate himself to a life of monastic asceticism or philosophic withdrawal. Tocqueville’s reference to Socrates’ ambivalence regarding the character of the other life, to say nothing of Tocqueville’s own silence regarding his view of what man must do to gain salvation, is of a piece with his rejection of a degree of concern with 45 One might wonder what Tocqueville himself thought was true concerning the human soul and its fate. For a treatment worthy of the subject, see Jean M. Yarbrough, “Tocqueville on the Needs of the Soul,” Perspectives on Political Science 47, no. 3 (2018): 123–141. 46 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, II.958–959. 47 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, II.959. 48 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, ibid.; Nolla, ibid.

202

A. SOSA

the next life that consumes most of man’s energies and directs his most important activities in this life.49 Such vigorous spiritualism represents an aristocratic extreme for him, the opposite of the democratic extreme represented by a life dedicated to the pursuit of material well-being. Each of the extremes reflects a natural inclination in man that can be pursued to excess. “All the art of the legislator consists,” Tocqueville remarks, “in discerning well and in advance these natural inclinations of human societies, in order to know where it is necessary to aid the effort of citizens, and where it would instead be necessary to slow it down.”50 The legislator observes the character of his society and judges whether that society needs to increase the honor in which material well-being is held or whether it needs to increase the honor in which spiritual goods are held. In aristocratic times, which naturally tended toward spiritualism,51 the task of the legislator was to lend aid to the materialistic perspective. In democratic times, which naturally tend toward materialism, the legislator must lend aid to spiritualism. The aim is not to achieve the complete victory of either perspective but to foster what Tocqueville in a letter calls “a middle way” between the spiritualistic and materialistic poles.52 We may explain the preceding by way of an analogy. Let us say that actual societies, being always more or less aristocratic or democratic, are like tilted seesaws. The degree of their tilt and of the counter-tilt required

49 In a letter to Louis de Kergorlay, dated August 4, 1857, Tocqueville writes: “I have always thought that there was danger even in the best of passions when they become ardent and exclusive. I do not make an exception of the passion for religion; I would even put it in front, because, pushed to a certain point, it, more than anything else, makes everything disappear that is not religion, and creates the most useless or the most dangerous citizens in the name of morality and duty… A certain preoccupation with religious truths which does not go to the point of absorbing thought in the other world, has therefore always seemed to me the state that conforms best to human morality in all its forms.” See Selected Letters on Politics and Society, 357. Trans. James Toupin and Roger Boesche. 50 Democracy, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.656; Nolla, II.955. 51 Aristocratic times in this context refer primarily to the social and political state of

Medieval Europe. 52 See Tocqueville’s letter to Kergorlay, dated August 5, 1836 in Gustave Beaumont,

ed., Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. 1, Liberty Fund, December 18, 2021, https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/tocqueville-memoir-letters-and-remains-of-ale xis-de-tocqueville-vol-1. Where the original English translator of Beaumont’s edition of Tocqueville’s works used “middle course,” I have opted for “middle way” as a term that more readily conveys the sense that Tocqueville is thinking about a way of life.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

203

to help them approximate balance are intelligible to the legislator who knows what balance is and evaluates the seesaw in the light of such knowledge. If the aristocratic extreme is the excessive concern with the eternal salvation of souls and the democratic extreme is the excessive concern with the comfortable preservation of bodies, then Tocqueville’s balance, his middle way, is what one might call the concern with the lasting satisfaction of embodied souls. This satisfaction coheres with the vastness of the human heart, which “can at the same time enclose the taste for the goods of the earth and the love of those of heaven.” For though the heart may at times “appear to give itself madly to one of the two… it never goes for a long time without thinking of the other.”53 Tocqueville’s legislator thus looks at society on the basis of a standard that gives both bodily well-being and spiritual health their due. The seesaw analogy I have sketched is defective in one crucial respect, however. It implies, or may easily be understood to imply, that the middle way, the state of balance between both kinds of goods, is one in which man is equally concerned with both kinds of goods. But this cannot conform with the requirements of human nature if, as Tocqueville observed, the body is “the secondary and inferior portion of our nature.” The standard in light of which the Tocquevillean legislator judges his actual society must include an awareness of the rank order of spiritual and bodily goods. To live in accord with that order, man must be more concerned with the attainment of spiritual than material goods. And yet the concern with spiritual satisfaction cannot become divorced from, or lead to contempt for, the concern with material satisfaction. The purpose of the deepening of man’s concern with the other world is not the abandonment of this world but the ennoblement of man’s life in it. In a letter he wrote in the last decade of his life, and which therefore gives us one of his last words on the topic, Tocqueville may well have described the human type characteristic of his middle way. He there expresses the view that “man’s true greatness lies only in the harmony of the liberal sentiment and religious sentiment, both working simultaneously to animate and to restrain souls.”54 Based on Tocqueville’s account of the middle way, one would interpret these remarks reasonably by saying 53 Democracy, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.659; Nolla, II.960. 54 Selected Letters on Politics and Society, 295. This definition of human greatness echoes

Tocqueville’s understanding of democratic poetry as being constituted by what I described as a comic and a tragic pole.

204

A. SOSA

that while the religious spirit deepens man’s awareness of a transcendent horizon and his sense of moral caution, the liberal spirit develops his public spirit and his openness to political experiment. Tocqueville’s great-souled democratic is, therefore, sensitive to the sobering mystery of the human condition and the moral limits to human daring that religion articulates, while being passionately devoted to the good of his political community as a proud citizen who, in accord with the limits of his talents and circumstance, contributes to its self-government. The political and religious experiences that inform his life strengthen his intuition that human existence has meaning regardless of his ability to clearly know its ground and that, in one way or another, the human soul always is.55 Stated differently, the middle way of life is based on the awareness that man is a being who cannot attain lasting satisfaction in this life without developing his natural capacity to do noble things and experience noble pleasures. This capacity is most fully developed through association and through dedication to the common good of one’s most immediate political community. But the expectation regarding the good that such association and dedication will bring into being is likewise moderated by the awareness of the limits imposed by the human condition. The middle way of life is then the life of the good citizen whose political virtue is crowned though not overwhelmed by the awareness that he can never be wholly at home in this world.56

55 A point of clarification regarding Tocqueville’s terminology must here be made. As the preceding suggests, it is not the case that “the liberal spirit” merely represents the materialistic pole in Tocqueville’s middle way. The liberal spirit certainly entails a materialistic dimension. Tocqueville often underlines and extols the fact that liberty produces material benefits in an amount and variety, and distributes them to an extent, far surpassing the greatest achievements and even the greatest hopes of the aristocratic world. He sometimes even defends the love of liberty for the sake of these benefits. But the deepest dimension of liberty in Tocqueville is intellectual and moral. He regards the intellectual pleasure that is coeval with the awareness of living, and of being the kind of being that ought to live, free from arbitrary constraint, “under the sole government of God and the laws,” as one of the most sublime experiences man can have. See The Old Regime, I.III.3; Pléiade, III.195; Furet and Mélonio, I.216–217. 56 One way in which Tocqueville further develops his notion of the middle way is by

appealing to the idea of “the future,” that is, of man’s long-range view of his life and its interests, as a kind of mean between the passion for immediate gratification in the present and the life devoted to contemplating the hereafter. See Democracy, II.II.17; Pléiade, II.662–665; Nolla, II.965–968. As to the view that man cannot be fully at home in the world, see Democracy, II.II.12; Pléiade, II.647; Nolla, II.940.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

205

One may summarize Tocqueville’s view by saying that he sees the greatness of the human soul in neither pious nor hedonistic withdrawal from society but in manly and humane devotion to it. The utility of Plato resides in his power to strengthen one of the spiritual longings that most enables democratic man to draw himself out of himself in order to devote himself to the good of humanity as it comes to sight in the needs of his particular community. The great impediment to human greatness in democratic times is withdrawal into materialistic individualism, into a bourgeois contentment that neglects public spirit, into a private life that is nothing more than private life. The cause of human greatness in democratic times, therefore, takes the form of a defense of the dignity of political life against the restless pursuit of material well-being. This defense is the purpose of Tocqueville’s middle way. Tocqueville was under no illusions, however, about the height to which the spiritual and moral level of democratic man could in all probability be raised. In an 1836 letter to a close friend, Tocqueville appeals to the weaknesses of men in general, including his own, to justify some degree of resignation in the face of the “decorous materialism” of democratic times: Whatever we do, we cannot prevent men from having a body as well as a soul, as if an angel occupied the form of an animal … A system of philosophy or of religion that chooses entirely to ignore the one or the other may produce some extraordinary cases, but will never exercise any general influence over mankind: this I believe and deplore, for you know that though the animal is not more subdued in me than in most people, I adore the angel, and would give anything to make it predominate. I am, therefore, continually at work to discover a middle way which men may follow without becoming disciples either of Heliogabalus or of St. Jerome; for I am convinced that the great majority will never be persuaded to imitate either, and less the saint than the emperor. I am, then, not so much shocked as you are by the decorous materialism of which you complain so bitterly; not that it does not excite my contempt as much as it does yours; but I consider it practically, and I ask myself whether, if not exactly this, something like it, be not, in fact, all that one can expect, not of any particular man, but of the species in general?57

