Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past: New Reflections in the History of Philosophy 3031134044, 9783031134043

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Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past New Reflections in the History of Philosophy Edited by Amber L. Griffioen · Marius Backmann

Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past

Amber L. Griffioen  •  Marius Backmann Editors

Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past New Reflections in the History of Philosophy

Editors Amber L. Griffioen Faculty of Arts and Humanities Duke Kunshan University Kunshan, China

Marius Backmann Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method London School of Economics and Political Science London, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-13404-3    ISBN 978-3-031-13405-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence 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 illustration: Maram_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Eileen O’Neill. Her brilliant scholarship, advocacy, and generosity made all the difference to the kind of efforts that this volume is meant to represent.

Foreword

Eileen O’Neill was the first feminist historian of philosophy to combine a scholar’s attentiveness to contextual and historical detail with a philosopher’s concern for clarity and precision. Relying heavily on the historical work and scholarly inventiveness of previous scholars and combining that with her own philosophical acumen and contextualist tenacity, O’Neill showed us a way to escape the standard categories that twentieth-century philosophical historians had forced upon our discipline’s past. She motivated a new generation of scholars to muster the courage to examine the understudied people, topics, and methodologies in philosophy’s rich and varied past. The current volume is a testament to the newfound courage of historians of philosophy to rethink standard categories, ask new questions, and find forgotten gems. The arc of the history of philosophy that has been taught in US and European universities for decades was constructed in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries by a relatively small group of figures and bears little resemblance to the complications and intellectual richness of philosophy’s past.1 Until we do the hard work of exploring a wider range of the philosophical proposals, debates, and conversations, we will continue to misrepresent our discipline’s past and leave our students with a distorted picture. 1  Christia Mercer (2020). Empowering Philosophy. Presidential Address of the American Philosophical Association. Audio available at: https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/10/14/ empowering-philosophy/

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FOREWORD

The issue is not merely a concern for historical accuracy: the standard approach to the history of philosophy is not only misleading—it has ignored philosophically rich and provocative ideas. Once we look past the triumphal-march approach of one great man following another, hone new tools, and grapple with unfamiliar ideas, we will discover exciting new topics, methods, and arguments that will not only enliven our discipline but include voices that historically have been shut out. The importance of volumes like this is that they help us use philosophy’s past to rethink the topics and sources we research and teach. Capacious in historical range, philosophical methodology, and cultural roots, the chapters collected here will contribute to the growing awareness that philosophy’s past is richer and more diverse than previously understood. New York April 20, 2021

Christia Mercer

About the Book

The idea for this book and many of the contributions found in it stems from an international workshop organized by the editors in 2018 on “Expanding the Canon: Transitions and Transformations in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy.” Held over the course of five days at Burg Neuhaus in South Tyrol, the workshop included scholars and authors from various backgrounds and countries at different stages in their careers. Despite the logistical nightmare of getting participants from all over the globe to the tiny Tyrolian town of Gais in Northern Italy, being able to spend several days (and not a few late evenings) sequestered in a medieval castle listening to a diverse group of scholars speak about historical topics and figures not commonly treated in Anglo-American and European departments was an absolute joy and made us all the more aware of the need for such a volume as this one. The hindsight provided by over a year of global pandemic also makes us recognize what an immense privilege it was to be able to meet as we did. Of course, no volume of this kind can cover all the neglected movements, figures, and ideas that a “properly plural” history of philosophy would contain. Our aspiration here is instead to give those interested in expanding their own historical philosophical breadth a taste of the great wealth of historical material and scholarship already out there by briefly showcasing just some of the incredible research being done on a number of different subjects in the history of ideas. We hope that this will be one of many volumes aimed at pluralizing the history of philosophy in new and

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About the Book

exciting ways and that it serves as an inspiration for our readers to step outside the limits of their own philosophical experience. We wish to express our gratitude to the German Research Foundation (DFG), the International Office and Young Scholar Fund of the University of Konstanz, as well as the “Gender in Teaching” initiative of the University of Konstanz Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, for their support in funding the 2018 workshop. Further thanks are due to the Burgherr, his family, and all the staff (and to the entertaining family of peacocks) at Burg Neuhaus for all the delicious home-­cooked Tyrolian meals, for the many casks of Burgwein and Burgschnapps, and generally for making our stay at the castle an immensely pleasant one. We also wish to expressly thank Eva Popp for the tireless effort she put into helping us organize the workshop, communicating with participants, and making sure that everything ran smoothly throughout. Without her, neither the conference nor this volume would have been possible. Compiling a collection of chapters by scholars from around the world who found themselves in vastly different situations during an international pandemic was no easy feat, and the challenges our authors faced—from their changing roles as caretakers, policy makers, online instructors, scholars-at-risk, and essential workers to their own struggles with illness, insecurity, and isolation—were not insignificant. Unfortunately, planned contributions on a tenth-century Iraqi thinker, a fifteenth-century deaf Spanish mystic, a seventeenth-century Persian illuminationist, and nineteenth-century German approaches to the historiography of philosophy were lost to the political, personal, and academic fallout of the pandemic. However, valuable contributions were also gained through various international online networks, and we are so grateful to those authors who were able to step in at the last minute, as well as to those who battled disease, quarantine, bereavement, loss of employment, depression, and other challenges to provide us with their chapters. This volume is richer for their contributions. We therefore thank each one of our authors for working closely with us during such a difficult time and for their patience with us and with each other as this volume came together. Finally, we wish to thank our respective spouses, Daniel and Johanna, for their continued love and support.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Amber L. Griffioen and Marius Backmann 2 Anne  Conway on Substance and Individuals 15 Andrew W. Arlig 3 Du  Bois on the Centralized Organization of Science 31 Liam Kofi Bright 4 A  New Perspective on Old Ideas in González de Salas’s Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua 45 Elizabeth Cruz Petersen 5 Developing  Political Realism: Some Ideas from Classical China 63 Eirik Lang Harris 6 Philosopher  of Samarqand: Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī’s Theory of Properties 77 Ramon Harvey 7 Toward  a Critical History of Philosophy: Hannah Arendt and the Critique of the Meditative Tradition  91 Aminah Hasan-Birdwell xi

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8 “Pervading  the Sable Veil”: Phillis Wheatley as Early Modern Philosopher of Religion107 Jill Hernandez 9 The  Waters of Which We Have Spoken: Reading Marguerite Porete as Substance Metaphysics123 Lacey A. Hudspeth 10 Two  Dogmas of Enlightenment Scholarship133 Seth A. Jones and Kristopher G. Phillips 11 “Novel  Philosophy”: Mapping a Path for a Woman in the Radical Enlightenment149 Rachel Kadish 12 Teaching  Comparative History of Political Philosophy163 Eric Schliesser 13 Doing  Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century West Africa179 Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò 14 Ibn  Taymiyya’s “Common-Sense” Philosophy197 Jamie B. Turner 15 From  Meditation to Contemplation: Broadening the Borders of Philosophy in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries213 Christina Van Dyke 16 Notes  for an Indigenous Political Philosophy in New Spain: On the Figure of Nezahualcóyotl231 Alejandro Viveros Index249

Notes on Contributors

Andrew  W.  Arlig is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, which is part of The City University of New  York, USA.  He specializes in the history of metaphysics, and in particular, he has written extensively on theories of parts and wholes, substances, and identity in the Western medieval tradition. He is presently working on a new annotated translation of Anne Conway’s Principles along with Christia Mercer, Jasper Reid, and Laurynas Adomaitis. Marius Backmann  is a London School of Economics (LSE) fellow in the Department for Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.  His work focuses on ontologically motivated attempts to solve the problem of induction, the philosophy of time, metaphysics of science, laws of nature, and free will. Before moving to the London School of Economics, he worked at the University of Konstanz on a DFG-funded grant on The Metaphysics of Induction, for which he considered the question whether the ontological view that there are necessary connections has an influence on the solubility of the problem of finding a justification of ampliative inferences. He has also recently been working on the epistemology of randomized clinical trials. Liam  Kofi  Bright  is an associate professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, where he works on social epistemology and Africana philosophy. He hopes the reader will enjoy his piece.

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Christina  Van Dyke is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Calvin University, USA. She specializes in medieval philosophy and philosophy of religion, and has written extensively on philosophical issues in medieval mysticism, Thomas Aquinas’s account of human nature and happiness, Robert Grosseteste’s theory of cognition, and gendered eating. Her publications include A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on SelfKnowledge, Reason, Love, Persons, and Immortality (2022), a commentary on Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness and Treatise on Human Acts (with Thomas Williams), The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (edited with Robert Pasnau), and Aquinas’s Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory, and Theological Context (with Rebecca DeYoung and Colleen McCluskey). Amber  L.  Griffioen is Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duke Kunshan University, China, and Associate Professor of the Practice in Global Studies at Duke University, USA. She researches and teaches on topics in philosophy of religion, the history of philosophy, the ethics of belief, comparative mysticism, social epistemology, bioethics, and philosophy of sport. In addition to her collaboration with the “Extending New Narratives in Philosophy” project, she was recently a residential fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, USA, where she worked on topics in medieval mysticism, religious epistemology, and the philosophy of pregnancy and reproductive loss. Prior to that, she worked for a decade at the University of Konstanz, Germany. She is the author of a recent book on religious experience for the Cambridge Elements series and is currently working on a monograph aimed at broadening the borders of analytic philosophy of religion. Eirik Lang Harris  taught in South Korea and Hong Kong before moving to Colorado State University, USA. He has research interests in political philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of law, with a focus on the early Chinese tradition, especially views on the relationship between morality and politics. One of the goals of his research is to demonstrate ways that early Chinese philosophical traditions may be brought into dialogue with contemporary philosophical concerns. Ramon Harvey  works on Qur’anic studies, philosophical theology, and ethics. His first book was titled The Qur’an and the Just Society. He has recently written a second monograph titled Transcendent God, Rational World: A Ma ̄turı ̄dı ̄ Theology. He is the editor of a new series for Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Scripture and Theology.

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Aminah Hasan-Birdwell  is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. Her research is primarily invested in the history of philosophy, history of political philosophy, twentieth-century philosophy, and philosophy of race and gender. Specifically, Hasan-Birdwell attends to marginalized figures in early modern philosophy and their contributions to philosophical issues of ontology, political thought, and ethics, as well as their relevance to combating the presence of racism and misogyny in the philosophical canon. Jill  Hernandez  is Professor and Dean of the Honors College at Texas Tech University, USA. Her work juxtaposes questions in ethics, philosophy of religion, and early modern philosophy and includes Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil: Atrocity & Theodicy (2016). Lacey A. Hudspeth  is the philosophy and religion reference librarian at Duke Divinity School, USA. She did her graduate work at Emory and at Harvard, and she served on the editorial board of the Harvard Theological Review. Seth A. Jones  is Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Humanities at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA.  His work focuses on debates in metaphilosophy and metaphysics in the early modern period. The bulk of his professional attention is spent on improving students’ experience in the classroom, especially in general education courses, and working to promote the value of philosophy in interdisciplinary contexts. Rachel Kadish  is the author of the novels From a Sealed Room, Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story, and The Weight of Ink, as well as the novella I Was Here. Her work has appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) and in The New York Times, Ploughshares, and Tin House, and has been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. She was a fiction fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council; received the National Jewish Book Award, the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award, and the John Gardner Fiction Award; and was the Koret Writer-in-Residence at Stanford University. Elizabeth  Cruz  Petersen  holds a Doctorate in Comparative Studies, with a concentration in early modern Iberian literature and performance studies, and a Master’s Degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature

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from Florida Atlantic University, USA.  Focusing on the relationship between body, mind, and environment in the context of early modern Spanish performance, her book Women’s Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater demonstrates how early modern Spanish actresses subscribed to various somatic practices in an effort to prepare for a role. Her current manuscript examines the lives of five women in seventeenthcentury Spain who started and ran their own theater enterprises. Kristopher G. Phillips  is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern Utah University, USA. He is a trained modernist, with research interests in Descartes, Margaret Cavendish, Mary Shepherd, the philosophy of education, and precollege philosophy. He is the co-founder of the Utah and Iowa Lyceum programs and currently serves as associate editor for the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice. Eric  Schliesser is Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and a visiting scholar at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, Chapman University, USA.  His publications include Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker (2017), Newton’s Metaphysics: Essays (2021), and with Sandrine Bergès, the translated and edited collection, Sophie de Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy: A Critical Engagement with Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments  (2019). He has edited numerous volumes including (inter alia) Newton and Empiricism, with Zvi Biener (2014); Sympathy, a History of a Concept (2015), and Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy (2017). Olúfẹ́mi  Táíwò  is Professor of African Political Thought and current Chair at the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. His research interests include philosophy of law, social and political philosophy, Marxism, and African and Africana philosophy. His writings have been translated into French, Italian, German, and Portuguese. He has taught at universities in Canada, Nigeria, Germany, South Korea, and Jamaica. Jamie B. Turner  is a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK. His current research primarily involves an exploration of the different trends of religious epistemology within Islamic thought. His most recent publication is “An Islamic Account of Reformed Epistemology” in Philosophy East and West. He is also the coauthor of “Islamic Religious Epistemology” in the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology (Cambridge University Press).

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Alejandro  Viveros  is a member of the Institute of Humanistic Studies ‘Juan Ignacio Molina’ at the University of Talca, Chile. His research subjects develop a critical approach toward Latin American colonial studies using translation studies, ethnohistory, and contemporary Latin American philosophy. Currently, he is working on a research project focused on political philosophy in colonial Indigenous chronicles of New Spain.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Amber L. Griffioen and Marius Backmann

1.1   Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past: Three Approaches There is much talk in professional philosophical circles today about how “we” need to “expand” “the” historical philosophical canon. Yet while we (the editors) agree that the motivations behind this claim are largely admirable and that those who make it are generally in the business of trying to create more inclusive spaces within the discipline of philosophy, we have also come to see how this way of speaking is itself potentially problematic, insofar as it speaks of a we who assumes the existence of a singular philosophical canon that stands in need of expansion. This we, which is often left relatively unexamined, is usually assumed to mean something like “we philosophers” or “we in the discipline of academic philosophy,” yet in

A. L. Griffioen (*) Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China M. Backmann Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_1

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reality it tends to refer to members of Anglo-American-European philosophy departments (or of departments modeled after such) who have adopted or inherited one particular canon of figures and texts as an archetype for teaching the history of philosophical thought—a canon which is overwhelmingly white, male, and European and which tends to divide up the history of ideas into conventional eras and categories (e.g., ancient/ classical–medieval–renaissance–modern) that largely apply to the political and cultural history of Western, Christian, Latin Europe. (The overarching title we gave to the conference that sparked this volume, “Expanding the Canon: Transitions and Transformations in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy,” was itself indicative of this Eurocentric tendency.) Now clearly this canon does need expanding, even from within its own self-imposed borders. And much of the work that has been done in this regard has therefore undertaken figure-based projects aimed at demonstrating the historical influence and/or philosophical relevance of, for example, women, persons of color, and members of other traditionally marginalized groups from within the confines of the Eurocentric canon and increasing inclusivity with respect to these figures when reshaping how the canon is taught and transmitted today. However, the canon that dominates much of Anglo-American-­European philosophy is not the only historical canon in the philosophical landscape. And one of the potential problems of centering the aforementioned “expansionist” model is that it continues to take the Eurocentric canon as primary (and anything from outside the limits of this canon as secondary or “other”) in ways that may serve to underscore, as opposed to undermine, some of the imperialist or colonizing tendencies already present in the Anglo-American-European history of thought. Some philosophers have thus adopted a more global approach to the history of philosophy that focuses attention on other regional, religious, or cultural philosophical traditions and the canonical thinkers within those traditions. Such approaches may be conducted from within the confines of these various non-Eurocentric canons themselves, but they may also be comparative, or seek to locate lines of influence between the thinkers of different global traditions. Still other approaches seek to extend the boundaries of what can properly be called “philosophy” itself by exploring genres often overlooked or actively marginalized from within their own contemporary philosophical traditions. In some cases, this involves (re)claiming particular genres for the realm of “philosophy proper” or otherwise expanding the notion of “the philosophical” to include forms of thinking, writing, and performing

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not generally considered under this category. In other cases, it involves an attempt to show how the output of near-lying disciplines or literary genres can be utilized fruitfully for more mainstream philosophical ends. Importantly, these three approaches are by no means mutually exclusive, and we think they all appropriately belong to the overarching project of what we in this volume are calling pluralizing philosophy’s past. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see overlaps in these approaches, as when one attempts to incorporate more women into the history of medieval European philosophy by looking at non-scholastic genres of religious writing typically subsumed under the (itself not unproblematic1) label of “mysticism” (Griffioen 2019), or when one tries to decolonize a particular construal of African thought by exploring the ways ideas may be transmitted by non-written means, for example, in oral traditions or in art (Wiredu 2009). At the same time, there is a significant lack of communication in the discipline between the various factions of scholars focusing on each of these particular strands of the pluralization project, sometimes resulting in unproductive competition as opposed to fruitful cooperation. This volume hopes to go some way toward rectifying this problem.

1.2   Pluralizing Philosophical Pedagogy Of course, the question of pluralizing philosophy’s past is not just historiographical or methodological. It is also fundamentally pedagogical and didactic: If we are really interested in promoting plurality in the history of ideas, we must also consider the challenges that arise for the way the history of philosophy is taught and publicly transmitted. Indeed, since many (if not most) philosophy students may not end up pursuing academic philosophical careers, we need to think very carefully about the ways our presentation of the history of philosophical thought might impact how our students come to see their own histories and the histories of those outside their immediate sphere of contact when they leave the university setting. Therefore, in addition to how we view and conduct historical research, the way the history of philosophy is traditionally taught, especially in Anglo-American-European departments, needs to change. The very notion of, for instance, a historical “survey” course relies on the idea that it is possible to distill the history of philosophy into a manageable set of 1  On a few of the problems with the term ‘mysticism,’ see, for example, Jantzen (1995) and Griffioen and Zahedi (2018).

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readings that every philosophy student needs to be familiar with in order to be a full member of the profession. For example, in Germany (where the editors spent the bulk of their careers), the history of philosophy is often taught as a linear narrative that begins with a dusting of the Greek pre-Socratics followed by a heavy dose of Plato and Aristotle, a bit of late antiquity, some Neoplatonism (or at least Augustine), and a brief excursus into medieval philosophy, before embarking on a lengthy discussion of early modern white European men like Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hobbes, Berkeley, and Hume, culminating in the thought of Kant, Hegel, and German idealism, and perhaps concluding with a brief foray into twentieth-century existentialist, postmodern, or early analytic thought. We think that such a way of teaching the history of philosophy as a neat, linear procession of dead, mostly European, mostly white men all building on each other’s work (ignoring, as is customary, figures like Plotinus’ and Augustine’s heritage and global legacy) is not just overly simplistic but also intellectually irresponsible, potentially even dishonest. Indeed, we hope that the reader of this volume will have taken up a collection like this because they are already trying to broaden their own historical philosophical horizons and are already seeking to include voices, traditions, and genres that have been neglected in the canon they have been trained to perpetuate. We thus think that the question should not necessarily be why we should extend, expand, or even rid ourselves of the historical canons we were raised with. If we really do value diversity, multiperspectivity, and inclusivity, we simply owe it to our students to present them the history of philosophy in all its vastness, complexity, and messiness.2 The question then becomes not why, but what we teach, and how. How does one incorporate, say, global philosophy into specialized courses, which are often neatly compartmentalized according to traditional “western” categories? How does one even design a historical survey course? Even if it is clear that the history of philosophy is not a neat procession of roughly fifteen dead white men (or however many weeks one might have available in a term) and 2  There is also some research to indicate that, for example, although philosophers tend to associate philosophy with maleness (Di Bella et al. 2016), when women feel similar to the kinds of people who become philosophers, they are more likely to continue on in philosophy (Demarest et al. 2017). Something similar is likely also true for members of other marginalized groups in particular philosophy cultures. Therefore, if we are also interested in raising the visibility or representation of women and minorities in the discipline, there seems to be an added incentive to pluralize the philosophical historical curriculum.

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should not be taught as such, widening the scope of the thinkers, texts, and traditions presented in teaching the history of philosophy makes the selection of texts with which an instructor will confront their students a difficult task. It is a task that the editors of this volume have themselves been faced with and have found challenging: Prior to the conference we organized, which would ultimately serve as the inspiration for this volume, we team-­ taught a semester-long seminar at the University of Konstanz titled Forgotten Philosophers? Neglected Philosophies? in which we abandoned traditional thinkers and texts for less commonly treated ones. Marius Backmann developed a half-year historical survey course at the LSE, and Amber Griffioen is currently developing new courses in the history of ethics and philosophy of religion. These endeavors have proved to require walking a particularly wobbly tightrope. On the one hand, one tries to treat the history of philosophy as the global and plural phenomenon that it is, and on the other one still needs to do justice to the fact that, for better or for worse, certain philosophers  have been very influential in the Anglo-American-European sphere. We will not try to present a universal solution to the question of how to design such a course here, nor even to provide the reader with sample syllabi, enough of which are now publicly accessible.3 Not only because it would be inappropriate to attempt to do so, nonchalantly, in the introduction to such a collection as this, but because such a universal solution simply does not exist. While designing the survey course at LSE, Marius decided that he would abandon the idea of teaching the history of philosophy as a linear progression altogether, and rather decided to cover a certain range of philosophical areas, such as political philosophy, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and so on, picking freely from the global cornucopia of texts from dead philosophers and choosing approaches he thought offered a particularly original or interesting position or argument, figures that were particularly influential, or texts that, across time and regional divide, manage to miraculously “bounce off” one another. The result is eclectic, and maybe it has to be. In this case it was a course that covered Aristotle as well as Master Kong, Plato as well as Zhuangzi, the Nyāya-sūtra, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anton Wilhelm Amo, 3  See, for example, the APA’s Diversity and Inclusiveness Syllabus Collection (https:// www.apaonline.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=110430&id=380970) or the Diversity Reading List (https://diversityreadinglist.org).

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and others. The guiding idea was to sensibilize students to the vast global nature of our discipline, while trying to reign in the chaos by focusing on a selection of topics that are especially relevant to the needs of a student at that institution. For her part, Amber is following the advice of another of the volume’s authors, Kristopher G. Phillips (Phillips 2017a, 2017b), and abandoning the survey course in favor of a closer thematic approach involving bringing just a handful of figures and traditions into conversation with one another, rather than attempting to provide a purportedly “comprehensive” overview, on the one hand, and an overly eclectic philosophical “smorgasbord,” on the other. One might justifiably disagree with either approach. While the editors of this volume would ultimately prefer abandoning the idea of a canon altogether, however one approaches this discussion there is a clear need for more material. Even if one tries to cling to the ideal of a single, more inclusive canon when designing a more globalized and diversified historical course, one needs to decide what goes in said canon, just as one faces the question of what to include in a course that follows a more eclectic, let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom-approach or a narrower comparative approach. The present collection is thus also designed to help the reader with that decision, and perhaps even with its implementation. Not only do the various authors in this volume offer contributions on a wide range of thinkers, texts, and traditions, each chapter also offers some of the author’s suggestions on how to integrate them into one’s teaching. Their approaches are varied and are not always commensurate with one another, but by including authors’ thoughts on pedagogical matters, we hope to make it easier for the reader to decide what they themselves might want to include in their courses, and how they might approach teaching it. Of course, the selection offered in this book cannot be exhaustive. But it is a start. And a start is what we can profit from when we set about designing our courses.

1.3  Aims and Overview of the Present Volume While no single volume can bring all the numerous strands of the immense task of pluralizing philosophy’s past into view, let alone into conversation with each other, this volume hopes to minimally create a starting point for such dialogue. It aims to showcase the research of scholars who are working on various topics related to the pluralization of the history of philosophy and to simultaneously introduce readers to diverse philosophical

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figures, traditions, and genres with which they may be unfamiliar. As a project aimed at pluralization, not merely “expansion,” this means that the volume focuses more on the value of multiplicity over that of unity— and on diversity over singularity of perspective and even purpose. The history of philosophy (if one can even speak of a singular “history” in this respect) contains as many ruptures and caesuras as it does continuities and overlaps, and we do not want to shy away from this aspect of philosophy’s past. Moreover, although each of our authors views the project of pluralizing philosophy’s past as important and worthwhile, we do not impute to them the same motivations for sharing this common goal, nor do we expect that they share a unified vision of how that goal is best construed or achieved. Our authors come from various regional, cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds and find themselves at various stages in their scholarly careers. They do not all share a common philosophical approach or methodology, nor do they express their ideas in a unified stylistic manner. We take this to be a virtue, not a vice, of the present volume—one that can appeal to a wide range of readers and which displays the plurality of approaches to contemporary philosophical writing and scholarship, in addition to its emphasis on the plurality of philosophy’s past. As the editors, we have therefore tried to resist, insofar as it is possible, attempting to tie these essays together with a neat and tidy bow, other than insisting that the contributions remain relatively short and reader-­ accessible. We have not attempted to organize the chapters by philosophical area, historical period, or geographical region, nor by gender, race, ethnicity, or religion, since any attempt to do so within the confines of this volume would be likely to erase relevant differences in favor of singularity or reduction. Instead, in order to keep the emphasis on plurality, we have decided to simply order the chapters by the last names of the authors. However, to aid the reader in locating chapters of especial interest for their purposes, in this final section of the introduction we provide a brief overview of each of the contributions in this volume and the broad contemporary philosophical areas of interest under which each might be said to fall—as well as possible cross-references and suggestions for fruitful cross-­ pollination with other essays in the volume as suggested by the authors themselves. This may assist readers looking for topics relevant to their own research and teaching interests in more easily locating the chapters that will be of most relevance for them. Andrew Arlig (Chap. 2) focuses on seventeenth-century English philosopher Anne Conway’s metaphysical views on substance and individuals.

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Although sometimes said to be a monist, Arlig argues that Conway is only such in a very restricted sense. Moreover, her version of type monism at the level of created substances results in the rather radical view that created things can be converted into one another as they progress or regress morally and, contra Descartes, that there is no substantial difference between minds and bodies. [cosmology, early modern philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, women in the history of ideas; see also Harvey (Chap. 6), Hernandez (Chap. 8), Hudspeth (Chap. 9)] Liam Kofi Bright (Chap. 3) discusses W.E.B.  Du Bois’ approach to research allocation and planning during Du Bois’ tenure as the head of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory. Bright explores Du Bois’ very deliberate and centralized approach to set the Laboratory’s research agenda and task distribution between the individual researchers, which might serve as an alternative to our contemporary incentive-based approach of distributing research tasks, the latter of which fails to properly incentivize researchers to, for example, replicate past research, or to conduct long-term, large-­ scale research projects. Taking into account the drawbacks of such a centralized approach, Bright explores how we might nevertheless harness some of the benefits of Du Bois’ approach in democratizing research allocation. [Africana philosophy, philosophy of science, social epistemology, nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy; see also Hernandez (Chap. 8), Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10), Táíwò (Chap. 13)] Elizabeth Cruz Petersen (Chap. 4) brings the role that women actors played in early modern Spanish theater into conversation with discussions in feminist philosophy. She argues that reading Jusepe Antonio González de Salas’ seventeenth-century manifesto on acting, Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, through the lens of Shannon Sullivan’s notion of “transactionally co-constituted bodies” can give us an enhanced understanding of gender roles in early modern Spanish theater, as well as a better sense of the importance of lived embodiment to both philosophy and theater. [early modern philosophy, literature and theater, feminist philosophy, philosophical pedagogy, women in the history of ideas; see also Hudspeth (Chap. 9), Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10), Kadish (Chap. 11), Van Dyke (Chap. 15)] Eirik Lang Harris (Chap. 5) explores Shen Dao’s political realism, in particular his view on the role of resentment—namely, that only by eradicating the sources of resentment is it possible to build a stable society or state. Harris notes that, on Shen Dao’s view, resentment arises only out of the frustration of expectations that could possibly have been satisfied and

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that the way to eliminate the sources of resentment is a political system based on the rule of law, where the laws are not seen as being implemented arbitrarily by individuals. When laws are perceived as inviolable, more like laws of nature than subjective or arbitrary decisions, resentment is unlikely to arise. The view thus stands in contrast both to modern ideas of the individual accountability of members of government and legislature, but also to the classical Confucian ideal of a wholly virtuous ruler. [Chinese philosophy, moral and political philosophy; see also Schliesser (Chap. 12), Turner (Chap. 14), Viveros (Chap. 16)] Ramon Harvey (Chap. 6) looks in detail at the theory of properties put forward by Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, a tenth-century Sunnī theologian from Samarqand (modern-day Uzbekistan). He concludes that al-Māturīdī is best understood as an early representative of trope nominalism and that he opposes the concept nominalism of some members of the Muʿtazilīte camp. Harvey also shows how al-Māturīdī thereby rejects divine simplicity as advanced by many Sunnī theologians and Muʿtazilīte thinkers, comparing him to Duns Scotus in the Christian medieval tradition. [Islamic philosophy, metaphysics, ontology; see also Arlig (Chap. 2), Turner (Chap. 14)] Aminah Hasan-Birdwell (Chap. 7) looks at a less commonly discussed aspect of Hannah Arendt’s thought, namely her remarks on the history of philosophy at large. In particular, she explores how Arendt uses the meditative tradition as a way to frame that history and relate it back to the concept of “thoughtlessness,” which is central to her own political thought. According to Hasan-Birdwell, Arendt saw a shift in the meaning of “thinking” between the aporetic model of meditation employed by Socrates, which was ultimately still outward-looking, and that of the medieval and modern adaptation of meditation in the Augustinian tradition, which she claimed resulted in a turn inward. [historiography of philosophy, metaphilosophy, political philosophy, twentieth-century philosophy, women in the history of ideas; see also Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10), Kadish (Chap. 11), Schliesser (Chap. 12)] Jill Hernandez (Chap. 8) argues that the eighteenth-century African-­ American poet and former slave Phillis Wheatley can be read in the context of discussions of narrative theodicy in philosophy of religion, given the various ways her poems and letters grapple with the problem of evil. Hernandez shows that although Wheatley appears at first glance to offer a clear redemptive account of human suffering, the story might actually be somewhat more complicated. Looking more closely at figures like

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Wheatley, then, can open up new spaces for philosophers of religion to fruitfully explore the questions and tensions surrounding the possibility that the suffering of oppressed persons and groups might be eschatologically redemptive. [Africana philosophy, early modern philosophy, literature and theater, philosophy of religion, theodicy, women in the history of ideas; see also Kadish (Chap. 11), Schliesser (Chap. 12), Táíwò (Chap. 13), Turner (Chap. 14), Van Dyke (Chap. 15)] Lacey A. Hudspeth (Chap. 9) explores the various complicated metaphors that thirteenth-century French author Marguerite Porete employs in The Mirror of Simple Souls, the work for which she was ultimately condemned and executed, to illustrate how the human soul “returns to” and becomes “annihilated in” the Divine. Hudspeth takes the reader through the various alchemical metaphors of melting, burning, grinding, and dissolving that Porete employs in her play, noting that if we read her as a philosopher, not (merely) a mystic, we may end up with a complicated yet sophisticated substance metaphysics that has heretofore gone largely ignored in the history of philosophy. [metaphysics, ontology, medieval literature, medieval philosophy, women in the history of ideas; see also Arlig (Chap. 2), Van Dyke (Chap. 15)] Seth Jones and Kristopher G. Phillips (Chap. 10) argue that the tendency of philosophical research and pedagogy surrounding the European Enlightenment to emphasize the tight association of philosophy with science gives rise to two “dogmas” of Enlightenment scholarship—namely, one which privileges a very narrow concept of reason with respect to early modern thinkers and another which privileges the restriction of Enlightenment scholarship to a very narrow range of (largely white male) figures who are (misleadingly) thought to embrace that concept of reason. Employing the work of Margaret Cavendish as a guiding example, Jones and Phillips show how addressing the second dogma by integrating traditionally marginalized thinkers into the canon of Enlightenment philosophy can help correct the first dogma and the correlated tendency of the academy to view the sciences and the humanities as wholly distinct enterprises. [early modern philosophy, metaphilosophy, philosophy of the humanities, philosophical pedagogy, women in the history of ideas; see also Arlig (Chap. 2), Bright (Chap. 3), Kadish (Chap. 11), Schliesser (Chap. 12)] Although not a philosopher herself, novelist Rachel Kadish (Chap. 11) reflects on the ways fictional literature might be utilized in the philosophy classroom to awaken interest in philosophy and combat stereotypes that

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philosophy is dry and inaccessible. The chapter includes excerpts from Kadish’s 2017 novel, The Weight of Ink, which tells the story of Ester Valasquez, a young woman from a Portuguese Jewish refugee family in seventeenth-century England, who establishes philosophical correspondences with various prominent thinkers of her day. The novel serves as a kind of literary thought experiment, asking what kinds of philosophical issues may have concerned someone like Ester, as well as what it might have taken for a woman of her background to be able to engage in philosophical discourse in early modern England. [early modern philosophy, Jewish philosophy, literature and theater, women in the history of ideas; see also Arlig (Chap. 2), Cruz Petersen (Chap. 4), Hernandez (Chap. 8), Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10)] Eric Schliesser (Chap. 12) focuses on the way we teach the history of political thought and explores how various contemporary textbooks in this domain (and the typical survey courses that might employ them) still tend to be extremely Euro-, Christian-, and male-centric. He argues that implementing a more global, comparative approach creates promising alternatives for teaching the history of political philosophy, and he proposes two strategies for decentering the dominant narratives in this area. The direct-voice approach involves giving voice to those “insiders” or “outsiders” who explicitly challenge, criticize, or oppose the universality of Eurocentric ideas, whereas the indirect-voice approach focuses on the inclusion of traditions of thought that stand outside and/or predate European modernity. Schliesser then goes on to explore both the benefits of each of these strategies and the challenges that arise in their implementation. [metaphilosophy, philosophical pedagogy; see also Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10), Hasan-Birdwell (Chap. 7)] Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Chap. 13) examines how African contributions to the history of philosophy have been systematically excluded from many philosophical narratives. He discusses what he labels “problem moderns,” or those canonical European thinkers who violate their own claims of the equality and dignity of all human beings by excluding African-descended peoples from the realm of rational humanity. He then turns his attention to the “excluded moderns,” or those thinkers who both embraced and transformed the ideas of modernity put forward by the problem moderns, while at the same time challenging the latter on their inconsistencies—but who continue to be largely excluded from the scholarship on modern philosophy. Táíwò concludes by discussing the thought of nineteenth-century West African excluded moderns like Alexander Crummell and Edward

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Wilmot Blyden, arguing that they should be included in the annals of the history of philosophy as active participants in and contributors to the discourses concerning modernity. [Africana philosophy, early modern philosophy, metaphilosophy; see also Bright (Chap. 3), Hernandez (Chap. 8), Jones & Phillips (Chap. 10), Schliesser (Chap. 12)] Jamie Turner (Chap. 14) compares Alvin Plantinga’s “Reformed epistemology” in analytic philosophy of religion, which was strongly influenced by his reading of Thomas Reid’s “common-sense philosophy,” to the epistemological approach put forward 400 years earlier than Reid by the Islamic theologian Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya. He demonstrates how Ibn Taymiyya’s externalist and foundationalist approach—which is centered on the Muslim concept of fiṭra, or the “natural disposition that God instilled in [humankind]”—both anticipates Plantinga’s “proper function” argument concerning the so-called sensus divinitatis and opens up space for a contemporary Muslim version of “Reformed” epistemology in philosophy of religion. [comparative philosophy, epistemology, Islamic philosophy, philosophy of religion; see also Harvey (Chap. 6), Hernandez (Chap. 8)] Christina Van Dyke (Chap. 15) explores how the popularity of the meditative genre allowed European Christian women to become accepted as authoritative “knowers” in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, despite their being associated more closely with sensation and the body, as opposed to with the intellect and the knowledge of “higher things.” Van Dyke argues that as love came to be viewed as the primary means of achieving union with God in both will and intellect, the focus on imagination and the “paradoxically receptive activity” of contemplation in late medieval meditations written by women allowed them a degree of epistemic and ecclesial authority because of, not despite, their association with embodiment and the senses. [epistemology, medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, women in the history of ideas; see also Hasan-Birdwell (Chap. 7), Hernandez (Chap. 8), Hudspeth (Chap. 9)] Alejandro Viveros (Chap. 16) seeks to show how Indigenous sources can contribute to political philosophy. In particular, he focuses on two Indigenous chronicles from New Spain as examples of mestizaje cultural, which employ genres and concepts familiar to European readers in order to demonstrate the moral and political legitimacy of pre-Hispanic Texcocan society. These chronicles, which center on the Texcocan worship of the

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deity Tloque Nahuaque and the just governance of the philosopher-poet-­ warrior-king Nezahualcóyotl, were employed to demonstrate that pre-­ Hispanic Texcocan society represented a kind of “proto-Christian” monotheistic civilization made up not of subhuman “barbarians,” but rather of rational, sophisticated, and “civilized” human beings. Viveros argues that by including such texts in the way we approach and teach the history of philosophy, we can open up “alter-native” scholarly horizons regarding the role of Indigenous contributions to Latin American political philosophy in the history of ideas. [indigenous philosophy, Latin American philosophy, Meso-American philosophy, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of religion; see also Harris (Chap. 5), Hernandez (Chap. 8), Schliesser (Chap. 14), Táíwò (Chap. 13)]

References Bella, Di, Eleanor Miles Laura, and Jennifer Saul. 2016. Philosophers Explicitly Associate Philosophy with Maleness. In Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volume 1, ed. Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul, 283–308. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Demarest, Heather, Seth Robertson, Megan Haggard, Madeline Martin-Seaver, and Jewelle Bickel. 2017. Similarity and Enjoyment: Predicting Continuation for Women in Philosophy. Analysis 77 (3): 525–541. https://doi.org/10.1093/ analys/anx098. Griffioen, Amber L. 2019. “Undressing” Philosophical Theology: Lessons from Mechthild of Magdeburg. Blogos: The official blog for the Logos Institute of Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St Andrews. https://blogos.wp.st-­a ndrews.ac.uk/2019/04/18/logia-­f or-­a pril-­2 019-­u ndressing-­ philosophical-­theology-­lessons-­from-­mechthild-­of-­magdeburg-­by-­amber-­l-­ griffioen/. Accessed April 01, 2021. Griffioen, Amber L. 2022. Doing Public Philosophy in the Middle Ages? On the Philosophical Potential of Medieval Devotional Texts, Res Philosophica 99(2): 241–74. Griffioen, Amber L., and Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi. 2018. Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism and the Problem of a ‘Mystical Ethics’. In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Ethics, ed. Thomas Williams, 280–305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jantzen, Grace. 1995. Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Phillips, Kristopher G. 2017a. Non-Canonical Texts and Teaching the History of Modern Philosophy: Why We Might as Well Go Ahead and Abandon the Survey – Part I. Blog of the APA. https://blog.apaonline.org/2017/01/31/ non-­canonical-­texts-­and-­teaching-­the-­history-­of-­modern-­philosophy-­why-­we-­ might-­as-­well-­go-­ahead-­and-­abandon-­the-­survey-­part-­i/. Accessed April 01, 2021. ———. 2017b. Non-Canonical Texts and Teaching the History of Modern Philosophy: Why We Might as Well Go Ahead and Abandon the Survey – Part II. Blog of the APA. https://blog.apaonline.org/2017/02/01/non-­canonical-­ texts-­and-­teaching-­history-­part-­ii/. Accessed April 01, 2021. Wiredu, Kwasi. 2009. An Oral Philosophy of Personhood: Comments on Philosophy and Orality. Research in African Literatures 40 (1): 8–18.

CHAPTER 2

Anne Conway on Substance and Individuals Andrew W. Arlig

On February 23, 1679, Anne Conway succumbed to one of the mysterious ailments that plagued her as an adult. While largely confined to her home, Conway nevertheless was at the center of a vibrant, iconoclastic intellectual circle. She was an enthusiastic student of philosophy and an advocate for the then persecuted Quakers.1 Among her personal effects, her friends discovered a small notebook containing some of her thoughts, which she had composed “for her own use, with only a lead pencil and in the minutest script” (Conway 1690, i).2 Some of her notes were illegible, but her friends determined that the discernable ones should be 1  On the life and intellectual milieu in which Conway flourished, see Hutton (2003 and 2004). 2  All quotations of Conway’s Principles are from the 1690 edition, which is the basis for all other editions of the Latin text. All translations in this chapter are mine, although they have been checked against translations that will appear in an edition of the Principles being prepared by Andrew Arlig, Christia Mercer, Jasper Reid, and Laurynas Adomaitis.

A. W. Arlig (*) Department of Philosophy, Brooklyn College, New York, NY, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_2

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disseminated. These were edited, translated into Latin, and in 1690 published in Amsterdam under the title Principia Philosophiae antiquissimae & recentissimae de Deo, Christo, et creatura id est de spiritu & materia in genere (“The Principles of both the most ancient and the most current Philosophy concerning God, Christ, and creatures, that is, concerning spirit and matter in general”).3 The Principles is a unique, astonishing work. Conway develops a metaphysics at odds with both the dualism of Descartes and the materialism of Hobbes. She argues that a proper understanding of God’s essence and attributes entails a reinterpretation of the Trinity that both Jews and Muslims can embrace. She thinks beatitude is something that every created thing can achieve. Indeed, Conway thinks there is literally all the time in the world to do so, and thus she argues that all things eventually will be redeemed. Given the environmental and political challenges that we presently face, Conway’s faith in human reason, her system’s emphasis on the interconnectedness of all things, and her optimistic message about universal salvation might strongly resonate with students. The beating heart of this unique artifact is a curious theory of substances. This theory has generated much interest among a small cadre of scholars, and there has been considerable dispute about the contours and details of this theory. In this chapter, I will offer an opinionated tour of some aspects of this theory.

2.1   Conway’s “Monism” Conway is sometimes described as a Monist. Monism comes in two broad varieties: Token Monism: There is only one particular thing. Type Monism: There are possibly many particular things, but there is only one kind of thing.

3  To these friends and anonymous translators we owe a tremendous debt, as no one has been able to find the original manuscript. The extant seventeenth-century English version (included in Conway 1982) is a translation of the 1690 Latin edition.

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Parmenides is often interpreted as defending Token Monism, as is Spinoza. Hobbes argues that everything that exists (including God) is corporeal, and hence, he could be considered a Type Monist.4 According to Jonathan Schaffer (2010), there is also a kind of Monism called “Priority Monism”: Priority Monism: There are many particular things, but only one substantial individual. Everything else that exists is either a part or property of this one substance; these parts or properties are metaphysically posterior to the substance and thus are themselves not substances.

Schaffer has argued that, contrary to the common interpretation, Spinoza is a Priority Monist, as are Platonists like Plotinus. With these distinctions on board, I will now argue that strictly speaking Conway is not a Monist in any of these senses. According to Conway there are three kinds of substantial beings, or to use her preferred terminology, three kinds of “essence,” “entity,” or “nature”:5 1. God, 2. Christ, or “middle nature” (natura media) 3. Creature The gap between these three grades is unbridgeable. No creature can become God. Controversially, Conway maintains that the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, is not only essentially distinct from creatures, but also from God. Since Christ is an emanation from God, he too is a

4  On this reading of Hobbes, see Principles ch. 9, S. 3–6. Conway also mentions Spinoza (ch. 9, S.3 and 5), but she does not pay him as much heed. Indeed, there are reasons to think that she is unfamiliar with Spinoza’s magnum opus, the Ethics. 5  Conway also thinks that beings have “modes,” or ways that they are, and “attributes.” We might consider modes and attributes to also be things that are, and thus in a sense, beings. Hence, for clarity, I characterize Conway’s position as one that pertains to substantial beings.

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“created” being; indeed, he is “the first-begotten of all creatures” (Conway 1690, 30 and 35).6 Thus, even Christ cannot be or become God.7 The existence of this second essence is logically entailed by the fact that some of the divine attributes can and, indeed, must be “communicated” to, or shared with, the beings that emanate from the divine essence. In particular, if the divine attributes of goodness and life were not communicated, nothing else would exist.8 Other attributes, however, are incommunicable. Her argument that there must be three distinct kinds of substance focuses on one attribute in particular, namely, God’s immutability. This immutability is an attribute of God that is incommunicable to all creatures, including Christ. Thus, there is an essential gap between creator and created, marked by an essential differentiating property (or what Conway, following the logic of the ancient Greeks, calls a differentia) and its contrary: mutability. The next step in Conway’s argument, which she takes in Chap. 5, section 3, is to identify three different kinds of substantial beings by establishing an essential distinction between the middle nature and all other created beings: The first is what is altogether immutable. The second is what is mutable only toward the good, so that something that is good by its nature can nevertheless turn out to be better. The third is such that, even though it is by its nature something good, it could nevertheless change as much toward good as from good toward bad. (Conway 1690, 33)

In this way, God-nature is defined as immutable being. Christ-nature is being mutable only toward the good. And the remaining essence, creature-­ nature, is defined as being mutable both toward the good and toward the bad. Conway then argues in section 4 of Chap. 6 that there are only three kinds of substances. The three aforementioned substances “exhaust all the 6  The relation between the natura media and the historical Christ, which is primarily discussed in Chap. 5 of the Principles (Conway 1690, 29–40), is complicated and one that I cannot relate here. 7  This is one of the ways in which Conway breaks quite dramatically from orthodox Trinitarian theology. In her defense, Conway insists that once we reject Trinitarianism, and particularly, the thesis that Christ is God, we remove one of the “stumbling blocks” that has made it difficult for Jews and “Turks” (i.e., Muslims) to embrace the true path. See Principles Chap. 1, S.7, Chap. 5, passim, and Chap. 6, S.5 (Conway 1690, 4, 30–40, and 50). 8  For more on life, and its concomitant properties, perception, and thought, see Section 4.

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specific differentiae in substance that our minds can possibly conceive” (Conway 1690, 46). The putative existence of a fourth, fifth, or sixth kind of being is ruled out by the Principle of Parsimony. All the phenomena in the universe can be sufficiently explained in terms of the three aforementioned kinds of beings, and thus, “no necessity forces us to acknowledge anything extra” (ibid.). These arguments for three and only three kinds of substantial being are grounded in one of Conway’s deepest beliefs, namely, that the universe is intelligible and good.9 For the universe to be complete and fully good, there has to be a middle substantial being, since otherwise the gap between God and creature would be insurmountably vast. But only one intermediary is required. Proposing more kinds of being adds nothing to the rationality and goodness of creation. If anything, it would make the world messier and harder to understand, and a perfect intelligence does not make messy, irrational worlds. Thus, if we consider the totality of substantial beings, Conway is clearly neither a Type, nor Token, nor Priority Monist. The threefold division into God, Christ, and Creature produces three (but only three) kinds of substances or essences, and each kind is instantiated by at least one individual. Now, as it so happens, the first two kinds of essence each have only one token instance. Therefore, we could say that relative to the first kind of substance, Conway is a Token Monist: There is only one particular that has God-nature. Likewise, she is a Token Monist relative to the second kind of substance. Of course, it is not all that remarkable to maintain that there is only one God and only one Christ, and it is thus rather unilluminating, as well as unnatural, to describe these views as Monistic. What has generated interest among scholars and what has prompted some to call her a Monist is what Conway says about the third level of being. For here, at least in the surviving Latin, we see some ambiguity. At times, the translation mentions creatura (a singular noun, meaning “a/the creature”), whereas in other places, it refers to creaturae (“creatures” or “the creatures”). The singular noun would seem to suggest that at the level of creature-nature, Conway is a Token Monist, and yet her references to creaturae would seem to commit her merely to a Type Monism relative to the third kind of substance.10 9  This does not mean that everything in the universe can be understood by a finite, human mind. She only means to say that there is nothing that exists that is not part of the plan developed and enacted by a perfectly wise creator. 10  For a survey of the evidence in favor of both readings, as well as an inventive compromise solution, see Gordon-Roth (2018).

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I favor a reading that commits Conway only to Type Monism at the level of creatures. First, many of her references to “creature” in the singular seem to be references to a kind, or “species,” to which many particulars belong, as for instance, when she says in section 4 of Chap. 6 that “creature, or the whole of creation, similarly is one substance or essence in its species” (Conway 1690, 47–8, my emphasis). Second, I think the texts that provide the strongest support for the Token Monist interpretation are ambiguous. For instance, in section 4 of Chap. 9, where she contrasts her metaphysics with that of Hobbes, Conway concedes that “all creatures from the lowest to the highest are originally one substance” (Conway 1690, 128–9). But that is all she concedes: They were originally one substance. Nothing in this concession tells us about how things are now, and it is consistent with a model of creation that one could derive from Genesis 1, namely, that God first made a homogenous stuff, creature-substance, and then proceeded to fashion from this one stuff many individuals. Indeed, Conway consistently uses the verbs “cut up,” “divide,” and “separate,” when describing God’s continuous creative activity. Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence for the Token Monist reading can be found in section 4 of Chap. 7, where she talks about what does not happen when God “cuts up” creature-substance: For in whatever manner either spirits or bodies can be cut up or separated in the whole universe from one another, they nevertheless always remain united in this separation, given that creation, the whole of it, is always only one substance or entity (tota creatio semper una tantum sit substantia vel entitas), and there is no vacuum in it. How, then, can anything be separated from itself? I mean by this that which is its proper nature, insofar as it is considered as it originally was in its primordial and first being. (Conway 1690, 101–2)

I think Conway is stressing here that when individuation occurs it does not alienate things from one another. The division of created substance does not cause things to be separated physically, and it does not make things different in nature from one another. The claim that the whole of creation is “always one substance or entity,” however, is admittedly ambiguous. But even if Conway really means that the whole of creation is an individual substance, this by itself does not definitively prove that she is a

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Token Monist. After all, an aggregate consisting of all created individuals is itself an individual created being. But, one might retort, isn’t Conway suggesting that all created substances together form not an aggregate, but rather an organic whole or system, just as the eyes, the hands, the torso, the feet, and so forth combine to form a human body? Many Aristotelian philosophers, in particular, would take the suggestion that the whole created substance is a system to be an indication that there is only one individual substance, since on their view no part of a substantial whole can be itself a substance (Pasnau 2011, 607–10). Isn’t this passage proof that Conway is at least a Priority Monist relative to the third level of being? If anything is clear in the Principles, it is that Conway has little admiration for Aristotelians. And I find nothing in her work that suggests she believes that parts of a substance cannot themselves be substances. If anything, the opposite seems to hold, for as she says in section 5 of Chap. 3, each created being is infinitely divisible into ever smaller “complete creatures” (Conway 1690, 17).11 But I think the most compelling reason to believe that Conway is merely committed to Type Monism at the level of created being, and not Priority or Token Monism, is that this is exactly what she needs in order to maintain her view about God’s justice. In the next section, I will elaborate on this point and show why Conway’s view of divine justice requires that there be a plurality of individual created substances.

2.2   Created Individuals and Divine Justice As was already mentioned, Conway’s God is a good and loving divinity who creates everything by communicating some of the divine attributes with his creation. In particular, and as we will discuss in a little more detail below, God communicates life, perception, and thought to every created being. In short, in their “original” state, creatures are pure created spirits. But, as we also noted above, creatures are essentially capable of turning not only toward the good, but also toward the bad. For Conway, sin has a

 For more on what Conway might mean by “complete” (integrum), see Section 2.2.

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profound impact on the manner (modus) in which creatures exist. Nonetheless, Conway insists that all creatures will eventually return to the original state. If they were to not do so, this would be a flaw in the divine plan and contrary to divine justice. But creatures need help to turn back from the bad to the good. This is the role of punishment in Conway’s system: It redirects sinners and sets them on the path toward returning to the original state. Conway also speaks as if some creatures are further along the path toward the return to the original state of creatures. In this section, I will argue that in order for this story of origination, sin, punishment, and ultimately universal redemption to work, Conway must maintain that there are many individual created substances, and thus, that she cannot be a Priority Monist, let alone a Token Monist, at the third level of creature-nature. Conway’s ontology includes only individual or particular things. She denies that universals, such as the species Human or Horse, are things (res); such items are merely constructions or abstractions of the mind (Conway 1690, 45). But individuals come in two varieties, substances and the things that belong to them, that is, their attributes and modes. To be a substance, a thing must be a “complete” individual in the sense that it must be something that is capable of existing in its own right, or, as Latin-­ speaking philosophers would put it, an ens per se (“a per se being”). For example, commonsense tells me that my current height is a particular whose being requires that I be. Without me, it does not exist at all. But I do not depend on my height. If commonsense is right, I am an individual per se being. And yet, on the relativized Token Monist or Priority Monist readings of Conway, I am not. On  either of  these two  Monistic readings, there is only one complete created substance and my created being does not contain the entirety of created being. I may still exist, but due to my dependence on this substance, I would have to possess the status of an incomplete individual. That is, contrary to a common way of thinking, I would have to be more like my height than I initially imagined. The question is whether Conway gives us any reason to think that we are modes or mode-like. I argue that she does not, and in fact, she says things that make it quite difficult to read her in this way. As was mentioned above, Conway believes that each created being is infinitely divisible into ever smaller “complete creatures.” In my view, this is not a slip: Conway is committed to the claim that I am a complete, that

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is, per se individual.12 She reveals this commitment by first arguing, as she does in section 2 of Chap. 6, that in order for God to enact his justice, all individuals must have stable identities: First of all, can one individual be changed into another individual, either of the same species or of a different one? This, I say, is impossible, since then the very essences of things could be changed. But this would stir up a great confusion, not only in Creatures, but even in God’s wisdom, which made all things. For example, if this man could be changed into another one, namely, Paul into Judas or Judas into Paul, then the one who sinned would not be punished for that sin, but in his place the one who is innocent and excels in virtue would. Also, it would turn out that the honest man would not acquire a reward for his virtue, but the one immersed in vices would in his place. But even if we supposed that an honest man were changed into another honest one, such as Peter into Paul or Paul into Peter, clearly Paul would not receive the proper reward but Peter's instead, and Peter would receive Paul’s, not his own. This would be a confusion and it would not befit God’s wisdom. (Conway 1690, 43)

If God is to punish the wicked and reward the good, God needs to be able to distinguish the wicked from the good. This requires that individuals possess a stable identity across time and change.13 As Conway herself rightly sees, this must hold if one wants the world to be intelligible. One cannot have stable knowledge if the objects of one’s knowledge are constantly in flux. At minimum, Peter, Paul, and Judas must possess identities that are stable across time. I claim that Conway needs something more than that. Conway’s vision of punishment and reward is only possible if something underlying the wicked person or the good person is stable enough to persist through certain kinds of changes. This is because punishment or reward is granted to something that has changed with respect to the properties of being good and being bad. This is perhaps easier to see in the case 12  More precisely, some part of what I presently point to when I say “I” is a per se individual. See Principles, ch. 7, S.4 (Conway 1690, 108), where she argues that the “ruling spirit” of a human is something that will persist indefinitely. In her discussion of the virtuous horse (see below), she also suggests that it is only a part—the horse’s spirit—that goes through the transformations described. For our purposes, we can safely ignore this complication. 13  Conway might also be thinking, albeit inchoately, that individuals must be stable across possible worlds. But pursuing this issue would take us too far afield.

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of punishment, since Conway states in several places that creatures in their original state were good. Thus, a wicked person is something that has ceased being good and has become bad. And yet, it is hard to make sense of such a change if something having to do with this person is not a per se individual. Specifically, something has to be a substratum for the changes in moral properties. Furthermore, there have to be multiple, numerically distinct per se individuals acting as substrata in these cases. First, Peter’s substratum has to be a distinct per se individual from Judas’ substratum, because it is not Judas’ badness that gets the punishment, it is Judas who does. He is punished because he has become bad. Conway believes punishment is not retributive, but rather therapeutic. Judas is punished so that he can turn, discharge his badness, and become good. Moreover, the substratum of Paul must be a numerically distinct per se individual from the substratum of Peter in order to make sense of what Conway says above about Peter and Paul, who are both good men. Non-per se beings, and especially modes, need that on which they depend not only to persist but also to be the very individual things they are. For instance, my height necessarily modifies me, and my twin’s height necessarily modifies my twin. My height cannot survive my destruction, nor can it jump and attach itself to my twin. Even if we are both six-feet tall, his six-foot-ness and my six-foot-ness are neither the same nor interchangeable. The same is true of Peter’s goodness and Paul’s goodness. As we saw, Conway thinks it is crucially important that God distinguish between Peter’s goodness and Paul’s goodness so that each can receive his proper reward. Paul deserves what is entailed by Paul’s goodness, not Peter’s. It seems that the only way to keep these two goodnesses distinct is to anchor them in two per se individual created beings.

2.3  Type Monism, Type-Switching, and Universal Salvation If I am right, on Conway’s view, individual created beings like Paul are individual per se beings. However, we have also seen that Paul, Peter, and indeed every created per se individual are the same “in substance.” I want to briefly show how this Type Monism at the level of creatures leads to two remarkable features of Conway’s system. If all differences at the level of creatures are merely differences in “mode,” and not substantial differences, then aside from the attributes

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that apply to all created substances (such as mutability toward both the good and the bad, or as we will see in the final section, life), all other predicates that are predicable of Paul (e.g., “is a human”) or of Browny (“is a horse”) are merely indications of the nominal species of things. Nominal species pick out things possessing relatively stable clusters of features, features which in turn allow us to group things together into classes associated with these common nouns. But while they are natural in some sense (as opposed to being gerrymandered), these nominal species do not pick out real essential distinctions in the universe. Given that all individual created substances have the same substantial nature, as Conway says in section 5 of Chap. 9, “all species of creatures can be converted into one another, and thus the least may become the best and the best (as it was in its proper nature in the beginning) the least” (Conway 1690, 131). By this, Conway does not merely mean that each and every created substance can be converted into any other created substance, in the sense that my hamburger can be converted into human flesh after I digest and metabolize it, or that my flesh can be converted to dirt or to maggot flesh later on.14 She maintains something much more radical: The same created per se individual can progress “upward” (or descend “downward”) and, accordingly, it can belong to different nominal species. In other words, reward and redemption involves the conversion of Paul from a lower nominal species of created thing (say, a worm or a horse) to the highest form of created thing (which seems to be pure, created spirit).15 All this she illustrates in section 6 of Chap. 6 in a remarkable discussion of the reward given to an individual, virtuous creature who just happens to presently be a horse. (It will be important for what follows to appreciate that, for Conway, Horse is the nominal species that lies just below that of Human.) Conway’s imagined virtuous horse is not only strong, it has “a kind of comprehension of how it ought to serve its master” (Conway 1690, 51). It is also courageous, it fears and loves, and it remembers things. In short, it possesses a host of the psychological qualities that humans also possess. Conway considers the fate of this individual who was a horse that has excelled in its virtues once it dies.

14  Although, I concede that this kind of mundane conversion seems to be foremost in her mind in the text just quoted. 15  See the final section of this chapter for more on this.

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First, she rules out the possibility that the virtuous horse will merely cease to exist. A just and omnibenevolent God would not annihilate anything that exists, for to do so he would be annihilating something that is good. In fact, God’s justice and goodness requires that it be reborn as something that is at least as noble as it was before, if not better. Thus, this individual who has been a horse will return as at least a horse, a better horse. Suppose that this individual who has been a horse and now again is a horse continues to improve. What then? As we have already established, the individual who has been a horse cannot at any point cease to be. But if it has been good, it has to persist as something better. Moreover, as the world as a whole improves, which is something that Conway claims is “universally held,” eventually horses would have to cease to be horses: For if the earth were to assume another form, it would not produce grass anymore, and horses and other animals would cease to be the kind of animals that they had been before. Given that they would not have their proper nourishment, they could not remain the same in species. (Conway 1690, 52–3)

If horses are by nature herbivores but the world ceases to have any grass, then anything that survives in this new world cannot be a horse. It is either that, or God would be committing an injustice. If the world changes so that there is no more vegetation, it would be a hardship—a punishment—to this virtuous individual to be brought back as a horse. In short, Conway is painting her opponent into a corner. Her opponent insists that horses are substantially different from humans. But this leaves the opponent without any acceptable options. In this new world without food fit for horses, her opponent can only cling to the substantiality of horseness by accepting one of two things: (1) Eventually a virtuous creature must cease to be, or (2) God sets things up so that some of his creation is eventually worse off. Given that God is omnibenevolent, he will not suffer either of these options. Conway finally proceeds to close off the possibility that horses and humans are different due to an unbridgeable difference in mode. As Conway sees it, in order to maintain that something that is a horse can never convert into a human, a human would have to differ from a horse in an infinite number of ways (modus). But this too is impossible:

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If the difference is infinite, then one would thereby attribute to humans— even those who possess the vilest or basest character—a certain actually infinite excellence, the like of which applies only to God and Christ, not to any creature. (Conway 1690, 53–4)

Thus, an individual horse, given enough time and provided it continues to improve, will eventually become human.16 For that matter, humans too will transform into something greater. This is where Conway’s remarkable and attractive picture of universal salvation comes into view: If any created being—even a speck of dirt or dung—continuously improves,17 it too will continually progress upward until it reaches the highest form of created substance, the substance it had “originally.” Conway does not say as much as about this process as we might wish, but the endpoint of moral improvement is clear enough: At the end of the day all created substances will exist in the manner in which purely spiritual substances exist. This is the second consequence of Conway’s Type Monism at the third level of being. In the final section, I wish to highlight this anti-dualism and briefly discuss how one might set up Conway as an interlocutor to Descartes in a course on early modern philosophy and possibly also a course on philosophy of mind.

2.4  An Attack on Substance Dualism Descartes famously proposed a form of Type Pluralism at the level of created being. Specifically, he argued that mind and body are essentially distinct kinds of being. Conway’s system refuses to provide any space for such an essential divide: The difference between being a body and being a mental, or “spiritual,” thing is merely due to the manner in which they exist. In fact, Conway spends all of Chap. 7 and a large portion of Chap. 8 in the Principles arguing against Descartes’ Type Pluralism. Some of these arguments will be familiar to readers of the traditional commentaries on Descartes. For instance, Conway rehearses a version of the problem of mind-body interaction, posed perhaps most famously by Princess Elisabeth 16  Conway believes that the first of these antecedent conditions does in fact hold: Just as there are an infinite number of creatures and worlds, there is an infinite amount of time. These follow from God’s omnipotence and goodness: God can do it, and since God wants to make as much good as possible, he will do what he can. See, especially, Principles Chap. 2. 17  This doesn’t mean that dirt has thoughts or intentions in any respect like we do. But it does mean that even the lowest of created beings—and here Conway explicitly mentions dirt and dung—are not permanently blocked from acquiring higher-order capacities.