57 See footnote 52.

206

A. SOSA

A few things are worth remarking in this passage. First, Tocqueville makes an implicit distinction between the “middle way” he “is continually at work to discover”58 [emphasis mine] and the already existing “decorous materialism” that may be or may approach the highest spiritual and moral level of which democratic man is capable. Second, by asking himself whether decorous materialism represents the full stature to which democratic man can grow, Tocqueville expresses a degree of ambivalence regarding the capacity of democratic man to live in accord with the standard provided by his middle way. Like his friend, Tocqueville expresses contempt for the lowness of democratic man. But, unlike his friend, he accepts the fact of this lowness, if it is a fact, in a spirit of prudent resignation: if decorous materialism is the most decent available alternative in their time, then public men should strive to serve the needs of society within the limits imposed by this fact. This view reflects an awareness of the distinction between what is theoretically best for man and what is practically possible given the circumstances of time and place. Because Tocqueville is considering the problem on both levels, he is able to coherently disapprove of a state of affairs in principle while accommodating himself to it in practice. He does not lose sight of the lowness of his time but does not allow the sight of this lowness to inspire him with the visionary belief that it is always possible to return society to a high level. He is also aware that no political or moral teaching, however true, can be effectual if it lacks the power to move the majority. This is particularly so in democratic times, when the opinions and sentiments of the majority hold greater sway over society than at any point in Europe’s aristocratic past. Tocqueville is aware, in other words, that the spiritual and moral standard the majority can bear in a given historical period sets a limit to every sensible effort that statesmen and public intellectuals can make in favor of human greatness. But Tocqueville, as we have seen, is not merely interested in the education of the majority. He envisions an intellectual minority totally imbued with the spirit of aristocratic literature, a spirit that obviously includes the literature of Plato. It stands to reason that Tocqueville expects such a minority to rise above the decorous materialism of democratic times. And he expects them to do more than that. For we have seen that the very 58 As Volume II of Democracy contains Tocqueville’s most developed thoughts on the middle way, it stands to reason that he would speak of his attempt to “discover” it in 1836, four years before the publication of Volume II.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

207

existence of such a minority, and their prominence in the rank order of academic life, is one of the chief means by which Tocqueville believes the moral level of democracy may be raised. Would it not be one of the tasks of this minority, then, to contribute to the preservation or recovery of the public respectability of the idea of the immortality of the human soul?

4

Plato’s Teaching on Politics

Tocqueville says more about Plato than what appears in his published work. In a set of brief and unpublished notes on the Laws,59 he makes a series of observations relevant to our theme. Tocqueville frames his observations by stating at the outset that he is interpreting Plato “as politician.” I take this to mean that Tocqueville is here primarily reading Plato in order to draw practical lessons from which the statesmen and citizens of his time may benefit. Contrary to what a student of the history of political philosophy might pray for, Tocqueville does not appear to be concerned or at least not overtly concerned, with the intricacies of Plato’s teaching on metaphysics, natural theology, or his view of the relation between philosophy and politics.60 The first of Tocqueville’s observations that we will look at is as follows: Plato is “essentially aristocratic.”61 By this Tocqueville means that Plato “has no confidence in humanity in general.”62 He does not believe in the reason of the people and therefore does not accept self-government as a principle of politics. Tocqueville somewhat excuses what he presumably regards as Plato’s unwarranted view on this matter by historicizing

59 See “Analyse de Platon,” in Oeuvres Complètes, Tome XVI: Mélanges (Paris: Galli-

mard, 1989), 555–557. “Analyse of Platon” has been dated to sometime between 1836 and 1837. 60 An indication that Tocqueville at least considered reading Plato more deeply is found in a crossed out remark on Plato that he wrote for Volume II of Democracy, in the margins of his chapter on the overly excited spiritualism of certain American sects (II.II.12): “When I see Plato in his sublime reveries want to forbid commerce and industry to the citizens and, in order to release them better from coarse desires, want to take away even the possession of children, I think of his contemporaries, and the sensual democracy of Athens makes me understand the laws of this imaginary republic whose portrait he has drawn for us.” See Nolla, II.940n. Trans. James T. Schleifer. 61 “Analyse de Platon,” 555. 62 Ibid.

208

A. SOSA

it: Plato, he writes, lived in a tumultuous and vulgar democracy that overflowed with slaves and lacked reliable checks on political power.63 This, we are meant to infer, explains why he held such contempt for the people. This view motivated Plato to seek the standard or fulcrum of politics “outside of society.”64 For this reason, according to Tocqueville, the regime of the Laws is oriented—despite its mixture of oligarchic and democratic elements—toward an aristocracy of birth that supplies a standard beyond the people. But Tocqueville cannot possibly think that Plato is totally off the mark in this regard, as anyone who is familiar with his critique of the tyranny of the majority may easily surmise.65 Tocqueville there shows that, like Plato, he is eager to grasp a standard “outside of society.” But whereas Plato appeals to the wisdom of the few as the standard by which to judge the political community, Tocqueville appeals to the conscience of the human race as expressed in the settled moral consensus of countless generations, as the standard by which to judge the political community. He, therefore, argues that in rejecting the tyranny of the majority he “does not deny to the majority the right to command” but “only appeal[s] from the sovereignty of the people [of a given country] to the sovereignty of the human race.”66 The standard of humanity, of the natural society of all men that encompasses every particular society and that reflects the perennial moral awareness of every man, in contrast to that of a leisured and wise minority set apart from a society, is Tocqueville’s guide for evaluating the justice of any given political community and its laws. The difference between these standards is akin to the distinction Tocqueville draws between aristocratic and democratic poetry. And yet both standards share a crucial element: they transcend the authority of the political community. We must also recall Tocqueville’s views on the utility to democracy of a literary elite totally imbued with the spirit of the classics and hence, among others, of Plato. For this indicates that Tocqueville is in favor 63 It is worth considering whether and to what degree this view is in harmony with Tocqueville’s claim in Democracy (II.I.15) that classical Athens was an aristocratic republic. Are we to surmise that Tocqueville held that Athens was an aristocratic republic when seem from the perspective of democratic man but a vulgar democracy when seen from the perspective of Plato? 64 “Analyse de Platon,” 556. 65 Democracy, I.II.7; Pléiade, II.287–291; Nolla, I.410–415. 66 Democracy, ibid.; Pléiade, II.288; Nolla, I.410.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

209

of the cultivation of an intellectual perspective within democracy from which the perspective of humanity—Tocqueville’s own perspective—may be thoughtfully questioned. Tocqueville also makes the observation that Plato is essentially moderate.67 By this he means that Plato does not establish the regime of the Laws on the basis of a single principle—e.g., oligarchy alone or democracy alone—but on the basis of an equal combination of opposing principles. Echoing his remarks from Volume I of Democracy regarding the impossibility of mixed government,68 Tocqueville notes that the equal combination depicted in the Laws is impossible to accomplish. This is because “the end to attain [is] to moderate a governing principle without it, for this reason, ceasing to exist,” and yet “it is always necessary” “that someone have the last word.” Whatever the governing principle of a political order is, it is it, and not a synthesis of opposing principles, that has the last word. Yet Tocqueville praises Plato’s attempt to moderate politics in this way. He calls his idea of moderation “very elevated and beautiful,” asserting that if “the most capital of all truths is not found” in this idea, “it is at least nearby.”69 The reason underlying his praise is found in Tocqueville’s own treatment of the idea of mixed government. For in rejecting this idea he also argues for the necessity of cultivating a principle of authority that is partially independent of the ruling principle. By this means government may be challenged and its decisions delayed. The obstruction of the application of a political principle moderates the government operating on that principle, because the passage of time weakens the passions that are momentarily inflamed by political or social crises and thereby increases the likelihood that the rulers, whether they be few or many, will act prudently. It would seem that simply slowing down the legal operation of a political principle contributes significantly to the moderation of politics. The preceding shows that while Tocqueville does not see in the regime of Plato’s Laws a mixed regime strictly speaking, which cannot at any rate exist in his view, he praises it as a regime in which the ruling principle is moderated by being countered.

67 “Analyse de Platon,” 556. 68 Democracy, I.II.7; Pléiade, II.288–289; Nolla, I.411–412. 69 “Analyse de Platon,” 556.

210

A. SOSA

Plato, according to Tocqueville, is also eminently poetic: he searches for “something that is beyond and above humanity.”70 What Tocqueville means by this phrase can be inferred from an 1838 letter to a close friend.71 Tocqueville there speaks of Plutarch as a writer who “saddens and binds” him. He remarks that, These men of Plutarch, especially the Greeks, are especially remarkable in the domain in which we are vulgar. We are often more honest, more humane, more learned, and more powerful than them; but in the midst of their weaknesses, the sentiment and the taste for the beauty and moral height of man never abandons them. Even when their vices make them fall below humanity, one sees that they still perceive something above it. That which most strikes me about our day is not that we do so many small things but that we do not better conceive the theory of great ones. The sentiment of the great is lacking and it looks like the imagination of the great is extinguished. [emphasis in original]

The beauty and moral height of man refer, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with Plutarch’s Lives knows, to man’s longing to live for goals higher than mere self-preservation and material well-being. The greatest men long to live for political goals, e.g., to found or defend lasting and powerful and well-ordered regimes, to frame the laws that ennoble generations of citizens, to put the good of the city above even that of their own families, as Brutus’ famously inhumane but singularly public-spirited deed illustrates.72 This is a crucial part of what Tocqueville means when he speaks of elevating the human soul or of raising it above itself.73 This aristocratic conception of human greatness lacks the humanity that Tocqueville finds in the moral teaching of Christianity and in the principle of democratic equality; it obscures or neglects the concern for human suffering—a concern that is a naturally constitutive element of human

70 Ibid. 71 See Tocqueville’s letter to Royer-Collard, dated April 6, 1838, in Oeuvres Complètes,

Tome XI: Correspondance d’Alexis de Tocqueville avec P.-P Royer-Collard et avec J.-J Ampère (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 60–61. 72 See Plutarch’s “Life of Poplicola.” 73 See Democracy, I.I.8, I.II.9, II.I.20, II.II.4, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.180, II.364, II.601,