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of Bohemia in her letter to Descartes, dated May 6, 1643 (Elisabeth and Descartes 2007, 62). But her two core arguments, which appear in section 2 of Chap. 7, spring from premises that Conway shares with many others in her day and age. The first argument is metaphysical: Conway insists that God cannot communicate mere being (ens) to things, since mere being is not an attribute. Rather, God must communicate a kind of being (tale ens), and in particular, he must communicate to all creatures such attributes as goodness, life, perception, knowledge, love, and power. Thus, there could be no created being that is “dead,” that is, absolutely devoid of these attributes (or, perhaps better, absolutely incapable of acquiring these attributes). The second argument—which appears almost as an afterthought, but is on reflection, quite powerful—appeals to God’s justice: Is it not the case that God created all his creatures to this end: that they be blessed in him and that they enjoy his divine goodness in their various states and conditions? But how could this come to be without life or perception? Or how could anything that lacks life enjoy divine goodness? (Conway 1690, 80–1)

In other words, Conway finds it inconceivable that an omnibenevolent and perfectly just God would make it such that some parts of his creation could never be blessed. Here is a place where Conway’s Principles could easily find a home in an early modern curriculum, side by side with Descartes’ works. This would be especially advantageous since students would witness a debate between two individuals who share an initial framework and sensibility. Also, many of Conway’s arguments are reductiones ad absurdum that start from specifically Cartesian assumptions. So, even if it should turn out that Conway’s conclusions don’t stand up to scrutiny, her arguments can help students to see precisely what seventeenth-century Type Pluralism, and especially Cartesian dualism, is committed to and how it seems to close off the possibility of universal salvation. This is only one possible way to include portions of Conway’s Principles into a course. As I mentioned at the start of this essay, Conway’s remarkable philosophy should appeal to us on a number of fronts. She has ideas that seem to bear on a number of our present-day concerns, including (to name only a few) religious tolerance, the meaning of pain and suffering, and environmental ethics. Accordingly, Conway’s little book of personal ruminations might find a place in any number of undergraduate and graduate courses.

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Recommended Reading Conway, Anne. 1982. The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Ed. Peter Loptson. The Hague / Boston / London: Martinus Nijhoff. Hutton, Sarah. 2004. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mercer, Christia. 2019. “Anne Conway’s Metaphysics of Sympathy.” In Feminist History of Philosophy: The Recovery and Evaluation of Women's Philosophical Thought, eds. Eileen O’Neill and Marcy Lascano, 49-74. New York: Springer. Reid, Jasper. 2020. Anne Conway and her Circle on Monads. Journal of the History of Philosophy 58: 679–704.

References Conway, Anne. 1690. Principia Philosophiae antiquissimae & recentissimae de Deo, Christo, et creatura id est de spiritu & materia in genere. In Opuscula philosophica quibus continentur Principia Philosophiae Antiquiassimae et Recentissimae, ac Philosophia Vulgaris Refutata, quibus subjuncta sunt C.C. Problemata de Revolutione Animarum Humanarum. Amsterdam. ———. 1982. In The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, ed. Peter Loptson. The Hague / Boston / London: Martinus Nijhoff. Elisabeth of Bohemia, and René Descartes. 2007. The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes. Edited and translated by Lisa Shapiro. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Gordon-Roth, Jessica. 2018. What Kind of Monist is Anne Finch Conway? Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4: 280–297. Hutton, Sarah. 2003. “Lady Anne Conway.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), edited by Edward N.  Zalta. Last modified December 22, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/ conway/. ———. 2004. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pasnau, Robert. 2011. Metaphysical Themes, 1274-1671. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schaffer, Jonathan. 2010. Monism: The Priority of the Whole. The Philosophical Review 119: 31–76.

CHAPTER 3

Du Bois on the Centralized Organization of Science Liam Kofi Bright

3.1   Introduction There’s so much we should like to know, and so little time to come to know. How can we, and how should we, use our finite time and resources so as best to carry out inquiry? This is, of course, a matter of great practical and economic importance—we spend a lot of money on science, and scientific inquiry is using up the labor hours of many of our most educated citizens. We should aim to spend these precious resources well. But it is also clearly a matter of epistemic importance. What we inquire into now affects what (if anything) we shall be in a position to know in future, and in general what information shall be available to future seekers. In this chapter I am going to argue that we can learn much about these important questions by carrying out the study of the practical and theoretical work of W.E.B.  Du Bois. In addition to the literary and activist work for which Du Bois is famous, there was a period in which he ran the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory. This is plausibly the first dedicated

L. K. Bright (*) Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_3

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sociological laboratory in the USA, but Du Bois’ work there has been until recently highly neglected by scholars and historians of science (Morris 2017). This means there are potentially insights to be found by examining this work that could be brought to light and applied to our situation today, for Du Bois used the Atlanta Sociological Lab to carry out an ambitious project of long-term social research. This meant he faced the practical and epistemic questions in the opening paragraph. I shall argue here that his manner of answering these questions reveals an interesting and under-­ explored strategy for deciding how to allocate one’s epistemic resources which could bear fruit for contemporary science, or social epistemology more generally. In order to appreciate Du Bois’ work, it will be useful to contrast it with the status quo system in the USA and UK. Presently we mainly distribute grants and scientific awards, and thus decide what sort of work shall be done, through peer-review panels. Peer-review panels have people submit proposals which are then (in theory) evaluated by relevant experts in a meritocratic way. They are meant to help us work out what research to pursue, given the resources available to us and the information we desire. To do this they need to tell who will gather pertinent information via reliable means, while ensuring regular replication and cross-validation, insuring ourselves against error, and retaining legitimacy within the scientific community. However, it is fair to say that there is, at the least, room for improvement in how well we are achieving these goals. First, there is widespread doubt about our ability to evaluate research in a meritocratic manner. For one thing, there is at least some evidence of anti-meritocratic demographic biases in the way individual grant proposals are evaluated (see, e.g., Tamblyn et al. 2018). For another, the manner in which reviewer scores are aggregated can potentially introduce biases even when individual reviewers are successful in unbiasedly evaluating candidate research proposals on their merits (Lee 2015). What is more, there may be types of high-value research or unusually innovative researchers whose work is likely to be missed by purportedly meritocratic assessment methods (Avin 2019). This can form self-perpetuating cycles of underinvestment in otherwise talented and interesting researchers (Heesen & Romeijn 2019). And, finally, the fact that we fail to properly incentivize replication work is a notorious feature of present science currently getting much attention (Open Science Collaboration 2015). Given such issues, it is not surprising that there is presently policy work going on to explore non-meritocratic

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alternatives to distributing research funds—and, in particular, explorations of the possibility of distributing funds by lottery (Avin 2015, 2018). Du Bois took quite the opposite route from trying to introduce lotteries, with their embrace of chance randomization. In fact, to a very considerable degree he centrally planned the sort of research his group would carry out so as to form an interlinking whole. Where the status quo system allows for competition between scientists to give funding out piecemeal to whomever seems best at a given moment, Du Bois’ work embodies the attitude that as far as possible our research activities should be coordinated, and not aimed at rewarding individual greatness but rather at producing the best overall project. While ideas along these lines have not been totally without support in the history of philosophy of science (see, e.g., Neurath 1946, Bernal 1949, Kummerfeld and Zollman 2015), it is safe to say the epistemic merits of this are relatively under-explored. Our brief examination of Du Bois’ plan will thus hopefully form a spur to generate more consideration of this sort of holistic line of action.

3.2  The Atlanta Sociology Laboratory To understand Du Bois’ approach it will be necessary to understand both how he organized things in the lab and the general philosophical ideals that guided his scientific work. I begin by sketching the manner in which Du Bois organized his labs’ research schedules, drawing from his own descriptions (Du Bois [1944] 1990, 38–42) and also the recent scholarship of Wright II (2017). The basic idea of the Atlanta program was to carry out a cyclical series of studies on an interconnected network of topics for (at least) a century. In the early stages, the idea was that each year would have a particular focus—say, the health and physique of the black population in Atlanta— and as much pertinent data on this topic would be gathered as capacity allowed, and this would be drawn from as many different modes or methods of research as possible. At the end of the year a conference would be held in which the results of that year’s study would be presented to an array of international experts on the social sciences. This would allow for further refined analysis in light of their feedback, and the resulting work as well as insights gathered would be published in a book edited by Du Bois. The next year a new focus would be chosen, and broadly the same plan carried out.

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Du Bois indicated that at one point he envisioned the cycle as covering these topics in this order (Du Bois [1944] 1990, 40–41): . Population: Distribution and Growth 1 2. Biology: Health and Physique 3. Socialization: Family, Group, and Class 4. Cultural Patterns: Morals and Manners 5. Education 6. Religion and the Church 7. Crime 8. Law and Government 9. Literature and Art With the tenth year spent by Du Bois and his team on collating, organizing, and synthesizing, an overall picture in light of the previous decade’s research was intended to emerge. This cycle would repeat for a century. Sheer limitation of resources meant that in the early days of the project, each year would really have to largely focus on just one of the topics, with only relatively little attention paid to the other themes. However, it was hoped that ideally the laboratory would grow in size and funding support, such that for each year active research would have been done on all facets of this cycle, with only the emphasis of the end-of-year conference changing from year to year. It was thus a highly ambitious, and highly organized, project whose topics were chosen in advance for a century by Du Bois. He edited the end-of-year document collating and summarizing the research. This allowed him to highlight the scope and ambition of the project he was engaged in, and hopefully to draw in recruits. For instance, in the preface to The Health and Physique of the Negro American, he says: A study of human life today involves a consideration of human physique and the conditions of physical life, a study of various social organizations, beginning with the home, and investigations into occupations, education, religion and morality, crime and political activity. The Atlanta Cycle of studies into the Negro problem aims at exhaustive and periodic studies of all these subjects as far as they relate to the Negro American. Thus far we have finished the first decade […]. (Du Bois 1906a)

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Du Bois thus intended the scientific community to know that there was a grand project of sociological inquiry going on and hoped to attract support for it as continuing venture that would outlive him. In the meanwhile, the people who staffed the labs were his students, and he thus had final say as to the particular projects they were to carry out or the data they were to gather. He ensured that each year’s findings were reexamined in light of the following year’s results, and a variety of methods and sources of expertise were drawn from in gathering and interpreting these results. To understand why Du Bois arranged things in this manner, we must review his philosophy of science. Central to his thoughts on scientific method is a distinction between the “mediate” and “immediate” aims of science.1 The mediate aim is the ultimate purpose of science, the reason for which we ought to invest in it as an institution and incorporate it into our social concerns. Du Bois took the mediate aim of scientific inquiry to be guiding social reform: Science provides information that is useful in shaping policies, technologies, and attitudes that tend to the common good. But the immediate aim of scientific inquiry was simply the discovery of truths (see Bright 2022 for discussion of a related ideal). In sociology, especially, we seek truths about general patterns of behavior and discerning the extent to which people predictably respond to situations (Du Bois [1905] 2000). Du Bois was hence insistent that the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory did in fact produce research that proved useful for social reform—and would draw upon this body of research in issuing policy advice (Du Bois 1906b)—but also that they were themselves aiming primarily to discern scientifically interesting truths about the lives of black Americans (Du Bois [1944] 1990, 39). Indeed, this was highlighted in all their publications, as the preface to their annual conference proceedings included a note from Du Bois saying, “we wish not only to make the Truth clear but to present it in such shape as will encourage and help social reform” (Du Bois [1940] 2007, 63–64). How, then, can one fulfill the immediate aim of science in such a way that it can likely aid the mediate aim of science? I have argued elsewhere that for his work to fulfill the mediate aim of science he needed to produce research that was both trusted and trustworthy (Bright 2018). That is to say, it must actually describe the conditions of life faced by people and how they tend to react to various stimuli, and do so in a way 1  For a detailed discussion of the mediate and immediate aims of science, see Bright (2018, §3).

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that is seen by people as a viable source of policy-relevant information. Du Bois attempted to achieve this by identifying social problems faced by the groups he studied. He defined social problems as “the failure of an organized social group to realize its group ideals, through the inability to adapt a certain line of action to given conditions of life” (Du Bois 1898). For through the identification of their social problems one will be helping the group fulfill aims that it itself takes to be good—and thus, if the work is honestly carried out and presented in an attractive manner (Battle-Baptiste and Rusert 2018), earn one’s status as trusted. And to do this accurately, and thus be merited as trustworthy, one would have to carry out precise research triangulated across multiple research methods.2 What this means is that the work should be designed to ensure multiple lines of inquiry by different methods are brought to bear on the same question, and one should take answers that one can consistently reach by this means. The Atlanta Sociological Lab can be seen as having carried out a research project along these just lines. Several of its areas of focus were explicitly dedicated to discovering and spelling out the group ideals of the black Americans he was studying. For instance, Du Bois thought that such things could be discerned from the artistic products of a people (Du Bois [1903] 1994), and this was one of the topics of the ten-year cycle. Questions were addressed from multiple angles and results were scrutinized at a conference attended by experts from various different fields, ensuring methodological pluralism and thus facilitating the triangulation he thought essential. And the exacting statistical details the Atlanta lab produced and worked through were always checked and rechecked due to the cyclical nature of the project. Finally, this cyclical design meant that long-term trends in black Georgians group life could be identified: Facilitating the identification of patterns underlying human social behavior was what Du Bois thought to be the central goal of sociological study (Du Bois [1905] 2000). Given that it so well approximated his own philosophical ideals, it is no wonder that even years later he thought that if the project had been carried through it would have produced “a foundation of carefully ascertained fact [that] would build a basis of knowledge, broad and sound enough to be called scientific in the best sense of that term” (Du Bois [1944] 1990, 40). Alas, however, as Du Bois became an 2  For a statement of his methodological pluralism, see the preface to Du Bois (1899). See Heesen et  al. (2019) for a detailed discussion and defense of Du Bois’ methodological pluralism.

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increasingly controversial political figure, maintaining the funding for any lab associated with his name became impossible. And so, for sheer lack of money, the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory was shut down before it had even completed its second decade of work.

3.3   Advantages and Disadvantages of Du Bois’ System Granting that the design of the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory series of studies seems well suited to Du Bois’ goals, we may still ask how well this project fares when measured against the concerns of contemporary social epistemologists. And, to give the game away, I think it can fairly be said to have a number of advantages that would be attractive to many contemporary social epistemologists. First and most obviously, there is a concern for replication and multi-­ method research as a central feature of the whole program. The emphasis on approaching the same question from multiple angles, and subjecting proffered answers to scrutiny from expert representatives of multiple fields, ensures that (at the least) conceptual replication of any given claim is secured. A conceptual replication is one which “attempts to establish the same theoretical conclusion as an original experiment with different experimental manipulations or measures” (Machery 2020, 546). Taking “experiment” in a broad sense to include observational sociological studies, insisting upon methodological triangulation ensures conceptual replication of their results was guaranteed. What is more, methodological triangulation of the kind proposed and carried out by Du Bois has itself been proposed as a means of directly addressing many of the problems which replications were meant to achieve (Munafò and Smith 2018). Additionally, the somewhat dictatorial nature of Du Bois’ position as the lead investigator means that one can simply mandate that direct replications take place. Direct replications are those which aim to be “identical to an original experiment save for its sample of participants” (Machery 2020, 546). These are viewed to be low status, and so are notoriously undervalued and under-rewarded in contemporary science (Heesen 2018). If one’s CV consists mainly of replications of other people’s work, which will have been difficult to get published in the first place, then this sparse and unimpressive track record will make it hard to get a permanent job and hard to secure funding in meritocratic grant competitions. Yet

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something organizationally similar to the Atlanta lab would have tasks allocated by a PI like Du Bois. This person can simply mandate that some lab workers allocate at least some time to direct replication. In this way the Atlanta lab structure managed to approximate methods of labor allocation that have recently been suggested as attractive for ensuring replication in contemporary science (Romero 2018). Finally, as is obvious, the Atlanta model allows for very ambitious projects! This is because, if it were to work out, a research group would attain support for an extremely long-term project, with a sort of perspective-­ taking exercise every decade to keep things on track when one takes the more synoptic view. As mentioned, peer-review panels are often wary of overly ambitious projects, and this goes especially when there is an interdisciplinary component (Lamont 2009). By contrast, something similar to the Atlanta cycles would give an ambitious PI wide remit to design a project as they see fit and allocate tasks and funding within that broad project so as to ensure it is able to paint a comprehensive picture of whatever is being studied. The structure of this project thus allows it to overcome worries about lack of multi-method approaches, under-funding of ambitious projects, and under-incentivization of replication studies. Further, while the actual Atlanta cycle project was shut down early for lack of funding, scholars who have studied it have persuasively argued that its scientific achievements were very impressive and have a reasonable claim to being foundational for American sociology (Morris 2017). The downside, however, is obvious. To put the point mildly, this sort of design is heavily dependent on the character, charisma, organizational talent, and insight of the leader for its legitimacy and success. Du Bois was an unusually skillful sociologist, with an explicitly articulated guiding philosophy to structure his research plans, and charismatic author who could garner support for the project. However, the whole project was essentially destroyed by a combination of general hostility to honest study of race relations in America and Du Bois’ conflict with Booker T.  Washington, making it hard to attract funding for anything associated with him. The fate of a 100-year research project was thus sensitive to the popularity of just one person. This is because the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory was simply not designed to be robust to the changing fortunes of the PI; if the latter unexpectedly dies, becomes otherwise unable to work, or falls out of favor, much can be lost.

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3.4  Concluding Thoughts The Atlanta Sociological Laboratory was a pioneering and ambitious project of social science in America. Its highly centralized mode of organization under Du Bois allowed for a unified and cyclical pattern of research to be projected and partially carried out over a century. Features of its design ensured that methodological triangulation and replications could be regularly carried out. Its scale and longevity meant it was capable of producing research that would both identify long-term patterns of human behavior, and also the social problems faced by those under study, which may then in turn represent useful information for that very same group. Its impressive achievements are testament to these desirable social epistemic properties, which are themselves at the forefront of contemporary discussion of problems in science. The idea that diversity-of-ideas trumps competence-of-ideas in epistemic life has perhaps been overplayed in recent philosophical and scientific discussions (Grim et  al. 2019). However, one may reasonably feel uncomfortable at the kind of homogenization of perspectives organizing a research project in the same manner as Du Bois’ Atlanta Sociological Laboratory would entail (Dang 2019). There are good reasons to want to avoid our epistemic fate being so tied to the competence of a single scientist (Heesen 2017). The question remains whether there is some way of gaining the advantages of the Atlanta model while avoiding its disadvantages. Perhaps it could be fruitfully combined with some of the proposals for democratizing decisions about how research is directed that are existent in the literature (e.g., Brown 2009, Kitcher 2003, Douglas 2017). Or perhaps the study of the social dynamics of large research teams (e.g., Knorr-Cetina 2009, Winsberg et al. 2014) will yield insights as to how tasks and responsibilities may be allocated in such a way as to reap the benefits while minimizing the homogenization apparently inherent to this model. Finally, I have not said much about how the funding for such a large project should be secured beyond noting that in the case of the historical Atlanta school it was tied to Du Bois’ reputation. As social epistemologists appreciate, the funding structure of a science is not at all irrelevant to its trustworthiness or the degree to which it will be trusted (e.g., Holman and Elliot 2018, Weatherall et al. 2020). As such, given that any such project would require a large investment, this would have to be addressed.

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Difficulties and questions thus remain for anyone who hopes to take up, renew, and apply the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory’s cyclical model of allocating research tasks. I hope to have shown, however, that it has desirable features, and despite being quite opposite in approach from some presently popular responses to the failures of the present system, it might yet go some way to helping us yield the reliable body of scientific knowledge that Du Bois so earnestly sought—and which we still seek today.

3.5  Du Bois’ Social Epistemology of Science in the Classroom Du Bois was a scholar with an incredible breadth of interests and insights. If you teach philosophy of race you probably already use his paper The Conservation of Races as a touchstone in your courses. Likewise, his Criteria of Negro Art will be familiar to aestheticians. Despite that, however, it has been relatively unusual to see Du Bois taught in philosophy of science or epistemology. For convenience I will group these courses together as “epistemic courses,” since the advice below would work for either. I believe the focus of this essay shows that it would be possible and indeed fruitful to fit Du Bois into an epistemic course.3 Here are two suggestions for how that could be done. The first and, I suspect, easiest way of fitting Du Bois’ work into an epistemic course would be as part of a module (or sub-module) on the social epistemology of science. One could compare and contrast Du Bois’ views on how scientists should be motivated (Bright 2018) with contemporary work on the subject (Zollman 2018). Du Bois has defenses of methodological pluralism (Heesen et  al. 2019), which is a traditional topic of interest in the social epistemology of science. What is more, Du Bois ([1905] 2000) outlines an approach to how social science can plausibly study human behavior in light of the possibility that we have free will. This is an intrinsically fascinating topic, touching on much that is of philosophical interest, and the essay is short and accessible—certainly appropriate for advanced undergraduates, perhaps even beginning students. A somewhat more adventurous approach to incorporate Du Bois’ work into epistemic courses would be to build on recent work about the relationship between “epistemic” and “zetetic” norms (Friedman 3  Du Bois was a lifelong pan-Africanist, and it is also important to place his work in the context of broader trends in African thought that may have exercised influence on his work.

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forthcoming). The first sort of norms govern knowledge, what sort of conditions one must meet to have it, what sort of actions or assertions one is entitled to in light of possessing it, and so on. The second sort of norms, zetetic norms, govern inquiry: how it ought to be conducted, what sort of methodological standards ought to be adopted, and so on. While the study of zetetic norms has been implicit in much philosophy of science (see, for instance, Dang 2019 or Kitcher 2003), they are only recently being singled out as an object of explicit reflection and related to the more familiar epistemic norms. Du Bois’ Study of Negro Problems has a plausible claim to being a classic in the emerging field of zetetic studies. Moreover, this very essay may form relevant secondary reading.

Recommended Reading Bright, Liam Kofi. 2018. “Du Bois’ Democratic Defence of the Value Free Ideal.” Synthese 195 no.5: 2227-2245. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1898. “The study of the Negro problems.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: 1–23 Du Bois, W.E.B. [1905] 2000. “Sociology Hesitant.” boundary 2 27 (3): 37–44

References Avin, Shahar. 2015. Breaking the Grant Cycle: On the Rational Allocation of Public Resources to Scientific Research Projects. PhD diss., University of Cambridge. ———. 2018. Policy Considerations for Random Allocation of Research Funds. RT. A Journal on Research Policy and Evaluation 6 (1): 1. ———. 2019. Mavericks and Lotteries. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 76: 13–23. Battle-Baptiste, Witney, and Britt Rusert, eds. 2018. W.E.B.  Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America. Hudson, NY: Princeton Architectural Press. Bernal, J.D. 1949. The Freedom of Necessity. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bright, Liam Kofi. 2018. Du Bois’ Democratic Defence of the Value Free Ideal. Synthese 195 (5): 2227–2245. ———. 2022. Ida B.  Wells-Barnett’s The Red Record. In Neglected Classics of Philosophy, II, ed. Eric Schliesser. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https:// doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190097196.003.0009 Brown, Mark B. 2009. Science in Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dang, Haixin. 2019. Do Collaborators in Science Need to Agree? Philosophy of Science 86 (5): 1029–1040.

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Douglas, Heather. 2017. Science, Values, and Citizens. In Eppur Si Muove: Doing History and Philosophy of Science with Peter Machamer, ed. Marcus P. Adams, Zvi Biener, Uljana Feest, and Jacqueline A. Sullivan, 83–96. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Du Bois, W.E.B. 1898. The study of the Negro problems. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1: 1–23. ———. 1899. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. [1903] 1994. “The Sorrow Songs” In The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover. ———. [1905] 2000. “Sociology Hesitant.” Boundary 2 27 (3): 37–44 ———., ed. 1906a. The Health and Physique of the Negro American. No. 11. Atlanta: Atlanta University Press. ———. 1906b. The Economic Future of the Negro. Publications of the American Economic Association 7 (1): 219–242. ———. [1940] 2007. Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Towards an Autobiography of a Race Concept. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. [1944] 1990. “My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom.” Clinical Sociology Review 8 (1): 5. Grim, Patrick, Daniel J. Singer, Aaron Bramson, Bennett Holman, Sean McGeehan, and William J.  Berger. 2019. Diversity, Ability, and Expertise in Epistemic Communities. Philosophy of Science 86 (1): 98–123. Heesen, Remco. 2017. Academic Superstars: Competent or Lucky? Synthese 194 (11): 4499–4518. ———. 2018. Why the Reward Structure of Science Makes Reproducibility Problems Inevitable. The Journal of Philosophy 115 (12): 661–674. Heesen, Remco, and Jan-Willem Romeijn. 2019. Epistemic Diversity and Editor Decisions: A Statistical Matthew Effect. Philosophers' Imprint 19 (39): 1. Heesen, Remco, Liam Kofi Bright, and Andrew Zucker. 2019. Vindicating Methodological Triangulation. Synthese 196 (8): 3067–3308. Holman, Bennett, and Kevin C. Elliott. 2018. The Promise and Perils of Industry-­ Funded Science. Philosophy Compass 13 (11): e12544. Kitcher, Philip. 2003. Science, Truth, and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 2009. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kummerfeld, Erich, and Kevin J.S. Zollman. 2015. Conservatism and the Scientific State of Nature. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4): 1057–1076. Lamont, Michèle. 2009. How Professors Think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Lee, Carole J. 2015. Commensuration Bias in Peer Review. Philosophy of Science 82 (5): 1272–1283. Machery, Edouard. 2020. What is a Replication? Philosophy of Science 87 (4): 545–567. Morris, Aldon. 2017. The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Munafò, Marcus R., and George Davey Smith. 2018. Robust Research Needs Many Lines of Evidence. Nature 553 (7689): 399–401. Neurath, Otto. 1946. The Orchestration of the Sciences by the Encyclopedism of Logical Empiricism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 6 (4): 496–508. Open Science Collaboration. 2015. Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science. Science 349 (6251): aac4716-1–aac4716-8. Romero, Felipe. 2018. Who Should Do Replication Labor? Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science 1 (4): 516–537. Tamblyn, Robyn, Nadyne Girard, Christina J.  Qian, and James Hanley. 2018. Assessment of Potential Bias in Research Grant Peer Review in Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal 190 (16): E489–E499. Winsberg, Eric, Bryce Huebner, and Rebecca Kukla. 2014. Accountability and Values in Radically Collaborative Research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 46: 16–23. Weatherall, James Owen, Cailin O’Connor, and Justin P. Bruner. 2020. How to Beat Science and Influence People: Policymakers and Propaganda in Epistemic Networks. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 1157–1186. Wright II, Earl. 2017. The First American School of Sociology: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory. London: Routledge. Zollman, Kevin J.S. 2018. The Credit Economy and the Economic Rationality of Science. The Journal of Philosophy 115 (1): 5–33.

CHAPTER 4

A New Perspective on Old Ideas in González de Salas’s Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua Elizabeth Cruz Petersen

4.1   Introduction The European Renaissance gave birth to a cultural resurgence in the Spanish theater. In the sixteenth century, the demand for plays, which offered the growing population a legitimate diversion, led to Madrid’s first public playhouses, Corral de la Cruz (1579) and Corral del Príncipe (1583). The Spanish courtyard’s unique architecture—a mixture of private residences and public constructions of theater and retail space— played a part in attracting a diverse crowd to its performances, where women emerged as key players (Cruz Petersen 2016). Women were part of the very fabric of the Spanish Golden Age Theater, contributing significantly to its commercial success. They worked as actors, often earning more than their male counterparts. Moreover, their positions allowed them to pursue alternative careers as owners of their own acting companies, gaining valuable knowledge and experience pertinent to running a business. Audiences flocked to the playhouses to watch their favorite

E. C. Petersen (*) Scottsdale, AZ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_4

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leading ladies perform in the latest plays by Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, and their contemporaries. In response to the nation’s obsession with theater, several important philosophical treatises on acting appeared in early modern Spain. In 1633, Philosopher Jusepe Antonio González de Salas (1592–1651) joined the canon of philosophers writing on the works of Aristotle with his Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua [New Idea of the Ancient Tragedy].1 This manifesto does more to elucidate Poetics’ text than any of his predecessors (Riley 1951, 203). Salas’s treatise, divided into thirteen sections, introduces its reader to the theater in Greco-Roman Antiquity, expounds on the precepts of Aristotle’s Poetics, and offers a translation of Troades [The Trojan Woman] by the Roman philosopher and dramatist Seneca with an assessment of the play following Aristotelian principles. It also argues that women participated in Ancient Greek Theater, which perhaps stems from Salas witnessing women on the contemporary stage in lead roles. Given that women feature prominently in Salas’s analysis, it may be useful to view his treatise from an explicitly feminist perspective. I submit that the concept of “bodies in transaction” can provide such a theoretical platform. This essay, therefore, explores pedagogical approaches to the reading and understanding of Salas’s treatise and its implicit effect on women actors in early modern Spanish theater through the prism of feminist philosopher Shannon Sullivan’s notion of “transactionally co-constituted bodies.” Expanding on the idea of the “lived body,”2 Sullivan states, “as an activity, bodily life is better designated with the gerund ‘bodying’ and with ‘body’ used as a verb instead of a noun” (Sullivan 2001, 30n49). Keeping this in mind, I propose that applying Sullivan’s feminist approach to the body can help us better understand Salas’s treatise. It can also help us develop a new perspective of early modern women in the theater without relegating them to subaltern status.

1  For my translation of Salas’s chapter about the actors, “De los representantes Sección IX” in Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, please visit www.elizabethcruzpetersen.com. 2  In her book of essays, On Female Body Experience, Iris Marion Young states, “a person’s subjectivity is conditioned by sociocultural facts and the behavior and expectations of others in ways that she has not chosen” (Young 2005, 18). Hence, the lived body “can offer a way of articulating how persons live out their position in social structures along with the opportunities and constraints they produce” (25).

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4.1.1   Women in Early Modern Spanish Theater At a time when Spanish theater was producing some of the most provocative and profound dramas in Europe,3 women played a significant role in the rise of Spain’s commercial theater. They experienced a distinctly different relationship to place, land, and nation than women outside the theater space. The theater’s dynamic environment was permeable and mobile, enabling actors to test socioeconomic boundaries that both limited and empowered these women to transgress them. Women in the theater cultivated performative habits that tested the social decorum found in early modern Spanish treatises and devotional works. These essays expounded on women’s proper dress codes and conduct, such as using makeup or speaking in public. Treatises such as Juan Luis Vives’s De institutione feminae christianae [The Education of a Christian Woman] and Fray Luis de León’s La perfecta casada [The Perfect Wife]4 created a narrative that consigned women to subservient positions or silence, portraying them as mere bystanders—a social stereotype that religious clerics and scholars have perpetuated for centuries.5 They expected women to adhere to standards according to Catholic beliefs about the Virgin Mary—qualities synonymous with passivity, silence, and sexual purity.6 Fray León sermonized that the ideal woman should dress modestly, according to her socioeconomic status, and “always practice silence” (León 1999, 71). Vives defended the practice, writing that “it is not shameful for a woman to be

3  For instance, Félix Lope de Vega (1562–1635) in his lifetime composed around 3000 sonnets and 9 epic poems and wrote at least 500 plays and 3 novels, far exceeding William Shakespeare (1564–1616), whose collection of writings includes approximately 37 plays (he collaborated on several more), 4 poems, and 154 sonnets. 4  Other contemporary treatises include Francisco de Osuna’s Norte de los estados [The North Star of Ranks] and Antonio de Guevara’s 1868 Letra para recien casados [Letter to Newlyweds]. 5  A newly emerging body of scholarship re-examines how history has portrayed women, challenging past studies that often relegated them to subaltern status: Mary Blythe Daniels (1998), Carmen Sanz Ayán (2001, 2015), Teresa Ferrer Valls (2001), Mimma De Salvo (2008), and Susan Paun de Garcia (2019). 6  Since the twelfth century, European literature transformed the Virgin Mary into popular culture, portraying her as the admiration of feminine virtues held sacred, like purity and moral strength.

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silent” (Vives 2000, I IV.28).7 In sharp contrast to the patriarchal discourse, women continued to act and run businesses in theater, “laying claim to a degree of unsupervised freedom that released them from the traditional polarized categories of virtuous woman (silent, reticent, passive, house-bound) and whore” (McKendrick 2004, 23). Actors, particularly women, often altered their external appearance through costume (makeup, hairstyles, and male garb or clothes outside their social rank) to change or enhance a character’s physical traits. Doing so challenged the Church and State’s socioeconomic codes on how women should conduct themselves in public. Hence, sumptuary laws were put in place to control their dress, such as the 1615 decree prohibiting women actors from dressing provocatively, including as men (Bravo Villasante 1955, 152). Nevertheless, actors mainly ignored the sumptuary laws. Women, especially, continued to overtly challenge the norms, “gaining a considerable measure of the economic and aesthetic agency otherwise reserved almost entirely for men” (Blythe Daniels 1998, 165). As the actor improved her acting skills and popularity increased, so did her pay. Those in the lead roles not only earned the highest salary in the theater—more than their male counterparts and up to three to four times as much as supporting actors—they also enjoyed certain perks. For instance, P. José Alcázar in his Ortografía castellana [ca. 1690, Castilian Orthography] claimed that the leading lady or primera dama had “the right to choose and play any role she wish[ed]” (Alcázar 1965, 116). This privilege permitted women in the theater to earn a living and advance their professional careers. They climbed the patriarchal ladder to become autoras—impresarios, directors, and managers of their own acting companies. Approximately eleven percent of all commercial theater business owners during Spain’s early modern theater (1540–1710) were women, in sharp contrast to their other European counterparts (Sanz Ayan 2015, 115).8 As autoras or business owners, they held the most vital theater positions, possessing legal authority and responsibility for all aspects of the acting company. Their organizations also served as acting schools, producing a sense of community, especially among women in their field. 7  Lisa Vollendorf reminds us that Vives and León “advocated limited educational programs for women that would create better wives, household managers, and mothers of future heirs” (Vollendorf 2005, 5); however, “bound by considerations about class and spheres of influence, prescriptions for instructional reform left out many, but unfailingly endorsed the subordination of all women” (Vollendorf 2005, 172). 8  In England, for example, women rarely participated as theater professionals before 1660.

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Part of the acting schools’ programs required actors to study the plays, musical numbers, dances, and swordplay choreography before the season began. Directors and actors often worked long hours, as Agustín de Rojas observed in his 1603 journal El viaje entretenido [The Entertaining Journey]: “These actors, who rise before dawn, are writing and studying […] /they are always rehearsing” (Rojas 1901, 90). Their very public presence in the theater industry frequently required women to perform before an audience, both on- and off-stage, consequently providing many of them with profound knowledge about the art of acting and a keen awareness of their sociopolitical environment. For this reason, early modern Spanish actors fine-tuned their linguistic skills. As part of their training, they had to interpret and deliver the plays’ polysemic language with a distinctive and confident voice, cognizant of the diction, the pauses, the tempo, and the timbre in their speaking manners. Playwrights often wrote long, complex monologues for female protagonists, trusting their ability to interpret and memorize the text and deliver a forceful performance. Catherine Larson emphasizes that in an early modern Spanish play, the woman’s “body—and, notably, the voice— assumed even greater importance than might have been the case in a lyric poem or novel.” Larson explains that the actor’s “representation of the woman’s ‘otherness’—all contribute to emphasize identity, (self) image, (self) disclosure, or (self) assertion” (Larson 2000, 132). In turn, for the spectators, the long, complex monologues “encourage[d] the habit of mind of seeing the [female] speakers as characters thinking, rather than delivering verse, as debating with themselves rather than reciting poetry” (McKendrick 2004, 19). Equally significant to memory was the actor’s ability to improvise, as expressed by Cervantes, who considered the importance of a suelta lengua [fluent tongue] as second only to a good memory (Cervantes 1980, v. 2927). Playwrights and directors considered improvisation or a fluent tongue a fundamental skill, a practice akin to ancient orators. Many women thus became well versed in the art of public speaking and negotiating, operating as active agents in control of their professional careers. Their voices ultimately determined the success of the Spanish theater and the direction in which the playwrights took their plays. Women actors influenced the playwrights who often developed exceptional roles for them. For example, Luis Vélez de Guevara created the character Gila in La serrana de la Vera (1613), specifically for Jusepa Vaca  (Guevara

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2002).9 In other cases, playwrights demanded that companies hire their preferred actors to perform their plays. Calderón de la Barca, for instance, repeatedly requested Fabiana Laura.10 Furthermore, women had to be quick on their feet on stage. To illustrate, the stage directions in Act I of Ana Caro’s El conde Partinuplís (ca. 1630s) instruct the protagonist and her female accomplice to ascend and descend as if by magic from a bofetón (Cruz Petersen 2017, 95).11 In Lope’s El marido más firme, Eurídice “disappears through a trapdoor, or by some other device” (Shergold 1967, 223). La Fama in Antonio Enríquez Gómez’s El rey más perfecto enters on a stage machine called tramoya. A female child actor descends from a mechanical device known as the cloud machine onto the stage in Luis Belmonte y Bermúdez’s play, El diablo predicador (Ruano de la Haza 2000, 251, 257).12 Their vociferation and gestures training equipped women to ascend to leadership positions, thereby increasing their governance competence as theater executives. As directors of their companies, they negotiated contracts, scheduled and secured rehearsal and performance venues, reviewed promotional materials, and handled the bookkeeping. They also commissioned plays, purchasing the rights to produce the works exclusively. Frequently, these transactions led to collaborations between a director and a playwright. Jerónima de Burgos, for instance, partnered with Lope de Vega to feature his plays in her company’s repertoire. This partnership culminated in a close friendship with Burgos serving as godmother to one of Lope de Vega’s children. Moreover, acting companies owned by women who, like Burgos, starred in their own company’s plays benefited from a higher profit margin 9  Luis Vélez de Guevara’s La serrana de la Vera (1613) features a strong female protagonist (Gila) resolved to find justice—a warrior, hunter, head of her house, and the admiration of her community, who kills two thousand men in revenge for being seduced and abandoned. Jusepa Vaca captured the spirit of the character and the admiration of her audience, opening roles for her in other plays in which she earned top billing as primera dama. 10  Fabiana Laura gave up the privileged class luxuries to join the theater in 1660. Receiving great applause from audiences and theater critics alike, she quickly became a favorite of the playwrights and the royal family. 11  The bofetón is a mechanical device that rotated or sprang open, allowing actors to appear on and disappear from the stage as if by magic. 12  The cloud machine, utilized mainly in hagiographic plays such as those mentioned above, created the illusion of flying by elevating actors, usually women or girls, above the stage. For more about women’s somatic role with stage machines, swordplay, and dance, see Mujica (2015).

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than their male counterparts. They further established themselves as independent agents, actively participating in the theater’s social, political, and economic discourse. Therefore, given how women actors were prominent in sixteenth-century Spanish theater, it seems appropriate to consider González de Salas’s Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua through a feminist lens—especially given Salas’s own belief in the inseparability of gender, theater, and how they are perceived. However, it will help to explore Salas’s treatise in a bit more detail before we do so. I will then discuss Shannon Sullivan’s notion of bodies in transaction and how Salas’s treatise illustrates how actors as bodies in action helped shape early modern Spanish plays and its audience’s perception of the theater.

4.2   Salas’s Nueva Idea Salas’s treatise, Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua (published in 1633, Spain), honored the actor who acted as “the means and conduit through which the poet communicates his passions and affection to the audience” (Salas 1778, 86). Honing in on their interior feelings, the actor participates as an active body in relationship with her environment. In so doing, Salas penned a manifesto that exalted women’s extraordinary achievements in theater, believing that women have always played a role in theater creation. He submitted that critics have historically omitted women’s contributions to the theater even though “there were periods in which women also portrayed female characters” (Salas 1778, 207). In his attempt to correct history’s omission of women’s participation in Greek Theater, Salas unabashedly expressed, “I’m hardly embarrassed since I am persuaded in either case that women [actors] were introduced to Theater” (203). He pointed out that the fourth-century rhetorician Aelius Donatus suggested that a woman might have played the maid’s role in Terence’s play Andria, “as was the custom then” (208). In truth, Salas does not distinguish between gender in his precepts on the art of acting. His approach is perhaps more egalitarian than Aristotle himself, given the latter’s misogynistic view that “as a class women are inferior” (Aristotle 1992, 60).13 Edward C. Riley affirms, “[Salas’s work] does not draw strict boundaries around [the writer or actor], but points out sure paths and well-established landmarks,” connecting “human 13  For more discussion on Aristotle’s view of women as “misbegotten males,” see Christina Van Dyke’s essay in this volume.

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wisdom to human experience” (Riley 1951, 202; my emphasis). It envisages a public space where men and women actors can cultivate their somatic and experiential habits. It suggests that actors embody the spirit of the parts they portray through voice and gestures. Salas’s Nueva idea demonstrates this path by linking the past Greek and Roman acting practices to his contemporaries. In Riley’s words, “Few Spanish writers appreciated more than [Salas] the enduring significance of Aristotle’s Poetics, and none could rival him in the scholarly exposition of that beguiling and difficult work” (Riley 1951, 184).14 He earned high praises from contemporaries such as Félix Lope de Vega, who eulogized Salas in Laurel de Apolo (Vega 1824, 172).15 These honors are certainly a testament to Salas’s erudition, as well as his understanding of the actor’s lived bodily experience. 4.2.1   Methodology: Sentimiento Interior In keeping with Aristotle’s discussion of “dramatic gestures,”16 Salas underscored practice over precepts, advising that actors fine-tune the experiential and performative aspects of their craft. However, Salas’s treatise observed the first-century Roman rhetorician Quintilian’s directive to the orator. Quintilian advised on the proper discipline of “elegant pronunciations,” gestures, and actions as a means of adapting to various situations. He asserts, “all emotional appeals will inevitably fall flat, unless they are given the fire that voice, look, and the whole carriage of the body can give them” (Quintilian 1920, 11.3.2). Similar to Quintilian, Salas positioned his argument around the idea of the unified body-mind—a pure, clear voice, a steadfast memory, and dynamic action—when he conceptualized the practice of what he calls sentimiento interior [inner emotion]. In the form of what I will later refer to as “active bodying,” actors conjured 14  Riley points out Salas’s extensive erudition, highlighting some of the Greek and Roman antiquity authors listed in the Nueva idea bibliography. He also notes that Salas was “well acquainted with Heinsius’s De tragoediae constitutione (Leyden, 1611) and with the writings of J.C. Scaliger and Minturno” (Riley 1951, 187). 15  “Unlike the majority of his predecessors,” Lope de Vega, as Friedman observes, “is able to blend theory with practice. He seems to intuit that the humanist shift from logic to rhetoric makes sense for the theater, which is both art and craft” (Friedman 1991, 92). 16  James Hutton notes: “The single word ‘gestures’ (schemata) is probably a short way of saying ‘with dramatic action,’ which would include the emotional delivery of dialogue” (Hutton 1992, 99, n. 2).

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inner emotions through physical activity in order to produce similar feelings in their audience. Attributing this form of acting to the classical thespians, Salas based most of his arguments on Quintilian’s concern with “voice and gesture, of which the one appeals to the eye and the other to the ear, the two senses by which all emotion reaches the soul” (Quintilian 1920, 11.3.14). Salas believed that a persistent memory and improvisation were essential to extracting a sentimiento interior. He offered an anecdote by Aulus Gellius (ca. 125 BCE–ca. 180 BCE) to explain his theory. Polus used his recently deceased son’s ashes to mournfully play the part of Electra carrying an urn with her brother Orestes’ bones. The act of real grief expressed by the actor moved him to tears and “caused deep emotion and pain” throughout the entire auditorium (Salas 1778, 92). Salas explained that the classical tragedian used his son’s ashes to engage his own inner emotions. He did not default to a form of engañosa apariencia [deceptive appearance]—the act of merely imitating emotions without first living through them oneself. Only when one genuinely experiences the passion of love or grief, for example, can one convincingly portray a person in love or mourning. In Lo fingido verdadero [c. 1608; The Great Pretenders], Lope de Vega makes a similar argument: Like the poet, the actor takes his art from life, learning from love to imitate love upon the stage. As actor who has not felt love, felt its passion perform in him, cannot perform love for others. (Vega 1993, 48–49)

Salas deemed that the Spanish play’s success heavily depended on the quality of the acting, la valentía de acción (Salas 1778, 213), which called for a more “natural” or realistic representation through sentimiento interior. He explained, “those who truly wished to act would move with such fervor, coming more from their inner feeling than from deceptive appearance […] since true tears, without a doubt, tend to produce a similar tenderness” (188). Along with Aristotle, Salas thought that imitation of true feelings in the theater was more important than false imitation. However, the gender-neutral way he talked about what we might today call ‘active bodying’ sets him apart from Aristotle. Let us now briefly turn to Shannon Sullivan to explore this concept in more detail and examine its application to Salas’s work.

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4.3   Sullivan’s Concepts In her book, Living Across and Through Skins, Shannon Sullivan employs the word ‘body’ as a verb, as mentioned earlier. She notes that she prefers “‘bodying’ to ‘embodying’ because the term ‘embodiment’ can connote a mind-body separation in which a mind comes to be ‘inside,’ or embodied in a body” (Sullivan 2001, 30n49). Sullivan’s expression of bodies in transaction assists us in understanding the “discursivity of bodies” through the discussion of “the concrete, had experiences of lived bodies” (61).17 Borrowing John Dewey’s understanding of “transaction,”18 Sullivan develops the idea of transactionally co-constituted bodies. These dynamic beings comprise mental and physical aspects of experience that “continually [undergo] reconstitution through their inter constitutive relations with others” (12), vital to human existence. She uses the metaphor of a “stew” to explain the dynamic relationship of organisms since its ingredients (e.g., potatoes, onions, carrots, and spices) “intermingle in such a way that each helps constitute what the others are. For example, […] the flavors of the carrot and onion in a stew impact each other such that the carrot is no long a carrot, but an oniony carrot, and the onion is a carroty onion” (15). The body is partly constituted by its environment, just as its environment consists of the living organisms that include the body. Furthermore, Sullivan argues that bodying “is constituted by habits, which are an organism’s acquired styles of activity that organize the energy of its impulses” (Sullivan 2001, 31). In other words, habits are what provide one with “will and agency.” However, I think it is important to note here that one’s bodily existence is not only constituted by one’s enculturation of habits but also can be refashioned by one’s response to and engagement with one’s world in ways that go beyond the stew metaphor, as Sullivan also admits. In the remainder of this chapter, I will argue that to compete on equal grounds with their male counterparts, early modern Spanish women passively reflected and actively practiced bodying by cultivating somatic and experiential habits. They interacted transactionally in the world of theater in ways that allowed for a continual refashioning of their bodily selves. 17  For more on the lived bodily experience by feminist philosophers, Sullivan recommends Susan Wendel and Susan Bordo’s works. Both studies are important examples of feminist philosophy that “recognize the discursivity of bodies as they carry out projects that concretely examine lived bodily experience” (Sullivan 2001, 62). 18  Dewey’s “transaction” rejects the “sharp dualisms between subject and object, and self and world” (Sullivan 2001, 1).

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4.4   Women Actors as Bodies in Action Women actors were not merely characters in motion but bodies in action, who continually refashioned themselves through their “inter-constitutive relations with others” (Sullivan 2001, 12). In essence, actors used their interior (real) emotions and dynamic action to capture their characters’ spirit. The repetitive behavior, or habits, enhanced the actors’ awareness of their constitutive relations with their postures, movements, and changes in equilibriums on- and offstage, formalizing a dynamic interaction with the physical and social environment of the playhouse. Their transactional bodies reinforced audience expectations about what women could accomplish through attire, mannerisms, and expressions of feelings. Thus, audience members actively engaged in the events on and off-stage, expressing somatic control. For instance, they voiced their displeasure or physically hurled fruit at the performers—a direct challenge to social norms that advocated passive behavior from women (Cruz Petersen 2016, 114–16). Early modern Spanish woman actors reflected these ideas on acting, gaining aesthetic and economic agency. They challenged the religious codes or social norms that worked to silence them by learning “to form the habit of questioning, rethinking, and re-bodying their own and their cultures’ gender habits” (Sullivan 2001, 104). The theater’s natural environment afforded women a form of autonomy, free to draw their own boundaries or follow their own rules. The actors gained greater agency in terms of what they could achieve in society and inspired both male and female playgoers.19 Moreover, as bodies in transaction, women strongly identified themselves as active, mindful subjects who pushed prescribed behavior limits. In doing so, they transgressed attitudes imbued with misogyny and politically motivated contempt that worked to erase them from historical canons. Salas was a keen spectator of public theater. He observed how actors’ bodying, especially women playing lead roles, integrated dynamic actions with self-knowledge—a skill contemporary theater critics often commented on. Namely, Juan Caramuel (1606–1682) wrote that the famous actor María de Riquelme, “so impressionable by nature was she that, to  See also Catherine Connor-Swietlicki (1999) and Cruz Petersen (2016).

19

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the astonishment of all, her acting affected her facial expressions, showing joy if the role demanded it; profound sorrow in each poignant step; and in the swiftest of transitions, representing contrasting emotions unique and extraordinary” (Rennert 1909, 163n3). Other critics focused on the actors’ somatic skills in their praises,20 as in the case of Amarilis for her role as the character Hero in Mira de Amescúa’s tragedy Hero y Leandro. She excelled in her profession, as attested by Alcázar. He claimed the prodigious actor “acted, sang, played musical instruments, and danced. She received praise and applause for all she did” (Alcázar 1965, 114). Amarilis was most famously known for fearlessly launching herself from a tower onstage, demonstrating mental and physical bravery through active bodying. Many early modern Spanish playwrights deemed the playhouse’s architectural design a character in itself when developing their storyline. In hopes of achieving a blockbuster, playwrights made considerable use of spectacular elements, such as horses and stage machines, in their plays. They expected actors to interpret the intricate plotlines and to perform near-acrobatic feats on stage. Akin to Amarilis’s performance in Hero y Leandro, playwrights and audiences expected actors to ride on horseback, rise above the stage and audience on stage machines, and even drop from cloud machines into opened trapdoors below. Salas dedicated an entire section on the stage machine, now known by its “new name” tramoya, a device similar to those used in Ancient Greek Theater (Salas 1778, 248).21 Women were often employed to perform on these contraptions to attract audiences, thus adding to the importance their role played in the theater’s success. Thus, philosophers and historians of theater may find it productive to consider Sullivan’s concepts to analyze early modern Spanish 20  Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa in his Plaza universal de todas las ciencias y artes [1621, Universal Plaza of All Sciences and Arts] writes that “as for the women, the presence and acting of those that have been on stage is amazing: Ana de Velasco, Mariana Páez, Mariana Ortiz, Mariana Vaca, Jerónima de Salcedo, Juana de Villalba, Mariflores, Micaela Luján, Ana Muñoz, Josefa Vaca, Jerónima de Burgos, Polonia Pérez, María de los Ángeles, María Martín, who changed her name to María de Córdoba, also known as Amarilis, was celebrated as much for her acting as her beauty, la Quiñones, in addition to Mejía, María de Navas and Sabina Pascual” (Rodríguez Cuadros 1998, 206; my translation). 21  Salas’s contemporary, López Pinciano, is the first philosopher to connect the use of máquinas [stage machines] with the actors’ profession (Rodríguez Cuadros 1998, 351). He exclaims: “Watch the actor and study the variety of machines and devices in which someone suddenly and miraculously appears: either as earthly magic of the arts or as divine intervention” (López Pinciano 1894, 496).

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women actors’ self-refashioning. Her theory also helps us understand Salas’s normative ideas about how inner emotions motivate bodies to produce similar sentiments in others.

4.5  Conclusion and Pedagogical Relevance In brief, by re-examining and transforming the narrative about and attitudes toward women’s bodies within Salas’s discourse, women can rise from their subaltern roles in history, becoming more relevant and visible in the evolution and significance of the early modern Spanish theater. In Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, Salas’s idea of sentimiento interior situated the actor’s bodying within its surroundings, similarly to Sullivan’s notion of transactionally co-constituted bodies. The change in the characters’ structure of habit and cultural significance reinforced how women’s experiential and performative attributes could be refashioned, especially in gender. Since Salas employed both an academic and practical methodology in his examination of acting, an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach could enhance students’ understanding of gender roles in theater. Educators can ameliorate curriculums with a few in-class activities to engage one’s awareness of others’ gendered bodying, heightening the layer effect of one’s own lived bodily experience. 4.5.1   Suggested Group Activities 22 1. Vocal Warm-up (5–10 minutes): Standing in a wide circle, students take turns reciting a verse from a poem or play, such as Shakespeare’s tongue twister “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,” careful to enunciate each syllable. 2. Body Warm-up (5–10 minutes): In pairs of two, have students take turns silently leading/following each other as they create mirrored kinesthetic movements. This activity requires collaboration and focus as they imitate their partner’s facial expressions and bodily movements.

22  For more ideas on performance activities that promote social justice and ethnic or racial awareness, see Midha (2010).

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3. Character Development (20–30 minutes): This activity asks that students engage with their sentimiento interior through dynamic action. Request that students bring an object of personal value to the class. After warm-ups, students should return to the circle. Using their object as a prop, one person at a time should step into the middle. Once inside the circle, call out an emotion, such as happy or angry. The student should convey those feelings in the delivery of their lines (same as warm-up tongue twister), keeping in mind the object (prop) of their affection. Each new emotion should cause a distinctive bodily experience, thus expressing delivery for each inner feeling. I suggest three different emotions per participant. Eventually, the prop will not be necessary for students to conjure their sentimiento interior. 4. Debrief (10–15 minutes): Follow the exercises with a brief discussion to allow students to express their experiences. Guide the conversation with questions that prompt responses: How did you feel when you said, heard, or did the exercise (alone or with a partner)? For example, how did you feel when you were the leader or follower in the mirror exercise? What did you notice about yourself while performing the character development activity? What did you observe as you witnessed the exercises? Did it stir any emotions for you? 4.5.2   Suggested Written Assignment (Optional) Essay: What experiential and performative connections can you make to Sullivan’s or Salas’s theories from your own experience with the theater exercises? How, if any, does implementing movement activities in class impact how we learn about our own gendered biases? Before assigning this essay, have students read the Introduction chapter to Sullivan’s Living Across and Through Skins and Quintilian’s chapter on “Delivery, Gesture, and Dress,” which expresses exercises similar to Salas’s Nueva idea.23

23  I want to express my gratitude to all the participants at the international workshop, “Expanding the Canon,” for their insightful comments in the early stages of this essay. A special thank you to Amber Griffioen and Marius Backmann for their suggestions and patience during the editing process.

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Recommended Reading Cruz Petersen, Elizabeth M. 2016. A Mindful Audience: Embodied Spectatorship in Early Modern Madrid. In Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature, edited by Isabel Jaén Portillos and Julien Simon, 111–27. New York: Oxford UP. Midha, Gopal. 2010. Theatre of the Oppressed A Manual for Educators.” Master’s Capstone Projects. 11. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cie_capstones/11. Quintilian. 1920. Book XI, Chapter 3: Delivery Gesture and Dress. The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, 243–350. Translation by H.  E. Butler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Internet Archive. Salas, Jusepe Antonio González de. 1778. De los representantes Sección IX. Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, 185–216. Madrid: D. Antonio de Sancha. Hathi Trust Digital Library. Sullivan, Shannon. 2001. Introduction: Transactional Bodies after Dewey. Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism, 1–11. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

References Alcázar, P. José. 1965. Ortografía castellana (ca. 1690). In Preceptiva dramática española del Renacimiento y el Barroco, ed. Federico Sánchez Escribano and Alberto Porqueras Mayo, 236–250. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Aristotle. 1992. Aristotle’s Poetics. Translated by James Hutton. New  York: W.W. Norton & Co. Blythe Daniels, Mary. 1998. Re-visioning Gender on the Seventeenth-Century Spanish Stage: A Study of Actresses and Autoras. PhD diss., University of Kentucky. Bravo Villasante, Carmen. 1955. La mujer vestida de hombre en el teatro español: Siglos xvi–xvii. Madrid: Revista de Occidente. Cervantes, Saavedra M. 1980. Pedro De Urdemalas. In Díaz, ed. L.F.  Larios. Ebro: Zaragoza. Connor-Swietlicki, Catherine. 1999. The Preceptistas and Beyond: Spectators Making ‘Meanings’ in the Corral de Comedias. Hispania 82 (3): 1–28. Cruz Petersen, Elizabeth M. 2016. A Mindful Audience: Embodied Spectatorship in Early Modern Madrid. In Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature, ed. Isabel Jaén Portillos and Julien Simon, 111–127. New  York: Oxford UP. ———. 2017. Women’s Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater. London: Routledge. De Rojas, Agustín. 1901. El viaje entretenido. Madrid: B. Rodríguez Serra.

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De Salvo, Mimma. 2008. La mujer en la práctica escénica de los Siglos de Oro: la búsqueda de un espacio profesional. Midesa s.r.l. Ferrer Valls, Teresa. 2001. Actors and Theatrical Documentation in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. VII World Shakespeare Congress. Shakespeare and the Mediterranean, Valencia April 18–23, 2001. https:// www.uv.es/entresiglos/teresa/pdfs/Actors.pdf. Friedman, Edward H. 1991. Resisting Theory: Rhetoric and Reason in Lope de Vega’s “Arte nuevo”. Neophilologus 75 (1): 86–93. Larson, Catherine. 2000. You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Gender, Voice, and Identity in Women-Authored Comedias. In The Perception of Women in Spanish Theatre of the Golden Age, ed. Anita K. Stoll and Dawn Smith, 127–141. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. León, Fray Luis de. 1999. A Bilingual Edition of Fray Luis de León’s La perfecta casada: The Role of Married Women in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Translated by John A. Jones and Javier San José Lera. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen P. López Pinciano, A. 1894. Filosofía Antigua Poética. In Muñoz. Valladolid, ed. P. Peña. Impr. y Librería Nacional y Extranjera de Hijos de Rodríguez. McKendrick, Melveena. 2004. Breaking the Silence: Women and the Word in the Comedia. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 29 (1 (Fall)): 13–30. Midha, Gopal. 2010. Theatre of the Oppressed A Manual for Educators. Master’s Capstone Projects. 11. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cie_capstones/11. Mujica, Barbara. 2015. Actresses as Athletes and Acrobats. In Prismatic Reflections on Spanish Golden Age Theater, ed. Gwyn Campbell and Amy Williamsen, 229–242. New York: Peter Lang. Paun de García, Susan. 2019. Women in Charge: Autoras and Actresses in the Reign of Felipe V.  In Women Warriors in Early Modern Spain, ed. Susan L.  Fischer and Frederick A.  De Armas, 119–139. Newark: University of Delaware Press. Quintilian. 1920. Book XI, Chapter 3: Delivery Gesture and Dress. The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, 243–350. Translation by H.  E. Butler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Internet Archive. Rennert, Hugo Albert. 1909. The Spanish Stage. New York: The Hispanic Society of America. Riley, Edward C. 1951. The Dramatic Theories of Don Jusepe Antonio González de Salas. Hispanic Review 19 (3): 183–203. Rodríguez Cuadros, Evangelina. 1998. La técnica del actor español en el Barroco: Hipótesis y documentos. Madrid: Castalia. Ruano de la Haza, José María. 2000. La puesta en escena en los teatros comerciales del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Castalia. Salas, Jusepe Antonio González de. 1778. Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, 185–216. Madrid: D. Antonio de Sancha. Hathi Trust Digital Library.

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Sanz Ayán, Carmen. 2001. Las ‘autoras’ en comedias en el siglo XVII. Calderón de la Barca y la España del barroco 2: 543–579. ———. 2015. More than Faded Beauties: Women Theater Managers of Early Modern Spain. Early Modern Women 10 (1): 114–121. Shergold, N.D. 1967. A History of the Spanish Stage: From Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon P. Sullivan, Shannon. 2001. Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vega, Félix Lope de. 1824. Laurel De Apolo. (1630). Catalonia: Les Leclere y C. ———. 1993. The Great Pretenders and The Gentleman from Olmedo. Translated by David Johnston. London: Oberon Books. Vélez de Guevara, Luis. 2002. In La serrana de la Vera, ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta. Vives, Juan Luis. 2000. The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual. (The other voice in early modern Europe). Translated by Charles Fantazzi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vollendorf, Lisa. 2005. The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP. Young, Iris Marion. 2005. On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like A Girl” and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Developing Political Realism: Some Ideas from Classical China Eirik Lang Harris

Two twenty-first-century books in Anglo-American political philosophy, Bernard Williams’s In the Beginning Was the Deed (Williams 2005) and Raymond Geuss’s Philosophy and Real Politics (Geuss 2008), have reignited a series of longstanding debates in political philosophy over, among other things, the role and priority of morality in the political sphere. Williams distinguishes between two broad ways of understanding political theory and, indeed, political life: political moralism and political realism. The former takes the moral to have priority over the political and, as such, sees the political as, in essence, some form of applied ethics. The latter, however, claims that there is a separate realm of distinctively political thought that cannot be reduced to the moral. This is not to say that there is no normativity to political thought, merely that political normativity is not reducible to moral normativity. Geuss hones in on a similar point, arguing against a view of politics as applied ethics where “‘Pure’ ethics as an ideal theory comes first, then applied ethics, and politics is a kind of applied ethics” (Geuss 2008, 9).

E. L. Harris (*) Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_5

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Geuss’s and Williams’s discussions are nuanced and repay careful reading and thought. This essay will take these two broad categories (political realism and political moralism) in roughly the way sketched out above and examine how they correspond to political discussions in the intellectual milieu of early China. In particular, it will investigate one of the world’s earliest political realists, Shen Dao (c. 350–275 bce), who develops a political theory in opposition to a variety of political moralist positions—most notably those of Kongzi (Confucius, c. 551–479  bce) and his follower Mengzi (Mencius, c. 372–289  bce), as well as that of Mozi (c. 470–391  bce).1 While the moral theories of the Confucians and the Mohists are very different, they both saw their political theory as arising out of their moral theory.2 The Confucians are virtue ethicists of a sort, and moral cultivation is at the core of both their moral and political theory.3 The Mohists articulate a version of consequentialism and believe that logical analysis not only led to the conclusion that the state should maximize wealth, order, and population, but that understanding  these goals should have motivating force on the individual.4 For all their differences, these groups both begin with an ideal society in mind. For Confucians, this ideal society is populated by fully virtuous individuals, while, for the Mohists, it is populated by those who understand and are motivated by their version of state consequentialism. For both groups, questions of political order are central, but this political order is the natural outgrowth of correctly apprehending and applying the appropriate moral goals, rather than a goal to be pursued for independent reasons.

1  For a translation and analysis of the remaining fragments attributed to Shen Dao, see Harris (2016). 2  The term “Confucian” is often used to refer to the thought of Kongzi and those who saw themselves as following his ideals. However, while they share many ideas, there are important differences to be found in the thought of Kongzi and Mengzi (and later Confucians). The term “Mohist” is used to refer to those who followed the ideas of Mozi. An extensive discussion of the difference between Confucian and Mohist ethical thought can be found in Van Norden (2007). 3  For an overview of Confucian morality, see Ivanhoe (2000). For more on Confucianism and virtue ethics, see Tiwald (2010) and the essays found in Angle and Slote (2013). 4  For a brief overview of Mohism, see Ivanhoe (1998). For a book-length treatment, see Fraser (2016).

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5.1   Separating Morality and Politics Shen Dao as well is concerned with political order. However, for him, the question of how to achieve such order cannot be answered by ascertaining which actions are morally right or morally good. Rather, Shen Dao sees the questions of how to secure order and how, once it is secured, to ensure that it be maintained as distinctly political questions, and not ones which find their answers in the moral. Unlike the Confucians, he does not believe that it is possible to morally cultivate an appreciable percentage of any population, and unlike the Mohists, he does not believe that the results of rational thought necessarily have motivational force. Furthermore, unlike both groups, Shen Dao does not believe that even if one or another of the moral theories advocated were true, this would matter for the question of how to achieve political order.5 The fundamental question, as Shen Dao sees it, revolves around how to achieve political order in the actual world he inhabited, and this question itself revolved around the further question of how to get people to live together within a society without conflict of the sort that would pull that society apart at the seams, causing it to collapse back into chaos. This was a live worry for those living in Shen Dao’s times. The period within which Shen Dao lived is called the “Warring States Period” for a reason: conflict among the various states of the region that now make up Eastern China was unrelenting; states were regularly swallowed up by their neighbors, and the impact upon the members of these states, both winners and losers, was incalculable.6 In this sense, Shen Dao falls squarely into the political realist camp insofar as he developed a theory of political order based on the realities of his time in opposition to the more idealistic or utopian political theories of many of his contemporaries that focused on deriving political theory from their moral theories. On his account, normative political theorizing must necessarily be constrained by what is realistic or feasible given actual circumstances. This led the great Sinologist A. C. Graham to note that the “Legalists,” of whom Shen Dao is often listed as a member, were the first 5  Unfortunately, there has been little direct analysis of the contrasts between Shen Dao and either the Confucians or the Mohists, aside from Harris (2016). Other useful work speaking to contrasts between Han Fei, a later thinker who draws on Shen Dao for motivation, and the Confucians or Mohists includes Hutton (2008), Bárcenas (2012), Harris (2013), Van Norden (2013), and Harris (2020). 6  For discussions of warfare and its costs during the Warring States Period, see Lewis (1990) and Sawyer (2011).

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political thinkers in China “to start not from how society ought to be but how it is” (Graham 1989, 269).7 Shen Dao is an astute observer of human motivations and realizes that if any political theory is to achieve its goal of ordering the population of any society, then it needs to both understand human motivations and use this understanding to restrict its dictates. In short, Shen Dao subscribes to something close to what Owen Flanagan has described as minimal psychological realism: Make sure when constructing a moral theory or projecting a moral ideal that the character, decision processing, and behavior prescribed are possible, or are perceived to be possible, for creatures like us. (Flanagan 1991, 32)

Flanagan is here concerned with viable moral theories and ideals, but we may well think that a similar constraint applies to political theories and ideals.8 If a political theory requires a character, decision processing, or behavior that is impossible for the participants, that political theory will fail. And, in Shen Dao’s view, the character, decision processing, and behavior that the Confucians and Mohists need from the population in order to achieve their political goals simply are not possible for the vast majority of the population. Elsewhere, I have argued that Shen Dao identifies three important psychological dispositions: (1) human beings act based on their own interests, (2) their strengths and abilities vary, and (3) feelings of resentment and expectation arise when decisions that affect us are seen to be determined subjectively (Harris 2016). On his account, these are facts that must ground any plausible political theory, since any theory that does not restrain its normative claims in this way is bound to fail and is thus extremely dangerous insofar as attempts to put it into place will necessarily lead to the disintegration of order within a state. Here, I wish to focus in on the third point that Shen Dao raises, the idea that feelings of resentment arise when decisions that affect us are seen to be determined subjectively.

7 8

 There is much controversy over the term “Legalist.” For more, see Harris (2014).  For an argument against such a view, see Estlund (2011, 2020).

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5.2   Subjective Decisions and Resentment One way that perceived subjectiveness may be relevant is when we do not get the things that we desire due to the actions (or lack thereof) of other people. In such cases, it is not simply that we do not get what we desire, but rather that we believe that there is a chance of achieving our desires, and this is frustrated by some identifiable agent. Such a concern with resentment is something that anyone attempting to create political order will recognize. Regardless of whether one is a realist or a moralist in their political theorizing, most would accept that a situation in which significant numbers of those within a political organization nursed resentment toward those in power because they regularly found their expectations frustrated by the latter is one that is unstable. It is possible, then, to think of Shen Dao as beginning from the basic premise that, to the extent that resentment and untoward expectations are absent from the hearts of the people, a state is more well-ordered and more likely to succeed. So, what were the causes for resentment and untoward expectations on Shen Dao’s account? Resentment does not arise simply when we do not get something that we want. I might, for example, really want a time machine. But my inability to get a time machine has not led to any resentment on my part, and certainly not to resentment of my government. And, relatedly, I am not resentful about the fact that I am not a billionaire, don’t have a large house, and have to grade way too many student exams each semester. Why is this? On Shen Dao’s account, the trigger for resentment is not a lack of something we really want. Rather, resentment is triggered only upon the addition of a further criterion—we think that there is a realistic chance of our getting what we want and this chance is frustrated by others. The reason why I do not have a time machine cannot easily be traced to the actions (or inactions) of others. I don’t have a time machine because time machines do not (and perhaps cannot) exist. As such, I can have no expectation of receiving a time machine, regardless of how our society is organized.9 However, I could be resentful of the fact that I have not yet been named Chair Professor and Grand Pooh-Bah of Chinese Philosophy by the 9  I lack resentment in this case not because it is objectively impossible to get a time machine. Rather it is tied to my beliefs that time travel technology does not exist and that no one could provide such a machine. If I have this belief, then even if the technology does exist and is being hidden by the government, I would have no reason to feel resentment.

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president of my university. Why? Well, perhaps the president of my university has the power to confer such a title upon someone who is one of the world’s leading authorities on Chinese philosophy. I could imagine that I am one of the world’s leading scholars of Chinese philosophy and further that my university’s president is aware of this fact. If I thought all of this was true, I might be resentful of the fact that I still lack the title of Chair Professor and Grand Pooh-Bah of Chinese Philosophy. I could think that I deserve the title, think the president should be aware of this fact, think that the president has the power to give me the title, and see that the president has not exercised this power. Note that it does not matter whether I actually am a world authority on Chinese philosophy, whether the president actually understands this, or whether the president has the power to confer such a title upon me. What matters is my perception of the situation. If I think that I have a realistic chance of obtaining this title, based on my understanding of the relevant features of the situation, and I still do not get it, then my resentment is fully understandable. At any point in which we think that our achieving something is realistically possible, and furthermore that it depends on the discretion of another individual, resentment may well arise when this discretion is not exercised in our favor. Insofar as untoward expectation and resentment are destabilizing political forces, it is of the utmost urgency for the state to ensure that they do not arise. Such a point comes across again in  a fragment attributed to Shen Dao: [24] Casting coins to divide property and drawing lots to apportion horses is not done because casting coins and drawing lots lead to equal distribution. Rather, they are methods that cause those who do well not to know toward whom to feel grateful and cause those who do badly not to know toward whom to feel resentful. These are the means by which resentment and expectation are blocked. (Harris 2016, 110–111)

Leaving aside the repudiation of any role for fairness or equality in political theory, we can focus on Shen Dao’s point that resentment requires a target. If there is no individual to blame for my not getting something I want, then I will not feel resentful when I do not get it. What this implies, then, is that if we wish to eliminate (or reduce as much as possible) resentment in the hearts of the people, then the appropriate thing to do is to set up

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the state in such a way that people have no targets for expectation or resentment.10 Shen Dao reiterates these and related ideas in the following passage: [61–65] When the lord of the people abandons the law and relies on himself to govern, then punishments and rewards as well as firings and hirings will arise out of the lord’s heart. If this is the case, then those who receive rewards, even if appropriate, will always expect more, and those who receive punishments, even if appropriate, will ceaselessly expect leniency. When the lord abandons the law and relies on his heart to make judgments about severity, then the same accomplishments will have different rewards while the same crimes will receive different punishments. It is from this that resentment arises. Thus, those who apportion horses draw lots, while those who apportion fields cast coins. It is not because coins or lots are wiser than men, but rather they are the means by which to get rid of private interests and block resentment. Therefore, it is said: “Since a great lord employs the laws and does not personally act, affairs are decided by the law.” That which the law confers is such that each by means of its divisions receives their rewards and punishments and none expect [anything different] from their lord. Therefore, resentment does not arise and there is harmony between superior and subjects. (Harris 2016, 120)

Here we see an advocacy of the rule of law as opposed to the rule by individual, and it has as its implicit target political views such as those of the Confucians who emphasize the importance of a virtuous ruler making particularistic decisions from their position of epistemic privilege that allows them to determine how to react in all instances by correctly identifying the morally salient features of that situation. Regardless of how good or virtuous a ruler might be, their decisions will not necessarily be viewed by those under them in the same way as the ruler themselves views these decisions. Indeed, insofar as part of what it is to be a wise and virtuous ruler is to possess an epistemic privilege that is by definition lacking in those who are not wise and virtuous, the decisions of such a ruler can easily give rise to resentment and untoward expectation. A wise and virtuous ruler may have very good reasons to not give me what I want. However, because I am not cultivated and thus lack this wisdom and virtue, I cannot 10  We may think that people can become acrobatically ingenious in their continual creation of targets for resentment. While Shen Dao does not address this point, his likely response would be that minimization of these targets remains a more effective goal than any alternative.

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apprehend why the ruler is not giving me what I want. And even if I can on some level understand the reasons that the ruler points to, I cannot apprehend the full force of these reasons, precisely because I lack the epistemic position of the virtuous ruler. All I see is that I am not getting what I want and that the ruler is the cause of this; hence I resent the ruler. However, if I see the reason I do not get what I want to not be based on the subjective decisions of the ruler but rather on laws that are simply inviolable (like laws of nature), I will lack a target toward which resentment could build. Note that were it to be the case that the ruler made decisions in my favor and gave me what I desired, this would not solve the problem. Yes, I would feel grateful rather than resentful toward the ruler. However, others who thought that they should be given what I am given will themselves feel resentful toward the ruler for not getting what I have been given. Insofar as there is an identifiable decision-maker, decisions will lead to resentment of this decision-maker regardless of what the decisions are. Therefore, Shen Dao seems to say, to eliminate resentment, it is necessary to eliminate identifiable decision-makers. Thus, rule by individual, no matter how virtuous or meritorious such an individual is, must be eliminated. In its place, Shen Dao advocates the implementation of rule of law, but with a slight twist.11 Today, we see laws as being implemented by individuals—be they the head of state or some congressional or parliamentary body. And, insofar as laws have this origin, and, more importantly, are seen to have this origin, implementing a system of rule of law rather than a more direct rule by individual would not seem to alleviate Shen Dao’s worry about resentment. After all, if I see that a law is passed by Parliament or Congress, then I have an identifiable group toward whom to aim my resentment.

11  In contemporary political and legal philosophy, a distinction is often made between rule of law and rule by law. Rule by law uses the law as a tool of political power, whereas rule of law places the law above all individuals within the state, binding even the ruler. See, for example, Tamanaha (2004), 4. Shen Dao does not distinguish between these two and may have lacked the theoretical resources to do so. However, from what he does say, he is clearly advocating what we today would describe as rule of law.

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5.3  Developing a Sense of Law’s Inevitability What Shen Dao seems to conceptualize is a political system, a bureaucratic institutional Leviathan, in which it is difficult to identify a singular point of attachment or direction for resentment. We might turn to the later “Legalist” thinker Han Fei for a development of this response.12 Han Fei envisions the ruler as primarily a shadowy figure of state—a phantom oiler of the machine—rather than an active force. This in effect removes the ruler from the sort of position that would make one a clear object of resentment.13 Examining whether such a system could be recreated in the modern context, of course, must be left for another time. However, in thinking through this, it should be kept in mind that many of the laws and regulations that restrict our actions under many contemporary forms of government are not made by politicians in Parliaments or Congresses but are rather created and implemented by bureaucrats in various positions within the thoroughgoing political bureaucracy. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency develops, promulgates, and enforces a wide range of environmental regulations, even though it is a body independent from the US Congress and no politician votes to approve the EPA’s various regulations.14 While this may not eliminate targets of resentment, it certainly makes them much more remote and more difficult to identify.15 Shen Dao has an additional point to make about the law and the ways in which a system based on law removes resentment in a way that a system based on individuals cannot. His goal is not merely to set up laws in such a way that it is difficult to identify the promulgator of the law but, rather, to set up laws in such a way that they are viewed by the people in much the same way that we view the various patterns and regularities of nature. When a volcanic eruption, tornado, or other natural disaster occurs, we do not tend to feel resentment. We may be anguished at the results and feel a deep anger at what has happened, but insofar as we see it as the result of  See, in particular, chapter 5, “The Way of the Ruler,” in Sahleen (2005), 314–317.  For more on this aspect of Han Fei’s political philosophy, see Ivanhoe (2011) and Harris (2011). 14  There is, of course, a relationship between Congress and the EPA insofar as Congress has passed laws that give the EPA the power to enact regulations in a certain area. 15  There are also a range of customs and norms of forbearance that restrict our actions, and these norms (as well as a whole host of other customs and even, we might think, common law) have no easily identifiable source toward which to target resentment. 12 13

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natural forces over which no one could have control, resentment is not felt.16 If, then, it is possible to establish and implement a set of laws and have them viewed by the population in much the same ways as they view the laws of nature, then, in Shen Dao’s view, such a system would be able to bypass the worry of resentment.17 Establishing such a system will not, of course, answer all political questions nor, on its own, ensure that a state is well-ordered and capable of surviving. However, it provides a solid foundation upon which a long-­ lasting, stable, and secure political order might be built. This is not an idealistic political order. Rather, it aims at a realistic political order arising from an understanding of actual human psychology. It asks what actually gives rise to human resentment and thus what can be done to remove such resentment, and its potentially chaotic results, from the political calculus. Furthermore, this is not a political moralism. Not only does it not start from a conception of an ideal society (which Shen Dao would argue is a utopian fantasy), it does not start from any conception of what is morally good or right. Rather, it starts from a question of what will allow for, lead toward, and most reliably ensure political order, given the current situation. The normativity that arises from these questions is a political normativity, not a moral normativity. And this political normativity, while it may sometimes give rise to the same ‘ought’ claims as moral normativity, is in no way reducible to this moral normativity. Indeed, it will, Shen Dao thinks, at times deliver ‘ought’ claims that stand in stark opposition to the claims that could be derived from any substantive moral normativity.18 16  We could transmute anger at the results of such natural disasters to anger at a deity viewed as being responsible for the workings of the world, and this could give rise to resentment of such a deity. But, once again, it does so by identifying an agent, a target toward which feelings of resentment can appropriately be targeted. Absent this, it is hard to see how resentment toward the patterns of the natural world would arise. 17  One might think that it is still possible to feel resentment for a political law without knowing how it came about. If the law is unjust, we may resent it. I would argue though that the resentment in such cases would be directed at those applying the law—identifiable agents. Absent such identifiable agents, it is unclear that the fact that the political law is unjust would give rise to resentment any more than the fact that an earthquake killed your family and not the family of others would give rise to resentment—even if you saw it as unjust. I thank Marius Backmann for pushing me on this. 18  This leaves open the question of whether political or moral normativity should be followed when they conflict, but this question is beyond the scope of this chapter. For a deeper analysis focuses on Han Fei, an early Chinese political thinker who drew upon Shen Dao’s insights, see Harris (2013).

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This essay has endeavored to capture one aspect of the political realism of the early Chinese thinker Shen Dao and lay it out in such a fashion that we can understand its pull—why someone living in Shen Dao’s time and with his understanding of human psychology might develop this aspect of his political thought. What is left for the reader to do, then, is to evaluate the relevance of these ideas to a range of questions in contemporary political philosophy.

5.4  Teaching Shen Dao There are a variety of ways in which Shen Dao can fruitfully be brought to bear on a range of topics often covered in more traditional Western philosophy classes as well as courses that are more explicitly comparative in nature. Teachers could, for example, bring Shen Dao into conversation with political realists such as Williams and Geuss or use his ideas as a foil to morally imbued accounts of political philosophy found in the contemporary world. In doing so, it may be useful not only to draw out the fact that the debate over political moralism and political realism was not unique to the Western tradition but also to ask whether Shen Dao’s focus in his attack on the Confucians and Mohists draws out points that may have escaped the lenses of contemporary Western political realists. In particular, we could ask not only why Shen Dao focuses so much on resentment, but why this is not a focus of contemporary political realists, and how such a focus might affect contemporary deliberations.19 Teachers could also use Shen Dao’s political philosophy as a lens through which to investigate and potentially critique a wide range of political moralists including that lion of twentieth-century political philosophy, John Rawls. Shen Dao insisted on focusing on a political theory that dealt with the way people actually were and how they were actually motivated 19  It would be worth exploring the extent to which feelings of resentment toward the political elite have played a significant role in the decisions of voters in Europe, North and South America, and Asia, particularly since 2015 or so. Some work has been done in this area, particularly Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) who note that one key indication of a healthy democracy is forbearance, the point being that competitors recognize each other and feel no major resentment toward defeat. To the extent that this is lost, order is diminished. This is not to claim that contemporary philosophical analysis of resentment, anger, and so on is absent in the Western literature. It certainly makes an appearance in work on philosophy of race and feminist theory, among other areas. However, it has received less attention by those defending versions of political realism.

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rather than drawing on a morally imbued conception of how they could be. Rawls is often described as arguing that in establishing political communities, the right is prior to the good. But what is right on Rawls’s account is still a heavily moral concept. Shen Dao, on the other hand, in terms of such a vocabulary, would say that the political normativity tied to what creates and ensures political order is prior to both questions of the right and questions of the good in their moral senses.20 Digging into these questions and in particular looking at Rawls through Shen Dao’s eyes may help further the work of contemporary political philosophy regardless of which side one eventually comes down on. Shen Dao could also be used in courses that deal with various aspects and accounts of human nature and the implications of conceptions of human nature on both moral and political theorizing. Classes could analyze whether Shen Dao has accurately captured an overriding feature of human psychology. Recent advancements by cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers in the area of moral psychology, including Haidt (2012), Bloom (2013), and Flanagan (2016), endeavor to delve into what exactly human nature is like and the implications of this for both moral and political theorizing. What Shen Dao offers is one account not only of human nature, but of the extent to which this nature determines (or should determine) how we try to construct our political communities. Finally, courses dealing with questions about the source of laws may find it profitable to think about Shen Dao’s ideas on this matter. He seems clearly to be interested in creating laws that are viewed by the people in much the same way as they view the laws of nature—inviolable codes that, if broken, necessarily result in certain consequences. Such a view may lead to fruitful discussions about whether a mechanistic system of political laws of the sort that Shen Dao seemed to envision could ever be created and relatedly, whether it would lead to the sort of stability he imagined. Or would it fall prey to, among other things. H.L.A.  Hart’s famous ‘open texture’ argument which notes that (human) judgment is always necessary for the application of the law (Hart 1994: 128–36).21 20  Shen Dao is not arguing that this system is justified because moral goods require the sort of political stability that only his system can ensure. This may be a side effect, but it is not the goal, and, insofar as any moral goods subsequently developed potentially destabilize the system, he would advocate their elimination. 21  I wish to thank Marius Backmann, Thai Dang, Amber L. Griffioen, and Philip J. Ivanhoe for insightful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

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Recommended Reading Harris, Eirik Lang. 2015. Aspects of Shen Dao’s Political Philosophy. History of Philosophy Quarterly 32 (3): 217–234. ———. 2016. The Shenzi Fragments: A Philosophical Analysis and Translation. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. trans. Forthcoming. Shen Dao. In Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, eds. Philip J.  Ivanhoe, and Bryan W.  Van Norden, 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. ———. trans. Forthcoming. Han Feizi. In Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, eds. Philip J.  Ivanhoe, and Bryan W.  Van Norden, 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Rubin, Vitali. 1974. “Shen Tao and Fa-Chia.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 94 (3): 337–346. Watson, Burton, trans. 2003. Han Feizi: Basic Writings. New  York: Columbia University Press. Yang, Soon-ja. 2013. Shen Dao’s Theory of Fa and His Influence on Han Fei. In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, ed. Paul R.  Goldin, 47–63. New York: Springer.

References Angle, Stephen C., and Michael Slote, eds. 2013. Virtue Ethics and Confucianism. London: Routledge. Bárcenas, Alejandro. 2012. Xunzi and Han Fei on Human Nature. International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2): 135–148. Bloom, Paul. 2013. Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil. New York: Crown. Estlund, David. 2011. Human Nature and the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 39 (3): 207–237. ———. 2020. Utopophobia: On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Flanagan, Owen. 1991. Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2016. The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility. New York: Oxford University Press. Fraser, Chris. 2016. The Philosophy of the Mòzı ̆: The First Consequentialists. New York: Columbia University Press. Geuss, Raymond. 2008. Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Graham, A.C. 1989. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle: Open Court.

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Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage. Harris, Eirik Lang. 2011. Is the Law in the Way? On the Source of Han Fei’s Laws. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38 (1): 73–87. ———. 2013. Han Fei on the Problem of Morality. In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, ed. Paul R. Goldin, 107–131. New York: Springer. ———. 2014. Legalism: Introducing a Concept and Analyzing Aspects of Han Fei’s Political Philosophy. Philosophy Compass 9 (3): 155–164. ———. 2016. The Shenzi Fragments: A Philosophical Analysis and Translation. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2020. Mohist Naturalism. The Philosophical Forum 51 (1): 17–31. Hart, H.L.A. 1994. The Concept of Law. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hutton, Eric L. 2008. Han Feizi’s Criticism of Confucianism and Its Implications for Virtue Ethics. Journal of Moral Philosophy 5: 423–453. Ivanhoe, Philip J. 1998. Mohist Philosophy. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, vol. 6, 451–458. London: Routledge. ———. 2000. Confucian Moral Self Cultivation. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ———. 2011. Hanfeizi and Moral Self-Cultivation. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38 (1): 31–45. Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future. New York: Crown. Lewis, Mark Edward. 1990. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany: SUNY Press. Sahleen, Joel, trans. 2005. Han Feizi. In Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, eds. Philip J.  Ivanhoe, and Bryan W.  Van Norden, 2nd ed., 311–361. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Sawyer, Ralph D. 2011. Ancient Chinese Warfare. New York: Basic Books. Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2004. On The Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tiwald, Justin. 2010. Confucianism and Virtue Ethics: Still a Fledgling in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy. Comparative Philosophy 1 (2): 55–63. Van Norden, Bryan W. 2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. Han Fei and Confucianism: Toward a Synthesis. In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, ed. Paul R. Goldin, 135–145. New York: Springer. Williams, Bernard. 2005. In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER 6

Philosopher of Samarqand: Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī’s Theory of Properties Ramon Harvey

6.1   Introduction: al-Mat̄ urīdī in Context When one thinks about philosophy in the medieval Islamic world, the names of famous Muslim falāsifa may come to mind: for example, al-Kindı̄/Alkindus (d. 873), al-Fārābı̄/Alpharabius (d. 950–1), Ibn Sı̄nā/Avicenna (d. 1037), and Ibn Rushd/Averroes (d. 1198). A further prominent figure is the mutakallim (theologian) al-Ghāzālı̄/Algazel (d. 1111) who is notorious for his opposition to certain beliefs held by the falāsifa, despite the rather more interesting fact that he was also important for the incorporation of their philosophical methods into kalām (dialectical theology) (Wisnovsky 2004, 65). That each of these thinkers possesses a Latinized name is indicative of their acceptance in the medieval Western philosophical canon and their influence, to varying degrees, on major Christian theologians such as Aquinas (d. 1274). A name lacking this philosophical currency is Abū Manṣūr al-Māturı̄dı̄ (d. 944), a theologian of the Ḥanafı̄ tradition from Samarqand in Transoxiana. This is not a

R. Harvey (*) Cambridge Muslim College, Cambridge, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_6

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surprising state of affairs. Despite eventually being crowned the eponym of one of two main schools of kalām in Sunnı ̄ Islam along with the contemporaneous Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarı̄ (d. 936), al-Māturı̄dı̄ was for a long time not acknowledged outside his locality of Samarqand as a major theological figure, let alone in medieval Christian Europe (Rudolph 2015, 319–320; Aldosari 2020, 178). The vagaries of history that lead to a person’s fame are not precisely correlated with the originality or intrinsic philosophical interest of their ideas. Nevertheless, this perceived lack of influence has likely played a part in lessening recognition of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s intellectual contributions in contemporary study of the history of philosophy. In his Philosophy in the Islamic World, Peter Adamson, an important champion for the inclusion of Muslim theologians in the canon, devotes an entire chapter to “al-Ashʿarı̄ and the Ashʿarites,” but less than a paragraph to al-Māturı̄dı̄ and his school (see Adamson 2016, 373). Ulrich Rudolph, the author of the foremost intellectual history of al-Māturı̄dı̄ and his milieu, suggests that he does not have “a philosophical orientation in the conceptual framework of his thought” (Rudolph 2015, 315). This is a surprising judgment considering that Rudolph himself identifies points of likely influence from al-Kindı ̄ on God’s oneness and acknowledges al-Māturı̄dı̄’s theological use of Neoplatonic metaphysics (Rudolph 2015, 277).1 Rudolph’s point seems to be that despite using philosophical terminology and concepts, they do not impact the structure of his system. One of the aims of the present chapter is to show that, at least for al-Māturı̄dı̄’s theory of properties, these elements run deep. While, of course, it is not necessary to establish a connection to the ideas of a recognized Muslim philosopher for a theologian’s work to have philosophical merit, al-Māturı̄dı̄ can claim such a link (to al-Kindı̄) as a 1  There are other examples of Kindian echoes in the work of al-Māturīdī. See his statement, “the philosophers term [the human being] the microcosm” (wa-huwa alladhı̄ sammathu al-ḥukamāʾ al-ʿālam al-ṣaghı̄r) (al-Māturīdī 2010, 67). This appears to derive from al-Kindī who writes, “those of the ancient philosophers possessing discrimination who did not speak our language termed the human being the microcosm” (tusammā dhawū al-tamyız̄ i min ḥukamāʾi al-qudamāʾi min ghayri ahli lisāninā al-insāna ʿālaman ṣaghı̄ran) (al-Kindī 1950, vol. 1, 260). Also, al-Māturīdī’s use of the word māʾiyya (whatness)  finds a  precedent in al-Kindī’s On First Philosophy (Fı ̄ al-falsafa al-ūlā) (Adamson and Pormann 2012, 30). The most likely source for these teachings is directly from al-Kindī’s student Abū Zayd al-Balkhī (d. 322/934) or indirectly via al-Māturīdī’s Muʿtazilī rival Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī who is known to have met Abū Zayd (Rudolph 2015, 159). But the circulation of written material through less famous channels cannot be ruled out.

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complement to his original theological corpus. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that overemphasizing the distinction between medieval Muslim philosophers and theologians is unhelpful in general. Al-Kindı ̄, for one, makes clear that the task of philosophy is intrinsically theological because “first philosophy” is “the knowledge of the first truth who is the cause of all truth” (Adamson 2006). The aim of the present chapter, therefore, is to introduce the reader to philosophical aspects of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s thought, specifically through outlining his theory of properties, the role that it plays within his metaphysics, and how he uses it to advance his theological project. I intend to show that treating al-Māturı̄dı̄ seriously as a philosopher is intellectually rewarding, as well as important for a broader appreciation of the development of ideas in the tenth century.

6.2  Al-Mat̄ urīdī’s Metaphysics: An Early Trope Theorist? As a theologian within the formative period of kalām, al-Māturı̄dı̄ does not introduce his metaphysical ideas independently but elaborates them alongside his theological ones as needs dictate. It therefore becomes necessary to extract them from various places in his surviving theological treatise, Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d. This job is made more difficult by the dense and cryptic Arabic employed in this text, which is found in the unicum manuscript housed in the library of the University of Cambridge.2 The scholar of early kalām, Josef van Ess, aptly comments that al-Māturı̄dı̄ does not provide the theological context to each question under investigation but expects readers to be able to supply it themselves (van Ess 1981, 556). In some ways, Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d stylistically recalls Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which Hugh Lawson-Tancred compares to a palace or a cathedral, yet one “still covered in scaffolding, with gaps in its plaster and decoration and even with key structural elements tottering insecurely on makeshift supports” (Aristotle 2004, lii). Indeed, though there is no evidence that al-Māturı̄dı̄ had read the Metaphysics, he was possibly exposed to it indirectly, as the first Arabic translation was written for al-Kindı̄ (D’Ancona 2   The manuscript has been digitized. See https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/ MS-ADD-03651/1, accessed March 26, 2020. An edition was produced in 1970 by Fathalla Kholeif and another superior one in 2003 by Bekir Topaloğlu and Muḥammad Aruçi. References in the current chapter are to the second edition of this latter text. All translations from the Arabic of al-Māturīdī’s Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d in this chapter are mine.

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2009). One of many important differences between the two texts concerns their reception. Whereas the Metaphysics has generated its own supporting literature of commentary and translation through the ages, al-Māturı̄dı̄’s text was considered by his followers as containing “a little obscurity and prolixity, and a kind of difficulty in its order” (al-Bazdawı̄ 2003, 14), and was abandoned for more accessible texts that drew upon his ideas.3 Al-Māturı̄dı̄ does make active use of ontological terminology from an Aristotelian text to which he evidently did have access, the Categories. Specifically, he was familiar with the Arabic translation of the Organon, which he refers to as Al-Manṭiq of Arisṭāṭālı̄s and from which he lists the ten categories (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 215–216).4 The Organon was among the first Greek texts to be rendered into Arabic by the litterateur Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 757), or his son, in the mid second/eighth century (D’Ancona 2009). Accordingly, al-Māturı̄dı̄ classifies reality into the category of substance (ʿayn), by which he means a concrete particular, and the category of quality (ṣifa), the attribute or property possessed by it (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 105).5 But eschewing the Aristotelian hylomorphism adopted by the falāsifa, as well as the atomism that became prevalent in the kalām tradition, al-Māturı̄dı̄ develops a bundle theory to describe the nature of the world. Two creative Irāqı̄ thinkers of early kalām, Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. ca 815) and al-Ḥusayn al-Najjār (d. ca 845), both loosely related to the school of the Muʿtazila, seem to have provided the inspiration.6 These figures proposed that accidents, which are contingent qualities that must be possessed by their substances, comprise the fundamental ontology (Rudolph 2015, 3  For example, the Māturīdī theologian, Mankūbars al-Nāṣirī (d. 1254), quotes extensively from al-Māturīdī’s commentary on the Qur’an but does not even mention Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, demonstrating the extent to which this latter book had dropped out of regular circulation by his era (Aldosari 2020, 193). 4  In al-Māturīdī’s Qur’anic commentary, he mentions that though it is permissible to review the books of the falāsifa, one must take only what agrees with the Qur’an and leave the rest (al-Māturīdī 2006, vol. 9, 39). Based on his adoption of philosophical concepts, this “agreement” should be understood in an expansive, rather than restrictive, sense. 5  It seems that the use of ʿayn rather than jawhar for substance is a specific characteristic of the second-/eighth-century translation of the Categories (van Ess 1981, 559). Al-Māturīdī sometimes uses the term jawhar. See al-Māturīdī (2010, 215). 6  Cornelia Schöck points out that Ḍirār’s ideas are likely to have a Neoplatonic genealogy. She highlights several similarities with the commentary of Porphyry (d. 305) on the Categories and with the early Christian, Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395). See Schöck (2016, 66–70).

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245, 253; see also Cassin 2014, 835). The usual term in the kalām tradition for the accident is ʿaraḍ, which initially had the meaning of the perception of a phenomenon when an object presents itself (van Ess 2002, 9). The picture is of accident-like qualities, tropes in the contemporary philosophical vernacular, that form bodies as bundles with no underlying atomic substrate (see Sorabji 1988, 57). The influential classical Māturı̄dı̄ theologian Abū al-Muʿı̄n al-Nasafı̄ (d. 1114) records that al-Māturı̄dı̄ followed this stance since only accidents are perceptible. But al-Nasafı̄ does everything he can to undermine it, claiming it is a doctrine voiced in al-Māturı̄dı̄’s Maqālāt7 and therefore not his decided theological position (al-Nasafı ̄ 2011, vol. 1, 189–190; see also Rudolph 2015, 253). Some contemporary scholars have been keen to follow al-Nasafı̄ in this view (see Yavuz 2016, 56–57; Bulgen 2019, 262). Nevertheless, in his Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, al-Māturı̄dı ̄ is quite explicit that, within the creation, what is not a body (jism) is an accident (ʿaraḍ) (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 83).8 He goes on to explain that he prefers the term ṣifa for scriptural reasons: In the Book of God, the name ʿaraḍ is for desiring attractive things, such as in His saying, Most High, “You desire the attractions (ʿaraḍ) of the lower world” [Q. 8:67] and His saying, “Had it been a nearby attraction (ʿaraḍ)…” [Q. 9:42] So based on this, naming it a quality (ṣifa) is closer to the Islamic terminology (al-asmāʾ al-islāmiyya). (al-Māturīdī 2010, 83)

Digging deeper into al-Māturı̄dı̄’s ontology, it becomes apparent that substances are not just bundles of qualities but of particular property instances, or tropes. This emerges in the context of his dialectical exchange about 7  This is a lost heresiographical text. Kitāb al-tawḥı ̄d (Book of Unicity) and Kitāb al-maqālāt (Book of Doctrines) were standard Arabic titles for, respectively, Islamic theological compendiums and heresiographies in the tenth century. 8  There is an added difficulty to al-Māturīdī’s system insofar as he affirms the existence of opposing ṭabāʾiʿ (natures) within things: “every sensed thing is not free from being gathered from diverse opposed natures” (al-Māturīdī 2010, 78). Rudolph argues that these are a kind of ʿaraḍ that can form into bodies, rather than those characterizing momentary states (see Rudolph 2015, 256–259). This would make them akin to Ḍirār’s concept of abʿāḍ (sing. badʿ; parts, or primary qualities), which uses a similar distinction (van Ess 2018a, 41–43). I suggest that this picture is substantially correct and would add that al-Māturīdī also uses the term to speak about the diverse tendencies of specific things, approaching a concept of dispositions. I will not discuss them further here.

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divine speech with an unnamed interlocutor, likely the Muʿtazilı̄ Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbı̄ (d. 931). Al-Māturı̄dı̄ writes: [Al-Kaʿbī] claims: “Merciful (raḥı̄m) is an attribute, unlike mercy (raḥma). [This is because] everyone who performs the attribute of a thing, he is described by it; just as the one who reviles another or glorifies him is his reviler or glorifier. In the same manner, He created mercy and it is not permissible that He be attributed with it when He created it until He says, ‘I am merciful.’ So, by that we know that the attribute is His statement that He is merciful.”9 Abū Manṣūr, may God have mercy on him, says: how unaware he is of this confusion about the attributes so that he begins such in the explanation of the attributes of God; glorified is God above the like of this imagination, and He is transcendent. Were the attribute in reality [merely] the attribution of the attributor (waṣf al-wāṣif), it renders futile speech of the creation, because the creation is [made up of] substances (aʿyān) and attributes (ṣifāt). And it renders futile his [own] speech about joining together, splitting apart, movement and rest, which particulars are not free from in the affirmation of their temporality, though they are free from the attribution of the attributor for them. So, it is established that the attributes are integral to the particulars, not as he mentions. (al-Māturīdī 2010, 119)

Here, al-Māturı̄dı̄ contrasts his own position of attributes, which are integral to their concrete particulars, with his interlocutor’s concept nominalism, which grounds properties in the concepts held about them.10 An important part of his critique is the assertion that the opponent falls into incoherence if concept nominalism, which has been introduced for its deflationary account of divine attributes, is applied to the obviously real 9  Both printed editions of Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d render this phrase as “His statement, ‘Indeed He is merciful’” (qawluhu innahu raḥı ̄m) (al-Māturīdī 2010, 119; al-Māturīdī 1970, 56). That would imply a direct Qur’anic quotation, such as Q. 5:39: “Indeed God is forgiving, merciful” (inna allāha ghafūrun raḥı̄m). As there is no such phrase in the canonical text of the Qur’an, it may be better to read al-Māturīdī as using indirect speech, as follows: “His statement that He is merciful” (qawluhu annahu raḥı̄m). The manuscript allows for this possibility. See Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, “Kitāb al-tawḥīd,” Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, MS Add.3651, fol. 27r. 10  He makes the case more explicitly in al-Māturīdī (2010, 113–114). There is further discussion in el Omari (2016, 107). For an indication to the doctrine in al-Kaʿbī’s own writings, see al-Kaʿbī (2014, 101–102). Contemporary concept nominalism is outlined in Rodriguez-Pereyra (2008).

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properties found in the world. Al-Māturı̄dı̄’s presentation of his opponent’s response provides further elaboration of the two contrasting metaphysical treatments of properties: [Al-Kaʿbī] says: “We never said that God, when He creates redness in a garment, makes for it an attribute. Yet was redness to be an attribute for it, it would be permissible to say that when God created it: ‘He described the garment with [redness].’ And the same would be true for movement and rest. Like this is the one who writes to another describing his height, it is permissible to say: ‘he described himself to us in his letter.’” [Al-Māturīdī says:] [al-Kaʿbī] claims this is clear. Then [al-Kaʿbī] says: “We do not deny the permissibility of the unrestricted statement that redness is the attribute of the red thing, and mercy is the attribute of the action, but metaphorically speaking, while the reality is what I have mentioned.” Then [al-Kabī] objects on account of it thus being permissible that there is for the attribute an attribute. [Al-Māturīdī] says: yes, with the meaning that it is being described, but that is only in existence as long as the one describing it is speaking. When he stops speaking, it no longer exists. (al-Māturīdī 2010, 119–120)

In this passage, the opponent rejects al-Māturı̄dı̄’s claim that he ends up holding two inconsistent theories of properties. Al-Kaʿbı̄ points out that, according to his position, the existence of all properties is due to God’s description of them. That is, al-Māturı̄dı̄’s stance on integral properties is allowable as a useful metaphor, though concept nominalism is the literal truth. Then he launches his own objection, claiming that according to al-Māturı̄dı̄’s account, a property, for instance redness, would be given a further property by its conceptual description, which is incoherent. Such criticism of the meta-qualification of attributes (waṣf al-ṣifa) had been discussed prior to this. For instance, it is ascribed to the ninth-century theologian Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisı̄ (Al-Ṣaffār 2011, vol. 1, 208). Al-Māturı̄dı̄’s response to this critique is that it is not problematic for real property instances to be given a kind of temporary attribute when they are described, so long as it disappears thereafter. This would seem to make property concepts linguistic abstractions that refer to their real counterparts. As al-Māturı̄dı̄ observes, the different positions adopted by the two figures in their back-and-forth polemics are predicated on the direction in

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which each argues. For members of the Baghdadı ̄ Muʿtazilı̄ school, such as al-Kaʿbı̄, properties observed in the world are only metaphorically real, receiving their true reality from the concepts described by God and subsequently known to us. That is, the apparent concrete ontology of “redness” is a metaphor that can be used in speech, but really all properties come under their relevant divine descriptions. For al-Māturı̄dı̄, because we have no direct access to divine concepts, we should take observable properties as ontically real and the basis for reasoning about God. As he says: There is no way to know the veiled reality except by indication from the manifest one. Therefore, when one wants the description of the High and Majestic, that is the path of knowledge in the manifest world and [it provides] the possibility of speech. [This is] because we lack the capacity for cognising with names other than that which we have witnessed, and there is no pointing to what we have not taken in with the senses and realised through perception. Were that a capacity we possibly possessed, we would have said so. But [we desired] to remove any anthropomorphism from our statement “knowing not like the knowers” (ʿālimun lā ka-l-ʿulamāʾ), and this is the type [of approach] in all with which we name and describe Him. (al-Māturīdī 2010, 91)

Al-Māturı̄dı̄’s elucidation of divine properties is grounded in his twofold use of the principles of analogy (mithl) and transcendence (khilāf ). At the heart of his theology is the simultaneous affirmation of divine properties through the language of their observable analogues and denial of the accompanying whatnesses. According to al-Māturı̄dı̄, when we perceive something in the world, we can distinguish between its whatness (māʾiyya),11 or the kind of thing it is, and its isness (hastiyya), or its existing at all (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 70). This distinction between whatness and isness is conceptual rather than ontological. In other words, it is the mind that differentiates between what a given thing is and that it exists at all, rather than each concept corresponding to distinct aspects of its inherent metaphysical structure. The word māʾiyya derives from mā huwa (what it is), which is a translation of Aristotle’s Greek phrase for essence: to ti ên einai (lit. what it is to be a thing) (Cassin 2014, 1133). In al-Māturı̄dı̄’s words: “‘What is it? (mā huwa)’ means, ‘From what is its whatness known in the 11  I prefer “whatness” as a translation to “essence” because the latter carries a great deal of conceptual baggage.

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creation?’” (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 174). Hastiyya is an unusual word that comes from the Persian hast (is), meaning isness, or particular existence (Wisnovsky 2003, 157). Al-Māturı̄dı̄’s distinction between whatness and isness is central to his theological account of God’s properties, because whereas God’s existence and attributes can be affirmed, any inference to His whatness from the creation must be negated. Thus Al-Māturı̄dı̄ states: Then the meaning of our statement “a thing unlike things” is an annulment of the whatness (māʾiyya) of things [from God]. [A thing] is of two kinds: a substance (ʿayn), which is a body (jism), and quality (ṣifa), which is an accident (ʿaraḍ). So, it is necessary with respect to Him to annul the whatnesses of the substances, which are bodies, and qualities, which are accidents. When we remove the meaning of body from the substances, we negate the associated name, just as when we remove the anthropomorphic meaning (maʿnā al-tashbı̄h) from the affirmation and reject nullification of attributes (taʿṭı̄l), we negate the position [of anthropomorphism]. (al-Māturīdī 2010, 105)

The position that al-Māturı̄dı̄ reaches with respect to divine properties is termed by him “verification” (taḥqı̄q), or “affirmation” (ithbāt) (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 91). This is a stance in which God is conceived as a substance, or concrete particular, possessing substantive attributes, albeit ones whose whatnesses cannot be known due to their dissimilarity with their created analogues. So, God is “a thing unlike things” (shayʾun lā ka-l-ashyāʾ) and affirmed as having knowledge, yet not like that of human beings; hence He is “knowing unlike knowers.” For this procedure, al-Māturı̄dı̄ draws an inference from the Qur’anic verse Q. 42:11, “There is nothing like Him (laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ), yet He is the hearing, the seeing.” He uses this principle to negate a body, or accidents, to God, as “they are the explanation of the likeness of things” (humā taʾwı̄lā shibhi al-ashyāʾ). The idea is that similarity and opposition are indelibly linked to the created order in terms of its plurality, nonexistence, and contingency, and that these are all transcended by God in His oneness (al-Māturı̄dı̄ 2010, 89). His method bears some comparison to the ways of pre-­ eminence (via eminentia) and negation (via negativa) of Aquinas and before him Pseudo-Dionysius (see Rocca 2004, 22). Like these Christian counterparts, al-Māturı̄dı̄ allows God’s transcendent perfections to be known through analogy, while negating the equivalence to their worldly analogues.

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Yet al-Māturı̄dı̄’s application of metaphysics to God’s nature can be usefully contrasted with the often-associated idea of divine simplicity, which Sunnı ̄ theologians commonly encountered from the Muʿtazila school of thought. The version of simplicity that al-Māturı̄dı̄ ascribes to his main interlocutor, as already discussed, is a kind of concept nominalism, which he criticizes for reducing different attributes to merely mental individuations based on the naming of God’s actions within creation. Such a position makes divine attributes appear to be temporally generated, only arising once there is something in creation to be so named, and is linked by him to Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 745–46), a controversial early Transoxianan theologian: [T]he basic [position] against the denier of the attributes […] is that what Jahm says becomes necessary with respect to the nullification of [God’s] names, attributes, and to their temporal generation, so He would be unknowing and without power, then knowing. God is majestic and exalted over that. (al-Māturīdī 2010, 130)12

The canonical formulation of divine simplicity in the Christian tradition, whereby God’s attributes are explained as identical to each other and to Him, is found in Aquinas (see Vallicella 2006). The kind of view used by Aquinas does not receive much attention from al-Māturı̄dı̄, presumably because it was less prevalent in his immediate milieu.13 Nevertheless, it is clear that he would see such a position as violating his theological method in emphasizing transcendence at the expense of analogy, such that God could not be understood as possessing substantive properties at all. Moreover, he would have an obvious scriptural objection to considering God’s knowledge and power, for instance, to be identical. An important contrast here can be made with Duns Scotus (d. 1308) who understands God’s attributes to be formally distinct, meaning that they are not identical with God’s “essence,” nor with each other (Cross 1999, 43–45). Scotus’ position closely mirrors the classical theological position of the Ashʿarı̄ and Māturı̄dı̄ schools, which understand God’s essence (dhāt) as a kind of substratum in which His attributes are established. As the quotations in this chapter show, al-Māturı̄dı̄’s conception of 12  Al-Kaʿbī tries to respond to this criticism in his ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-jawābāt (al-Kaʿbī 2014, 101–102). 13  It can be found in certain members of the Basran school of the Muʿtazila, for example, Abū al-Hudhayl (d. 841–842) (al-Ashʿarī 1950, vol. 2, 236).

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God does not include such a reified substratum, rather relating Him directly to His attributes.14 What does this foray into al-Māturı̄dı̄’s theory of properties reveal about his philosophical inclinations and his contribution to the subject? To begin with, there is a definite Aristotelian bent to his thought. He cites Aristotle by name and, like him, reasons from empirical sensation toward metaphysical principles and ultimately the nature of God. This tradition was transmitted to him by the circle around al-Kindı̄ in Baghdad, giving to al-Māturı̄dı̄’s system a quality reminiscent of this early member of the falāsifa: a reception of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic themes within an Islamic theistic framework. Yet if al-Māturı̄dı̄’s fundamental metaphysics owes a debt to these influences, it is an idiosyncratic one, tempered by his access to Aristotle’s corpus, the influence of other early kalām, and his own systematic theological ambitions, which center the Qur’an. Although his dual ontology of substance and quality seems a pared down version of the Categories, it is one not impacted by the hylomorphism introduced in the Physics and developed in the Metaphysics (Ainsworth 2016). This is a significant departure from the main intellectual trajectory of the falāsifa, leading him to develop a sparse, almost modern, nominalism of concrete particulars and their property instances. Moreover, whereas al-Māturı̄dı̄’s system is partly an adaptation of the accident-led ontology of Ḍ irār b. ʿAmr and al-Ḥusayn al-Najjār, which has its own Neoplatonic antecedents, he leverages his Aristotelian categories for distinctively theological ends. Both of the above figures had held that God’s whatness is unknowable and took this in the direction of an entirely negative theology: divine attributes were defined by negations of actions (van Ess 2018b, 179–180). Al-Māturı̄dı̄ retains the criterion of divine transcendence but lets it apply to the category of quality, rather than substance alone. This allows him to affirm a positive ontology to God’s attributes as properties, while retaining their utter transcendence from their created analogues. An achievement of the unrecognized “Philosopher of Samarqand” is therefore a nuanced articulation of substantive divine attributes via a novel philosophical synthesis.

14  Note that al-Māturīdī uses the term dhāt within his system for God’s existent “nature.” But this should not be understood as a substratum stripped of His attributes.

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6.3  Using al-Mat̄ urīdī in the Philosophy Classroom The difficulty of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s prose makes his works tricky to comment on and to teach, a point not missed by his early successors. The lack of a reliable, annotated English translation of his major theological text, Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, is a further impediment to the inclusion of his thought in courses on the history of philosophy.15 Nevertheless, there is some cause for hope while scholarship waits for such a volume to arrive. The very absence of a recognized translation as a point of reference has forced contemporary researchers to provide lengthy translated quotations of key portions of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s text, as can be seen from this chapter. Such excerpts could be creatively used in a range of teaching environments. For example, someone teaching Islamic or, more generally, medieval philosophy and theology could bring in al-Māturı̄dı̄’s distinctive ideas on properties and their application to debates on divine simplicity, negative theology, and attribute theories. Study of these aspects of his thought is not only interesting in terms of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s specific solutions but shines a comparative light on dominant positions in the medieval Christian tradition, as alluded to above. When teaching an introductory course on the philosophy of religion, one may want to eschew the technical debates discussed in this chapter but still highlight the significance of al-Māturı̄dı̄’s original theological synthesis. Those who teach more systematic courses that involve tropes may also consider enriching and diversifying the historical context of their syllabus by including al-Māturı̄dı̄ as an early example of a trope theorist. Finally, he also has important ethical ideas that could be explored in comparison to other religious thinkers and philosophers.

Recommended Reading Cerić, Mustafa. 1995. Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of the Theology of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturı̄dı̄ (d. 333/944). Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization. Dorroll, Philip. 2016. The Universe in Flux: Reconsidering Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī’s Metaphysics and Epistemology. Journal of Islamic Studies 27/2: 119–135. 15  Note that one of the editors of the recent edition of Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, Bekir Topaloğlu, produced an explanatory Turkish translation in 2002. I have recently learnt through private correspondence with Tahir Uluç that he is working on publishing a complete English translation of the text, building on his own Turkish translation, which was published in 2021.

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Harvey, Ramon. 2021. Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturı̄dı̄ Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Rudolph, Ulrich. 2015. Al-Māturı̄dı̄ and the Development of Sunnı̄ Theology in Samarqand, Trans. Rodrigo Adem. Leiden: Brill.

References Adamson, Peter. 2006. al-Kindi. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), ed. Edward N.  Zalta. Last Modified February 21, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/al-­kindi/. ———. 2016. Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Adamson, Peter, and Peter E. Pormann. 2012. The Philosophical Works of al-Kindı̄. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Ainsworth, Thomas. 2016. Form vs. Matter. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. Last Modified March 25, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/ form-­matter/. Al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. 1950. Maqālāt al-islāmiyyı̄n wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallı̄n, ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, 2 vols. Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Miṣriyya. Al-Bazdawī, Abū al-Yusr. 2003. Uṣūl al-dı̄n, ed. Hans Peter Linss. Cairo: Al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya li-l-Turāth. Aldosari, Ayedh S. 2020. Ḥanafı̄ Māturı̄dism: Trajectories of a Theological Legacy, with a Study and Critical Edition of al-Khabbāzı̄’s Kitāb al-Hādı̄. Sheffield: Equinox. Al-Kaʿbī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī. 2014.ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-jawābāt, ed. Rājiḥ al-Kurdī, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī and Ḥusayn Khānṣū. Amman: Dār al-Ḥāmid. Al-Kindī, Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq. 1950. Rasāʾil al-Kindı ̄ al-falsafiyya, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Hādī Abū Rayda, 2 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī. Al-Māturīdī, Abū Manṣūr. 1970. Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, ed. Fathalla Kholeif. Alexandria: Dār al-Jāmiʿāt al-Miṣriyya. ———. 2006. Taʾwı̄lāt al-qurʾān, ed. Ertuğrul Boynukalin and Bekir Topaloğlu, 18 vols. Istanbul: Dār al-Mīzān. ———. 2010. Kitāb al-tawḥı ̄d, ed. Bekir Topaloğlu and Muḥammad Aruçi, 2nd ed. Istanbul: Maktabat al-Irshād. Al-Ṣaffār, Abū Isḥāq. 2011. Talkhı̄ṣ al-adilla li-qawāʾid al-tawḥı̄d, ed. Angelika Brodersen, 2 vols. Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut. Aristotle. 2004. Metaphysics, Trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin. Bulgen, Mehmet. 2019. al-Māturīdī and Atomism. ULUM 2 (2): 223–264. Cassin, Barbara, ed. 2014. Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Cross, Richard. 1999. Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Ancona, Cristina. 2009. Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/arabic-­islamic-­greek/. van Ess, Josef. 1981. Review of Kitāb al-tawḥı̄d, by Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, edited by Fathalla Kholeif. Oriens 27 (28): 556–565. ———. 2002. 60 Years After: Shlomo Pines’s Beiträge and Half a Century of Research on Atomism in Islamic Theology. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 8 (2): 1–23. ———. 2018a. Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra, Volume 3, Trans. Gwendolin Goldbloom. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2018b. Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra, Volume 4, Trans. Gwendolin Goldbloom. Leiden: Brill. el Omari, Racha. 2016. The Theology of Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhı̄/al-Kaʿbı̄ (d. 319/931). Leiden: Brill. Rocca, Gregory P. 2004. Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. 2008. Nominalism in Metaphysics. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/nominalism-­metaphysics/. Rudolph, Ulrich. 2015. Al-Māturı̄dı̄ and the Development of Sunnı̄ Theology in Samarqand, Trans. Rodrigo Adem. Leiden: Brill. Schöck, Cornelia. 2016. Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/745-6) and the ‘Jahmiyya’ and Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. 200/815). In The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke, 55–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sorabji, Richard. 1988. Matter, Space and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel. London: Duckworth. Vallicella, William F. 2006. Divine Simplicity. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. Last Modified February 27, 2019. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/divine-­simplicity/. Wisnovsky, Robert. 2003. Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 2004. One Aspect of the Avicennian Turn in Sunnī Theology. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14: 65–100. Yavuz, Yusuf Şevki. 2016. İmâm Mâtürîdî’nin Tabiat ve İlliyete Bakişi. In Büyük Türk Bilgini İmâm Mâtürîdî ve Mâtürîdîlik: Milletlerası Tartışmalı İlmî Toplantı, ed. İlyas Çelebi, 56–66. Istanbul: M. Ü. İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları.

CHAPTER 7

Toward a Critical History of Philosophy: Hannah Arendt and the Critique of the Meditative Tradition Aminah Hasan-Birdwell

7.1   Introduction: Arendt as Historian of Philosophy Hannah Arendt’s work does not follow the storyline attributed to many female intellectuals in the history of thought. Arendt has not been suppressed or excluded from the Western tradition as many other previous women philosophers; her work was widely received within various intellectual circles in the United States following her publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951 and her report on the trial of Eichmann, first

A. Hasan-Birdwell (*) Department of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_7

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published in The New Yorker in 1963.1 However, despite this reception of her work, the range of her contributions to the history of philosophy have not readily been included today alongside other émigré twentieth-century historians of philosophy and science, such as Ernst Cassirer, Leo Strauss, and Eric Voegelin.2 Arendt, like these historians of thought, rejected the positivism that dominated universities in the United States, and she was critical of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European Enlightenment philosophy and its effects on what is often referred to as “modernity.”3 These effects included apparently negative transformations of cultural, religious, or political life that left humans beings with diminished purpose or self-understanding. Each of these authors offered distinct responses to what they describe as the effects of the Enlightenment on Western civilization. Specifically, these thinkers were concerned with the notion of progress—whether scientific, political, or technological—that developed out of the nineteenth century into the twentieth. Cassirer proposed a radical reassessment of culture in light of these developments.4 Voegelin and Strauss, for their part, responded by advocating a return to an ancient Greek conception of philosophical and political thought.5 Arendt’s response to the critique of Western thought contains elements of both of these responses but additionally returns to considerations about the human condition in view of the political innovations of the twentieth century, namely totalitarianism. In Arendt’s early works, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958), she argues that the development of totalitarianism was marked by the transformation of labor practices by technology, 1  The report was published later in 1963 by Viking Press as Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. 2  Although Arendt gained a modest reception after World War II in the United States, she was not in sustained dialogue or collaboration, to any great extent, with other intellectual historians at the time. The only exceptions were brief correspondences with Ernst Cassirer and Eric Voegelin. In his correspondence with Arendt, Voegelin criticized Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism ([1951] 1979) as “emotionally distracted” and “historically inaccurate.” It is unclear whether this and other gendered criticisms against Arendt’s works affected the trajectory of her thought, but she evidently answered Voegelin with cordiality in her correspondence. See Baehr and Wells (2012, 364–380) and Aschheim (2007, 81–118). 3  For an extensive account of Arendt’s conception of modernity, see Arendt (1958, 258–289). 4  See Gay’s foreword to Cassirer (2009, vii–x). 5  See Voegelin (2000, 138–152) and Strauss (1965, 35–81, 1978, 1–12, 1996, 138, 143–144). See also Villa (2001), Beiner (1990, 238–254), and McAllister (1995, 13–16).

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the dissolving of the distinction between public and private dimensions of society, and finally the expansion of the nation-state. All of these transformations reflect not just a change of material conditions or livelihood of individuals in Western society but a shift in human expression: in particular, the withdrawal of the individual’s independence of action and judgment.6 In this respect, as Arendt argues, totalitarianism was a dangerous political phenomenon because it was predicated on the decline of political participation, conformity to public opinion, the suppression of free speech, and, most significantly, the inability of individuals to judge right from wrong. Arendt is concerned with the plurality or diversity of human capacities that condition existence, for example, the capacities for speech, judgment, action, and thought. In the present analysis, I will argue that, for Arendt, the decline in the understanding of the nature of these faculties—their plurality, activities, characteristics, and functions, including their roles within communal life—is twofold: it has its roots not only in the concrete political and technological innovations of the twentieth century, as established in her early works, but also in the history of philosophical thought. Although Arendt’s engagement with particular historical figures is evident in her early works, her interpretation of the history of philosophy, which plays a significant role in her later work, is undertreated in contemporary literature. The present analysis highlights Arendt’s distinctive method of reading the tradition, which emphasizes not only the genealogy or the historical development of ideas, but more significantly the social and political consequences of them. Although Arendt’s indictment of the history of philosophy does not come to full fruition until the 1970s, in a brief correspondence with Voegelin in 1951 Arendt argues for a clear link between the philosophical tradition and the recent political development of totalitarianism. In a reply to Arendt dated March 19, 1951, Voegelin rejects her assertion that the terrors associated with totalitarianism and modern anti-Semitism resulted from the Western tradition—or what he called the “order of truth through the Jewish prophets, the Greek philosophers, and Christianity” (Baehr and 6  In The Human Condition (1958) Arendt states she is concerned with the “general human capacities which grow out of the human condition and are permanent, that is, which cannot be irretrievably lost so long as the human condition itself is not changed” (6–17, 175–199). See also her account of the effects of the transformation of labor by technology and its effects on the faculty of action (139–152, 212–235).

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Wells 2012, 374). Rather, for Voegelin, the genocide of millions of human beings was a result of the decline of the Western tradition, particularly of its moral values and religious commitments. Arendt’s rebuttal to Voegelin (in a letter written in 1951 but never sent) reevaluates salient ideas within the tradition—whether philosophical or religious—to see if they might attend to or reproduce the political problems of their time. From the standpoint of politics, Arendt asserts that “there is something wrong with our philosophical tradition” (376). For Arendt, the crimes of genocide cannot be accounted for “in the old religious or moral categories” (376). The genocide of millions of individuals was not reducible to the mere act of killing but was tied into a network of human actions and efforts, including the building of the factories and extermination camps, the transportation of the victims, and so on. Arendt elaborates: “It is almost comic to speak of murder and ‘Thou shalt not kill’ when one is faced with the building of expensive factories for the manufacture of corpses—and these factories were built by people who had not the slightest interest in these murders and had, so to speak, nothing evil (in the traditional sense) in mind” (380). Anticipating her later arguments in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Arendt argues that evil in this sense is “banal”; it is not based upon diabolical or nefarious intentions but facilitated simply by the inability of individuals to think: the capacity to question what one takes for truth or knowledge. As she concludes in The Human Condition, “no other human capacity is so vulnerable” as thinking, “and it is in fact far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think” (324).7 Thinking, although not the same as moral judgment, has moral consequences. Arendt’s discussion of thinking is paramount to her assessment of the atrocities of the mid-twentieth century. The present analysis focuses exclusively on the role of thinking in Arendt’s interpretation of the history of philosophy. Her method of interpretation of the history of philosophy is especially centered upon the concept of thinking with respect to the meditative tradition and is treated in her later essays “Thinking and Moral Considerations” and “What is Freedom,” as well as The Life of the Mind (1978), which was published posthumously. Thinking in general, according to Arendt, involves an 7  This emphasis on thinking in the final pages of The Human Condition is significant, given that the analysis throughout the book is focused on action. The theme of the difficulty of thinking  or the inability to think dominates many of the moral and political questions in Arendt’s later work but was not yet extensively developed in The Human Condition.