II.617, II.657; Nolla, I.258, I.508, II.859, II.889, II.957.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

211

conscience in Tocqueville’s judgment74 —for the sake of a concern with the virtues of civic self-perfection needed to carry out great political deeds. But it is precisely for this reason that it can function as an ideal that, by countering, moderates the love of humanity and equality that democratic times tend to inflame. Finally, Tocqueville observes a peculiarity in the manner in which Plato and most ancient Greek writers treat the concern with the divine. He describes being impressed by, the tone of levity, of doubt, with which they speak of their Gods; the air of imagination with which they appear to treat more or less all of their cosmogony; and, at the same time, the importance they give to religion in their laws and the horrible penalties with which they punish all of the crimes that are related to it.75

In contrasting the levity and doubt of Greek writers in their speeches about their gods with the gravity and clarity with which they see the necessity of showing that the laws have divine sanction and support, Tocqueville reflects on one of the deepest lessons ancient writers can give modern legislators and public intellectuals. For in their enthusiasm for democratic progress, many politicians and intellectuals in Tocqueville’s time had come to disdain religion as an obstacle to that progress.76 Tocqueville implicitly rebukes this disdain when he writes in Democracy that “the only effective means that governments can use to make the dogma of the immortality of the soul honored, is to act each day as if they believed it themselves.”77 The question of the absolute truth of any one religion must be considered separately from that of its political utility, for the knowledge of the moral virtues and their utility, which Christianity also teaches, is far more accessible to man as man than knowledge of the ground of human existence and the nature of the universe. Education in 74 See Democracy, II.III.18; Pléiade, II.745–758; Nolla, II.1093–1115. See also footnote 37. 75 “Analyse de Platon,” 557. 76 In his Recollections, for example, Tocqueville describes Jules Dufaure, who in 1848

served briefly as the French Minister of the Interior under the provisional government of Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, as someone “who remained at the bottom of his heart a true bourgeois of the West, enemy of nobles and priests….” See Recollections, III.3; Pléiade, III.912; Mayer and Kerr, 218. 77 Democracy, II.II.15; Pléiade, II.660; Nolla, II.962.

212

A. SOSA

ancient literature, which is suffused with this political understanding of religion, is, therefore, an indispensable means by which to preserve this understanding in democratic times.78

5

The Recovery of Aristocratic Virtue

Tocqueville further develops his thoughts on the moral horizon of aristocratic literature in a series of notes he prepared in his role as judge for an 1852 academic contest on “the history of the different systems of moral philosophy that have been taught in antiquity until the advent of Christianity.”79 The essayists were instructed to explore and describe “the influence that the social circumstances, in the midst of which these [moral] systems grew, may have had on their development, and 78 A statesman or legislator or public intellectual influenced by this teaching understands religion not simply in terms of its power to reveal the truth about God and the fate of the human soul, but also, and more importantly, in terms of its power to regulate morality and preserve the conditions that make civilized life possible. Tocqueville summarizes this understanding when he writes: “one must recognize that, if it [religion] does not save men in the other world, it is at least very useful to their happiness and their greatness in this one.” See Democracy, II.I.V; Pléiade, II.532; Nolla, II.744. This view is implicit in Tocqueville’s Introduction to Democracy, where he criticizes the logical inconsistency of Europeans who advocate democracy while rejecting religion. See Pléiade, II.14; Nolla, I.25–26. Tocqueville finds this prudent or political understanding of religion present in America, as when he writes: “I do not know if all Americans have faith in their religion, for who can read the bottom of hearts? But I am sure that they believe it necessary for the maintenance of republican institutions.” See Democracy, I.II.9; Pléiade, II.338; Nolla, I.475. In the same chapter, Tocqueville gives an admiring account of American missionaries who propagated Christianity as they moved West, partly in order to secure the moral conditions of republican self-government in the West and, due to the political connection between the states, help preserve them in the East. Of these missionaries Tocqueville writes, “you think that these men act only with a view to the other life, but you are wrong: eternity is but one of their concerns. If you interrogate these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be very surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world and to find politicians where you thought to see only religious men.” See Pléiade, II.339; Nolla, I.476. In this connection, see also Democracy, II.II.9; Pléiade, II.641; Nolla, II.929. In Pierre Manent’s reading of Tocqueville, the authority provided by religion helps to keep democratic man from succumbing to two temptations: feeling disgust for liberty as a result of having to face the fundamental questions of human existence by oneself, and believing that liberty gives men the right to dare anything for the good of society, regardless of whether such projects conflict with the rights of individuals. See Tocqueville et la nature de la démocratie (Paris: Gallimard, 1982), 125–126. 79 See “Sur la Morale,” in Oeuvres Complètes, Tome XVI: Mélanges (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), 221–225.

TOCQUEVILLE’S DEFENSE OF ARISTOCRATIC LITERATURE

213

that [influence] which they, in turn, exercised on the ancient world.” Tocqueville’s comments on the winning submission reveal important features of his perspective on the morality of the ancients. For one of the chief defects of the winning submission, in Tocqueville’s eyes, was its unwarranted antipathy toward “the heroic virtues that the spirit of the city and patriotism inspired in the Greeks and Romans.” Interestingly, Tocqueville attributes the author’s mistake in this regard to the “systematic training that brings him to understand progress in the idea of the unity of the human race and in the equality of all men.”80 As we have seen, Tocqueville himself often praises human equality and unity as the core principle of democratic morality. And yet he here, as ever, also recognizes the value of aristocratic morality, which is predicated on a radically inegalitarian view of human nature. Tocqueville seems to reconcile both moral horizons, at least to his own satisfaction, by articulating an idea of human greatness that eschews the ancient idea of radical inequality but affirms the ancient idea of heroic virtue. For in responding to what he calls the author’s “low and narrow point of view,” Tocqueville writes the following: Ancient virtues in part rest on exaggerated or false ideas, they have a narrow basis, I agree. But it is no less true that, in many other respects, not only are they the basis of genuine virtues but of virtues more admirable than all those which have since appeared in the world. And because [then] one sacrificed oneself with a heroism that has never been equaled to a country whose greatness was exaggerated and for the sake of a certain number of men who, mistakenly, one set apart from the human species— this did not render the sacrifice and the devotion to virtues less sublime. One can consider them [these virtues] as destined to perish in the general movement of moral progress, but one should always honor them, regret their loss, and give them as a model.81

The mistake Tocqueville notes is the idea of radical inequality that was part of the basis of aristocratic virtue, whereby one group of human beings was set apart from the rest in a relation of complete, unappealable, and legally codified subordination. Since this idea served as part—perhaps the most important part—of the basis of aristocratic virtue, a part of

80 “Sur la Morale,” 223. 81 “Sur la Morale,” 223–224.

214

A. SOSA

that basis is spurious in Tocqueville’s eyes. But this spurious part does not nullify what is admirable in aristocratic virtue: passionate dedication to one’s city and the willingness to sacrifice ease and pleasure and even oneself in its defense or out of devotion to the virtues themselves. Moreover, if these virtues are “more admirable than all those which have since appeared in the world,” then they are more admirable than all distinctly Christian and modern virtues. And yet Tocqueville makes clear that he does not think that one can have it both ways, practically speaking. In his Introduction to Democracy as well as in several other places in his work, he expresses the view that aristocratic virtues are fated to perish amidst the progress of democratic equality.82 That is, he does not think that aristocratic virtue can exist as an authoritative moral tradition in the absence of the radically inegalitarian social basis of aristocratic times. But one should regret its loss: the disappearance of aristocratic virtue is not an indication of modern progress but rather of a partial, if unavoidable, decline. And yet despite its disappearance as an authoritative fact of social life, the idea of aristocratic virtue may still function as a poetic standard for democratic man. Tocqueville surely regards the study of aristocratic literature at elite universities and the propagation of some of its ideals by poets of democracy such as himself as an important means by which to keep the idea of aristocratic virtue alive in the democratic mind. Such efforts, to repeat, are insufficient to restore aristocratic virtue as the guiding principle of political and social life. But Tocqueville’s hope, it seems, is that these efforts may at least shape the beliefs and sentiments of democratic man to a degree sufficient to raise the tone of democratic life above the decorous materialism that aroused his contempt though never his despair. This, in sum, is the purpose of aristocratic literature in democratic times: to keep the awareness of a critical dimension of human greatness from dimming into complete obscurity in a time inclined to regard inequality as an obstacle to rather than a condition of the full realization of man’s humanity.

82 See Democracy, I.II.6; Pléiade, II.281–282; Nolla, I.400–401.

Nietzsche and Political Education Michael W. Grenke

Dass Erziehung, Bildung selbst Zweck ist – und nicht “das Reich” … man vergass das

There is a certain truth to the claim that Nietzsche’s preferred regime was aristocracy.1 After all, Nietzsche does say, “Every enhancement of the type ‘human being’ has so far been the work of an aristocratic society” (BGE, 257). But for that very reason, that Nietzsche wished to promote

1 Bruce Detwiler notes at the very beginning of his careful study, Nietzsche and the Poli-

tics of Aristocratic Radicalism, that interpreters of Nietzsche’s political views have placed him all over the map, from anti-political to nationalist, Nazi to socialist, individualist to Social Darwinist to liberal constitutionalist. Detwiler’s book goes on to show the weaknesses of these various claims and to show that aristocracy, by far, emerges as Nietzsche’s preferred regime. Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 1.