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individual’s reflection about the experiences of the external world (objects, events, etc.) through an internal dialogue in which one can re-present the world to oneself via imagination. Thinking does not produce knowledge; rather, it signifies our ability to scrutinize what we seem to know and have experienced. Therefore, in Arendt, thinking is the precondition for judgment (to determine what is right and wrong), and without it an individual is susceptible to moral wrongdoing.8 Thus, thinking is not the same as a moral judgment, but it does have moral consequences. Within the scope of the history of philosophy, thinking is not employed exclusively in the service of philosophy, but the activity itself is at the root of all philosophical thought. Arendt specifically situates philosophy in light of the meditative tradition, within which she distinguishes the Socratic meditative tradition and the medieval meditative tradition inaugurated by Augustine’s Confessions. In her interpretation, the Socratic tradition, as represented in Plato’s dialogues, has an aporetic structure that does not produce a specific form of knowledge but just calls into question and scrutinizes a given concept or proposition. Moreover, the core evaluation in Arendt’s reading of the history of philosophy, which the present analysis will bring to light, is that the ancient view of meditation conceptualizes thinking as a process that proceeds from internal dialogue in order to attend and respond to what is outside the mind. The medieval tradition for Arendt overturns this orientation of thinking in its association of free will or freedom with the thinking process. The Augustinian tradition, she maintains, removes the thinking process from the evaluation of the external world and confines it to a dialogue that is wholly internal to the individual, with no external object of evaluation. In the Augustinian sense, then, thinking allows one to transcend politics, social bonds, and the external world in order to experience freedom. This stands in direct opposition to the ancient conception that was articulated within the boundaries of social and political life. The decline of the ancient meaning of thinking, Arendt claims, had devastating effects not only on the intellectual development of Western societies but also on its political and moral circumstances. The “inability to think” represented by the modern period is causally linked to this change in the concept of thinking in the history of philosophy, which is best described as the internalization of the medieval

8  In Arendt, thinking must be distinguished from contemplation (theoria) because it does not produce knowledge (gnôsis).

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approach to thinking. This change set the precedent for the general cultural trends of the twentieth century. The following analysis is organized into three sections. Section 7.2 treats Arendt’s concept of thinking in general and its ties to her diagnosis of twentieth-century modernity. Section 7.3 looks at Arendt’s narrative concerning the history of philosophy, which is defined in relation to the meditative tradition. Here, I demonstrate that Arendt’s conceptualization of the tradition sets up the Socratic understanding of thinking in opposition to the Augustinian understanding ushered in by Epictetus and characterized by the desire to find freedom in thought rather than in the interpersonal relationships constituted by communal life. Section 7.4 concludes with a brief consideration of how Arendt’s treatment of the history of Western philosophy can be relevant to the current ways we teach philosophy. Although not unproblematic, her narrative concerning the meditative tradition and her focus on the social and political consequences of the history of philosophy demonstrate the relevance of her interpretation to the present and can assist in course discussions on how we might read the philosophical canon today.

7.2   Arendt on Thinking and the Crisis of Modernity In her essay “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Arendt (2003b) speaks to the decline of thinking in the twentieth century. She does not attribute it to a cultural nihilism or “the modern deaths of God, of metaphysics, of philosophy, by implication, of positivism” (162). Nothing external, in this respect, prevents the ability to think. Thinking, as she argues throughout her work, is not limited to philosophical movements, although the philosophical tradition has affected our understanding of it. This is important because the decline of thinking, as it relates to the history of philosophy, refers only to its meaning or articulation in the history of thought and its moral and political function within society, not to the possibility of engaging in the activity itself. If a person chooses not to think, a choice that has its own moral implications, it is not due to what he or she knows but is a decision on how one should live. This is due to the fact that thinking is primarily centered around a relationship one has with oneself. In a sense, as Jerome Kohn (2003) remarks, Arendt’s concept of thinking “exemplified the ancient

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injunction to Know Thyself” (xxxii). To think, according to Arendt, is to “be engaged in that silent dialogue between me and myself,” and it bears on self-knowledge insofar as it involves the awareness I have of what I think I know of myself (in terms of truths and values) and the world (Arendt 2003a, 2003b, 39). However, thinking or reflection does not stay within the confines of self-knowledge but serves to bring the individual back to engagement with the world. Thinking is thus also the ability to recall back to one’s own mind through imagination the “objects that are absent, removed from direct sense perception,” such that the object of thought is “always a re-presentation, that is, something or somebody that is actually absent and present only to the mind” (Arendt 2003b, 165). Although thinking does not have a purpose or designated end because it is an open process, it does have an important moral and political function. The ways the activity of thinking disorganizes our relation with the world through imagination and the re-presentation of the world describe not only the phenomenology of thought but also how the process of thinking itself gains its meaning. That is, when one thinks, one maintains a critical distance with (a) oneself and (b) impressions of the world in general. At the level of the self, when one thinks, one engages with oneself, a self that observes and remembers and also that imagines and examines. Thus, one becomes a plurality, a two-in-one, a “thinking ego and its experience” (Arendt 2003b, 184). The activity therefore does not reflect a monolithic self but involves a multiplicity, because it implicates a dual existence or difference within oneself. This difference or duality within the self in thought should be distinguished from how one readily identifies oneself outside of thinking, which is always an experience of “being one” (184). Thinking brings one to a critical distance from oneself and the world by gathering previous impressions of “sense-given objects” or states of affairs (184). In this respect, thinking begins with an internal dialogue and proceeds to outward reflection about one’s relation to the world; it never remains a mere internalization of one’s own experiences. As an activity removed from the world of mere perception and action, thinking does not yield a product, such as knowledge or value, but rather can serve to dismantle what originally appeared to be knowledge or value. Arendt describes this act of dismantling our previous impressions of the world in the process of thinking as an “unfreezing” or “defrosting” because it dispels not the impressions themselves but the value or truths we take them to contain (172–173). All impressions of the world hold meaning for us, and only when they are removed from the senses are we

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able to think about them—to access and scrutinize how we previously defined them. For example, a courtroom may represent to us justice or the authority of the law, given our personal experiences or the status quo, but through a critical distance this meaning can be cross-examined, allowed a variation of interpretation, and consequently changed. These observations about Arendt’s notion of thinking and its phenomenology raise many larger philosophical questions and problems that cannot be treated in this analysis. However, the important element for this preliminary exploration of the nature of thinking is its ability, not to produce or build anything, but only to dismantle. The concept of thinking, and specifically its ability to dismantle previous beliefs, remained at the forefront of Arendt’s later works and particularly within her response to totalitarianism and fascism. From this perspective, thinking is what enables one to resist the conditions of fascism because it dissolves the conformity of thought on which fascism relies. It is complacency of thought that allows a complicity with acts of a government; it is not a matter of mere obedience (Arendt 2003a, 46). In her 1964 essay “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” Arendt treats thinking as the precondition for moral judgment, or the declaration of something as right or wrong. Thinking allows the individual to doubt and evaluate the status quo or social norms in order to adjudicate between alternatives in a particular situation. According to Arendt, an individual’s acceptance, without protest, of the suffering or murder of others cannot be explained by arguments of the “lesser evil” or by political participation conceived through a cog-in-the-machine theory but only by the lack of judgment, which does not depend on established moral norms and is “unsupported by law and public opinion” (41). For Arendt, there is a “dividing line” between individuals that is not a matter of moral purity or adherence to doctrines, but the simple “line between those who want to think and therefore have to judge by themselves, and those who do not,” which “strikes across all social and cultural or educational differences” (Arendt 2003a, 45). One has a duty to think because all moral conduct “depend[s] primarily upon the intercourse of man with himself” (Arendt 1961a,  67). However, thinking also plays a role in the order of political life, not only at the level of consent, but also political participation in general. According to Arendt, to think, and consequently to judge, has a political role in two respects: (1) thinking challenges the values, doctrines, and theories that support the status quo, and (2) thinking allows one’s reflections—after the dismantling of the status

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quo—to be conspicuous, standing out against the norm, which according to Arendt is a form of political action, because it can enable one’s refusal to participate in the present state of affairs, for example, via civil disobedience (Arendt 2003a,  48).9 Moreover, the retrieval of the meaning of thinking, specifically the “liberating effect of thinking,” is a significant piece of Arendt’s response to the political and moral conditions of the mid-twentieth century. Her retrieval of the meaning of thinking is also a decisive feature of her reading of the history of philosophy.

7.3  On the Socratic Tradition and the Purported Decline of Thinking in the Medieval Meditative Tradition Socrates represents for Arendt the first philosopher who was able both to make the activity of thinking intelligible and to show that the activity is necessary to but distinct from public life because thinking scrutinizes or calls into question its presuppositions. Socrates’ dialogues, she contends, do not yield knowledge or truth, but are definitively aporetic, meaning they are irresolvable; the argument “either leads nowhere or it goes around in circles” (Arendt 2003b, 170). In the Socratic tradition, the critical and aporetic nature of thought was not only what defined a life worth living but also what was necessary for the health of the polis itself. However, according to Arendt, the philosophical innovations of the medieval period attributed different features to the thinking process; medieval thinkers did not thereby eliminate its critical aptitude but additionally designated it as a place of freedom. A central thesis often repeated throughout Arendt’s work is the medieval, and specifically Augustinian, association of thinking with the freedom of the will. This association has a political-historical development, as well as a philosophical one. In terms of the historical movement, Arendt argues that, given that early Christians were denied freedom in the political realm, they sought a non-political freedom through salvation: “[…] they demanded to be absolved in order to be free. And this Christian non-political freedom for the sake of salvation has been preceded […] by the philosophers’ abstention from politics as a prerequisite for the highest and freest way of life” (Arendt 1961c, 151). Moreover, she contends that the concept of love (caritas) in 9  Arendt elaborates on the notion that refusing to participate is political action in the essay “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship” (2003a).

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Augustine’s Confessions yielded anti-social and anti-political effects, arguing that the notion of love of God implied in the term caritas directs an individual away from the affairs of the world and consequently away from the necessities of political life. It must be noted that Arendt conceives of the medieval tradition predominantly through Augustine’s philosophy, the ideas of which she believes to be determinate and canonical for the tradition (145–146). The concept of the freedom of the will in thinking did not originate from the historical emergence of Christianity alone but from the Hellenistic philosophy of Epictetus, who, as Arendt acknowledges, also rejected political freedom in favor of internal orientation with oneself (147–148). In Epictetus, there is a clear emphasis on transposition of “worldly relationships into relationships within man’s own self” (146). As a result, power was conceptualized as absolute insofar as it was a total power that a man wields over himself. Epictetus, in this respect, gave us the first glimpse of the medieval notion of contemplation that Arendt believes would be fully actualized in Augustine’s Confessions: namely, the reordering of oneself in relation with the world within the solitude of the mind, in which the individual can transcend all material conditions and fully govern, or rather have authority over, oneself. The association of thinking with freedom of the will, Arendt thinks, produced two harmful effects. The first effect is that it changed the thinking process into a purely internalized experience. Thinking, from this perspective, became depicted as an achievement of a state of being free. As a result, she claims, thinking lost its scrutinizing inclination and aporetic nature. Thinking in the medieval meditative tradition, as Arendt interprets it, signifies contemplation, where solitude excludes the impressions of the world.10 The second effect of the medieval meditative tradition is that it disassociated the thinking process from the polis or communal life. This effect points toward the conditions of the later decline of the meaning of thinking in Arendt’s analysis of the twentieth century. This de-politicized notion of thinking conflates the experience of freedom with that of solitude and “inward freedom” (Arendt 1961c, 146). By definition, for Arendt, genuine freedom, unlike the experience of solitude in contemplation, is dependent on acting with others in the polis, and it is indeed “the reason that men live together in political organization at all” (146). 10  Arendt does not elaborate on this claim in any extensive detail, but it appears that she associates the contemplative (theo¯ría) with its depiction as the source of the reflection on the Good (Republic [540a–c]) or on the Beautiful (Symposium [210b–212a]).

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As discussed above, there are three essential qualities of thinking for Arendt: (1) thinking is an activity that remains in itself, within the confines of the internal dialogue between me and myself; (2) it involves a critical examination of things one has experienced or assumes one knows; and (3) in this examination it often leads to perplexity instead of reconciliation. For these reasons, the aporetic dimension of the Socratic dialogues demonstrates to us that thinking is not concerned with the pursuit of truth, nor is it merely principled skepticism. Socratic dialogues in this sense lead nowhere, but their sole end is to unearth contradictions, as demonstrated by the structure and outcomes of their arguments; they rarely stay put or demonstrate something definitive. Socrates’ role is to reveal the unruly nature of the arguments, through “asking questions to which he does not know the answers [.…] And once the statements have come full circle, it is usually Socrates who cheerfully proposes to start all over again and inquire what justice or piety or knowledge or happiness are” (Arendt 2003b, 170–171). The discursive style of question-answer may be distinctive to Plato’s depiction of Socrates, but Arendt’s interpretation of this style attempts to “transform a historical figure into a model and assign to it  a definite representative function” (169). Socrates’ representative significance is not only that he makes what was a private experience (of the thinking process) into a public expression but also that he exhibits what the actual process does to our unexamined notions and experiences. The aporetic inclination of the thinking process is represented in three similes Socrates attributed to himself (Arendt 2003b, 173). The first is the analogy of the gadfly in the Apology: he rouses and disturbs the citizens, bringing them out of their sleep. The second is the midwife in the Sophist: Socrates purges people of their opinions and assists in the birth of their ideas. And finally, Arendt draws attention to the image of the electric ray in the Seventh Letter: here Socrates paralyzes interlocutors, interrupting their activities so that they stop and think. All of these expressions of Socrates point to both the aporetic and the socio-political function of thinking. Of course, there is also a danger in the thinking process because it requires, at least initially, a negation of the present values and opinions held in society at large. Thinking, as Arendt describes it, “dissolves the normal” (179). The charge of Socrates corrupting the youth in the Apology itself suggests the disorder that thinking brings to cities and their citizens once individuals begin to question the “established signs by which men orient themselves in the world” (178).

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Thinking in the Socratic fashion has no outcome for Arendt, nor is it part of the path of understanding; it is only a critical assessment. For Arendt, the account of meditation or thinking found in the Augustinian tradition of medieval philosophy does not lose this critical or antagonistic nature, but the object of its examination becomes not past beliefs or opinions, which are grounded in experiences of the world, but the individual or the self. Arendt depicts the Augustinian form of meditation as a “struggle against” oneself, which in Epictetian fashion is a struggle for absolute liberation from the troublesome or contradictory parts of the self (Arendt 1961c, 157). This internal struggle for the freedom of the will is best described by Arendt as a retreat from the external to the internal instead of a passage from the internal to the external, as we saw in the Socratic dialogues. The prior movement is an inner strife where one is contesting “what I would and what I want to do,” which, Arendt contends, represents the “murderous dialectics [that] disclosed first to Paul and then to Augustine the equivocalities and impotence of the human heart” (148). The latter movement from the internal to the external, Arendt believed, was essential to the understanding of meditation held by the ancients, who were, she argues, not concerned with the “goodness” of actions but rather the weight those actions have in relation to one’s own efforts and self-­ reflection (Arendt 1961b, 137). The ancients were concerned with the outcome of one’s actions for oneself (e.g., “Can I live with myself?”) and also for others (“Can I live well with others?”). The antagonism involved in the internal struggle in the Socratic dialogues—for example, in the Republic or the Gorgias—leads neither to self-domination nor to absolute liberation but simply to being in “in-tune” with oneself (Arendt 2003b, 181). The medieval form of non-political freedom (freedom of the will), situated in the interplay with ourselves, becomes not a matter of self-­ attunement but rather a matter of an inner feeling and a choice, where an individual can retreat from the world external to the mind and not be coerced by anyone or anything (Arendt 1961c, 146). This Augustinian transformation opposes the ancient tradition insofar as it articulates freedom in relation to the will, which before was thought to be attached to the ability to act (action) but is now being characterized as existing under the command of the mind. Specifically, if the will can will itself through a mere choice or command, it can both command and be obeyed. For Arendt, the “solitude which sets the thought process into motion has the exact opposite effect on the will: it paralyzes and locks in itself; willing in

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solitude is always velle and nolle, to will and not to will at the same time” (157). Freedom in the Augustinian tradition is primarily defined as liberum arbitrium, a free choice: “The mind commands the mind, its own self, to will, and yet it doth not” (239, n. 15). Freedom, in this sense, is gained not from one’s ability to act or to begin something new, outside of habit, but centrally resides in the solitude of thought. The ability to start anew through action is central to Arendt’s theory of action as described in The Human Condition; it marks the decisive distinction between the ancient and modern conception of freedom for the twentieth century as well. For the ancients, to act is connected to the polis and to the “deeds and events we call historical” (Arendt 1961c, 165). To act means “to be with others,” and it is also, by definition, to start or begin (ἅρχειν) and “carry something through” (πράττειν), which, according to Arendt, corresponds to the Latin word agere. However, action and freedom, when conceived as the vehicle of the will, lose their communal meaning because they are no longer attached to the worldly experience but are instead circumscribed by a place of solitude. The ultimate outcome of this association of freedom and free will with thought is, Arendt thinks, its long-standing, and unquestioned, presence within the philosophical tradition and the evolution of ideas (167).

7.4  Conclusion: Arendt’s Relevance to the Task of Pluralizing the Tradition Simply stated, for Arendt an individual cannot be free in thought, and thinking (unlike contemplation) cannot have a goal or outcome.11 Both of these attributes of thinking are at the heart of Arendt’s interpretation of the history of philosophy with respect to the Augustinian meditative tradition and, more significantly, to her diagnosis of modernity and critique of totalitarianism in her later work in the 1970s. The two attributes are inextricably linked. Prior to the internalization of Augustinian philosophy, thinking in the Socratic meditative tradition is always contextualized with respect to the polis and the communal life of the individual. However, for Arendt, this does not entail that the  experience of freedom in the polis 11  See Arendt’s (1961a) notes to the essay “The Concept of History” (231). Contemplation, which for Arendt is opposed to thinking, has been characterized in various traditions as the process that brings an individual to truth, either as a condition or as an outcome of contemplation itself.

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coincides with the experience of thinking. Thought and action are two distinct activities that cannot exist simultaneously and reflect the plurality of the human condition. This claim asserts that the “inability to think,” the endangerment to human plurality represented by the modern period, is the internalization of thinking in the medieval period, setting a precedent for the general cultural trends of the twentieth century. The endangerment to the plurality of the human condition was twofold. First, the medieval tradition resulted in an elimination of the individual’s internal plurality, negating the relation of “me to myself,” and undermining the distinctness of the capacities of thought, judgment, and action. This elimination of internal plurality had disastrous political consequences. For Arendt, individuals, bereft of the capacity to think, became complicit in totalitarian political systems whose effects (or perhaps very purposes) were to suppress human plurality. All of this being said, there are definite limitations to Arendt’s analysis. The first and foremost is that her interpretation of the medieval period is determined by her reading of Saint Augustine and the impact of the Pauline tradition: this not only excludes hundreds of years of philosophers that are contained within these traditions, but it also does not give air to any transformations of the notion of thinking outside of Augustinian philosophy. Furthermore, Arendt’s interpretation of the canon was limited to her mid-twentieth-century notions about the history of ideas, which tended to exclude women and people of color. It is unclear whether Arendt’s interpretation of the medieval tradition and her evaluation of its compatibility with political life would be altered if she had read Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, or even Teresa of Ávila. Still, the methodology of Arendt’s reading of the history of philosophy is significant and distinctive in two senses: it was predicated on a response to present circumstances, and it applied an analysis that centers on approaches to human capacities. Although there are obvious limitations of this interpretative model of history, it offers substantial insight into ways of integrating a diverse reading of the tradition into the classroom, linking the tradition with reflections on the diversity of students’ lived experiences. Arendt’s critique of the medieval meditative tradition expresses (1) the necessity for reading various accounts of the history of philosophy and (2) the implication of these various readings for the political and social organization of society, even in its most extreme circumstances. Arendt does not establish a robust theory of culture to trace, for instance, the influence of the philosophical tradition on common notions of political

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participation in the twentieth century, but she does nevertheless demonstrate a confusion and discontinuity within the tradition. She accounts for the disappearance of a notion of thinking that not only preconditioned the individual for political participation but was also necessary for moral reflection in general. I believe Arendt’s method pushes the reader to reflect on the fact that the philosophical tradition, whatever our perceived reception and interpretation of the tradition, has direct consequences on the way we live. Moreover, Arendt’s methodology represents a meta-philosophical analysis of the ways in which we construct the history of philosophy, which has both epistemic and moral and political consequences. This methodology and the analysis of thinking can be integrated into courses focused on various methods of reading history of philosophy, twentieth-century philosophy courses, introductions to philosophy, advanced philosophy courses focused on receptions of the Socratic dialogues, and social and political philosophy courses focused on ideas of political participation. Indeed, Arendt’s reading of the history of philosophy can be used as a platform to engage students on questions such as: What are the implications of reading the history of philosophy today? Does her method help us evaluate our present-day circumstances? And finally, when considering various methods to interpret the history of philosophy, is Arendt’s focus on moral and political consequences plausible?

Recommended Reading Arendt, Hannah. 1968. Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. ———. 1970. On Violence. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ———. 1972. Crisis of the Republic. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Gines, Kathryn. 2014. Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Wurgaft, Benjamin Aldes. 2016. Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

References Arendt, Hannah. (1951) 1979. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harvest. ———. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1961a. The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern. In Between Past and Future, 41–90. New York: The Viking Press.

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———. 1961b. What Is Authority? In Between Past and Future, 91–142. New York: The Viking Press. ———. 1961c. What Is Freedom? In Between Past and Future, 143–172. New York: The Viking Press. ———. 2003a. Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship. In Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn, 17–48. New York: Schocken Books. ———. 2003b. Thinking and Moral Considerations. In Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn, 159–189. New York: Schocken Books. Aschheim, Steven. 2007. Beyond the Border: The German Jewish Legacy Abroad. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baehr, Peter, and Gordon Wells. 2012. Debating Totalitarianism: An Exchange of Letters Between Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin. History and Theory 51 (3): 364–380. Beiner, Ronald. 1990. Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss: The Uncommenced Dialogue. Political Theory 18: 238–254. Cassirer, Ernst. 2009. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Kohn, Jerome. 2003. Introduction. In Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books. McAllister, Ted V. 1995. Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Postliberal Order. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Strauss, Leo. 1965. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1978. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1996. Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. In Leo Strauss, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought, ed. Kenneth H. Green. Albany: State University of New York Press. Villa, Dana. 2001. Socratic Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Voegelin, Eric. 2000. Modernity Without Restraint, ed. Manfred Henningsen. Columbia: University of Missouri.

CHAPTER 8

“Pervading the Sable Veil”: Phillis Wheatley as Early Modern Philosopher of Religion Jill Hernandez

“When God’s eternal ways you set in sight And Virtue shines in all her native light, In vain would Vice her works in night conceal For Wisdom’s eye pervades the sable veil” —Phillis Wheatley, “To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory” (1773)

At a time in which philosophy is engaging in much-needed introspection about the content and contours of its canon, early modern philosophy is in many ways leading the charge to extend the mantle to previously ignored voices. Apart from the well-worn worry over what counts as philosophy, early modern studies face the challenge of uncovering voices that are difficult to identify because either they wrote in guises other than traditional philosophy or they did not write at all but were part of an oral tradition. This chapter claims the work of one such voice and contends that the early modern, African-American poet Phillis Wheatley can be read

J. Hernandez (*) Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_8

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as a philosopher, especially as a philosopher of religion, whose poetry provides interesting philosophical fodder for so-called narrative theodicies. Despite literary scholarship’s own debate about whether Wheatley’s work is strong enough to be considered “poetry” (a debate born when Thomas Jefferson disparaged Wheatley’s work in 1774 as proving that “the Negro lacked imagination and was dull, tasteless, and anomalous,” Flanzbaum 1993, 71), Wheatley’s poetry is rife with philosophical content. On one hand, Wheatley can be considered the foremother of the written American literary tradition, given that she is the first African-­ American female and only the second female American to have her poetry published. Voltaire even paused in his criticism of the freshly penned Leibnizian theodicy to declare her 1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral to be “genius on all parts of the earth.” Yet on the other, her poetry has received critiques as varied as being written in a neoclassical “white” style, poorly imitating Alexander Pope, and not reflecting the black experience (Walker 2011). Although contemporary literary scholarship on Wheatley no longer perseverates on the authenticity of her work, significant disagreement remains over the extent to which her poetry serves as a significant, unique literary contribution beyond the fact that it was written by a teenage female slave. In philosophy, there is no such debate, because no one has yet raised the question over whether the content of Wheatley’s work should be considered “philosophical.” This chapter will suggest that, akin to much of the reticence to expand the early modern canon to other figures, whether Wheatley can be considered a philosopher is more an issue of whether philosophers can constructively engage with poetry than whether it is philosophical. After giving a brief biographical sketch, then, this chapter will examine a number of Wheatley’s poems to uncover key philosophical concepts in the work, many of which center on the problem of moral evil. This will allow me to demonstrate that Wheatley’s poems are philosophical and should count as a philosophical source, and to argue that (as philosophy) Wheatley’s philosophy of religion contributes to the contemporary discourse over the problem of evil. That Wheatley’s work could be included in the canon is striking itself as a historical note, but even more important philosophically is the addition of her testimony to the literature on the problem of concrete evil.

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8.1   From Poetry to Philosophy A snapshot of Wheatley’s biography is relevant to the philosophical themes which emerge out of her poetry. Phillis was born in West Africa (today, Senegal) and was kidnapped and brought as a slave to Boston at the age of seven or eight, where she was purchased by wealthy Bostonian merchant John Wheatley, as a gift for his wife, Susannah. By all reports, she was treated better than most slaves; by her own account, “more like a child than her servant: no opportunity was left unimproved of giving me the best of advice” (Robinson 1965, 26–7). The Wheatleys sponsored her as a teenager in the famous Old South Meeting House, where she took her first communion, after her baptism in 1771. Her early poems (published in magazines as early as 1767) launched her into the public eye, but the book solidified her fame for the English-speaking world—most notably in England, where Phillis traveled and performed her poetry in front of hundreds of dignitaries, including King George and Benjamin Franklin. When untimely deaths came upon the Wheatley family, Phillis was compelled to marry quickly, and though she married a free man, she died in poverty and obscurity at the age of 30.1 She was, in many ways, born into suffering, and despite the popularity of her poetry and its provenance, she understood what it meant to live without personal or legal freedom. Regardless of the fact that many of her poems paid homage to particular persons (some to those who had publicly advocated for slavery), her poetry tackles themes that have philosophical value, whether tied to slavery, suffering, or the nature of family, race, expectation, or justice. Certainly, to those who heard her recite her work, Wheatley was a spectacle. And—given that Wheatley must have possessed a staggering intellect to accomplish what she did, when she did, and even more so given the constraints that she had to overcome—Wheatley was a spectacle. But as philosophy her work is more than spectacle. During this current moment in which philosophers are reevaluating what works count as philosophy (and so, are looking in new places to uncover voices that were historically excluded out of hand as non-philosophy), it isn’t just the spectacle of Wheatley that should draw us. Rather, a constructive engagement with Wheatley’s poetry should consider that it can add to 1  Interested philosophers can learn more about Phillis Wheatley’s fascinating and tragic biography through Margaretta Odell (1834) and, much more recently, Vincent Carretta’s work (2017), including the new information he has uncovered about her husband, John Peters.

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philosophical discourse today. Whereas literary scholarship has focused on whether Wheatley’s poems can be legitimately read as gently undermining racially oppressive conditions (Collins 1975), philosophers can inquire into the rich questions raised by what she discusses throughout her poetry, and especially into questions in philosophy of religion. As a slave, ripped from her family in Africa, Wheatley was not a stranger to the problem of suffering that generated so much controversy in the early modern period of philosophy, during which she wrote. But the exigent realities of a poet-slave were such that she prudentially could not repudiate slavery in the strongest terms for publication or performance. Yet her now-published personal letters provide more criticism than her poetry tends to do. For example, in a letter to the Rev. Samson Occom concerning the “natural Rights” of slaves, Wheatley identifies the hypocrisy evident in slaveholders who profess to be Christians. Wheatley, who came to adopt an abiding Christian faith, found such people to blatantly contradict themselves: [I]n every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us. […] How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the Exercise of oppressive power over others agree, I humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine. (Wheatley 1774)

Her letter is powerful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is for its implicit equalization of men and women of all races. God wrote on the hearts of all humans—including Wheatley’s heart—this principle of a love for freedom. She invokes language that would be familiar to American revolutionaries, yet identifies the cry of liberty as an equalizing principle across continents, and oppression as an impediment toward justice. The last phrase is interesting—a degree in philosophy is not necessary to know that oppression and the eradication of freedom violates the principles of humanity. The letter is significant for its critique of the system of oppression within which she was raised, but it also complements other letters in which she discusses the intrinsic worth of those who were enslaved. In a 1772 letter to her cousin and fellow slave, Obour Tanner (who was on the same slave ship that carried Wheatley to Boston), Wheatley wrote:

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Happy it were for us if we could arrive to that evangelical Repentance, and the true holiness of heart you mention […] let us rejoice in and adore the wonders of God’s infinite Love in bringing us from a land semblant of darkness itself, and where the divine light of revelation (being obscur’d) is a darkness. Here the knowledge of the true God and eternal life are made manifest; but there profound ignorance overshadows the land. Our observation is true, namely that there was nothing in us to recommend us to God. Many of our fellow creatures are pass’d by when the bowels of divine love expanded toward us […] it gives me great pleasure to hear so many of my nation, seeking with eagerness the way of true felicity. (Wheatley 1772, in Robinson 1965)

On a superficial read, one might infer that Wheatley was pleased to have become a slave or at least to receive the benefits of redemption that might have come as a result of colonial evangelism. Wheatley certainly is celebrating the possibility for redemption in this letter and invokes the image of a land of darkness as a place where there is nothing to recommend her to God. Some have read this either as a disguised endorsement of the institution of slavery or a representation of actual self-hate by slaves based on some measure of the esteem imputed to them by those to whom they are enslaved (Collins 1975). Yet, in letters like this, I think we see something different or more: a call for equal treatment of those who are enslaved, and a brash equalization of slave and free, black and white. ‘Darkness’ is a spiritual state of any person who is outside of the divine light of revelation. In this letter, we also see a commitment to the existence of a benevolent God, whose “bowels of divine love expanded toward us.” The images she uses here are those which would be used of created persons made in the imago Dei: “true holiness of heart,” “adore the wonders of God’s infinite Love,” “knowledge of the true God and eternal life are made manifest,” “our observation is true,” “so many of my nation [seek] with eagerness the way of true felicity.” What is absent is a treatment of slaves (or native Africans) as subhuman, as property, or as less worthy of the love of God—or of needing it more. The language Wheatley uses stands in contrast to those who would believe slaves (and, even more, female slaves) were unable to be virtuous, seek moral improvement, or be recipients of the benefits of divine love, and is courageous at least for its call for treating slaves as people. The keen philosopher will see that her poems not only validate the personhood of those bound in slavery, but repudiate moral evil, the severity

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of which is represented materially by slavery. In the first poem in Wheatley’s Poems, entitled “To Maecenas,” Wheatley conjures a Muse (a device she uses throughout the volume), from whom she must receive permission to speak. Imagine the power Wheatley must see in herself, a female slave who can deign to bring forth a Muse. Wheatley then uses the Muse to speak to her audience, which indicates that she sees the Muse’s status as more than ornamental, and her own status as a slave to be morally repugnant. Classical writers used muses differently, whether as prophetic voices, inspiration, or as omniscient (though unbiased) narrators. Wheatley’s Muse is a powerful mouthpiece, who (in contrast to Wheatley herself, who is physically controlled by others) has complete control over the written and spoken word. The result is that her Muse speaks with the moral authority of an Oracle. In choosing the term “Sire,” Wheatley’s Muse is already different than those of classical literature, and she shows she will submit so the Muse can help her find her voice (Flanzbaum 1993, 75): Great Sire of verse, before my mortal eyes/The lightning blaze across the vaulted skies/And, as the thunder shakes the heav’nly plains/A deep-felt horror thrills through all my veins,/When gentler strains demand thy graceful song/The lengthn’ning line moves languishing along/When great Patroclus courts Achilles’ aid/The grateful tribute of my tears is paid. (Wheatley 1773)

The gift of the Muse comes in later passages as Wheatley is granted the authority to create through the Muse: “soon the same beauties should my mind adorn/And the same ardors in my soul should burn.” The Muse’s intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic vision empowers her: “my song in bolder notes arise/and all my numbers pleasingly surprise.” But without that vision, “here I sit, and mourn a grov’ling mind/that fain would mount, and ride upon the wind”; indeed, “But I less happy, cannot raise the song/The fault’ring music dies upon my tongue.” The Muse gives Wheatley the ability to raise the song that dies upon her tongue otherwise, to give her confidence to say the things that would be carried upon the wind without the moral authority of the Muse, and to strengthen her vision to know what to say. In one instance, Wheatley overtly agrees with the public view that she is a slave without voice. (The poem ends with, “Then grant, Maecenas, thy paternal rays/Hear me propitious, and defend my lays.”) Still, Wheatley here also appropriates a white (typically, male) rhetorical device of the Muse to critique the institution that keeps her

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enslaved. If a Muse (praised, virtuous, laureled) speaks in the volume for Wheatley, she can downplay her own creativity while also critiquing her social situation. Some have suggested that Wheatley never intended to argue against slavery, and that if her intent was to do so, her argument was never overt and, instead, might be so covert as to be invisible. In the volume, however, Wheatley takes on themes she could not have dared without the cover of a Muse. Consider “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth,” in which Wheatley pleads: No more, America, in mournful strain/Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain/No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain/Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand/Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.

In the stanza preceding this, Wheatley introduced the “Goddess,” who held the silken reins of “Freedom” over New England. Yet, as “Soon as appear’d the Goddess long desir’d,/Sick at the view, she languish’d and expir’d.” What could extinguish the Goddess who held the reins of Freedom? The “wrongs, and grievance unredress’d” in America, the “iron chains” that were dreaded, the “lawless hand” of Tyranny that made the chains, with the purpose of enslaving the land. In the next stanza, the emboldened Wheatley offers a repudiation of the evil of slavery, which could not be called covert or subtle: Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song/Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung/Whence flow these wishes for the common good/ By feeling hearts alone best understood/I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate/Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:/What pangs excruciating must molest/What sorrows labour in my parents’ breast?/Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d/That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:/Such, such my case. And can I then but pray/Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

She buffers herself enough from rebuke by making the “cruel fate” seeming, the “happy seat” of her African home fancy’d, and then by imagining her father’s misery—it is an open question as to what sorrows were felt by her father, who was steeled against the type of misery that would come when a tyrant would seize his babe beloved. Yet, her conclusion is clear: others should never feel the tyranny that comes from her “case.”

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Wheatley takes this cautious yet clear approach to criticizing systems of oppression in other poems in the volume. In On Imagination, she compares a “roving Fancy” to the “silken fetters” that bind the senses, and involves the mind in a “soft captivity.” Imagination, in contrast to the desires of fancy, helps all who have it to soar to heavenly heights and to “leave the rolling universe behind.” The moral tension between desire and imagination is fascinating—especially when, at the conclusion of the poem, Wheatley’s whim to follow Fancy is stopped short by physical constraints, not intellectual ones: “Winter austere forbids me to aspire/And northern tempests damp the rising fire/They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,/ Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.” Despite her worry that desire leads to a soft captivity of the mind (and so imagination is morally a safer refuge), it is whatever an austere winter poses to Wheatley that prevents her from following. In On Recollection, Wheatley relays “nocturnal visions” and the “ample treasure of her secret stores.” What is she remembering? “The acts of long departed years, by thee/Recover’d, in due order rang’d we see,” and in those long years (the poem reveals 18 years, precisely), she needs the Muse in its “immortal pow’r” to remember “Your vent’rous Afric in her great design.” The Recollection fully functions to weigh in on the morality of Wheatley’s situation. The Muse functions to remind all people of the moral law, which is “enthron’d within the human breast” (not the white breast, or the male breast, but the law of God written on the heart of humanity), “Has vice condemn’d, and ev’ry virtue blest./How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear?/Sweeter than music to the ravish’d ear.” Those who ignore Wheatley’s Recollection, and the “pow’r enthron’d/In ev’ry breast,” will howl in anguish and repent too late. Despite the warning and moral repudiation of those who do not follow what God has made known to every person, Wheatley carefully negotiates her assertations to personhood and for freedom; always, Wheatley “obeys” (Flanzbaum 1993, 73) even if subversively. She knows that others will recognize her Muse speaks on behalf of someone from Africa. In An Hymn to Humanity, she notes that it is a “pitying eye” that “did see/The languid Muse in low degree” and she asks, in conclusion, “Can Afric’s Muse forgetful prove?/Or can such friendship fail to move/A tender human heart?” She knows that only through “Friendship laurel-crown’d” will the “smiling Graces all surround.” She recognizes her own contingency—not just in how she stands as a created human, but how she stands as a human, enslaved.

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8.2   Wheatley’s Philosophy of Religion Like many Christian poets before her, Wheatley conducts her religious argument through her poetry’s aesthetic attainment (Scheick 1992, 138), but philosophers of religion will find relevant themes from the problem of evil to be less obvious in her work. I have already shown that Wheatley courageously takes on issues of equality and at least implicitly condemns slavery. Her commitments to the omniqualities of the divine are more overt and set up an inquiry into the problem of evil in her work. Read together, Wheatley’s “Thoughts on the Works of Providence” and “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” for example, starkly set up the goodness of God against the backdrop of human depravity. Using them as a starting point into a foray of her philosophy of religion demonstrates that Wheatley’s work expresses more than the conversion experience of an enslaved teenager, and is a revelatory commentary on the concreteness of moral evil. In “Providence,” Wheatley affirms her belief in the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence of an existing, creative God. The poem opens with praise to “the monarch of the earth and skies.” Creation (from the passing of the calendar, to the seasons, from the perfect harmony of the tides, to the ability for humans to seek and gain knowledge of God) represents the “goodness and beneficence” of the divine. This knowledge is perfected in the bringing of Wheatley’s mind (in its “arduous flight” to ascertain the nature of the divine) to “a seraphic strain!” She ascribes “Pow’r,” “Wisdom,” and “Goodness” to the one who created nature. But it is God’s love that captures Wheatley’s ultimate adoration. God’s wisdom rules over humanity and his power defends them, “O’er beings infinite his love extends,” and divine benevolence is the most awe-­ inspiring of divine qualities. God’s love reaches even “When tasks diurnal tire the human frame/The spirits faint, and dim the vital flame,” and is so great that it cannot be confined by an infinity of space. The constancy of the divine, she concludes, is the infinite love of God “where’er we turn our eyes,” regardless that “man ungrateful pays/But little homage, and but little praise.” When read with “Being Brought from Africa to America” Wheatley seems to suggest that it is actually this infinite divine love that allowed her to be captured as a child from her family, and could be used as an all-­ things-­considered defense of the evil of slavery. The poem reads in its entirety:

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‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, and there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew Some view our sable race with scornful eye, “Their color is a diabolic die.” Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

Philosophers will quickly identify the redemptive suffering theodical defense in the poem. From the outset, Wheatley observes the “mercy” of God that aided in her conversion, as well as the “angelic train” she can join if she is “refin’d” through redemptive suffering. Like other female scholars of the early modern period who were writing on the problem of evil (Hernandez 2016), Wheatley here ostensibly makes a case for redemptive suffering as the solution to the problem of evil (and, here, as a solution to the existential problem of her own suffering). Literary scholars, however, have demonstrated that this poem actually represents Wheatley’s absolute abhorrence of colonial American racism. James Levernier (1993) points out that Wheatley inserts into the poem an intentionally misleading symbolic pattern that appears to equate darkness with African paganism, and goodness with the promises of bogus American interpretations of traditional Christian doctrine. He argues that even her African identity is scripted positively as a member of a “sable race”: Like sugar cane that is black when it enters the refinery but white when it leaves, indigo dye changes the color but not the essence of cloth, and sable, which can be black or white depending on the season, has nothing to do with physical or spiritual essence. Like Cain was punished for killing his brother Abel, so too, states Wheatley, Christian slaveholders can expect a similar fate for enslaving others on the basis of color and race. (Levernier 1993, 184)

Juxtaposed against those whose “scornful eye[s]” determine moral worth according the “colour” of skin, Wheatley’s “sable” is framed positively and is able to thwart the “diabolic die.” Wheatley’s play on words within the poem borrows from the purpose of the slave trade in Boston. Levernier points out that slaves were used in New England to dye indigo and refine and sell sugar cane, such that Wheatley’s use of die, Cain, and refin’d (a refining that ultimately leads to Wheatley joining the angelic train) sends

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a message to self-reflecting Christians through the poem that good and evil “belong to all humans and are revealed through actions and motives alone, not through racial differences” (Levernier 1993, 183). Redemption is something all humans need, though Wheatley’s kidnapping and enslavement are not evidence of divine mercy. Rather, Wheatley had the moral standing to experience God’s love even when she “neither fought nor knew” that she needed it—that is, even before she realized she had moral standing. From her perspective, the merciful act was that she came to an understanding that there is a God, and a Savior, in spite of her suffering. Her suffering did not redeem her; it brought her knowledge. This isn’t to say that Wheatley rejects redemptive suffering writ large. Rather, her poetry is interested in two worries that come from navigating the problem of evil: a cosmology in which the primary fact is God’s providential management and love, and an eschatology for believers living in an evil world in which their virtue can make a moral difference. All humans are made in the image of God, experience the benefits of his infinite love toward them, and typically are ungrateful in response. Her writings on death especially highlight her views on the existential significance of suffering against an omnibenevolent creator who, through Christ, shared in suffering. In “Deism,” for example, Wheatley explores the death of Christ: “When shall we see the resting place of the great Supreme/When shall we behold thee, O redeemer in all the resplendent/Graces of a Suffering God.” Wheatley is particularly drawn to the fact that Christ died by human hands (which he came to save): “He came to save you from your sins and had/Far more Compassion than I can express/Pains his companions, and his Friends Distress/Immanuel God with us these pains did bear.” The suffering of Christ bears an inescapability that resonated with her, “Ah! Cruel Destiny his life he laid/Father Forgive them thus the savior said.” Christ’s suffering leads to compassion (a virtue). Christ’s followers (including Wheatley) gain knowledge of the divine as a result of divine love. Due to the providence of God in the face of suffering, Wheatley views virtue as the response we can offer in the midst of suffering. In “To a Lady on the Death of Three Relations,” Wheatley implores those who mourn, “cease; let hope they tears restrain/Smile on the tomb, and sooth the raging pain.” Here, Wheatley does not arbitrarily tell the mourner to cease, but instead builds her eschatology: “Ascend the sacred mount, in thought arise/And seek substantial, and immortal joys.” Having intellectual control over one’s thoughts in grief, for Wheatley, empowers the mind away from feeling “the dart Of Death,” and it has a preparative effect on the

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believer, “Where hope receives, where faith to vision springs/And raptur’d seraphs tune th’ immortal strings/To strains extatic. Thou the chorus join,/And to thy father tune the praise divine.” Like many women of the early modern period, Wheatley here expresses a kenotic view of suffering such that, especially in the face of death, the virtuous are prepared not only to walk through what God allows, but also to be ready to join the chorus of heaven. At least in correspondence with her family, Wheatley shared her attempt to make the suffering she underwent consistent with an eschatology rooted in divine, benevolent providence. In a reply letter from Obour Tanner, he reminds Wheatley of their experience on the slave ship and encourages her to see grace in their struggles: The Ship. Do you feel the ship, pitching, sometimes, inside the skin under your skin—chanting—as the Atlantic whispered, lulling us, fluid as hymn and semen, in wet languages we couldn’t understand? Remember the ships that brought us over the bent world. Let us praise these wooden beasts that saved the evil beast of us. Do you remember the ship, Phillis, do you remember the rocking black milk, like I do? Remember the bowels from the reek inside the deathly ship? There was nothing in us to recommend us to God, except the bowels of divine love. Remember inky black, starless black, blue-­ black with moaning, smelled like salt and salvation: God’s skin hammered with long nails like our breath, bleeding […] Let us marvel at the Love and Grace that bought and brought us here. Amen. Your very humble servant and friend, Obour Tanner. (Tanner 1772, in Collins 1975) 2

Obour repeats Wheatley’s own words to her, “There was nothing to recommend us to God,” yet the two should “marvel at the Love and Grace” that brought them to New England, and to a salvation secured by “God’s skin hammered with long nails like our breath, bleeding.” Her exchange (see above) is consistent with the prominent (if problematic) response in early modern philosophy to the problem of concrete evil— God proves his love in spite of (and sometimes through) human suffering: “Let us rejoice in and adore the wonders of God’s infinite love in bringing us from a land semblent of darkness itself, and where the divine light of revelation (being obscured) is as darkness.”

2  The extant correspondence we have indicates that Phillis was entirely cut off from the slaves around her, except for her exchanges with her cousin (Collins 1975, 77).

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A theme in Wheatley’s poems (the complete dependency of humanity on divine felicity) is evident in the exchange between Tanner and Wheatley. Yet, it would be a mistake to deduce that her status as slave, black, or female is the basis for her need to be brought “from a land semblent of darkness itself.” Knowledge of God brings virtue to any person, which can then provide a path out of sin, which Tanner represents as the slave ship that carried them to the colonies. In “On Virtue,” Wheatley writes, “But, O my soul, sink not into despair/Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand/Would now embrace thee, hovers o’er thine head.” Virtue is the “bright jewel” toward which she aims during life—not redemption, which happens later. Virtue can lead to “an higher appellation still” to be taught “a better strain, a nobler lay” whose place is “enthron’d with Cherubs in the realms of day.” Her stated goal is understanding of God, which leads to virtue, rather than an escape of suffering. Through understanding, she will act on virtue, which in turn prepares her for the eschatology she envisions in her poetry.

8.3   Conclusion and Pedagogy Much should be made of whether Wheatley provides a redemptive account of suffering (just as much has been made of other redemptive accounts of suffering in the early modern period), along with a corresponding inquiry into the complexities, ironies, and challenges for oppressed people to forward theodicies based on an eschatological redemption of suffering. I’ve argued that, minimally, she provides an ostensible case for redemptive suffering, but in digging deeper, her account is primarily meant to lead the inquirer to an earthly knowledge of God, whose goodness (secondarily) can ultimately redeem. The point here is not to endorse the soundness of her theodicy, but to demonstrate first, that Wheatley develops one which resonates strikingly with other, traditional responses to the problem of evil and, second, to show that sophistication and boldness afford her arguments (and the experiences out of which they come) the right to be read as philosophy of religion. For those who are expanding the canon in the classroom, Wheatley is a fantastic candidate. For starters, poetry is an accessible medium for students, and the suffering out of which her poetry was born resonates with those who wonder how God could exist in that suffering. Philosophy faculty who teach different methods of inquiry, particularly, will find themselves at ease in teaching Wheatley. First, approaching the text as a poem

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gets to its function and beauty; then, approaching the text as philosophy (rather than as a poem) opens it up to dialogue. Although Wheatley writes in a medium that typically is ignored by philosophers, her voice is an important one for our field to listen. In truth, if philosophy is going to open its gates to people it has historically excluded, philosophers must be committed to finding it in unconventional media, including poetry, oral histories, diaries, meditations, and songs. Expanding the canon to include Wheatley provides us with arguments against the problem of evil that are concretely grounded, eschatologically aimed, and developed with the hope of living a life of virtue through the midst of suffering atrocity. Or, as Wheatley writes in conclusion for “An Hymn to the Evening”:   So shall the labours of the day begin   More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.   Night’s leaden scepter seals my drowsy eyes,   Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

Recommended Reading Barker-Benfield, G. J. 2018. Phillis Wheatley Chooses Freedom: History, Poetry, and the Ideals of the American Revolution. New York: New York University Press. Gates, Henry Louis. 2003. The trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s first Black poet and her encounters with the founding fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books. Fanonne Jeffers, Honorée. 2020. The Age of Phillis. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Wheatley, Phillis. 1773. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: Bell, Adgate. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/409/409-­h/409-­h.htm.

References Carretta, Vincent. 2017, February. Was Phillis Wheatley’s Husband a Crook Or a Dreamer? OUPBlog, Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World. https://blog.oup.com/2017/02/john-­peters-­phillis-­wheatley/. Collins, Terence. 1975. Phillis Wheatley; The Dark Side of the Poetry. Phylon 36 (1, 1st Qtr): 78–88. Flanzbaum, Hilene. 1993. Unprecedented Liberties: Re-Reading Phillis Wheatley. Melus 18 (3, Autumn): 71–81. Hernandez, Jill. 2016. Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil: Atrocity & Theodicy. London: Routledge.

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Levernier, James A. 1993. Style as Protest in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley. Style 27 (2), African-American Poetics (Summer): 172–193. Odell, Margaretta M. 1834. Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, an African and a Slave. Boston, MA: Light & Horton. Robinson, William H. 1965. Phillis Wheatley: Colonial Quandary. CLA Journal 9 (1, September): 25–38. Scheick, William J. 1992. Phillis Wheatley’s Appropriation of Isaiah. Early American Literature 27 (2): 135–140. Walker, Marilyn. 2011. The Defense of Phillis Wheatley. The Eighteenth Century 52 (2, Summer): 235–239. Wheatley, Phillis. 1773. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: Bell, Adgate. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/409/409-­h/409-­h.htm. ———. 1774. Personal Letter from Wheatley to Occom. The Massachusetts Spy 24: 1774.

CHAPTER 9

The Waters of Which We Have Spoken: Reading Marguerite Porete as Substance Metaphysics Lacey A. Hudspeth

9.1   Introduction Within medieval Christian communities, the human soul was commonly believed to have been created by God; however, theologians remained somewhat reticent to answer questions of “how,” “when,” and “where” this soul was created. Broadly speaking, medieval theologians occupied one of two positions regarding the creation of the soul. Either the soul is transmitted from parents to their children in a hereditary manner, very much like the birth of a new body out of the two parent’s bodies (Traducianism), or it is the case that God creates new souls ex nihilo daily (Creationism). There remain, however, certain unknowns about three specific questions: (1) Does the soul exist before the creation of the body? (2) If so, does the soul exist metaphysically within the Trinity before its creation inside the human body? (3) Does the soul “return” to and

L. A. Hudspeth (*) Duke Divinity Library, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_9

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become part of the Trinity after death, and if so, what does death mean with regard to the ontic status of the soul? Although many before her—from Plato to Augustine to Aquinas— proffered theories about the pre- and posthumous existence of the soul, in this chapter I will look to the thirteenth-century French author Marguerite Porete to explore the complexities of her approach to these questions. A brave and educated woman, in ca. 1295 she penned The Mirror of Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love (Le Mirouer des simples ämes anienties et qui seulement demourent en vouloir et desir d’amour)—which, despite being written in the form of a play rather than employing the critical methodologies of scholasticism, serves as a treatise on the metaphysics of the soul. Here, Porete deftly explores the philosophical ideas of freedom of the will, time, eternity, reason versus faith, and the interworkings of the Trinity. She explicates these ideas using the common alchemical medieval tropes of mixing liquids and changing the forms of substances. I will argue in this chapter that although Marguerite Porete is often relegated to the periphery of devotional literature or mysticism, she in fact offers a sophisticated and nuanced substance metaphysics, and she should thus be included within the philosophical canon. Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls, written in the Boethian tradition of topical argumentation, is a play with numerous interlocutors, most notably Love, Reason, and the Soul. These characters debate with one another about the relationship of the human to God and how this relationship allows for the soul to make its ascent toward divinization, or becoming (one with) God. The play performs a lengthy and complicated tale of the seven stages of cultivating a “noble” soul toward the aim of annihilation, which represents both a metaphorical death in one stage and then eventually also one’s physical death, before it reaches its zenith of becoming one with God. While it is unclear precisely how much formal education Porete had, she is clearly adroit with language and demonstrates facility with earlier philosophical traditions as well as with various literary tropes of the early middle ages. She moreover utilizes the language of popular medieval romance literature to tell a grand metaphysical story. For example, in the prologue, the character of Love begins by relating a “fairy tale” about the daughter of a king who falls in love with Alexander the Great merely upon hearing of his “great gentle courtesy and nobility,” and who thus has an image of the latter painted for her to comfort her in her lovesickness. The Soul (“who had this great book written”) then responds:

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In truly similar fashion […] I tell you of such a thing: I heard tell of a King of great power who was by gentle courtesy and by very great courtesy of nobility and largesse, a noble Alexander. But he was so far from me, and I from him, and I did not know how to take comfort for myself. (Porete 1993, 80)

Amy Hollywood notes that Marguerite appears to have taken this story from an Old French romance, The Roman d’Alexandre by Alexander of Bernay (Hollywood 1995, 88). This is noteworthy, because it demonstrates the ways in which Porete was not simply literate but was also fluent in the stories and legends of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And she utilized this particular story and trope to create a robust, and philosophically sophisticated, treatise on the soul that was marketed toward lay readers who would identify with these stories. Although, she was certainly, then and now, read as devotional literature, I believe we should concomitantly be reading her inside the canon of medieval philosophy.

9.2   Porete’s “Mixed Metaphors” Porete constructs a unique metaphysics out of the circulating ideas within the French monastic milieu, in particular the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, and his metaphysical metaphors of mixing liquids. I propose that Porete uses similar “mixing” metaphors to put forward a view of the soul as a substance with a particular teleology that is nevertheless able to be transformed in ways similar to how material substances may be burned, melted, changed, and formed toward a particular end—though what the soul’s substantial relationship to the divine actually is remains somewhat of a mystery. Bernard was one of the first to draw the metaphor of mixing liquids in his twelfth-century treatise De diligendo Deo. According to him, Just as a drop of water mingled in wine seems to entirely disappear and take on the savor and color of wine […] so must it be that all human affection in the sands will then by some ineffable means melt away from itself and be entirely transformed into the will of God. For how will God be all in all if something remains in man? The substance will indeed remain, but in another form, another glory, and another power. (Quoted in Lerner 1971, 397; my emphasis)

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Etienne Gilson argued that given Bernard’s language of “seems to entirely disappear and take on the savor and color of wine,” he implies that a permanent substratum (essence) remains: “St. Bernard therefore never spoke of any abolition of the substance, but of a transformation” (Gilson 1940, 122). She later concludes that Bernard’s metaphysics of deification is nothing less but also nothing more than a perfect accord between the will of God and the will of man—that is, an aligning rather than a merging of ontologies (119–22). Porete and others join Bernard’s discussion by adding more nuance and controversy around the dissimilarity between the case of water “disappearing” into wine versus water into water. The language in Bernard presents several perplexing quandaries, with the primary one being whether two substances, with two unique essences, are able to become so united that the essence of each substance is lost completely. I suggest that Porete disagreed with Bernard here. Whereas he understands deification as two substances becoming parallel while maintaining separate essential natures,1 Porete believes instead in the full subsuming of substances, so that nothing of the original essences remains, and a singular essence emerges. What is contained in this singular essence, however, is (according to Porete) utterly mysterious. Still, God and the soul do not become a new substance; rather, they return to the same original pre-­ created substance out of which the soul originally emerged. In The Mirror of Simple Souls, Porete uses extensive metaphors to illustrate the relationship and discursive movements between the Soul and the Trinity, as well as how the soul is affected and changed by God, human embodiment, freedom of the will, and reason. There are four particular metaphors that illustrate this. The first and most recognizable metaphor is the image of the different bodies of water which converge and thus lose their original names and identities: Thus she would be like a body of water which flows from the sea which has some name, as one would be able to say Aisne or Seine or another river. And when this water or river returns into the sea, it loses its course and its name with which it flowed in many countries. Now it is in the sea where it rests, and thus has lost all labor. Likewise, it is with the soul. (Porete 1993, 158)

Here we see the soul as a body of water, jettisoned from some larger body of water, only for it to once again meet with the original, larger body 1

 For Bernard, the “substance” is the will and not the soul as it is for Porete.

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of water. It is its own “there and back again” tale, where the soul emerges briefly with her own identity and name, but then, upon her return to the original body of water, loses both her substance and independent nature entirely and dissolves back into the fullness of the original form. Porete seems to argue for an ontology that is able to be shifted and changed, one that emerges in one form or essence but later is dissolved completely in such a way that she no longer has a name, identity, or any independent substance or essence at all. The soul, in this metaphor, begins in God, is born, and upon death returns to God. In this particular metaphor, we also witness the ontological teleology—it seems the jettisoned stream was “meant” to return, just as the soul is “meant” to return to God. But several questions remain: What is the soul’s substance in the beginning or at the end? Does any of her “essential nature” from her life on earth remain, or is the fullness of her substance completely absorbed by God’s own substance? Does she literally become God? Or does she become merely part of God, one substance with two separate, essential natures? In another complex metaphor, Porete describes a barrel full of wine with a line of taps running vertically to the top that seeks to illustrate the soul’s relationship to God and the Trinity: Love: And she [the soul] is forever inebriated by Understanding and filled with Praise by Divine Love. And she is inebriated not only from what she has drunk, but very intoxicated and more than intoxicated from what she never drinks nor will ever drink. Reason: For God’s sake, Love! […] What does this mean, that this Soul is inebriated from what she never drinks, nor ever will drink? […] Love: The greater part makes her intoxicated, but not because she has drunk the greater part, as was said. But [she is so inebriated] because her Lover [God] has drunk from it, for between [God] and her, through transformation by Love, there is no difference, whatever there might be of natures. […] It happens that there are several taps in the one barrel. But the clearest wine, the newest, the most profitable, the most delicious and the most intoxicating is the wine from the tap at the top. This is the supreme beverage which none drinks except the Trinity. And from this beverage, without her drinking from it, the Annihilated Soul is inebriated […], very inebriated, more than inebriated from what she never drinks nor ever will drink. (Porete 1993, 105–106; my emphasis)

This is a complicated passage, because Porete’s discussion of the Trinity is obscure at best. However, it is an interesting passage regarding the

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changeability of substances, because here the soul appears to have a separate ontological status from God/the Trinity, whereas in the former quote, it remains unclear whether or not the soul and God share an essential nature. Here, we see that the soul and the Trinity must access the wine from separate taps in the keg. Yet, notably, the soul does not drink, and yet she becomes drunk simply because the Trinity drank from the tap. So, here, we have two separate ontological entities—the soul and the Trinity— who nevertheless seem to share a common nature, given that when one drinks, the other feels the effects and is changed because of it. But what does this mean? Is the human soul a “lower” part of God? Are all human souls a part of God in this way or only “noble” or “virtuous” souls? Are humans altered by every action of the Godhead? This begins to be a question about parts and wholes, composites and compounds, and how each of these fits together in the world Porete has constructed—which suggests a far more complicated metaphysical system than we might have first thought. In a third metaphor, we get the image of a soul becoming fire so completely that her original essence is completely lost when two substances merge: Love: Now listen Reason […], that which burns has no cold […]. Thus such a soul […] is so enflamed in the furnace of fire of Love that she has become properly fire, which is why she feels no fire. For she is fire in herself through the power of Love who transforms her into the fire of Love. (Porete 1993, 107)

In these lines, Porete describes a process of becoming whereby the soul encounters the fire (God) and is so moved and changed by this encounter, that she “becomes properly fire” (Porete 1993, 107), in such a way that she herself is not burned. Her being here literally becomes fire. So yet again, we encounter the question of whether anything of the Soul’s essence remains, or whether the Soul and God are wholly united in Love. Is the Soul wholly annihilated in the divine, or merely absorbed into it? In one final metaphor, Porete speaks of how the soul receives the Sacrament (Eucharist) through the verb grinding, so that the soul is no longer soul but transformed into the fullness of God: Love: True Christians receive this divinity and this humanity when they take the Holy Sacrament of the Altar […]

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Light of Faith: And for this purpose, we will tell you […] how we make a comparison of this Sacrament in order to grasp it better. Take this Sacrament, place it in a mortar with other things, and grind this Sacrament until you can no longer see nor feel the Person which you have placed there. Faith: I tell you truly […] that He is not there! Now you can ask therefore, “Has he thus gone away from it?” Truth: Not at all […]. He was there, but now he is no longer (understand in a holy way not humanly). […] Temptation: What can this be then? Truth: It was there […] when one could see and feel it, and now it is no longer there, since one cannot see or feel it. Thus had the divine power ordained it […]. (Porete 1993, 97)

In this instance, the substance, the Divine Host, is ground until there is no longer substance, as Jesus becomes fully part of the Trinitarian union. Indeed, Faith exclaims, “He is not there! […] Has he thus gone away from it?” And Truth responds, “Not at all! He was there, but now he is no longer,” and there is a note in the text that the reader is to understand this concept in a “holy” way rather than a “humanly” way. That is to say that this substance did not die a physical death, but rather lost both its form and essence as it became something new. Thus, once more here, we have evidence of Porete utilizing a metaphysics grounded in substance, essence, and form in order to create a foundation for her ontology. She is notably never explicit, however, about whether or not she believes that God and the soul share both a substance and an essence or just an essence. What she is clear on is that substances are able to be transformed, changed, and affected by an outside force in order to become something new. Indeed, although we have these rich metaphors surrounding substance and essence, form and matter, and even composite or compound forms, there are several ways to understand Porete’s ideas about the ontological status of a substance post-transformation. There is much in her pages about transformation itself and the different ways in which a soul might move through the seven stages of perfection, but as we have seen many questions remain—most pointedly about whether there is a true morphing of ontologies between God and soul or whether their individual substances remain. With regard to substances, we must press the question of alteration of substance in birth and in death, and this is most often adumbrated in Porete through the Neoplatonist ideas of procession and return. There is more important work to be done with this text, but that work can

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only begin if first we know it and read it. Sorting out what Porete is ultimately up to here is thus perhaps a task for philosophers interested in medieval mereology and the connections of Porete’s work to Aristotelian and Neoplatonist ideas to tackle in the future.

9.3  Concluding Thoughts “Begin, by perceiving the idea/Of this invention, this invented world/ The inconceivable idea of the sun […]/But the first idea was not to shape the clouds in imitation. The clouds preceded us” (Stevens 2015, 401). Poet Wallace Stevens spoke these immortal words in the twentieth century, more than seven hundred years after Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake for her formidable ideas. But I often return to this poem, because it seems that in so many ways, we are all still trying to name the unknowable. Poets, philosophers, playwrights—we seek out ways to observe and describe the fundamental truths of existence. And this is the most elusive truth of all: the human substance and her ideas are not the epicenter or beginning of creation—the clouds have always preceded us. Porete knew this—this is the place where the souls come from and the place to which they return. “This soul, says Love, is totally dissolved, melted, and drawn, joined and united to the most-high Trinity” (Porete 1993, 143). The soul loses the fullness of who she is and becomes (or, minimally, becomes united with) the fullness of who God is. Porete was forced to watch her words burned in front of her, was imprisoned for more than a year, and then on June 1, 1310, was burned at the stake. She was a woman who spoke about religious doctrines amongst a maelstrom of political and ecclesiastical tensions and conflicts and who held her ground even when her life depended on it. She herself widely circulated her work in an effort for it to persist, and it did. It was translated into Latin, Italian, and Middle English, and as Ellen Babinsky’s introduction to Porete notes, there may have been as many as thirty-six copies being circulated in the fifteenth century (Porete 1993, 26). Expanding the philosophical canon means not just reading more or different people. It means reading texts that have historically been relegated to a particular group with a new, wider lens. How many people have we read, where if we reimagined the category, we would find they were doing something completely different? That a woman died for the right for her manuscript to exist might, on its own, give us reason to study her work.

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However, it is her robust metaphysics that keeps me returning—returning to Porete, to the soul, and to the clouds which precede us.

9.4  Teaching Marguerite Porete There are a variety of ways in which I think The Mirror of Simple Souls could be taught. Given that it is a play, I think it would be an excellent choice to teach alongside Piers Plowman, The Inferno, or The Canterbury Tales. This would offer a chance to expand the medieval literature canon not simply by including a woman’s writings, but also by reflecting on the privilege that men had (and continue to have) to write without fear of persecution. If I were teaching The Mirror in a philosophy course, I would encourage reading it alongside Boethius since it shares in the dialogical tradition of virtues-as-interlocutors. Of course, if one wants to more closely read her as putting forward a strong substance or process metaphysics, it might be worth reading her alongside Aristotle, Plotinus, or even Whitehead. If I were teaching her in a theology of church history course in a seminary, I would read her concomitantly with Augustine, Alan of Lille, Aquinas, and Luther and speak extensively about the different ways in which they each worked through issues of salvation and the afterlife using different literary forms.

Reading List Farley, Wendy. 2015. Love Overmastered Me: Reading Marguerite’s Book. In The Thirst of. God: Contemplating God’s Love with Three Women Mystics, 85–95. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Hollywood, Amy M. 1995. Visionary Imagination and Apophasis. In The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart, 1–25. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Lerner, Robert. 1991. Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages. University of Notre Dame Press. Martin, Juan. 2010. Annihilation and Deification in Beguine Theology and Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls. Harvard Theological Review 103(1): 89–109. McGinn, Bernard. 1994. Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics; Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete. New  York: Continuum Publishing.

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Porete, Marguerite. 1993. The Mirror of Simple Souls, Trans. Ellen L. Babinsky. NewYork: Paulist Press. Robinson, Joann Maguire. 2001. Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls. New  York: SUNY Press. (SUNY Series in Western Estoteric Traditions).

References Gilson, Etienne. 1940. The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, Trans. Alfred Howard Campbell Downes. New York: Sheed & Ward. Hollywood, Amy M. 1995. The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Lerner, Robert E. 1971. The Image of Mixed Liquids in Late Medieval Mystical Thought. Church History 40 (4): 397–411. Porete, Marguerite. 1993. The Mirror of Simple Souls, Trans. Ellen L. Babinsky. New York: Paulist Press. Stevens, Wallace. 2015. Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction. In The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, ed. John N. Serio and Chris Beyers, 401–434. New York: Vintage Press.

CHAPTER 10

Two Dogmas of Enlightenment Scholarship Seth A. Jones and Kristopher G. Phillips

10.1   Introduction The many important changes in our knowledge of the world and the methods for gaining that knowledge that occurred during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe are well-known. Among the most significant advancements were the beginnings of modern science that grew out of natural philosophers’ empirical investigation of the world, and the new tools (e.g., microscopes, telescopes, air pumps, and so on) that allowed these philosophers to pursue novel avenues of investigation. The incredible impact of the natural sciences on our world today has led to a narrative that emphasizes the connection between philosophy and science and the important role that reason plays in gaining knowledge of the world. The ubiquity of this narrative can be seen in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Enlightenment thought:

S. A. Jones (*) Department of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA K. G. Phillips Department of Languages and Philosophy, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_10

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In this era dedicated to human progress, the advancement of the natural sciences is regarded as the main exemplification of, and fuel for, such ­progress. Isaac Newton’s epochal accomplishment […] was a great stimulus to the intellectual activity of the eighteenth century and served as a model and inspiration for the researches of a number of Enlightenment thinkers. Newton’s system strongly encourages the Enlightenment conception of nature as an orderly domain governed by strict mathematical-dynamical laws and the conception of ourselves as capable of knowing those laws and of plumbing the secrets of nature through the exercise of our unaided faculties—the conception of nature, and of how we know it, changes significantly with the rise of modern science. It belongs centrally to the agenda of Enlightenment philosophy to contribute to the new knowledge of nature, and to provide a metaphysical framework within which to place and interpret this new knowledge. (Bristow 2010)

While there is much that is correct in this story (especially regarding such canonical figures as Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Hume), it often underplays and misrepresents the important part played by what we today call the humanities in the intellectual pursuits of the early modern period, and it neglects the cognitive roles that such states as fancy, imagination, and emotion were taken to appropriately play in “contributing to the new knowledge of nature”—even among canonical figures. Indeed, the focus on early modern rationality as resting on a conception of reason that implicitly (and erroneously) excludes these kinds of states has resulted in a significant loss of the essential humanistic characteristics of philosophy, especially as concerns the pursuit of the good life in accordance with reason. The first “dogma” of Enlightenment scholarship—the privileging of a narrow and exclusionary conception of reason in the scholarship of the early modern period—is best exemplified in the marrying of philosophy with science, such that the history of philosophy during this period is largely construed as the history of science. This, however, is a result of a fundamental misreading of the development of philosophical discussions at the time and leads us to our second “dogma” of Enlightenment scholarship: that the favored philosophical “canon,” comprising a small group of affluent white men (whose writings can plausibly—but misleadingly— be read to support the first dogma), is largely exhaustive of the philosophically significant work done during this period. By countering the second dogma through expanding the philosophical canon to recognize the broad diversity of Enlightenment figures who contributed to the intellectual

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development of the period, we will come to see that the first dogma, too, is overly restrictive and that the philosophical discussions at the time went far beyond the narrow scope of science and its corresponding conception of reason given by scholarship today. Our goal in this chapter, then, is to address these dogmas head on, using the pluralization strategy being developed in both the scholarship and teaching of early modern philosophy, in order to further a new narrative in Enlightenment scholarship and put to rest the old one for good. Perhaps most baldly stated in Lisa Shapiro’s 2016 essay, “Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon,” there has been a shift in recent decades to refocus the central problems in modern philosophy as concerning not merely the development of mathematics and science, but human freedom, education, and autonomy. One non-canonical figure we see as especially helpful in achieving this shift is Margaret Cavendish, whose writings illuminate the lack of sharp boundaries between science and the humanities in the philosophical systems of the Enlightenment. By including figures such as Cavendish in the scholarly canon, we aim to show how the received narrative of the Enlightenment and its impoverished understanding of philosophy and science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can be overcome. This, in turn, allows us to show the important role philosophy played, and can continue to play, as a bridge between the sciences and the humanities, as we work to build both a new historical narrative in Enlightenment scholarship and a richer, more inclusive contemporary conception of reason.

10.2  The Received Narrative It is worth taking a moment to motivate what we are calling the “Received Narrative” (RN). RN is the typical version of the development of philosophy during the Enlightenment that is taught in many, if not most, undergraduate philosophy programs and has many parts, including the current canon and its convenient story of rationalism opposing empiricism giving rise to a Kantian synthesis.1 Our focus is on that part of RN that views the development of philosophy as synonymous with the development of science in the early modern period, and aligns with Shapiro’s suggestion that this trend in philosophical pedagogy and scholarship is in no small part driven by trends in contemporary philosophy: 1

 For contemporary challenges to this narrative, see O’Neill (2005) and Shapiro (2016).

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[M]uch contemporary philosophy of science has moved away from general concerns about scientific explanations and towards philosophies of the special sciences, including, of course, philosophy of physics. Contemporary debates about the nature of space find their antecedents in early modern debates, as do contemporary discussions of laws of nature and of causation. The reconfigured canon thus continues to play its justificatory role with regard to contemporary philosophical interests. (Shapiro 2016, 371–372)

Although this strikes us as essentially correct, it remains an incomplete statement of the broader problem. We speculate that the increased interest in the philosophy of science (and its subfields) is in part to try to stay relevant in a culture of scientism and STEM research funding, which culture relies both on a sharp divide between the sciences (as well as engineering, other technological disciplines, and mathematics) and the humanities and on a conceptual confusion that views the former as largely “practical” and the latter as “impractical.”2 Our claim in this chapter is that the justificatory support RN provides to this culture is grounded in and reinforced by the two dogmas of Enlightenment scholarship—given a narrow view of reason that excludes the more humanistic cognitive states, along with a canon read as advancing that view of reason, we have arrived at a narrative of the time period that is problematically incomplete and heavily influential on contemporary practices. Even so, it is worth taking a moment to consider how easy it is to see RN as telling the whole story. 10.2.1   An RN Case Study: Descartes in the Classroom RN’s story begins with the Descartes of the contemporary classroom. The vast majority of undergraduate philosophy students will read Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (and most likely only the Meditations), and it is here that the traditional interpretation of the period makes its strongest showing. We begin with foundational a priori principles and supposedly spin out the remainder of the known universe from pure mathematics and self-knowledge. For Descartes, this included advances in mechanistic explanation, applied mathematics, and anatomy that have reverberated throughout the history of science. Consider as well the famous tree metaphor from the “Preface to the French Edition” in Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy: 2

 See Phillips (2017).

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The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals. By ‘morals’ I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom. (Descartes CSM I 1985, 186)3

Since Descartes seems to suggest that metaphysics and physics are the core of all knowledge, and that anything subsequent requires perfect knowledge of these, there seems to be little room to focus on anything but science and its foundations. If we take Descartes to be the “father of modern philosophy,” as RN often recommends, then passages such as this set an explicitly science-focused tone for our subsequent interpretations of early modern philosophy. The science-focused reading of Descartes is bolstered by the sorts of statements we find in editorial introductions. For example: The second focus of this volume is philosophical and scientific method. This topic was extremely important to early modern philosophers because their rejection of scholastic philosophy, the dominant philosophy of the Middle Ages, was accompanied by ideas of new ways of doing philosophy and science. (Martinich et al. 2007, 1)

And: New scientific and philosophical doctrines had emerged from Galileo Galilei, from René Descartes and his followers, from Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Hobbes, and countless others. Scholastics had fought back fiercely against the new philosophy and science; they had succeeded in getting Galileo condemned by the Catholic Church in 1633 and in putting Descartes’ works on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1663. Still, the substantial forms and primary matter of the scholastics were giving way to a new mechanistic world of geometrical bodies, corpuscles, or atoms in motion. With this world came novel mathematical tools and scientific methods for dealing with its newly conceived entities. (Ariew and Watkins 2009, vii)

Often these very volumes expand the traditional philosophical canon to include other overtly scientific figures, situating Descartes’ philosophical 3  While this seems to be a compelling passage in favor of RN, in Section 10.4 we offer a way to interpret this passage that cuts against RN.

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works in between something by Galileo and a selection from Bacon’s Novum Organum.4 Granted, the vast majority of works we have from Descartes do concern natural philosophy. From this it is not unreasonable to infer that developments in natural philosophy, mechanism, and optics were central to the Cartesian project. Descartes, then, represents a microcosm of the problems that face the way we teach and think about the early modern period. This impetus to read the philosophers of the early modern period as primarily concerned with science and its foundations also spills over into scholars’ interpretation of other major figures—the very texts used in early modern classes are shaped by and reinforce the science-focused reading of the period. Consider what little of Spinoza there is time to teach in a traditional survey course in the history of early modern European thought. Steven Nadler aptly notes, “All you will read of Spinoza is the Ethics, and not even the whole thing—just Parts One and Two, and so students will be left wondering why in the world the book is called ‘Ethics’” (Nadler 2014, 42). By the same token, undergraduates who are introduced to Leibniz often get little more than his Monadology, which might leave many of them wondering why he is included in the canon at all. Our excitement to place primacy on the development of science even overestimates the impact that works in physics had on later figures. Hume is often taken to be modeling his work on that of Newton, but more recent scholars have noted that he was decidedly less Newtonian than meets the eye.5 With such narrow scholarship pervading the canon, it is difficult not to think that science as we think of it today drove the discussion. 10.2.2   Supplanting RN: Cavendish’s Fantastical Worlds It is at this point that we urge early modern scholars and teachers to take a step back and consider RN through the lens of the works of other figures of the period—figures like Margaret Cavendish. One common thread in Cavendish’s later writings is her epistemic conservatism, which stems from her metaphysical system and is best exemplified in her criticism of the experiments of the Royal Society. There, she worries both about the 4  It is worth noting that there are good philosophical, historical, and pedagogical reasons for this. For a thorough treatment of Descartes’ relation to late scholasticism, see Ariew (2014). 5  See Schliesser (2007) and Wright (2009, esp. Chapter 2).

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veracity of their experimental results and, to the extent that they do tell us something accurate about the world, their usefulness to human ends.6 Because her writings make clear the controversial nature of early modern science and experimental philosophy, tackling our second dogma by considering a canon that includes Cavendish (and other silenced voices) reveals a path forward in overcoming our first dogma, namely by offering a conception of reason beyond that given in the narrowly scientific interpretation of the Enlightenment. Far from making her a skeptic,7 Cavendish’s criticisms of the new science coincide with her view that reason is essential to our exploration of the world, and that the senses alone are wildly insufficient: “Next, I say, that sense, which is more apt to be deluded than reason, cannot be the ground of reason, no more than art can be the ground of nature” (Cavendish 2001, 49).8 Furthermore, “experimental and mechanic philosophy cannot be above the speculative part, by reason most experiments have their rise from the speculative, so that the artist or mechanic is but a servant to the student” (Cavendish 2001, 49). Her reasoning for these claims, in addition to the familiar concerns we see with the reliability of the senses in other early modern thinkers, is that we are finite parts of nature, who can only interact with “nearby” parts,9 and for whom the interior workings of other parts of nature are necessarily opaque to our senses.10 Thus, the vast majority of reality is cut off from our senses. As with Descartes, Cavendish sees reason as acting as a corrective for the shortcomings of our senses, but unlike the RN version of Descartes, she emphasizes the relatively narrow bounds of reason’s capacity to tell us things about the world. Being finite creatures, our ability to know the world is constrained by our location; being natural creatures, our ability to know is no better (and sometimes even worse) than any other part of  For the clearest example, see the first three sections of Cavendish (2001).  See Cavendish (2001, 215). While this discussion seems to cut against the idea that Cavendish was an “empiricist,” one of the goals of incorporating figures like Cavendish into our study of early modern philosophy is to apply pressure to the rationalist/empiricist aspect of RN and show that the distinction is ultimately unstable and unhelpful. 8  See also Cavendish (2001, 53, 144, 149–154, 196–197, and 241–242). 9  See Cavendish (2001, 202, 214, and 226). Because the sensation happens locally, when we use the microscope, for example, what we are seeing is the lens, and the lens is “seeing” the object. What we actually perceive, then, is not the object itself magnified, but rather the lens’ version of the object, which is necessarily different from the object itself. 10  See Cavendish (2001, 50 and 140). 6 7

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nature (especially as other animals have their own formal capacity to reason).11 Nevertheless, our best approach is to rely on the interplay between reason and the senses: But reason being above sense, is more inspective than sense; and although sense doth many times inform reason, yet reason being more subtle, piercing and active, doth oftner inform and rectify the senses when they are irregular […] and although experimental philosophy is not to be rejected, yet the speculative is much better, by reason it guides, directs and governs the experimental: but, as knowledge and understanding is more clear, where both the rational and sensitive perception do join; so experimental and speculative philosophy do give the surest informations, when they are joined or united together. (Cavendish 2001, 242)

So, the best we can do as finite human creatures is to use the interplay of reason and the senses to help us explore the world, while recognizing the limits of each; focusing on one over the other will inevitably doom us to failure. The inclusion of Cavendish, even within RN, could thus serve to enrich its narrative and thereby represents one way of contesting the second dogma by broadening our view of which figures belong in the canon. Additionally, her discussions of fancy and her use of fiction can also be enlisted in the service of complicating RN itself and thereby resisting the first dogma by reintroducing humanistic elements into our reading of the early modern view of reason. Because Cavendish is explicit about even the relatively modest accomplishments the cooperation of our reason and senses can achieve, it is here she opens the door for a more inclusive conception of reason, one which involves what she calls “fancy” as an essential characteristic. It is notable that she appends her proto-science fiction work The Blazing World to her treatise Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, and helpfully informs us of her intention in doing so: If you wonder, that I join a work of fancy to my serious philosophical contemplations, think not that it is out of a disparagement to philosophy; or out of an opinion, as if this noble study were but a fiction of the mind; for though philosophers may err in searching and enquiring after the causes of natural effects, and many times embrace falsehoods for truths; yet this doth 11  See Cavendish (2001, 218–219 and 221). This is especially true concerning the knowability of God (215).

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not prove, that the ground of philosophy is mere fiction, but the error proceeds from the different motions of reason […] but mistake me not, when I distinguish fancy from reason; I mean not as if fancy were not made by the rational parts of matter; but by reason I understand a rational search and enquiry into the causes of natural effects; and by fancy a voluntary creation or production of the mind, both being effects, or rather actions of the rational parts of matter; of which, as that is a more profitable and useful study than this, so it is also more laborious and difficult, and requires sometimes the help of fancy, to recreate the mind, and withdraw it from its more serious contemplations. (Cavendish 2003, 5–6)

The most obvious way that Cavendish thinks fiction is beneficial in our exploration of the world is that it serves to give us a break from serious and ponderous philosophizing: the use of reason is laborious, and fiction acts as a nice respite that can cover the same material in a more pleasing fashion.12 So, too, fiction is more pleasing for the reader and can be an excellent avenue by which to make challenging philosophical discussions accessible to a wider audience, thereby bringing more diverse voices into the discussion. Yet, while these two features would certainly make fancy and fiction a worthwhile pursuit, there is perhaps something more interesting going on here. One striking feature of her system is the way in which Cavendish connects reason and fancy.13 By treating them as two species of the same cognitive genus, she shows that both reason and fancy represent equally legitimate (and perhaps mutually beneficial) approaches to the same set of questions. Indeed, given the fatigue that accompanies rigorous philosophical writing, fantastical stories can allow us some insight we might not gain otherwise.14 She also notes that many philosophers, following a strict philosophical methodology, arrive at false beliefs, so that we cannot reject an approach to philosophy simply because it deals in fiction.15 The potential 12  See also Descartes’ suggestion to Elisabeth that one not engage in serious philosophy but for a few hours per year (Descartes 1991, 227). 13  For a similar reading of the therapeutic and socially transformative role of fancies and imagination in Cavendish, see Cunning (2016, 2018) and Sarasohn (2010). 14  This point is made clearly in Cunning (2016, 199). While there are, for Cavendish, decided differences between reason and fancy, those differences are not in the metaphysical makeup of these cognitive mechanisms. See also Sarasohn (2010, 77–79 and 172). 15  To this we might add that false accounts in philosophy and science often are pragmatically useful in our search for truth; we should thereby expect precisely the same outcome from the humanities.

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that fictions and fancies have to bring about deep philosophical insights is just as potent as any other bit of philosophical or scientific writing. Undermining the second dogma by exploring figures like Cavendish thereby gives us a perfect avenue for rejecting the first dogma of Enlightenment scholarship. Her writings make clear that the humanities can play as important a role in shaping and exploring truths about our world as the natural sciences do, even in the context of Enlightenment Europe. The marriage of fancy and reason in her mature philosophy belies the narrow conception of rationality through which we standardly view the period16 and gives us a conception of rationality that goes well beyond the impoverished version we get when our focus is solely on the development of natural science in Enlightenment thought.

10.3  A New Narrative This brings us back to RN. Despite the growing body of literature expressing dissatisfaction with it, it remains a heavily entrenched interpretative position that is proving especially challenging to overcome. For that reason, we have concerns about the viability of a revisionist strategy that employs the same old tactics, figures, and dogmas of the European tradition. To change our thinking about Enlightenment Europe, we must identify figures like Cavendish who should be part of any discussion of the period, but who do not carry with them such heavy interpretive baggage. These philosophers will allow us to reexamine the European Enlightenment with fresh eyes and hopefully see more clearly the plurality of features, methods, projects, and prejudices of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By making explicit the two dogmas that lie at the heart of RN, we are better able to aim our efforts directly at what makes it so intransigent. Our discussion of Cavendish serves as a good example of the effectiveness of this strategy. The growing scholarship on and interest in Cavendish is still relatively new, so there has not been sufficient time for her to be read into RN’s view of the development of philosophical thought. This allows us to 16  Cf. Lloyd (1979). In Lloyd’s influential paper, she argues that the development of reason in the works of Enlightenment thinkers is a direct cause of the separation of reason from imagination and emotion in contemporary philosophy. Although we agree with Lloyd about the way in which RN has influenced contemporary philosophy, where we differ is in suggesting that the problem with the contemporary distinction lies with RN itself and not with the view of reason held by early modern thinkers.

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approach her writing without having to first overcome inaccurate or misrepresentative versions of her philosophy, which in turn makes it easier to integrate her into, for example, the sort of work Shapiro calls for. Indeed, when we are considering how this applies to the philosophy classroom and the design of our syllabi, Cavendish fits nicely into any narrative we might build using the standard figures of the European Enlightenment.17 When she is not directly critiquing the philosophical systems of the medieval and modern periods,18 her views often parallel portions of the work of Descartes, Spinoza, or Leibniz, and she nicely anticipates some of the moves of later figures such as Hume and Kant.19 Although Cavendish herself was shut out of the discussions and correspondences with other early modern philosophers,20 in her publications she directly addresses many of the thoughts and ideas of the key figures and central themes of the Enlightenment. Cavendish’s blending of rigorous, systematic philosophical writing with fantastical works of literature and poetry demonstrates the interplay between reason and fancy in Enlightenment thought and can help us to broaden our view (and the texts we teach) of these other figures. By incorporating figures such as Cavendish into our research and teaching, we have the opportunity to rethink the Enlightenment as a whole, including the works of those philosophers with which we are so intimately familiar, and see the way in which fiction and imagination were just as central to the Enlightenment project as science and the RN view of reason. This at last brings us back to the way in which limiting the history of philosophy to the history of science produces a deeply misguided view of the Enlightenment period. While the development of science during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is certainly an important history to trace and understand, it is by no means the only discussion we should have.21 While philosophers in the Enlightenment were certainly educated in logic, metaphysics, astronomy, arithmetic, and physics, the traditional 17  See Cunning (2016), Marshall (2014), O’Neill (2005), and Cavendish (2001, Ed. Introduction). 18  See Cavendish (2001, xvi, 74, and 251). 19  Cavendish (2001, 52–53 and 234). The above passages are only a sample of the places where Cavendish is directly engaged with RN’s version of the philosophical canon. 20  Her Philosophical Letters is simply a direct correspondence with an imagined “Madam” concerning her philosophical contemporaries. 21  For example, Shapiro suggests that we should pursue the philosophy of education in the modern period (Shapiro 2016, 380).

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scholastic curriculum then in use (the trivium and the quadrivium) also included music theory and rhetoric. Despite the fact that the baroque period co-occurred with the scientific revolution, and the fact that music theory was a core aspect of education, philosophers have either downplayed or outright ignored the overlap between these developments. It is no mere coincidence that Leibniz’s theodicy and solution to the mind-­ body problem rely on the notion of harmony—a central component of baroque music. Enlightenment thinkers are thus not exhausted by the traditional seven figures covered in a modern survey course, and even when it comes to those figures, their thinking was not exhausted by their contribution to the new science; pluralizing philosophy’s past is an effective strategy for helping us to see this. In this sense, by broadening the scope of what we research and teach in the modern period, we will be better able to overcome both dogmas of Enlightenment scholarship and the narrative they support.

10.4  Humanistic Reason The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were times during which there was tremendous scientific change, but making science the focal point of the narrative serves to obfuscate what is really at issue. In many ways, it is easy to forget why we as philosophers care about truth. Indeed, there are times when the debates become so epicyclic and niche that the end for the sake of which we are arguing becomes obscured. Just as Nadler’s survey student has no idea why Spinoza called his work “Ethics,” we reduce the discussion of the Enlightenment to the advancement of science with no talk of intrinsic ends. While the new science raised interesting and important questions about the world around us, Cavendish reminds us of the often overlooked second aspect of Descartes’ tree of knowledge metaphor—that the ends for the sake of which we pursue the natural sciences, the fruits of that tree, are the results gained from our study of morals and medicine. Many scholars approvingly cite Descartes’ Preface to the Principles in support of their narrow scientific interests, but they cut it off too soon. The next paragraph begins, Now just as it is not the roots or the trunk of a tree from which one gathers the fruit, but only the ends of the branches, so the principal benefit of philosophy depends on those parts of it which can only be learnt last of all. I am ignorant of almost all of these; but the earnest desire I have always had to

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render service to the public led me, twelve years ago, to publish a number of essays where it seemed to me that I had learnt something. (Descartes, CSM I 1985, 186–187)

Descartes, Spinoza, and all the rest seem to consider that the ultimate payoff of our inquiries is not some disembodied system of facts grounded in certainty. The ends for the sake of which early modern philosophers, and we might hope we by extension, pursue the truth is decidedly more Socratic in nature. Following Descartes’ complete metaphor, developments in first philosophy gave rise to that which really mattered—more effective practical concerns including medicine and morals, topics that improve our quality of life. A full picture of our world is not from the perspective of a disembodied being of “pure” intellect employing the lens of scientific or geometric certainty. The development of science was not seen then, and it is a mistake to think of it this way now, as an end-in-itself. A full picture involves more than mechanical explanations of matter. In Descartes’ case, it involves the substantial union of mind and body from which arise the passions, the senses, and the imagination. Spinoza’s substance monism was not an attempt at mere point-scoring on the problem of mind-body interaction— it was in service of deploying a system of ethics that matches the putatively divine nature of the universe. After a long day of considering skepticism, Hume drank wine and played billiards to save himself. First philosophy provided the roots, physics the stability, but it was all in the service of those disciplines that help us live well. Had Cavendish and other silenced voices found their rightful place alongside these figures all along, we might have seen that the singular focus on science robs early modern philosophy of what makes it principally valuable and, in so doing, avoided the harms caused by RN and its two underlying dogmas.

Recommended Reading Cavendish, Margaret. 2001. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. Edited by Eileen O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunning, David. 2016. Cavendish. New York: Routledge. Lloyd, Genevieve. 1979. “The Man of Reason.” Metaphilosophy 10 (1): 18–37. Phillips, Kristopher G. 2017. “Is Philosophy Impractical? Yes and No, but that’s Precisely Why We Need it.” In Why the Humanities Matter Today: In Defense of Liberal Education, edited by Lee Trepanier, 37–64. Lanham: Lexington Press.

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Sarasohn, Lisa T. 2010. The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Shapiro, Lisa. 2016. “Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (3): 365–383.

References Ariew, Roger. 2014. Descartes and the First Cartesians. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ariew, Roger, and Eric Watkins. 2009. Modern Philosophy: an Anthology of Primary Sources. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Bristow, William. 2010. “Enlightenment.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified August 29, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/enlightenment/. Cavendish, Margaret. 2001. In Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, ed. Eileen O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2003. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World. In Margaret Cavendish: Political Writings, ed. Susan James, 1–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, eds. 1991. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunning, David. 2016. Cavendish. New York: Routledge. ———. 2018. Cavendish on the Metaphysics of Imagination and the Dramatic Force of the Imaginary World. In Early Modern Women on Metaphysics, ed. Emily Thomas, 188–210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Descartes, Rene. 1985a. Discourse on the Method. In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol. I). Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, 111–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1985b. Principles of Philosophy. In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol. I). Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, 179–292. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1991. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol. III). Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, Genevieve. 1979. The Man of Reason. Metaphilosophy 10 (1): 18–37. Marshall, Eugene. 2014. How to Teach Modern Philosophy. Teaching Philosophy 37 (1): 73–90. Martinich, A.P., Fritz Allhoff, and Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, eds. 2007. Early Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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Nadler, Steven. 2014. History of Modern Philosophy: What is it Good For? Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association: 38–49. O’Neill, Eileen. 2005. Early Modern Women Philosophers and the History of Philosophy. Hypatia 20 (3): 185–197. Phillips, Kristopher G. 2017. Is Philosophy Impractical? Yes and No, but that’s Precisely Why We Need it. In Why the Humanities Matter Today: In Defense of Liberal Education, ed. Lee Trepanier, 37–64. Lanham: Lexington Press. Sarasohn, Lisa T. 2010. The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Schliesser, Eric. 2007. “Hume’s Newtonianism and Anti-Newtonianism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition), edited by Edward N.  Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/hume­newton/. Shapiro, Lisa. 2016. Revisiting the Early Modern Philosophical Canon. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (3): 365–383. Wright, John. 2009. Hume’s “A Treatise of Human Nature”: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 11

“Novel Philosophy”: Mapping a Path for a Woman in the Radical Enlightenment Rachel Kadish

11.1   Reflection: Approaching Philosophy Through Fiction Philosophers have always seemed to me to be the people who look past the crowd—past all our individual heads—in search of something approaching universal truth. In contrast, writers of fiction or literary nonfiction tend to look for truth in the messy particulars of an individual life. Ryszard Kapuściński summarized this second approach perfectly in his book Shah of Shahs: “The cameramen overuse the long shot. As a result, they lose sight of details. And yet it is through details that everything can be shown. The universe in the raindrop.” The universe in a raindrop: the smallest events in a life, artfully depicted, carry enormous freight. A slammed book, a door quietly unlatched, a soup left to burn on the stove—each a percussion in the heart. When well-­ written fiction depicts a moment in a human life, the effect can be powerfully moving. And when that human moment incorporates an idea, that

R. Kadish (*) Boston, MA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_11

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idea can become accessible to those who might not have engaged with it had it been stated in the abstract. The issues raised in the span of any life lead inevitably to the sort of questions traditionally embraced by philosophy—and what more organic and welcoming way to approach philosophy than through the experience of an individual life? We don’t after all make sense of the world in a void, but amid a welter of sensory and emotional input, in landscapes shaped by humor and fear and human ambition. Literary fiction and philosophy, then, ought to be the most compatible of traveling companions. Yet the combination of fiction and ideas often fails. Fictional narrative demands an absence of didacticism—and writers in possession of a theory are often tempted to wield it with force. Ideas-as-sledgehammer can render an otherwise captivating storyline unpalatable. But fiction that engages with ideas is always worth attempting for a writer—and if it succeeds, it’s a powerful tool for opening a world of ideas to readers. The novel of ideas, moreover, can introduce readers not only to philosophy but to a world of unsung thinkers. Hilary Mantel has said that the historical record is “what remains in the sieve after the centuries have run through it.” If the sieve of history has traditionally been designed to capture only the lives of those citizens (white, male, aristocratic) whose lives were deemed significant, then carefully researched historical fiction is one way to restore an understanding of lives that were never recorded—either because they weren’t considered significant, or because they were radical and therefore were necessarily conducted in secret. While we may never know the details of the specific lives of anonymous writers from the past, a conscientiously written work of historical fiction can give us a vibrant sense of lost voices and the lives behind them. I tend to start writing when something disturbs me and I’m not sure what to make of it. Writing fiction, for me, is a way of sifting my thoughts, sentence by sentence, scene by scene. (Henry James: “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”) Years ago, I was perturbed by the passage in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in which she asks what the fate of Shakespeare’s sister would have been, assuming she’d been as talented as her brother. Woolf’s answer, succinct and disturbing: “She died young—alas, she never wrote a word.” Given the hard realities of women’s lives in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there’s no arguing the fact that an early death with no literary output would have been the most likely fate for a woman of tremendous intelligence. But Woolf’s blunt assertion sparked in me a

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rebellious counter-argument. Yes, I thought: most of us are unable to surmount such forces. But there are always individuals here and there who fight mightily in pursuit of a passionately held belief. What might it have taken, I wondered, for a woman of great intelligence and talent in that era (or a similar one) not to die without writing a word? I chose a time period (mid- to late seventeenth century), a setting (Amsterdam and London) and began work. The writing took me a very long time—more than a decade—in part because it required me to do an enormous amount of research. Among other things, I’d decided that my main character would be a young woman who grew up in the same Inquisition-refugee community as Spinoza and who might, if not for her gender, have openly engaged in philosophical inquiry. The resulting novel, The Weight of Ink, tells the story of Ester Velasquez, a fictitious Jewish woman from a small community of seventeenth-century Portuguese Inquisition refugees who is irresistibly drawn to the philosophical questions of her time. Devising a way to surmount the barricades blocking her path to the necessary education, Ester undertakes a forbidden correspondence with philosophers of her day. The novel is structured as a set of intertwined narratives. In contemporary chapters alternating with seventeenth-century ones, two modern historians discover the papers left by Ester Velasquez. They labor to understand what she achieved and how, and where her output might fit in the history of the day’s thinkers. What they discover brings the reader, through Ester, into contact with the thinking of Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Pierre Bayle, the Koerbagh brothers, Lodewijk Meijer, Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy, Thomas Browne, and Franciscus van den Enden. Isaac Vossius’s library plays a role, and the Sabbatean controversies and religious upheavals of the seventeenth century are pivotal in the novel’s plot. In tracing the evolution of Ester’s ideas, I realized that the building blocks of her life—everything from arguments she witnessed to her encounters with poverty and disease to the societal pressures of her time— would contribute to her understanding of the world, and that moments of crisis would necessarily provide not only the grist but also the urgent need for philosophy. In her life, and in this novel, philosophy and passion intertwine and inform one another. A final note, in the hope that my experience can offer any sort of useful example for the classroom: I’d like to suggest that for some students, the novel of ideas may offer a useful doorway into philosophy.

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Before undertaking the research for this novel, I confess I found the vocabulary of philosophy alienating. When detached from the specifics of life and framed in lofty vocabulary, ideas can feel simultaneously intimidating and desiccated. A certain kind of philosophical discourse can also emanate a suspect kind of superiority, as though the thinkers of these thoughts aren’t paddling in—and occasionally set off-course by—the tides of ordinary life. My earlier alienation from that language is perhaps the result of my own limitations. As is surely evident in these paragraphs, I seem to be wired for a more direct and less abstract sort of language than the usual academic discourse. So when I tried to write Ester’s early-Enlightenment musings I felt at first as though I were lip-syncing. (At one point I told my literary agent, who I knew would understand the reference, that I was the Milli Vanilli of metaphysics). It took persistent stubbornness, as well as a formidable quantity of late-night chocolate, to leap the barriers and get comfortable in that language. Yet by the end of writing this novel, I’d reaped an unexpected reward. My aim had been simply to better understand my seventeenth-century character and her world—yet once the novel was completed, I was realized that Ester’s philosophical journey addressed not only her questions, but my own. The issues raised by Ester Velasquez’s own struggle to understand the sufferings of loved ones at the hands of the Portuguese Inquisition were in fact issues I myself had grown up with as a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Learning to see those questions through the point of view of a character who is adept in language of philosophy led me to understand what a powerful tool that sort of language is for weighing issues I care about deeply.

11.2  Excerpts from The Weight of Ink N.B.  The following scenes are set in seventeenth-century London. Ester Velasquez, a young woman from a community of Portuguese-Jewish Inquisition refugees, has come from Amsterdam into the household of a blind rabbi. Given the absence of any suitable man with the education necessary to read and write for the rabbi, Ester serves as his scribe and helper. 11.2.1   Crossing London Bridge Although Ester has lived in London for some time by this scene, she has spent most of her time reading and writing for the rabbi and doing domestic labor.

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She speaks little English. This outing—an errand to retrieve books from a bindery across the Thames—is one of her first excursions into the city. She walked. Old manure blanketed the London cobblestones. She passed soot-darkened brickwork, cats hale and lame, a stone edifice carved with a chipped angel. A hoof-marked yard tangled with withered vines, a fire-damaged house. Each step, a move deeper under the skin of the city. Walking, she recalled herself as she’d once been: the soft long layerings of her skirts, the wide winged collars parting at the small bones of her throat. The girl she was in Amsterdam before the fire seemed to her a figure in a framed portrait: downcast eyes fleeing the timid gaze of a neighbor boy with a shyness that now struck Ester as the most repellent of foolishnesses. She was ash now—that girl her father had escorted to synagogue and released with pride into the decorous crowd. Samuel Velasquez’s dignified tread, the smell of his wool cloak—the recollections a heavy pain in her throat. Ash: the girl who had once existed, with her vague moralities, her posture bent in apology, her desperate trust that virtue might guarantee safety. And her desperate hope too that all within her that was unruly, raging, sensuous—all that terrified and drew her—could be quashed. […] The foot traffic thickened suddenly, and as it did, the way before Ester narrowed. She was in a crowd, passing alongside strangers into a corridor of stone, and without warning she was jostled and swept onto the great looming bridge—or rather, into a dark, narrow passage that became a tunnel. The bridge was lined with solid walls of shops on either side, and the merchants’ homes, stacked above, jutted and met to form a roof over the thoroughfare of the bridge. The crowd slowed as it pressed deeper into the dim corridor between lamp-lit shops. She could neither hear nor sense the river beneath her feet. There were men and women within a hand’s breadth, jostling her with silent familiarity. She shrank from them—she’d not been touched by so many people, she was sure, in all her life. Yet there was nowhere to retreat—and there was something, too, that astonished her, something dangerous and free in the touch of this crowd. She might have been a flea, so little was she noted. A flea—not a Jewess. Not the survivor of a fire that was whispered of throughout Amsterdam. […] When Ester had seen London’s bridge from a distance, she’d imagined a wide clearing, a vantage point from which one could grasp the view of the city. But the bridge offered no vista; instead it was the artery through

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which all of London pulsed, stopping terrifyingly now and again—the crowd around Ester thickening rapidly in the lull—only to continue. Pressed forward, Ester kept pace to avoid falling. She was in a crush of English strangers and her breath came quick with fear—but their unfamiliar smells and rough fabrics and stout limbs carried her, and the heat of their bodies warmed her. A clearing between two shop buildings formed a brief window, and through this the river came into sight, and all of London on either side of the bridge—spilling past the city walls, piled along the banks as far as she could see. For a moment the heavy pounding water wheels below the bridge sounded clearly, and she saw the gray river, half dammed by the bridge, swirling high against the pilings on her right. Opposite, on the bridge’s downriver side where the water poured out of the narrow arches through which it had been forced, the level of the river was lower by a grown man’s height. So hard did the water rush, furrows of swift furious glass, it seemed impossible that this bridge—a city to itself—was not swept downriver. Pressed once more by the crowd, she walked on, but no sooner had her eyes reaccustomed themselves to the dim passageway than a pale white glow appeared ahead—the end of the bridge. All about her, men and women were strangely marked by the growing light—their faces half shadowed and half lit, sculpted and beautiful. It seemed to Ester that inside this dark tunnel of a bridge they’d shaken off the wariness that had cribbed the city. They thronged about her, their passions and hopes plain to see, their lives and their deaths patent. In that instant she forgave them fully for each thing that had made her fear them and their city. A strange tenderness seized her. For a heartbeat she was certain the bridge was in motion, shuddering as it prepared to tear away from its moorings and carry them all out, far beyond this city. But it was only the vibration of the rushing water, and the summoning din from the riverbank. She could hear the cries, once again, of gulls and boatmen, the clanging and thud of river commerce. She could smell the cool rolling road of water sluicing beneath all of them. For the first time, she felt it: this was the freedom her brother had sought. There was life in London. There was life in her. And desire. A flame leapt in her, defiant of the bounds in which she’d prisoned it. How could desire be wrong—the question seized her—if each living being contained it? Each creature was born with the unthinking need to draw each next breath, find each next meal. Mustn’t desire then be integral—a set of essential guideposts on the map of life’s purpose? And mightn’t its very denial then be a desecration?

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The thoughts were heretical, and they were her own. A frightening, alluring hunger surged in her, she knew not even for what—a fever for truth, for the touch of truth, the touch of warm bodies, the crush of unknown arms. She wanted to press her mouth to the mouths of the strangers beside her—to learn from their mouths the language they spoke. Somewhere across this bridge, beckoning her, were books that would be hers to explore and question—and yes, argue against—for in her new daring now nothing seemed impossible, and she allowed herself to admit even this: that she thought the sages scant in their exploration of what she most wished to understand—the will that set the world in motion and governed it. Shutting her eyes, letting the crowd steer her, she saw behind closed lids the books that awaited her, the thinkers’ collected voices inked onto each crowded page. An ecstasy of ink, every paragraph laboring to outline the shape of the world. The yellow light of a lamp on leaves of paper, the ivory-black impress of words reasoning, line by line. Yet in the confused picture in her mind, the hands caressing and turning those lamp-lit pages were not her own, but a stranger’s. She didn’t know which she wanted more: the words or the hands, the touch to her spirit or to her skin. And then, pale daylight. She was across, the sound of the water behind her, the clatter of stone and hooves and wheels ahead. Glancing back at the gate through which she had emerged, she saw a spectacle she could not at first comprehend. Above her, set on black pikes atop the bridge’s gate, were objects that might easily have been rocks, stumps, some natural decaying thing. As understanding assailed her, she stumbled to a halt. The hair tarred back, slack cheeks shiny and corroded like charred paper. Blackened heads, preserved in tar: traitors to the government. She’d heard rumor of this—the English government’s reminder to all of the price to be paid for disloyalty—yet now her stomach heaved and she could not look away, nor pass beneath them. One had a mouth agape. Void eyes open as wide—wider—than a man’s eyes could ever open in life. Wide enough, at the last, to see the cost of his most treasured beliefs. But the living bodies about her swept her forward. All about her, their will focused on gaining the river’s margin, the English seemed for this moment to fear nothing—not the unlatched eyes high above them, not even a change of governance that could soon mean different heads lofted in punishment for the telling of different truths. She wanted to breathe the warning into all their ears: never let your true thought be known, for it is by truth that you are noosed and for truth burnt.

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And even in the same instant, she wanted to beg the secret of their boldness. But they were already departing from her. Amid the churn of the crowd, she left behind the blackened heads that shuddered, now, in a biting wind. On the cobbled street beyond the bridge, the crowd thinned and dissolved. She stood, released, on the south side of the river, her skin afire with the touch of English strangers who had borne her across. A hundred hands, living and dead. 11.2.2   “Here I Begin” On the corner of Bury Street and Creechurch Lane, carts trundling past now and again on the uneven stones, he waited for her answer. She said softly, “You won’t have me.” “What are you, then, if you refuse to be a woman?” She faced down the narrow street, a darkened strip beneath over-­ crowding balconies. “An empty vessel,” she said, though she knew not whether the words were meant to spite him or herself. “Yet,” he laughed, bowing his farewell, “you are not.” She walked home alone, gripping her cloak tight about her, thoughts piling and slipping. Manuel HaLevy understood her more truly than any—he saw she was no docile creature, nor did he wish her to be. And his warning echoed the rabbi’s: she’d have no livelihood, no protection from hunger and need after the rabbi’s death. Why, then, not marry him, under such terms as he offered? But her nature, it seemed, was unnatural. What she wished—she could not help it, the wish persisted darkly inside her— was to be a part of the swelling wave she felt in the words of the books and pamphlets lining the tables outside St. Paul’s, the piles of fresh-bound quires at the bindery. What she wished was to struggle with all her force to urge that wave along, so that she might herself sweep and be swept in its furious progress—driving against the shore to smash some edifice of thought that stood guard over the land, throw herself against it and watch it crumble. For some new truth lay beyond it, she was sure of it. A continent awaiting discovery. How to explain to all the world that her own vanity—her pretension at philosophical thought, which a man like Manuel HaLevy would trample— was more valuable to her than the safety he offered?

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She’d reached home. The door shut hard behind her, and in its wake quiet reigned. The rabbi had retired to his room, the fire in the study had gone to embers. A woman’s body, said the world, was a prison in which her mind must wither. She forced herself to stand still in the center of the room, palms resting lightly on the fabric of her skirts. She would not permit herself another step until she calmed herself with reason. Nature gave a woman not only body but also intelligence, and a wish to employ it. Was it then predetermined that one side of Ester’s nature must suffocate the other? If two of God’s creations were opposed, must it be that God decided in advance that one was more perfect and therefore must be victorious? Did God determine before each storm that either the wind or the oak tree must prevail, one being more dear to Him? Or perhaps, rather, the storm itself was God’s most prized creation— and only through it could the contest between wind and oak tree be resolved, and one proven hardier. Perhaps—she trembled at her own heresy—the storm itself was God. And God was only the endless tumult of life proving new truths and eradicating old. Then it was only right that she do as her spirit told her, and let the struggle itself answer the question of which was the stronger: her will or her womanly nature. Still dressed in her cloak, she crossed the room, sat at the writing table, dipped a quill, and wrote quickly, as though the words she set on the paper might be spied and seized from her. To the esteemed Thomas Hobbes, I write to inquire whether I might engage your illustrious mind in discussion. Although I am unknown to you, I believe myself to be one such as you may trust: a companion in inquiry, and no part of the powers that would condemn a thinker for incredulity or atheistery. My interests in metaphysical inquiry are many, but of late concern the question of extension. If I may embolden myself to do so, I would like to inquire as to what relationship you find between the divine and natural worlds, and what beliefs you hold in the matter of providential intervention. I myself, as you surely intuit, hold thoughts in these matters that are other than those commonly held. I am in disagreement not only with the notion of divine dominion over nature, but also with the belief in its expression through miracles, the which notion seems to me the facile recourse of a poor mathematician whose numerical proofs, having failed to arrive at a wished-for sum, may yet be

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solved by the sudden mysterious introduction of a new number to right the balance. It is my keen wish to discuss and learn from my fellow thinkers, so that where I err I might be corrected, and where I possess a spark of understanding it might be fanned. Yet an infirmity of body bars me from traveling to your door to converse with you face to face as two gentlemen ought. It is my hope that you will take my word, insubstantial though it must seem, for surety. It is my hope that you will answer my letter. So she wrote, and signed the letter Thomas Farrow, and when she had finished this letter she set it to dry. There on the desk beside it, written in her hand, lay the rabbi’s letter to Florence. Slowly but deliberately, she turned it on the wooden table. She dipped the quill heavily, and drew the nib across the paper between the inverted lines of the letter, shaping a ribbon of blue-black ink to ease her own thoughts. She wrote, in Hebrew, Here I begin. 11.2.3   Final Letter She’d read the letter until she knew it by heart, before setting it aside. How fearsome a thing was love. She’d welcomed it, all the same. She stared now at the words she’d already set to paper. Yes, the universe was driven by the desire for life. But the question remained … whose? Perhaps, it seemed now to Ester, the forcing of a woman’s choice was itself against nature. She lifted her quill and wrote. Yet sacrifice of the self is everywhere viewed as the highest calling, and the more so for a woman, who must give every element of her life to others. Kindness is at all times counseled to women, who are called unnatural if not kind. Yet how can a kindness that blights the life of even one—though it benefit others—be called good? Is it in fact kindness to sever oneself from one’s own desires? Mustn’t the imperative to protect all life encompass—even for a woman—her own? Then must we abandon our accustomed notion of a woman’s kindness, and forge a new one. A light breeze from the window, and the candle’s flame shrank to a tiny globe, then vanished. A thin line of smoke rose, a perfectly straight line.

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She watched it waver and break, and the sorrow of its dissipation so gripped her that at the creak of a nearby floorboard she let out a cry. Alvaro stood in the doorway, laughing. “Rebuke me then, will you? When I’ve come to set you free?” She said nothing, only crossed her hands primly over the even lines of her writing. An old habit: hiding the page before her. “Today,” he sang softly. “You’ve gone mad,” she said, thinking as she said it that she almost believed it. “Please,” he said. But seeing he wouldn’t extract her so easily, he stepped deeper into the room to address her. “Tell me, what new invisible guests are we housing within these walls now? Thomas Farrow philosophizes no more, you’ve at last let the poor man die a decent death. Now who takes his place? Which of your invisible minions will be issuing letters from the HaLevy household this season?” She couldn’t help a small smile. “Bertram Clarke.” […] Alvaro laughed. Then his gaze rose to her window: a reflex. She knew who he looked for, of course—she was as familiar with the comings and goings of his visitor as he was with the phantom philosophers under whose names she wrote—her spirits of the air, as Alvaro called them. How painful it had been to begin telling the truth. The morning when she’d first confessed to Alvaro, her jaw had clenched so she could barely speak. Lying had become her clothing—without it she’d freeze. Yet she’d decided that this new life must be birthed without lies. Rivka knew the truth—and Alvaro must as well. Nakedness was the least of all she owed him. He’d surprised her with the delight with which he’d received her confession—his bemused This explains matters! so genuine she’d let go her grip on the armrest of her chair and breathed what felt like the first breath she’d drawn in years. Indeed, he’d so startled her with his happy exclamations over her halting account of her correspondences that she didn’t know whether to disapprove—for didn’t he understand the wrong she’d done to the rabbi? Shouldn’t he despise her? Yet though he turned obediently solemn at her insistence that he see what she was, he neither condemned her nor made any suggestion that she cease her writing. The possibility did not seem to occur to him. […]

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It was Alvaro who made arrangements for the printing of Rabbi Moseh HaCoen Mendes’s Seven Arguments Against a False Messiah and who himself went to London to carry the manuscript to the printer. She’d spent weeks redacting the rabbi’s letters to his pupil in Florence into a single condensed argument. Where she’d thought the rabbi’s arguments weak, she’d subtly strengthened and clarified them, so that when she finally ordered the pages and sent them with Alvaro, it seemed to her that no other denunciation of Sabbatai Zevi and the Sabbateans had so rigorously pointed out the follies of their arguments. The recent news of Sabbatai Zevi’s arrest and conversion to Islam had not yet dissuaded his followers. The rabbi’s words, she was certain, were still needed. It seemed to her that, were he able to overlook the identity of their editor, he might have been pleased. […] Unlike Alvaro, Ester had wronged a flawless man—and the wrong she’d done was of the deepest nature. For much though her deceit haunted her, there was a far greater sin she’d committed against the rabbi. She, Ester Velasquez, had taken the rabbi’s teachings and his trust—she’d taken all his labors to show her how to use her own intelligence—and she’d employed these to prove that there could be no God who would prize martyrdom. The meaning of this was inescapable—and she knew the rabbi had understood it all too well. For when she proved that there was no God who could treasure martyrdom, then she proved, too, that Moseh HaCoen Mendes had walked through the world sightless, and his mother had offered up her body to be broken, for naught. It was this that she could never forgive herself. […] Yet now London was in ruins. The synagogue, located in that sliver of city spared the flames, had survived. So too had the da Costa Mendes home, only recently reappointed by Mary’s father and his heavily pregnant wife—a lady described by Rivka as young, and lovely, and unafraid to weep openly over Mary’s fate while, with her very own hands, she helped Rivka retrieve those books left unmolested by plunderers. But the rest of the city that Ester had known—narrow Milk Street, Gracechurch and Thames Streets, Fishmongers’ Hall, the binderies and the booksellers’ tables outside Saint Paul’s, and the thatch-roofed warren tipping down toward the bridge … ash. Some things deserved entombment. So she’d laid Thomas Farrow to rest—and after sitting at her table a long time, the ink drying on her suspended quill, she had dipped it again, and conceived Bertram Clarke.

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These past months, Clarke had written a series of letters to Johannes Koerbagh, and he would author the next missive she was planning, to one Matthew Collins, whose recent essay on theology and social order had troubled her. After Clarke had lived his useful life, there would perhaps be another. A small school of philosophers, all claiming to be temporary guests at this address in Richmond, their views all cohering around the same beliefs … their reasoned arguments floating ownerless from her window like the seeds of dandelions, journeying she knew not how far. […] [Still,] she’d mulled the matter, and though she couldn’t separate the strands of her fears, she’d declared them sound nonetheless. She was a woman, and she’d written heresies. Even Spinoza and Hobbes feared to make direct statement of their disbelief in God. Yet after her death, as Alvaro argued, she’d have nothing to fear. Why not allow him to preserve her papers, then? Because her writings made a mockery of the rabbi’s suffering. But though she’d never forgive herself this, shouldn’t she leave her writings intact so others might consider them? Wasn’t the cruelty in the world, and not in her words? She couldn’t explain her choice, even to herself—no more than she could explain the terror she still felt at the most unexpected of moments: hands grabbing and tearing at her hair, her sex; diseased faces straining to spit in hers. She pressed on, speaking steadily as though the words cost her nothing. “I want you to burn my papers when I die. That’s my request, and it’s a simple one, and I won’t rest until I’ve secured your promise.” He rose from her table. “Burn them yourself!” He strode toward the door. A single thought took her: Don’t leave me alone in this room. As though hearing, he slowed and stopped halfway through her bedchamber. After a moment, he returned to stand before her. “I can’t do it myself,” she said. She gestured at the hearth. “I can’t bear to. Not while I can still read and think and write.” He opened his palms, showing her he meant no harm. “I know you’re”—he hesitated. Then continued firmly, “You’ve had to hide so very long.” Her anger had vanished, leaving her confused. She wagged her head slowly in apology, before realizing she ought to say it aloud. “I’m sorry.” “Ester,” he said. “There’s none left alive to be hurt by what you’ve done. Not the rabbi, not your family. I won’t be unhappy if your work

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comes to light and stirs trouble. What might anyone do to harm you after your death?” What, indeed? She was concentrating with all her strength on his words. “What might they do?” he repeated. She couldn’t control her voice. “Not listen,” she said. “Because of what I am.” His hand was on her shoulder. He persisted. “So you’d have me burn your papers, and in doing so ensure they’ll never listen?” She hated to cry before him. Yet he, who idolized her strength, should see the truth: the small, weeping creature she was, beneath all. He paused to let her gather herself. “You say it’s enough that your ideas will be visible in the writings of others,” he said softly. “But Ester, none will know they’re yours.” He waited a moment, then continued. “At the right time, the truth ought be known.” Slowly, she shook her head. “Let the truth be ash.” He stood for a moment. Then his long fingers loosened on her shoulder. After a moment, he nodded in something like defeat. Yet when he raised his head and nodded again, squeezing her shoulder gently before letting go, there was something else in his manner. She wasn’t certain it had been defeat, after all. He’d reached the door between her closet and her bedchamber. With one hand he gripped the doorframe as though to swing himself through. “The river is calling,” he said. She stared at him. Had it been defeat? At length she nodded. “Thank you,” she said. He left. She settled back at her desk. The page before her was only just begun. She’d finish it later. She stood now and, after a moment’s uncertainty, opened the window wide to admit the fresh sounds of the river. Birdcalls, the hush of the moving current. The sun was stronger than she’d expected and she leaned out to feel it on her face, its warmth as shocking as laughter. Blue and blue and blue swam in her vision. A bright bewildering sky: a riddle she couldn’t guess how to solve.

Recommended Reading Kadish, Rachel. 2017. The Weight of Ink. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

CHAPTER 12

Teaching Comparative History of Political Philosophy Eric Schliesser

The main aim of this chapter is to provide a conceptual framework that makes a more comparative, perhaps even global, survey course of the history of political theory/philosophy [hereafter HOP] possible.1 At present, in political science and philosophy departments, there are survey courses in HOP that cover, roughly, works from “Plato to NATO.” Such courses, and the survey texts they rely upon, are generally Eurocentric and mostly

 Because of this focus I do not have a distinct section on teaching in this chapter. However, the chapter is based on my experience teaching a large introductory survey course in the history of political theory. In what follows, I presuppose a claim in the vicinity of the thought that “comparative political theory will be most coherent and most interesting with a focus on moral disagreement and justification across multiple distinct, semiautonomous traditions” (March 2009, 565). However, March is focused on research, while here I am focused on teaching. 1

E. Schliesser (*) Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_12

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male dominated.2 This chapter criticizes this status quo and suggests some of the means and obstacles toward a less imperfect HOP. While one should not discount the significant role of custom and inertia, the existing curricular choices also tend to reflect a view that European modernity—say, the period from Hobbes to the American and French Revolutions—represents a decisive moral and political world-­ historical advance over the global past and is, thus, decidedly superior to other contexts from a comparative perspective. Even if one grants both of these points—as I do not—students (and their instructors) might benefit from learning about the ways these “advances” have been contested both then and since, and how they have been experienced by victims and critics of imperialism. In addition, there are by now familiar arguments about the benefits of epistemic diversity.3 And, in the context of globalizing curricula and student bodies, exposing students to significant and even still vital intellectual traditions that present viable alternatives to European modernity can serve the instrumental purposes of recruitment and cultural enrichment. While I assume that the primary aim should be to produce survey courses and texts in the history of global political theory, I’ll articulate this aim in terms of a comparative political theory. A comparative approach, as I understand it, aims to “blur self/foreign binaries” in conceptualizations of political theory “and enable future innovation” (Jenco 2014, 658).4 There are other pedagogical aims one might have in developing a comparative approach, including a better sense of the distinctiveness of inherited traditions5 and having opportunities for viewpoint diversity. To be sure, a comparative approach is by no means radical compared to the ambitions of what is known as a “decolonized” curriculum. Here, I use “decolonize” in the spirit of John Drabinski’s definition, “the systematic dismantling of structures, habits, and values of racial-national superiority and, after, the proliferation of a non-centered sense of difference” (Drabinski 2020, 1). The comparative approach falls far short of the more radical political program of decolonizing, or at least reconciling, a settler-state (Tuck and Wayne Yang 2012). 2  The evidence for my claim is anecdotal. However, for converging, empirical evidence, see Bonjour et al. (2016) and Ackerly and Mügge (2016). 3  In philosophy of science, the locus classicus is Zollman (2010). For a recent, judicious contribution, see O’Connor and Bruner (2019). 4  I intend to echo here features of the post-colonial project of Young (2000). 5  For an illuminating analysis, see Zarrabi-Zadeh (2015).

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In particular, in a comparative approach one can teach many familiar concepts and arguments without aiming to eliminate these altogether. While a comparative approach may well agree with the decolonization approach that racial-national and gendered superiority should not be presupposed in the curriculum, a comparative approach does not necessarily and completely decenter a curriculum that contains such problematic elements. Rather, its point of view is shaped by context-­ sensitive inherited traditions and the need to teach certain concepts and distinctions that are used in a wider curriculum. In what follows I’ll aim to speak with sufficient generality, but with awareness that local curricular, political, and even departmental cultures may differ quite greatly. In the first section of the chapter I show with detailed textual evidence how existing secondary materials reflect clear and explicit biases against non-European and non-Christian political philosophy. I treat these textbooks as rough, inexact proxies for the status quo in HOP.  In the second section, I discuss some of the methodological complications one may encounter in trying to develop a political theory course into a comparative survey in light of the assumptions of modernity. I distinguish between two ideal types—direct and indirect voice—that may orient one’s thinking and also expose some of the tensions within and limitations of a comparative approach. In the conclusion I discuss a further conceptual obstacle, which I dub “modern historicism,” as well as opportunities for developing a comparative curriculum.