M. W. Grenke (B) St. John’s College, SANTA FE, NM, United States e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1_10

215

216

M. W. GRENKE

the enhancement of the human type,2 he did not truly favor any final or static form of regime.3 When any regime has contributed what it can, then it tends to become an obstacle to further growth and is to be done away with.4 The willingness to do away with a regime is the proper stance of a thinker that thinks that politics and its regimes have a lower status than education, that is, than culture. Many thinkers might agree that culture is a higher thing than politics,5 and yet they have a tendency to grant politics an integrity of its own and to be willing to shape an education that serves the ends of a particular regime. For Nietzsche the conclusion one should draw from the higher status of education over politics is clear. The higher things should not be conceived of as in the service of the lower things.6 This means education must come first. The regime must serve the ends of culture.7 Here it may look like Nietzsche is radical or 2 Consider Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 264: “The goal of Nietzsche’s politics is the enhancement or heightening (Erhöhung) of the type human, an enhancement achieved by individual souls. Aristocratic society and the slavery it presupposes are instrumental necessities, preconditions of the true aim, the aristocratic individual. The politics of the philosopher Nietzsche … serve the interests of philosophy, but these are the highest interests of humanity.” 3 Thomas Heilke argues that Nietzsche did have a political education, not one that served any existing regime, rather one that sought to produce human beings who could belong to the type of aesthetic regime Nietzsche wished to bring into being. “Nietzsche sought to be a pedagogical legislator: he attached to his aesthetic notion of politics a specific idea of political education that would bring forth the polity he envisioned.” Thomas Heilke, Nietzsche’s Tragic Regime (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1998), 7. This aesthetic state is to be understood as “a political state that is fit for flourishing life” (Heilke, 121). 4 Heilke admits that the regime Nietzsche aims at does not last, “Nietzsche’s new

education for an aesthetic state was not a possession for all time, but for his time and for the beginning of the age he hoped was yet to come” (Heilke, 186). 5 See Henning Ottmann, Philosophie und Politik bei Nietzsche (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987), 23: “Es ist Kultur, und es ist diese allein, deren Gelingen und Scheitern ihm zum Maßtab des Politischen wird.” (It is culture, and it is this alone, whose successes and failures, will be the measure of the political.) 6 The “higher should not degrade itself into the instrument of the lower” On the Genealogy of Morals, III, 14. 7 In order to explain why Nietzsche himself and others have called him anti-political, Bruce Detwiler writes, “one who believed as Nietzsche apparently did in the subservience of the political sphere to higher cultural and spirituals ends could well consider himself anti-political as the term was commonly used” (Detwiler, 59).

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

217

extreme, like he is overheated. But here he may simply be a sober and careful thinker following an argument to its logical conclusion. Nietzsche realizes that the conclusions he draws may very well be resisted even by those who, in principle, share his premises. In his early dialogue on education, Nietzsche has one of his characters say: “There would be no human striving after education if he knew how unbelievably small the number of really educated ones finally is and can be in general. And in spite of that even this small number of truly educated ones would not for once be possible, if a great mass, fundamentally against its nature and only directed by a tempting deception, did not involve itself with the education.”8 This thought is characterized there as the “cardinal principle of education.” The same character goes on to say that “here is hidden the authentic secret of education: that, namely, countless human beings are struggling after education, working for education, apparently for themselves, but fundamentally only in order to make possible some few human beings.”9 The education presented here is not mass education, but it involves the masses. It involves deception and secrets and is elitist, that is to say aristocratic in its nature, and Nietzsche knows that “one fears the aristocratic nature of true education.”10 This fear must be overcome. If one really puts education first, then powers that few would dream of reshaping in the service of education are to be put to work as education’s tools. Putting education first means putting the exemplars of education in charge, serving their purposes, and pursuing their goals. The scope of Nietzsche’s vision would go so far as to purpose whole cities to serve educational ends, cultural ends. This was what Nietzsche saw in Richard Wagner’s project in the city of Bayreuth. The “idea of Bayreuth”11 as Nietzsche saw it was to harness all the resources of a city12 and to put them under the sole authority of 8 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, trans. Michael W. Grenke (South Bend: St. Augustine Press, 2004), 34. 9 Ibid., 34–35. 10 Ibid., 78. 11 Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, section 8. 12 The real-life city of Bayreuth, although it provided substantial support for Wagner,

did not live up to the idea of Bayreuth. The whole city was not at the disposal of his art. To see something of what Nietzsche saw of the real-life Bayreuth, see Ecce Homo, “Human, All Too Human,” section 2; see also Heilke, 160–161; see also Shilo

218

M. W. GRENKE

Richard Wagner. This was for the purpose of allowing Wagner to realize his artistic vision fully, without interference or limitation. Wagner’s operas aspired to uniting and utilizing all artistic powers together in one work. The many minds and hands that had to collaborate in the production of such total art were seen by Nietzsche as hindrances and corruptions that prevented Wagner from fully realizing his highest cultural aspirations: “everywhere, even on the part of the performers and producers, his art was taken to be precisely the same kind of thing as any other music for the stage and subjected to the rules of the repulsive recipebook of ordinary opera production; indeed the cultivated conductors cut and hacked at his works until they really were operas which, now they had had the soul taken out of them, the singers felt capable of encompassing; and when attempts were made to perform them properly, Wagner’s directions were followed with the sort of ineptitude and prudish anxiety that would, for instance, represent the nocturnal riot in the streets of Nuremberg prescribed for the second act of the Meistersinger with a troop of posturing ballet dancers … Wagner’s self-sacrificing attempts to indicate by deed and example at any rate simple correctness and completeness in the performance of his works, and to introduce individual singers to his quite novel style of execution, were repeatedly swept away by the sludge of prevailing thoughtlessness and habit.” All the people involved, no matter how well intentioned, had to be stripped of their independence and turned into tools that would do things Wagner’s way. What Nietzsche saw in the idea of Bayreuth was the idea of a whole city purposed for the production of Wagner’s art, subject to his authority, guided by his intentions. It was a true culture-city13 where the political would be openly subjected to the cultural. Perhaps just as radical, although not as open, was what Nietzsche saw when he looked at the city constructed in speech in Plato’s Republic. There, again, Nietzsche saw the idea of a city purposed to serve the Brooks, Nietzsche’s Culture War: The Unity of the Untimely Meditations (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 187. 13 What I am calling a culture-city here is a political institution subordinated to culture, not what is sometimes called a “culture state,” by which is intended a situation where politics and culture cooperate. Nietzsche does not believe such cooperation is possible. “Culture and the state – one should not deceive oneself here – are antagonists. ‘Culturestate’ is merely a modern idea.” Twilight of the Idols (TOI), “What the Germans Lack,” section 4; cf. Brooks, 198: Brooks emphasizes the dependence of Nietzsche’s cultural project on its actual reception by a community of human beings.

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

219

ends of culture, in this case the end of producing and preparing a philosophic genius.14 “The authentic goal of the state, the Olympian existence and ever-renewed generation and preparation of the genius, over against which all others are only tools, means of assistance and enablers, is found here through a poetic intuition and painted with bluntness.”15 Although Nietzsche says this goal is painted with bluntness, he also calls it the “secret teaching ” of the Republic, which Nietzsche also calls a “secret writing.”16 What seems to need to be kept secret here is likely that, aside from the philosophic genius, every other human being in this ideal city is being assigned the role of an instrument. Nietzsche does not seem to blame or disagree with this need for secrecy. The only thing Nietzsche blames about Plato’s image of an ideal city is that “he did not place the genius in his universal concept at the peak, rather only the genius of wisdom and of knowing….”17 Sometimes Nietzsche’s political ambitions seem to stretch all the way to unified world rule.18 Even in these instances it is likely best to understand these projects as cultural ambitions rather than political ambitions.19 14 Cf. Human All Too Human (HAH), 474. 15 The Greek State in Friedrich Nietzsche, Prefaces to Unwritten Works, trans. Michael

W. Grenke (South Bend: St. Augustine Press, 2005), 57. 16 Ibid., 59. 17 Ibid.; cf.

Ottmann, 45. Ottmann says that Nietzsche’s preferred state is “Erziehungsstaat wie bei Platon, seine Spitze bilden die ‘Genies’, mit dem Unterschied nur, daß Nietzsche – anders als Platon –die Künstler aus dem Idealstaat nicht vertreibt, sondern, neben den Philosophen, gerade für die Exempla des Genialen hält”. (The educational state as with Plato, at its peak cultivating the “genius,” with the only difference, that Nietzsche—elsewise than Plato—does not drive the artist out of the ideal state, rather, he holds him next to the philosopher, precisely for the exemplar of genius.) 18 See The Gay Science (GS), section 362; see also Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), section 251 end. 19 Too many readers are tempted to associate Nietzsche’s use of the term “great politics” with the narrowly political, with conquest on a global scale, with world wars. “Clearly politics alone is insufficient to bring on the revaluation of all values. We have seen that the great politics of the future involves a heavily spiritual component as well as a political one, and of the two the spiritual aspect is undoubtedly the more important. No simple shift from democratic political institutions to the right kind of aristocratic ones could by itself bring an end to the decadence that afflicts the modern world. The ‘lies of millenia’ must also be overcome, and new truths must be created” (Detwiler, 62); see also, Ottmann, 240: “‘Große Politik’ ist ein mißverständlicher Titel. Im Verein mit dem nun allgegewärtigen Machtvokabular Nietzsches könnte er den Eindruck hervorrufen, als sei Nietzsche nun doch eingeschwenkt auf den Geist der Zeit, die nationale und imperial