12.1   The Textbooks In this section I provide examples of two textbooks that exhibit egregious eurocentrism. By “eurocentrism” I mean points of view that leave unchallenged the universal authority of political ideas associated with modernity. The purpose of this section is to set up the arguments in the next section that a comparative textbook and curriculum allow for more genuine political and “viewpoint” diversity. A few years ago, I was asked to take on a seven-week introductory survey lecture course on the history of political theory. This seemed like a good moment to take a fresh look at its syllabus. My helpful director of undergraduate education recommended I use Howard (2010) as a textbook. While reading it, I encountered the following passage:

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After the death of Mohammed in 632, Islam began a triumphant century of conquests. These victories, which left Islam the dominant force in the wealthy Eastern Mediterranean, destroyed what was left of the urban cultural base of the Roman Empire. (Howard 2010, 14)

The quoted passage is just about the only mention of Islam in Howard’s book. The passage represents Islam as a powerful military force. It also treats it as destructive of and an antonym to “civilization.” The contributions to political theory by Islamic thinkers, even with respect to European thought, go unmentioned. So, for example, even the thinkers inspired by Plato and Aristotle, the falāsifa (e.g., Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd), as well as figures like Ibn Khaldun, al-Maturidi, and Ibn Taymiyya go unremarked entirely.6 Judaism fares no better in Howard’s narrative. It is mentioned in the context of early Christianity, and the characterizations of it are meant to convey the debate between and contrasting opinions of Judaism by Saint Paul and other reformist early Christians (who thought of Judaism as “philistine”).7 Saint Paul is presented as treating Judaism as the “dry religion of the law” (Howard 2010, 119). Jewish emancipation is mentioned, but not Jewish participation in it (294). While Muslims are treated as agents of destruction in Howard’s narrative, Jews are, through their exclusion from the argument, not considered agents at all in his history of political theory; so there is no mention of Philo of Alexandria, who is one of the earliest extant advocates of natural equality (including gender equality) in political authority and an explicit critic of slavery,8 let alone any mention of Maimonides, or, more controversially, Spinoza. While “women” as objects of theorizing are mentioned frequently enough, individual women are almost completely consigned to the margins. This is a book without even an obligatory mention of Pizan, Wollstonecraft, or Queen Elizabeth I. Given the centrality of the French Revolution as one of the termini ad quem, it is especially curious that Gouges receives a single mention only in a footnote (Howard 2010, 351), and Grouchy is ignored altogether (Bergès 2018; Bergès and Schliesser 2019).  For a useful corrective, see Fraenkel (2012).  These ideas have extraordinary longevity. See, for example, Franks (2010). 8  See, especially, De vita contemplativa or “Of the Contemplative life.” I do not mean to suggest that Philo is always this radical. There are plenty of works where he accepts various kinds of hierarchy, including slavery and gender hierarchy. For a useful introduction, see Engberg-Pedersen (1999). 6 7

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The American Revolution is the other main destination in Howard’s analysis; but the fact that there were “native inhabitants” is mentioned only in the context of Locke’s ignoring them in his political philosophy (Howard 2010, 236; see also Young 2000, 245). So, while the Dominican order is mentioned a few times, there is no word of the monumental debate between Las Casas and Sepúlveda on the status of natives and the nature of human rights, let alone indigenous voices.9 A second survey text is the much longer and more sophisticated Ryan (2012). It, too, skips Chinese, Indian, Buddhist, and Indigenous political theory altogether.10 However, it does have more to say about Islam. Here I focus on a remark in chapter 6, titled “Between Augustine and Aquinas,” in a section revealingly titled, “Outside (Non)Influences” (212). The thinkers with whom we associate Islamic philosophy—al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroës—were interested in the metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists. Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century was perhaps the first Islamic political writer of a wider interest, and he depended on Aristotle for his moral and political views. He was, if the anachronism is permissible, an original political sociologist, among whose achievements was a persuasive account of what later became known as the theory of the circulation of elites, but not an original political thinker. (Ryan 2012, 214)

Ryan cites no authority. There is a quote from the eighteenth-century English historian, Gibbon, about Charles Martel on the preceding page. He seems simply unaware of the political philosophy of Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, and so on, which are intrinsically interesting, but also shaped European thought (see Stone 2007). In the accompanying footnote, he gives the abbreviated title of one of Ibn Khaldun’s works. This ignorance makes it possible to treat Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Burke as the key thinkers of civic religion, even though Al-Farabi initiates a sociological and functional analysis of religion and its role in maintaining 9  For an example on the significance of this, see Sala-Molins (2006). See also the recent discussion by Romero (2020), as well as the essay by Alejandro Viveros in this volume. 10  In order to illustrate the “flowering of faith” as a “result of the institutional separation of church and state,” as “anticipated by” Tocqueville (and others), Ryan mentions that today the “United States is highly religious in the sociologist’s, not the theologian’s, sense [… with a] minority of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and animists among the population, there is a striking variety of Christian churches, including the hard-to-place Mormons, who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ” (Ryan 2012, 985).

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civil stability centuries earlier than these figures.11 Ignoring Islamic political philosophy also means ignoring sophisticated analyses of the nature and function of elective monarchy (which can shed considerable light on the American and French presidencies today). Ryan’s book also gives a curiously cursory treatment of Ibn Khaldun, who offers an account of the rise and fall of dynasties, an influential account of the social-­psychological mechanisms of group solidarity, and a sophisticated analysis of the economic evolution of civilizations. In fact, Ryan is probably cribbing Gellner (1992, 10–13).12 There is also no mention of Maimonides here. In fact, in the paragraph devoted to the “Jewish scholars” of the middle ages, he writes: “the Jews of the Diaspora had little need to think about secular authority” (Ryan 2012, 214). He seems to miss that the absence of secular power is an excellent reason to think about such authority.13 A natural place to discuss the significance to European political thought, and modernity, of Islamic and Jewish medieval political theory is in the context of Spinoza’s political philosophy. But Spinoza is mentioned only once, in the context of Hegel’s metaphysics (Ryan 2012, 675). Philo of Alexandria is not mentioned anywhere. Ryan does better on more recent anti-colonial, twentieth-century Islamic thought; he is clearly fascinated by Sayyid Qutb (Ryan 2012, 871–78). And it is not impossible that Qutb’s polemical rejection of the Islamic philosophical tradition may have encouraged Ryan to treat it as a topic that can be safely ignored. (That cannot be the whole story because Ryan also recognizes that Qutb himself is being extremely inventive about the history of Islam.) It is a notable feature of his work that he attempts to engage with various postcolonial critiques by Fanon and Qutb (870–8); both are inscribed in a narrative framed by modernity, including a “history of colonization and humiliation” (878). By contrast, Ryan does mention Pizan, who has an entire section devoted to her, and Wollstonecraft. Even so, his treatment is very partial. Let me quote a representative passage:

 See, for example, Fraenkel (2012, chapter 3) and Parens (1995).  One can also find the idea in Cahnman and Boskoff (1964, 51ff.). 13  For a sophisticated introduction to medieval Jewish reflection on these matters, see Hovsha (2015). 11 12

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Christine de Pizan has become famous as the author of The Book of the City of Ladies and The Book of the Three Virtues, sometimes called The Treasury of the City of Ladies. We focus, not on these, but on The Book of the Body Politic. The more famous books are feminist manifestos, but not political in focus or purpose. They belong, as does Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman four hundred years afterward (though not her Vindication of the Rights of Man), to the genre of la querelle des femmes. (Ryan 2012, 295)14

One might charitably think that Ryan has some particular definition of the political, such that he is merely trying to be consistent here. However, I have been unable to find such a definition. But one can infer that by “political” he means something like “the contest and conflict of interests,” on which both Pizan and Wollstonecraft have quite a bit to say. Moreover, he has long chapters on Plato and Marx, both of whom he explicitly (and repeatedly) treats as antipolitical thinkers. Also, other “manifestos” are treated with seriousness they deserve. In addition to the Communist Manifesto, Ryan singles out for praise, as a “manifesto” On Liberty (Ryan 2012, 706)! Wollstonecraft is mentioned a few times in passing later (see Ryan 2012, 555, 622, 641). The cumulative gist of these four paragraphs is that Wollstonecraft wrote a famous text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that is, despite its explicit criticism of Rousseau, irrelevant to political theory, and she wrote another text, Vindication of the Rights of Man, that is relevant but not worth giving a brief summary of.15 Because Ryan is (seemingly) unaware of Philo and Ibn Rushd’s political theory, he also suggests that nobody other than Plato drew the conclusion that political capacity and authority had nothing to do with birth and sex. That is to say, Ryan misses out entirely on the complex pre-history of feminism, leaving out many women (De Gournay, Schuurman, Mary Astell) and men (Toland, Mandeville),16 and has remarkably little to say on the politics of the family (and its complex relationship to family planning 14  It is notable that Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract is uncited, while her Participation and Democratic Theory is praised (Ryan 2012, 1052). 15  For details, including his dismissive treatment of Harriet Taylor Mill, see Schliesser (2020). Arendt is treated, in passing, with more respect (especially in the notes). But a natural reading of the body of the text is that “totalitarianism” as a concept is now out of date and encourages muddled thinking (Ryan 2012, 916). 16  For an analysis of what I call platonic feminism, see Lascano and Schliesser (2022).

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and eugenics, leaving unmentioned its wide infiltration in much-­admired and progressive thought).17 To his credit, Ryan is more interested in anticolonial work of the mid-twentieth century and writes admiringly of Fanon, in particular. Ryan discusses slavery throughout his work and explores its significance in many canonical works. Even so, he has no interest in abolitionism, and so ends up overlooking theoretically significant work by Condorcet, Gouges, Equiano, and Capuano on the complex political and economic relationships among mercantilism, imperialism, and slavery (Jeffers 2017a). What effectively happens in Ryan’s text is that only once Europeans start exploring and conquering the world does his narrative expand out to paint on a global canvas.

12.2   The Challenge In this section I analyze two ways within my comparative approach in which one might challenge the dominant Eurocentric narrative in HOP. One is to give direct voice to those who explicitly challenge and oppose the universal authority of Eurocentric political ideas either from within or without the tradition (hereafter direct voice). Another is to include traditions of thought that are not centered on, and often pre-date, European modernity and thereby implicitly decenter the tradition (hereafter indirect voice).18 Both approaches have advantages, and both create, and are a consequence of, complex selection effects. I discuss both approaches in light of a real risk diagnosed by Liam Kofi Bright: “I look at the stereotyped Non-western philosophy list and I can’t help but notice another thing—it’s a rejection of things that contemporary heirs to the Romantic tradition hate” (Bright 2019).19 In context, Bright is discussing sympathetically works that typically are not studied by English-speaking philosophy students but which he has been canvassing enthusiastically. The features of these works he is discussing can be categorized as belonging in the philosophy of mind/metaphysics/ epistemology areas; but the stereotypes he notices have a counterpart in 17  He notes eugenics in the context of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which is mentioned more often than Arendt, Wollstonecraft, and Pizan combined. 18  Obviously, one may belong to a non-traceable-to-Plato tradition and be critical of modernity. But I treat that as direct voice. I thank the editors for discussion. 19  The whole piece is worth reading.

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political theory. So, amidst a diversity of style and outlook, here are two additional stereotypical features one is likely to find in typical lists of works of “non-western political theories.”20 First, in many of them the universal authority of Eurocentric reason is rejected in terms of parochial, local values embodied in (often invented or imagined) traditions. Second, despite the apparent rejection of universal claims, they usually end up saying pretty much the same thing: capitalism and imperialism are bad; egalitarian customs and institutions that celebrate communal life of mutual care, which reflect an authentic possibility, are good.21 What is indeed striking about these two features—and I only noticed it after reading Bright—is that these reflect the program of Romanticism, or at least the part influenced by the popular version of Rousseau.22 Bright speculates that his reading experience may be due to a selection effect. To put his insight succinctly: there is a dominant “Enlightenment” narrative, and in it “non-western” readings are found to play out a dialectic familiar to European thought; such readings play a role that is, despite their more egalitarian tendencies, the functional equivalent of Romanticism and its legacy in the dominant narrative. And, indeed, a certain set of non-­ western readings helped shape Romanticism23 and were subsequently shaped by it.24 One of the clear effects of this dialectic is to flatten the “non-western” landscape and efface the heterogeneity within “western” traditions. Keeping this in mind, let’s turn to the two ways in which one can improve on the status quo. In shaping the curriculum it is tempting to attempt to correct the racism and imperialism of canonical texts by giving direct voice to those who challenge the universal authority of Eurocentric political ideas. Here the function of direct voice is to oppose. A progressive might even hope that the opposition is effective in creating an intellectual struggle in students and scholars alike that will lead to a kind of progressive synthesis in which modernity is transformed through the confrontation with the arguments and insights of its critics. 20  I dislike the terms “non-western”/“western” and the role it plays in analysis. But it seems fine to use it in context of this dialectic. The rise of “western philosophy” is itself tied to the rise of study of comparative civilizations in the late part of the age of imperialism and subsequent decolonization. See Schliesser (2022) for some data and speculation. 21  Of course, this reductive presentation does no justice to a serious author. 22  Graeber and Wengrow (2018) have been astute on this. 23  See Graeber and Wengrow (2018). 24  Fanon has a complex relationship to these issues (Bird-Pollan 2014).

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Constructing syllabi involves choices under extreme scarcity (e.g., time and student attention) as one moves toward a more comparative perspective. This inevitably means sacrificing fascinating works of Europe’s long, illiberal Christian and utopian history—so out go much of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, More, Burke, Paine, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Luxemburg, and so on, in order to make space for Equiano, Cugoano, Gouges, Grouchy, L’Ouverture, Douglass, Sojourner Truth, The Declaration of Sentiments, Du Bois, Ambedkar, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and so on. One effect of giving direct voice in this way—and yes, that locution is intended to problematize my own position—is that it reinforces the idea that European modernity is, indeed, a decisive world-historical rupture and that all other voices must respond to it. One can recognize that racialized slavery, eugenics, patriarchy/misogyny, and imperialism are evils that shape our world and still note that the rupture-responsive model has its own flaws as a way to structure a curriculum. Effectively, the students are taught “liberalism and its heroic, egalitarian critics” (even if some of these critics are elitist in various ways, too; Jeffers 2017b, 252–53). Often, the critics of modernity draw on their own lived experience under imperialism, and the egalitarian and spiritual strains they derive from their (reading of) Christianity, Stoicism, Marxism, and Utopian anarchist/ socialists. Another route, and this exemplifies indirect voice, is to seek out exemplary thinkers of intellectual traditions untouched by the Platonic traditions or which impose a kind of intellectual isolation on themselves. (So, this involves both pre-modern and non-modern traditions.) I was first exposed to this when I encountered the curriculum of Singaporean liberal arts undergraduates.25 One quickly ends up teaching some of the thinkers of the Chinese Warring States period (e.g., Mengzi, Mozi, and Han Fei) and Kautilya and/or Buddhist ideas.26 There is a real risk here in reinforcing the idea (popular in the late nineteenth century) of “autonomous great civilizations” with their own distinct (illiberal and/or spiritual) political outlook. But this can be prevented if one teaches a multiplicity of voices. So, for example, I assign Mencius and Master Mo; or I present Kautilya alongside reflections on the significance of Buddhist monastic  For more on this, see Schliesser (2017b).  For a very useful textbook that can guide student and instructors into these waters, see Black (2016). See also Adamson (2016) and Adamson and Ganeri (2020). 25 26

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life. In addition, I tend to point out that Europeans became familiar with these traditions just as they started to articulate ideas associated with European modernity. I doubt it is a coincidence that Rousseau and Grouchy can sound a bit like Mencius sometimes.27 I have, thus far, pretended that one can neatly separate direct and indirect voice. But the distinction is not always neat. So, in HOP I teach Al-Farabi (who is influenced by the Platonic tradition) and Al-Ghazali (who pretends not to be), and my students invariably think these are “non-western” and “pre-modern” and so, if we were to poll them, would classify them as indirect voice, whereas the way I use them in my course they can be instances of direct voice.28 My motives to teach them also reveal some real-world complications. I think it important, especially in the Netherlands (where most students grow up functionally atheist), that revealed religion, theocracy, and political mysticism are taken seriously. And, given the public hostility to Islam (which is treated as synonymous with backwardness and barbarism), I want all my students to immerse themselves in extremely sophisticated discussions within it. That they encounter a version of platonic feminism is also a bonus.29 One advantage of indirect voice is that the defenders of meritocracy, hierarchy, empire, and honoring traditional rites all get their articulate say. I suspect this is one reason why some are so attracted to teaching Confucianism these days (Chan 2007; Bell 2012). This generates genuine viewpoint diversity and has the odd effect of simultaneously intriguing, and generating interest from, cosmopolitan and conservative/authoritarian students who feel that they are not just studying liberal ideology. Another attraction of indirect voice is that students notice that the post-Hobbesian social-contract tradition, with its telos—via Locke, Rousseau, and Kant (and possible critique by Hume)—toward Rawls, is just one possible strain of social-contract theorizing. For example, Master Mo has a very interesting account of the social contract.30 A further advantage of indirect voice is that one escapes the quiet cognitive stranglehold of thinking about political philosophy in terms of self-sufficient states/nations and nation-­ states, which creates a relatively sharp demarcation between domestic and  On this, see, for example, Schliesser (2019).  What this reveals is that direct voice need not be an author’s intention. 29  Lerner (2005, 58–9). I am not the first to notice this, see Bouachrine (2014, 10). 30  See Schliesser (2017a). Once one is alert to it, one can find fascinating variants on the social contract in pre-moderns, Lucretius, Manegold, and Suarez (all of which I have used in exams). 27 28

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international political theory. What makes, say, Mencius and Kautilya fascinating to my students is that they treat domestic and foreign affairs symmetrically, and so they go really well alongside Machiavelli, Cugoano, and Marx. Even so, in deploying indirect voice, one may end up treating European modernity as the only “tradition” worth having. In my course, for example, while students are exposed to alternative approaches, none are treated in depth or with much complexity. So while I introduce my students to consequentialist ideas via Master Mo, I also teach a module on utilitarianism through Bentham and Mill. And while I have quietly dropped Max Weber from my curriculum, I think it important enough that my students have some understanding of the nature of pluralism that I insert discussion of pluralism it in my treatment of Plato’s “ship of state” metaphor. I accept that this makes my “comparative” approach by no means radical.

12.3   Concluding Thoughts The conclusion of my last section hints at an anxiety. This is because while gesturing toward a globalizing curriculum, I may fall into a characteristic vice that I call “modern historicism.” It is an unusual version of historicism because it is built on the (embrace and) reality of moral progress. Modern historicism is, in fact, committed to three claims: first, all thinkers are socially conditioned. Second, while we, too, will make socially conditioned moral mistakes, we are the products of moral progress or Enlightenment. Third, some mechanism of historical change, even improvement, is required. One often encounters explicitly modern historicism—say in debates over which statues to topple or renaming buildings and centers of excellence—when morally egregious positions/claims by a thinker of the past are partially excused. But my present interest in modern historicism is due to the risks it poses to a syllabus in which modernity is the center of gravity alongside direct and/or indirect voice. For the modern historicist, not unlike her nineteenth-century predecessor, mistakenly and often tacitly assumes that previous cultures are organic wholes with a great deal of intellectual uniformity. And so she is likely to overlook that nearly all thinkers or historically situated concepts we might present, including the moral mistakes (or even sins) of the past, were often contested in their own historical context. We know this is true of the intellectual ferment of the Warring States period, as well as in the debates engendered by and among the falāsifa; but it is also true within European modernity. For example,

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Gouges is a great critic of feudalism and slavery, but also of democracy gendered male, which cost Gouges her head.31 Insofar as one has a duty in surveys of HOP to teach one’s students the range of concepts and conceptualizations that are presupposed in liberal democracies, and the immanent or explicit critiques of them, one simultaneously risks reinforcing ideas of progress and, thereby, versions of modern historicism. This risk is especially present in direct voice because many of the concepts that are used to criticize modernity can be found within it (Lorde 2018). Indirect voice is a very partial attempt to circumvent this problem. It can (but need not) promote a view that political theory involves learning to model fundamental trade-offs. For once one has an agnostic attitude about the normative commitments in the theories presented, one discerns that even political theories from cultures very far apart have had to make decisions about fundamental parameters pertaining to human nature (egalitarian or hierarchical), population, eugenics, gender relations, organization of property, and the mechanism of ruler selection, while building into them a limited number of fundamental aims (e.g., honor, wealth, power, justice, God’s goodness). It’s possible, of course, that we are either on the precipice of the implosion of modernity, and that would allow much more adventurous decolonizing and decentering choices within curricula—that is, if there will still be universities like ours then; or, alternatively, our more adventurous choices might contribute to modernity’s demise! But assuming not, there is, in fact, a clear choice lurking here between direct and indirect voice. Direct voice indirectly facilitates a curricular narrative of historical progress (or dialectic); indirect voice facilitates the idea that trade-offs are inevitable. Perhaps, however, this is a false choice, and we need both. Acknowledgment  This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-1020118. Any opinions, findings, and ­conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

 For one important article that explores the significance of this, see O’Neill (1998).

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Recommended Readings Ackerly, Brooke and Rochana Bajpai. 2017. Comparative Political Thought. In Methods in Analytical Political Theory, edited by Adrian Blau, 270–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henkel, Jeremy. 2016. “Should Introductory Comparative Philosophy Courses Be Structured Around Topics or Traditions?” ASIA Network Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts 23(2): 91–106. Jenco, Leigh Kathryn. 2007. “What Does Heaven Ever Say?” A Methods-­Centered Approach to Cross-Cultural Engagement.  American Political Science Review 101 (4): 741–55. Olberding, Amy. 2017. “Philosophical Exclusion and Conversational Practices.” Philosophy East and West 67 (4): 1023–38. Schiltz, Elizabeth. 2014. “How to Teach Comparative Philosophy.” Teaching Philosophy 37 (2): 215–31.

References Ackerly, Brooke, and Liza Mügge. 2016. Mainstreaming Gender in the Teaching and Learning of Politics: Introduction. PS: Political Science & Politics 49 (3): 541–545. Adamson, Peter. 2016. Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Adamson, Peter, and Jonardon Ganeri. 2020. Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, Daniel A. 2012. Meritocracy is a Good Thing. New Perspectives Quarterly 29 (4): 9–18. Bergès, Sandrine. 2018. Olympe de Gouges versus Rousseau: Happiness, Primitive Societies, and the Theater. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (4): 433–451. Bergès, Sandrine, and Eric Schliesser, eds. 2019. Sophie de Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy: A Critical Engagement with Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bird-Pollan, Stefan. 2014. Hegel, Freud and Fanon: The Dialectic of Emancipation. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Black, Antony. 2016. A World History of Ancient Political Thought: Its Significance and Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bonjour, Saskia, Liza Mügge, and Conny Roggeband. 2016. Lost in the Mainstream? Gender in Dutch Political Science Education. European Political Science 15: 303–313. Bouachrine, Ibtissam. 2014. Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique. Concord, MA: Lexington Books.

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Bright, Liam Kofi. 2019. “On Eurocentrism.” https://sootyempiric.blogspot. com/2019/04/on-­eurocentrism.html. Accessed 13 January 2021. Cahnman, Werner Jacob, and Alvin Boskoff. 1964. Sociology and History: Theory and Research. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Chan, Joseph. 2007. Democracy and Meritocracy: Toward a Confucian Perspective. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34 (2): 179–193. Drabinski, John E. 2020. “Race, Curriculum, Conservatism.” https://www.academia.edu/36843936/Race_Curriculum_Conservatism. Accessed 14 September 2020. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. 1999. Philo’s De Vita Contemplativa as a Philosopher’s Dream. Journal for the Study of Judaism 30 (1): 40–64. Fraenkel, Carlos. 2012. Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion, and Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Franks, Paul. 2010. Inner Anti-Semitism or Kabbalistic Legacy? German Idealism’s Relationship to Judaism. In Yearbook of German Idealism, Volume VII, Faith and Reason, ed. Fred Rush, Jürgen Stolzenberg, and Paul Franks, 254–279. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Gellner, Ernest. 1992. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge. Graeber, David & David Wengrow. 2018. “How to Change the Course of Human History.” Eurozine: https://www.eurozine.com/change-­course-­human-­ history. Accessed 23 January 2021. Hovsha, Joshua. 2015. “Clashing Worlds: Religion and State Dualism in Jewish Political Thought.” PhD diss., The University of the Witwatersrand. Howard, Dick. 2010. The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the French and American Revolutions. New York: Columbia University Press. Jeffers, Chike. 2017a. Beginnings of Modern Africana Philosophy. In The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race, ed. Paul C. Taylor, Linda Martín Alcoff, and Luvell Anderson, 127–139. London: Routledge. ———. 2017b. W.E.B.  Du Bois’s ‘Whither Now and Why’. In Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy, ed. Eric Schliesser, 222–255. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenco, Leigh K. 2014. Histories of Thought and Comparative Political Theory: The Curious Thesis of ‘Chinese Origins for Western Knowledge,’ 1860–1895. Political Theory 42 (6): 658–681. Lascano, Marcy, and Eric Schliesser. 2022. Margaret Cavendish on Human Beings. In Human Nature, ed. Karolina Hübner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 168–194. Lerner, Ralph, ed. 2005. Averroes on Plato’s Republic. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press. Lorde, Audre. 2018. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. London: Penguin UK. March, Andrew F. 2009. What is Comparative Political Theory? The Review of Politics 7 (4): 531–565.

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O’Connor, Cailin, and Justin Bruner. 2019. Dynamics and Diversity in Epistemic Communities. Erkenntnis 84 (1): 101–119. O’Neill, Eileen. 1998. Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History. In Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions, ed. Janet A.  Kourany, 17–62. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parens, Joshua. 1995. Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi’s Summary of Plato’s “Laws”. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Romero, Miguel J. 2020. Remembering ‘Mindless’ Persons: Intellectual Disability, Spanish Colonialism, and the Disappearance of a Medieval Account of Persons Who Lack the Use of Reason. In Disability in Medieval Christian Philosophy and Theology, ed. Scott M. Williams, 134–178. London: Routledge. Ryan, Alan. 2012. On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Sala-Molins, Louis. 2006. Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Schliesser, Eric. 2017a. “Mozi On the Escape from the State of Nature.” https:// digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2017/12/mo-­ hi-­on-­the-­escape-­from-­the-­state-­of-­nature.html. Accessed 8 April 2021. ———. 2017b. Response to Amy Olberding, ‘Philosophical Exclusion and Conversational Practices’. Philosophy East and West 67 (4): 1040–1041. ———. 2019. “Mencius in the Late Enlightenment (Sophie de Grouchy & Adam Smith).” https://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressions impressions/2019/02/mencius-­in-­the-­late-­enlightenment-­sophie-­de-­grouchy. html. Accessed 8 April, 2021. ———. 2020. “On Alan Ryan’s ‘On Politics and Duplicitous Seductresses’.” https://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2020/ 06/on-­politics-­and-­the-­missing-­women.html. Accessed 8 April 2021. ———. 2022. Introduction. In Eric Schliesser (Ed.), Neglected Classics of Philosophy Volume  2. New York: Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/ oso/9780190097196.003.0001. Accessed 19 September 2022. Stone, Gregory B. 2007. Dante and the ‘Falasifa’: Religion as Imagination. Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 125: 133–156. Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. Decolonization is not a Metaphor. Education & Society 1 (1): 1–40. Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Hybrid Democracy: Iroquois Federalism and the Postcolonial Project. In Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ed. Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton, and Will Sanders, 237–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zarrabi-Zadeh, Saeed. 2015. Comparative Mysticism and The Problem Of Interpretation: Rumi and Meister Eckhart. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 26 (3): 287–306. Zollman, Kevin J.S. 2010. The Epistemic Benefit of Transient Diversity. Erkenntnis 72 (1): 17–35.

CHAPTER 13

Doing Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century West Africa Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

13.1   Introduction This chapter has two aims. First, it inscribes into the history of philosophy the contributions of a constituency that is regularly omitted from its annals. This omission has two sources: first, the exclusion from the annals by those who are celebrated as the canonical thinkers of the dominant tradition—namely, the Euro-American tradition; and second, the continuing dominance of what Francis Bacon called “Idols of the Theater” that makes successive cohorts of practitioners accept that who or whatever was ignored or excluded by the canon and its expositors cannot be worthy of their own attention, either. In this discussion, I argue from both a thematic and a historical approach that not only is this omission not justified, it makes it impossible for honest teachers of philosophy to deliver its history and register truthfully the biographies of its contributors located in a particular neck of the global woods—namely, West Africa. The second aim answers to the pedagogical motivation behind this collection. In that respect, I shall indicate how, whether one is teaching a class

O. Táíwò (*) Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_13

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in the history of philosophy or the focus is on specific themes, one no longer has to offer lame alibis for excluding a significant portion of the human race from representation in the annals of one of the species’ most important ideational artifacts: philosophy.

13.2   Excluding Africa from the Annals of Philosophy Africa is excluded from the annals of philosophy both as a discipline, generally, and Euro-American philosophy, specifically, the dominant tradition. First, there is the exclusion by the chroniclers of philosophy’s career. This is not limited to Euro-American philosophy. We see it in the timelines that are usually offered in more recent philosophy anthologies where, outside of Egypt, we find Africa absent throughout until the twentieth century. Often, this is what we mean when we talk of the exclusion of Africans and their contributions to the annals of philosophy. The “we” here is all-­ encompassing. It does not admit of the usual, though unhelpful, distinctions between “the West and the Rest,” “the North and the global South,” “Western and African,” “modern and traditional,” and so on. The reason is simple. The first half of each of the above binaries is more likely than not to talk of Africa, for good or ill, almost as if it had never been a part of, a contributor to, or an interlocutor in the global circuit of ideas, philosophy being the core theme in the present case. Where Africa is present, it is with some timeless reference to collective philosophies of particular African peoples, never cultures or civilizations and these, to be sure, are presented as though they were somehow “timeless” or otherwise outside of time, as I will discuss presently. It does not matter what is intended by scholars, what usually ends up happening is that the schemas that we deploy eventuate in treating Africa as sui generis and the ideas domiciled within it or generated by its thinkers as of a special sort that must not be considered not as part of the general movement of ideas in the world and through time. Our interest in the present discussion is framed by the dominant Euro-­ American instantiation of philosophy and our focus is limited to same. When the story of philosophy is told, it is as if it has been entirely constructed by people who look a certain way: white, male, European, or European-descended who sired a canon which sets the boundaries of who qualifies to be admitted to the hallowed halls of philosophy. Our focus here is not on the entire tradition, only the modern period.

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There is also a second exclusion, often unwitting, enacted by African thinkers and those who think they are their allies, represented in how they present their work and the philosophical exertions that originate from their cultures. There are many tropes with which the elision is enacted. Once we deploy sobriquets such as “sub-Saharan Africa,” “pre-colonial Africa,” “traditional Africa,” “Black Africa,” we immediately scramble the discourse to follow, induce certain expectations, limit possibilities for thought and analysis, and just generally condition the outcome in which Africa is not like other areas, a contingent agglomeration of peoples, ideas, movements, traditions, and so on, but rather a necessarily different place like no other and, therefore, unlikely to be considered in its liaisons, conversations, debates, with the rest of common humanity. Consider the idea of “sub-Saharan Africa” as a framework for delineating the boundaries of the evolution of ideas in Africa. We automatically, even if it is unintended, thereby limit our purview to what are regarded as areas “beyond” the Sahara—under, hence, “sub,” the desert. Geographically, it is a description that is better captured by “south.” But, until 1994, South Africa was not often, if ever, considered as part of “sub-Saharan Africa.” Worse still, “sub-Saharan Africa” immediately puts beyond our purview whatever transpired in “super-Saharan Africa,” which would be areas beyond, above, the Sahara. Of course, no one deploys that awkward phrasing to capture a reality that is better and simply captured geographically by “north” Africa. So, on this conception, African roles in the history of philosophy in the Mediterranean continuum, the centrality of ancient Egypt in the history of ideas, the place of Africa in the very emergence of Christianity, and so on are immediately elided. The notion of “Black Africa” likewise either illegitimately homogenizes Africa or pretends that other shades of Africa do not matter or could not be really, truly Africa, thereby neglecting Africa’s complexity and the heterogeneous practices within it that could foster discourses showcasing its place in the history of, for example, Judaism and Islam, to take two examples. I shall be questioning both exclusions and show why we should dispense with them. Simultaneously, I indicate how incorporating materials from this region is likely to enhance the plausibility, adequacy, and completeness of the narratives we share with our students respecting the history of philosophy and its derivative formations: African philosophy and Euro-American philosophy. I can only hope that I am not wrong in assuming that it is only our inattention to the conundrums that I have just described that keeps us

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from being horrified by some of the frameworks we take for granted in our discourses. I would like to bring this analytical framework that questions the legitimacy of the exclusions that we have identified to our immediate focus in this discussion: modern philosophy. It is of extreme importance to be historical in our approach to our subject matter. All too often, when scholars talk about Africa and philosophy, as we show momentarily, this is not the approach they adopt. The approach recommended here dispenses entirely with ahistorical characterizations such as “traditional African philosophy” with no time frame or even “indigenous African philosophy” with no specific time horizon. We are interested in the relationship between Africa and Euro-American philosophy because the specific period we discuss, the nineteenth century, falls within the period of the history of philosophy typically identified as modern, beginning roughly in the seventeenth century with René Descartes and ending, again, roughly, with German Idealism at the close of the nineteenth century. Some of the thinkers who populate the canon that authors and justifies the exclusion of African contributions themselves fall within this period, and the standards that they deployed to determine who should count are also preponderantly related to the same period. I argue in this chapter that the discourse of modernity that is almost identical with this period in the history of philosophy is one to which thinkers of African descent from Anton Wilhelm Amo and Olaudah Equiano in the eighteenth century to Alexander Crummell, James Africanus Beale Horton, and Edward Wilmot Blyden in the nineteenth century contributed and, for that reason, ought to feature in its annals. To the extent that they are not accommodated in the narratives of the discourse, we have reason to believe that those narratives are incomplete, inadequate, and possibly, incorrect.

13.3  Two Obstacles to a Better Narrative Two obstacles stand in the way of our writing a more adequate narrative of the discourse of modernity when it comes to Africa’s place in, engagement with, and contributions to it. The first deals with how African scholars and their allies periodize, primarily, African history and, by extension, African philosophy. The second is the widespread but mistaken acceptance that those who have been excluded from the house of philosophy by the canonical thinkers of the Euro-American philosophical tradition deserve to remain so even in our own time. I treat each obstacle, seriatim.

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13.3.1   The First Obstacle Concerning the first obstacle, African scholars are their own worst enemies. Africans must be the only people whose long history has only three periods: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial. One reason that Africa does not feature as it should in the annals of philosophy, generally, and in modern philosophy, specifically, is that the terms in which the modern period is articulated in African discourses obscure more than they illuminate. For one thing, despite appearing to designate some temporal horizon, the epithet ‘pre-colonial’ is used in an atemporal sense; it de-historicizes African philosophy. The “time before” that the “pre” supposedly designates could be from the beginning of time to whenever the European-­ inflected colonial phenomenon showed up in any part of the continent. Moreover, this turns colonialism into a non-African phenomenon that was brought in from elsewhere and imposed on the continent. In a single stroke, the rich tapestry of diverse colonialisms originating in different parts of the continent and at different times is rent to nothing. Additionally, the term disappears the history of Africans as colonizers of realms beyond the continent’s land borders, especially in Europe and Asia (Táíwò 2010). This de-historicization is why chronologies in anthologies hardly ever have room for Africa in their periodizations that follow, say, the Gregorian calendar. Yet, closing Africa off in some nondescript, eternally present ‘pre-colonial Africa’ ignores specific events like the eighth-century Almoravid conquest of the Iberian Peninsula or the fourteenth-century visit of a West African emperor to the Arabian Peninsula, indices of conversations with Europe and Asia in far off times (Abun-Nasr 1973; Yonge 1878; Jeppie and Diagne 2008). This manner of proceeding does violence to historical truth and walls Africa off from the global intercourse of common humanity. Guided by this faulty analytical framework, whatever was there before the introduction of European colonialism into the African experience must be adjudged “indigenous,” assumedly autochthonous. Whether there were other phenomena that could not answer to this characterization becomes, almost by definition, illegible to an analytical lens framed by modern European colonialism as the singular pole for historical periodization. For instance, neither Arab colonialism nor even earlier colonialisms, for example, Roman and Byzantine, could be registered because they do not fit the cramped “pre-colonial” characterization. Hence, much of the analysis that answers to this description is unable to capture the complexity, heterogeneity, and heterodoxies in African phenomena, and

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while woolly statements are often made respecting change in African affairs, there is hardly any study of diachronic transformations in African life and usages: no history of ideas, of languages, of customs, of religious traditions, of political evolution of modes of governance, and suchlike. This ahistorical approach makes the nineteenth century unavailable as a temporal horizon for philosophy in Africa, as though the Gregorian calendar could not even be applied to Africa. Even our most respected scholars trot out the usual unhelpful characterizations: “pre-colonial Africa,” “traditional Africa.” All it takes to unearth the vacuousness of this idea is to drill down to the “Africa” under reference while keeping the nineteenth century as our time horizon. Only if we assume that European colonialism is the singular pole from which to plot the history of Africa would it make sense to describe the continent with a single epithet when it comes to periodizing its history. In the nineteenth century, Egypt was an imperial power that had even extended its political sway into Palestine, the Arabian Peninsula, and other parts of southern Europe. If there was a colonial overlord Tunisia answered to, it was the Ottoman Empire. Worse still, part of the “pre-colonial” history of Tunisia must include its past as the location of Carthage and its exploits in the annals of imperialism and colonialism: in other words, “pre-colonial Tunisia” would have had to include the time that Tunisia itself was an imperial power. But this is not what those who talk of “pre-colonial” Africa have in mind. Now, imagine we substituted for “pre-colonial African philosophy” or “philosophy in pre-colonial Africa,” “nineteenth-century African philosophy,” or “philosophy in nineteenth-­century Africa.” Suddenly, all kinds of possibilities emerge. For example, much of the philosophy in Egypt in the nineteenth century was part of the Arab Nahda (Enlightenment) (El-Ariss 2018) that was as engaged with the philosophical discourse of modernity as the West African thinkers we examine later. Various parts of the continent were witnessing a wide variety of significant historical events, many of them in the political sphere, respecting new ways of organizing life, some under the inspiration of Christianity, others under the banner of Islam. Accounts of their philosophical exertions must therefore be heterogeneous. We also know that in the nineteenth century emigrationist sentiments were widespread among African Americans, such that some of them sailed to Africa on reconnaissance trips with a view to establishing colonies in Africa and using what they had learned in the Americas to move their

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African cousins to modernity.1 Meanwhile, some of their interlocutors in Africa had themselves been sired by Returnees and Recaptives who had repatriated to West Africa in search of better lives for themselves and their progeny, as well as freedom from racist oppression and violence in the Americas. Many of them had been educated in modern institutions, inspired by modernity, and were desirous of creating modern societies on Africa’s soil. They were no part of any “traditional” Africa and it is even dubious whether the term “traditional” could apply to the many societies along the coast that had been dealing with stranger elements from Europe and the Americas since the fifteenth century, if not earlier (Thompson and Ferguson 1969). Meanwhile, colonialism, if it happened at all, would be enacted by them for the uplift of their race: Liberia, for example, was a creation of the American Colonization Society. The intellectual exertions of this group, their efforts at enacting a transition to modernity in Africa, their engagement with the discourse of modernity, all combine to compel our recognition of them as modern thinkers and factor them into our narratives of the discourse of which they were no mere brute presences but vocal and important interlocutors. It is their intellectual exertions in the nineteenth century that we put on offer as an example of what can happen when we divest ourselves of the unhelpful ways of framing our discourses about Africa, Africans, and philosophy, whether endogenous or exogenous. 13.3.2   The Second Obstacle Let us now expound the second obstacle to overcoming the exclusions that we identified earlier. This concerns the widespread but mistaken acceptance that those who have been excluded from the house of philosophy by the canonical thinkers of the Euro-American philosophical tradition deserve to remain so even in our own time. We focus on the exclusion of African contributions from the annals of philosophy curated by the dominant Euro-American tradition in the discipline and the specific historical period that we focus on, the modern period.

1  For one significant example during which successful negotiations were concluded for the provision of land in West Africa for African American repatriates, see Delany and Campbell (1969). For a philosophically inflected critique of this movement by a historian, see Adeleke (1998). For another philosophically sophisticated account of the role of African Americans in the transition to modernity in West Africa, see Sanneh (1999).

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Peter K.J.  Park (2013), in his magisterial intellectual history of the exclusion of Asia and Africa from the annals of philosophy enacted by European chroniclers, has persuasively argued that this practice of exclusion did not emerge until the last half of the eighteenth century and accelerated in the nineteenth. Even then, he informs us that it is only in the context of canonizing certain thinkers and turning their preferences into the defining criteria of both their own idiomatic rendering of philosophy and the very syntax of the discipline that the annals that dominate our discourse for much of the present time have come to enjoy the prominence that we object to in this chapter. Modernity and, as G.W.F. Hegel would have it, modern philosophy differ from preceding epochs in human history by the fact that they made the principle of subjectivity, the centrality of Reason, and the Open Future their core tenets. The principle of subjectivity, the central philosophical anthropology of modernity, is defined by self-ownership and grounded in the individual’s consciousness as a free being, who is infinitely exercised by the preservation of this freedom from uninvited transgressions either by other individuals or, say, the state. The deployment of Reason that undergirds this self-consciousness supplies the ultimate standard for adjudicating what is correct and worthy of assent with respect to claims about the external world and our own internal nature. This is the epistemological orientation that undergirds the Scientific Revolution, under which, absent Reason’s validation, no knowledge claim should be accepted based on revelation, tradition, or authority. Such is the importance of these first two tenets that the canonical thinkers of the Euro-American tradition in philosophy use it as their metric for determining who is and who is not human and, therefore, deserving of the inviolate dignity pertinent to a free being. Finally, against widespread traditions of having the future presaged by the past—birth, status, ethnicity, and so on—modernity substituted a temporal horizon in which the future is always becoming, such that at the human level, merit, not birth or nature, would determine an individual’s station in life. What is, again, characteristic of the modern age is that these lofty principles were to be applied to humans, sans differentiation, and access to their outcomes is not determined by tribe, tongue, or location. All three tenets, especially the centrality of Reason, have been made part of what it is to be human, and it is no accident that, almost by definition, a people, who can be said to lack those elements or instantiations of them in their history, are to that extent viewed as nonhuman, less human, or as very inferior humans.

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But, and this is key, the time in which these principles received their boldest elucidation and defense coincided with the era of the subjugation of the native peoples of the Americas and other parts of the non-European world as well as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its peculiar iteration in North America in which enslaved persons were regarded as chattel. The epochal hypocrisy and inconsistent philosophical standpoints of some of the canonical thinkers that all men are equal while at the same time excluding African-descended peoples from the boundaries of humanity are what make them “problem moderns” (Táíwò 2018a, 14–27). That such “titans” of the tradition as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and G.W.F. Hegel subverted their own commitment to universality is why the legacy of modernity remains tarnished and its universalist claims forever undermined by the parochialism of its principal formulators. They insisted that even if Africans are human, they are of such an inferior character that their status as moral beings is easily trumped by the superior endowments of other groups. Most importantly, they contended that Africans did not possess Reason, a singular constituent of modern humanity, and if they did, it was of such poor quality that their kind had not contributed anything significant to human civilization. Primarily, they could not even be bothered to do due diligence and provide evidence for these obviously empirical claims, a clear violation of their own epistemic criteria for what should be accepted as knowledge. When any evidence was adduced of African intelligence, they were quick to dismiss it, the most notorious being Hume’s dismissal of a rumored Jamaican genius and Thomas Jefferson’s cursory dismissal of Phillis Wheatley’s poetic gifts (Eze 1997, Chaps. 3 and 8; Popkin 1980).2 Insofar as we continue to use these figures as the ultimate standards for determining what is philosophy and who has and has not contributed to the history of philosophy, we can see how our second obstacle to a more adequate rendering of philosophy’s evolution continues to stalk our discourse. Our obsession with the articulations of “problem moderns” occludes our path to apprehending and engaging the contributions of African thinkers to the global circuit of ideas, including philosophical ones. Ideas have always migrated, and, although we have been overly concerned with the exogenous sources of some of the ideas to be found within Africa and, simultaneously, preoccupied with identifying ones with 2

 See also Táíwò (2018), as well as Jill Hernandez’ essay in this volume (Chap. 8).

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endogenous pedigrees, we have been less alert to what locals have done with those externally derived ideas when it comes to philosophy. Indeed, one of the unfortunate consequences of the missteps we have highlighted here is that African thinkers have been multiply orphaned in the philosophical literature.3 For the most part, they are completely erased from the archives of the discourse. “Excluded moderns,” then, are those African thinkers who accepted, worked with, and contested the works of problem moderns and their allies in the discipline. They are those thinkers outside the epidermal universe made up of white “canonical” thinkers—Africans, Asians, MesoAmericans, and so on—who embraced modernity, domesticated it for purposes of remaking themselves and their societies, and regarded themselves as fellow speakers of modernity’s idiom with little, if any, unease. They regarded themselves as interlocutors of their fellow modern thinkers. But because the discourse of philosophy and race/racism is framed within a white-­nonwhite schema the presence of this category of thinkers in our contemporary accounts of modern philosophy’s trajectory is elided. It is bad enough that philosophy in the grip of the Euro-American canon ignores them. It is just as bad, possibly worse, that their fellow Africans, impelled by a dubious nationalism and the embrace of what I call “the metaphysics of difference” (Táíwò 2015), do not think that their ideas have any African elements. Meanwhile, their Caucasian fellow speakers of modernity’s language, in the present case, are wrongly convinced that these excluded moderns’ articulations never rise above the level of mimicry. The latter often forget that, as my colleague4 loves to point out, even mimicry is not completely without its creative dimensions. This category of Africans, who for motley reasons by no means uniformly embraced by all of them, accepted modernity and sought to use its tenets to transform their societies and explain their world, must be taken seriously. I argue that they belong in the annals of philosophy and in the remainder of this chapter I want to provide an exegesis of some ideas that had purchase and were exercised by African thinkers in West Africa in the nineteenth century.

3 4

 See Táíwò (1993) for some contemporary examples of orphaning.  Siba Grovogui, personal communication.

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13.4  Overcoming Exclusion: Bringing African Thinkers Back In It is time we stopped accepting the dismissal of the exertions of the “excluded moderns” by “problem moderns” and their successors, whatever their pedigrees. We should be particularly interested in those “excluded moderns” whose lives and writings were contemporaneous and intersected with those of some “problem moderns.” When we do, we end up with a fuller account of the evolution of modernity and, by extension, of philosophy (Táíwò 2018a). For example, Olaudah Equiano [1745–1797] and Ottobah Cugoano [1757–1791] were both contemporaries with Thomas Jefferson [1743–1826] and certainly shared a central theme— freedom and subjectivity—in their philosophical reflections emanating from the core tenets of modernity. Regrettably, the discussion of Jefferson’s reflections dominates anthologies and debates on race/racism and philosophy with nary an attempt to put him in conversations with his fellow users of modernity’s register. I suggest that there is a way out of this conundrum. We must begin by taking seriously the fact that the discourse of modernity has not been constituted and fully delivered by thinkers who look a certain way only. Put differently, we should begin to take seriously the transformation of ideas as they cross boundaries and familiarize ourselves and our students with what local idioms have added to the philosophical syntax. Beyond this general justification, there are three reasons that engaging African thinkers operating in modernity’s register is to be embraced, required even. First, the nineteenth century was a pivotal period in which, on one hand, outsiders came to the continent and subjugated Africans or, at least, levied wars on them, in part, to “advance” them to modernity. Napoleon Bonaparte had tried the same in Egypt in 1798 but failed. On the other, it was the same period that Africans simultaneously embraced modernity and sought to remake their societies after its model while calling out the epochal hypocrisy of their colonizers as well as the latter’s bait-­and-switch tactic manifested in their pre-empting the installation of modernity across the continent. Of course, these processes did not unfold uniformly everywhere in the continent. Neither was the embrace of modernity widespread nor did those who did do so with the same level of enthusiasm or understanding of what it entailed for their individual lives, principles of social ordering, and modes of social living. Studying this period and the reflections of these thinkers regarding the concept of

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modernity, we are thus bound to improve our understanding and narratives of the idea in Africa and, by extension, in the world. We thereby end up with historical accounts of philosophy that are closer to the truth. Second, many of the issues that form the warp and woof of current debates on race, racism, and philosophy preoccupied these West African thinkers, and it is a shame that we have not acquainted ourselves with their exertions. Had we done so, we might have saved ourselves from a lot of pretend originality and needless engagements with uninformed footnotes, non  sequiturs, and the intellectual arrogance undergirded by ignorance that are the hallmarks of some of the discussions around the problem moderns and their views of African-descended peoples. Third, we would have a better historiography of ideas and their evolution in Africa, recognizing Africa’s place in the global circuit of ideas while, simultaneously, being educated about how and why certain ideas acquired the coloration they bear in contemporary discourse, thereby enriching our theoretical inventories and ending up in fewer cul-de-sacs in our theoretical endeavors. Whatever we think of them, they constituted some of the earliest local iterations of the global responses to the core tenets of modernity, and the conundrums they enfolded when it came to issues of freedom and subjectivity. Recognizing this is sure to fill a gap in the discourse of the transmigration of ideas across spatial and cultural boundaries. There are implications for how we teach the history of philosophy. And, indeed, think of the impact this could have on our understanding of the remarkable continuities in the history of ideas in Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world.

13.5   Illustrations In the rest of this discussion, I present two issues that agitated our excluded moderns in nineteenth-century West Africa and continue to resonate in our own time: philosophy and race and the philosophy of history. On the matter of race and the nature and prospects of their race, deploying the selfsame Reason that the problem moderns denied that they had, some excluded moderns argued that it was ignorance and prejudice that made the likes of Hume and Kant deny the genius of black people. Alexander Crummell [1819–1898] and Edward Wilmot Blyden [1832–1912], for example, both conceded that the Africa of their time was “backward.” Worse, they even shared the view that it may not have

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been part of the movement of history, although their contemporary, James Africanus Beale Horton [1835–1883], and Blyden in other contexts, insisted that Africa had a history and was an integral actor in world history’s movement by arguing that Egypt was an African civilization and a progenitor of human civilization, bar none. How then did they explain the dire straits that the Africa they inhabited was in? Importantly, these thinkers submitted that nothing about Africa’s “backwardness,” such as it was, could, or ought to be traced to “nature” or genetics. Rather it was a product of contingency, and, just as it was true of other peoples over time that at some point they were “ascendant” and, at others, they were in “decline,” Africa was passing through a kind of proverbial “rough patch,” some of which had to do with its geography (Crummell 1862) but a lot of which was attributable to the pernicious impact of the Trans-­Atlantic Slave Trade, which had ravaged the continent for upwards of three centuries. As I have written elsewhere, the principal differences between “excluded moderns” like Crummell and Blyden and “problem moderns” like Hume and Kant are that the former (1) provided a historical, sociogenic explanation for the then prevailing backward condition of Africa and some of its peoples and (2) did not regard modernity and its tenets as the product of, much less exclusive inheritance of, the Caucasian race. On the question of the place of Africa in history and how to explain the condition of Africa back then, Blyden was very clear that nature is nowhere to look for guidance. The usual ploy of the racist ideologues of the period was to point to Africa as having not progressed while the rest of the world moved on or, worse, not even having a history till its peoples came in contact with Europeans or Arabs. Finally, there was always the insistence that Africans were by nature different from the rest of humanity and that the backwardness of the continent was a product of congenital defects in African humanity. Blyden contended that the slave trade could not have been a vector of civilization in Africa. He argued that those who made those claims had not adduced any evidence that Africans had no civilizational accomplishments to boast of. Finally, in an observation that is historically supported, he averred that without the foreign slave trade Africa would have been a great deal more accessible to (European) civilization, and would now, had peaceful and legitimate intercourse been kept up with her from the middle of the fifteenth century, be taking her stand next to Europe in civilization, science and religion. When four hundred years ago, the Portuguese discovered this

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coast, they found the natives living in considerable peace and quietness, and with a certain degree of prosperity. Internal feud, of course, the tribes sometimes had, but by no means so serious as they afterwards became under the stimulating influence of the slave trade. From all we can gather the tribes in this part of Africa lived in a condition not very different from that of the greater portion of Europe in the Middle Ages. (Blyden, quoted in Lynch 1971, 141)

These excluded moderns refused to see any connection between the physical appearance of any people and their intellectual capabilities. A lot of their rebuttals were couched as “vindication” of the African race against the racist calumny of problem moderns and their missionary equivalents who were working in West Africa in the nineteenth century. For example, himself deploying Reason to undermine those who claimed to be describing Africans and their attributes on objective, rational grounds, Blyden argued against those who were quick to attribute any evidence of genius in Africa to descent from European antecedents. Not even “common sense” would have supported such claims much less philosophy and science: “But the intellectual character of a race can not fairly be argued from the physical appearance of some of its individuals. The external appearance is not always the index of the intellectual man. Notwithstanding the claims and pretensions of phrenology, the old adage should not be neglected: ‘Judge not of things by their outward appearance’” (Blyden, quoted in Lynch 1971, 132). What Blyden did and which much of the contemporary discourse regarding philosophy and race has failed to address is to point out the illogic of the prejudice of the canonical thinkers and call them out. He anticipated what I have pointed out elsewhere we should do: call out the illogicality of prejudice in whomever is ensnared by it. All attempts to divine intellectual capacities from physical or physiognomic appearance must count as non  sequiturs. And “a non  sequitur does not become acceptable just in case it is advanced by Kant or Hume” (Táíwò 2018a, 19). I would like to conclude this section with a view, again from Blyden, that our existing, dominant modes of engaging the problem moderns when it comes to the question of race and philosophy and the place of Africans in the evolution of the discourse of modernity cannot accommodate. Our nineteenth-century excluded moderns were convinced that what modernity and its concomitants had delivered for the Europe and America of their time, it could also have delivered for Africa had Europeans

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chosen, instead, to engage in commerce, in goods and ideas, definitive of modernity. “[T]he natives would have shown themselves as impressible for change, as susceptible of improvement, as capable of acquiring knowledge and accumulating wealth, as the natives of Europe. Combination of capital and co-operation of energies would have done for this land what they have done for others” (Blyden, quoted in Lynch, 142). Unfortunately, the nefarious trade killed private enterprise in the region and preempted the development of “agriculture, manufactures and commerce” that “would have cleared, drained, and fertilized the country, and built towns […]” (Blyden, quoted in Lynch 1971, 142). In short, the development of the region along modern lines was aborted.

13.6  On Teaching Philosophy I would like to end this chapter with some remarks on the pedagogical aims set for the collection by our editors. I do so with ample hesitation, wariness even, undergirded by my own experience. I often am suspicious of those who think that their pedagogical preferences are or should be for everyone. Yet, I know how much I have benefited from conversations with colleagues, students, and friends in becoming less of a bad teacher overall. It is in this spirit of respectful, mutually enriching conversation with all who read this that I share the rest of this section. I have argued above that the history of philosophy, even in its Euro-­ American inflection, is not synonymous with the biography of a single race and that its modern iteration can use for fidelity and completeness an opening up to those who are fellow users of its syntax in their diverse idioms. I do not want to make light of how addressing the omissions can sometimes resemble learning a new language, literally, going back to school. Of course, if we make our own, going forward, the business of remediation, future generations will be closer in tune with the polyglottal world that is their inheritance. Yet, it is sobering to realize that no amount of exhortation, not even easy access to abundant knowledge, is likely to sway a teacher who is less agitated by the need to expand rather than contract the horizon of their students. How can the limited material that I have offered here help along a teacher who is desirous of steering clear of the pitfalls that I have identified? For one thing, eschewing language that we have argued define Africa by absolute difference will allow us to look for Africa’s role in the global circuit of ideas through time. Not only would we look for thinkers of African descent, in

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situ, but also in their peregrinations across the world, especially in Europe. Simultaneously, we will no longer assume that when ideas migrate across boundaries their recipients can only be imitators or resisters of such ideas. We, again, would be more likely to delve into the careers of such ideas in new locations. By the same token, we would be less concerned with pedigree and more with the thinkers in the area with attention paid to their time and their relationship to their contemporaries. I hope that, thanks to the case we have made here, the nineteenth century no longer is unavailable for talking about philosophy in Africa and, by extension, the rest of the world. In the discourse concerning philosophy and race, we no longer have to ignore or elide the convergences between what some African-descended thinkers working in Africa in the nineteenth century thought of the place of Africa in history and in the evolution of civilization and what some of the racists of the period, and before and since, have written on the same theme (Táíwò 2018b). When we take seriously some of the ideas from our excluded moderns and incorporate them in our strivings in and out of the classroom, we can end up with a more complex understanding of a complex reality, avoid the repeated inclination to see in Africa a muted presence in philosophy except when we wish to sate our thirst for exotica, and an appreciation for the historical truth that modernity has had more contributors to it than Caucasians. I do not see any losing dimensions to these propositions.

Recommended Reading Hayford, J.E. Casely. 1970. Gold Coast Native Institutions. London: Frank Cass. Horton, James Africanus Beale. (1868) 1969. West African Countries and Peoples. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hallen, Barry. 2009. A Short History of African Philosophy, 2nd edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Langley, J.  Ayo., ed. 1979. Ideologies of Liberation in Black Africa, 1856-1970. London: Rex Collings. July, Robert W. 1968. The Origins of Modern African Thought. London: Faber & Faber. Wilson, Henry S., ed. 1979. Origins of West African Nationalism. London: Macmillan. Wiredu, Kwasi., ed. 2004. A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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References Abun-Nasr, Jamil. 1973. A History of the Maghrib. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Adeleke, Tunde. 1998. UnAfrican-Americans. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Crummell, Alexander. 1862. The Future of Africa: Addresses, Sermons, Etc., Etc., Delivered in the Republic of Liberia. 2nd ed. New York: Charles Scribner. Delany, M.R., and Robert Campbell. 1969. Search for a Place: Black Separatism and Africa, 1860. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. El-Ariss, Tarek, ed. 2018. The Arab Renaissance. New York: Modern Language Association. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, ed. 1997. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Jeppie, Shamil, and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, eds. 2008. The Meanings of Timbuktu. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Lynch, Hollis R., ed. 1971. Black Spokesman. London: Frank Cass. Park, Peter K.J. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Popkin, Richard H. 1980. The Philosophical Bases of Modern Racism. In The High Road to Pyrrhonism, ed. Richard A. Watson and James Force, 123–147. San Diego: Austin Hill Press. Sanneh, Lamin. 1999. Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi. 1993. On Diversifying the Philosophy Curriculum. Teaching Philosophy 16 (4): 287–298. ———. 2010. How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ———. 2015. Looking Back, Facing Forward: (Re)Imagining a Global Africa. The Black Scholar 45 (1): 60–63. ———. 2018a. Of Problem Moderns and Excluded Moderns: On the Essential Hybridity of Modernity. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Race, ed. Paul C. Taylor, Linda Martin Alcoff, and Luvell Anderson, 14–27. New York and London: Routledge. ———. 2018b. Excluded Moderns and Race/Racism in Euro-American Philosophy: James Africanus Beale Horton. The CLR James Journal 24 (1): 177–203. Thompson, Lloyd A., and John Ferguson, eds. 1969. Africa in Classical Antiquity: Nine Studies. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Yonge, Charlotte M. 1878. The Story of the Christians and Moors of Spain. London: Macmillan.

CHAPTER 14

Ibn Taymiyya’s “Common-Sense” Philosophy Jamie B. Turner

14.1   Introduction In the contemporary philosophy of religion (PoR) in recent decades, there has been much talk of what has been coined “the epistemology of religious belief.” Like many topics in PoR, Alvin Plantinga often features prominently in the discussion. Much of Plantingian thought seems to have its roots in the intuitions of the “common-sense philosophy” championed by Thomas Reid (d. 1796 CE). However, some of the ideas that come to contemporary expression in Plantingian thought can be seen as having a much longer history outside of exclusively Christian and European circles. It is the aim of this chapter, to suggest that in fact, the essence of these ideas can be found in the theological epistemology of the Damascene Islamic theologian, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 CE). In what follows, I will attempt to show the ways in which Ibn Taymiyya’s fiṭra-based epistemology anticipates the later Reidian common-sense philosophical approach as developed by Plantinga by over 400 years. The chapter begins with an overview of the key Reidian intuitions found in

J. B. Turner (*) Centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_14

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Plantingian thought, which I will suggest are anticipated by Ibn Taymiyya. Then the chapter will proceed to outline Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology, before moving on to make the comparisons and overlaps more explicit. The chapter will conclude with suggestions as to how Ibn Taymiyya could be productively incorporated into a contemporary philosophy course.

14.2   Plantinga’s Reidianism In developing his epistemology, Plantinga has relied on important intuitions from Reidian philosophy. At the heart of the Reidian inspiration has been Plantinga’s rejection of classical foundationalism (CF) in favor of what he coins “Reidian Foundationalism” (Plantinga 1993, 183),1 and a faculty-based externalist account of warrant  (cf. Plantinga 1993; Poore 2015). Both Reid and Plantinga embrace foundationalism simpliciter (cf. Reid 1941, 361; Hanink 1986; Plantinga 1993) but crucially reject CF.2 The classical foundationalist according to Reid arbitrarily restricts the sorts of beliefs deemed foundational (Reid 1915, 92), and unreasonably demands of them infallibility (De Bary 2002, 25–31; Greco 2011, 151). Following Reid’s lead, Plantinga broadens the sorts of beliefs that may be deemed foundational, or as he coins them, “properly basic beliefs,” that is, warranted beliefs not based on any others.3 Such beliefs need not be infallible, but are instead defeasible (cf. Plantinga 1993, 40–42). For Reid, foundational beliefs obtain their status in virtue of being products of our faculties operating properly (Poore 2015). Reid adopted a form of externalism, where warrant is grounded in the workings of one’s cognitive faculties (Bergmann 2008). Central to Reid’s externalism is a faculty of “common sense”, that faculty of “judgement” which produces non-inferential beliefs in principles both common and central to human beings (Reid 1941, 330–1; cf. also Greco 2011). Plantinga (1993) develops his account of warrant along Reidian lines, emphasizing the centrality of our cognitive faculties in producing basic beliefs: when the latter are 1  Hanink (1986) refers to it as “Common Sense Foundationalism” due to the centrality of the faculty of common sense in Reid’s foundationalism. 2  As Plantinga puts it, classical foundationalists roughly have it that “a proposition p is properly basic for a person S if and only if p is either self-evident to S or incorrigible for S or evident to the senses for S” (Plantinga 1983, 59). 3  “Warrant” simply refers to that special ingredient (whatever one may take it to be) that turns a mere true belief into knowledge.

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produced by faculties functioning properly, successfully aimed at truth, in congenial environments for which those faculties have been designed to apply, they will count as properly basic  with respect to warrant. At the heart of Plantingian Reidianism is the maintenance of the common-sense intuition which Reid inspires: that the beliefs we ordinarily take to be warranted are indeed warranted. Finally, Plantinga (1981, 1983, 2000), in reference to John  Calvin’s  (d. 1564 CE) concept of a sensus divinitatis (i.e., a faculty for theistic belief), applies this Reidian faculty-based epistemology to develop a robust account of what has come to be known as “Reformed epistemology”. This latter thesis is the idea that belief in God can be warranted apart from argumentation (Plantinga 2000). But might Plantinga have looked to an even earlier figure working in another tradition for historical support and inspiration for all of these ideas? I think that in fact the fourteenth-century Islamic theologian Ibn Taymiyya can be seen to anticipate some of the Reidian-Plantingian ideas that have been developed in contemporary Western philosophy, as well Plantingian-style Reformed epistemology. In order to explore how this might be so, let us consider Ibn Taymiyya’s own epistemology.

14.3   Ibn Taymiyya’s Fiṭra-Based Epistemology Ibn Taymiyya was born in Harran (1263 CE) to a reputed family of Hanbalite traditional scholars and was raised in Damascus during the reign of the Mamluk Sultanate. Following formal training in his early years, Ibn Taymiyya wrote a vast number of voluminous works in all subjects related to Islamic disciplines, from jurisprudence and theology to philosophy and spirituality. It is to the more philosophical currents in his writings that I aim to pay attention here, outlining the essential elements of his epistemology, with Reidian anticipants in mind. Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology has sometimes been described as empiricist (Heer 1988), and to a large extent this seems accurate. For Ibn Taymiyya, there are three primary sources of knowledge: sense perception (ḥiss), reason (‘aql), and report (khabar; i.e., testimony) (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 7:324).4 Sense perception is the most fundamental: it grasps the particulars which reason requires to do its work of abstraction and inference and stands as superior to testimony, in the directness of its grasping these particulars. However, at the heart of Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology is the concept of fiṭra. 4

 All translations of Ibn Taymiyya in this chapter are mine.

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At the outset, it ought to be noted that the concept of fiṭra is not unique to Ibn Taymiyya; rather, it finds its basis in the primary sources of Islam—i.e., the Qur’an and Sunna. In the Qur’an we read, “So [O Prophet] as a man of pure faith, stand firm and true in your devotion to the religion. This is the natural disposition that God instilled in mankind” (fiṭrat Allāhi allatī faṭara al-nāsa ‘alayhā).5 This Qur’anic verse highlights that fiṭra refers to a sort of natural and original constitution with which God created all of humanity, and hence as something innate or part of the intrinsic fabric of all humans. On Ibn Taymiyya’s understanding “fiṭra is the original nature of man, uncorrupted by later beliefs and practices, ready to accept the true notions of Islam” (Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 4:245–6). The fiṭra immediately comes packed with theological connotations, for it is, as Ibn Taymiyya suggests, a potency (quwwa) that urges the human being toward the recognition and worship of God (1979, 8:458). Carl Sharif El-Tobgui writing on Ibn Taymiyya’s understanding of fiṭra, suggests that the concept is “perhaps best rendered as by the term ‘original normative disposition’.” He suggests this “strong sense of normativity is both moral and cognitive [i.e., epistemic]” (El-Tobgui 260). The normativity of fiṭra is coupled with its primordiality and enriched further still by its evident connotations of innate-ness. Hence, Jon Hoover suggests that fiṭra may be viewed in Ibn Taymiyya’s thought “as an innate faculty” (Hoover 2007, 39). However, it does not seem that fiṭra represents a faculty for knowing in its own right, but instead perhaps functions as the operative focal point to which all other faculties turn for direction—a disposition which steers our faculties toward truth. Ibn Taymiyya claims that [God] made the fiṭra of His servants disposed to the apprehension and understanding of the realities [of things] and to know them. And if it were not for this readiness (i.e., fiṭra) within the hearts/minds (qalb) to know the truth, neither speculative reasoning would be possible, nor demonstration, discourse or language. (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 5:62)

Thus, it is this innate and primordial compass which, as Mehmet  Sait  Özervarlı remarks, represents the “original and distinctive qualities that would direct activities if left unaffected by his or her family

5

 Qur’an 30:30, trans. Abdel Haleem (2008).

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or social environment” (Özervarlı 2013, 47).6 Fiṭra acts as the very ground for the necessary concepts or principles through which experience and knowledge itself can be obtained and made understandable. When sound (al-fiṭra al-salīma; lit: the sound fiṭra), fiṭra just is that which allows one to judge the truth of premises (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 7:37), necessary precepts such as one being half of two (Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 2:15), or a metaphysical principle of causality, for example, that every effect which has a temporal beginning requires a cause (Ibn Taymiyya 1999, 3:202). If fiṭra were not “sound” or had been corrupted in some sense, this hindrance would prevent our faculties from obtaining these sorts of knowledge; in fact as we shall see knowledge itself would not be possible. Yet, what seems to be of particular novelty about this notion of fiṭra is its capacity for broadening the epistemic foundations of knowledge. That is, Ibn Taymiyya widens the scope of knowledge which is deemed ḍarūrī (necessary; foundational), or as he often phrases it fiṭrī-ḍarūrī: knowledge grasped in the immediate sense which is non-inferential. Ibn Taymiyya’s fiṭra-oriented epistemology is able to widen the scope of foundational or necessary knowledge (‘ilm ḍarūrī), contrary to the “medieval-classical” foundationalist model upheld by many speculative Islamic theologians (mutakallimūn). The model of foundationalism upheld by the mutakallimūn restricts the foundations to self-evident truths, beliefs formed by sense perception, beliefs about one’s mental states, and beliefs held by way of mass report (tawātur) (cf. Abrahamov 1993; Farahat 2019, 50–52). In affirming foundationalism simpliciter, Ibn Taymiyya writes: The proof which leads to knowledge through discursive reasoning (bi’l-­ naẓar) must be one that goes back to premises known necessarily from the fiṭra (muqaddimāt ḍarūrīyya fiṭrīyya). For all knowledge that is not known necessarily (ḍarūrī) must go (back) to necessary knowledge (ḍarūrī). For if rationally inferred premises are always established by other rationally inferred premises, it will lead to circularity or an infinite regress. (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 3:309)

 The basis for the idea of “corruption” by external influence for Ibn Taymiyya’s notion of the fiṭra is the famous report of the Prophet: “Narrated [by] Abu Hurayra: God’s Messenger said, ‘No child is born except upon a natural constitution (fiṭra), and then his parents turn him into a Jew or a Christian or a Magian’” (al-Bukhārī 2001, 6:114). 6

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He goes on to add that the latter two accounts (i.e., a circular-based or regress account) ought to be rejected, and so “there must be intuitive primordial knowledge which God initiates in [a person’s] heart/mind (qalb), and the aim of all proofs is to go back to it” (1979, 3:309). Ibn Taymiyya recognizes then that some beliefs count as knowledge, not by way of inference, but rather in and of themselves so to speak, forming our necessary knowledge (‘ilm ḍarūrī) and the foundations upon which other bits of knowledge may be built. On the one hand, he admits the same sorts of “necessary knowledge” upheld by most of the mutakallimūn: self-­ evident a priori logical truths (badīhīyyāt), as exemplified by the law of noncontradiction (al-jam‘ bayna al-naqīḍayn) and beliefs by way of sense perception (ḍarūra ḥiṣṣīyya), which, given sense perception’s internal (ba ˉṭin) and external (ẓāhir) dimension for Ibn Taymiyya (ibid., 7:324), covers both beliefs about one’s mental states, and those which correspond to extra-mental particulars. At the same time, he also admits of other kinds of necessary knowledge, for instance, knowledge of God (cf.  Hallaq 1991). Unlike Ibn Taymiyya, most mutakallimūn considered theological truths of this type as being only obtainable “through [discursive] reasoning (naẓar) […] because such knowledge is not necessary knowledge (ḍarūrī), but is, on the contrary, acquired knowledge (muktasab) [i.e., based on inference]” (Heer 1993, 187–8). But, according to Ibn Taymiyya, “the affirmation of the Creator and His perfection is innate (fiṭrīyya) and necessary (ḍarūrīyya) with respect to one whose fiṭra remains intact” (Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 6:73). Ibn Taymiyya admits of at least two additional kinds of necessary knowledge: first, knowledge by mass transmission or testimony (al-akhbār al-mutawātir), and second, necessary knowledge of moral truths. As for the former, he holds that knowledge obtained from mass report is necessary and certain (Ibn Taymiyya 1964, 233). In other words, it is a principle of rationality that mass testimonial reports are not based on mere fiction. In the case of the latter, Ibn Taymiyya suggests that such knowledge is fiṭra (i.e., natural to uphold) and ḍarūrī (necessary), stating that “the foundations of these [ethical] principles are necessarily known to people’s inner selves, for indeed they are formed by fiṭra to love what is agreeable to them, and detest what harms them” (Ibn Taymiyya 2005, 474). The significance of these moves that Ibn Taymiyya makes in emphasizing the epistemic centrality of fiṭra and in broadening foundational knowledge, is in terms of the externalist epistemology that it implies: a

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faculty-based approach to knowledge acquisition. In all such cases outlined above, these foundational beliefs obtain their status not (necessarily) in virtue of some reasons accessible to a subject, but because they are a consequence of one’s faculties operating properly, grounded in fiṭra. For on his scheme, “the proper functioning of all our epistemic faculties […] is predicated in all cases on the health and proper functioning of the fiṭra” (El-Tobgui 2020, 271), and it is in virtue of fiṭra that a human’s “knowledge of truth […] and the recognition of falsehood” is grounded (Ibn Taymiyya 2014, 49). For according to Ibn Taymiyya “children are born with sound fiṭra, which if left sound and intact, will make them choose knowledge (ma’rifa) over its denial” (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 8:385). Thus, a central common-sense philosophical intuition is maintained here because the sorts of “common-sense” beliefs we hold (e.g., about the past, other minds, or the external world) are thought to be grounded in our natural cognitive dispositions as human beings, not in virtue of some collection of proofs. Now, with all this in mind, it appears to me that much of Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology as laid out thus far is suggestive of and even anticipates central ideas taken up by Plantinga inspired from Reid. In the following sections, I attempt to explore two things: (1) how the Taymiyyan ideas just presented anticipate Plantingian Reidianism in epistemology and contemporary PoR, and (2) what the basic elements of a “Taymiyyan common-­ sense methodology” might look like.

14.4   Ibn Taymiyya and Contemporary Reidianism As we have seen previously, Plantingian thought inspired by Reid centers on a rejection of classical foundationalism and the adoption of a faculty-­based externalism, an account centering around what Plantinga calls “warrant” (that special property turning true belief into knowledge). Following Reid’s common-sense thesis that the proper operation of our cognitive faculties is (nearly) sufficient for our beliefs to have warrant (cf. Poore 2015), Plantinga (1993) cemented this epistemological view in his epistemological theory of proper functionalism. This theory stipulates the necessary and sufficient conditions for a belief to be warranted. Plantinga theorizes that a belief has warrant if and only if it is produced by cognitive faculties successfully aimed at truth, in circumstances for which those faculties are designed to apply. In similar Reidian fashion, Plantinga reinstates a “moderate and broad” common-sense-based foundationalism with his theory of proper functionalism

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(cf. Greco 2011, 148), legitimizing many of our “common sense” beliefs as properly basic with respect to warrant. In both cases—a faculty-based externalism and a moderate foundationalism—the Reidian inspiration is evident. Indeed, Plantinga himself considers his epistemology to be “broadly Reidian” (Plantinga 1993, x). However, it seems to me that the Taymiyyan epistemic scheme anticipates the essence of many of those ideas Plantinga draws on from Reid. Let’s try to spell this out more clearly. First, as Nurcholish Madjid puts it, on the Taymiyyan scheme “knowledge is founded on fiṭra, and acquired through religious instruction [or true testimony] (khabr), sense perception (ḥiss), and rational reflection (naẓar)” (Madjid 1984, 72). That is—to put it Plantingian terms— that warrant is grounded on the proper function (or epistemic health) of fiṭra (i.e., when this natural cognitive disposition is sound), in conjunction with the various faculties we have for acquiring different kinds of knowledge. This is significant in laying the foundations for an externalist faculty-­ based epistemology. In putting the human being’s natural disposition (fiṭra) at the center of his epistemology, Ibn Taymiyya anticipates Reidian talk of the “constitution of the human mind” (Reid 1941, 384), or the “principles […] which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe” (Reid 1915, 50) and “the immediate effect[s] of our constitution, which is the work of the Almighty” (Reid 1941, 181). For Ibn Taymiyya, fiṭra just is that disposition created by God (cf. Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 4:245; Qur’an 30:30) which guides human cognition to form certain types of beliefs in the appropriate circumstances, steering it to the acceptance of “common sense” or fiṭrī beliefs/principles that are “natural” for humans to accept. Indeed, this is what Ibn Taymiyya perhaps has in mind when he states that “there are some mental conceptualizations and affirmations which are primordial concepts and not themselves in need of proof by definition or syllogism” (Ibn Taymiyya 2014, 339). Similarly, he anticipates the emphasis on the proper functioning of our cognition which is stressed by both Reid and Plantinga. For Ibn Taymiyya, “clear rational thought is that which can be understood by sound and proper fiṭra—[at least for] those whose capability to understand is not corrupted” (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 7:43). In other words, rational thought is grounded in one’s fiṭra being sound or operating properly. As Ovamir Anjum puts it, for Ibn Taymiyya “when fiṭra is corrupted, intellect loses its ‘true north’” (Anjum 2008, 221). Without fiṭra operating as it ought, the whole cognitive framework is distorted. Cognition and the warrant of our

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beliefs then are ultimately based on the proper functioning of one’s cognitive system, grounded in fiṭra. Therefore, we might surmise that on Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology what grounds the condition of warrant, is the external criterion of fiṭra properly functioning (in conjunction with the relevant cognitive faculties), in an epistemic milieu congenial to its working.7 That is to say the belief is causally sustained by conditions external to the agent’s first-person purview. This we might surmise is what it means for a belief’s warrant to be grounded in fiṭra. This knowledge necessitated by fiṭra, Ibn Taymiyya states (with externalist implications), “needs no proof (la ˉ yaḥta ˉj ha ˉdha ˉ ila ˉ dalīl), because it is the most firmly-rooted of recognized truths, the most solid of all knowledges, and the foundation of all foundations (aṣl al-uṣūl)” (Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 2:72). Ibn Taymiyya’s fiṭra-based epistemology allows him to broaden the epistemic foundations that classical foundationalists restrict, as has already been made evident. In taking fiṭra to be the ultimate ground of the warrant of one’s beliefs, the Taymiyyan scheme allows for a more moderate and broader version of foundationalism, perhaps similar to the sort we see defended by Reid and Plantinga. On the Taymiyyan scheme, a number of beliefs can be foundational whether the belief in question be “sensory (ḥiṣṣīyya), experiential (mujarraba), demonstrative (burha ˉnīyya), or by mass transmission (mutawa ˉṭira)” (Ibn Taymiyya 2005, 133). These beliefs can be, using Plantinga’s terminology, properly basic with respect to warrant because they are a natural output of fiṭra: a direct consequence of the human being’s cognitive disposition functioning as it has been designed to do so. This fiṭra-based foundationalism allows for broadness when predicated on fiṭra, as opposed to narrowly restricting foundational beliefs, and grounds them in a proper function-esque epistemology. Further, this foundationalism is moderate in that it allows for potentially fallible belief sources to nevertheless produce foundational knowledge. Ibn Taymiyya admits that our sensory faculties (al-ḥiss al-ba ˉṭin aw al-ẓa ˉhir) and intellect (‘aql) may succumb to error (ghalaṭ), but  are  nonetheless in essence sound (ṣaḥḥa). This he states is because “God created His servants upon fiṭra” (Ibn Taymiyya 2014, 45). In other words, when unimpaired, fiṭra will generally guide our cognition to truth even if it may at times be distorted. 7  By a design plan Plantinga means roughly the specific way in which our faculties are supposed to function given their design (by God, evolution, or both). Cf. Plantinga (1993).

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Moreover, these matters of distortion are something identifiable and known. Hence one can distinguish between those beliefs that are the products of sound cognition and those which are not. Further, as Anke von Kügelgen puts it, for Ibn Taymiyya “the evident or speculative character of a concept does not depend on the subject matter, but on the soundness of the innate intelligence [i.e., fiṭra] and the senses [i.e., the other conjoined “organs of perception”]” (von Kügelgen 2013, 300). Thus, the deliverances of one’s cognitive faculties may be necessary (ḍarūrī) i.e., properly basic, or acquired (muktasab)  i.e., non-basic, depending on the state of one’s fiṭra and relevant cognitive faculties. In either case, the cognitive faculties are potentially fallible, but nonetheless can deliver properly basic beliefs. Hence, the moderate nature of a fiṭra-based foundationalism. Thus, given that it appears Ibn Taymiyya developed a faculty-based externalism, coupled with a broad-moderate version of foundationalism both predicated on his notion of fiṭra, we find the two central Reidian epistemic tenets inspiring Plantingian thought already present in the work of this fourteenth-century Islamic theologian. Yet, we may also add the following: Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemology anticipates Plantingian Reformed epistemology (which is inspired by both Calvin and Reid).8 According to Ibn Taymiyya, “the affirmation of a Creator and His perfection is innate and necessary with respect to one whose fiṭra remains intact” (Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 6:73). When fiṭra is sound, human beings will naturally come to believe in God. Indeed, much of Ibn Taymiyya’s discourse on the theology of fiṭra is reminiscent of Plantingian talk of a sensus divinitatis, by which one can come to knowledge of God properly basic fashion. I have argued at some length elsewhere that Ibn Taymiyya’s theological epistemology is broadly compatible with Plantingian Reformed epistemology (cf. Turner 2021; 2022). Therefore, three central elements of the “Contemporary Reidianism” (Byrne 2011) championed and defended by Plantinga appear to be anticipated by Ibn Taymiyya: (1)  A moderate  Reidian foundationalism, (2) faculty-­based externalism, and (3) a model of Reformed epistemology centered on the notion of a sensus divinitatis. In the next section, I want to explore what a Taymiyyan “common-sense methodology” might look like. 8  The extent to which Reid’s epistemology may or may not actually be similar to the sort of religious epistemology developed by Plantinga is questionable, as is the extent to which Reid has been an important influence on Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology. On this point, cf. for example, Byrne (2011), and Nichols and Callergård (2011).

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14.5  Taymiyyan “Common-Sense” Methodology In his Common Sense: A Contemporary Defense, Noah Lemos summarizes the general philosophical tenets observed by (Reidian) common-sense philosophers. Crucially, he explains that the “common-sense tradition” affirms, [t]hat there are some propositions that almost everyone knows, that are matters of common knowledge […] [and] it assigns a great deal of weight to these propositions, holding it to be more reasonable to accept them than any philosophical theory or premise that implies that they are false. (Lemos 2004, 5)

For a Reidian common-sense philosopher, these “common-sense” beliefs or principles that humans readily acquire have at least prima facie epistemic weight over philosophical theses which challenge them or assume them to be false. This is the central methodological assumption of the common-sense tradition. Interestingly, Yasir Kazi notes that Ibn Taymiyya at times “appears to use the term [fiṭra] to be synonymous with what may be termed ‘common sense’” (Kazi 2013, 270; cf. Ibn Taymiyya 1995, 6:571). However, what I take to be even more significant is the way in which Ibn Taymiyya draws on the idea that commonly held “fiṭrī beliefs” are to be given methodological and epistemic priority. According to Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, on the Taymiyyan epistemic scheme if our “necessary knowledge [‘ilm ḍarūrī] should somehow fall prey to scepticism or doubt on account of some cognitive impediment, then a sort of tawātur of the human fiṭra as a whole must be summoned to witness as a corrective” (El-Tobgui 2020, 268). In other words, if the apparent deliverances of fiṭra (e.g., self-evident logical truths) are brought into disrepute or are contradicted, an inductive survey of the commonly held beliefs human beings hold can guarantee what sorts of beliefs are fiṭrī and hence epistemically superior from those which are dubious. This can be seen in Ibn Taymiyya’s response to Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzī (d. 1210 CE), regarding the spatial locality of God (cf. El-Tobgui 2020, 269–71). For Ibn Taymiyya, al-Rāzī’s argument can be rejected on the grounds that it contradicts a form of knowledge which human beings universally accept  cross-culturally  (Ibn Taymiyya 1979, 6:12). Hence, the consequences of views grounded on those principles or beliefs natural to humans must be true products of sound fiṭra, not the arguments which bring them

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in disrepute.  Ibn Taymiyya makes a similar observation with respect to those who deny the causal efficacy  of “secondary causes” (al-asbab), a view to which we naturally acquiesce as humans, which is thus taken to be grounded in sound fiṭra  (cf. 1999, 6:396–397). What is striking about this methodology is the way in which Ibn Taymiyya takes the apparent products of fiṭra to trump arguments that call those beliefs or principles into question. To put it in Reidian terms, the Taymiyyan scheme gives methodological priority to widespread “common-­ sense” beliefs/principles over and above  arguments which attempt to defeat them. But how does one know these are genuine products of fiṭra? By tawātur, i.e.,  examining the sorts of beliefs human beings commonly accept. This Taymiyyan move also anticipates Plantinga’s earlier method of distinguishing merely basic beliefs from properly basic beliefs.9 Previously  Plantinga argued that the way to sort out the two types of beliefs is, in essence, “inductive” (Plantinga 1981, 50). The idea seems to have been that rather than applying a pre-theoretical criterion to sort out which beliefs are properly basic, we can determine those sorts of beliefs in reference to those which we tend to agree are of that kind, having conducted an inductive survey of those beliefs we tend to commonly accept as properly basic. Ibn Taymiyya’s tawātur-based approach anticipates this move, but rather than drawing on this method to determine what sorts of beliefs are necessary and fiṭrī (i.e., properly basic), Ibn Taymiyya uses this approach in an attempt to dismiss arguments which call those beliefs into question. By determining the sorts of beliefs which are near to universally held, we have strong reason to suspect these beliefs are the products of sound fiṭra, and so we ought to favor them. The common-sense methodology is apparent in these epistemic moves because it favors those “propositions […] that are matters of common knowledge […] holding it to be more reasonable to accept them than any philosophical theory or premise that implies that they are false” (Lemos 2004, 5). The tawātur-based approach grants epistemic priority to the beliefs common to human beings, because they are apparently the products of sound fiṭra and hence genuine forms of knowledge.

9

 By “early” I mean Plantingian ideas before the development of his “warrant” trilogy.

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14.6  Conclusion: Teaching Ibn Taymiyya In sum, Ibn Taymiyya makes reference to an epistemic concept (fiṭra) which acts as the focal point of his epistemic and philosophical system, playing a pivotal methodological role in systematizing a coherent worldview. In giving fiṭra epistemic center stage, Ibn Taymiyya appears to adopt a form of externalism, where the warrant of one’s beliefs is ultimately grounded in the health and proper function of fiṭra. In doing so, Ibn Taymiyya offers a broad-moderate version of foundationalism, opens space for an Islamic version of “Reformed epistemology”, and employs epistemic methodological tactics that in some sense anticipate those of the common-sense tradition. In virtue of these novel epistemic twists, Ibn Taymiyya’s epistemic scheme and general method can be seen in crucial ways to anticipate central intuitions in contemporary Reidianism, as exemplified in the work of Alvin Plantinga. This chapter hopes to have demonstrated that important ideas in analytic (religious) epistemology are not merely compatible with Muslim philosophical theology, but may in fact have been anticipated by Muslim thinkers much earlier than the philosophers drawn upon in the Western tradition. In the present context, an examination of Ibn Taymiyya’s own theological epistemology perhaps goes some way in suggesting that this is indeed the case. Finally, I ought to say something by way of suggestion as to how Ibn Taymiyya may be incorporated into the philosophy classroom. As has been already alluded to, Ibn Taymiyya offers a unique contribution to the debate concerning religious epistemology. I have argued elsewhere (and noted in this chapter) that Ibn Taymiyya developed and anticipated a Reformed epistemological thesis which broadly overlaps with aspects of Plantinga’s own recent developments. Nevertheless, there is much more to explore and to debate on that front. It would certainly be worthwhile to consider the extent to which elements within Ibn Taymiyya’s own thought may in fact offer solutions to problems Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology fails to offer. This would be of interest to courses on global philosophy of religion, aiming to move beyond merely Christian theological figures. In the spirit of the present discussion, I’d also suggest that comparative philosophical discourse between Ibn Taymiyya and Reidian epistemology opens the door to a number of intriguing topics. Consider Table 14.1 as

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Table 14.1  Ibn Taymiyya’s fiṭra-based philosophy and Reid’s common-sense philosophy Taymiyyan fit·ra-based philosophy

Reidian common-sense philosophy

Key epistemic concept

Fiṭra: the natural disposition, central to warrant and one’s overall worldview

Common sense: faculty for judgment tied to human nature, grounds warrant, and is the basis of a coherent worldview

Epistemic structure

Anti-classical fiṭra-based foundationalism (moderate)

Anti-classical common-sense foundationalism (moderate)

Internalism versus externalism

Externalism—grounded ultimately on the epistemic health of fiṭra

Externalism—grounded for the most part on the proper function of common sense

Methodological priority

Epistemic and methodological priority always given to deliverances of fiṭra

Epistemic and methodological priority given to prima facie deliverances of common sense

Weltanschauung

Built up from the beliefs warranted in virtue of fiṭra

Constructed on the basis of prima facie deliverances of common sense

an example of the various discursive arenas in which the two may be compared in ways that can help the discourse grow and flourish. Table 14.1 gives a sense of what a comparison between Ibn Taymiyya and Reid might look like, and specific areas which may be explored in the future and could be worthwhile for in-classroom discussion and research. Finally, if it is not already clear by now, it must be emphasized that Ibn Taymiyya is a much more important thinker than philosophers have traditionally recognized, and yet there is much more exciting work to be done in exploring the complexities and treasures hidden behind his voluminous works of theological philosophy.

Recommended Reading El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif. 2020. Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation. Leiden: Brill. Greco, John. 2011. Common Sense in Thomas Reid. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (1): 142–55. Hoover, Jon. 2019. Ibn Taymiyya. London: One World Academic. Hoover, Jon. 2007. Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism. Leiden: Brill.

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Plantinga, Alvin. 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. New  York: Oxford University Press. Rapoport, Yossef and Shahab Ahmed. 2010. Ibn Taymiyya and His Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References Abrahamov, Binyamin. 1993. Necessary Knowledge in Islamic Theology. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20 (1): 20–32. Anjum, Ovamir. 2008. Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Movement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bergmann, Michael. 2008. Reidian Externalism. In New Waves in Epistemology, ed. Vincent F. Hendricks and Duncan Pritchard, 52–74. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad. 2001. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Beirut: Dār Ṭawq al-Najāt. Byrne, Peter. 2011. Reidianism in Contemporary English-Speaking Religious Epistemology. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3 (2): 267–284. De Bary, Philip. 2002. Thomas Reid and Scepticism: His Reliabilist Response. London: Routledge. El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif. 2020. Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation. Leiden: Brill. Greco, John. 2011. Common Sense in Thomas Reid. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (1): 142–155. Hallaq, Wael. 1991. Ibn Taymiyya on the Existence of God. Acta Orientalia 52: 49–69. Hanink, James G. 1986. Thomas Reid and Common Sense Foundationalism. The New Scholasticism 60 (1): 91–115. Heer, Nicolas. 1988. Ibn Taymiyah’s Empiricism. In A Way Prepared. Essays on Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder, ed. Farhad Kazemi and Robert Duncan McChesney, 109–115. New  York and London: New  York University Press. ———. 1993. The Priority of Reason in the Interpretation of Scripture: Ibn Taymīya and the Mutakallimūn. In Literary Heritage of Classical Islam. Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of James A. Bellamy, ed. M. Mir in collaboration with J. E. Fossum, 181–195. Princeton: Darwin Press. Hoover, Jon. 2019. Ibn Taymiyya. London: One World Academic. Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn. 1964. al-Musawwada fī uṣūl al-fiqh. Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Madani. ———. 1979. Dar’ ta‘āruḍ al-‘aql wa-l-naql. 10 Vols. Riyadh: Dār al-Kunūz al-Adabiyya. ———. 1995. Majmū‘ Fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymiyya. 37 Vols. Mujamma‘ al-Malik Fahd.

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———. 1999. al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ. 7 Vols. Riyadh: Dār al-‘Āṣima. ———. 2005. al-Radd’ ‘ala al-Manṭiqiyyīn. Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Rayyān. ———. 2014. al-Intiṣār li-ahl al-athar (naqḍ al-mantiq). Mecca: Dār ‘ālam al-Fawā’id. Kazi, Yasir. 2013. Reconciling Reason and Revelation in the Writings of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). PhD diss., Yale University. von Kügelgen, Anke. 2013. The Poison of Philosophy: Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle For and Against Reason. In Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, ed. Alina Kokoschka, Birgit Krawietz, and Georges Tamer, 253–328. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Lemos, Noah. 2004. Common Sense: A Contemporary Defense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Madjid, Nurcholish. 1984. Ibn Taymiyya on Kalām and Falsafa: A Problem of Reason and Revelation in Islam. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1984. Nichols, Ryan, and Robert Callergård. 2011. Thomas Reid on Reidian Religious Belief Forming Faculties. The Modern Schoolman 88 (4): 317–335. Özervarlı, M.  Sait. 2013. Divine Wisdom, Human Agency and the fitra in Ibn Taymiyya’s Islamic Thought. In Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, ed. Alina Kokoschka, Birgit Krawietz, and Georges Tamer, 37–60. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. Plantinga, Alvin. 1981. Is Belief in God Properly Basic? Nous 1: 41–51. ———. 1983. Reason and Belief in God. In Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 16–93. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. ———. 1993. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press. Poore, Gregory S. 2015. Theism, Coherence, and Justification in Thomas Reid’s Epistemology. In Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value, ed. Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard, 213–231. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reid, Thomas. 1915. An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. In Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense, ed. G.A. Johnston, 27–196. London: Open Court. ———. 1941. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. London: Macmillan and Co. Turner, Jamie B. 2021. An Islamic Account of Reformed Epistemology. Philosophy East and West 71 (3): 767–792. ———. 2022. “Ibn Taymiyya on Theistic Signs and Knowledge of God.” Religious Studies 58 (3): 583–597. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412521000159

CHAPTER 15

From Meditation to Contemplation: Broadening the Borders of Philosophy in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries Christina Van Dyke

In this chapter, I argue that the development of imaginative meditation as both a literary genre and a devotional practice played a formative role in women’s being accepted as “knowers” in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries—and, thus, in women’s impacting the Western philosophical tradition. European Christian communities throughout this period used meditations to encourage a deeper, more personal love for Christ via imaginative engagement, often asking readers to imagine themselves present at various moments in Christ’s life. In its emphasis on sensation and feeling, meditation was seen as an activity particularly suited for women and their closer ties with the body. At the same time, the portrayal of contemplation as the highest form of both knowledge and meditation means that women were understood as gaining access to the philosophical realm as they progressed in meditation. As love becomes increasingly portrayed

C. Van Dyke (*) Department of Philosophy, Barnard College at Columbia University, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_15

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as the central means to achieving volitional and intellective union with God—the end-goal of contemplation—the widespread popularity of imaginative meditations opened up space for women’s claims to the highest forms of knowledge to be accepted because of (rather than despite) their association with the body. Our experience of the world around us is crucial to our moral and spiritual lives. In acknowledging this, the medieval meditative tradition offers an important complement to scholastic philosophy’s focus on abstract argumentation. It also demonstrates how an emphasis on embodied forms of knowing can include people from epistemically/educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Finally, it reminds us that philosophy can—and should—be about self-discovery and self-formation just as much as it is about argumentation and critical reasoning.

15.1   Sensation and Imagination Medieval meditation developed as a means to engage and train bodily faculties—in particular, sensation and imagination—toward spiritual goods. As such, it provides a particularly good example of how medieval philosophy influenced moral and spiritual practices: meditation becomes one of the most widely practiced spiritual exercises in the later Middle Ages in large part because it uses natural philosophical theories about sense perception, sense appetite, and imagination to help human beings reach their ultimate end (as opposed to pushing people to avoid embodied engagement with the world, which most people were unable and/or unwilling to do). In order to understand both the significance of the meditative genre, then, and its impact on women’s epistemic possibilities, we must begin with an overview of how this tradition understood sensation and imagination. A full treatment of this topic would, of course, be tremendously complex, with any number of details hotly debated. That said, it’s fair to say that most people in the “Latin West” in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries viewed human beings as composites of body and soul—that is, neither merely souls with bodies attached (à la Plato) nor merely living bodies (à la the Epicureans or the Stoics). The body was seen as providing the soul with information about the world around it, and the soul was seen as using that information both to make decisions about responding to that

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world and to transcend the particularity of that world by comprehending unchanging universal truths.1 The relation between body and soul was complicated by the distorting effects of sin, which tugs the will away from the true good and clouds the intellect, making both the body’s and the soul’s tasks substantially more difficult. In fact, God’s help was seen as necessary for remediating sin’s effects. The ultimate source of all truth, goodness, and being, God was understood to have voluntarily become part of the material world (via the incarnation of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity) in order to overcome the effects of sin and reconcile creation with the Creator. Medieval views on the relation between the material world and divine truths were correspondingly complex, depicting an intricate latticework of connections between body, soul, world, and God in which sensation and imagination as well as intellect and will played key roles.2 In both the scholastic and the contemplative traditions, “sensation” is a term that broadly denotes the work of our sensory capacities, capacities which include the “sense appetite”—an appetite or desire whose general purpose is to be drawn on a sensory level toward what’s good for us. The Cloud of Unknowing describes sensation as “the power that affects and controls our body’s perceptions” (Anonymous 2009, 147). Its job is to pull us toward physical objects that are good for us (e.g., a ripe pear) and to push away from things that are bad for us (e.g., moldy bread), while allowing us to “know and experience all of physical creation, both pleasant and unpleasant” (147). Sense appetite is also linked with the will in this tradition, for the will is also often commonly portrayed as an appetite— namely, a rational appetite for the good.3 The proper use of sensation is thus crucial for the development of virtue. As Catherine of Siena notes, “Sensation is a servant, and it has been appointed to serve the soul, so that your body may be your instrument for proving and exercising virtue” (Catherine of Siena 1980, 105). The will needs to respond to the impetus provided to it by sense appetite predictably and appropriately in order to be considered virtuous.4 Sensation’s  For a comprehensive overview of theories of human nature in this period, see Dales (1995).  For an overview of these issues and positions, see Hasse (2009). For a classic scholastic discussion of sensualitas as a power of the human soul, see Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae Ia 81. 3  See, for example, Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness, Q 1.2.co. 4  For an excellent discussion of the relation between virtue and the will—and how it changes during the period on which I’m focusing, see Kent (1995). 1 2

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relation to the will is mirrored by imagination’s relation to the intellect. The Cloud of Unknowing describes imagination as “the power that helps us form mental images of anything present or absent” (Anonymous 2009, 145). Its primary role is to assist reason by calling up impressions from our memory. Reason and imagination work together on these impressions, allowing us to isolate various features of past sensory experiences, to combine them in new and interesting ways, and to draw important connections between them. Both sense appetite and imagination thus play a crucial role in our moral and spiritual formation. We might see a cozy pair of pajama pants online, for instance, and resist their initial tug on our sense appetite’s desire for comfort, and then later indulge in vividly imagining just how wonderful they might feel on cold winter mornings. If we consistently yield to the desire to click “buy” on the website in response, our will’s ability to resist such promptings will become weaker and weaker, and we’ll end up with more pajama pants (and less money) than we need. Fortunately, we can also use imagination and sense appetite to encourage the formation of virtue. In this example, our sensory appetite’s pull toward the pajamas could spark reflection on how many pairs we already own, and then we could use imagination to picture how happy those pajama pants might make someone else, leading us to donate them to charity or buy them for a friend for Christmas. A central component in medieval meditations is training sensation and imagination to help rather than distract our intellects and will in just these sorts of way. And, because Christ both represents the ideal human life and is also God, most meditations focus on engaging the sense and the imagination to love Christ more deeply. In fact, Bonaventure reports Christ explaining the Incarnation to him as a way of sparking love for God: “The reason I became visible was in order that you might see me and give me of your love, for I was not loved in my Godhead because I was unseen and invisible” (Bonaventure 2016, 70).

15.2  The Meditative Tradition Originally meditation was an exercise advocated as appropriate for cloistered monks, but by the end of the thirteenth century it had become a popular genre of literature and a spiritual discipline available to all comers. Following on the twelfth-century Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations (written by Guigo II for the Carthusian Order), meditation was often

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portrayed and practiced as the second of four linked exercises: (1) close reading5 of passages from Scripture (lectio divina), (2) meditation (meditatio), (3) prayer (oratio), and (4) contemplation (contemplatio).6 Lectio divina fills the senses with the sacred words of Scripture; meditation brings those words to life via imagination’s working and kindles the fire of love for God. Prayer then connects this love directly to God and works to make the person more receptive to contemplation—which (as we’ll see in Sect. 15.4) is a paradoxically receptive activity in which the person receives direct experience of God’s own essence. To kindle greater devotion to God via love for Christ, books of meditations typically describe events in Christ’s life in vivid detail, encouraging their reader/hearer to engage imaginatively in those scenes. As the author of the Meditations on the Life of Christ, for instance, counsels that, “If you wish to profit from all this, Sister, you must place yourself in the presence of whatever is related as having been said or done by the Lord Jesus, as if you were hearing it with your own ears and seeing it with your own eyes, giving it your total mental response: with care, delight, and sorrow, and with all extraneous cares and concerns set aside for the time being” (John of Caulibus [sic]7 2000, 4). Thus, in her late thirteenth-century Page of Meditations, the Carthusian nun Marguerite of Oingt poignantly compares Christ’s earthly suffering to labor and childbirth. Addressing Christ, she writes: Are you not my mother and more than mother? The mother who bore me labored at my birth for one day or one night, but you, my sweet and lovely Lord, were in pain for me not just one day, but you were in labor for more than thirty years. Oh, sweet and lovely Lord, how bitterly were you in labor for me all through your life! But when the time approached when you had to give birth, the labor was such that your holy sweat was like drops of blood 5  This reading could—and often did—happen communally as well as individually, with one person reading a passage out loud to an attentive group. 6  For chapter-length discussions of each of these practices, see Hollywood and Beckman (2012), especially E. Ann Matter’s “Lectio Divina” (147–56), Thomas Bestul’s “Meditatio/ Meditation” (157–66), Rachel Fulton Brown’s “Oratio/Prayer” (167–77), Charlotte Radler’s “Actio et Contemplatio/Action and Contemplation” (211–24), as well as Bernard McGinn’s “Unio Mystica/Mystical Union” (200–10). 7  Editors’ note: Here and below, this citation may be a bit misleading. When this translation of the Meditations appeared, John of Caulibus was generally thought to have authored this text, and he is still listed as the author in this translation. However, it now seems nearly certain that he was not the author. We have thus inserted [sic] behind his name to indicate this.

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which poured out of your body onto the ground. […] When the hour of birth came, you were placed on the hard bed of the cross where you could not move or turn around or stretch your limbs as someone who suffers much pain should be able to do. […] And surely it was no wonder that your veins were broken when you gave birth to the world all in one day. (Marguerite of Oingt 1990, 31)8

A mother’s pain in childbirth would have been intimately familiar to most of Marguerite’s readers (who ranged from fellow Carthusians—both monks and nuns—to religious and layfolk throughout France), given that neither hospitals nor privacy were widely available in medieval Europe.9 The description of Christ as forced to labor without even being allowed to move around to ease his suffering makes mentally placing oneself at the site of his pain all the more intense, and the idea that Jesus is suffering to give birth to us creates a sense of personal connection to the event. Marguerite’s Meditation is short and focused entirely on Christ’s Passion, but longer and more detailed books of meditations cover a whole range of episodes in the life of both Christ and his mother Mary. Of these, by far the most widely read and influential example is the late thirteenth-­ century Meditations on the Life of Christ.10 Building on the knowledge of Scripture the reader would have absorbed via lectio divina, the Meditations instructs its readers to imagine what it would have been like to experience various moments in the life of Mary and Christ with them, whether or not those moments are explicitly described in Scripture. In the chapter on the Holy Family’s return from their flight to Egypt, for instance, the reader is asked to imagine how difficult the trip must have been for Jesus who, according to tradition, would have been about three years old: “When he came to Egypt, he was such a tiny thing that he could be carried. Now, he is just big enough that he cannot be carried very easily and just small enough that he cannot walk very far” (John of Caulibus [sic] 2000, 50). We are asked to imagine that some kind soul has given Jesus a small 8  Although striking in contemporary contexts, the depiction of Jesus as mother is relatively common in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. For an influential study of the history of this depiction, see Walker Bynum (1984). 9  For more on Marguerite’s use of imagery and readership, see Fibra (2017). 10  Translated into a number of vernaculars, including Nicholas Love’s influential English Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, the Meditations remained wildly popular well into the sixteenth century; its impact on late medieval culture would be hard to overstate. For the definitive Latin edition, see Meditationes Vitae Christi (1997).

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donkey to ride, and that we are walking alongside him. “When he wants to dismount,” the text advises, “Take him joyfully in your arms, and hold him a bit” (51). Going beyond the recorded events of Scripture was seen as another way of engaging the senses and imagination to develop a more personal, deeper love for God. As Grace Jantzen writes, “Imaginative meditation was to be encouraged, not cramped by the literal or historical sense, because it is by imaginative entry into the mystical sense of scripture that the love and grace of God can be encountered” (Jantzen 1995, 82). Such engagement was also viewed as an important component of developing virtue in the will and the intellect: our inclination to care for others and our ability to do so wisely increases as our love for God grows. As the prologue to the Meditations states, the person who meditates frequently “is illuminated by divine virtue in such a way that she both clothes herself with virtue and distinguishes what is false from what is true: so much so that there have been many unlettered and simple persons who have come to know about the great and puzzling truths of God in this way” (John of Caulibus [sic] 2000, 3). This progression from imaginative meditation to knowledge of divine truths is also part of the move from the exercise of meditation to that of contemplation. As Michelle Karnes notes, “The most important cognitive task assigned to medieval imagination was the discovery of truth” (Karnes 2011, 4). The message of the prologue of the Meditations is that anyone who practices this discipline sincerely and regularly—whether ordained clergy or layperson, male or female—can gain access to the higher truths of God. Indeed, the use of the female pronoun in the quote above is not a contemporary feminist rendering: the Meditations is addressed to a woman associated with the Franciscan order, and the text uses female pronouns throughout to refer to human beings. As we’ll see in Sect. 15.3, the physiological features that were claimed to limit women’s ability to cognize were also viewed as increasing their ability to love, giving them entry into higher realms of contemplation via this love.

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15.3   Clear Eyes, Full Hearts: Women’s Bodies and Reception of Truth The portrayal of women in medical texts and popular culture as physically and emotionally more receptive and sensitive (and therefore more dependent) than men was used to justify all sorts of structural injustices throughout the Middle Ages, including the exclusion of women from the higher echelons of the church and the university system.11 At the same time, women were seen as better at forming sensory and imaginative impressions and better at loving than their male counterparts.12 The emergence of meditation as a spiritual discipline that put sensory and imaginative powers to work firing the will’s love for Christ thus made it a natural fit for women’s devotional lives. And as love became increasingly portrayed as the central means toward knowledge of and union with God, women were increasingly seen as contemplative as well as meditative authorities. Although women, like men, were understood to be rational animals and made in God’s image, women’s bodies were not taken to produce the “active seed” from which other humans are generated, and so women were commonly viewed as incomplete and/or “misbegotten” instantiations of human nature.13 One supposed result of this incompleteness was that female bodies were composed of colder and more watery matter than male bodies (which were warmer and more earthy). This physical constitution purportedly made women, with their softer and more impressionable bodies, more sensitive to sensory stimuli and passions (Allen 2006). In fact, it was thought to make them overly sensitive to and easily overwhelmed by such stimuli, making them easily distracted from rational thought and rendering them generally less able to exercise self-control or maximize their cognitive capacities. It’s worth noting that not all men were seen as able to maximize their rational capacities either: on the opposite side of the continuum from women were the “natural laborers,” who were said to be unsuited for 11  See Allen (2006) for a detailed history of these arguments—and medieval responses to them. 12  For more on women’s superior claim to loving, see “La mystique courtoise: Thirteenth Century Beguines and the Art of Love” in Newman (1995), 137–67, as well as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” in Newman (2003), 137–89. 13  See Aquinas’s Summa, Ia 92 for a very standard account of the nature of women and women’s bodies. Galenic biology saw women as also producing seed necessary for generation, but of a lesser sort.

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intellective labor or ruling because their bodies were too tough to take in the full range of sense impressions or engage well in imaginative exercises. Both groups were portrayed as naturally subordinated to the men whose physiology was “just right”: those men with bodies receptive enough to give them nuanced sensory information about which to cognize, but whose bodies were not so receptive to that sensory information that they would easily be distracted or overwhelmed by it.14 This continuum— which constructed the “ideal” human being as a male who straddled the mean between “too sensitive” and “too insensitive”—was used to assign the most important intellectual, political, and spiritual responsibilities to those men and to deny those responsibilities to everyone else. Yet this same continuum grounded the common belief that women loved more and better than their male counterparts. Women’s more watery nature meant that sense perception affected them more deeply and that their imaginations were correspondingly more vivid. Passions— including love—were closely linked with sensory and bodily changes and, as their name implies, were also seen as receptive reactions: one surrenders to love, for instance, or is carried off by sorrow. Women’s physiology was seen as ideally suited to passionate engagement with the world around them, as opposed to abstract theorizing about it—a “fact” that was used to extol women’s capacity for love and devotion at the same time it was used to exclude women from the “dispassionate” rational discourse of politics, theology, and scholastic philosophy. The genre of imaginative meditation offered a spiritual discipline in which women’s more receptive, passionate natures constituted a strength rather than a weakness. The fact that Christ’s central reconciling acts involved self-humbling, suffering, crying, and bleeding meant that the meditator needed to cultivate empathy and compassion for precisely those sorts of acts (note the pathe/passion in both those words). The more vividly the meditator could imagine Christ’s suffering on the cross, for instance, the more moved by passion they would be—and the more love they would feel for the God who made such a sacrifice for them. This increased love, which the Meditations describes as “affection inflamed enough for you to warm your whole self in it” (John of Caulibus [sic] 2000, 330), was the central goal of meditation. It was the result of 14  For instance, in the Summa, Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that those with soft flesh are “quick-witted”: “Therefore it is said in De Anima ii that ‘we can see that men of soft flesh are of quick intelligence’” (Ia 78.4.co.).

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carefully training the senses and the imagination so that they supported rather than distracted the will toward its proper object: love for God. And it was an activity seen as naturally suited for women. If meditation were seen as a self-contained discipline, the story might end there—with a reductive account of how women’s perceived weakness gave them an edge in a popular medieval spiritual exercise but didn’t ultimately impact or challenge received views of women as knowers. As we saw in Sect. 15.2, however, meditation was a spiritual exercise that constituted an important preparation for contemplation. Love was seen as intrinsically linked with an agent’s ability to know truth in its highest forms: without a burning love for God, a human being’s attempt to know or unite with God was doomed to failure. The fourteenth-century Dominican tertiary Catherine of Siena captures the feedback loop of love and knowledge by describing them as working together to form an upward spiral that culminates in contemplation of God’s essence: “For love follows upon understanding. The more they know, the more they love, and the more they love, the more they know. Thus, each nourishes the other. By this light they reach the eternal vision of me (God) […] This is that superb state in which the soul even while still mortal shares the enjoyment of the immortals” (Catherine of Siena 1980, 157–8). First, we learn about God from the world around us and from Scripture. That initial understanding ignites a love for God via meditative reflection; this love then drives us to know God better, and the more we know about God, the more we love God. On this widely accepted model, the fulfillment of one power (e.g., the will, via love for God) naturally leads to the fulfillment of another (e.g., the intellect, via knowledge of God). As Julian of Norwich writes, the human soul does best when it does “what it was made to do: see God, contemplate God, and love God” (Julian of Norwich 2013, 109). In this tradition, then, a claim to great love is often simultaneously a claim to great knowledge. Although I lack space here to develop this point, I believe that it is hardly coincidental that the genre of meditations develops and gains enormous popularity in an age when—contrary to common contemporary belief—many women were literate.15 Far from being forbidden to read or write, women in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries were often depicted in religious art both holding and reading books. In fact, given that women were often portrayed wielding books next to men doing  On this point, see Mulder-Bakker (2004).

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precisely the same thing, the depiction of women in this way forms an undeniable testament to their received status as subjects and transmitters of knowledge. Moreover, in addition to being “avid collectors, readers, and critics of the vast amount of devotional literature produced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries” (Bornstein 1996, 4), women also authored, recorded, and transmitted popular and influential texts in this period. Some women were educated because they came from noble families and needed to be prepared to manage households that were essentially small towns. Others were educated either in convents or in beguinages by their fellow religious laywomen. Even women who were not themselves literate sometimes participated in creating and transmitting texts via dictation.16 Whatever their background, however, the common emphasis on sensation, imagination, and love in the meditative tradition allowed women who so desired to claim the status of contemplative. The final piece that allowed them to be accepted as genuine contemplatives—and, thus, to form a crucial part of the contemplative philosophical tradition in the later Middle Ages—is that contemplation itself was understood to be as receptive as it was active.

15.4   Contemplation as a Paradoxically Receptive Activity To this point, I have been speaking of meditation as though it were a carefully circumscribed exercise, but its status in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries was actually much more complex. It was not just one part of the lectio divina–meditation–prayer–contemplation set of spiritual disciplines; rather, meditation was itself frequently portrayed as the first of three stages of contemplation. The person who hasn’t engaged repeatedly in the first three exercises—close reading of Scripture, extensive meditation on Christ, and connective prayer—will likely lack the love that prepares them for direct contact with God. We can’t force God to illuminate us or love us, however; we can only make ourselves ready for the gift of grace if and when it comes. Because human beings were not able to directly make contemplation happen, the highest forms of knowledge were thus seen as an activity of which we were not completely in control and which required remaining open and receptive. Because women were  See Lewis (1996), Winston-Allen (2004), Minnis and Voaden (2010), and Ward (2016).

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seen as naturally more receptive than active, they could leverage meditations’ training of sensation, imagination, and will to situate themselves as ideally receptive for higher forms of contemplation. As the prologue of the Meditations on the Life of Christ, which is itself addressed to a woman, notes: “You see then, to what an exalted height meditation on the life of Christ leads. Like a sturdy platform, it lifts one to greater heights of contemplation” (John of Caulibus [sic] 2000, 3). The Meditations characterizes the stages of contemplation as involving first an “imperfect” form of contemplation focused on the humanity of Christ, and then two other stages of contemplation (focused respectively on heaven and finally on union with God’s essence). The first stage is what it (and I, following the tradition) have been calling “meditation.” The others remain inaccessible to us without extensive meditation of this kind: “Do not ever believe that you can elevate yourself mentally to the sublimities of God unless you devote yourself long and diligently to this teaching [meditation on the life of Christ]” (John of Caulibus [sic] 2000, 172). Meditation is important for making intermediate spiritual progress, according to the Cloud of Unknowing: “Without countless sweet meditations on these very subjects—our agony, our shame, Christ’s Passion, God’s kindness, God’s unfailing goodness, and God’s worth—the contemplative person won’t advance” (Anonymous 2009, 330–1). Sufficient meditation and prayer are indispensable for reaching the higher stages of contemplation that lift us above everything sensible, imaginable, and intelligible. The final stage of contemplation in particular transcends anything we are capable of attaining on our own; it requires God’s gift of love. As Julian of Norwich describes the culmination of this process: Then I perceived that his continual working in every kind of thing is so beautifully done—so wise and powerful—that it surpasses our greatest imagination. God’s goodness transcends all thought, all comprehension. At that point, all we can do is contemplate him and rejoice. We allow ourselves to be filled with the overwhelming desire for one-ing with our Beloved, to listen deeply for his call. We delight in his goodness and revel in his love. (Julian of Norwich 2013, 107–8)

As love becomes seen as increasingly central not just in meditation but also in contemplation, the women quoted throughout this chapter become accepted as contemplatives—not just able to speak with confidence about

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their knowledge of God, but able to be heard and believed, by other women, by scholastic philosophers, and by the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

15.5  Meditation and Contemplation in the Twenty-First-Century Classroom Our experience of both ourselves and the world around us is crucial to our moral and spiritual lives—a fact that’s been made extremely (even at times painfully) clear to most of us during the pandemic. The medieval meditative tradition fully acknowledges the importance of embodied existence; in so doing, it constitutes an important complement to scholastic philosophy’s focus on abstract argumentation. Scholastic arguments have received the lion’s share of attention in medieval philosophy over the past two centuries. In their own time, however, such arguments were of interest primarily for the role they played in the very same discussions that form the backbone of medieval contemplative literature: discussions about the nature of God, the ultimate goal of human life, and how human beings should live in a broken world.17 If we reunite scholasticism with its contemplative counterpart, in the classroom and beyond, we gain a conception of medieval philosophy much truer to its original practice and its emphasis on self-formation and moral/spiritual development as the best way of reaching wisdom. Such a reunion also has the happy effect of naturally including a wide range of perspectives. While a thirteenth-century disputed question—on, say, the nature of imagination and its relation to knowledge—written by a master of theology at the University of Paris might include a variety of perspectives from other university masters, perhaps even in different religious orders, arguing for and against a particular conclusion, the author will invariably be male and almost invariably a member of a religious order, often from the higher echelons of society. In contrast, a contemplative text addressing the same issue might be authored by a layperson or clergy, a commoner or nobleperson, and (most significant for the purposes of this chapter) is almost as likely to have been written by a woman as by a man. Although not represented in the scholastic tradition, women formed a 17  Indeed, many of the figures held up today as paradigms of medieval philosophy (e.g., Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure) lived and wrote in both worlds.

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prominent part of virtually all strains of the Western Christian contemplative tradition in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries.18 What this means for teaching philosophy courses is that adding women-­authored texts to one’s syllabus is as simple as choosing any of the topics one would usually cover in a class that includes medieval philosophy and matching a text in the scholastic tradition with one in the contemplative tradition. For instance, if one were discussing the comparative roles of reason and will, Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls would pair nicely with Duns Scotus’s views on the primacy of love over intellect; an overview of medieval conceptions of self-knowledge could include passages from Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue and/or Hadewijch as well as scholastic texts.19 There is virtually no topic of interest in medieval philosophy that the contemplatives did not also address—often in different genres and from a variety of different perspectives. As we saw above in Sects. 15.1 and 15.2, moreover, the emphasis contemplative texts place on practical moral and spiritual formation also leads them to focus on embodied experience (including sensation and imagination) as well as the life of mind. This emphasis on embodied forms of knowing presents ways of engaging people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives.20 Every lived experience is valuable in the context of contemplative philosophy, for giving (and receiving) good practical advice requires more than theoretical understanding of abstract truths: it requires negotiating constantly changing surroundings in a variety of settings. Students who don’t come from educationally privileged backgrounds are not just often on equal footing when it comes to understanding practical philosophy—they are sometimes at an advantage. When I got to grad school, for instance, I found that the experience I had acquired working full-time at a factory to pay for my college tuition stood me in good stead when studying Marx’s theory of alienated labor: I recognized the phenomena he was talking about in a visceral way after spending multiple shifts dropping blue 18  For extensive documentation of their roles in the development and growth of various religious movements, see McGinn (1998, 2005, 2016). 19  For discussions of how contemplative philosophy addresses self-knowledge, the role of reason and will in human life, and the importance of love, persons, and immortality in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, see Van Dyke (2022). 20  See, for example, Borland (2013).

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plastic scoops into boxes of laundry detergent as they rolled by on a conveyer belt. (When asked whether there wasn’t an automated machine that could do this, a line worker replied, “There is, actually—it’s over there in the corner. You’re cheaper to run.”) Contemplative philosophy requires its practitioners to constantly negotiate the line between theory and practice, understanding and implementation. Medieval Christian contemplative philosophy in particular does this with the assumption that love is at the heart of everything, and that God became human to better relate to us and our struggles. The idea of meeting people where they are is central to this tradition; teaching texts that adopt this attitude can be an important step in including the marginalized and overcoming some of the invisible barriers that keep students out of the discipline. Finally, adding the medieval contemplatives to our classes reminds us that philosophy can (and, in my opinion, should) be about self-discovery and self-formation just as much as it is about argumentation and critical reasoning. The phrase “philosophy as a way of life” is already becoming a cliché, but the reason for its popularity is that it hits at the heart of what philosophy can do as well as what it is. In the ideal world, philosophy functions in a multiplicity of ways, all of which help us both better understand the world around us and live better in that world. We live in a world today that gives undue focus to the combative and critical side of philosophy. It is time to regain the philosophy that builds up as well as tears down, that generates as well as deconstructs.

Recommended Reading Hollywood, Amy, and P. Beckman, eds. 2012. Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karnes, Michelle. 2011. Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Meditations on the Life of Christ. 2000. Translated by F.X. Taney, Anne Miller, and C Mary Stallings-Taney. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press. Van Dyke, Christina. 2022. A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on SelfKnowledge, Reason, Love, Persons, and Immortality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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References Primary Texts Anonymous. 2009. The Cloud of Unknowing: With the Book of Privy Counselling. Translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications. Bonaventure. 2016. The Mystical Vine: A Treatise on the Passion of Our Lord by Saint Bonaventure. Translated by a Friar of S.S.F. Riverside, IL: Akenside Press. Catherine of Siena. 1980. Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue. Translated by Suzanne Noffke. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. d’Oingt, Marguerite. 1990. The Writings of Margaret of Oingt, Medieval Prioress and Mystic (d. 1310). Translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. John of Caulibus [sic]. 2000. Meditations on the Life of Christ. Translated by F.X.  Taney, Anne Miller, and C Mary Stallings-Taney. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press. Julian of Norwich. 2013. The Showings of Julian of Norwich. Translated by Mirabai Starr. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company. Meditationes Vitae Christi. 1997. Edited by Mary Stallings-Taney. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 153. Turnhout: Brepols.

Secondary Texts Allen, Prudence. 2006. The Concept of Woman. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Borland, Jennifer. 2013. Unruly Reading: The Consuming Role of Touch in the Experience of a Medieval Manuscript. In Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Jonathan Wilcox, 97–114. Turnhout: Brepols. Bornstein, David. 1996. Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiography. In Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, edited by Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi and translated by Margery Schneider, 1–27. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Dales, Richard. 1995. The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century. Leiden: Brill. Fibra, Sergi Sancho. 2017. Colors and Books in Marguerite d’Oingt’s ‘Speculum’. Images for Meditation and Vision. In Commitments to Medieval Mysticism Within Contemporary Contexts, ed. Patrick Cooper and Satoshi Kikuchi, 255–271. Leuven: Peeters. Hasse, Dag. 2009. The Soul’s Faculties. In The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau and Christina Van Dyke, 305–319. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Hollywood, Amy, and Patricia Z. Beckman, eds. 2012. Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jantzen, Grace. 1995. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karnes, Michelle. 2011. Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kent, Bonnie. 1995. Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Lewis, Gertrud Jaron. 1996. By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. McGinn, Bernard. 1998. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism – 1200–1350, Vol. III of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co. ———. 2005. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300–1500), Vol. 4 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co. ———. 2016. Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism: 1350–1550, Vol. 5 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New  York: Crossroad Publishing Co. Minnis, Alastair, and Rosalynn Voaden, eds. 2010. Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100–c.1500. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. Mulder-Bakker, Anneke, ed. 2004. Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe 1200–1550. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. Newman, Barbara. 1995. From Virile Woman to Woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 2003. God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Van Dyke, Christina. 2022. A Hidden Wisdom: Medieval Contemplatives on SelfKnowledge, Reason, Love, Persons, and Immortality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walker Bynum, Caroline. 1984. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ward, Jennifer. 2016. Women in Medieval Europe 1200–1500. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Winston-Allen, Anne. 2004. Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

CHAPTER 16

Notes for an Indigenous Political Philosophy in New Spain: On the Figure of Nezahualcóyotl Alejandro Viveros

16.1   Introduction i am who i am who i was made to be through i have recreated myself a hundred times over Barry Bush, “This Blessing”1

This chapter seeks to tease out the political philosophical content from the historical and literary sources produced by Indigenous people during the first phase of the colonization of New Spain during the sixteenth and the 1

 Quoted in Swann (1996), 37.

A. Viveros (*) Institute of Humanistic Studies “Juan Ignacio Molina”, University of Talca, Talca, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0_16

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seventeenth centuries.2 To do so, I will delve into an analysis of the figure of Nezahualcóyotl, king of pre-Hispanic Texcoco, based on two sources: Juan Bautista Pomar’s Relación de la ciudad y provincia de Texcoco (1582 CE) and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s Historia de la nación chichimeca (1625 CE). My intention is to begin to think about how these sorts of sources can be used as examples of an Indigenous political philosophy and to position them as an alternative starting point for a more critical and wider inquiry into the role of Indigenous knowledge in Latin American philosophy. With respect to the figure of Nezahualcóyotl himself, I will explore these sources’ reports of both the notion of a monotheistic divinity (Tloque Nahuaque) as well as some ideas about particular political issues within a pre-Hispanic society and its correlational norms of good governance. I will underline a few examples in which key elements of these authors’ political philosophical reflections can be recognized in the ways they discuss and respond to Nezahualcóyotl’s ideas. We will thereby see how Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s writings reflect both European and Indigenous cultural backgrounds. This can allow us to rethink the way in which Indigenous people understood the colonial political order and how committed they were at a conceptual and historical level to signify and situate the history of Texcoco, their own homeland, in the cultural context of New Spain.

16.2   Some Conceptual Issues In what follows, I seek to contribute to the field of study focusing on the colonial period in Latin America that acknowledges the heterogeneity of cultural texts (Bachmann-Medick 2016), including Indigenous

2  The Viceroyalty of New Spain was an integral territorial and political entity of the Spanish empire, established during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. It covered an area that included, principally, territories in North America and Central America. After the fall of Aztec capital Mexico-Tenochtitlan (on August 13, 1521), the Viceroyalty was officially created (on August 18, 1521) as a Kingdom (in Spanish: Reino). It is possible to consider the notion of “Mesoamerica” (Kirchhoff 1943) as an alternative term, which also refers to the geo-cultural area of central Mexico and Guatemala that have in common a group of cultural elements, principally related to communication technologies (glyphs), the use of calendars in the measure of time and seasons, the alimentary resources (corn), and a political organization grounded on kinship relationships.