220

M. W. GRENKE

Nietzsche is interested to see what human beings can do and what can be made of human beings when all the human beings in the world deploy their resources for the sake of one goal or one plan.20 Because Nietzsche sees man as “the as yet undetermined animal,”21 there is much yet to discover about human beings. Nietzsche’s interest in world domination is primarily an interest in exploring undiscovered possibilities for human beings. But Nietzsche’s use of the political does not always extend so far as to turn the whole world into a laboratory or an artist’s workshop. Sometimes Nietzsche is more modest in his means, although perhaps not in his goals. In BGE 61, Nietzsche describes a kind of political rule, which is really a behind-the-scenes rule over politics, by the philosopher, as understood by “we free spirits.”22 This philosopher is willing to make use of existing conditions, political, economic, and religious to further his “work of education and breeding.” This is also presented as a work of evolution. The philosopher as we understand him, we free spirits—as the man of the most comprehensive responsibility who has the conscience for the collective evolution of mankind: this philosopher will make use of the religions for his work of education and breeding, just as he will make use of existing political and economic conditions. The influence on selection and breeding, that is to say the destructive as well as the creative and formative influence which can be exercised with the aid of the religions, is manifold and various

Politik. Nichts ist weniger der Fall. Noch immer versteht Nietzsche Größe so, wie er sie mit Burckhardt seit der Geburt des Deutschen Reiches begriff, als Größe der Kultur, nicht der Imperien.” (“Great Politics” is a name given to misunderstanding. In union with the now ever-present power vocabulary of Nietzsche it can call forth the impression, as if Nietzsche now indeed was swept up in the spirit of the time, the national and imperial politics. Nothing is less the case. Ever still Nietzsche understands greatness thus, as he conceived of it with Burckhardt since the birth of the German Empire, as the greatness of culture, not of the empire.); cf. Daniel Conway, Nietzsche’s Dangerous Game: Philosophy in the Twilight of the Idols (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1997), 144: Conway characterizes the late thought of Nietzsche as having abandoning his hopes for great politic: “Powerless to redeem modernity as a whole, he turns instead to the creation of underground communities that might convey his teachings into the next millennium.” 20 See Thus Spake Zarathustra (Z), “On the Thousand and One Goals.” 21 BGE, 62. 22 The kind of free spirit included here in this “we” seems to include Nietzsche and to be more willing to employ the church and to lie about it than the “free spirit” mentioned in BGE 105.

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

221

depending on the kind of men placed under their spell and protection. For the strong and independent prepared and predestined for command, in whom the art and reason of a ruling race is incarnated, religion is one more means of overcoming resistance so as to be able to rule: as a bond that unites together ruler and ruled and betrays and hands over to the former the consciences of the latter, all that is hidden and most intimate in them which would like to exclude itself from obedience; and if some natures of such noble descent incline through lofty spirituality to a more withdrawn and contemplative life and reserve to themselves only the most refined kind of rule (over select disciples or brothers), then religion can even be used as a means of obtaining peace from the noise and effort of cruder modes of government, and cleanliness from the necessary dirt of all politics. Thus did the Brahmins, for example, arrange things: with the aid of a religious organization they gave themselves the power of nominating their kings for the people, while keeping and feeling themselves aside and outside as men of higher and more than kingly tasks. In the meantime, religion also gives a section of the ruled guidance and opportunity for preparing itself for future rule and command; that is to say, those slowly rising orders and classes in which through fortunate marriage customs the strength and joy of the will, the will to self-mastery is always increasing—religion presents them with sufficient instigations and temptations to take the road to higher spirituality, to test the feelings of great self-overcoming, of silence and solitude—asceticism and puritanism are virtually indispensable means of education and ennobling if a race wants to become master over its origins in the rabble, and work its way up towards future rule. To ordinary men, finally, the great majority, who exist for service and general utility and who may exist only for that purpose, religion gives an invaluable contentment with their nature and station, manifold peace of heart, an ennobling of obedience, one piece of joy and sorrow more to share with their fellows, and some transfiguration of the whole everydayness, the whole lowliness, the whole half-bestial poverty of their souls. Religion and the religious significance of life shed sunshine over these perpetual drudges and make their own sight tolerable to them, they have the effect which an Epicurean philosophy usually has on sufferers of a higher rank, refreshing, refining, as it were making the most use of suffering, ultimately even sanctifying and justifying. Perhaps nothing in Christianity and Buddhism is so venerable as their art of teaching even the lowliest to set themselves through piety in an apparently higher order of things and thus to preserve their contentment with the real order, within which they live hard enough lives—and necessarily have to!

222

M. W. GRENKE

This passage is more about using religion as a tool of education than it is about politics, but the use of religion may serve as an example. Besides, politics and religion become intermingled in this passage, particularly regarding the highest matters. There is a hierarchy of human types described in this passage: those already prepared for rule, those ascending and developing ever greater strength of will, and ordinary human beings—the great majority.23 Religion can serve a different role for each of these types, and each of these roles can contribute to a project of education and breeding. Higher still than these three types are human beings with a “lofty spirituality” who “incline to a more withdrawn and contemplative life.” These are the philosophers, and Nietzsche sketches here a way in which philosophers can rule over politics from behind the scenes. Such a rule would not be political, for Nietzsche indicates there is a “necessary dirt of all politics,” and this kind of rule is arranged so as to escape that dirt. To engage fully in politics would take the contemplative types away from the life they want. It would take them away from what they regard as higher goals and force them to prioritize lower goals. Despite the importance of allowing the contemplative types to escape the necessary dirt of politics, at the end of BGE 61, Nietzsche shows a perhaps even greater appreciation for the effect religion can have on the majority of human beings, ordinary human beings. Religion can ennoble their obedience, give them contentment and peace, and allow them to set themselves in an apparently higher order of things. These effects might be thought of as beneficial, but how are they connected to education? To investigate this question, and to see a scheme of education more generally laid out by Nietzsche, let us turn to his early work On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life. History, or a human being’s relationship to the past or to stories about the past, is presented there as potentially helpful or harmful to the lives of human beings. When history addresses a real need of a human being, then it is helpful. When history is guided by something else, such as the uncompromising desire for truth, then it no longer serves life. “History is necessary to the living

23 Laurence Lampert sees the distinction of these three types of human beings as based upon a more fundamental distinction, one that subsumes the philosophic type as well within its higher category. “The distinctions among human beings described in this section are based upon a more fundamental division into two kinds, ruler and ruled, or the commanding and the obeying” (Lampert, 129).

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

223

man in three ways: in relation to his action and struggle, his conservatism and reverence, his suffering and his desire for deliverance. These three relations answer to the three kinds of history – so far as they can be distinguished – the monumental, the antiquarian, and the critical.”24 What is hard to see from this initial statement is that these three relations fundamentally characterize three types of human needs that determine each human being’s proper relation to history. Nietzsche makes this clearer just a little later. “Each of the three kinds of history will flourish only in one ground and climate: otherwise it grows to a noxious weed. If the man who will produce something great has need of the past, he makes himself its master by means of monumental history; the man who can rest content with the traditional and venerable uses the past as an ‘antiquarian historian’; and only he whose heart is oppressed by an instant need and who will cast the burden off at any price feels the want of ‘critical history,’ the history that judges and condemns.”25 This threefold division really reduces into a twofold division of human types in need of two different historical educations. The human being who needs critical history is not a type but someone who finds themselves in external circumstances where existing modes of education have ceased to be useful and must be destroyed and cleared away.26 What do those capable of greatness need by way of education? “History is necessary above all to the man of action and power who fights a great fight and needs examples, teachers, and comforters.”27 Although this passage focuses on action and power, Nietzsche’s concept of the human being who needs monumental history is broad, and his examples include poets. He most likely has in mind genius or greatness in its broadest and most universal sense (recall his criticism of the limits of Plato). What the monumental people need in their historical education most of all is inspiration, something that encourages and buoys up their struggle toward greatness. They need an education that shows them not so much a path to follow, rather one that shows them human beings 24 On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life (UDH), section II. 25 Ibid. 26 Shilo Brooks makes a very helpful observation regarding critical history. “The description of the critical mode of history is unique among the three modes featured in sections 2–3 because Nietzsche does not differentiate between a proper use for culture and its destructive abuse” (Brooks, 104). 27 UDH, section II.

224

M. W. GRENKE

who made their own paths, human beings whose own accomplishments extended the concept of the human. Monumental history as education is not a political education in the sense that it serves the ends of politics. The great actions that monumental history inspires transcend the parameters of existing regimes. Such great actions may directly threaten the regime, such as crossing the Rubicon, or they may introduce concepts or inquiries that tend to unravel the integrity of previously existing forms of politics. The antiquarian use of history is much closer to what is meant by a political education. “Secondly, history is necessary to the man of conservative and reverent nature who looks back to the origins of his existence with love and trust.”28 Antiquarian history makes human beings content with what they have. But should these human beings be content with what they have? Antiquarian history ennobles the low, enlarges the petty, transfigures the everyday and the bestial, and furnishes poverty. “All that is small and limited, moldy and obsolete, gains a worth and inviolability of its own from the conservative and reverent soul of the antiquary.”29 Antiquarian history “anchors the less gifted races and peoples to the homes and customs of their ancestors.”30 The suggestion Nietzsche seems to be pursuing is that average everyday human beings looking at their own existence soberly and honestly are not likely to be satisfied with what they are. This dissatisfaction will likely lead them to behave badly toward others, even violently. Antiquarian history, then, appears as a people’s education, but such “education of the people only means so much, to ward off these acts of destructive violence, and to maintain that wholesome unconsciousness, that sound sleeping of the people….”31 By keeping the average human beings content with their lives and their circumstances, antiquarian history serves monumental history. It keeps the majority of human beings quiet and out of the way of the efforts of great human beings. The adverb that introduces the human need that antiquarian history serves is “secondly.” This is to be contrasted with the phrase “above

28 Ibid., section III. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Nietzsche 2004, 67.

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

225

all” which characterizes the need served by monumental history.32 The kind of necessity belonging to antiquarian history is truly secondary; it is a necessity derived from the necessity of monumental history. All three kinds of history are united in that the need that each serves is founded upon the monumental need.33 The kind of antiquarian contentment with the present and past can serve the few with monumental aspirations as a kind of firm and stable background offering resources that can be relied upon and a kind of contrast against which they can define their own attempts at change. For living together, or at least alongside one another, monumental human beings and antiquarian humans serve as forces of change and stability, respectively. Stability and change. These two principles form the fundamental paradox of education. In fact, they form the fundamental paradox of all growth. In a good conversation, there must be something stable, something firm. The interlocutors must come into the conversation having some firm commitments to relevant opinions. This makes them take the conversation seriously. This makes them feel something is at stake and it makes them care about what gets said. But this same firmness makes them resist changing their opinions. In order for their opinions to change from worse to better, the interlocutors must be open to changing their firmly held opinions. They must be flexible. In order for a good conversation to achieve not only a change from one opinion to a better opinion34 but to a series of accumulated changes of opinion that build up to a greater whole, 32 See Brooks, 86: “The significance of the phrase ‘above all’ [vor Allem] cannot be overstated. History belongs first and foremost to those who act and strive, and not to those who think or philosophize.” Despite the emphasis on action, Brooks’s book goes on to describe the untimely meditations on Schopenhauer (philosopher) and Wagner (poet) as examples of monumental histories; cf. Quentin Taylor, The Republic of Genius: A Reconstruction of Nietzsche’s Early Thought (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1997), 143; “Of the three main types of history, Nietzsche is particularly interested in the instructional value of the monumental variety….history … ‘belongs above all’ to the man who would fain achieve something great.” 33 Martin Heidegger also recognizes the unity of the three types of history. But, characteristically he understands this unity to derive from the unity of the three ecstasies of human temporality. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1986); cf. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, II. Abteilung, Band 46, Zur Auslegung von Nietzsches II. Unzeitgemäßer Betrachtung (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2003). 34 Or even to knowledge, if knowledge does not compel its own acceptance.

226

M. W. GRENKE

each change when it has been achieved in some window of flexibility must subsequently become firm so that it can be built upon. In evolution, understood broadly as descent with modification, the same two principles, seemingly incompatible, are involved. Descent is the principle of stability. A descendant inherits from its parents copies of the parents’ properties. Reproduction can be conceived of as doing its work when it produces again the properties of the parents and passes them along to the children. Somewhere in this process there must be a weakness, a vulnerability to change. If there were not such a vulnerability, modification would not happen, and there would be no evolution. Socalled species would stay just as they are. Modification is the principle of change. In order for evolution to have a progressive and accumulative direction, changes that have once occurred must be preserved afterward by faithful reproduction. If this did not occur for the most part, then any modifications, any changes that proved useful to the parents would have no tendency to appear again in the children. Nietzsche’s interest in education encompasses the whole human being. This includes the conscious mind, the non-conscious part of the mind, and the part of the human being that most do not think of as mind. As a consequence, Nietzschean education encompasses both the kind of changes arising from good conversations and the kind of changes arising from evolution. Thus education involves the problematic interplay of change and stability. At the level of politics, Nietzsche offers a couple of sustained sketches of how this interplay can and will be manifested. In Human, All Too Human, section 224, Nietzsche offers an image of inoculation. It is an image of a single polity containing individuals who differ significantly in nature. Enonblement through degeneration. – History teaches that the most selfsustaining branch of a people will be the one where most individuals have a sense of community as a result of the similarity in their habitual and indiscussible principles, that is, as a result of their common beliefs. Here good, sound customs are strengthened, here the subordination of the individual is learned and character is already given steadiness as a gift at birth and has it afterward reinforced by upbringing. The danger for these strong communities based upon individuals who all share a similar character is a gradual increase in inherited stupidity, which tails all stability like its shadow. It is the more unconstrained, the much more uncertain and morally weaker individuals upon whom spiritual progress depends in such communities: these are the people who attempt new things and, in

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

227

general, many different things. Because of their weakness, countless individuals of this kind perish without much visible effect; but in general, especially when they have descendants, they loosen things up and inflict from time to time a wound upon the stable element of a community. Precisely in this wounded and weakened spot, the collective being is inoculated, as it were, with something new; but its strength as a whole must be great enough to absorb this new thing into its blood and to assimilate it. Degenerate natures are of the highest significance wherever progress is to ensue. A partial weakening has to precede every large-scale advance. The strongest natures maintain the type; the weaker ones help to develop it further. –

Here Nietzsche presents the strong natures as the stabilizing agents. These human beings are strong in the sense that they resist change. They tend to be uniform in customs, habits, and beliefs. And they maintain those customs, habits, and beliefs over time. They fit in with their neighbors and fellow citizens and reinforce a nature tending toward fixity with an upbringing infused with a sense of community. The weaker individuals are less fixed in their character and they fit in less well. They have some openness to new or different behaviors or opinions. These weaker individuals are the agents of change. The right balance between these strong and weak elements in the polity is necessary for progress,35 that is for change that enhances the polity and makes it better. For the most part, when the weak behave or opine differently there is little consequence. But occasionally when the mixture is right,36 the aberrant behaviors or opinions weaken the stable forms just enough that something new can enter into the body politic, like an inoculation introduced through a breach in the skin. If the polity overall is still strong enough, it can take in this newness and integrate it into existing practices and structures. When this happens progress is made. The polity grows, it becomes more than what it was.

35 In HAH, 221, Nietzsche describes a situation in the historical development of poetry when a stabilizing force disappears: “… Goethe attempted to save himself from this by always knowing how to bind himself in ever new and varied ways; but even the most gifted get only as far as continual experimentation once the thread of development has been torn ….” 36 Nietzsche says this happens especially when the weaker elements have descendants. This seems to mean that deviance tends to weaken stability more when the deviance is sustained over time.

228

M. W. GRENKE

This is an image Nietzsche offers of ongoing change within one people or polity. The emphasis on the importance of the weaker elements might seem to challenge the claim that every enhancement of the type “human being” has been and will be the work of an aristocratic society. However that may be, the deeper emphasis here is on the interplay of strong and weak, of less and more changeable. As HAH 224 continues, Nietzsche follows out an analogy between the interplay of strength and weakness with respect to changes in the life of individual human beings. This provides a description of the task of individual education. Something similar occurs in the individual human being; seldom is any degeneration, any mutilation, even a vice or any physical or moral damage whatsoever without an advantage in some other respect. For instance, a more sickly individual who lives among a warlike and restless tribe will perhaps have more occasion to be by himself and thereby become calmer and wiser; someone with one eye will have one stronger eye; a blind person will see more deeply within and will in any case have sharper hearing. To that extent, the renowned struggle for existence does not seem to me to be the only point of view from which the progress or strengthening of an individual or a race can be explained. Instead, two things must come together: first, an increase in the stabilizing force brought about by uniting minds in belief and in communal feeling; and second, the possibility of attaining higher goals as degenerate natures turn up and, in consequence, partial weakenings and woundings of the stabilizing force occur; it is precisely the weaker nature, as the more delicate and free, that makes any progress possible at all. A people that has begun to crumble and weaken somewhere, but is on the whole still strong and healthy, can absorb the infection of what is new and incorporate it advantageously. For the individual human being, the task of education involves this: putting him so firmly and securely on track that he can as a whole no longer be diverted from his path. Then, however, the educator has to inflict wounds upon him or to use the wounds that fate inflicts, and when pain and need have resulted from this, something new and refined can be inoculated into the wounded places. His whole nature will take it in and later, in its fruits, make the traces of its ennoblement visible. –

In the education of an individual, the story of the interplay of strength and weakness, of stability and changeability, takes on this form. A fixed course must be established, a path from which the individual as a whole cannot deviate. That means deviation can occur only for parts of the

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

229

individual, not the whole. Firmness, fixity comes first. Then flexibility, changeability, can be introduced in the form of accidental (or deliberate) inflictions of wounds from which pain and need arise. The new can then enter in. And the whole nature, staying on its path, will take in this newness and incorporate it, making it advantageous, higher, nobler. One of the most challenging aspects of Nietzsche’s presentation here is that he sharpens the fundamental paradox. He calls for an “increase in the stabilizing force” which would seem to make it harder for change to happen. HAH 224 ends by attributing a claim to Machiavelli that would seem to characterize maximizing stability as the essence of politics.37 As for what concerns the state, Machiavelli says that “the form of government has very little significance, although half-educated people think otherwise. The great goal of the art of politics should be durability, which outweighs everything else, since it is much more valuable than freedom.” Only when the maximum durability has been securely grounded and guaranteed is steady development and ennobling inoculation possible at all. Admittedly, the dangerous associate of all durability, authority, will generally resist that.

This final portion of HAH 224 should serve to confirm that Nietzsche does not endorse any particular politics. For the end of politics is stability, staying the same over time. For Nietzsche this end is just a means. However, this end does seem to endorse maximizing the durability of the polity as the situation that best supports progressive change. The last line indicates that the polity allowed to become stable will by its own accompanying authority resist such progressive change. In a later writing, Nietzsche offers a different picture of progressive change resulting from the interplay of stability and change. Here again the change occurs within one polity, and the polity here is an aristocracy. The agents of stability and change here are less directly at odds, because, at least with respect to their periods of effectiveness, they are separated by time. First there is stabilizing. This is BGE 262.