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chronicles.3 This approach also suggests the need for comparative analyses and the recognition of the complex interrelations (especially regarding intertextuality) as a methodological axiom in the study of these texts. Here, it is also important to take into account Bolívar Echeverría’s work on two interrelated notions that are fundamental for the purpose of this study: mestizaje cultural and codiphagia. He claims that the biased concept of mestizaje cultural, or “cultural mixing,” involves a type of “codiphagia” enacted within the cultural codes of the dominant culture on the remains of those of the subjugated culture, where ‘codiphagia’ is understood as a complex process in which the “devourer” or subjugator continually has to radically transform and accommodate in order to absorb the substance being “devoured” or subjugated (Echeverría 2001, 63). For Echeverría, the process of mestizaje cultural is tantamount to the devouring of cultural codes. And it is here that the idea of codiphagia gives way to a tension-laden form of cultural subjectivity—one that is liminal, in motion, and appropriates and redirects the horizons of understanding and interpretation relative to the construction of alternative, mestizo identities. He posits that “cultural identity” might be seen as the “state of a cultural code”—a peculiar transitory configuration that renders a code usable, or speakable (Echeverría 2005, 31). Echeverría’s foregoing of an essentialist perspective of cultural identity (in favor of this more semiotic reading) puts him at odds with much of Latin American culturalism. Therefore, he underscores the way in which codes are constructed and amended through the regeneration of the semiotic possibilities, building a relational semiosis, which also avoids formalisms by attributing historicity to cultural codes and their continuous transformations in meaning. This chapter is particularly interested in those remarkable individuals who learned and made use of writing and, in so doing, managed to prolong, negotiate, and redirect their historical experience by way of a European alphabetic code as their vehicle. Theirs was a type of writing that 3  For more on this perspective from the field of anthropology, see the work of Alfredo López-Austin (2014, 2015) about political and religious traditions in Mesoamerica. Within the ethnohistory of pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexico, the work of Federico Navarrete (2018) raises new questions and hermeneutical issues regarding and engaging the Indigenous chronicles as sources of an alternative historicity called “Cosmohistory.” With respect to philosophical inquiry, see perhaps the ideas of Miguel León-Portilla (1963) who puts forward a pivotal analysis that points out the central elements of Aztec philosophy centered on reading the historical sources, especially with regard to the translation of colonial documents and manuscripts written in the Nahuatl language.

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lays bare the fact that Indigenous history can also be written by “Indians”4 themselves. Although there are several useful notions of cultural translation and translators in the literature, I will follow the approach of James Lockhart (1994), which is grounded in the study of the Nahuatl language in terms of the transference of European communicational technologies, particularly alphabetical writing, during colonial times. Lockhart sketches out his idea of cultural translation through many examples, but his reflections on the engagement between languages (specifically, Spanish and Nahuatl) and so-called cultural horizons, as well as on how this engagement has been historically reconstructed, are particularly important. Within this theoretical framework, I want to explore how, when writing and translating, particular Indians carried out a kind of process of identity shaping that resulted in a unique form of historic-literary production. Insofar as Echeverría’s approach serves as a background for profoundly semiotic-ontological discourses and problems, the reader is thus asked to keep in mind his ideas throughout—especially as they raise the possibility of the bordering, liminal, and alternative modes to more “traditional” notions of modern, Western subjectivity. The works of Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl are examples of how European modes of discursive articulation, often related to the Christian, classical, and humanistic traditions, enter into dialogue with other sources that are mainly associated with oral traditions, non-alphabetic writing, and polysensual experiences. In this sense, although not reducible to writing, the texts in question are, to put it in Echeverría’s terms, a specific manifestation of “codiphagia,” insofar as they adapt the cultural codes of the “devourer” to the concerns of the “devoured” in a way that demands an accommodation of the former to the latter. Further, there is a metaphilosophical question about what kinds of sources can be said to have “political-philosophical content”—one which must lead to the development of an alternative way to understand human relations, as well as cultural (and identitarian) re-compositions of the kinds exemplified in the various chronicles discussed here and elsewhere. However, in order to include written materials such as those produced by 4  The noun Indian has been chosen in order to conserve the sense of the Spanish word Indio, which is present in the sources studied for this chapter. The notion of ‘Indian’ addresses a new identity created during the sixteenth century to classify New World native inhabitants (Hanke 1959; Pagden 1983). Other useful terms mostly employed in anthropology and ethnohistory include Amerindian, Native peoples, and Indigenous peoples.

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Indigenous authors, it may also be necessary to redefine what we think of as political philosophy itself. Indeed, this exercise presents us with a theoretical challenge because the way to tease out the political philosophical content of these chronicles will need to employ a historical and literary analysis while still being able to explain how it is possible to articulate the authors’ proposals as political philosophical ones. In the next section, I will begin by exploring two texts that contributed to constructing the imaginary5 of Nezahualcóyotl, the king, poet, and philosopher of the pre-­ Hispanic kingdom of Texcoco, namely Juan Bautista Pomar’s Relación de la ciudad y provincia de Texcoco (1582 CE) and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s Historia de la nación chichimeca (1625 CE).

16.3  On the Figure of Nezahualcóyotl: Elements of a Political Philosophy in Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl Who was Nezahualcóyotl? Nezahualcóyotl (1402–1472 CE) means in Nahuatl: “Coyote who fasts” or “fasting Coyote.” He was the ruler or tlatoani of the city-state of Texcoco during the pre-Hispanic period, between 1429 and 1472 CE.  The kingdom of Texcoco was one of the principal altépetl or city-towns of what today is the valley of Mexico. The historiography of pre-Hispanic Mexico highlights Nezahualcóyotl’s reputation as a philosopher, as a poet, and, in particular, as a great warrior and wise king. His poems, recorded in several colonial chronicles and documents, are sources of profound philosophical and political significance. Some authors have categorized Nezahualcóyotl’s poems as clear examples of Aztec thought and as ontological reflections about human life and the purpose of existence (Garibay 1964; Martínez 1972). We can better get an idea on who Nezahualcóyotl was by looking at the words of two Indigenous chroniclers: Juan Bautista Pomar and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl. Their cultural texts underscore their Indigenous background and serve to 5  The idea of an imaginary follows Cornelius Castoriadis’ (1997) proposals about the “social imaginary,” which acknowledges the symbolic elements of cultural forms and manifestations in human life. According to Castoriadis, the imaginary in this sense cannot be reduced or attributed to subjective imagination, since that very subjectivity is itself shaped by social significations and cultural contents. All cultural forms (from laws and institutions to aesthetics and rituals) reflect social imaginaries that cannot be explained merely as products of material conditions but rather as a symbolical and foundational soil for various manifestations of human life.

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explain their own culture’s historicity (Acuña 1986; Espericueta 2015; Lee 2008; Navarrete 2018). In this section, we will look more closely at the ways these writers discuss the figure of Nezahualcóyotl, both to better understand who Nezahualcóyotl was and to see how the ways he was presented in sixteenth-century Indigenous texts reveal something about the political philosophies of the chroniclers themselves. 16.3.1   Pomar, Tloque Nahuaque, and the “Civility” of Texcoco Juan Bautista Pomar’s Relación de la ciudad y provincia de Texcoco (1584 CE) is one of the several texts produced by officers and informants of the colonial order following and answering the so-called Instrucción y Memoria, or the famous survey of around 50 topics which the Spanish Crown demanded of all of its colonized territories in the New World starting in 1570 CE. This survey resulted in a type of territorial description just as focused on rivers, mountains, settlements, and towns as it was on potential economic and political opportunities. In spite of the well-defined precedents, Pomar offers a more singular perspective. In alphabetically composed texts he establishes a unique order of topics in his narration and disproportionately discusses some subjects over others, demonstrating his intention to historicize rather than to merely inform. The structure of the discourse in the Relación is simple: Pomar provides a geographical and historical description that constructs a detailed imagery centered on the pre-Hispanic Texcocan glory and its leaders, focusing specifically on Nezahualcóyotl. Indeed, it is noteworthy how in his response to the Instrucción y Memoria Pomar provides more than just a geographical description. Pomar sets out a narrative with a moral and political agenda that confronts the missionizing colonial narrative by constructing pre-colonial Texcoco as a virtuous, monotheistic community. That is, he constructs a deliberate imaginary around pre-Hispanic Texcoco, representing it as a proto-Christian society. In so doing, Pomar introduces some key ideas in order to address his philosophical proposals: What some principals and lords felt about their idols and gods is that beyond worshipping and making sacrifices to them as they were told, still they doubted whether they were really gods, or whether it was a deceit to believe that some lumps of sticks and stone made by the hands of men were gods. [This was true] especially [of] Nezahualcoyotzin, the one who doubted the most, seeking for where he might illuminate himself and confirm the true

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God and Creator of all things. […] And although they had many idols that represented different gods, neither when they treated of them in general nor in the particular did they name them, but merely said in their language in Tloque in Nahuaque which means ‘Lord of heaven and earth:’ a very evident sign that they certainly had no more than one. (Pomar 1986, 152–3; my translation)6

The idea of Tloque Nahuaque is fundamental to grasping the ontological aspect of Pomar’s philosophy. Through this monotheistic notion (as purportedly professed by Nezahualcóyotl), Pomar channels his idea of a proto-Christian Texcocan society as one clear example of virtuosity among the Indians. In a sense, however, the Christian notion of monotheism does not completely capture the Nahuatl sense contained by the words Tloque and Nahuaque. For example, Alonso de Molina’s7 Vocabulario (1571 CE) indicates that: “Tloque Nahuaque, with whom is the being of all things, conserving and sustaining them […] refers to god our lord” (Molina 2013, 148; my translation).8 Yet the Vocabulario registered the term Nahuaque as well: “Nahuaque, with whom is the being of all things, god” (Molina 2013, 64; my translation).9 Moreover, in the Nahuatl language tloque comes from the word tloc that means “adjacent to, close to” 6  Lo que sentían algunos principales y señores de sus ídolos y dioses es q[ue], sin embargo de q[ue] los adoraban y hacían los sacrificios q[ue] se han dicho, todavía dudaron de q[ue] realmente fuesen dioses, sino q[ue] era engaño creer q[ue] unos bultos de palo y de piedra, hechos por manos de hombres, fuesen dioses. Especialmente Nezahualcoyotzin, que es el q[ue] más vaciló, buscando dónde tomar lumbre para certificarse del verdadero Dios y Creador de todas las cosas […] Y jamás, aunq[ue] tenían muchos ídolos q[ue] representaban [a] diferentes dioses, nunca, cuando se ofrecía tratarlos, nombraban a todos en general, ni en particular a cada uno, sino decían en su lengua in Tloq[ue] in [N]ahuaque, q[ue] quiere decir el ‘s[eñ]or del [ci]elo y de la tierra’: señal evidentísima de que tuvieron por cierto no haber más de uno. 7  Alonso de Molina (1514–1585 CE) arrived in Mexico when he was still a child in 1522 CE, during the first phase of colonization in New Spain. In 1528 CE, he became a friar at the Franciscan convent in Mexico City and collaborated with other friars on the Indigenous language research and the evangelization project in the New World. Molina’s works gathered theological and philosophical elements in sermons and preachings that developed a syncretism between Christianity and Aztec religion. His research on the Nahuatl language, between 1555 and 1571 CE, were consolidated in his Vocabulario, the first published systematic approach to the so-called classical Nahuatl (pre-Hispanic vs. colonial Nahuatl). The Vocabulario, among other sources written by Franciscan friars, is still considered an indispensable tool for scholars of colonial Mexico. 8  Tloque nauaque, cabe quien efta el fer de todas las cofas, conferuandolas y fuftentandolas […] dizefe de nrofeñor dios. 9  Nauaque, con quien efta el fer de todas las cofas, dios.

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(Karttunen 1983, 307) and “also has the sense of vicinity” (Karttunen 1983, 157), or “near, beside, in the presence of, with” (Bierhorst 1985, 359). Tloque is also synonymous for nahuac which means “near to, adjacent to, within earshot” (Karttunen 1983, 157) or “nearness own, ever near, the supreme spirit” (Bierhorst 1985, 222). Finally, it is useful to consider Lockhart’s translation which defines Tloque Nahuaque as “possessor or master of that which is near, close, in reference to God or, in pre-Conquest times, to powerful Indigenous deities” (Lockhart 2001, 239). Ergo, according to these hermeneutical keys, the whole phrase Tloque Nahuaque functions as an epithet for the divine presence that is within and surrounds life-beings. Here, we can see how European Christianity was already influencing the way these writers sought to explain how pre-Hispanic Indigenous cultures (their histories, thought, and languages) formulated their thoughts and how they had already become bound up with Christian Scholastic thought. In this context, Molina’s translation of both terms tries to reach the notion of one unique divinity in the Aztec religion, as viewed through European lenses. According to Hernández (2007), Molina sought to learn languages ​​in order to reestablish the communication among men and to restore what he metaphorically calls the lenguaje uno or “unique language.” He claimed that the human being is one and that the mind, the lógos, is also one, although it manifests itself multiply through the diversity of languages. So his approach to the language of the Indians is as well the approach to their lógos, to their thought, and in a certain way, it was also an approach to the “unique language,” the universal lógos, or God. Summarizing, Molina’s translations make us think that by preparing his Vocabulario he modified an instrument in order to reinforce the role of Indigenous language for the project of the New World’s evangelization. Nevertheless, as we have seen, Molina’s explanations were already influenced by the Western cultural horizon, which translates as well as recreates the meaning of these words. The notion of one unique divinity is important for understanding the difference between the European and Aztec cultural horizons. While the European understanding assumes a monotheistic background and uses theological and philosophical tools centered on universality, the pre-Hispanic Aztec culture reflected a more polytheistic understanding of divinity focused on relationality. In this sense, it is important to highlight that, in the latter, the core of existence is related to a dualist understanding of beings and the life-world, the so-called Ometeotl, or duality. This notion embraces not just a dialectical but also a relational

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or reciprocal meaning. Some authors have clarified this reciprocal understanding by noting the presence of a relational ontology throughout Aztec thought (León-Portilla 1963) or a Mesoamerican cosmovision  (López Austin 2014, 2015). Of course, this notion of duality is, in several ways, itself a collection of fragments insofar as it is grounded in the idea of multiplicity. For instance, one may take into account the conceptualization of the Aztec universe following the model of the so-called Mesoamerican quincunx, that is, five related parts (the four sides and the center of spatiality) which assemble a unity that does not diminish the fragments but rather brings them together, positing how these five parts are connected to each other as a multiple collection of particularities that represents the “cosmos” as a whole (Navarrete 2018, 157–84). In this way, following the so-called Cosmopolitical (Latour 1993) or “Cosmohistorical” (Navarrete 2018) interpretations, Tloque Nahuaque in Pomar might thus be understood by underlining its emphasis on “vicinity” and “presence” among all kinds of life-beings and entities: human, non-human, divines, and non-­ divines and by recognizing a sort of interpretation of universality driven by a specific notion of duality, fragmentariness, and relationality. Along with the idea of Tloque Nahuaque, it is important to look more closely at how Pomar’s proposals are foundational for what we might understand as an Indigenous political philosophy. In the following quotes, Pomar elaborates a sort of civilizational imaginary related to the pre-­ Hispanic city of Texcoco, its governance and political order: The laws and ordinances, and the good customs and way of living that was generally kept in the whole land comes from this city, because their kings always guaranteed that they did as they said, and by them were governed the other lands and provinces subject to Mexico and Tacuba. And it was commonly said throughout the whole land that in this city they had the archive of their council, laws, and ordinances, and that in it they were taught to live honestly and politically as men and not as beasts. (Pomar 1986, 192; my translation)10

10  Las leyes y ordenanzas, y buenas costumbres y modo de vivir q[ue] generalmente se guardaba en toda la tierra, procedía[n] desta ciudad, porq[ue] los reyes della procuraron siempre q[ue] fuesen tales cuales se han dicho. Y, por ellas, se gobernaban las demás tierras y provincias sujetas a México y Tacuba. [129] Y, comúnmente, se decía en toda la tierra que, en esta ciudad, tenían el archivo de su concejo, leyes y ordenanzas, y q[ue], en ella, les eran enseñadas, para vivir honesta [y] políticamente como hombres y no como bestias.

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He goes on to insist: They ruled themselves with the great obedience that they showed to the king and to his ministers, whom [the king] provided in all places and towns under his jurisdiction. And what was to be done was commanded by the king, and the commandment was passed from person to person until it reached those who [were to] execute and implement it. And by guarding the customs and ordinances that they had, and punishing the excesses done to duty, and with which each one executing the office and the government entrusted to them with great care, they lived quiet and peacefully, without ever displaying unrest, principally because they knew of the king’s great zeal for justice. And above all because by nature the Indians are very domestic and peaceful with each other. (Pomar 1986, 193; my translation)11

Here we see concrete evidence that Pomar’s discourse largely functions to legitimize the political order successfully held by the Texcocan rulers (and particularly by Nezahualcóyotl) before the Spanish Conquest. The way of living in clear submission to a sort of “native civility” grounded in virtue and duty that is described here is quite interesting, particularly because of its function in describing the governance of pre-Hispanic times as example of a civilized behavior. At this level, Pomar uses the claim about Texcocan “civility” in order to imaginatively (re)construct the idea of a Texcocan nation, providing an example of good governance that would be recognizable in the colonial context. Finally, the contents and elements of Pomar’s political philosophical proposals expose two main dimensions. One is related to the monotheistic divinity through the idea of Tloque Nahuaque; the other is related to the political claims of Texcoco, taking as their exemplary background Nezahualcóyotl’s “good governance.” These two dimensions posit Pomar’s codiphagic exercise by characterizing two key elements of pre-­ Hispanic Texcocan society. In this way, Pomar both accepts and challenges Spanish political views about Indigenous cultures and societies—for 11  Gobernábanse con la obediencia grande q[ue] tenían al rey y a sus ministros, los cuales eran proveídos por él en todos los lugares y pueblos de su jurisdicción. Y, lo que se había de hacer, mandába[lo] el rey y, de mano en mano, iba a parar hasta aquellos q[ue] lo ejecutaban y ponían por obra. Y, con [el] guardar las costumbres y ordenanzas que [hab]ía, y castigando los excesos que se hacían al deber, y con que cada uno usaba del oficio y gobierno que le era encomendado, con mucho cuidado, y, principalmente, porque conocían del rey celo grande de just[ici]a, vivían quietos y pacíficos, sin alterarse jamás. Y, sobre todo, porque, naturalmente, los indios son muy domésticos y pacíficos unos con otros.

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example, on the one hand, by accepting Western ideas of “civility” and “nationality” while, on the other, challenging the ideas that the New World inhabitants were not rational. By employing these categories and creating a new meaning for them, Pomar contradicts the deprecatory ideas related to the Indians as not rational or civilized peoples.12 16.3.2   Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Nezahualcóyotl, and the “Good Governance” of Texcoco Along with Pomar’s assertions on Indigenous civility, we can follow the ideas of another Indigenous author who wrote about Nezahualcóyotl, namely Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, by analyzing his most accomplished work. Written in 1625 CE, his Historia de la nación chichimeca is another example of how the figure of Nezahualcóyotl is employed to establish a sort of “alternative civility” in terms of a different form of governance related to the pre-Hispanic imaginary. Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s chronicle is a collection of various genres and modes of representation. He uses discursive models tied to alphabetic writing and to the Western historical tradition that also integrate (and translate) the oral traditions of the origin tales, poetry and songs, and other visual materials and alternative methods of pre-Hispanic writing, principally pictographic codices, maps, paintings, and linens which, when put into discursive linguistic form, serve to rebuild and transfer the knowledge of various cultural horizons from a mixture of different communication technologies. This transference in the Historia articulates a chronological and progressive narrative that also relocates a land and a cultural tradition from where this position stems: pre-Columbian Texcoco. Here, Alva Ixtlilxóchitl both sets out a particular historical trajectory aimed at rescuing Texcoco’s past while simultaneously engaging its present, embracing its future as well. Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, like Pomar, has a particular understanding of the idea of Tloque Nahuaque, which is also grounded on a relational and monotheistic divinity. In the very beginning of his chronicle he states: 12  See also the work of Miguel Romero (2020) and his detailed analysis of the philosophical and theological arguments related to the New World native inhabitants. He describes the arguments of Aristotle, Aquinas, Vitoria, Las Casas, Sepúlveda, and Mair, among others, with special attention to how Spanish colonialism functionalized Aquinas’ concept of amentia (mindless) in terms of an “intellectual disability” and “lack of reason.”

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They declare in their histories that god whom they called teotl tloque nahuaque tlachihualeipalnemoani ilhuicahua tlalticpaq—which in truth means “the universal God and creator of all things by whose will all creatures live, lord of heaven and earth,” etc.—after having created all things seen and unseen, created the forefathers of men, from whom all others came. (Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 2019, 33)13

Alva Ixtlilxóchitl points out the sentence in Nahuatl, “teotl tloque nahuaque tlachihualeipalnemoani ilhuicahua tlalticpaq,” which is translated according to the Christian understanding of divinity (i.e., the “universal God”). This sentence in Nahuatl won’t be used again in the entire rest of the text, and when Alva Ixtlilxóchitl considers it necessary to refer to Tloque Nahuaque, he rhetorically uses the sentence “the unknown God, creator of all things” as a strategic synonym that implies the idea of a pre-­ Hispanic monotheistic divinity, explaining it by analogy throughout his chronicle. Likewise, it is important to underline how Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s political claims and proposals become clearer when he narrates the history of the Texcocan rulers and the course of their governance. The figure of Nezahualcóyotl as described by Alva Ixtlilxóchitl presents an archetype of civility and intelligence, a remarkable example of an Indian in whom understanding and reason are clearly present. Nezahualcóyotl enters into Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s historical account as a prince and is presented as a refugee in his early years, due to a bounty on his head issued by the tyrant Tezozómoc. Alva Ixtlilxóchitl narrates Nezahualcóyotl’s epic escapes from the tyrant, as well as his journeys to deserts and mountains and the military and political events of his “rebellion.” To enhance the reputation of this simultaneously historical and literary character, Alva Ixtlilxóchitl exalts his wisdom, “good governance,” and political behavior. Here, it is worth underscoring the “eighty laws dictated by Nezahualcóyotl” because they give us some idea about Alva Ixtlilxóchitl’s reflections at a political philosophical level. Concerning these “eighty laws” he states:

13  Declaran por sus historias que el dios Teotloquenahuaque Tlachihualcípal Nemoani Ilhuicahua Tlaticpaque, que quiere decir conforme al verdadero sentido, el dios universal de todas las cosas, creador de ellas y a cuya voluntad viven todas las criaturas, señor del cielo y de la tierra, etcétera el cual después de haber creado todas las cosas visibles e invisibles, creó a los primeros padres de los hombres, de donde procedieron todos los demás (Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 1975, 7).

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And for the good governance of his kingdom and also that of the whole empire, he established eighty laws that he viewed as necessary for public good at that time. They were divided into four categories corresponding to the four supreme councils he has set up. These included the one that heard all civil and criminal cases and punished all manner of crimes and sins. (Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 2019, 140)14

These words give us another example of the “translation” work being done by Indigenous writers to engage European audiences. By using the terms “good governance,” “kingdom,” “empire,” “public good,” “civil and criminal cases,” “crimes,” and “sins,” Alva Ixtlilxóchitl engages in a cultural translation meant to display a civility in pre-Columbian Texcoco equivalent to that of the European. The quote employs several elements that demonstrate the complexity of the political and administrative organization through a justice system distributed across “four supreme councils,” one dedicated to “civil and punitive matters” (140–1), another to “music and science” (142), a third to “warfare” (142–4), and finally a fourth “state council” (144–5), all of them with a punitive capacity. The eighty laws and the four supreme councils display a way of ruling and system of justice presented as a “civilized” (en policía) way of living, equivalent and as a viable, pre-Hispanic alternative form of governance. When we explore texts like those of Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, we see how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Indigenous authors engaged in exercises of the kind of cultural translation and “codiphagia” as discussed above. Thus, when it comes to the idea of a monotheistic divinity like Tloque Nahuaque, we see a concept emerge that is a discursive construction—a notion of divinity that reflects a philosophical blending of both Western and Indigenous cultural approaches. The objective of exposing and describing a proto-Christian idea of divinity establishes a persuasive argument for Indigenous claims to political recognition as human beings, with rationality and civilized customs—as “heathens” but not “barbarians” (Hanke 1959; Pagden 1983; Romero 2020). These chronicles allude to a way of governance, equally sophisticated and “civilized” compared with European systems. By using terms such as “virtue” or “duty,” 14  Y para el buen gobierno, así de su reino como para todo el imperio, estableció ochenta leyes que vido ser convenientes a la república en aquel tiempo y sazón, las cuales dividió en cuatro partes, que eran necesarias para cuatro consejos supremos que tenían puestos, como eran el de los pleitos de todos los casos civiles y criminales, en donde se castigaban todos los géneros de delitos y pecados (Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 1975, 101).

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“kingdom” or “councils,” among others, Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl re-­ shaped Indigenous political elements by functionalizing Western categories in order to explain and provide examples of pre-Hispanic Texcocan civility. Finally, both chronicles can be thought of as representing the emergence of a discourse on a new identity, in which the figure of Nezahualcóyotl works as example of an imaginary coined by the Indians themselves. Both chronicles managed to establish a civilizational background from within the colonial order by way of its own political points of reference and, in texts such as those of Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, one that upholds a historicity built on the basis of a contentious negotiation between the pre-­ Hispanic and the colonial in a context of survival and radical change in their cultural world. Both chroniclers translate and compose a discursive whole; both construct and reconstruct, transmit, and transfer—in interrelated yet dissimilar dimensions—a philosophical narrative in the context of a mundus novus in which there were “alter-native” horizons for a critical and wider inquiry into the role of Indigenous people in the history of Latin American philosophy.

16.4  Teaching Indigenous Philosophy An initial reflection could be used as a platform to teach Indigenous philosophy, as it relates to the question of an “Indigenous knowledge” in terms of a “non-Western” knowledge. The notion of Indigenous knowledge, following the thrust of so-called Intercultural philosophy, allows for a wider and more polysemic notion of knowledge and philosophical thought, one that engages an intercultural polylog beyond the Western philosophical tradition (Wimmer 2004). Moreover, it is highly recommendable to bear in mind the historical and anthropological literature related to the New World and in particular to Mesoamerica as a cultural area (Adams and MacLeod 2000). In this sense, it could be very useful to pay attention on two elements that work as platforms for a broader philosophical reflection. One of them is Tloque Nahuaque. This is a central concept that can be understood as an example of the theological and ontological questioning present in the pre-­ Hispanic and colonial Indigenous cultural world. In this sense, it is possible to pursue an approach that highlights and contrasts the specific elements that have been described as particularly Mesoamerican or Aztec (e.g., Ometeotl), regarding the idea of relationality. A useful vehicle for

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this reflection is a comparative questioning grounded on the definition of Tloque Nahuaque as “unknown god, creator of all things.” This topic could be contrasted with certain well-known philosophical concepts and categories such as universalism, dualism, pantheism, or holism. In these terms, it is necessary to remark, on the one hand, how the idea of Tloque ​​ Nahuaque was actually created in the pre-Hispanic world, and on the other, how it was adapted and addressed by authors such as Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl during colonial times. Likewise, it is necessary to think about the political philosophy present in both Indigenous chronicles. In this way, it is prudent to critically define the meaning of “political philosophy” more broadly, in which the concepts of “justice,” “civility,” and “good governance,” among others, are not alien to non-Western societies. Thus, it is possible to consider how the figure of Nezahualcóyotl shapes an Indigenous political philosophy throughout the descriptions of the pre-Hispanic civil institutions and political life during the pre-Hispanic period (with Nezahualcóyotl being the zenith of that process). Consequently, teaching an Indigenous political philosophy focused on his figure delves into how certain proposals, re-functionalized by Pomar and Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, blend ideas and concepts from pre-Hispanic and Western traditions and carry out a historical narration with political contents, claims, and demands that ultimately sought for the self-determination and self-governance of the Indians themselves in Latin American colonial times.

Recommended Reading Adams, Richard and Murdo MacLeod, eds. 2000. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Mesoamerica. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, Jongsoo. 2008. The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl: Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Pres. Rabasa, José. 2011. Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You. Elsewheres  and Ethnosuicide in the Colonial Mesoamerican World. Austin: Texas University Press.

References Acuña, Rene. 1986. Introducción. In Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI. México: Vol. 3, ed. René Acuña, 23–44. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

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Adams, Richard, and Murdo MacLeod, eds. 2000. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Mesoamerica. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando. (1625) 1975. “Historia de la nación chichimeca.” In Obras históricas: Vol. 2, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman, 417–521. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ———. (1625) 2019. History of the Chichimeca Nation: Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl's Seventeenth-Century Chronicle of Ancient Mexico. Translated by Amber Brian, Bradley Benton, Peter B.  Villella, and Pablo García Loaeza. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Bachmann-Medick, Doris. 2016. Cultural Turns. Neuorientierung in den Kulturwissenschaften. Berlin: Rowohlt Taschenbuch. Bierhorst, John. 1985. A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge: MIT Press. Echeverría, Bolívar. 2001. Las ilusiones de la modernidad. Quito: Tramasocial. ———. 2005. La modernidad de lo barroco. México: Era. Espericueta, José. 2015. Writing Virtue and Indigenous Rights: Juan Bautista de Pomar and the Relación de Texcoco. Hispania 98 (2): 208–219. Garibay, Ángel María. 1964. Poesía náhuatl I: Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, manuscrito de Juan Bautista de Pomar, Tezcoco, 1582. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Hanke, Lewis. 1959. Aristotle and the American Indians. A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Hernández, Ascensión. 2007. Fray Alonso de Molina y el proyecto indigenista de la orden seráfica. Estudios de Historia Novohispana 36: 63–81. http://www. historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/revistas/novohispana/pdf/novo36/ 0451.pdf. Karttunen, Frances. 1983. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Austin: Texas University Press. Kirchhoff, Paul. 1943. Mesoamérica, sus límites geográficos, composición étnica y caracteres culturales. Acta Americana 1: 92–107. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lee, Jongsoo. 2008. The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl: Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. León-Portilla, Miguel. 1963. Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Lockhart, James. 1994. The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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247

———. 2001. Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts. Stanford: Stanford University Press. López Austin, Alfredo. 2014. Hombre Dios. Religión y política en el mundo náhuatl. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ———. 2015. Las razones del mito. La cosmovisión mesoamericana. México: Era. Martínez, José Luis. 1972. Nezahuacóyotl, vida y obra. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Molina, Alonso de. (1571) 2013. Vocabulario de la lengua mexicana. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Navarrete, Federico. 2018. Historias mexicas. México: Turner. Pagden, Anthony. 1983. The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the origins of comparative anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pomar, Juan Bautista. (1582) 1986. “Relación de la ciudad y provincia de Tezcoco.” In. Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI.  México: Vol. 3, edited by René Acuña, 45–113. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Romero, Miguel. 2020. Remembering ‘Mindless’ Persons. Intellectual Disability, Spanish Colonialism, and the Disappearance of a Medieval Account of Persons Who Lack the Use of Reason. In Disability in Medieval Christian Philosophy and Theology, ed. Scott M. Williams, 134–171. New York: Routledge. Swann, Brian. 1996. Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology. New York: Dover. Wimmer, Franz. 2004. Interkulturelle Philosophie: eine Einführung. Wien: WUV.

Index1

A Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf, 86n13 Abū Zayd al-Balkhı ̄, 78n1 Accident, 80ff. Action, 102f. Adamson, Peter, 78 Affirmation, 85 Africa, 3, 8, 10, 11f., 31ff., 40n3, 107ff., 109ff., 179ff. classification of, 181 de-historicization of, 183 exclusion of, 185ff. exclusion from philosophical canon, 180ff. problematic designations of, 181 West, 109, 179ff. Alan of Lille, 131 Alcázar, P. José Ortografía castellana, 48 Alchemy, 10, 124 Algazel, see Al-Ghazālı ̄

Alienated labor, 226 Alkindus, see Al-Kindı ̄ Alpharabius, see Al-Fārābı ̄ Altépetl, 235 Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando de Historia de la nación chichimeca, 232, 241ff. Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji, 172 American Colonization Society, 185 American Revolution, 110, 164, 167 Amescúa, Mira de Hero y Leandro, 56 Amo, Anton Wilhelm, 5, 182 Analogy, 84ff. principle of, 84 Anatomy, 136 Antiquity Greco-Roman, 46, 52n14 late, 4 Anti-Semitism, 93 Aporia, 99

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. L. Griffioen, M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13405-0

249

250 

INDEX

Aql, see Reason Aquinas, Thomas, 77, 85, 86, 124, 131, 167, 172, 215n2, 215n3, 220n13, 221n14, 225, 241n12 ʿAraḍ, 81 Arendt, Hannah, 9, 91ff., 99n9, 169n15, 170n17 Eichmann in Jerusalem, 92n1, 94 The Human Condition, 92, 93n6, 94n7, 103 Life of the Mind, 94 The Origins of Totalitarianism, 91, 91f., 92n2 “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” 98 “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 94, 96 “What is Freedom,” 94 Aristotelianism, 21, 46, 80, 87, 130 Aristotle, 4, 5, 46, 51f., 84, 87, 131, 166, 172, 221n14, 241n12 Categories, 80, 87 Metaphysics, 79, 87 Organon, 80 Physics, 87 Poetics, 46, 52 Arithmetic, 143 Al-Ashʿarı ̄, Abū al-Ḥ asan, 78 Asia, 73n19, 183, 186 Astell, Mary, 169 Astronomy, 143 Atlanta Sociological Laboratory, 8, 31ff. Augustine of Hippo, 4, 100, 104, 124, 131, 167, 172 Confessions, 95, 100 Autonomy, 135 Averroes, see Ibn Rushd Avicenna, see Ibn Sı ̄nā Ávila, Teresa of, 104 ʿAyn, 80, 85 Aztec Empire, 232n2

B Bacon, Francis, 137, 179 Novum Organum, 138 Baghdad, 84, 87 Barca, Calderón de la, 46, 50 Bayle, Pierre, 151 Belief(s), 141, 151, 155, 157, 161 basic, 198f., 198n2, 204f., 206, 208 foundational, 198 past, 98, 102 religious, 197ff. types of, 205 warranted, 198f., 203, 210 Belmonte y Bermúdez, Luis El diablo predicador, 50 Bentham, Jeremy, 174 Berkeley, George, 4 Bernay, Alexander of Roman d’Alexandre, 125 Bias and codiphagia, 233 gender, 58, 220 in political philosophy, 165ff. in scientific research funding, 32 Blyden, Edward Wilmot, 11f., 182, 190ff. Body/Bodies, 12, 20f., 46, 49, 51, 54, 81, 85, 123, 137, 155, 213ff. relation of to mind, 8, 27, 52, 54, 144f., 157, 214 in (trans)action, 8, 46, 51, 55ff. Bodying, 46, 52, 54ff. Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, 124, 131 Bohemia, Elisabeth of, 5, 27f., 141n12 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 189 Boston, 109, 116 Browne, Thomas, 151 Bundle theory, 80f. Burke, Edmund, 167, 172 Byzantine empire, 183

 INDEX 

C Calvin, John, 172, 199, 206 Canon, philosophical, vii, ix, 1ff., 6, 10, 11, 55, 77f., 96, 100, 104, 107, 134ff., 170, 179ff., 185ff., 192 expansion of, vii, 1ff., 107ff., 119f., 124f., 130f., 134, 139ff., 171ff., 189ff. Capuano, Pierre de, 170 Caro, Ana El conde Partinuplís, 50 Caramuel, Juan, 55 Caritas, see Love Carthage, 184 Carthusian order, 216f. Cassirer, Ernst, 92 Catherine of Siena, 104, 215, 222, 226 Catholic church, 47, 225 Index of Prohibited Books, 137 Caulibus, John of Meditations on the Life of Christ, 217ff., 224 Causality, principle of, 201 Causal principle, see Principle of causality Cavendish, Margaret, 10, 135, 138ff. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, 140 Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 140 Cervantes, Miguel de, 49 Chaucer, Geoffrey Canterbury Tales, The, 131 Christ, 16ff., 27, 117, 129, 215 as a child, 218 love for, 213, 213ff. passion of, 218, 224 suffering of, 117, 217ff., 221 Christianity emergence of, 181

251

Civility, 240, 242 Clairvaux, Bernard of, 125 De diligent Deo, 125 Cloud of Unknowing, 215, 224 Codiphagia, 233f., 243 Cognition, 204ff. Colonialism, 2, 111, 116, 168, 232ff. Arab, 183 Byzantine, 183 European, 183 non-European, 183 Roman, 183 Common-sense philosophy, 12, 198ff., 207ff. Compassion, 117, 221 Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-­ Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de, 170 Confucianism, 9, 64, 69, 173 Confucius, see Kongzi Consequentialism, 64 Contemplation, 12, 95n8, 100, 103, 213ff. Conway, Anne, 7, 15ff. The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, 16ff. Corral de la Cruz, 45 Cosmohistory, 233n3, 239 Creatio ex nihilo, 123 Creationism, 8, 117 Creatures/creatureliness, 16ff., 139f., 154, 156, 242 Crisis of modernity, 96ff. Critical distance, 97 Critical reasoning, 214 Crummell, Alexander, 11, 182, 190 Cugoano, Ottobah, 172, 189 Cultural identity essentialist perspective of, 233 Culturalism Latin American, 233 Cultural mixing, see Mestizaje cultural

252 

INDEX

Cultural nihilism, 96 Cultural translation, 234 Curriculum comparative, 163ff. decolonized, 164 early modern, 28 globalization of, 164, 174 pluralization of, 4n2, 57 role of direct and indirect voice in shaping, 171ff. scholastic, 144 Singaporean, 172 D Damascus, 199 Dante Alighieri Inferno, The, 131 De Burgos, Jerónima, 50, 56n20 Declaration of Sentiments, 172 Decolonization, 164 Defeasibility, 198 De Gournay, Marie le Jars de, 169 Deification, 126 Democracy, 73n19, 175 Descartes, René, 4, 8, 16, 27, 27f., 134, 136–138, 136ff., 141n12, 144f., 151, 182 Meditations on First Philosophy, 136 morals, 137 Principles of Philosophy, 136, 144 undergraduate teaching, 136 Devotional literature and practice, 47, 124f., 213, 220, 223 Dewey, John, 54 Dhāt, see Essence Difference, metaphysics of, 188 Differentia, see Differentiating property Differentiating property, 18 Ḍ irār b. ʿAmr, 80, 80n6, 81n8, 87 Divine attributes, see God, attributes

Divinity monotheistic, 232, 238ff. Divinization, 124 d’Oingt, Marguerite Page of Meditations, 217, 217f. Dominican order, 167, 222 Donatus, Aelius, 51 Douglass, Frederick, 172 Du Bois, W. E. B., 8, 31ff., 172 The Conservation of Races, 40 The Criteria of Negro Art, 40 The Health and Physique of the Negro American, 34 Study of Negro Problems, 41 Duns Scotus, John, 9, 86, 226 E Echeverría, Bolívar, 233f. Education, 34, 48n7, 135, 143n21, 144, 151 Egypt, 180, 189, 191, 218 as a colonial power, 184 Eichmann, Adolf trial of, 91 Elizabeth I, Queen of England and Ireland, 166 Embodiment, 8, 12, 54, 126, 213ff., 225f. Emigrationism among African Americans, 184 Emotion, 52ff., 134, 142n16, 150, 220 Empiricism, 135, 139n7, 199 Enlightenment Arab, 84 European, 10, 92, 133ff., 149, 152, 171, 174 Environmental Protection Agency, 71 Epictetus, 96, 100, 102 Epicureans, 214 Epistemic conservatism, 138 Epistemology, 5, 8, 12, 170 faculty-based, 198ff.

 INDEX 

fiṭra-based, 199ff., 205ff. of religious belief, 197ff. Reformed, 12, 199, 206, 209 social, 32, 37, 40f. theological, 197ff. Equiano, Olaudah, 170, 182, 189 Eschatology, 10, 117ff. Essence(s), ., 17ff., 84, 84n11, 116, 126ff. divine, 16, 86, 126ff., 217, 222, 224 Ethics, 5, 9, 13, 63, 88, 145 applied, 63 Confucian vs. Mohist, 64 environmental, 28 virtue, 64 Eucharist, 128 Eugenics, 170, 172, 175 Eurocentrism, 2ff., 11, 180ff. in teaching history of political philosophy and political theory, 165–170 Europe, 2, 47, 73n19, 78, 133, 142, 172, 183, 185, 191f., 218 Excluded moderns, 188ff. Existentialism, 4 Experience(s), 95, 97, 100, 119, 150, 164, 201, 205 African, 183 black, 108 bodily/somatic, 46n2, 52ff. conversion, 115 emotional, 53 of freedom, 100, 103 of God, 117, 217 lived, 104, 172 philosophy, experimental, 139 polysensual, 234 role of in acting, 53 of thinking, 104 worldly, 103 Explanation, 19, 82, 85, 188, 191 cultural, 235ff. historical/sociogenic, 191

253

mechanistic, 136, 145 scientific, 136 External world, 85, 95, 102, 186, 203 Externalism, 198, 202ff., 209 F Faculty/faculties, 93, 134, 198ff. of action, 93n6 bodily, 214 cognitive, 198 of common sense, 198 imaginative, 214 innate, 200 sensory, 214 Faculty innate, 200 Falāsifa, 77f., 80, 87 Family planning, 169 Fancy, 114, 134, 140ff. Al-Fārābı ̄, Abū Nasr, 77, 166, 167, 173 Fascism, 98 Feminism, 169 Fiction, 10, 140ff., 149ff. Fiṭra, 197ff. Foundationalism, 198ff. Fourier, Charles, 172 Franklin, Benjamin, 109 Freedom, 94ff., 99ff., 110, 113f., 135, 154, 189f. Free will, 40, 95, 99ff., 124, 126 French Revolution, 164, 166 Functionalism proper, 203 G Galilei, Galileo, 134, 137 Gandhi, Mahatma, 172 Gellius, Aulus, 53 Gender, 7, 8, 51ff., 92n2, 151, 165, 166, 175, 213ff.

254 

INDEX

Genocide, 94 George III, King of Great Britain and Norther Ireland, 109 German Idealism, 4, 182 Geuss, Raymond, 63, 73 Philosophy and Real Politics, 63 Al-Ghazali, Abū Ḥ āmid, 77, 173 God, 12, 16ff., 78ff., 107, 110ff., 124ff. annihilation in, 124, 128 attributes, 16, 17n5, 18, 21ff., 27n16, 28, 78, 82ff., 115, 224 as creator, 18ff., 19n9, 117, 123, 202, 206, 215, 237, 242, 245 death of, 96 devotion to, 217ff. essence, 16 image of, 111, 117 justice of, 21ff. omnibenevolence of, 26, 28, 115, 117 oneness of, 78, 85 spatial locality of, 207 union with, 12, 124, 214, 220, 224ff. will of, 125f., 155 wisdom of, 23f., 115 Goddess, 113 Gómez, Antonio Enríquez El rey más perfecto, 50 Good governance, 232, 240ff. Gouges, Olympe de, 166, 170, 172, 175 Gregorian Calendar, 183 Gregory of Nyssa, 80n6 Grouchy, Sophie de, 172 Guevara, Luis Vélez de La serrana de la Vera, 49, 50n9 Guigo II Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations, 216

H Habits, 54, 164 experiential, 52, 54 gender, 55 performative, 47 somatic, 52, 54 Hadewijch, 226 Ḥ anafı ̄ tradition, 77 Hanbali tradition, 199 Han Fei, 65n5, 71, 72n18 Harmony, 69, 144 Hastiyya, see Isness Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 4, 168, 186, 187 Hildegard of Bingen, 104 Ḥ iss, see Sensation/sense perception History, 47n5, 51, 57, 78, 150, 186, 191, 194 African, 182ff. indigenous, 234 of Christianity, 172 of Western, Christian, Latin Europe, 2 of Islam, 168 of Texcoco, 232, 242 of Tunisia, 184 utopian, 172 History of philosophy, vii, ix, 2ff., 33, 78, 88, 92ff., 134, 138, 143, 179ff., 187, 190, 193, 244 teaching, 2, 3ff., 88, 105 History of philosophy of science, 33 History of political philosophy, 11, 163ff. creating an inclusive curriculum, 170ff. teaching, 11, 163ff. History of political theory, 11 creating an inclusive curriculum, 170 teaching, 163–176

 INDEX 

History of science, 134, 136, 143 Hobbes, Thomas, 4, 16, 17n4, 20, 137, 151, 157, 161, 164, 173 Holocaust, 94, 152 Holy Family, 218 Horton, James Africanus Beale, 182, 191 Human condition, 92, 93n6, 104 Humanities, 134ff., 141n15, 142 Hume, David, 4, 134, 138, 143, 145, 173, 187, 190–192 Hylomorphism, 80, 87 I Ibn al-Muqaffa, 80 Ibn Bâjja, 166, 167 Ibn Khaldun, 166–168 Ibn Rushd, 77, 166, 167, 169 Ibn Sı ̄nā, 77 Ibn Taymiyya, 12, 166, 197ff. Ibn Tufayl, 166, 167 Identity, 23, 49, 116, 127 cultural, 233f., 244 Imagination, 82, 95, 97, 108, 114, 134, 141n13, 142n16, 143, 145, 213ff., 216 Imago Dei, 111 Immutability, 18 Imperialism, 2, 164, 170ff., 171n20, 184 Induction, 208 Instrucción y Memoria, 236 Intellect, 12, 145, 204f., 215, 216, 219, 222, 226 Irāq, 80 Islam, 78, 160, 166ff., 173, 181, 184, 200 Sunnı ̄, 78, 86 Islamic theologians, 201 Isness, 84f. Ithbāt, see Affirmation

255

J James, Henry, 150 Jefferson, Thomas, 187, 189 racism, 108 Jesus, 129, 217f. See also Christ Jewish diaspora, 151, 168 Jewish scholars, 168 Judaism, 151, 166, 181, 184, 200 Judas, 23 Julian of Norwich, 104, 222, 224 Justice, 50n9, 109ff., 175, 240, 243, 245, 98101 divine (see God, justice of) social, 57n22 K Al-Kaʿbı ̄, Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhı ̄, 78n1, 82, 83 ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-­jawābāt, 86n12 Kalām, 77ff. Kant, Immanuel, 4, 143, 173, 187, 190f. synthesis, 135 Kapusćiński, Ryszard Shah of Shahs, 149 Kauṭilya, 172, 174 Khabr, see Testimony Khilāf, see Transcendence Al-Kindı ̄, 77 King Jr., Martin Luther, 172 Knowledge, Knowing, Knowers, 12, 19, 23, 28, 36, 79, 84ff., 94ff., 133f., 137, 139, 199ff., 201–203, 213, 231ff. of God, 85f., 111, 115, 117, 119, 140n11, 186f., 193, 198n3, 202ff., 219ff. indigenous, 232, 244 necessary, 201ff. and scientific inquiry, 31ff., 137 self, 55, 97, 136, 226 tree of, 137, 144

256 

INDEX

Koerbagh, Adriaen, 151 Koerbagh, Johannes, 161 Kongzi, 5, 64 L Langland, William Piers Plowman, 131 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 167, 241n12 Latin America, 232 Laura, Fabiana, 50, 50n10 Law, 9, 34, 69ff., 98, 166, 235n5, 239, 242f. and resentment, 69ff. divine, 114 inevitability of, 71 moral, 114 Law of non contradiction, 202 Laws of nature, 9, 70, 72, 74, 136 Lectio divina, 218, 223 Legalists, 65 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 4, 108, 134 Monadology, 138 Theodicy, 144 León, Fray Luis de La perfecta casada, 47 Liberia, 185 Liberty, 110 Locke, John, 4, 167, 173 Logic, 18, 52n15, 143 Lógos, 238 López Pinciano, Alonso, 56n21 L’Ouverture, François-Dominique Toussaint, 172 Love, 12, 28, 53, 99, 99f., 124, 127, 127ff., 158, 213, 216ff. divine, 111ff., 127, 219, 224 Love of freedom, principle of, 110ff. Luther, Martin, 131, 172 Luxemburg, Rosa, 172

M Maimonides, Moses, 166, 168 Māʾiyya, see Whatness Mamluk Sultanate, 199 Mandeville, Bernard, 169 Marx, Karl, 169, 174, 226 Communist Manifesto, 169 Marxism, 172 Mary, mother of Jesus, 47, 218 Mass report, see Tawātur Mathematics, 134ff., 157 Al-Māturı ̄dı ̄, Abū Manṣūr, 9, 77ff., 82, 166 Kitāb al Maqālāt, 81 Kitāb al-tawḥı ̄d, 79, 81, 82n9, 88 Meaning, 83, 85, 233, 238, 245 of thinking, 96ff. Mechanics, 136ff. Medieval Literature, 10 Medieval philosophy, 214 Meditation, 120 Augustinian tradition, 9, 95, 99ff. imaginative, 213 medieval traditions of, 12, 99–103, 213–227 Mediterranean, 181 Eastern, 166 Meijer, Lodewijk, 151 Mencius, see Mengzi Mengzi, 64, 172, 172ff. Mercantilism, 170 Meritocracy, 32, 37, 173 Mesoamerica, 232n2, 233n3, 239, 244 Mestizaje cultural, 12, 233 Metaphilosophy, 9ff., 234 Metaphysical principles, 87 Metaphysics, 8ff., 137, 143 Mexico-Tenochtitlan, 232n2 Middle Ages, 124, 137, 168, 192, 214, 220, 223

 INDEX 

Middle nature, 17 Mill, Harriet Taylor, 169n15 On Liberty, 169 Mill, John Stuart, 174 On Liberty, 169 Milli Vanilli, 152 Mind(s), 8, 19, 22, 84, 95, 97, 100, 102, 103, 112, 114, 117, 140f., 200, 202ff., 238 relationship of body to (see Body, relation of to mind) Mithl, see Analogy Mixing liquids, 124ff. Modernity, 11, 12, 92, 164ff., 170ff., 182ff., 186, 190ff., 193 principles of, 186ff. Mohammed, 166 Mohism, 64ff., 73 Molina, Alonso, 237n7 Vocabulario, 237 Monism priority monism, 17, 22 substance monism, 145 type monism, 19, 24–27, 24ff. type vs. token monism, 16–21, 16ff. Monotheism, 232, 236ff. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 167 Moral cultivation, 64, 225 Moralism, Political, 63f., 67, 72f. Moral truths knowledge of, 202 More, Thomas, 172 Mozi, 64, 172 Muse, 112, 112ff. Music, 144, 243 Mutakallimūn, see Theologians, Islamic Muʿtazila School, 80, 84, 86 Mysticism, 3, 124, 173, 213ff., 219

257

N Nahda, see Enlightenment, Arab Nahuatl language, 233n3, 234ff. Al-Najjār, Ḥ usayn Fawzi, 80, 87 Al-Nasafı ̄, Abū al-Muʿı ̄n, 81 Al-Nāsị rı ̄, Mankūbars, 80n3 Nationality, 241 Nation-state, 93, 173 Native Americans rights of, 167 NATO, 163 Natural laborers, 220 Natural philosophy, 133, 138 Neoplatonism, 4, 78, 80n6, 87, 129, 130, 167 New Spain, 12, 231ff. Newton, Isaac, 134, 138 Nezahualcóyotl, 13, 232, 235ff. Nominalism, concept, 9, 82f., 86f. Norms epistemic vs. zetetic, 40f. Nyāya-sūtra, 5 O Occom, Samson, 110 Old South Meeting House, 109 O’Neill, Eileen, vii Ontology, 9, 10, 22, 80f., 84, 87, 127ff., 234ff., 244 relational, 239 Open future, 186 Opinion(s), 101, 102, 104 public, 93, 98 Oppression, 10, 110, 114, 185 Optics, 138 Oracle, 112 Oral history, 120 Ottoman Empire as a colonial power, 184

258 

INDEX

P Paine, Thomas, 172 Parmenides, 17 Parsimony, principle of, 19 Pascal, Blaise, 137 Passion(s), 51, 53, 145, 151, 220f., 221 Paul, St., 23ff., 102, 104, 166 Paulus, 166 Peer review, 32, 38 Personal identity, 23f. Personhood, 111, 114 Phillips, Kristopher G., 6 Philo of Alexandria, 166, 168 Philosophical pedagogy, 3ff., 27f., 40f., 57f., 73f., 88, 104f., 119f., 131, 133ff., 149ff., 163ff., 179f., 190, 193f., 209f., 225ff., 244f. Philosophy/philosophers African/Africana, 3, 8, 10, 11f., 31ff., 40n3, 107ff., 179ff.; West African, 179ff., 190ff. analytic, 4, 209 Aztec, 233, 235, 239 Buddhist, 167, 172 Chinese, 9, 63ff. comparative, 2, 6, 11, 12, 73, 88, 163ff., 209, 233 discipline of, vii, 1ff., 4n2, 180, 186, 227 early modern, 2, 4, 8, 10–12, 10ff., 27f., 46ff., 107, 107ff., 134ff. existentialist, 4 experimental, 139f. feminist, vii, 8, 16, 46, 54n17, 73n19, 169n16, 173 global, 4, 164, 209 of the humanities, 10 Indian, 167 indigenous, 13, 167, 182f., 231–245, 231ff. Islamic, 9, 12, 77ff., 166, 166ff. Latin American, 13, 232, 244

medieval, 2, 4, 10, 12, 88, 102, 125, 214, 225f., 225n17 Meso-American, 188, 231ff. modern, 179ff. moral (see Ethics) philosophy of history, 190 philosophy of mind, 5, 8, 27, 170 philosophy of physics, 136 philosophy of race, 40, 73n19, 188ff. philosophy of religion, 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 88, 107ff., 197ff., 209 philosophy of science, 8, 33, 35, 40f., 136, 164n3 political, 5, 9, 11ff., 63ff., 105, 163ff., 231ff. postmodern, 4 twentieth-century, 8, 9, 73, 92ff., 168, 170, 180 Philosophy, African/Africana, 3, 10, 12, 107 classification of, 181 de-historicization of, 183 exclusion of, 185–188 Physics, 137, 143 Pizan, Christine de, 166, 168f., 170n17 The Book of the City of Ladies and The Book of the Three Virtues, 168 Plantinga, Alvin, 12, 197ff., 209 Reidianism, 198ff. Plato, 4, 5, 95, 124, 163, 166, 167, 169, 170n18, 214 Apology, 101 Gorgias, 102 Republic, 100n10, 102 Seventh Letter, 101 Sophist, 101 Symposium, 100n10 Plockhoy, Pieter Corneliszoon, 151 Plotinus, 4, 17, 131 Pluralism, 97, 104, 174 methodological pluralism, 36, 40

 INDEX 

259

Plurality, 97, 104 Poetry, 9, 47n3, 49, 107ff., 130, 143, 235, 241 Polis, 99, 100, 103 Political theory global vs. comparative, 164 Pomar, Juan Bautista Relación de la ciudad y provincia de Texcoco, 232ff. Pope, Alexander, 108 Porete, Marguerite, 10, 123ff. Mirror of Simple Souls, 10, 124ff., 131, 226 Porphyry, 80n6 Potency, 200 Prayer, 113, 217, 223f. Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 4 Primera dama, 48, 50n9 Príncipe, Corral del, 45 Principle(s) of analogy, 84 of causality, 201 of love for freedom, 110ff. metaphysical, 87 of modernity, 186ff. of parsimony, 19 a priori, 136 of rationality, 202ff. of subjectivity, 186 of transcendence, 84 A priori principles, 136 Problem moderns, 11, 187ff., 191 Problem of evil, 9, 108, 115ff. problem of concrete evil, 118 Providence, 117 Pseudo-Dionysius, 85

Quality, 80f., 85, 87 Quintilian, 52–53 Qur’an, 80n3, 80n4, 82n9, 85, 87, 200, 204 Qutb, Sayyid, 168 Quwwa, see Potency

Q Al-Qalānisı ̄, Abū al-ʿAbbās, 83 Quadrivium, 144 Quakers, 15

S Sabbateans, 151, 160 Sacrament, 128f. Ṣafwān, Jahm b., 86

R Race, 7, 38, 109, 116, 188ff. Racism, 116, 171, 185, 188ff. Rationalism, 135, 139n7 Rationality, 19, 134, 142, 202, 243 principle(s) of, 202ff. Rawls, John, 73, 173 Realism minimal psychological, 66 political, 8, 63ff. Reason, 10, 16, 124, 126ff., 133ff., 139ff., 157, 171, 186f., 190, 192, 199, 216, 226, 241n12, 242 Redemption, 22, 111 Regularities of nature, see Laws of nature Reidianism, 198–199, 209 Reid, Thomas, 12, 197 Renaissance, European, 2, 45 Resentment, 8, 66f. Revisionism, 142 Riquelme, María de, 55 Rojas, Agustín de El viaje entretenido, 49 Roman Empire, 166, 183 Romanticism, 170f. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 169, 171, 173 Royal Society, 138

260 

INDEX

St. Paul, 23–24 St. Peter, 23–24 Saint-Simon, Henri de, 172 Salas, Jusepe Antonio González de, 8, 46ff. Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, 51ff. Samarqand, 9, 77f. Scepticism, see Skepticism Schaffer, Jonathan, 17 Scholasticism, 3, 124, 137, 138n4, 144, 214, 214f., 215n2, 221, 225f., 238 Schuurman, Anna Maria van, 169 Science, 10, 31ff., 133ff., 191f., 243 contemporary, 32, 37 history of, 92, 133ff., 134–138 modern, 133, 133ff. Science fiction, 140 Scientific method, 35, 137 Scientific Revolution, 144, 186 Scotus, Duns, 9, 86, 226 Self-formation, 214, 225, 227 Seneca Troades, 46 Senegal, 109 Sensation/sense perception, 97, 199, 202, 204, 205, 214ff., 221 Sense appetite, 214ff. Sensus divinitatis, 12, 199, 206 Sentimiento interior, 52f. Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de, 167 Shen Dao, 8, 64ff. Ṣifa, see Quality Sin(s), 21ff., 117, 119f., 160, 174, 215, 243 Skepticism, 101, 139, 145, 207 Slavery, 109ff., 166, 172, 175, 187, 191f. Social reform and policy making, 35f. Sociological research, 33ff. Socrates, 9, 99, 101, 145

Socratic tradition, 95, 99ff. Soul(s), 10, 53, 112ff., 123ff., 215, 222 annihilation of, 10, 25, 26, 124, 128 creation of, 123 relationship of to body, 214ff. Spain, 46ff. Almoravid conquest of, 183 Species, 20, 22, 25f. Spinoza, Baruch de, 17, 17n4, 138, 143, 145, 151, 161, 166, 168 Ethics, 17n4, 138, 144 Spirit(s), 21ff. Spiritual formation, 214ff. Spiritual development, 225 Spiritual exercise, 222 States of affairs, 97 Stevens, Wallace, 130 Stoics, 172, 214 Strauss, Leo, 92 Subjectivity, 46n2, 189f., 233ff. Subjectivity, principle of, 186 Substance, 7, 10, 16ff., 79ff., 124ff. Suffering, 9, 28, 98, 109f., 116ff. of Christ (see Christ) kenotic, 118 redemptive, 116ff. Suffering, 116–120 kenotic view of, 118 Sullivan, Shannon, 8, 54ff. Sunna, 200 T Taḥqı ̄q, see Verification Tanner, Obour, 110, 118 Tawātur, 201, 207f. Teleology, 125 Testimony, 108, 199, 204 mass transmission of, 202 Texcoco, 13, 232ff. Tezozómoc, 242 Theater, 8, 10, 11, 45ff.

 INDEX 

of ancient Greece, 46 of the Spanish Golden Age, 45ff. Theodicy, 10, 116ff. narrative, 108 Theology/Theologians Christian, 123, 131, 221, 237n7, 244 Islamic, 9, 77ff., 199ff., 201f., 209 Theōría, 100n10 Thinking, 95ff. Tloque Nahuaque, 237, 243 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 167 Toland, John, 169 Totalitarianism, 92 Traducianism, 123 Trans-Atlantic slave trade, 187, 191 Transcendence, 84ff. principle of, 84 Transoxiana, 77 Trinity, 16, 16f., 17, 18n7, 123, 123ff., 126, 127, 129, 215 Trivium, 144 Trope, 81f., 88 Truth, 35, 79, 93ff., 129f., 140, 141n15, 142ff., 149, 155ff., 162, 183, 190, 194, 199ff., 200, 215, 219, 222, 226 abstract, 226 logical, 202, 207 universal, 149 Truth, Sojourner, 172 Tunisia, 184 Type pluralism, 27f. Type-switching, 25ff. U United States Congress, 71 V Vaca, Jusepa, 49, 50n9 Van den Enden, Franciscus, 151 Vega, Félix Lope de, 46, 47n3, 50, 52n15

261

El marido más firme, 50 Lauren de Apolo, 52 Lo fingido verdadero, 53 Velasquez, Ester (fictional), 11, 151ff. Verification, 85 Viewpoint diversity, 164f., 173 Virtue, 23, 25, 47n6, 69, 107, 111, 113ff., 119, 128, 131, 153, 215f., 219 divine, 219 Virtue ethics, 64 Vives, Juan Luis, 47, 48n7 De institutione feminae christianae, 47 Voegelin, Eric, 92ff. Voltaire, 108 Vossius, Isaac, 151 W Warrant, 198f., 203ff., 208n8, 209f. Warring states period, 65, 172, 174 Weber, Max, 174 West Africa, 109 philosophers, 190–193 Whatness, 78n1, 84ff. Wheatley, John, 109 Wheatley, Phillis, 9, 107ff., 187 An Hymn to the Evening, 120 An Hymn to Humanity, 114 Being Brought from Africa to America, 115 Deism, 117 On Imagination, 114 On Recollection, 114 On Virtue, 119 Thoughts on the Works of Providence, 115 To a Lady on the Death of Three Relations, 117 To Maecenas, 112 To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory, 107

262 

INDEX

Wheatley, Phillis (cont.) To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, 113 Poems on Various Occasions, Religious and Moral, 108 Wheatley, Susannah, 109 Whitehead, Alfred North, 131 Will, 12, 54, 102f., 125, 126n1, 215f., 219, 222 freedom of (see Free will) of God (see God) William, Earl of Dartmouth, 113 Williams, Bernard, 63f., 73 In the Beginning Was the Deed, 63 Wisdom, 52, 69, 107, 137, 225, 242 divine (see God) Wollstonecraft, Mary, 166, 168f, 170n17 Vindication of the Rights of Man, 169

Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 169 Women, 2ff., 4n2, 104, 118, 166, 169, 213ff. in early modern Spanish theater, 8, 45ff. education of, 223 in the history of ideas, 8ff. as “incomplete” or “misbegotten,” 220 as knowers, 12, 213ff. as rational animals, 220 Woolf, Virginia A Room of One’s Own, 150 World War II, 92n2 Z Zhuangzi, 5