37 In a fragment in his late notebooks entitled “On the Mastery of Virtue,” and subtitled “A Tractatus Politicus,” Nietzsche calls Machiavellianism, “perfection in politics” KSA, 13, p. 25 (note 11[54]).

230

M. W. GRENKE

Now look for once at an aristocratic commonwealth – say, an ancient Greek polis, or Venice – as an arrangement, whether voluntary or involuntary, for breeding: human beings are together there who are dependent on themselves and want their species to prevail, most often because they have to prevail or run the terrible risk of being exterminated. Here that boon, that excess, and that protection which favor variations are lacking: the species needs itself as a species, as something that can prevail and make itself durable by virtue of its very hardness, uniformity, and simplicity of form, in a constant fight with its neighbors or with the oppressed who are rebellious or threaten rebellion. Manifold experience teaches them to which qualities above all they owe the fact that despite all gods and men, they are still there, that they have always triumphed: these qualities they call virtues, these virtues alone they cultivate. They do this with hardness, indeed they want hardness: every aristocratic morality is intolerant – in the education of youth, in their arrangements for women, in their marriage customs, in the relations of old and young, in their penal laws (which take into accounts deviants only) – they consider intolerance itself a virtue, calling it “justice.” In this way a type with few but very strong traits, a species of severe, warlike, prudently taciturn men, close-mouthed and closely linked (and as such possessed of the subtlest feeling for the charms and nuances of association), is fixed beyond the changing generations; the continual fight against ever constant unfavorable conditions is, as mentioned previously, the cause that fixes and hardens a type.

The agents of stability in this passage are conditions or circumstances surrounding aristocrats that work against the survival of their own kind or “species.” Being subjected by unfavorable conditions would seem to be a matter of chance, but Nietzsche’s text presents what seems to be characteristic behavior for aristocracies: “every aristocratic morality is intolerant.” But precisely this morality shapes the behavior and opinions of the aristocrats. Are aristocracies to be expected to be subject to unfavorable conditions? Nietzsche mentions neighbors with which the polity might fight, and every polity has neighbors (albeit some neighbors are not so nigh). But neighbors cannot be relied upon to be enemies in the here and now. Nietzsche also mentions “the oppressed.” These oppressed might be rebelling presently or they might just be threatening to rebel. Can this be relied upon? From the way Nietzsche includes the thought of the oppressed, it seems we are to think that if there is rule of the few then there will be others who are oppressed. Those who are not ruling are the oppressed. The numbers of this class and the dissatisfaction that attends oppression would seem to make at least the threat of

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

231

rebellion a condition to be expected. Thus the unfavorable condition of the oppressed many would seem to shape the behavior and opinions of the aristocratic commonwealth and incline it to lean toward stability and hardness. But the threat of rebellion certainly admits of degrees. And in the course of time the threat or the perception of the threat may diminish to a point where the harshness, the strictness, the intolerance of the aristocratic morality are no longer felt to be necessary. BGE 262 goes on to describe that time. Eventually, however, a day arrives when conditions become more fortunate and the tremendous tension decreases; perhaps there are no longer any enemies among one’s neighbors, and the means of life, even for the enjoyment of life, are superabundant. At one stroke the bond and constraint of the old discipline are torn: it no longer seems necessary, a condition of existence – if it persisted it would only be a form of luxury, an archaizing taste. Variation, whether as deviation (to something higher, subtler, rarer) or as degeneration and monstrosity, suddenly appears on the scene in the greatest abundance and magnificence; the individual dares to be individual and different. At these turning points of history we behold beside one another, and often mutually involved and entangled, a splendid, manifold, junglelike growth and upward striving, a kind of tropical tempo in the competition to grow, and a tremendous ruin and self-ruination, as the savage egoisms that have turned, almost exploded, against one another wrestle “for sun and light” and can no longer derive any limit, restraint, or consideration from their previous morality. It was this morality itself that dammed up such enormous strength and bent the bow in such a threatening manner; now it is “outlived.” The dangerous and uncanny point has been reached where the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive life transcends and lives beyond the old morality; the “individual” appears, obliged to give himself laws and to develop his own arts and wiles for self-preservation, self-enhancement, self-redemption. All sorts of new what-fors and wherewithals; no shared formulas any longer; misunderstanding allied with disrespect; decay, corruption, and the highest desires gruesomely entangled; the genius of the race overflowing from all cornucopias of good and bad; a calamitous simultaneity of spring and fall, full of new charms and veils that characterize young, still unexhausted, still unwearied corruption.

In this time of plenty, the agents of change are the plentiful or favorable conditions themselves. Variations, deviations in form, burst forth simply because they are allowed. This is presented as the emergence of strength

232

M. W. GRENKE

or energy that was pent up by the strictness of the old morality. When the old morality relaxes or lets go, that strength manifests. It comes out in all sorts of ways. Some are improvements, many are not. Some of the improvements rise to the level of what Nietzsche calls in quotation marks the “individual.” Such singular persons are bigger, more manifold, more comprehensive than anything the earlier aristocracy had produced with its fixing of its own type. These singular products live beyond the old morality and are presented here as higher than the polity from which they emerge. If one takes them to constitute an advancement of the type “human being,” are they something that can be built upon? Can they, individually, constitute steps in an evolutionary progress? In another passage in BGE, Nietzsche presents the emergence of such individuals as the product of democratic or cosmopolitan polities that mix many types of human beings together. The man of an era of dissolution which mixes the races together and who therefore contains within him the inheritance of a diversified descent, that is to say contrary and often not merely contrary drives and values which struggle with one another and rarely leave one another in peace—such a man of late cultures and broken lights will, on average, be a rather weak man: his fundamental desire is that the war which he is should come to an end; happiness appears to him, in accord with a sedative (for example Epicurean or Christian) medicine and mode of thought, pre-eminently as the happiness of repose, of tranquility, of satiety, of unity at last attained, as a “Sabbath of Sabbaths,” to quote the holy rhetorician Augustine, who was himself such a man.— If, however, the contrariety and war in such a nature should act as one more stimulus and enticement to life—and if, on the other hand, in addition to powerful and irreconcilable drives, there has also been inherited and cultivated a proper mastery and subtlety in conducting a war against oneself, that is to say self-control, self-outwitting: then there arise those marvelously incomprehensible and unfathomable men, those enigmatic men predestined for victory and the seduction of others, the fairest examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar (—to whom I should like to add that first European agreeable to my taste, the Hohenstaufen Friedrich II ), and among artists perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear in precisely the same ages as those in which that rather weak type with his desire for rest comes to the fore: the two types belong together and originate in the same causes.

This democratic or cosmopolitan polity is presented as a “late” culture because it comes after earlier cultures that produced the many traits that

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

233

are mixed within the human beings of this time. Nietzsche understands there to be a cycle of regimes that repeats itself regularly among human beings from tyranny to aristocracy to democracy and then back to tyranny. The many and various traits mixed up inside democratic human beings are inherited from those traits fixed or made stable in previous regimes. The emergence of great individuals within the permissive tolerance of democracy is presented here as a matter of inheriting the right mix of traits. This right mix looks like chance. But these comprehensive, higher individuals look like they are the thing that matters to Nietzsche. They are the enhancement of the human type. “A people is a detour of nature to get to six or seven great men. –Yes, and then to get around them.”38 History must be used to support the monumental human beings. “Thus education of the mass cannot be our goal: rather education of the individual, selected human being, equipped for great and lasting works….”39 The enhancement of the human type depends upon change. Education consists in changing those being educated. How much can be achieved if one were to focus education on individuals, on rare, selected human beings of great potential? BGE 231 seems to reveal a limit to the scope and kind of changes that such individual education can achieve: Learning changes us; it does what all nourishment does which also does not merely “preserve”—as physiologists know. But at the bottom of us, really “deep down,” there is, of course, something unteachable, some granite of spiritual fatum, of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined selected questions. Whenever a cardinal problem is at stake, there speaks an unchangeable “this is I”; about man and woman, for example, a thinker cannot relearn but only finish learning—only discover ultimately how this is “settled in him.” At times we find certain solutions of problems that inspire strong faith in us; some call them henceforth their “convictions.” Later— we see them only as steps to self-knowledge, signposts to the problem we are—rather, to the great stupidity we are, to our spiritual fatum, to what is unteachable very “deep down.”— Having just paid myself such a deal of pretty compliments I may perhaps be more readily permitted to

38 BGE, 126; In his notebooks, an earlier version of this section says “5,6 great men” (KSA 10, p. 105, aphorism #433). One might wonder what made Nietzsche increase the numbers in his revision. 39 Nietzsche 2004, 66; this is said by the old philosopher.

234

M. W. GRENKE

utter a few truths about “woman as such”: assuming it is now understood from the outset to how great an extent these are only—my truths. —

This spiritual granite that Nietzsche claims is to be found deep down in us, constitutes our individual nature. We cannot change it by learning. We can only learn about it. This thought is related to the slogan of Ecce Homo: become what you are. At best it would seem that learning could reveal to us how things are settled in us deep down and thus allow us to live in accordance with our nature. In HAH 263, Nietzsche seems to present this as becoming who we are: Talent. – In a humanity as highly developed as the present one, everyone acquires by nature access to many talents. Everyone has innate talent, but only a few are born with and trained to a sufficient degree of tenacity, persistence, and energy that any one of them really becomes a talent, that is, becomes what he is, which is to say: discharges it in works and actions.

But this is not the whole story. Nietzsche does not really think human beings have fixed natures. It is not that we have something about us that is unchangeable, rather we are changeable very slowly. This thought has to be applied to what was said earlier regarding the interplay of stability and change. Stability should be thought of relatively. The stable is not the unchangeable, rather it is what tends to resist change and only changes slowly. What I called above our individual nature is an example of something that only changes slowly. Because such change is slow, in a practical sense human beings have a nature or an unalterable character. The practical here is determined by the kind of spans of time that belong to individual human lives. Nietzsche thinks that if we lived longer what is practical would have to be redefined: Unalterable character – That character is unalterable is not in the strict sense true; instead, this popular proposition means only so much as to say that during the short lifespan of a human being, the motives influencing him cannot ordinarily scratch deeply enough to destroy the imprinted script of many millennia. But if we were to imagine a human being eighty thousand years old, we would have in him an absolutely alterable character: so that an abundance of different individuals would gradually develop out of

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

235

him. The brevity of human life misleads us into making many erroneous assertions about the characteristics of human beings.40

The education of selected individuals does not produce radical change (in the span of a lifetime). This is why it is a relatively weak power.41 Despite this weakness, the education of select individuals can have profound effects on the level of the individual. Putting such education first would mean that education would be for its own sake. “For true education disdains polluting itself with the needing and desiring individual: it knows how wisely to give the slip to those, who would like to secure it as a means for egoistic aims; and if even one person fancies himself to hold it fast, in order now perhaps to make a living out of it and to satisfy his necessities of life through its exploitation, then it runs away suddenly with inaudible steps and with a mien of derision.”42 Thus true education, focusing on select individuals, provides them with the purity and leisure to become who they are. It lifts them above the lower demands of everyday existence and keeps them clean from the necessary dirt of everyday life. “Thus is granted to the truly cultured the inestimable good of being able to remain true to the contemplative instincts of their childhood without any break and through that to come to a rest, unity, to a togetherness and harmony, which cannot be suspected even once by one drawn into the struggle for life.”43 Is everything, and everyone, then to be understood for the sake of a few? Recall that Nietzsche said that a “people is a detour of nature to get to six or seven great men.”44 But that was not the complete statement. 40 HAH, 41; cf. what Nietzsche says about even so exceptional a human being as Goethe, “Extremely vigorous men, such as Goethe for example, traverse as much distance as four successive generations can scarcely manage; but they therefore get so far ahead that other people catch up to them only in the next century, even then perhaps not fully, because frequent interruptions weaken the continuity of a culture, the logical coherence of its development” (HAH, 272). 41 This was why, at least in part, Nietzsche opposed the women’s liberation movement—because the movement expected something from individual education that it could not give. 42 Nietzsche 2004, 82. 43 Ibid., 84. 44 J. Harvey Lomax notes regarding this section that “‘Nature’ is unambiguously synonomous (sic) with becoming or history.” Lomax then goes on to draw the conclusion that nature cannot be the standard. J. Harvey Lomax, The Paradox of Philosophical

236

M. W. GRENKE

Nietzsche added the thought “Yes, and then to get around them.” This would seem to mean that not only does Nietzsche not favor aristocracy or any other particular regime, but he also does not simply favor the exceptional, great individuals that may emerge as a result of his projects of education and breeding. These great individuals may achieve a kind of completion in themselves. They may be understood as “complementary” human beings as presented in BGE 207. They may be able to look at themselves soberly and honestly and feel some satisfaction. Yet they are not to be understood as stopping points. In my treatment of the three uses of history earlier, little was said of critical history. In this context, the importance of critical history may be made clear. Monumental and antiquarian history can be understood as agents of change and stability, respectively. But specific iterations of each type of history if they continue to exist tend to stabilize and then to be used to oppose further changes. Thus when the other two types of history have become too stable critical history is needed. Critical history clears away existing histories by bringing them to judgment. As an agent of change, critical history does not so much bring into being anything new as clear away those old beings that have become stagnant. History continues to be “above all” for the sake of the monumental, since the actions of critical history are intended to make future monumental efforts possible again. But the monumental human beings and their acts are not to be understood as final ends. Monumental efforts are meant to last, for the orders of the monumental actor “are that what has once been able to extend the conception “human being” and give it a fairer content must ever exist.”45 But these efforts are not to be understood as serving the self, narrowly understood, of the monumental actor. “His goal is happiness, not perhaps his own, but often the nations or humanity’s at large.”46

Education: Nietzsche’s New Nobility and the Eternal Recurrence in Beyond Good and Evil (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2003), 104. 45 UDH, section II. 46 Ibid.

NIETZSCHE AND POLITICAL EDUCATION

237

The standard of judgment of critical history is life. Because of this, “[e]very past is worth condemning….”47 This is because life is insatiable.48 A living being “will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant … because it is living and because life simply is will to power.”49 Nietzsche does not sugarcoat this with pretty words, “‘Exploitation’ … belongs to the essence of what lives.” It is no surprise if many reading such passages see there a narrow selfishness. But if will to power is intrinsically and narrowly selfish how can one understand Nietzsche’s own interests in projects and prospects that extend far beyond his own biological life? It may be that we misunderstand our self. Our self wants to do, not just to be. Our self wants to let out its strength.50 This letting out may even, at times, threaten our being. This is how it is possible for Nietzsche to say things like “what matter are we!”51 But this orientation toward doing, letting out, also extends the self. If we were to limit our sense of our doing strictly to our moving of our own body, we would not feel that we did much in the world. But our sense of self is capable of great extension. To illustrate this, I will refer to what is otherwise a rather ugly passage in On the Genealogy of Morals. In the eleventh section of the first essay, Nietzsche describes how noble human beings avoid the buildup of ressentiment that would seem likely to occur due to their restraint of their drives with respect to other members of their own community. Nietzsche explains that such nobles release whatever drives that are starting to get pent up by going on a rampage among human beings outside the nobles’ own community. Nietzsche describes such a rampage as “a disgusting procession of murder, arson, rape, and torture.” The most revealing on this list is “arson.” How is arson a release of my drives? How and to what extent is arson capable of being my own “doing”? I light the fire, but then the fire does the work. And yet it feels like the course and action of the burning is my doing. This is because my self is capable of extending. Just as my self extends out into the action of the fire, so Nietzsche’s self extends out into the future course of humanity. Nietzsche is interested in 47 UDH, section III. 48 Ibid. 49 BGE, 259. 50 See BGE, 13. 51 BGE, 23.

238

M. W. GRENKE

what happens to human beings in the future because he is interested in himself. The greatest realm of action that presents itself to us, the opportunity for the greatest growth, expansion, exploitation is to be found in the large-scale changes that can only be brought about in long-term multigenerational, multinational, multipolitical projects. A living self seeks out the greatest opportunity to increase and to express its strength. There are no stopping points. For life is insatiable.

Index

A Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 98 Annas, Julia, 40 Anton, Michael, 84 Aristotle, 12, 23, 25, 36

B Bartlett, Robert C., 59, 63 Benardete, Seth, 39–42, 47, 50 Berg, Steven, 2 Blits, Jan H., 187 Blondell, Ruby, 48 Bloom, Allan, 168 Brickhouse, Thomas, 41 Brooks, Shilo, 218, 223, 225 Bruell, Christopher, 45, 79

C Clough, Cecil H., 87 Collins, Susan D., 29, 59, 63 Conway, Daniel, 220 Cooper, John, 56

D Davis, Michael, 106 de Alvarez, Leo Paul, 85 Destrée, Pierre, 50 Detwiler, Bruce, 215, 216, 219 Devine, Francis Edward, 136, 138

F Foster, Luke, 191 Furet, François, 182

G Gargan, Edward T., 186 Gilbert, Allan, 89 Gildin, Hilail, 160, 172 Goldwin, Robert, 133

H Hassner, Pierre, 182 Haynes, Holly, 113 Heidegger, Martin, 2, 225 Heilke, Thomas, 216

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 I. Dagg (ed.), Regime and Education, Recovering Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37383-1

239

240

INDEX

Herodotus, 22 Hesiod, 61 Hunter, Richard, 48

J Jech, Alexander, 198

K Kahan, Alan S., 187, 190 Kahn, Charles, 36

L Lampert, Laurence, 216, 222 Lomax, J. Harvey, 235 Ludlam, Ivor, 36 Lynch, Christopher, 84, 87

M Mansfield, Harvey C., 82–87, 90, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103 Masters, Roger D., 164, 172, 182 Meier, Heinrich, 161, 162, 164, 171, 177 Mulroy, Travis, 36, 45

P Page, Carl, 41 Pangle, Thomas, 120 Plato, 12, 14, 20, 31, 83 Plattner, Marc F., 168 Plutarch, 13 Politics , 13 S Scott, John T., 136 Sebell, Dustin, 58, 62 Shulsky, Abram, 27 Sider, David, 45 Smith, Nicholas, 41 Strauss, Leo, 3, 21, 25, 29, 41, 82–85, 97, 99, 101–103, 105, 120, 131, 170, 177, 181, 183 T Tarcov, Nathan, 87, 145, 151 V van Malssen, Tom, 107, 108, 114, 126, 128 Virtanen, Reino, 198

N Nadon, Christopher, 29, 31 Namazi, Rasoul, 82, 88, 90, 96 Nicomachean Ethics , 12, 13 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1, 105

W Weinberger, Jerry, 107, 117, 120, 122 West, Thomas G., 141 White, Howard, 106 Woodruff, Paul, 36, 37

O Ottmann, Henning, 216, 219

Y Yarbrough, Jean M., 201